Change in Traditional Dining Times?

[Aulanis]

41 minutes ago, RDC1 said:

waitlist 3 is your current status of your request for early dining. waitlist 19 is where you would be if you changed and selected that option now.

 

Thank you !  that gives some comfort  so presumably it needs 3 couples to cancel or change dining time for us to get to First sitting?

Its a bit odd really  I have read somewhere that they are re- introducing  ATD on their Japan cruises form 2020 and even odder someone posted that they had ATD on the Diamond on a 2019 cruise!!.   Maybe club? I will have to try and find the post again.

Edited November 18, 2018 by Aulanis

[marylizcat]

What are the show times to go with these new dining times please?

[Steelers36]

On 11/9/2018 at 10:50 PM, Fortressgirl said:

We also had to leave the Captain's cocktail party early so as to not delay our tablemates from ordering dinner.

IMO, any delay in arriving for dinner on any particular evening does not have to delay the others from ordering.  Of course it is always courteous to advise any table mates and waiter that you will likely be X minutes later than usual the next night.

[Steelers36]

On 10/30/2018 at 9:34 PM, Lucky TGO said:

 

LuLu,

Your right It’s really worth the extra $1,000. for Club Class Dining. 🙄 FUGHEDDABOUDIT.

TONY

Yessir, that's right!!  It would be a lot cheaper to do specialty dining every night to avoid the crazy MDR times.

 

BTW, we have not chatted NFL lately and your team had a very tough loss last week and glad we are not the next opponents.  Crazy game in JAX today with Steelers stinking it up on offense for much of the game and then a wild last second win.  Looking good in AFC standings.  Especially if KC can be beat.  GO Steelers!!!!!!!!!!  go pats!?!

[Lucky TGO]

3 minutes ago, steelers36 said:

Yessir, that's right!!  It would be a lot cheaper to do specialty dining every night to avoid the crazy MDR times.

 

BTW, we have not chatted NFL lately and your team had a very tough loss last week and glad we are not the next opponents.  Crazy game in JAX today with Steelers stinking it up on offense for much of the game and then a wild last second win.  Looking good in AFC standings.  Especially if KC can be beat.  GO Steelers!!!!!!!!!!  go pats!?!

 

Hi Mr.Steelers,

I hope all is well with you and the family. 

 I watch the Steelers game today nice win for your Steelers big Ben look good scoring the last touchdown!! Nice run.

I have something new for you this year.

Go Steelers! 

 

[Steelers36]

15 minutes ago, Lucky TGO said:

 

Hi Mr.Steelers,

I hope all is well with you and the family. 

 I watch the Steelers game today nice win for your Steelers big Ben look good scoring the last touchdown!! Nice run.

I have something new for you this year.

Go Steelers! 

 

 

Oh my!!  There must be a rule against posting large team logo banners, isn't there?  There are so many rules, there must be one covering that.  Surely!!!   LOL.  Glad to see you have not had to go down with the ship.  You must be doing a good job keeping up that leaky rowboat of yours.  We are down in FL right now but it was a 5 hour drive up to JAX from Bonita Springs and then another 5 hrs back, so I chose the TV route.  It would have been nice to be there.  Enjoy the cold up there (we will be back in early December to Ontario so I don't escape the cold for too long).

[JWUC]

18 hours ago, Aulanis said:

Sorry for the double post  by the time I got back into my cruise personaliser

I missed the Edit cut off.

We are on the Diamond in Japan in May 19  - the following from the personaliser.  Not that there seems anything Personal about it as I cannot really change it to what we want.    As regards  being wait list #3 on one line and waitlist #19 on another line that may as well be in Japanese.

Please can anyone translate it for me ? 

We are on the April 11, 2018 cruise. According to the cruise personalizer (and confirmed by TA), dining times on the Diamond Princess are 5 PM and 7:15 PM. No ATD.

