First time on Princess -- Personal Choice dining question

[lawgirl]

My husband and I have booked our first Princess and cruise and because we like meeting new people, we chose late seating traditional dining with other couples. Does this mean we will miss some shows? Can we switch to personal choice dining midway through the cruise? If so, do you get a set time to dine and will you be with other couples? Thanks for the help!

 

Summit, November 2002

Brilliance, March 2003

Serenade, August 2003

[Aquarian]

They arrange show times around dinner. You will be able to attend the second show. If you find that you want to change to personal choice, please notify the Maitre d' Hotel that you would like to change - that way someone who is waitlisted for traditional will get the chance to sit at the table you are vacating in traditional. You can meet people in personal choice. Just let them know at the door that you would like seated with other people. You can make reservations in personal choice or you can go to eat whenever! It's great. We did traditional for our first three cruises and then switched to personal choice. Give traditional a chance - the service is impeccable in traditional and so is the entertainment by the waiters.

[critterchick]

Some ships ask you to make reservations in the Personal Choice dining rooms. The Diamond doesn't have a full-size alternate dining room. She has 4 specialty restaurants - Italian, Southwest, Asian & a steakhouse. On the repo cruise we went on all of them were free, although I think I have read that the Sterling Steakhouse charges a premium on "regular" cruises. We were advised upon boarding that we should make our reservations for the entire week right away, and the times we were offered were fixed, so I think we had a fairly traditional dining experience. The seating process really was a mess. Even with a reservation, we ended up being split up one night because we would have had to wait 1/2 hour or more (my FIL uses a walker, so that wasn't an option).

 

Other ships, you just show up at the alternate dining room & ask for a small or large table. I think you can make reservations, but it isn't as critical. Sabatini's & the other really specialty restaurants usually require a reservation.

 

We've always done PC on Princess, but we're going to try traditional for a change.