Anytime dining

[Sea Legs]

Will be doing "anytime dining" in October on the Victory. Just myself and DH. Can anyone tell us of their experience with this?

[Mspokertn]

I have used it my last 3 cruises and we enjoy it. You can ask to be seated just the two of you or with a group. If you decide to do a group the group will be different each night.

 

You can ask to request to sit in the same area and have the same wait staff / servers each night, which we really enjoyed. Just make sure you get the name of your server.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

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[springs741]

Cruise number 8 coming up. We have always enjoyed YTD. I don't like being tied to a certain time. I am on vacation. I don't want to have to be anywhere on a schedule. With traditional dinning you really need to be there on time. To be late is inconsiderate of your tablemates and interferes with the smooth flow of service for the wait staff. If you have early seating, after you complete your meal they have to redress the table as someone else if coming to late dinning and are scheduled for that table.

As posted above you have the option of dinning with others or a table for just your party. You can request the same wait staff but that has never been important to us. We have always been very happy with the service.

[092306]

We love ATD and wouldn't go back to traditional dining. We liked as a couple to get a table for 2 with no problem and now cruising as a family we don't have to worry about table mates not wanting to dine with a toddler. By the 1st or 2nd night we've found a waiter team we've liked and requested their section each evening. We've had excellent service and love the flexibility of it as well.

[TruckinMama]

Same as everyone else. We love it. I don't know why anyone would want assigned dining. I want to schedule dinner around my other plans, not schedule everything else around dinner.

 

 

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[WindsorFred]

Same as everyone else. We love it. I don't know why anyone would want assigned dining. I want to schedule dinner around my other plans, not schedule everything else around dinner.

 

 

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Same for us. Have waited for a table a time or two but never over 15 min.

[Bookbug53]

Sorry, we did not care for it. We tried it on our last trip and will be going back to traditional. This was on the Freedom so maybe it was unique to this ship. The line was would form just as traditional would and this one snaked through the lobby! Only this line took longer to disappear. The lobby bar was our favorite place for a glass of wine before dinner so we would just watch the line until it got shorter. However you then would wait for a table. We wanted a table for 2 each night because we did not want unknown dinner companions every night. Too much left to fate by then. ;)

 

Every table for 2 might as well have been a table for 20! They were usually so close together you could not have a private conversation if you tried. The first night we had managed to get one we liked but trying to request it later was almost impossible. I think everyone had scoped it out and wanted it!

 

The set time does not bother me as I will pick it based on the ports and my plans. If we do late, we go to early shows and early seating we go to late shows. Besides being on a 24 hour floating smorgasbord pretty much means I can also grab a snack anytime!

[okgirl]

My sister and I do YTD each cruise.

 

We ask the hostess for a table for two with two chairs so we don't get stuck in one of those booth/chair combo's.

 

Almost always on the 2nd evening they ask if we would like to be seated with the same waitstaff and we usually do.

[sailor_jimc]

Did not read the other responses so if I am repeating.. sorry.

 

We have 23 cruises on Carnival. We have always booked early dining in the MDR. We have one cruise on NCl where we did not enjoy ATD at all. For several reasons. So we had always held the notion of YTD as being the same and that we would not book it because we wouldn't enjoy it.

 

Well, on my last cruise, it was a father/daughter birthday gift cruise so my wife and other daughter did not go. Because it was just going to be a relaxing "do whatever we want cruise" we decided to try YTD because we figured that we could go to dinner whenever we felt like it. I have to say that I really liked it.

My fears and reasons for not wanting to do YTD quickly went away -

1) I don't want to wait in line to eat- My most #1 worry. Well we went 2 weeks ago during what was probably a peek cruising season and the ship was really full. But we never had to wait in line to eat (although the latest we went was 6:30PM)

2) we enjoy having the same wait staff every not- It was only a 4 day cruise but they sat us at the same table (without us even requesting it) 3 out of the 4 nights. There were plenty of open tables so even if they couldn't give us the same table they probably could have sat us in the same wait staff service area had we asked them

3) didn't want to have to meet new people each night. -While this would not have been a big deal, we did not have to deal with it because they had plenty of 2 tops in the YTD dining room.