[nst22]

I did just get an email confirming our Traditional Dining time was moved to 5PM for our Royal Princess cruise to Alaska in June 2019. 5:30 was already a little bit early for us (we usually eat at 7) but we are taking the family which includes two grandchildren so 8:15 was simply too late. There are 10 of us and to ensure we could all eat together at the same time our agent put us in Traditional dinning. With 10 people I am worried about switching and getting wait listed and the whole group getting separated. We already have a problem with some being assigned to a table for 8 and some being assigned to a table for 2 even though all the reservations are linked and we had asked for a table for 10. Not sounding like smooth sailing to me. 

[KENCHURCH]

Adding my displeasure to both the new dining times and no email,telling me about it. My wife and I have cruised a lot. I have never heard anyone wanting a 5 pm dining time. Our upcoming trip on the Royal has nine family members including a young grandson. We are not about to do anytime dining with that number plus our grandson can’t have that change every night. He needs the same table, same waitstaff  etc. 

 

yet even worse is not telling us. I happened to see the change when looking at excursions one night. No one else in the family had noticed it, why should they. We have always enjoyed Princess as you can see by outbtrips below but this is the kind of stuff that will push us right to another cruise line. People spend a lot of money to cruise. We should not be met with such a surprise. I have sent several emails p, gotten the auto response and nothing else. That will also drive me to another line. 

[Cruise2End]

So I know this may seem a stupid question, but if those of us who have always had TD switch to Anytime, will they cut off the numbers assigned to Anytime at some point??    It stands to reason that you can serve only so many persons within a 4 to 5 hour period.    

 

From what hat we have experienced is that often the late TD room is less than half full.   We also notice many people signing up for TD then once on the ship they go to Anytime instead.    Maybe Princess would prefer less TD and switching most to Anytime?   Those folks may be more apt to use the buffet, outside grill or specialty restaurants if they have to wait??   You have to wonder......

[Mediaspot]

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Princess is changing, and NOT for the better... I hope they monitor Cruise Critic threads, and other social media, and realize that a LOT of loyal cruisers are voicing their displeasure with many policy changes... Not just the unannounced changes in dining times but many other issues too numerous to mention. Look at the threads for upcoming cruises... Mine is December 13-23 on the Grand out of San Francisco to Mexico... Read the posts and notice how many have negative comments about Princess and the ways they have been treated as customers. This will be my 29th voyage with Princess and, depending on how it goes, may be my last.

 

Thom.

[skoeper]

1 hour ago, KENCHURCH said:

Adding my displeasure to both the new dining times and no email,telling me about it. My wife and I have cruised a lot. I have never heard anyone wanting a 5 pm dining time. Our upcoming trip on the Royal has nine family members including a young grandson. We are not about to do anytime dining with that number plus our grandson can’t have that change every night. He needs the same table, same waitstaff  etc. 

 

yet even worse is not telling us. I happened to see the change when looking at excursions one night. No one else in the family had noticed it, why should they. We have always enjoyed Princess as you can see by outbtrips below but this is the kind of stuff that will push us right to another cruise line. People spend a lot of money to cruise. We should not be met with such a surprise. I have sent several emails p, gotten the auto response and nothing else. That will also drive me to another line. 

We were on the November 9th cruise on the Royal.   This was our first Princess cruise (but we've sailed many times on Celebrity).  We were NOT happy with the dining changes.   We signed up for 6:00, then told we were changed to 5:00 (like my mom's assisted living center:() and we were not happy at all.   So then we changed to 7:15 but THAT was changed to 8:15.   I can't wait til 8:15 to eat, that's way too late for dinner.   

 

It was too late to cancel the cruise, so we planned on going somewhere to get a snack at 5:30.   Well.......we board the ship and see our card says we are dining at 5:30.   Three of our group of 10 had 8:15 for dinner, the rest all had 5:30.   It was crazy!  The 3 8:15 people stayed with their time, but two did change over to 5:30 two nights just to eat with us a few nights.   

