? for those who usually dine late on cruises

[mlbcruiser]

We ALWAYS prefer late dining in the main D.R. on cruises. Have done the anytime dining before and except when doing that just to have a night to dine w/newfound friends on board, we haven't found it to our liking. Usually there's a line and sometimes we end up dining alone when we'd rather dine with others. HOWEVER, we've never cruised in AK before.

 

Considerations: I am not an early riser, which is almost somewhat required if we want to do some things we are planning to do this cruise. If we stay on our Midwest time schedule, perhaps a 6 pm dinner will seem later to us. (Though usually we adapt to the true time zone we are in.)

 

It's been over 9 yrs. since we've cruised on Princess, so I can't recall how the shows are done. It seems to me that shows for late seating diners were not always following dinner. How are those usually scheduled w/regard to dining times?

 

Is there any way to gauge times we'll likely want to be out on deck to see some particularly great scenery along the inside passage in the evenings? (Mendenhall Glacier is NOT on our itinerary.)

 

I find myself almost answering my own question with "choose anytime dining", but my neighbor did this last June and said the lines required a long wait nearly every time. (I know we wouldn't want to dine extra early to avoid the rush!)

 

So - for those of you who have always preferred late dining, please report your experience and what you decided re: dining times.

 

Thanks for any input!

[lstrong]

Not experienced with princess, but always choose late dinning on Hal in Alaska. Longer days, lots of daylight to enjoy the scenery and look for wild life

[Alaskanb]

We used Anytime dining on our first Alaska cruise and always found ourselves showing up at around 6 pm with longish lines. On all subsequent cruises we have used 6 pm traditional dining and love it --we have a table for two which means you have two other tables very close if folks do wish to chat but are also free not to do so. We usually schedule early excursions so are tired and hungry by the time we return to the ship. It gives us time to go to a show and then sleep well. I do not sleep well if I eat late.

[CowPrincess]

About your question regarding show times on Princess -- you would be better to ask on the Princess board.

 

As for us, we always have late fixed dining, regardless of destination. We tried Anytime dining once and really didn't care for it.

[Glaciers]

Is there any way to gauge times we'll likely want to be out on deck to see some particularly great scenery along the inside passage in the evenings? (Mendenhall Glacier is NOT on our itinerary.)

 

You should have a naturalist on your ship. They will be given information from the bridge on where you are likely to spot wildlife and interesting areas along the way. They will relay that to passengers. Sometimes they will have a little table and map of where you will be traveling with updates as to the approximate time you will be traveling through these areas. Sometimes you just need to seek out the naturalist.

 

Mendenhall Glacier is a short bus ride from your Juneau stop.

[cruisingwithcarrie]

I haven't been on Princess for a good, long time. But, I always prefer late dining for the simple reason that I'm just not hungry at early dining. Plus, some of the ports have a late call time and I hate to cut my time off in port simply to make it to dinner.

[GUT2407]

We seldom go to shows, but it seems there is usually a show on during early seating for those with late diner, and a later show for those ith early seating.

[mlbcruiser]

cruisingwithcarrie, I'm more like you and like to eat later. We've always been able to grab a slice of pizza or something if we get hungry earlier. (Also, we sail a lot on Royal Caribbean and are at their Diamond level, so we get free drinks and hor d'oeuves between 5 & 8:30. Of course, we won't get these on Princess.)

 

Glad to see some of you still like late seating for AK cruises.

 

On other cruises we don't like to have to rush and like having time to hang out on deck to watch sailaway or the sunset, THEN go clean up after a day of being (usually) IN the water or at a beach. Early dining would NEVER work for us in tropical ports. On tropical and European cruises it seems late seating is more popular than early, but I think we might find it the opposite in AK. Partially due to the time zone and partially due to the demographics - esp. at time when schools are still in session.

 

Glacier, thanks for the info. re: getting info. on the shore sights from the naturalist!

 

Good point, GUT2307. I usually don't like going to an early show but do like to at least check most shows out. Don't want to miss good scenery, though, either!

 

Thanks to everyone for their input!

Edited April 12, 2016 by mlbcruiser

[peety3]

Is there any way to gauge times we'll likely want to be out on deck to see some particularly great scenery along the inside passage in the evenings? (Mendenhall Glacier is NOT on our itinerary.)

 

I find myself almost answering my own question with "choose anytime dining", but my neighbor did this last June and said the lines required a long wait nearly every time. (I know we wouldn't want to dine extra early to avoid the rush!)

