Help! Dining Time

[Mysteryreader]

I was looking over our e-docs for the Jn10 cruise to Bermuda. In spite of having asked for early dining, we're down for late. Dh will NEVER agree to late dining. I called X. Early dining is wait-list only. There are still 12 select dining slots. My questions:

 

What are the chances we can get early dining by chk'g w/ the maitre d' once on board?

 

If we go w/ select can we switch to early on board or are we stuck permanently?

 

I'm worried that I'll be eating all my meals in the cafeteria if I can't resolve this satisfactorily.

 

TIA.

 

M/R

[Sailawaytoday]

I'm not sure what you mean by "stuck". We've done Select Dining the past couple cruises, and loved it. It costs no more; you are just prepaying your gratuities. Our last cruise was on Summit. Full ship, week before Christmas. We had the same waiter each night (our choice), varied our dining times as the day dictated, and never waited more than 5 minutes for a table. If you like eating at 6:30 every night, you certainly can. What's not to like?

 

Our experience is that, unless the ship is full of families, you can usually change your dining with a visit to the dining room on the first day. You will need to wait in line, and stress it out.

 

I was looking over our e-docs for the Jn10 cruise to Bermuda. In spite of having asked for early dining, we're down for late. Dh will NEVER agree to late dining. I called X. Early dining is wait-list only. There are still 12 select dining slots. My questions:

 

What are the chances we can get early dining by chk'g w/ the maitre d' once on board?

 

If we go w/ select can we switch to early on board or are we stuck permanently?

 

I'm worried that I'll be eating all my meals in the cafeteria if I can't resolve this satisfactorily.

 

TIA.

 

M/R

[Mysteryreader]

I've made the switch to select dining w/ wait listed for early. We've enjoyed meeting other people at our table on past cruises. Comparing what we've all done during the day is always enjoyable. And b/c this is an anniversary cruise, it would be fun to celebrate w/ our new friends. (We're not newlyweds needing a table for 2 anymore!) On one cruise, the six of us became such good friends, one evening our entire table went as a group to the specialty restaurant. Nevertheless, select is better than eating in the cafeteria so I'm relieved that's not my only recourse.

 

M/R

[ghstudio]

You may be surprised to find that you prefer Select Dining to fixed time dining.....When we aren't Aqua Class, we always book Select Dining. We've also found that if you eat at the same time and ask to be seated with others, you tend to eat with some of the same people each night with maybe one or two new couples. I would view it as an accidental plus.

[shippmates]

We just had select dining on our Summit cruise. We went to the MDR on the first night, had great table mates and serving staff. When we were leaving we asked to make reservation for the same table and table mates. We were able to have our table at 5:45 everyone night and it was just wonderful. So if we can not get early seating we will take select dining and make reservations the first night. Enjoy your cruise and I hope it all works out for you.

[Tiggertastic]

We go with select every time - you get to choose the time you book each day and can book to be on a large table

 

Last year 8 of us that had met from cruise critic ate together every night - asking for the table for the following evening as we left the dining room - in fact after 2 nights the maitre D just said - 'same again tomorrow?' and we agreed a time.

 

When it was our anniversary we wanted to just be on our own and got that too

 

We now use the same system on every cruise line and it works great - just got off RCL and they gave us the same table everynight, no matter what time we booked so that we got the same wait staff