My Time Dining question

[CuseJeff44]

How does it work exactly? I know you can "reserve" via a website, but are you also able to just "show up" as you are able to for main dining room breakfast and lunch services? I have two children and while flexibility is ideal, I don't wan to risk getting shut out of doable times. If like to just be able to show up. But if that isn't doable may be better off just to keep 5:30.

[Clarea]

How does it work exactly? I know you can "reserve" via a website, but are you also able to just "show up" as you are able to for main dining room breakfast and lunch services? I have two children and while flexibility is ideal, I don't wan to risk getting shut out of doable times. If like to just be able to show up. But if that isn't doable may be better off just to keep 5:30.

Yes, you can just show up without a reservation.

[cb at sea]

Breakfast and lunch are "open" seating....you can't make reservations for those meals. You simply show up, and get seated. Same whether you're on MTD or traditional.

[dplusd]

Royal handles MTD very well. You can certainly just show up without a reservation when it is convenient for you. Depending on the time and day, there will be a bit of a line but it moves pretty fast.

[Desertbelle]

On our last two cruises (a B2B) we found a waiter/assistant waiter in MTD whom we really liked. After that we asked to be put into her section every night and they did it, gladly. One night her section was full, they put us in a table right next to her section and she still served us...with a smile.

 

We gave her both of our WOW cards (one for each cruise) and tipped her extra because she made our cruise just a little bit better with her wonderful personality.

 

Our experience is that Royal Caribbean does MTD very well.

[karena1]

We love MTD for that exact reason. We go when we feel like it. We rarely if ever make reservations.

 

We have also been able to have the same wait staff for the entire cruise.

 

On Royal we have never waited more than 10 minutes to get a table

[Damikaan]

We have MTD and I made our dinner reservations online. If there is an activity that causes us to miss our reservation can we just show up later?

[Ashland]

We have MTD and I made our dinner reservations online. If there is an activity that causes us to miss our reservation can we just show up later?

Yes...no problem...but if you know you're going to miss it why not just cancel it that day...you usually have a pretty good idea from the Cruise Compass what activities you will be interested in.

 

For us we prefer to not pre-schedule MTD (enjoy the flexibility) and just go when we want to...never had much of a wait for a table for two.

[JimAOk1945]

We always do MTD. We enjoy the flexibility. They always accommodate us with a table for 2 with very little waiting.

[Damikaan]

Thanks for the replies. Since the reservation system only allowed us to choose 5:30, 5:45, or after 7:30, I wasn't sure if we would be able to just walk in around 6. We have done this type of dining on other cruise lines without reservations, but we are first time Royal Caribbean cruisers and some reviews have mentioned long wait times if you don't have a reservation.

[BLU RAIN02]

We would call and make a reservation while we was getting ready for dinner and never had to wait. Had same server every night.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jes Scott]

Did you get seated alone or with other cruisers, or can you specify? We are just a party of 2...

 

 

Jess

[Desertbelle]

Did you get seated alone or with other cruisers, or can you specify? We are just a party of 2...

 

 

Jess

We almost always got seated alone even though we didn't request it. At first we weren't sure if we wanted to be alone, but after sharing tables at lunch and breakfast it's nice to be by ourselves.

[GUT2407]

On our last two cruises (a B2B) we found a waiter/assistant waiter in MTD whom we really liked. After that we asked to be put into her section every night and they did it, gladly. One night her section was full, they put us in a table right next to her section and she still served us...with a smile.

 

We gave her both of our WOW cards (one for each cruise) and tipped her extra because she made our cruise just a little bit better with her wonderful personality.

 

Our experience is that Royal Caribbean does MTD very well.

 

 

Now the one bit there that we totally agree on is that a waiter with a good personality, but perhaps not the greatest server beats a great server with poor personality every time.

 

That's not to say that I disagree with anything else you say.

[bloodymary]

Thank you for all tips I was just going to ask same question? Looking forward to MTD a new venture for use,usually go late seating but as you get older think this is to late for us. Hears to cruising. Jennifer from Scotland

[Atlanta07]

How does it work exactly? I know you can "reserve" via a website, but are you also able to just "show up" as you are able to for main dining room breakfast and lunch services? I have two children and while flexibility is ideal, I don't wan to risk getting shut out of doable times. If like to just be able to show up. But if that isn't doable may be better off just to keep 5:30.

 

I'm so glad most of you have had a good experience with RCI's My Time Dining. We, did not and since trying it have stuck with specific set dining times. Maybe they changed the process now, as we tried it shortly after it came out, but it didn't work for us at all. We were asked to look at the daily schedules at the beginning of the cruise and then pick what time we'd like to eat for the reminder of the cruise and make a reservation for that time. In our opinion they missed the benefit of "My Time" dining. We liked the idea of just being able to go up and eat when we were ready or hungry - but that definitely didn't work on our trip.