If you're on Princess, there'll be a naturalist on board. Read the Patter once aboard/daily, and be sure to attend the first possible lecture you can. Plan to stay late with itinerary in hand, and they'll advise you on good times that work with your wishes. "Budget Queen" is the queen of finding wildlife, but she's out on the lookout "with commitment" because seeing wildlife is important to her (it's fairly important to us, but so is my Alaska naptime...).

 

For most of the Princess ships, and probably all of the ships on Alaskan itineraries, there are either two MDRs (Coral/Island), with one doing traditional early and late, and the other doing a few tables of traditional early plus anytime all night long. Or there are three MDRs, typically with the 6/aft MDR doing traditional eary and late, one of the midship MDRs doing traditional early then anytime, and the other midship MDR doing anytime all night long. That puts 2/3 of the anytime capacity after 7pm...so if you prefer 7pm or later, anytime should be fine for you, or I bet they have a few tables for late traditional.

 

I don't think you mentioned your itinerary, but a few known spots to see whales would be the channel north of Ketchikan, and the entrance into Glacier Bay National Park. You'll probably see eagles in the channel south of Ketchikan and in Juneau harbor.

[mlbcruiser]

Thanks a bunch, Peety3. I wondered about our chances of seeing whales without taking a whale watching tour (we've done them in Monterrey, CA, Massachusetts and saw some off the coast of Moorea and wasn't sure we wanted to spend the $ to do another one). Our neighbors did an AK cruise in early to mid-June, twice, and said they saw them at various times while cruising, which we are hoping to do.

 

 

 

We have been on the Coral Princess but its been several years. Maybe due to it being the Caribbean, lines were LONG around 7 to 7:30 on that ship for anytime dining. I remember there was a dining room for set dining times and a much smaller one for anytime dining. However, the ship has probably been refurbished by now so who knows what it's like now. I can look at the deck plans further. (Actually, when I was looking at the cabin locations, there was a notation indicating one chart for deck plans prior to - I think it was - May 8 and one for after that date. So I wonder if the Coral will go into dry dock in May- ?)

 

Thanks again!

Edited April 12, 2016 by mlbcruiser

[peety3]

Thanks a bunch, Peety3. I wondered about our chances of seeing whales without taking a whale watching tour.

 

We have been on the Coral Princess but its been several years. Maybe due to it being the Caribbean, lines were LONG around 7 to 7:30 on that ship for anytime dining. I remember there was a dining room for set dining times and a much smaller one for anytime dining. However, the ship has probably been refurbished by now so who knows what it's like now. I can look at the deck plans further. (Actually, when I was looking at the cabin locations, there was a notation indicating one chart for deck plans prior to - I think it was - May 8 and one for after that date. So I wonder if the Coral will go into dry dock in May- ?)

There's a big difference between seeing whales from the ship and seeing whales on a whale watch - the whales are off in the distance when seen from the ship, and I've struggled to get good pictures even with a 600mm supertelephoto, whereas on one of my whale watches from Juneau, I felt that a 200-560 was almost too much at times, and on a previous whale watch, I was afraid the orcas would end up closer than the 18' minimum focus distance on my biggest lens.

 

I'm fairly certain that the two MDRs on Coral are identical in size. IIRC we'd have breakfast and lunch in one MDR and anytime dinner in the other MDR, and consistently had trouble remembering which one to go to because they were identical. I'd be surprised if they could change up the MDRs much, as they open to the Piazza aft and connect to the galleys forward.

 

I'm pretty sure the May 7th deck plan change is an across-the-fleet recategorization of staterooms, not an actual dry dock per se.

[Eaglecw]

We go to Alaska every summer at least once sometimes twice. We always do the late traditional dining because it fits us. There aren’t a lot of people in the late traditional dining room so it’s less crowded. There will be 2 shows in the evening, one for the early diners and one for the late diners. On more than one occasion we’ve had a table to ourselves.

 

 

 

Yes there will be a naturalist on your ship. Most of them leave a lot to be desired. A couple of times we got stuck with a guy named Michael something and he talked with the most boring monotone voice, put me to sleep.

 

 

Last year on our last sea day at around 7:30am we got in the school of Gray whales, dozens and dozens on them. The ship slowed down so we could get a good look at them, it was one of the best morning, I couldn’t believe how many people I talked to later who didn’t see the whales. If you want to see wildlife be out on deck scanning the water with your binoculars. I like a 8 x 42 binoculars.

[mlbcruiser]

We definitely like do dine with others so perhaps we'd have a better chance of that doing early seating. Hmmmmm. We aren't the type that likes empty-ish dining rooms for sure. Perhaps we can stick with it the first night and then switch or go to anytime dining. Something to think about anyway.

 

Thanks for the post and I hope we get lucky with the whales, too!