Anytime dining

[PK4SC]

This will be our seventh cruise but have never tried the anytime dining (presently booked for it) and would love to hear the negatives and positives of this approach. What has your experience been with anytime dining? I am especially curious about it working with a port intensive cruise and getting back in time for the evening meal.Appreciate advise on this.

[oratheeexplorer]

We did anytime dining on our first cruise earlier this year on the Emerald.....we prefer to eat earlier than later and usually went about 5:30 and never had to wait.....then we were free to do the early show in the Princess Theatre and after that catch other things like a later comedian show or stuff in Club Fusion......

 

At that time the Emerald had both main dining rooms available for anytime dining.......others have posted on other threads that some ships have gone to only one dining room offering anytime dining, so you might want to check with your particular ship......

[karatemom2]

We are big fans of anytime dining and it has alwayd worked well for us. We have rarely experienced a wait time and are generally requesting a private table for our family of four. We generally try to avoid peak times and use the reservation system for formal evenings which tend to be busier. This has worked like a charm.

 

The reason we like anytime dining is that we like to plan our dining time to suit our schedule of activities, not vice versa. So it is especially nice for port intensive cruises like Alaska where we don't ever have to feel like we must rush back in order to make a preset dinner schedule. The other thing I like about anytime is meeting a variety of waitstaff and having the opportunity to dine in different dining rooms, especially on the Sapphire and Diamond.

[paul929207]

We prefer the personal service you get with the same waitstaff in TD. My wife like a plate of fresh veggies and salad dressing while we peruse the menu. With TD, it is on the table when we sit down. With AD, it did not arrive until after appetizer is served.

[pamesacruisin]

For our next cruise we will request Anytime Dining. Would have this last one but it wasn't offered on the Sun Princess. We chose early seating, but so many times we'd be in the Dining Room when pulling away from a Port or wishing we could be out on deck watching the sunset. Late seating for me is just too late to eat, especially if you want to work up another appetite for a midnight buffet;)

[jeffbrig]

We have always done anytime dining when DW and I travel alone. When we've gone with family, we've done traditional. My preference is for anytime. We tend to eat later than most, and I don't like having to rush back for dinner at a pre-set time when I'm supposed to be relaxing on vacation. Especially on long port days - early traditional sometimes starts before I'd even be back to the ship.

 

One strategy I found helpful is to find out which dining room is doing an extra sitting of early traditional, and hit that one when it switches over. We did this in Alaska this summer, never had to wait, and were even seated with the same wait staff each night).

 

I remember there being some waits for anytime dining on our med cruise, but it was easy to kill a few minutes in one of the bars or crooners in the piaaza while waiting. Not a problem to me...

[Treven]

I ALWAYS do Anytime Dining. I also tend to eat early about 5:30-6:00 and as I'm diabetic, I'll have another light meal about 8:00 or so. At least with anytime, I don't feel rushed getting back from an excursion to meet my registered eating time.

And, if I don't feel like getting semi-dressed up for dinner in the MDR, I'll slip on a pair of shorts & polo & hit the buffet.

[MarkE]

I have read that it depends on how many dining rooms are set aside for anytime dining and it varies from ship to ship. Anybody know how many on the Crown for anytime?

[Lemonslikethefruit]

We chose Anytime Dining our last cruise and never had to wait more than 5 minutes, but, we are always willing to sit at a "shared table". We like to meet new people and have not had any "bad" tablemates.

[dfields1814]

We always take anytime dining and share a table. We generally meet new people every night. You can make a lot of new friends that way. You will not have a problem if you eat before 6:00 or at the lastest 6:15. After that you may have to wait depending on the number and size of the dining rooms set aside for anytime dining. Actually the only problem we had with waiting was with the Coral that had only 1 anytime dining room. On that ship good luck if you arrived after 6:30. Other than that we have had great experiences with anytime dining,

[uppitycats]

We love anytime dining and won't ever do traditional if the choice is available. We love the flexibility, not having to eat at a set time each night, not having to eat with other people unless we choose to. We'll often meet up with folks on board during the day and go to dinner together, something not possible with traditional fixed dining and fixed seating.

[avalong]

My husband and I love Anytime Dining. We always request a table for two and we've seldom had to wait. One of the very few times we were sent away with one of those restaurant blinky-things that tells you when your table is ready, we had martinis in the atrium area while listening to a string quartet. This "wait" ended up being one of the most memorable and pleasant interludes of the cruise.

[cherokee]

Our first cruise, on the Ocean back in '02, we had AD. We had met some other couples from here on the cruisecritics site so our first night at the dinner table we asked if we could have this certain table for the rest of the cruise. We had 4 couples in out group with a sitting time of approx 6:30. There was no problem with the arrangements. So each night we were able to have the same table, the same wait staff and the same window. It was a great first time experience. Our next cruise, scheduled for May of 2011 to Alaska we will have 18 couples so I think we will have to break up the group!!:p

[Loonbeam]

It's going to depend on a couple of things..

