Questions about any-time type dining

[PTMary]

My family is planning another cruise, probably on Princess, RCI or Celebrity. This time we want to use the any-time type dining venues. We have never used them before so have no first hand knowledge of the process. For our group of 7, should we make reservations every night or just show up? When would be the best times for our group? And do our sea pass cards get scanned each time?

 

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

[Donald]

If you have ever eaten in a land-based restaurant anywhere in the world, you have experienced anytime type dining.

Just like in a land-based restaurant, if you have a group of 7, the polite thing to do (just like on land) is call ahead to ensure that there will be a large table available for your group at the time you prefer. 

 

Scanning of your sea pass card is a non-issue. They my ask your cabin numbers for logistical reasons. They may scan your cards to get the cabin numbers. There is no cost involved unless you purchase something -or visit an upcharge restaurant..

Edited August 27, 2019 by Donald

[leaveitallbehind]

With RCI and Celebrity at least, the anytime dining facilities are dedicated areas or floors of the main dining room and operate in the same manner, with the exception that your dining times are not fixed as early or late seating.  Your SeaPass card is not scanned when you enter - your stateroom numbers are in their system and will track with your reservations. You would likely just show your SeaPass card when making the initial reservations on board They will only ask what your stateroom numbers are after that when entering.

 

Reservations - especially for a party of 7 - would be recommended but not necessary.  They also can be made in advance or on board and changed at any time.  You can make them for multiple nights at one time or individually by night. The best times would be up to your preferences, but there may be availability constraints with certain times based on reservation volume - just as with any land based restaurant.  Walking up without a reservation may result in a brief (10 -15 minutes?) wait for a table to clear for your party, but can be done on any night.

Edited August 27, 2019 by leaveitallbehind

[chipmaster]

Anytime for larger party means wait wait wait, unless you are willing to eat early and thus not anytime just 5pm time.  

 

On almost all ships couples and up to part of 4 the wait for anytime is minimum, but if you are any larger expect long wait times as they have minimal larger tables and you wait for them to clear, come early or wait IMHO, or reserve speciality dining earlier the better or those limited tables go too!

[1025cruise]

In all honesty, for a group of 7, I would do traditional dining.

[cb at sea]

Agreed....or make standing reservations in the MTD venue.  Larger parties are harder to seat than 2-4 people....just like in ANY restaurant!

 

If you do traditional seating, your table is waiting on YOU...rather than YOU waiting on a table!   You can still go to any of the "specialty" restaurants you want.....you aren't tied to the dining room EVER!

 

The menus are the same, whether you're doing traditional or "anytime".....just a different space!

[ldubs]

1 hour ago, 1025cruise said:

In all honesty, for a group of 7, I would do traditional dining.

 

Me too.  Mrs Ldubs and I enjoy the flexibility of anytime dining.  But when we are on a family group cruise we opt for fixed seating.  Just makes things a little easier for the group  is all.   

[leaveitallbehind]

2 hours ago, chipmaster said:

Anytime for larger party means wait wait wait, unless you are willing to eat early and thus not anytime just 5pm time.  

 

On almost all ships couples and up to part of 4 the wait for anytime is minimum, but if you are any larger expect long wait times as they have minimal larger tables and you wait for them to clear, come early or wait IMHO, or reserve speciality dining earlier the better or those limited tables go too!

 

Based on frequent experience I respectfully disagree. We have done anytime a number of times on both RCI and Celebrity with parties as small as 4 and as large as 11 and not had the wait issues or early time only options as you describe.  We just had reservations in place - typically between 6:30 - 7:30 - and arrived and were seated.  We frequently do this with 4 - 6 in our party and don't have any of the issues you describe.

 

And have never experienced this either with similar sized parties in the specialty restaurants, which is where we most often dine.

