Dine My Way & all new Dining questions since cruising restart!!

[ricka47]

Our last Princess cruise was 20 years ago, and they had just implemented a form of "My Way" dining, which was so bad that we switched to TD midway. They gave us beepers, and we had to wait up to 45 minutes for a table.

 

For this cruise, I have some specialty restaurants booked but mostly made reservations in the MDR for 6:20 PM. Do they actually have a table set aside, or is there just a line for people with reservations, and it's first-come, first-served?

 

I'm guessing that there are people who make reservations and forget to cancel them or have something else come up or stay at the bar too long. I plan to cancel the reservation if we change plans, but I would think that many don't do that, which would make actually holding a table for a reservation impossible?

Edited March 29, 2023 by ricka47

[pompeii]

I'm trying to make dmw reservations for a cruise in September and the page gives me an option to select a private table for 2 at various times.  But when I select a private table for a dining room and time, when the confirmation appears it's for a shared table.  I can't seem to get a table for 2 to stick.  I've tried it for a couple of different time slots.  Are there any tricks?  

 

It seems to take the table for two reservations when I do it day by day instead of for the entire voyage.  But it's a b2b2b and over 30 days so making all those separate reservations is a bit tedious...

[that]

1 hour ago, pompeii said:

I'm trying to make dmw reservations for a cruise in September and the page gives me an option to select a private table for 2 at various times.  But when I select a private table for a dining room and time, when the confirmation appears it's for a shared table.  I can't seem to get a table for 2 to stick.  I've tried it for a couple of different time slots.  Are there any tricks?  

 

It seems to take the table for two reservations when I do it day by day instead of for the entire voyage.  But it's a b2b2b and over 30 days so making all those separate reservations is a bit tedious...

So very tedious😡

[damiross]

I solved the problem of making reservations by not making reservations. I don't know what time I want to eat tomorrow much less weeks from now.

 

On past cruises, if we wanted to eat in a MDR we made reservations in the morning. 

 

Most of our MDR eating was done at breakfast.

[Steelers36]

3 hours ago, pompeii said:

I'm trying to make dmw reservations for a cruise in September and the page gives me an option to select a private table for 2 at various times.  But when I select a private table for a dining room and time, when the confirmation appears it's for a shared table.  I can't seem to get a table for 2 to stick.  I've tried it for a couple of different time slots.  Are there any tricks?  

 

It seems to take the table for two reservations when I do it day by day instead of for the entire voyage.  But it's a b2b2b and over 30 days so making all those separate reservations is a bit tedious...

I recall reading of this bug situation at least a couple of times in the recent past.  Clearly yet another DMW bug.  The booking for entire voyage option is simply a shortcut for guests that is supposed to avoid having to do it once per day of the voyage.  It does not necessarily post you into the same table. 

 

Doesn't make sense as the feature worked back in 2022.

[pompeii]

8 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

I recall reading of this bug situation at least a couple of times in the recent past.  Clearly yet another DMW bug.  The booking for entire voyage option is simply a shortcut for guests that is supposed to avoid having to do it once per day of the voyage.  It does not necessarily post you into the same table. 

 

Doesn't make sense as the feature worked back in 2022.

I wound up going through and making a reservation for each day and I'm hoping it sticks.  We just got off the Enchanted and the reservations they showed were different than the ones I know I made.  I had booked a table for two in one of the center dining rooms, and they showed a shared table in the dining room in the back of the ship.  We finally wound up with a table we wanted but a half hour earlier than planned. All good.

 

However, I did wake up this morning with an email for each and every day informing me of the cancelled reservations and another email for each day showing the new reservations.  I didn't count, but 60+ emails...lol

[damiross]

21 hours ago, damiross said:

I solved the problem of making reservations by not making reservations. I don't know what time I want to eat tomorrow much less weeks from now.

 

On past cruises, if we wanted to eat in a MDR we made reservations in the morning. 

 

Most of our MDR eating was done at breakfast.

Regardless of what I said earlier, my wife wants to go to the DMR for formal night (which, if I'm not mistaken, is the 1st sea day).  Unless someone wants to take petty on me and tells me how to do it, I need to go through this topic to find out how to get a non-private table.  We enjoy meeting others in the MDR.  All I can get is a private table. 