[Desertbelle]

I'm so glad most of you have had a good experience with RCI's My Time Dining. We, did not and since trying it have stuck with specific set dining times. Maybe they changed the process now, as we tried it shortly after it came out, but it didn't work for us at all. We were asked to look at the daily schedules at the beginning of the cruise and then pick what time we'd like to eat for the reminder of the cruise and make a reservation for that time. In our opinion they missed the benefit of "My Time" dining. We liked the idea of just being able to go up and eat when we were ready or hungry - but that definitely didn't work on our trip.

I'm sorry that you didn't understand that you could have gone down to eat anytime you wanted, with or without a reservation. Of course they would prefer that everyone make a reservation and show up on time, that would make it easier on the staff, but it's only a suggestion. You can go at any time. During peak times you might wait 5-10 minutes for a table if you don't have a reservation, but you will not be turned away at any time you show up to eat.

[Ivy drive]

I'm so glad most of you have had a good experience with RCI's My Time Dining. We, did not and since trying it have stuck with specific set dining times. Maybe they changed the process now, as we tried it shortly after it came out, but it didn't work for us at all. We were asked to look at the daily schedules at the beginning of the cruise and then pick what time we'd like to eat for the reminder of the cruise and make a reservation for that time. In our opinion they missed the benefit of "My Time" dining. We liked the idea of just being able to go up and eat when we were ready or hungry - but that definitely didn't work on our trip.

Try not to show up between 6-7 without a reservation. Confusing and you will have to wait. The Windjammer also was great alternative without paying for specialty restaurants. I was very disappointed in MDR this time around.

[negc]

I'm so glad most of you have had a good experience with RCI's My Time Dining. We, did not and since trying it have stuck with specific set dining times. Maybe they changed the process now, as we tried it shortly after it came out, but it didn't work for us at all. We were asked to look at the daily schedules at the beginning of the cruise and then pick what time we'd like to eat for the reminder of the cruise and make a reservation for that time. In our opinion they missed the benefit of "My Time" dining. We liked the idea of just being able to go up and eat when we were ready or hungry - but that definitely didn't work on our trip.

 

That may have been the case early on, but things quickly changed and improved as you should be able to tell from all the posts from people who have reported that they just showed up when they wanted to dine and experienced few, if any, delays in being seated. I recommend that you give MTD another chance and see if it doesn't work the way you had expected it to. We really enjoy the flexibility and we have usually found a team of servers that we liked and it was simply a matter of asking that we be assigned to one of their tables for the rest of the cruise. Rarely did that involve a scheduling conflict and when it did, it was quickly and painlessly resolved.

[Cel_cruise]

Just off NAV....MTD worked for us but the reservations were not as flexible as I was hoping. They had choices in waves - 5:30, 5:45, 7:15, 7:30, 8, 8:30.

 

They did not allow reservations from 6-7 because the tables would be filled and there would be a wait.

 

We did look at the planner and schedule accordingly - the 7:30 dinner was a nice option when we wanted to see the early show - better than waiting until 8/8:30 for us. Also - arriving a few minutes late for our 5:45 Times didn't seem to have any impact on them having tables to use for the later diners. We did enjoy that we could tailor our times and still have the same wait staff - this was a big plus for our family as our assistant waiter really made the trip special!

 

I didn't try walking up at 6:30 to know what would have happened there - but I do know that many nights our section was full at that time so we likely would have been seated elsewhere.

[TexasGal#35]

We just came off JOS. The first night we just walked up, were taken to a table on one side of the dining room immediately but didn't care for our waiters. We were on JOS last year and liked the other side of the dining room anyway.

 

We booked our meal time and asked for the other side and gave a general area and they accommodated us with no problems. As it turns out, we made reservations for 8 pm every night of the cruise, but that's never happened before. We had the same waiter and asst. waiter and were very pleased with them.

 

One of the things I love about MTD is the option to have dinner whenever you want. Sometimes we want to see a show or have cocktails before or just relax in the room after being out all day. MTD is the only way to go for us because 5:30 is just too early and I may not always want to wait till 8:00-8:30 specified dinner times in the Main Dining Room.

 

Gloria

[lisagro]

Can you sit with others (that you don't come in with) ; don't want to get stuck with just us two all the time.

[NewSalt]

On our cruise earlier this month, we were a party of four and were seated with four other people, the same ones every night. We had a 5:30 time slot.

 

There was a lot of complaining about MTD on this cruise. At the captain's talk, two people complained that some nights they had to wait an hour for a table.

[S.A.M.J.R.]

Can you sit with others (that you don't come in with) ; don't want to get stuck with just us two all the time.

When DW & I were on Oasis in 2013, we were asked if we wanted to sit with others. We did for the first night, but later nights decided to just be a couple.

[Honeychild604]

Anyone have experience with seating for a family of 10 for MTD early, such as 6 pm? We are booked in 4 cabins with 2 different booking agencies. 3 cabins with one agency have main dining because of private entertainment schedule through that agency. The 4th cabin with different agency because they don't want the entertainment package. They have late dining and RC says they can't even wait list them to get main dining. Suggested we all change to MTD so we could eat dinner together. Do you think we will have much problem getting table for 10 by 6 pm?