Need advice about Dinner Time for Mediterranean Cruise

[aimathy]

Hi All!

 

We are lucky enough to be taking a Mediterranean Cruise this summer on the Adventure. We have only done Caribbean cruises before and the Mediterranean cruise is 14 nights. (Wow. How many pounds will we gain with that many nights?! :eek:)

 

As of right now we are scheduled for the early dining slot, which is 6 PM. There will be 5 of us, and our kids will be 18, 14 and 6. The late dinner slot will be too late for our 6 year old for every night.

 

I'm noticing now though, that in 5 of our 7 ports, we don't get back on the ship until 6 PM or after 6 PM. Do you think we should switch to My Time Dining and reserve times around our arrival back on the ship? Or should we keep it, go at 6 all the other nights and use those port nights as nights for the buffet, Johnny Rocket's etc?

 

I recently cruised on NCL and had a horrible experience with their Anytime dining. We waited over 1.5 HOURS on many nights!! I'm worried that My Time Dining may be like that.....especially if everyone else has this idea and tries to book their dinners for when they get back on board. However, I suppose the same may be true at Johnny Rockets on those nights, or the specialty restaurant.

 

Does anyone have advice or an opinion on what they would do, or did do? Thanks so much!!

Edited April 1, 2014 by aimathy

[PSU]

Why don't you switch to my Time Dining. The times that you get back at 6 or 6:30 from excursions you can make the reservation for 7 p.m. We have used My Time Dining for our past three cruises and have never had to wait (even if we didn't have reservations). We had nine members of our family including 2 children (4 and 6) on our last cruise and we had My Time Dining. It worked perfectly.

[carolyn22]

I did My Time Dining on my Mediterranean cruise last year and was able to reserve a 7:30 seating time for every evening. I set this up online several weeks before we boarded. That was a perfect time for us, because we were taking excursions that would get us back to the ship fairly late, and we'd have time to shower and rest up a little bit before dinner. I will say that it made it a little more difficult to get to some of the shows, but we were usually so tired from the full day of touring that we weren't staying up late anyway.

[luvscruising2007]

This is coming from someone who has never done MTD. We love traditional dining and always opt for late seating. Having said that, if we are ever lucky enough to do a Med Cruise, we will opt for MTD. No worries getting back from an excursion and missing dinner, and late seating can be very late on Europe cruises. With the make-up of your party I would definitely choose MTD. I hope this was helpful.

[robin13]

We did a 9 day Med cruise on Carnival 3 years ago and was so glad that we chose their Anytime Dining. Our shore excursions would start at 8am and end at 6pm. We were so tired when we got back to the cabin that we had to relax and shower. Usually ate around 7:45 every night but so glad that we chose ATD. Our Med cruise only had 1 sea day and we all kidded that we needed a vacation from the vacation. Was the best cruise I have been on and am looking forward to another Med cruise in 2015.

[cb at sea]

You have to be ON the ship 30 mins. PRIOR to sailaway...you should have plenty of time. Most folks don't wait until the last minute to board the ship, so figure on getting on the ship 1 hour before dinner....should give you ample time.

[negc]

MTD should work well for you and like others have written, we have yet to experience a lengthy wait to be seated even when we did not have a specific time reserved. Our party sizes have ranged from two to eight depending on the cruise and we have found that MTD works very well for us and provides the flexibility that our schedules sometimes require. :)

[cafe rose]

not sure which ports you will be visiting but I doubt that you will be off of the ship, in port all day. I would stick with the early dining time and if you do not make it to dinner on time, order room service or do one of the other options. Since I have also cruised to the Mediterranean several times with a family of 5, I strongly suggest that you check out the suggestions for private tours in the other section of these forums. Very informative and lots of $$$ saving tour suggestions.

[aimathy]

Thanks for all the advice so far! I am still undecided, but you've given me some good points to think about. :)

[skandls]

Check to see what the early and late seatings are in the Med on your ship. The times can be changed from the usual 6-8:30 to 6:30-9 or even later as many Europeans have a much later dinner than we here in the USA are used to. We went to dinner in Spain at a restaurant that did not open until 9:30 - we had some late afternoon snacks to carry us to dinner.

[steveru621]

We met a couple last year in the Diamond Club that missed their early seating three times and ended up in the Windjammer. Med excursions are usually very long and returns push the early seating times. Then there is the issue of whatever personal preparations you might have on your 'to do' list before dinner. I would definitely recommend MTD or late-seating.

[hansolosmom]

We did the Med this past summer & had the 6pm dining. There was only 1 night where my son & I were the only ones at the dinner table, my dh & older son didn't make it (this was our overnight in Istanbul) & neither did out table mates.

 

 

I very much preferred the early dining because all the days started early and we were always back on the ship in plenty of time for dinner. The early seating was also quite empty, but our waiter told us that both the MTD & late seating were packed (& a little crazy)

[carumba7]

Having completed a 12 day Med this past summer, I would not recommend early seating as we wanted to take full advantage of our ports. Late seating gave us plenty of time to rest, shower and visit the CL before dinner.

