Cruise ships with open dining

[smileytrips]

Haven't cruised in 8 yrs so everything is new to me. Last Princess cruise we went on we could dine at anytime and really enjoyed that option. What cruise ships still offer that if any? Thanks.

[klfrodo]

Depends on what exactly you're talking about.

 

All (most) cruiselines have choices for dining now.

 

1. You've got the buffet.

2. You've got assigned dining in the main dining room where you sit at the same table every night at the same time with the same waiters.

3. Open dining in the main dining room where you are assigned a dining room but you can just show up, stand in line, and they will seat you anywhere they can. Different table, different waiters.

4. Speciality Dining. For an additional charge (~$25 or so per person) you can make reservations on board and receive supreme cuts of meat and superb service.

[smileytrips]

Not talking about specialty dining or buffet. I'm refering to showing up at any (usually choice of 2) dining rooms at anytime and given a choice of sitting with others or by ourselves. The Dawn Princess was that way back in 2001 and we loved it.

[cb at sea]

Carnival, RCI, NCL, Celebrity, Princess all offer some form of "anytime" dining. The above poster was just giving you your other options!

[paul929207]

Princess does not offer Anytime on the three little girls (Ocean, Pacific and Royal Princesses). They only have one dining rom and it is used for Traditional Dining. All other Princess ships offer both Traditional and Anytime Dining.

[GORDONCHICK]

NCL is all about eating when you want. There are other lines that are doing their version of it but it's usually only one dining room because if the ship has two, one would be reserved for traditional dining.

[Roz]

HAL has As You Wish dining. You either pick traditional assigned seating or open seating where you show up at the dining room when you want to.

 

Roz

[Andee]

Oceania also has open seating dining.

[fud2468]

I see this thread is a bit old but will try;

We've cruised before on Dawn Princess and stuck to the buffet (Horizen Court) for all meals. We simply didn't know we could also have gone to one of the dining rooms for dinner.

On other threads there's been discussion about the deterioration in HC food quality in the last couple of years since we cruised. I'm not sure this is true, but just in case--how do we find out full information about Anytime Dining? Hopefully we can go to the dining room if the buffet isn't so good.

We'll be taking Sea Princess through Panama Canal in May.

Thanks,

Ray Mac.

[gtexan]

Celebrity calls it "select" dining

Princess, Ive heard, handles theirs the best

[smeyer418]

Celebrity calls it "select" dining

Princess, Ive heard, handles theirs the best

X just started this with in the last few months. I will be on the first sailing of the Celebrity Infinity when it will be in effect(for the first time)....NCL handles it by far the best along with Oceania(IMO).