My Time dining

[TravelinGert]

Here's hopeful we like MTD. It was the only option available when we booked the Quantum's inaugural cruise today. I guess I'll figure out how the reservations thingy works whenever RCI's website comes back up in a bit. So excited to see what we can see when we have our reservation little number to enter and click through to see all the options! :D

[Langley Cruisers]

Here's hopeful we like MTD.

 

I'm sure you will. :) As far as I'm concerned, it allows even more flexibility if you want to go to the Windjammer buffet one evening, or a specialty restaurant, or have room service.. whatever. You can feel free to do any of those things without having to tell your wait team or tablemates that you "may not" be there the next night. It's all good. Have fun planning! :)

[TravelinGert]

The part about trying out all the different choices sure sounds nice. :)

[Virtopia]

If you enjoy eating alone, then MTD it is....they seat you as if in a real restaurant. If you are social, and enjoy tablemates, then go with traditional dining.

 

Thanks for this!! I'm traveling solo during my next sailing and if I do want to try the MDR one night, I'd rather dine alone.

[negc]

Have you ever done MTD? I think not, because you are very vocal about Traditional Dining and you seem to think that is the only way you can socialize with others. Just so you know, you absolutely can be seated with others in MTD if you want - we have done it.

Don't expect your experience to register with this poster but do expect to see her repeat this and several other canards on a regular basis. Apparently the only correct way to do anything is her way. One good reason to choose My Time Dining is to avoid the chance of being seated with such an opinionated passenger. Can you imagine being subjected to her harangues night after night?

[katiel53]

We love MTD and we do make reservations for every night. We normally have dinner about 7PM at home and that isn't a "normal" time for the MDR. So, we make our reservations for 7 and by so doing, we have gotten the same waitstaff every night.

 

On our last Freedom of the Seas cruise, we were told that we didn't even have to get in line, just go right to "our table." On that cruise we had 6 people so a table was reserved for us. I don't know if it will be the same with just the two of us in January, but I am hoping to get 7PM dining time and a table for two with the same servers nightly.

[kc320]

The only potential problem when asking to sit at a group table on MTD, is that usually the group at the large table is together. Depending on the group, you may be left out of the conversation since everybody else already knows each other. Just something to take into consideraton.

 

Not always...on the Jewel one time we were asked if we wanted to sit with other's...we said yes...and were shown to a vacant 6 top table...a few minutes later 2 other ladies (sister's) were seated with us...ended up 4 ladies at a 6 top table...

 

I enjoy MTD when traveling solo...I've never made a reservation...and even seated alone at a table for 2 the tables are sooooo close together it is VERY easy to have casual conversation with those nearby "IF" you want...I've done it many times...

[karena1]

Since RCI introduced MTD a few years ago that's all we use. It works great. They do encourage you to book a time or different times for different days. NOTE the word encourage, it is absolutely NOT NECESSARY. You can just walk up and ask to be seated. The longest we have had to wait is 10 mins max.

They only use part of one of the dining rooms for MTD so make sure you go to the the right one.

 

So with you!! We love MTD and rarely make reservations. On Oasis/Allure we did a couple nights b/c of show times, but otherwise, we go when we feel like it. Once in a great while we have to wait a couple minutes, but it is rare.

 

Also good to mention, with MTD you can still have the same wait staff every night. All you have to do is request them. On our B2B on Jewel, we had the same wait staff the last 12 days of the cruise one we remembered to tell them on Day 2 that we wanted the same guys to take care of us. It was great. We have not done traditional dining since MTD started.

[Langley Cruisers]

Don't expect your experience to register with this poster but do expect to see her repeat this and several other canards on a regular basis. Apparently the only correct way to do anything is her way....

 

Oh, I know my friend. I know. I was just hoping.... :D

[edjny]

Yes but if this truly was the case, they would have asked for a table for 6 or whatever size their group was. If they were not open to receiving new people to the table, they would have told the Manager when they were seated, IMO.

 

Anyway, it's only dinner. :) What's 75 minutes out of your life? :D;)

 

Not necessarily... A group of more than 4 people usually have to take what ever size table that will seat them all or wait even longer. That could be a table for 8 or 10. I understand about the "under 75 minutes". But, one night for MTD, we asked for a large table to chat with others. We ended up at a table filled with 'Rush Limbaugh ditto-heads'... :eek: :( As soon as they started spouting their propaganda, I said to my DW, NEVER AGAIN..... If the meal was not so good, we would have left soon after they started in with their hype. Sometimes that 75 minutes is FOREVER....

