how long does dinner take?

[carjac1]

Just looking at shows and dreaming/planning. We have signed up for MTD and wondered how long a meal actually takes. Assuming we will make reservations and not have to wait prior to seating, how long from start of meal to finish?

Thanks

[negc]

Just looking at shows and dreaming/planning. We have signed up for MTD and wondered how long a meal actually takes. Assuming we will make reservations and not have to wait prior to seating, how long from start of meal to finish?

Thanks

 

You have a good degree of control as to how much time you will spend in the dining room, especially with MTD. You can pretty much take as much or as little time as you wish. If you need to be out of the dining room quickly or want to be done in time to see a specific show, a word to the wait staff can expedite service while, if you wish to dine at a more leisurely pace, you can let the staff know that as well. In our experience dining has usually taken about one and a half to two hours. Even without reservations in MTD, we have never had a wait of more than a few minutes for a table.:)

[Shippy]

...about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Remember you have a lot of courses.

To us that is part of the cruising experience. We always share a table & have met the most interesting people. We like to dine early because it takes so long. Service can be slow.

There is usually a show at around 8:00pm which we attend.

[Familygoboston]

One of the best things to do is to plan your shows and then work backwards for your dining times. Give yourself 20-30 minutes to get to your show and then add the dining time you will need, and show up a few minutes before your reservation in case of a little line or snafu with people in front of you.

 

Also we often planned to dine alone on nights when we wanted to expedite dinner, so we could let the staff know what our schedule was, but also we could skip appetizers or more often dessert, without appearing rude to fellow table mates. On nights when we had less scheduled we would request a table with others. Just to give you an idea- and we are pretty quick diners anyway, but we could be in and out in 1 1/4 hour on our quick night. And 2 +hours on leisurely nights. Of course the larger the table the longer it takes to do everything.

Good luck!

[Familygoboston]

If you ARE looking for quicker dining- MTD is absolutely the way to go. Nearly everyone in our area arrived well after (1/2 to 1 hour) early seating and most times were done about the same time or slightly after the early seating was finishing up dessert. On our last cruise we sat overlooking the MDR so we got a good sense of the timing.

[Scotty G]

Just looking at shows and dreaming/planning. We have signed up for MTD and wondered how long a meal actually takes. Assuming we will make reservations and not have to wait prior to seating, how long from start of meal to finish?

Thanks

My first thought when seeing the Title for this thread was that there is a new top 10 item such as "How do we tell which photographs are ours?" ;):D

[IKE]

2 weeks ago when We were on the "Explorer" in " My Time Dining", most nights We were finished in about 11/2 hrs. Depending on what We were planning to do after dinner. You can also be out of there quicker if You let your wait staff know You have something Special You wanted to do. We had a standard reservation everynight with the same waitstaff and it worked out great for us. IKE

[matj2000]

It doesn't take that long. I have found that they are getting you in & out much faster these days. You can be out in 45min or less if you want..

[ehfl]

If you're concerned about show times, then why would you select MTD? Traditional dining is timed specifically around the shows. MTD is generally for those that don't care about making showtimes.

[Philly Steve]

Late tablemates can be another time variable.

[stewpapa]

If you're concerned about show times, then why would you select MTD? Traditional dining is timed specifically around the shows. MTD is generally for those that don't care about making showtimes.

 

 

I disagree. MTD is for those who want to be in control of their schedule. We almost always attend the shows and we love MTD. We dine at a table for two and can make it last as long or as short as we want depending on our plans for the evening. It is great. We make a reservation for each night based on our plans and have never waited over a minute or two. We keep the same waiter and look over the dining room on the first night to see where we would like to sit for the rest of the cruise and then reserve it at a time it is open. We love love love MTD

[DebJ14]

We prefer to have a leisurely dinner at a large table so we book traditional late seating. We have found that they tend to rush you out of early seating so they can reset the tables for late seating. Can't blame them a bit though.