Is My Time Dining Better than NCL's Freestyle? Because NCL was AWFUL.

[aimathy]

We usually sail on Royal Caribbean, but I recently had the chance to go on a cruise with my family and my parents treated us. We went on NCL and had Freestyle Dining. It was AWFUL. We waited for over an hour every. single. night. It got to the point that we dreaded dinner every night because of the wait!

 

We are sailing on the Adventure this summer (yay!!) and as of now, we have the early dining seating. I'm wondering if we should do My Time Dining to have some flexibility, but I would really, really hate waiting that long again. There would be five of us. Can anyone tell me their experiences with My Time Dining (esp on Adventure, but overall is fine)? Thanks so much!!

[missy1122]

When we were on the Explorer in October we never waited more than 10 minutes to be seated. We love the My Time Dining.

[graphicguy]

OP...just curious, which NCL ship did you sail and which restaurants did you have to wait an hour for? I've sailed both RCCL with MTD and NCL's Freestyle.

[aimathy]

We were on the Dawn, out of Tampa. I read CC religiously and had not heard of crazy wait times on any of the NCL ships, but for some reason, our week was terrible. At first they said "oh it's only like this the first two nights" (which was already two nights more than we wanted to wait that long!) but it turned out to be the entire week. I think our shortest wait was 50 minutes and the other nights it was over an hour. Our longest wait was over an hour and a half!!

[Guest maddycat]

We do MTD for two reasons. One, we want a table for two and they're much more plentiful in MTD. Two, we don't care for the traditonal dining times. 6:00 is too early and 8:30 is too late for us. If we make a reservation, we never have to wait for a table in MTD. However, if we show up without a reservation we might have to wait 5 - 10 minutes to be seated.

 

Since you will need a table for 5, your wait times might be longer unless you make a reservation or are will to sit with strangers.

[kccrzr]

We experienced the same ridiculous wait times for freestyle dining every night on the Norwegian Wind out of Honolulu in 2004. Despite the absolutely fantastic itinerary we have never again sailed NCL due to overall sub-par service, including the so-called "freestyle dining" - which was anything but.

Edited February 2, 2014 by kccrzr

[rlpolobear9]

I really enjoyed the way they lay out the dining on rcl it was pretty painless

[avalon007]

We spent nearly 5 weeks on Radiance a few months back on a variety of cruises, 7 days Alaska, 10 Hawaii & 17 trans Pacific & never waited for more than 5 minutes whilst some other passengers were waiting longer.

 

But I must point out that there are only 2 of us & we would just say put us wherever & a large table with other passengers is fine. We never pre booked.

 

We had a variety of tables from tables for 2 to tables for 10.

 

The fussier you are the longer you may have to wait.:)

[karoo]

Interesting thread as I am a big fan of NCL's freestyle dining and have never had long waits after 16 cruises since 2007. The longest wait has been about 20 minutes very occasionally and I've always got a glass of free champagne to compensate. Last cruise (21 days on the Jade in January) it happened once and we hadn't even finished our champagne before the beeper went off. I also did Breakaway in October and Epic in July, no waiting at all.

I have come over to this thread as I think I have to defect as I want to do a different itinerary that NCL doesn't offer. I want to visit South America or Asia. One of my concerns is the dining. I don't want to be locked into a set time as I am on holidays and prefer to eat when hungry or when it suits. Neither of the 2 time slots seem to be ideal times. I also worry the food will all be cooked on mass instead of in batches like NCL. I've been on 2 other cruise lines (not RCCL) and opted for My Time dining which didn't work as they still wanted to lock us into a set time each night. I also have to prepay the DSC if I elect MyTime Dining. I prefer to pay just as part of my onboard account charge.

I am an NCL fan as I've always been happy and have always thought why change something I'm already happy with. So I'm now doing the worrying and comparing. So I'll probably be over here reading heaps.

 

Just one question-If we elect for a sitting (I hate the thought of it), can we change over mid cruise? (Realise I've interrupted someone's thread, but thought it was on a similar topic to my concerns.

 

(Apologies-just read a few replies on people who found the MTD worked well. Now I just have to get my head around having to pay DSC upfront. Note I've never not paid the DSC with NCL-I just see it as part of our on board expenses.)

Edited February 3, 2014 by karoo

[avalon007]

Hi Karoo,

 

Since you end up paying the gratuities anyway as they add them to your account daily, it's easier to pay upfront & have a smaller bill at the end of the cruise I think.:)

 

We went to dinner at all different times, were always willing to wait if needs be since we didn't bother to pre book, but never had to because we were super flexible on where they sat us. I also found the staff seem to smile more when they saw us coming as they knew we wouldn't give them any hassles trying to make us happy. we were some of their easy to please customers!

 

Anyway, I hate making other people jump through hoops for me & I think it pays off in the end.

 

However, on Royal you can also just book each morning for that night by phoning the dining room if you are particular about having a table to yourselves or a specific time.

 

I like MTD as I never know when I want to eat & if I want to go to the MDR or the Windjammer buffet, sometimes we decide to go to a speciality restaurant (although best to book ahead for those if possible).

[graphicguy]

We were on the Dawn, out of Tampa. I read CC religiously and had not heard of crazy wait times on any of the NCL ships, but for some reason, our week was terrible. At first they said "oh it's only like this the first two nights" (which was already two nights more than we wanted to wait that long!) but it turned out to be the entire week. I think our shortest wait was 50 minutes and the other nights it was over an hour. Our longest wait was over an hour and a half!!