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, damiross said:

Regardless of what I said earlier, my wife wants to go to the DMR for formal night (which, if I'm not mistaken, is the 1st sea day).  Unless someone wants to take petty on me and tells me how to do it, I need to go through this topic to find out how to get a non-private table.  We enjoy meeting others in the MDR.  All I can get is a private table. 

If you cannot book a sharing table in DMW, then ask on board at the DR.  I am wondering if they are removing sharing for pre-cruise booking for some reason (like it wasn't working to suit what guests wanted perhaps???).

[foodsvcmgr]

After reading this thread for the last couple years and seeing the endless difficulty and frustration, has anyone heard even a murmur about ever resuming traditional dining as an option?

It amazes me that Princess is so enamored with their questionable technology that they won’t even consider relenting a bit in just one MDR maybe.

I see a couple of newly announced Caribbean sailings for 2025 that look interesting but the dining is just a downer for me.

And yes I’m clear on how MTD is supposed to work.

[sabookkeeper]

2 hours ago, foodsvcmgr said:

After reading this thread for the last couple years and seeing the endless difficulty and frustration, has anyone heard even a murmur about ever resuming traditional dining as an option?

It amazes me that Princess is so enamored with their questionable technology that they won’t even consider relenting a bit in just one MDR maybe.

I see a couple of newly announced Caribbean sailings for 2025 that look interesting but the dining is just a downer for me.

And yes I’m clear on how MTD is supposed to work.

My DH and I were just talking about this last night.  When will Princess consider going back to having one dining room for the traditional dining.  My son and son-in-law are coming on our next cruise with us and we've talked about how nice it is doing the traditional dining.  It will be their first cruise and with all the problems I am reading about I'm worried it might be a discouragement for them to cruise again.

[Thrak]

2 hours ago, sabookkeeper said:

My DH and I were just talking about this last night.  When will Princess consider going back to having one dining room for the traditional dining.  My son and son-in-law are coming on our next cruise with us and we've talked about how nice it is doing the traditional dining.  It will be their first cruise and with all the problems I am reading about I'm worried it might be a discouragement for them to cruise again.

 

We are sailing next April with one of our sons, his wife, and their daughter. It will be their first cruise ever and I made the dining arrangements. We have a private table for 5 at the same time every night. It was extremely easy to do. I really don't understand why so many people have such a hard time making dining arrangements. If you want to have "traditional" dining make sure you have added your son and son-in-law as cruising companions (using their booking number(s)) and then book a table for your group at the same time every night. In our case it "may" have helped that we booked dining for 5:40 PM rather than trying to book at "prime time". This will be our third cruise since the restart and I haven't had any real issues with booking my dining for the same time every night.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Thrak

[julie3fan]

15 minutes ago, Thrak said:

I really don't understand why so many people have such a hard time making dining arrangements. If you want to have "traditional" dining....

 

As I understand it from many posts, and for me as well, it isn't necessarily the difficulty actually making the reservations due to the quirky app, it's the lack of a shared table with the same "strangers" every night, same table, same time.  Sure, currently you can request a shared table, but it will likely be shared with different people every night.  You *might* get lucky the first night with a shared table where everybody clicks *and* wants to commit to requesting the same arrangement from then on out, but that seems pretty unlikely.  

[Thrak]

4 minutes ago, julie3fan said:

 

As I understand it from many posts, and for me as well, it isn't necessarily the difficulty actually making the reservations due to the quirky app, it's the lack of a shared table with the same "strangers" every night, same table, same time.  Sure, currently you can request a shared table, but it will likely be shared with different people every night.  You *might* get lucky the first night with a shared table where everybody clicks *and* wants to commit to requesting the same arrangement from then on out, but that seems pretty unlikely.  

 

Ahhh... that makes sense. Thanks for straightening me out on the issue. We did "sharing" on one of our recent cruises. We had the same time every night but, as you said, we didn't have the same people every night. We had the same table for several nights and then found ourselves at a different table with different people after that. It was unfortunate because we had an excellent server for embarkation lunch and then had the same server at the first table. When we were moved - from a table by a window to a table in middle of the dining room - we ended up with new wait staff.