Edited August 28, 2019 by leaveitallbehind

[chipmaster]

1 hour ago, leaveitallbehind said:

 

Based on frequent experience I respectfully disagree. We have done anytime a number of times on both RCI and Celebrity with parties as small as 4 and as large as 11 and not had the wait issues or early time only options as you describe.  We just had reservations in place - typically between 6:30 - 7:30 - and arrived and were seated.  We frequently do this with 4 - 6 in our party and don't have any of the issues you describe.

 

And have never experienced this either with similar sized parties in the specialty restaurants, which is where we most often dine.

 

Yeah I remember well  big party  trying to get a reservation in Princess for my Europe and Alaskan cruise, guess your cruise didn't have too many parties wanting those big tables, last check on my recent cruises you have very few tables like that, I guess if you time it right and get the reservation for the second seating, but if you do anytime, good luck if someone beats you and all tables are full, that is a looong wait for them to clear, not like a table for two or four, they are a LOT more of those tables that start and end at different times with how people eat and how many tables they turn over.  There are far fewer big tables, just go walk around the dining room and do the "math"   math wins over your experience 😁

Edited August 28, 2019 by chipmaster

[leaveitallbehind]

8 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

There are far fewer big tables, just go walk around the dining room and do the "math"   math wins over your experience 😁

 

Well I can only answer as to our actual experience, which as indicated has been on RCI and Celebrity, not Princess, so maybe they are better organized with anytime dining.  That being said of course (as with any restaurant) there have been times where the prior guests at our table were delayed in leaving having us wait a few extra minutes.  But that has been rare in occurring   And as said, our typical experience is with 4-6, but we have had parties as large as 11 and once the reservation was made for a given time, the table(s) were ready for our party.  So not sure about the math......

Edited August 28, 2019 by leaveitallbehind

[cabin4three]

On our recent Princess cruise, about 2weeks ago, there were a lot of large family groups on anytime dining.

We used a different dining room each night and saw a number of tables for groups of 8-10.

We also saw staff moving the smaller square tables for four together to accommodate a larger group.

We did speak to one cruiser who was in a family group of 12, on our cruise Princess had difficulty providing a table for 12, so they had two tables for 6. He was impressed with how short wait times were.

[ldubs]

20 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

There are far fewer big tables, just go walk around the dining room and do the "math"   math wins over your experience 😁

 

Might be deceiving because they move tables together to accommodate larger groups.  

Edited August 28, 2019 by ldubs

[chipmaster]

1 hour ago, ldubs said:

 

Might be deceiving because they move tables together to accommodate larger groups.  

 

I have to admit that in all the cruises I've been never seen them move, BTW even if they do you need to wait for two or three tables to finish, sounds very disruptive.   Maybe times have changed since the last time I did anytime and had a big party, good to hear the cruises have engineers who look at tradeoffs and solve the problem, LOL

[mom says]

4 minutes ago, chipmaster said:

 

I have to admit that in all the cruises I've been never seen them move, BTW even if they do you need to wait for two or three tables to finish, sounds very disruptive.   Maybe times have changed since the last time I did anytime and had a big party, good to hear the cruises have engineers who look at tradeoffs and solve the problem, LOL

Perhaps you just weren't watching when they did that? I've observed exactly that on numerous occasions. And why would engineers be required for such a simple exercise? As far as I could tell, it took about 2 minutes for a couple of waiters to complete this monumental task.

[SantaFeFan]

2 hours ago, mom says said:

Perhaps you just weren't watching when they did that? I've observed exactly that on numerous occasions. And why would engineers be required for such a simple exercise? As far as I could tell, it took about 2 minutes for a couple of waiters to complete this monumental task.

 

Just like land based restaurants, pushing tables together to make a larger one is not rocket science. It is done all the time. Any waiter, even on his/her first day, can handle that "complicated" task. 

 

The stuff some people come up with. 

Edited August 29, 2019 by SantaFeFan

[spookwife]

a group of 7 is RIGHT on the cusp of 'reservations are so totally needed'  and ''nah, you'll be fine'  

 

 it will depend on when your preferred dining time is and how many others want to eat  then too.  