 

Since we had never sailed Princess, this was not a good start to our Princess experience.   By the time the cruise was over, we all decided to stick with Celebrity since we couldn't imagine that ever happening with them.  No emails, no explanation, just a big surprise when we got our seapass card.   It felt......IDK.....disrespectful to us.  Especially after we had made final payment and could not cancel the cruise.

 

If Princess wants to change dining times, that's fine.   BUT, do it for future cruises so that people can cancel if they don't like the times for dinner and change to another cruiseline.   We were all stuck.   It just didn't seem fair.

[HaveDogWillTravel]

3 hours ago, Mediaspot said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again... Princess is changing, and NOT for the better... I hope they monitor Cruise Critic threads, and other social media, and realize that a LOT of loyal cruisers are voicing their displeasure with many policy changes... Not just the unannounced changes in dining times but many other issues too numerous to mention. Look at the threads for upcoming cruises... Mine is December 13-23 on the Grand out of San Francisco to Mexico... Read the posts and notice how many have negative comments about Princess and the ways they have been treated as customers. This will be my 29th voyage with Princess and, depending on how it goes, may be my last.

 

Thom.

Awww Thom say it isn’t so!  Anyway, I got an email a few weeks ago announcing the change in dining times. I’m surprised so many others did not.  This doesn’t bother me as we do anytime dining in club class. 

We were bothered by the unannounced price increase in the beverage package last year around September I think. We had them in our cruise personalizer at the old price for a Christmas cruise in the Caribbean 2017.  I usually pay for them at or after final payment.  I was peeved that I wasn’t given a chance to buy it at the old price. 

I cancelled the cruise and got a screaming last minute deal on an aqua class cabin on Celebrity for the same dates so I didn’t have to change my plane tickets. Then last summer we took two cruises on the QM2. 

I think it’s good to try other lines when whatever line you’re using makes you unhappy. 

 

However, while I loved those cruises I’m back at Princess for my next 7 cruises in the next 18 months. I keep comparing other lines to the trips I have but have so far found princess gives me exactly what I want at a price I like. 

Edited December 1, 2018 by HaveDogWillTravel

[Aulanis]

On 11/19/2018 at 9:19 AM, JWUC said:

We are on the April 11, 2018 cruise. According to the cruise personalizer (and confirmed by TA), dining times on the Diamond Princess are 5 PM and 7:15 PM. No ATD.

 

 Hi - Just wondering if your dining times are as they were or if they have changed?

[Omega1]

For information, here’s our recent experience on CB. We originally opted for AD but after reading about changes to show times we changed to late traditional dining (7.15pm). On board, late TD was actually 7.45pm (but doors opened at 7.35pm). So, for us, it worked well - early show 6.45 to 7.30pm and then straight to dinner. The second show was at 8.45pm for early TD.

[Mediaspot]

Here's my prediction for the evening meals aboard Princess ships... Traditional... (scheduled times and assigned seating)… Dining will be phased out. Anytime dining will be the "included in the cost of the cruise" evening meal. Club Class Dining will be offered to all, not just Suite Passengers... Like the specialty restaurants, everyone will be given the option to pay a per day fee... like you do with the beverage and internet packages... and, like those packages, you'll have to pay for every night of the cruise. If you make the wait time to be seated for Anytime Dining, more and more passengers will opt for Club Class.

 

That's my guess as to the long range plan to monetize dinnertime when you're on a Princess Cruise... Comments???

[maxcat910]

On 11/19/2018 at 4:19 AM, JWUC said:

We are on the April 11, 2018 cruise. According to the cruise personalizer (and confirmed by TA), dining times on the Diamond Princess are 5 PM and 7:15 PM. No ATD.

JWUC   to answer your question, your Waitlist #3 is what you have now.  The Waitlist #19 is what would happen if you tried to change--showing how popular it is.

[maxcat910]

For those of you recently on the CB, what time was the early TD?