[Travel R]

We tried MTD last week for the first time. We were not so taken by it this time around, although maybe it was the ship/itinerary (Legend of the Seas with three embarkation ports on a 7-night W. Med. itinerary).

 

Originally I had set up for traditional dining (early seating), but due to reading some posts on CC, I was swayed into changing my dining options to MTD. After a call to RCI and connecting to the right department, I made my switch.

 

Within an hour I was able to go online and make my selection for dining times and my preferance for a small/large table. Because I was traveling with my DDs (pre-teen and teen), I opted for earlier seating times. Mostly 6:00 and 6:15, with one 6:45 and one 8:00 (possible late day in Barcelona). [The available options on the website were 15 minutes apart from 6:00 to 6:45 and again from 8:00 to 8:45.]

 

Upon boarding the ship a person from dining asked "Do you know what time you will be eating tonight" - I said, I have MTD and will be eating at 6:00. He said sorry, but the earliest seating starts at 6:30. I said okay, but that is not what I selected. He then suggested that I walk over to his associate with a computer that included all of the reservations. It seemed that all of my reservations had converted to 6:30 for the entire cruise. He said I could change that by calling the dining department later. After discussing it with my DW, we decided just to keep it the same since the earliest we could get on five of the nights was 6:30 and a sixth night being 6:45 was only 15 minutes difference it did not matter. We would wait and see about the one late night (although we figured we could cancel the early reservation and show up later whenever we got back and finished showering - but arrived at 6:30 anyway). So, in a sense, MTD was pretty much a waste for us since we kept to the early seating schedule anyway.

 

On some eveninings we had to either go back to the room or walk our DD to the OA, and sometimes saw very long lines to get into our dining room. Note: There are two levels for the MDR. The lower level, which is larger, is where the traditional seating is observed, and the smaller upper level, where they include the MTD diners.

 

Another dissapointment was that the online reservation systems provides you with options for sitting at a larger table or a private table. For all but two nights (the late night and the last night) I opted for my family to sit at a large table with other people. However, the put us at a smaller private table. It seemed that there were much smaller tables in the MTD level as compared to the traditional seatng level. Luckily, I am pretty sociable and started conversations with other tables around us (even with some language barriers) [and met some very nice people]. However, it must be noted that on one evening our DDs decided to eat a a friend's table, so we asked to be seated at a larger table (not so hard to do for only 2 people) - and they did so.

 

For most of the cruise, they sat us with the same waiter and assistant waiter. After a seating mess-up (they sat us at one table, then had us move after taking our order and giving us bread and water), and having a very poor waiter/assistant waiter on the first night, we were seated at the opposite side of the dining room on the second night with an amazingly attentive wait-staff and continued to have them throughout the remainder of the cruise (although not always the same table) with the exception of the night we opted for the larger table.

 

Would I try MTD again? I do not know. I would most likely go with traditional dining again, but if circumstances dictated otherwise, I may try it again, but be more wary as to how I would use it. For instance, when we are originally being seated on the first table, I would suggest a large table at that time - or better yet, send a request directly to RCI prior to the cruise. I would also double check directly with RCI that the times I chose were, in fact, the times that will be entered onto the MTD reservation list. I also think that having three embarkation and debarkation ports on a 7 night cruise also put a big kink into their system, so on a "normal" one-embarkation/debarkation cruise, MTD probably works a lot better.

 

I hope this helps,

 

Travel R

[secfan1]

We chose My Time Dining on our last cruise on Liberty of the Seas. We like the flexibility this options provides.

We always ask to be seated at a large table so that we could meet and interact with various people instead of just a few as would be the case in Traditional Dining.

However, what we didn't count on was the fact that after the first couple of nights, many people were making standing reservations to be seated with the same group each night. The result of this is that the pool of non-reserved guests shrinks. Therefore, instead of being seated with many different passengers we wound up being seated night after night with mostly passengers we already had dinner with.This was not a problem, but it was somewhat of a surprise from what I expected My Time Dining to offer.