 

I can understand wanting to sit with the same people every night. We met a really great couple who were at our dinner table on a 28 day cruise and we are still in touch and have cruised together a few times. (We have also been seated - on a different cruise - with an extremely "important" person who made sure everybody knew exactly how "important" he was. I don't think I was the only person at the table who considered strangling the guy. Then there was the time we had a table fore 8 and the other 6 were a "group" who sometimes didn't show up so we were sitting at a huge table by ourselves. Traditional sharing can be pretty hit or miss.

[julie3fan]

3 hours ago, Thrak said:

Traditional sharing can be pretty hit or miss.

 

Absolutely!  We've been fortunate to have always been assigned to a table with folks roughly the same demographics as us, and have always thoroughly enjoyed our dining companions and experience.  We've also wittnessed neighboring tables that we would have asked to be moved from after the first evening. 

 

I think Princess would do well having one dining room assigned as traditional dining, leaving the other two as the current DMW.  

[Steelers36]

10 hours ago, foodsvcmgr said:

After reading this thread for the last couple years and seeing the endless difficulty and frustration, has anyone heard even a murmur about ever resuming traditional dining as an option?

It amazes me that Princess is so enamored with their questionable technology that they won’t even consider relenting a bit in just one MDR maybe.

I see a couple of newly announced Caribbean sailings for 2025 that look interesting but the dining is just a downer for me.

And yes I’m clear on how MTD is supposed to work.

You can get the TD experience by booking same time each night in DMW App at a private table.  Is that what you want - to dine with companion alone?  On board, ask DR Mgmt to keep you at the same table each night. 

 

If you are looking to share with the same group, that is not very likely and depends a lot on who you first seat with and their preferences.

 

7 hours ago, sabookkeeper said:

My DH and I were just talking about this last night.  When will Princess consider going back to having one dining room for the traditional dining.  My son and son-in-law are coming on our next cruise with us and we've talked about how nice it is doing the traditional dining.  It will be their first cruise and with all the problems I am reading about I'm worried it might be a discouragement for them to cruise again.

Set up each other in your Princess App as Travel Companions, using each other's booking code.  Then, you or son makes the res in DMW App for same time each night at a Private table.  But first include the other party as dining companions and you will be making a res for 4 people at a private table.  When you get on the ship, just ask DR Mgmt to block you into the same table each night so you keep the same wait staff and there you have the TD experience at the time you have chosen.

[capriccio]

On 3/28/2023 at 5:12 PM, capriccio said:

We (group of 6) are on a 28 day Round Australia cruise beginning on Sunday.  I had booked a private table for 6 pm.  Beginning yesterday I began receiving an email for each day’s booking:

 

 

Not a big change but we will have to start happy hour earlier!

A follow up to the above post now that we are on board…

 

We showed up at 5:40 yesterday evening and were shown to an excellent table with experienced and attentive wait staff.  They encouraged us to reserve it for the entire cruise.  I replied I already planned to do so.  The Head Waiter (in charge of that MDR, not the whatever the maitre’ d is now called) replied great, be here each night at 5:20!  I explained twice that our reservations made more than a year ago had been changed by Princess to 5:40 last week.  He went on about what a great table it is and staff and if it was still available when we arrived at 5:40 it was ours otherwise he would find us another table - want to bet it would never be available?!  Finally he said the rule is to hold them unfortunately 10 minutes so be there by 5:30 and the table is ours.  Even though I’ve had my doubts and issues with MDR reservations since we resumed cruising last year this is getting worse not better especially when traveling with a group.  Our family of 8 is on the Caribbean Princess this summer and who knows when we will eat.

[sabookkeeper]

20 hours ago, Thrak said:

 

We are sailing next April with one of our sons, his wife, and their daughter. It will be their first cruise ever and I made the dining arrangements. We have a private table for 5 at the same time every night. It was extremely easy to do. I really don't understand why so many people have such a hard time making dining arrangements. If you want to have "traditional" dining make sure you have added your son and son-in-law as cruising companions (using their booking number(s)) and then book a table for your group at the same time every night. In our case it "may" have helped that we booked dining for 5:40 PM rather than trying to book at "prime time". This will be our third cruise since the restart and I haven't had any real issues with booking my dining for the same time every night.

