Anytime dining HAL

[crystalspin]

On 7/9/2019 at 12:04 PM, MouseBerry said:

One thing had disappointed me a bit. If a ship stays quite long in a port of call and all aboard is e.g. 11pm, restaurant opening hours are not adapted. Even the Lido buffet had no extended opening window.

This. In Victoria we rented two SUVs for our family party of 9 and went to Butchart Gardens. After a WONDERFUL day, we dropped off and told the rest to head for the Lido! They got there just in time and in fact had steaks cooked to order because the steam table had been emptied. We returned the SUVs and were shuttled back to find that the MDR was in fact still open and the Lido shuttered. We were seated at a different table in the Open Seating than usual, but our normal waiters spied us! (Because we had a table of 10, although we ate at a fixed time the rest of the cruise, it was in the Open dining room.)

 

Our preference when it's just us or us and my mom is Open Seating and 90% of the time we tell the MD "Seat us where it's easiest for you" (always get a big smile at that). With large groups of family (two AK cruises so far), we have fixed seating with just the family; that's when we catch up on each others' days. Now we have two cruises booked with FIVE in the group; I've signed up for Open Seating and hope it works out!

 

On our sole cruise with RCI, we were always given a table for two, and after the third night, always on the same steward/asst's station. Seemed strange after HAL! All the big tables were allocated to pre-existing groups...

[Floridiana]

On ‎7‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 7:17 AM, dfish said:

The dining room is carefully balanced between fixed and anytime dining.   It would create a logistical nightmare if people were allowed to switch back and forth at will.

 

Let the waiters and maitre d' know beforehand - the morning or day before - that you won't come to your fixed table that evening. It is then opened up to anytime diners. At least that's what happened on one of our cruises. We had anytime and were sometimes seated in the fixed dining section. 

[davy jones]

11 hours ago, 3rdGenCunarder said:

 

You can't make reservations before the cruise. You also can't reserve for 6:30 or 7:00. The timeframes KK mentioned in post #2 are more generous than I've encountered. HAL doesn't do reservations for the middle part of the dining time. The latest "early" time I've ever been able to reserve was 5:45, and one time all they'd give me was 5:15. So if you want to eat at 6:30, you'll have to just walk in and ask to be seated. 

 

This is not anytime dining.  It is a scheme to keep early and late seating under the guise of anytime dining.  Everyone should have equal access at any time. They should either take reservations at all times or not take reservations at all.  This gives equal opportunity access for everyone to access their desired time.

 

It sounds to me that they do not want "anytime" dining.  The system forces you to choose between early and late seating times.  If you show up in between, you get stuck waiting until late seating anyway.  

[terrydtx]

6 minutes ago, davy jones said:

This is not anytime dining.  It is a scheme to keep early and late seating under the guise of anytime dining.  Everyone should have equal access at any time. They should either take reservations at all times or not take reservations at all.  This gives equal opportunity access for everyone to access their desired time.

 

It sounds to me that they do not want "anytime" dining.  The system forces you to choose between early and late seating times.  If you show up in between, you get stuck waiting until late seating anyway.  

I think you have the wrong perspective on Anytime dinning, if everyone could make a reservation for any time it no longer becomes anytime dinning for those who do not have  reservations. We have done 3 HAL cruises with anytime dinning and we prefer to eat dinner and be seated between 6:30 and 7:00. We have never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table after walking up and requesting one. They give you a  disk that lights up when your table is ready and we go to the bar across from the MDR for a pre dinner drink. Not once have we finished the drink before our table was ready for us. Now if you try to be seated between 5:30 and 6 there are usually long lines waiting. Believe me it works very well.

[davy jones]

13 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I think you have the wrong perspective on Anytime dinning, if everyone could make a reservation for any time it no longer becomes anytime dinning for those who do not have  reservations. We have done 3 HAL cruises with anytime dinning and we prefer to eat dinner and be seated between 6:30 and 7:00. We have never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table after walking up and requesting one. They give you a  disk that lights up when your table is ready and we go to the bar across from the MDR for a pre dinner drink. Not once have we finished the drink before our table was ready for us. Now if you try to be seated between 5:30 and 6 there are usually long lines waiting. Believe me it works very well.

The line between 5:30 and 6:00 occurs because each party has to be individually seated.  My concern is that this line of reservations fills up the dining room and takes up most, if not all,  of the tables until 7:30 PM or later, which would then make it essentially an early and late seating.  

 

Of course, this could happen with walk ups alone.  If your experience holds up for us, we will be quite happy.  

[jm485]

We are on Nieuw Statendam now. Ship is sold out, which I mention because it may be impacting how Anytime Dining (AD) reservations are being done. 

 

AD reservations are being taken only for times between 5:15 and 6, and for 8 or later. Anyone wanting a table between 6 and 8 is walk-up only.

 

We’ve been on board for 4 nights and ate in dining room for 2 (not on gala night).  We’ve never waited more than 5 minutes for a table, including the time waiting to get to the front desk.  We usually get to the dining room at about 10 to 7.

 

We are not especially concerned with having the same wait staff or table, but we have generally been seated in the same area of the dining room. AD is on deck 2 and deck 3 is for traditional.

 

As I said, I don’t know if all sailings on Nieuw Statendam are the same, so YMMV.

 

[kazu]

48 minutes ago, jm485 said:

We are on Nieuw Statendam now. Ship is sold out, which I mention because it may be impacting how Anytime Dining (AD) reservations are being done. 

 

AD reservations are being taken only for times between 5:15 and 6, and for 8 or later. Anyone wanting a table between 6 and 8 is walk-up only.

 

We’ve been on board for 4 nights and ate in dining room for 2 (not on gala night).  We’ve never waited more than 5 minutes for a table, including the time waiting to get to the front desk.  We usually get to the dining room at about 10 to 7.

