Traditional Dining

[HaveDogWillTravel]

My actual experience on the July 25th Majestic sailings was I did experience traditional dining.  It took a little bit of smiling nicely and asking sweetly and really no I don’t want a different waiter please…..I’d be so grateful if you could please find a way………you know in short not being an entitled jerk about it. I’m not implying anyone here is of course. So please don’t take that the wrong way.  I had a beautiful window table in the Allegro dining room with a fabulous pair of servers the entire sailing. 
 

I am not surprised that Regal had wait times of an hour for on demand drinks and food when they sailed on the 31st. I placed multiple orders from the first day and used the iPhone stop watch to clock delivery times which I posted on our live from. In the beginning 45 min to an hour. Got better by the day. Difference is I simply never complained about it. Why would you?  The hard working crew has never used this before and have tried soooooo hard to make it work. Everyone knows there’s growth that needs to happen. Don’t belabor it, enjoy your cruise and walk up to any crew near a bar and you’ll get whatever you desire immediately. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by HaveDogWillTravel

[mellon1]

1 hour ago, geoherb said:

I'm sailing solo in two weeks. I decided anytime was better when I go solo. I had flaky tablemates who ended up not showing up a couple of nights the last time I had traditional dining. With Covid protocols in place, I may end up at a table for one--but it probably won't be at a table for eight.

 

The big thing about the demise of traditional dining times is that it does away with having every table at about the same point in dining. On my last cruise (also solo), I was in the middle of eating the main course when they dimmed the lights for the baked Alaska parade. The timing was terrible for those of us at my table. 

Yes, we agree.  We did try anytime one time and they were cleaning up tables all around us and it was not very enjoyable.  

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, geoherb said:

............................................................

 

The big thing about the demise of traditional dining times is that it does away with having every table at about the same point in dining. On my last cruise (also solo), I was in the middle of eating the main course when they dimmed the lights for the baked Alaska parade. The timing was terrible for those of us at my table. 

 

2 hours ago, OCruisers said:

 

Not having TD can and oftern does mess dinner up with the parade, etc.

Having Club Class Dining works great BUT that's not always possible.  

They must have a challenge trying to time that event now.  Probably just do it around a set time for early and for late. 

[cruzsnooze]

4 hours ago, franktown said:

The Majestic is the only Princess ship sailing from US ports.

I'm sailing next month on the Grand Princess from San Pedro (Los Angeles) California

[Steelers36]

6 minutes ago, cruzsnooze said:

I'm sailing next month on the Grand Princess from San Pedro (Los Angeles) California

Hopefully we'll get more live reports since a totally different ship, crew, and journey.

 

[cruzsnooze]

1 hour ago, Steelers36 said:

Hopefully we'll get more live reports since a totally different ship, crew, and journey.

 

I will report how it goes. I am in a suite so we don't have traditional dining. I'll let you know how club class goes. I also did the check in on the phone with ocean navigator and not a smart phone. I'll report back how embarkation went although I don't believe it will be an issue. 

Edited August 11, 2021 by cruzsnooze
typo

[Tedferg]

12 hours ago, cruzsnooze said:

I am in a suite so we don't have traditional dining. I'll let you know how club class goes.

Just being curious, many people extol the virtues of Traditional Dining, so might not Suite passengers also want TD ? With Club Class could you have same table, staff, guests ?

[memoak]

4 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Just being curious, many people extol the virtues of Traditional Dining, so might not Suite passengers also want TD ? With Club Class could you have same table, staff, guests ?

Club class is for full suites and club class minis only other guests are not allowed.  Since it is come when you want and be seated immediately or close to it you probably will not get the same table all the time but as small as it is they get to know you pretty fast

[OCruisers]

8 minutes ago, memoak said:

Club class is for full suites and club class minis only other guests are not allowed.  Since it is come when you want and be seated immediately or close to it you probably will not get the same table all the time but as small as it is they get to know you pretty fast

 

Per above, they do get to actually know you quickly.

[RNRcruisers]

We prefer traditional and really hope some form of it is available, preferable without it being a major headache. If we wanted only anytime dining we would sail on NCL...

 

[LACruiser88]

55 minutes ago, RNRcruisers said:

We prefer traditional and really hope some form of it is available

We also are BIG Late Traditional Seating fans.  I hope Princess listens to us all and brings it back!!!

[billco]

1 hour ago, RNRcruisers said:

We prefer traditional and really hope some form of it is available, preferable without it being a major headache. If we wanted only anytime dining we would sail on NCL...

 

If I didn't have so much Princess FCC to use, I would be sailing on NCL too.

[mellon1]

1 hour ago, RNRcruisers said:

We prefer traditional and really hope some form of it is available, preferable without it being a major headache. If we wanted only anytime dining we would sail on NCL...

 

You got that right.  Traditional dining is what set Princess apart.  Sometimes it is good to be different.

[mellon1]

13 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

We also are BIG Late Traditional Seating fans.  I hope Princess listens to us all and brings it back!!!