I do have our dining booked for the same time every night for a table of 4.  However, reading through this post there is no guarantee we will be sat at the same table, with the same wait staff.  Also, people are saying that even with reservations there could still be a wait to be seated.

[sabookkeeper]

15 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

You can get the TD experience by booking same time each night in DMW App at a private table.  Is that what you want - to dine with companion alone?  On board, ask DR Mgmt to keep you at the same table each night. 

 

If you are looking to share with the same group, that is not very likely and depends a lot on who you first seat with and their preferences.

 

Set up each other in your Princess App as Travel Companions, using each other's booking code.  Then, you or son makes the res in DMW App for same time each night at a Private table.  But first include the other party as dining companions and you will be making a res for 4 people at a private table.  When you get on the ship, just ask DR Mgmt to block you into the same table each night so you keep the same wait staff and there you have the TD experience at the time you have chosen.

Thanks for the info.  I have included them as our dining companions and because we are platinum we can book dining right away (our cruise isn't until December 30th).  I had not option to book a shared table which is what we originally wanted to do.  However, as others have said, I also don't want to be sitting with different people each night.  

[Thrak]

37 minutes ago, sabookkeeper said:

I do have our dining booked for the same time every night for a table of 4.  However, reading through this post there is no guarantee we will be sat at the same table, with the same wait staff.  Also, people are saying that even with reservations there could still be a wait to be seated.

 

Our experience with booking a table for 4 at the same time every night was:  The first night we asked if we could have that same table every night and were told "probably not". The second night - and every night thereafter - we were seated at a different table than the first night but had the same table every night. We were booked with another couple. Whoever showed up first was escorted to "our" table and when the other couple arrived they were also escorted to our table. It was easy and we never really had to wait other than having maybe 1 or 2 couples ahead of us.

[G&T Cruisers]

We were on the Island Princess for a two week cruise over Christmas & New Year and had reserved a table for 2 we asked to have the same table for the 14 days and it was no problem even when our friends decided to join us and we changed to a table for 4 it was never a problem.

[jsn55]

Seems to me that (as usual) dealing directly with the dining staff will get you whatever your little heart desires.  The crew wants us to be happy ... the medallion app doesn't care if we're happy.

 

.

Edited April 4, 2023 by jsn55
change tense

[memoak]

1 hour ago, jsn55 said:

Seems to me that (as usual) dealing directly with the dining staff will get you whatever your little heart desires.  The crew wants us to be happy ... the medallion app doesn't care if we're happy.

 

.

Staff will do what they can but they cannot make a particular table magically appear at a particular time 

[Kay S]

In the (seemingly) never-ending chore of using up FCC, we're booked on a Norway cruise in June.  I managed to book us every evening at 6:20 for shared tables.  We shall see how it shakes out this time.

[Dorinda]

I'm a solo cruiser who likes to dine at a shared table every night around 7 or 7:30.  On my last cruise, this didn't work at all.  I was told I have to dine earlier to have a chance to be seated at a shared table.  One evening, since I didn't want to dine alone, I ended up having a hot dog for dinner up on deck.  Very disappointing.  

 

I believe I'll have to go back to Cunard if I don't want to eat at 5 or 6 and don't want to dine alone.

 

Sure wish Princess would change this policy.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, Dorinda said:

I'm a solo cruiser who likes to dine at a shared table every night around 7 or 7:30.  On my last cruise, this didn't work at all.  I was told I have to dine earlier to have a chance to be seated at a shared table.  One evening, since I didn't want to dine alone, I ended up having a hot dog for dinner up on deck.  Very disappointing.  

 

I believe I'll have to go back to Cunard if I don't want to eat at 5 or 6 and don't want to dine alone.

 

Sure wish Princess would change this policy.

Sounds like an odd experience to me.  Which ship?  They are still taking walk-ups and other reports have indicated they ask people (encouragingly I believe) if they want to share. I believe they are still putting together folks like that. Just realize it is going to most likely be a different group of folks in a different location each night - unless the entire table agrees wants to continue at the same time and the DR staff can actually block it in.