Opinion of Select Anytime Dining

[ghstudio]

9 minutes ago, Trainer said:

In addition to giving good ratings on the survey, here's what I do for a great server.  On my way out of the dining room, I seek out the maitre de or other manager.  I name the server and say what a good job they did.  Something like "Jose is a great waiter, he should be promoted."  The response is always  ,"Thank you, we'll reward him.  Maybe a day off or a premium restaurant." This is more personal than the survey and a notation is made in their notebooks.  I know this gets attention!

 

I have asked our waiter to bring the maitre d' over to the table and then with the waiter standing there, complimented him along with others at our table on his outstanding service......you should have seen his smile 🙂  

[Luvcrusn]

1 hour ago, Trainer said:

In addition to giving good ratings on the survey, here's what I do for a great server.  On my way out of the dining room, I seek out the maitre de or other manager.  I name the server and say what a good job they did.  Something like "Jose is a great waiter, he should be promoted."  The response is always  ,"Thank you, we'll reward him.  Maybe a day off or a premium restaurant." This is more personal than the survey and a notation is made in their notebooks.  I know this gets attention!

Along the same lines as your suggestion, and perhaps a bit more likely to be effective is to go to Guest Relations and request a comment card. We've done this and the stewards/waiters/crew members who are deserving of praise (as well as extra gratuities) are definitely rewarded. Many have thanked us for taking the time from our vacation to recognize their service. Sometimes the maître d during the busy dining hours, although well meaning may forget the passing comment made by well meaning guests.

[Bo1953]

18 hours ago, helenb said:

How does making reservations before the cruise work? We just booked an Edge cruise, and our preferred traditional (early) dining is all booked. I gather this is because only part of 1 of the 4 restaurants is dedicated to traditional. So we are stuck with Select. We have never done any kind of Anytime dining before, so our plan was just to show up at the dining room when it opens and ask for our table for 2. Will this not work without reservations? How do I make advance reservations in the cruise planner?

In Cruise Planner...

 

One (1) day at a time...

 

bon appetite and bon voyage

[Diamond lover]

On 1/23/2019 at 4:48 PM, Bruin Steve said:

 

1)  We've been in Select Dining...but as I reported in my original answer to the actual subject of this thread, they try to sit you with the same waiters every night...On our 14 night Millennium cruise, for example, we had the same waiter 8 of the 10 nights we were seated in the MDR and another on the other two.  On our Alaska cruise, we had the same waiter every night...and he remembered us when he saw us back on the SE Asia cruise.  At lunch and dinner, of course, we had a variety of waiters.

 

2)  When I say I "can be critical", I meant in terms of later reviewing the cruise here on cruise critic or when writing back to the cruise lines.  And I have VERY RARELY found anything to be critical about in regard to the dining room service.  If the waiters sense anything from me, it's that I am happy...Probably why our Alaska cruise waiter was so happy to see us again.

 

Funny, one of my thoughts on you was perhaps YOUR waiters perceived YOU as someone who might short them in the reviews, so they felt that need to lobby you...

 

LOL that wasn’t my post you were quoting, but I love it!  Thanks @ipeeinthepool

 

And perceptive.

Edited January 24, 2019 by Diamond lover

[Campari231]

On 1/23/2019 at 2:35 PM, helenb said:

How does making reservations before the cruise work? We just booked an Edge cruise, and our preferred traditional (early) dining is all booked. I gather this is because only part of 1 of the 4 restaurants is dedicated to traditional. So we are stuck with Select. We have never done any kind of Anytime dining before, so our plan was just to show up at the dining room when it opens and ask for our table for 2. Will this not work without reservations? How do I make advance reservations in the cruise planner?

All 4 MDR are available for Select as well as Traditional dining.  If you are Select then just go to your cruise planner and you select all your dining times. So if you like to eat at 6:15 then just make your reservations for that time. We are on Edge March 3 and I booked 1 yr in advance and Select was Full.