 

1> The makeup of your particular cruise (i.e if there are a lot of early eaters on a given run you will have longer waits during early times).

2> The maitre'd. They seem to have a lot of flexibility in how various AD related things are handled (when and what reservations can be made, can TD eat in AD, can you reserve a fixed table in AD, etc)

3> Dining room configuration with the new TD early time (and how many people took the early time, see #1)

4> Overall wait staff. If table turnaround is slow, lines build.

 

We always use AD as we don't like being tied to one time, and would not go to anytime if we missed it as we don't feel that's right. AD gives us the most flexibility with the understanding we may have to wait a bit. They give you a buzzer, so there's always a spot to sit with my Kindle and relax, if the wait is too long there's the Buffet or if room one of the specialty places if we're really hungry.

[bjs323x]

We did AD for the first time on our last cruise and will never go back to Traditional dining. We loved the flexibility of being able to eat when we were actually hungry vs eating at a set time. We also liked that we could choose to eat with others when we wanted company or dine by ourselves when we wanted to spend time alone. We never considered Anytime Dining as "instant seating dining" so a short wait of 10-15 min never bothered us. We never waited when we agreed to sit with others and never waited more than 15 min if we wanted to be by ourselves.

[bmdlover]

We have done both, and really love the AD option. We ask for a large table and meet new people and waiters every night. We tend to like to eat later, but like the flexibility to eat earlier. We really don't care for buffet food. If you connect with people you like, you can eat together. No downside!

[snorkelphile]

Love Anytime. Only time we've had to wait is when we wanted a table for just the two of us on Formal Night. Even then, we didn't get through even one drink at the bar.

[sharkwl]

We just got off the Emerald (Oct 19-29). With anytime dining, a table for two or mixed - we never waited more than 2 minutes to be seated! We usually ate between 6:30 and 7:30.

[Morgsmom]

Didn't like AD. (Just my opinion.) DD has shellfish allergies to the point where she can't have anything cross contaminated (can't eat french fries if the oil had also cooked fried shrimp at some point..) With us, AD was like having to re-tell the story each and every night to the servers as opposed to doing it once and then be set for the cruise. (Yes, the maitre d' knew but they are so busy that they had to try to intercede each night.) It was a nightmare for folks with allergies so if you have any special food needs (see the poster whose wife wanted crudites each night) it muddles things up.

[pbr]

We did AD in January with a group of 5. It did not work very well, lots of waiting; we ended up making reservations and eating later than we liked.

[2pbears]

I have read that it depends on how many dining rooms are set aside for anytime dining and it varies from ship to ship. Anybody know how many on the Crown for anytime?

 

The Crown is doing the additional traditional seating in one of the AD rooms and in September it did cause long waits (30 to 40 minutes) which we had never experienced in Anytime Dining before. After 3 or 4 days we found that the best way to go was to call the dining line each morning and make a reservation at a time that we felt would fit in with our schedule for the day. That worked out fine for the rest of the trip.

[HomelessBear]

I have read that it depends on how many dining rooms are set aside for anytime dining and it varies from ship to ship. Anybody know how many on the Crown for anytime?

 

We were on the Crown in July and they were using one of the anytime dining rooms for the early traditional seating. When we got there around 6.45 we were told that the wait was very long and staff suggested that we would be better going to the other AD room. There was of course a wait there too!

As we wanted a table for 2, we had waits from a few minutes to an hour. Folks who were prepared to share a large table often went straight in. It was our choice to wait though and we generally went anytime between 6.45 and 7.45 and this was obviously a busy time. I would say that our average wait was about 25 minutes.

 

The wait for AD will depend on lots of factors but I would still do AD and not traditional everytime.

[BballinQT24]

We love Anytime Dining and will take it whenever it is offered. My reasoning is that, like some others have already said, I like to work my meals around my plans, not my plans around my meals. If the cruise is port intensive than I really like the Anytime because I would hate for my port time to be cut short so I could get to dinner on time.

 

There will most likely be waits if you go during peak dinner hours. Even so, if there is a wait they just give you a buzzing pager thing and it works in the middle of the ship on three decks, so you can wander around the atrium or the shops or get a drink. The few times we've had to wait it wasn't long at all either.

[pj4jj]

We love AD. We get to meet and really visit with different people every night. And the best thing of all is you don't have to pack so many clothes...you won't be eating with the same people each night how dothey know what you wore the night before! Think about it. We leave on the Sun Nov 21st and there is no AD so I'm lpacking my whole closet...DARN it!:)

[paul929207]

We love AD. We get to meet and really visit with different people every night. And the best thing of all is you don't have to pack so many clothes...you won't be eating with the same people each night how dothey know what you wore the night before! Think about it. We leave on the Sun Nov 21st and there is no AD so I'm lpacking my whole closet...DARN it!:)

We sail mostly on the little ships that don't have AD and on longer cruises. I wear the same things multiple times over the course of the cruise.