RCCl My Family Time Dining

[sargenet]

After much research and reading other posts I thought we were decided on "My Time Dining" for our cruise next month on the Navigator.

 

Since my husband and I want to dine a few nights by ourselves (some in dining room and one night at Chops), I thought this would work out well. We knew that Adventure Ocean would open at 7pm and thought we would just go dine at 6pm each night when we were with our son, and 7:15pm each night without. We figured somr nights we could get his meal in the windjammer.

 

I just found out that My Time Dining doesn't open till 6:30!!...and neither does the Windjammer! So if we stick with our original plan it would mean that we would probably miss the "shows" since it is designed around the 6 and 8 seating time.

 

I was thinking about switching to My Family Time dining, which provides expediated meals and then my son can head over to AO with the staff. I read a few reviews where they stated it did not work out well...

 

Has anyone used it recently? If we dine as a family at 6:30pm then I am afraid we won't get out until almost 8 or 8:30pm!

 

Also... what is the "norm" for how long the 6pm dinner time lasts? Do the shows normally start at 8 or 8:30pm? Thanks!!!!

[Liltx31]

We do MTD when with our children. Here's how it works for us:

 

Day 1: All dine together early as OA is not open

Formal Night: All dine together early so that we get the one picture we buy of us all dressed up.

 

The rest of the time we pick them up when OA closes for the dinner time. We order them room service and bathe them. They eat while we get dressed. We drop them at OA at 7:00, have a drink and eat dinner at 7:30. MTD goes faster than traditional and we have never had a problem with missing a show. The only show we take our girls to is the Ice Show which we usually do on a sea day afternoon. They love OA and want to be there for all of the evening activities.

 

Not sure how old your son is but if he's 3 to 5 be aware that the late night child care can be VERY empty and they will not bring your child over to the older 6 to 8 group so he could end up there alone with a counselor. We only used it 2 times but once this happened to our 4 year old. She was fine with it because she was watching Nemo but some kids might get bored.

[crzgrl66]

After much research and reading other posts I thought we were decided on "My Time Dining" for our cruise next month on the Navigator.

 

Since my husband and I want to dine a few nights by ourselves (some in dining room and one night at Chops), I thought this would work out well. We knew that Adventure Ocean would open at 7pm and thought we would just go dine at 6pm each night when we were with our son, and 7:15pm each night without. We figured somr nights we could get his meal in the windjammer.

 

I just found out that My Time Dining doesn't open till 6:30!!...and neither does the Windjammer! So if we stick with our original plan it would mean that we would probably miss the "shows" since it is designed around the 6 and 8 seating time.

 

I was thinking about switching to My Family Time dining, which provides expediated meals and then my son can head over to AO with the staff. I read a few reviews where they stated it did not work out well...

 

Has anyone used it recently? If we dine as a family at 6:30pm then I am afraid we won't get out until almost 8 or 8:30pm!

 

Also... what is the "norm" for how long the 6pm dinner time lasts? Do the shows normally start at 8 or 8:30pm? Thanks!!!!

 

Unless things have improved for My Family Time Dining, I wouldn't recommend it. It was very stressful for the wait staff and our family to get our kids fed by 6:40 to meet the AO staff. Even though we would show up to dinner at 6:00, our kids food didn't usually show up until a few minutes before 6:30. My kids couldn't eat in ten minutes and it took all of the fun out of our dining experience. (This is just my opinion and based on our experience over the summer on LOS)

 

I think your idea to use My Time Dining is a good choice. The Production Shows on LOS usually started at 9:00, so that would give you plenty of time. The ice show had several different showtimes available throughout the week, so it will be easy to find one that works. Perhaps you can search for the schedule for the Navigator and check on the showtimes.

[sargenet]

I thought MTD was the perfect option...but it looks like it doesn't open till 6:30pm on our sailing! I had 3 reps tell me today that it starts at 6pm (which is what I was told before I booked the cruise). Then they also got confused because they could not set me up for a time before 6:30.....

 

I looked at some of the programs from the Winter/Spring sailings for Navigator.. and they start that MTD does not start till 6:30pm! I wanted to get my son fed at 6pm so that it gave us time to get him fed, then take him to AO at 7pm. I set all my other dine times at 7:15 for us.

 

My son has some dietary restrictions and we were told we had to feed him in the dining room to meet his needs. I wouldn't have any problem with room service if we can get him something from the dining room!

[Liltx31]

I guess if he can only eat in the MDR then go with traditional family dining. I guess you can sit with him on the nights you plan to have specialty dining later. Or you can still do MTD at 6:30. They do not have to be at OA right at 7:00 you can drop them off anytime unless it's pirate night but even then I think it is after 7:00 that they must be checked in by. So the Windjammer is totally out? I still think that would be the easiest way to feed him fast if you can't do room service. You would be able to hit it at 6:30 and then get him upstairs by 7:00 that way.

Room service is VERY limited. It was OK with my kids as they love the pizza, subs, and chicken wings. They also could get fruit bowls and I ordered carrots and celery sticks each night. That with low fat, white milk and I felt they ate pretty well. We have no allergy issues.

They also have done the Johnny Rockets night but again with the allergies I guess that would be hard.

[harryfat1]

After much research and reading other posts I thought we were decided on "My Time Dining" for our cruise next month on the Navigator.

 

Since my husband and I want to dine a few nights by ourselves (some in dining room and one night at Chops), I thought this would work out well. We knew that Adventure Ocean would open at 7pm and thought we would just go dine at 6pm each night when we were with our son, and 7:15pm each night without. We figured somr nights we could get his meal in the windjammer.

 

I just found out that My Time Dining doesn't open till 6:30!!...and neither does the Windjammer! So if we stick with our original plan it would mean that we would probably miss the "shows" since it is designed around the 6 and 8 seating time.