 

Now for the benefits- We NEVER felt rushed to get ready for dinner and get to the dinning room. Nice on formal night not to have to rush a girl getting ready. We always seem to be in a rush on our other cruises because my daughters like to get an up-do hairstyling or something in the spa and that alway takes time and then there is all the other getting ready things to be done and multiple people trying to us one bathroom to get ready etc... Also, coming back in from port late and not having to rush off to dinner was very relaxing.

If we wanted to eat at the buffet or the steakhouse or something there was NO guilty feeling of leaving your waiters with an empty table or having the wondering if you were coming and holding off on orders waiting for you. Because with YTD they serve everyone as they arrive.

which leads to the biggest benefit of all. Dinner is served quickly. because they are not trying to serve 4 or 5 table at the same time there is no real waiting. You sit, they take you drink and food orders, you meals come and you leave. I think the longest we were in the dinning room was 45 mins. Most of the time we were out in time so that we could catch either showing of the shows

 

The only negative is that because everyone is coming and going they don't try to do the dancing waiters thing.. which I am sure some people are happy about.. but we like it.

 

So we will definitely be trying it as a family on the next cruise.

[Laurin612]

The only negative is that because everyone is coming and going they don't try to do the dancing waiters thing.. which I am sure some people are happy about.. but we like it.

 

So we will definitely be trying it as a family on the next cruise.

 

They do the dancing waiters thing in YTD. On our cruise on the Miracle two weeks ago it seemed like they did it right around 7:00. As a result, we caught it most nights.

 

We enjoy sitting with just our family and we tend to dine early, so YTD works well for us.

[sailor_jimc]

Oh.. well maybe we were just leaving before they performed in our dinning room. Good to know.

[Chief Cruiser]

I tried it on my last cruise and am not a fan. Not a problem getting seated as we were always there on time. However, wait staff was strung out with so many tables to serve, as time passed and more passengers showed up, the slower service became. 2 out of the 3 nights took almost 2 hours to get through dinner. That is just too long and to top it off, I had a 10 and 8 year old with me. It was very hard to keep them settled for that length of time. Refills and other requests took forever and I finished one meal without anything to drink in excess of 40 minutes, despite asking twice to have my tea refilled.

 

It may have been just a bad trip or other circumstances that made the service so bad. The staff were trying very hard and worked their butts off, but just couldn't keep up with everything. I don't blame them, I think that is a management/scheduling issue, but nevertheless, we got through it. I think I'll stick to my traditional early dining set time schedule. To each their own.

[Buffettfan 225]

Did not read the other responses so if I am repeating.. sorry.

 

We have 23 cruises on Carnival. .

I assume you are a platinum cruiser. Can you tell me if there is a separate line for platinum we aren't aware of for YTD hostess desk? -we haven't used YTD in a while. If I remember, we were waiting in a line, hostess recognized us from first night and waved us up ...don't want to be "the one " or "snobby" but just wondering.

[Sea Legs]

Thanks for all the input. I saw where BuffetFan asked about a separate line for platinum cruisers. Does anyone have the answer to this?

[snc_cam]

We did it on the Freedom last Dec and there is no separate line for Platinum or even Diamond passengers. We did enjoy it and liked that we had table guests every night. It is nice to get to know others while on the ship. We have always been late-seating and most of the time our table of 8 or more had just the two of us.

[Buffettfan 225]

Thanks for all the input. I saw where BuffetFan asked about a separate line for platinum cruisers. Does anyone have the answer to this?

I was going to try this question outside of this thread, then found this thread: Hope posters are accurate.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1860857&highlight=platinum+line+for+ytd

Edited August 26, 2014 by Buffettfan 225

[OCruisers]

We love Anytime Dining and would never want to go back to Traditional Dining! :)

LuLu

[figdu]

There is no separate line for Platinum. One tried to jump in front of the couple I was with last year on Ecstasy who were Diamonds. We giggled about that for days.

[WAHMto5]

Our number one choice every cruise, love it!