Got our votes.  We too are late TD fans

 

[geoherb]

We had tablemates who were in a suite on one cruise. Our head waiter let them know the first night that they could be eating in Club Class. They decided that they liked us and the other couple at our table and chose to stay. They still were able to enjoy their suite breakfasts at Sabatini's each morning and Club Class lunches on sea days. 

[Turk1]

Glad to see that there are still those who favor and look forward to Traditional DIning. One of the things that makes sailing Princess special.

[Steelers36]

Well, just keep those cards and letters heading Princess' way and maybe HQ will ramp up the effort to get TD working as it should.

[mellon1]

3 hours ago, geoherb said:

We had tablemates who were in a suite on one cruise. Our head waiter let them know the first night that they could be eating in Club Class. They decided that they liked us and the other couple at our table and chose to stay. They still were able to enjoy their suite breakfasts at Sabatini's each morning and Club Class lunches on sea days. 

We also were able to eat in Club Class when we were in a suite for dinner.  Did one time and it was the last.  Not saying service was not good, as it was excellent.  Just different.  We like getting the same waiter/assistant each time and getting to know them.  We 99.9% of the time get excellent service in the dining room breakfast, lunch or dinner.  We did eat in Sabatini's only because we could get right in and sit down and liked the staff that we knew from previous cruises, but the staff in the dining room, at least the ones we had were top notch.  There was one time we got a grumpy one, but then you have to think he was new and away from his family and who knows what was going on in his life at the time.  

[mellon1]

1 hour ago, Turk1 said:

Glad to see that there are still those who favor and look forward to Traditional DIning. One of the things that makes sailing Princess special.

So, how do we get this turned around?  That is the question?  My take on this is the following:  I think some bean counter (sorry if there are any of you out there in advance!) told Princess that you have too large of an older crowd and they all are going to not be able to cruise or worse all at one time and you will be in trouble.  However, what they didn't realize is, I have friends that are in their 40s and they called me to ask about Princess.  They go RCCL with their kids, but they wanted a cruise without all the kids and an adult area to go.  Thus, I mentioned Princess.  So, just saying.  People in their 50's-60s are going to move into the other slots I believe, but not maybe now that they took away benefits.  Who knows.  Repeat business is just so much easier to keep.  New business, they come and go and leave  you for a dime.  My nephew and his girlfriend did Carnival and shared a room with another couple!  Just because it was cheap and free drinks.  They didn't buy anything on the ship, so their inside cabin with the 4 of them I think Carnival lost money on that one.  

[muchofamuchness]

I also will miss it if it goes (and I'm in my mid-30s, and relatively new to cruising, so it's not just a generational thing). I like being able to have a nice point of structure during the day around which I can plan other things, but it's the "same waiters" aspect of Traditional Dining" that I really like. I appreciate little things like the waiters quickly figuring out what kind of bread rolls we like and what drinks we always start with. I'm definitely not anti -Medallion - I actually thought it was great on our December 2019 Regal cruise - but there are some personal touches and human elements that AI and machine learning can't replace.

 

Also, as someone who's cruised solo before, I think I'd have found my first cruise much less enjoyable if I hadn't been set up with tablemates who I would spend time with throughout the cruise.

[mellon1]

Yes, we always looked forward to dining time and seeing our waiter and assistant waiter.  Call us boring, but it was often the highlight of our day!

[Turk1]

Agree with mellon1. Enjoy the time to slow down and have time to go over the days activities. If you are boring then so are we! LOL

[voljeep]

I quess we are just different - we look at the paper patter the night before, semi-plan what activity(s), shows, etc we may want to do, ... then fit dinner in around those plans.

 

most meals , including those on a cruise ship, are not "events" to us, sorry.  I care nothing about 'getting to know' waiters / staff ( maybe that will change when we start taking longer cruises if/when that may happen now )

[Tedferg]

As stated in much earlier discussions on this topic. PCL have three dining rooms, two of them were assigned to first sitting TD one was for Anytime. One TD switched to Anytime at 7:00.

a) I believe there was an increased demand for Anytime

b) Also believe second sitting TD was underused. Possibly second sitting was too late for many.

c) PCL brought TD times earlier to make second sitting more attractive. There were screams of annoyance that now first sitting was way too early.

d) Lots of requests for Reservations at Anytime.

How do you fix all of this ? Convert all dining rooms to Anytime; allow flexible Reservations; allow Fixed Reservations same time / same table / same staff - but avoid having to choose First or Second sitting.

 

What is wrong with this plan ???? Answer, nothing but the implementation via Medallion Class is a failure.

[RNRcruisers]

9 hours ago, muchofamuchness said:

I also will miss it if it goes (and I'm in my mid-30s, and relatively new to cruising, so it's not just a generational thing). I like being able to have a nice point of structure during the day around which I can plan other things, but it's the "same waiters" aspect of Traditional Dining" that I really like. I appreciate little things like the waiters quickly figuring out what kind of bread rolls we like and what drinks we always start with.

 

Exactly! For us, it is one less thing that we have to think about. We know we have dinner at 7:30 and plan around it.