 

Having said that the youngest in our party of 8 were 16 year olds, not 6. When ours were this age they rarely wanted to eat in the Main DR and opted for the kids club almost every single time so it was never an issue.

 

So many choices, I’m sure you will have a wonderful time!

[Travel R]

We cruised the Med last summer with a then 8 and 13 year-olds. I took My Time Dining, but also booked early for almost every evening (actually the earliest time available). Most of our excursions left early AM and were back by early afternoon. For stops that we also did our own exploring afterwards (e.g., Barcelona), we booked later seating based on how long we stayed at port (and if you miss the time, they said you can show up later and still get a table).

 

When you get there when the MDR opens, there is absolutely no waiting (your waiter/assistant waiter will come over quickly with bread and take your drink order) - and they will take your food order, but will not bring the order down to the kitchen until their entire area of tables fills up. There was some waiting at time slots afterwards, but most people said they did not wait more than 30 minutes. [FYI - this was on the Legend, so ships can differ in this regard.]

 

My DD8 was tired after waking up early and touring (and sometimes "being bored" for part of the day), so she could come back and "chill" in the room or usually by the pool with us before getting ready for dinner - and as soon as she was done eating, she wanted to get to the Kid's Club as soon as they opened (usually leaving with my DD13 before our dinner was over). You can ask the waiter to speed up your kid's meals.

 

FYI - my full review of that cruise is in my signature below and I tried to base it from the perspective of a parent taking a young teen and a pre-teen to Europe via a cruise. Although different ships, and a few different ports, you may find some of it useful. I have created a TOC with links to the various topics/ports, so you can skip all of the things you are not interested in at: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=39556277#post39556277, including a packing list for checklist for Europe with children, and a post about My Time Dining.

 

Cheers!

Edited April 2, 2014 by Travel R

[cmason]

We did the Western Med cruise out of Rome.

 

The late dinner seating was completely booked, oversold even. Traditionally, Italian families eat later (as do most Europeans) than Americans typically do. The Head Waiter told me that they were unilaterally moving families who didn't have a preference or thru some other criteria (I assume being American?) to the early seating, since the late seating was oversold and many were angry about the possibility of eating so late. He also told me that moved many to later slots in MTD as well.

 

Early slots for MTD were available, I suspect there were waits for later seating.

So if you want late seating, book it as soon as possible.

 

We ended up with early seating and had no trouble making those times. Full days in port usually resulted in returns to the ship around 3pm anyway. There was never a port where we were pressed for time.

[KayJay4]

We have had My Time dining - or the equivalent - on RCL, Princess and Celebrity. We are two adults and two kids. We have never made a reservation, just joined the line. The longest wait was 10 mins. Sometimes we had a table for 4 and sometimes shared. I wouldn't dine any other way now.

Edited April 2, 2014 by KayJay4

[aimathy]

I'm getting lots of great advice! Thank you!!

 

Travel R - I can't wait to read your review, I'm sure it will be helpful.

 

I hope someone checks back in with this, but I think it was Travel R who said that if they missed their set dining time at 6, they were able to just show up and get seated. Does anyone know if that's true?! I thought that if you weren't there close to 6, you were out of luck. Perhaps that would be the happy medium for us?

 

We plan on doing independent excursions at all ports and they will most likely be fairly full days. We are banking on our sea days to rest up and get ready for the next port day! Two ports (Genoa and Malaga) are shorter days where we depart at 3 and 4. However, the rest of the ports have a departure time of 6 or later (so 5:30 up to 7 PM on board time).

 

Lastly, someone mentioned checking the dinner time because it may be later. It is definitely a 6 PM dinner time.

 

All of your answers are really helpful in figuring out what will most likely work out best for us. So thank you!!

[Travel R]

I'm getting lots of great advice! Thank you!!

 

Travel R - I can't wait to read your review, I'm sure it will be helpful.

 

I hope someone checks back in with this, but I think it was Travel R who said that if they missed their set dining time at 6, they were able to just show up and get seated. Does anyone know if that's true?! I thought that if you weren't there close to 6, you were out of luck. Perhaps that would be the happy medium for us?

 

We plan on doing independent excursions at all ports and they will most likely be fairly full days. We are banking on our sea days to rest up and get ready for the next port day! Two ports (Genoa and Malaga) are shorter days where we depart at 3 and 4. However, the rest of the ports have a departure time of 6 or later (so 5:30 up to 7 PM on board time).

 

Lastly, someone mentioned checking the dinner time because it may be later. It is definitely a 6 PM dinner time.

 

All of your answers are really helpful in figuring out what will most likely work out best for us. So thank you!!

 

To reiterate, if you have MTD, and you do not show up at your scheduled time, and show up later, the will seat you later.

 

When I set up MTD online prior to the cruise, the system provided for 6:00 and 6:15 dining slots. However, when I got onto the ship, I discovered that they did not have any dining prior to 6:30.

 

If you doing the ports DIY, I would suggest Rick Steve's Med. book -- it was a great help in Rome and Barcelona. Also, if you can get any admission tickets for any place you are going to visit online in advance, do so.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Travel R