 

Sorry to hear of that.

 

I've sailed NCL's Breakaway and Epic...NCL's two biggest ships. I never had a wait of more than a few minutes with Freestyle. And, I usually dined right at the busiest times (say between 6:30-8:00).

 

I did run into long waits on my RCCL Allure cruise for MTD (45+ minutes). That said, it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the cruise. It was a bit inconvenient and I think the host(es) were more the culprit as they seemed to be totally out of sorts for all of us who were waiting with MTD.

 

In all frankness, if I had to wait 2 hours for a dining venue, I would have gone to another of the restaurants on board. I wouldn't have waited around for that.

[Dave85]

In all frankness, if I had to wait 2 hours for a dining venue, I would have gone to another of the restaurants on board. I wouldn't have waited around for that.

 

Same here. We've always been wary of MTD becuase of the long wait horror stories and continue to stick with traditional dining, but we had open seating on Celebrity on our last cruise (in BLU for Aqua Class) and are trying NCL Breakaway later this year, so perhaps my mind will change... I've been reading lots of Breakaway reviews and they're all over the board from short waits to ridciulously long waits.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Dave85

[negc]

The presence of beepers is, to me at least, a sign that lengthy waits for a table are the norm rather than the exception. Those waits were our major complaint about Princess' and NCL's flexible dining programs and their absence on RCI was a major reason why, though we were skeptical at first, we have found that My Time Dining works exceptionally well for us. We will be on NCL Dawn to Bermuda in August and will see if things have improved.

[davy jones]

We have had quite good experiences with Freestyle on NCL, and with MTD on Royal and other lines.

 

My observation is that people who choose MTD (or the equivalent) because early seating is too early and late seating is too late have the longest wait.

 

Here's why. The MDR opens and fills up during the first 30 to 45 minutes and the line begins. Once seated, people need the typical 75 to 90 minutes to dine. Then the rush of people described above arrive between 6:30 and 7:15 to a full dining room and have to wait as the tables clear one by one. Under that model, those arriving between 7:00 and 7:30 end up have the longest waits.

 

In an odd way, that dynamic results in a model that approximates the early/late seating model. The difference is that one can choose each day whether they dine early or late.

[roquejo]

Huh? I'm sailing both RCCL and NCL as I'm both a Crown and Anchor and a Latitudes member..

 

I never had any problems with NCL in dining wait times...

 

Both cruise lines are great... and both are tops in entertainment.

[denamo]

MTD can easily vary from ship to ship. Not sure why, but some ships seem to handle MTD efficiently and effortlessly while others seem to have a tough time juggling. Guess it's like any land restaurant. Our wait time has never been over 15 minutes when using MTD. Wait time can usually be cut shorter if we are willing to join a table with multiple diners.

 

We've made reservations on MTD and also made none. What we've done is to make a reservation usually for a set time online before the cruise. If we didn't make it, we didn't make it. If we weren't in the mood to wait for dinner, we've ended up in the Windjammer which has a very different vibe in the evening. Also found the size of the choices were not as large and fresher in the evening.

 

Now I have a question about NCL evening dining. Do they have an option such as the Windjammer / buffet for the evening hours?

[davy jones]

NCL does have a buffet option at dinner that on the Gem (IMO) was better than my experience on RCI or Carnival.

[DrD]

Traditional all the way!!

 

After trying all kinds of "my time" on different lines we've come back to traditional. RCCL does a good job with scheduling shows. 8:30 (late seating) used to be too late for us on other lines but on RCCL we can usually go to show before dinner, so eating at 8:30 does not make for a late night.

 

We love having same table and server each night, and not worrying about waits, or reservations, etc. Late seating also means no rush to get to dinner. And if you normally eat dinner earlier it's not like you couldn't get a late afternoon snack to tide you over!

 

Consider traditional if you don't want to deal with these issues (although they're not so bad on RCCL.)

[aimathy]

Thanks for all the comments so far. To clarify a few things with NCL, I think one problem is that there was no way to make reservations at all for a group under 10 people. There were 7 of us, and we could not make advanced reservations for either of the main dining rooms. They only had the beeper system and it was a mess. We were not picky about where we sat at all. This wasn't a matter of being overly critical, it was just honestly a big old mess.

 

One possible thing we thought of, is that the cruise was skewed very, very heavily towards the older crowd. Maybe NCL banks on people paying more money to go to their specialty restaurants, which thins out the crowds in the MDR's? Maybe that crowd didn't want to pay extra, since the specialty restaurants were empty every single night. Other than that, we have no idea why it would have been this bad on this sailing.

 

We had a 3 and 5 year old with us and the waits were extreme. If we were alone as adults and could lounge and walk around easily, maybe it wouldn't have been *as* bad, but it really was awful. I'm sure it's not always like that, on every sailing, because if it were, nobody would ever sail NCL!! It bothered me that the hostesses said "it's like this every time on the first two nights" because there's no reason for that. If they know there's a problem, then fix it. And the fact that it wound up being our entire trip was just the icing on the cake. There were so many upset people and it was utter chaos by the restaurant entrances because of waiting people and people on line to get beepers.

 

I think that if we can make reservations on Royal Caribbean in the morning for a set time, that that may work out. Some of the days we don't even return to the boat until after 6 and most nights, it would be a huge rush to get there in time. We have a 5 year old with us this summer, and the late set seating would be too late overall. We'll see! Thanks for the input!