 

We are not especially concerned with having the same wait staff or table, but we have generally been seated in the same area of the dining room. AD is on deck 2 and deck 3 is for traditional.

 

As I said, I don’t know if all sailings on Nieuw Statendam are the same, so YMMV.

 

 

That’s not unusual.  Reservations vary by ship but the latest I have seen is 6:30 (th enormous I’ve seen is 6:15) and then didn’t recommence until 8 pm.
 

Reservations are never available at peak dining times - at least, not in my experience.

[kazu]

2 hours ago, davy jones said:

It sounds to me that they do not want "anytime" dining.  The system forces you to choose between early and late seating times.  If you show up in between, you get stuck waiting until late seating anyway.  

 

On the contrary - the whole reason they don’t do reservations at the peak times is to give everyone availability.  

 

Everyone doesn’t make reservations - most people just go up to the podium when they choose to dine.

 

 

[FlaMariner]

On 6/24/2019 at 3:13 PM, cowmilker said:

Anytime dining is all we've ever done.  You just walk up to the desk like you would in any restaurant anywhere on land. They'll ask for your card, and scan it, and then ask you if you'd like to share a table.  Say either yes or no.  Then you're shown to your table (or perhaps there is a brief wait, but we've never had to wait for long).

As far as time is concerned, it's "anytime." 

🙂

 

And we've never made a reservation so I really don't know how that works.

 

Exactly as stated above!

 

Easy and flexible. Anytime dining means just that....Go when you want.  Get the size table you want.

 

We have had to wait a short bit when we wanted a table for two and it was during peak time.  We tend to go early and then it's never a wait.

 

And we've done Anytime Dining on the NS and other 'dam ships.....works the same.  Easy. 

Edited July 11, 2019 by FlaMariner
adding ship

[red919]

2 hours ago, jm485 said:

We are on Nieuw Statendam now. Ship is sold out, which I mention because it may be impacting how Anytime Dining (AD) reservations are being done. 

 

AD reservations are being taken only for times between 5:15 and 6, and for 8 or later. Anyone wanting a table between 6 and 8 is walk-up only.

 

We’ve been on board for 4 nights and ate in dining room for 2 (not on gala night).  We’ve never waited more than 5 minutes for a table, including the time waiting to get to the front desk.  We usually get to the dining room at about 10 to 7.

 

We are not especially concerned with having the same wait staff or table, but we have generally been seated in the same area of the dining room. AD is on deck 2 and deck 3 is for traditional.

 

As I said, I don’t know if all sailings on Nieuw Statendam are the same, so YMMV.

 

Thanks for posting...will soon be taking our first Nieuw Statendam cruise and nice to hear getting a table at 7pm wasn't a problem with AD.

Edited July 11, 2019 by red919

[Diver2014]

One reason I chose anytime for our cruise in September is because fixed is at 5:45pm.  We like to eat at 5pm or thereabouts.  That being said, we enjoy eating in the Lido more than the dining room.  It's just that we had to 'pick' a time when making a reservation.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Diver2014

[picsa]

On 7/11/2019 at 5:12 PM, jm485 said:

AD reservations are being taken only for times between 5:15 and 6, and for 8 or later. Anyone wanting a table between 6 and 8 is walk-up only.

 

Was the same on the Konigsdam a fortnight ago, but that worked perfectly for me as my preferred time to eat is 8.30pm, so easy to book a table every night.

 

Chatting to some other people, I was amused that they also liked eating 8ish or so but queued up at 7.30, not because they wanted a table but so they could be given a pager, as with a pager you are entitled to 'Happy Hour' second drink for $2 as the Ocean bar! They were most disappointed one night when a table was free so they didn't have to wait.

[terrydtx]

I am on the Noordam this week for an Alaska cruise with anytime dinning.  There are 3 of us and we have walked up and immediately been seated at shared tables between 6:30 and 7pm every night. No need at all for any reservations and the ship is full. Lunch in the Lido Market is another issue, all most impossible to find a table between 11:30 and 1pm. Too many tables for 4 with just one person sitting and not wanting to share, never seen so many rude people. I saw many sitting at tables with no food and reading books during lunch time,

[wwcruisers]

OK -- so, not to complicate things further, but how does open-seating work with Club Orange? When we booked our Neptune Suite on Koningsdam, the only choices for dining times were traditional and open. We went with 'open', but are wondering how that works, if we decide to dine wherever the Club Orange seating is. It's a little confusing to me, as a former X cruiser. On X, if you book a Suite, you dining preference automatically defaults to Luminae (X's dedicated Suite restaurant).🤔

[KirkNC]

It’s considered bad form to not notify your table mates if you are missing your fixed seating.  We also will tell the DR manager.

[*Miss G*]

19 minutes ago, wwcruisers said:

OK -- so, not to complicate things further, but how does open-seating work with Club Orange? When we booked our Neptune Suite on Koningsdam, the only choices for dining times were traditional and open. We went with 'open', but are wondering how that works, if we decide to dine wherever the Club Orange seating is. It's a little confusing to me, as a former X cruiser. On X, if you book a Suite, you dining preference automatically defaults to Luminae (X's dedicated Suite restaurant).🤔

 

On the Koningsdam you have a dedicated Club Orange dining room.  We loved it there.  You can show up anytime and be seated or you can request a fixed time and table.  Enjoy your cruise!

[leerathje]

there were 5 of us on the Koningsdam in January.  My brother has Celiacs, so we ate in the MDR every night.   We were on anytime dining, but preferred to eat early.  As there were 5 of us, we made reservations at 5:30 the day before, and never had a problem getting seated, and our reservations were always on time.