 

we usually make reservations for the next night as we leave the DR after coffee and dessert .  rarely do we wait until lunch time that day.  

[leaveitallbehind]

11 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

I have to admit that in all the cruises I've been never seen them move, BTW even if they do you need to wait for two or three tables to finish, sounds very disruptive.   Maybe times have changed since the last time I did anytime and had a big party, good to hear the cruises have engineers who look at tradeoffs and solve the problem, LOL

 

Just curious - have you ever done "anytime" dining yourself, or are your comments based on what you believe the process to be?

 

Speaking only for myself, we have only done the "anytime" dining format over the last dozen or so cruises, having opted out of the traditional early / late seating a number of years ago for the convenience of setting our own dining schedule.  It is based on that direct experience with RCI and Celebrity that I am making my comments.  

 

And IMO to occasionally have to wait a few minutes while tables are being cleared from their meals is not disruptive.  It is part of the less regimented process of operating the MDR outside of the early / late seating schedule with "anytime" flexibility.  Have you never waited at a land based restaurant with reservations to be seated while the party from the prior reservation is cleared?  And I don't remember ever waiting for a table in the specialty restaurants (where we have dinner the majority of the times) - in fact the table is typically open waiting on our arrival.  Again, direct experience...

 

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by leaveitallbehind

[marco]

A few years ago we were a group of 12 on Princess.  We thought early sitting  too early, and late a bit too late, so we made a standing reservation for "anytime" for 7:30.  Same two tables for 6 next to each other, same time, every night.  We  round robined between the 12 of us.  Worked out fine!  We liked  having same staff every night.  It kind of was like a set seating, but at the time WE wanted.

[chipmaster]

3 hours ago, leaveitallbehind said:

 

Just curious - have you ever done "anytime" dining yourself, or are your comments based on what you believe the process to be?

 

Speaking only for myself, we have only done the "anytime" dining format over the last dozen or so cruises, having opted out of the traditional early / late seating a number of years ago for the convenience of setting our own dining schedule.  It is based on that direct experience with RCI and Celebrity that I am making my comments.  

 

And IMO to occasionally have to wait a few minutes while tables are being cleared from their meals is not disruptive.  It is part of the less regimented process of operating the MDR outside of the early / late seating schedule with "anytime" flexibility.  Have you never waited at a land based restaurant with reservations to be seated while the party from the prior reservation is cleared?  And I don't remember ever waiting for a table in the specialty restaurants (where we have dinner the majority of the times) - in fact the table is typically open waiting on our arrival.  Again, direct experience...

 

 

 

Yes

[chipmaster]

3 hours ago, marco said:

A few years ago we were a group of 12 on Princess.  We thought early sitting  too early, and late a bit too late, so we made a standing reservation for "anytime" for 7:30.  Same two tables for 6 next to each other, same time, every night.  We  round robined between the 12 of us.  Worked out fine!  We liked  having same staff every night.  It kind of was like a set seating, but at the time WE wanted.

 

Yeah that was what we ended up doing to, not ideal but it worked out.

[ldubs]

17 hours ago, chipmaster said:

 

I have to admit that in all the cruises I've been never seen them move, BTW even if they do you need to wait for two or three tables to finish, sounds very disruptive.   Maybe times have changed since the last time I did anytime and had a big party, good to hear the cruises have engineers who look at tradeoffs and solve the problem, LOL

 

When traveling with our family group we normally use fixed dining.  On one occasion on RCI we had to do anytime.  They moved tables to accommodate our group. After the second night we made a standing reservation so they pretty much had it down.  No engineers were used.  I think it was a rocket scientist!. 😀😀😀

[angie7911922]

I think if you are going to a venue you could give them a call ahead of time so they have a moment to arrange your table. But what is the worse thing that can happen if you go to a restaurant and there is no table available? you either wait or go to another restaurant.

For lots of bigger groups on the same ships, that normally happens in the kids holidays. If you like to check if there might be lots of bigger groups onboard, check the vacations times online.

Have fun onboard!!