 

I was thinking about switching to My Family Time dining, which provides expediated meals and then my son can head over to AO with the staff. I read a few reviews where they stated it did not work out well...

 

Has anyone used it recently? If we dine as a family at 6:30pm then I am afraid we won't get out until almost 8 or 8:30pm!

 

Also... what is the "norm" for how long the 6pm dinner time lasts? Do the shows normally start at 8 or 8:30pm? Thanks!!!!

 

We will be on the Mariner of the Seas in 2 months and we have my time dining (MTD) with our 2 boys. I think you need to double check on the hours of operation for MTD on your cruise. For us, the earliest MTD reservation starts at 5:30 and last reservation you can make is 9:15.

 

You tried to look at your cruise info online on the RCCL web site? Meaning logging into your cruise account and try to book MTD yourself on-line. When you go in, you should see all nights of your cruise and MTD slots in 15 minute increments for you to reserve - like 5:30/5:45/6:00 and so on.

 

I can't speak for your sailing as every sailing may have different meal times, but I can't imagine that the time is that far off where your first MTD is 6:30 and ours is 5:30.

 

There are some quirks with the MTD that may be different from ship to ship, sailing to sailing. For example, for our cruise, the time slots of 6:30 and 6:45 on the Internet has red letters next to them saying they are full. This means other people have already reserved those time slots.

 

However, there are other time slots which are not available to reserve online prior to boarding, for our sailing, that happened to be 7:00/7:15/7:30. Those are slots not even on the web site, you can only book those once you board (I had my TA check with RCI).

 

So not sure if your 6:00 and 6:15 are either full or can only be booked once on board.

 

Whatever the case may be, as soon as you board the ship, make your way to the MTD section podium and tell them your situation to have it changed to the time you want. Tables for 3 should be easy to get.

 

Finally, you also need to double check on the show time. Try to find a prior cruise compass to see what time they typically give the shows on your cruise. For our cruise, some nights have show times at 9 PM and 10:45 PM (after both dinners), but other nights will be pre dinner shows at 7:15 and 9 PM. So before you get all stressed out about meal time versus show time, check on your sailing as sometimes they change Showtime due to port arrival/departure times.

 

Typically if you have dinner within 15 minutes of traditional dining time slots, you will be sure to catch all the shows as they are all geared toward traditional dining slots.

[sargenet]

We spoke to another person that said it should open at 6pm. Online though it doesn't allow us to book until 6:30 all days. It does however list 6 and 6:15pm as not available. So the rep suggested we head over and try to get locked in for a 6pm time, or walk up at 6:00pm.

 

She wasn't sure why the Compass from the spring showed it not opening till 6:30pm (that is what we referred to). We saw the same thing on a Compass from last December. They are in the med now so we don't have a compass to compare.

 

I think we will be ok and have decided to stick with MTD. Personally I would rather walk my son up myself versus feeling rushed to have him there at 6:45pm! I did notice that "My Family Time" dining was on waitlist for this cruise so it must be pretty popular! And since it does cruise over Thanksgiving week I am sure there will be lots of families!

[G&TQ]

sargenet,

Thanks for posting. We are planning the My family dinning and I have not seen any reviews. I guess I will keep searching.

[harryfat1]

We spoke to another person that said it should open at 6pm. Online though it doesn't allow us to book until 6:30 all days. It does however list 6 and 6:15pm as not available. So the rep suggested we head over and try to get locked in for a 6pm time, or walk up at 6:00pm.

 

She wasn't sure why the Compass from the spring showed it not opening till 6:30pm (that is what we referred to). We saw the same thing on a Compass from last December. They are in the med now so we don't have a compass to compare.

 

I think we will be ok and have decided to stick with MTD. Personally I would rather walk my son up myself versus feeling rushed to have him there at 6:45pm! I did notice that "My Family Time" dining was on waitlist for this cruise so it must be pretty popular! And since it does cruise over Thanksgiving week I am sure there will be lots of families!

 

What time is the seating for traditional dining? The typical dinner allocation is 2 hours and then they give you around 30 minutes to get to the show at the other end of the ship (including walking time and time to order a drink or two). Such that if traditional dinner is 6 PM, they won’t have shows that start at 8 PNM as then half of the people from the early seating will never make it to the opening of the shows. So that leaves the earliest show time to be 8:30 or as late as 9.

 

Typically the first seating to be filled is the traditional 6 PM seating, then it’s the MTD. With the late seating taking all the overflows. Since your sailing is Thanksgiving sailing, expect it to be over 100% capacity (defined as having double berths filled – on average ships sail at 103% last year on RCI). So not surprising at all that MTD is full and some of the time slot are already reserved months on out. But just go there on day 1 and request you time.

 

sargenet,

Thanks for posting. We are planning the My family dinning and I have not seen any reviews. I guess I will keep searching.

 

 

I researched this topic few months ago when I was looking at the viability of doing these ourselves, but didn’t read too many positive reviews as most said the felt rushed. Which if you think about it, makes sense. Assume your main seating starts at 6 PM, but you may not all be seated until 6:05, waiter won’t take your order until 6:10. Then if they have other orders to accept, they won’t turn in the order until after 6:15, by time food gets the table, its 6:30. That leaves the kid 10 to 15 minutes to eat. Not going to work. You are better off doing it yourself.

 

Depending on the ship, the extra effort to take the kid from the dining room entrance to the elevator to AO is minimal as they are both near the aft elevators. By doing it yourself, you can do it on your schedule. Chances are it’ll either be before the main course has arrived or after you have finished the main course and before dessert. You still request the waiter to prioritize the kids meal so that it arrives earlier than the adults meals, but by doing it yourself, you have no time pressure with minimal effort.