 

I see the following mentioning the later seating, but was the 5pm confirmed actually 5pm?

 

>CB confirmed  7:15 was 7:45 with doors opened at 7:35

[when was the early seating?]

 

>I’m currently on Caribbean Princess and second sitting is an early 7:45.

[jeanandjim]

12 hours ago, maxcat910 said:

For those of you recently on the CB, what time was the early TD?

 

This is from a Live-from thread by:

satxdiver

• 5,000+ Club
• 
• November 30, 2006
•  
• 8,764 posts
• San Antonio spaceship earth

• Report post
•  
•  
•  
•  #1

Posted November 12

I am on the CB right now and will post some things I am seeing.  First the important officers:  Captain Mario Ciruzzi (Italian), CD Michael Reitano (Aussie), Maitre’d Guido Ascolani and CSD Elke Pointecker. 

Formal nights: Monday, 11/12 (at sea), Tuesday 11/20 (at sea) and Friday 11/23 (at sea). 

TD dinner 5:15, 5:30 and 7:45 - we are doing 2nd seating

Theater shows: 6:45 for late seating and 8:45 for early seating.

Edited December 2, 2018 by jeanandjim

[maxcat910]

49 minutes ago, jeanandjim said:

 

TD dinner 5:15, 5:30 and 7:45 

Theater shows: 6:45 for late seating and 8:45 for early seating.

2

Thanks so much for the forward from the thread jeanandjim---that was very helpful!

[StartrainDD]

We recently cruised on the Crown in the Caribbean.  Dining times were 5:00 and 7:15.  Due to special diet needs, we really need the consistency of fixed dining.  We normally did 6:00 before and when we saw the time changes here we decided to try 7:15.  7:15 is just too late as by the time you are really eating it is after 8:00.  5:00 is just too early, especially with many port calls until 6:00.

 

The shows were 7:15 for early dine and 9:15 for late dine.  We were often rushing to make the 9:15 show, although once our wait staff knew we wanted to attend the shows they did step up the pace.

[chamima]

55 minutes ago, StartrainDD said:

We recently cruised on the Crown in the Caribbean.  Dining times were 5:00 and 7:15.  Due to special diet needs, we really need the consistency of fixed dining.  We normally did 6:00 before and when we saw the time changes here we decided to try 7:15.  7:15 is just too late as by the time you are really eating it is after 8:00.  5:00 is just too early, especially with many port calls until 6:00.

 

The shows were 7:15 for early dine and 9:15 for late dine.  We were often rushing to make the 9:15 show, although once our wait staff knew we wanted to attend the shows they did step up the pace.

 

Thanks for reporting back.

Those show times make no sense.

Why not wait a little and do 8 and 10 as they used to do so everyone could eat a normal dinner?

[lstone19]

4 minutes ago, chamima said:

 

Thanks for reporting back.

Those show times make no sense.

Why not wait a little and do 8 and 10 as they used to do so everyone could eat a normal dinner?

 

Shows, when scheduled for after dinner, have traditionally been two hours after the traditional dining time and have always been adjusted to the dining room times. Dining and shows are not scheduled independently - the Maitre'D and the Entertainment Director, who both work for the Hotel Manager, do actually talk to each other.

 

I'm wondering why anyone thinks two hours is normally not enough time to eat in the MDR and then get to a show. Waiting until 8:00 (three hours from early traditional in this case) and 10:00 (2:45 from late traditional) is excessive.

[TracieABD]

On 10/17/2018 at 5:32 PM, paul929207 said:

It was 5:30 and 7:45 on the Royal last week.

Just got off the Royal- and I concur with Paul. Even though TD was listed in the Personalizer as 5:00 and 7:15- the reality on the ship was 5:30 and 7:45.

[beachmets]

Just received email from Princess for Jan 13-27 Caribbean cruise.  Traditional dining 5 and 715

anytime from 5:00