Current Britannia late sitting experience

[aday10]

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the current situation is with the late sitting time in the Britannia restaurant?
 

E.g

1. is it still needing to be booked? and if so, can you book a time slot on the first day for your whole cruise? 
2. if you have a linked booking and only want to dine with those passengers, will you be given an allocated table or a different table each night? 
3. if you are able to book a time slot for the whole cruise, do you get the same waiters? 
 

And finally has anyone thought the restaurant has gone down hill with the mew changes? 

[frankp01]

7 minutes ago, aday10 said:

has anyone thought the restaurant has gone down hill with the mew changes?

I don't recall the specifics well enough to be able to answer questions 1-3 very well. We tended to just queue when we were ready to dine each night, and never had an issue. But, with the greatly reduced occupancy there were always lots of tables open. If the open late seating is retained when full occupancy returns you might very well need to reserve.

 

However, several in our group thought the food was actually much better than our last trip several years ago.

[aday10]

4 minutes ago, frankp01 said:

I don't recall the specifics well enough to be able to answer questions 1-3 very well. We tended to just queue when we were ready to dine each night, and never had an issue. But, with the greatly reduced occupancy there were always lots of tables open. If the open late seating is retained when full occupancy returns you might very well need to reserve.

 

However, several in our group thought the food was actually much better than our last trip several years ago.

thats good news about the quality of food! 
 

@frankp01 what month did you sail? 
 

The reason why I asked questions 1-3 is that I would prefer to have the same waiter each evening, and be able to dine at the same time. As per the standard of the Britannia restaurant pre covid. Obviously I understand Covid is very much still around I was just wondering if anyone had any experience of requesting these or had they started to be introduced. 
 

A cruise I am looking at is on the QE and it’s £200 more per stateroom for club balcony. I don’t really think it’s worth it, if I can have the same waiter each night and dine at the same time. However if this is not an option then I may consider it. 
 

I believe the QE’s club restaurant has not been updated recently either. QV’s club restaurant is beautiful, however I wouldn’t say the service was better than the Britannia. 

[frankp01]

8 minutes ago, aday10 said:

what month did you sail? 

We disembarked in NYC, just prior to the current Barbados voyage.

For part of the trip we were with a group, and we were able to request the same table each night from the maitre d'. Unless you specifically ask for it, I believe you would normally have a different table each time. Frankly, I consider it an advantage to be able to dine at slightly different times. Dining at the same time, especially as late as 8:30, was sometimes less than optimal. When we requested the same table for our group, we obviously had the same wait staff. When we rotated tables and dining times I did miss having the same waiters.

[sandancer]

We were on the Elizabeth sailing on 13th December. On the first day we booked a table for 2 at 7.45 for all of the nights we were not eating in The Promenade (which by the way was spectacular). After the 2nd night the maitre’d asked if we would like “our” table so we had the same waiter throughout. It has been 5 years since we cruised on this ship and the food and service are way improved. Everything was great. We experienced no grumpy wait or bar staff as we did last time. Lovely, friendly, helpful crew. We won’t leave it another 5 years. Sorry for going off topic. 

[aday10]

Thank sandancer, that reassures me that you can book your usual table after the first night. Could you tell me what the promenade is? Or do you mean the verandah? 
 

I think if my cruise does not go ahead I will consider booking the A balcony on another cruise. I have always been happy with the Britannia but was wondering about the experience with the new rules etc. 

[sandancer]

I beg your pardon. Of course I mean the Verandah. I would book that restaurant again just for the lobster cocktail!

[Host Hattie]

No need to apologise, it's good to get some positive news, things are a bit gloomy round here at the moment !

[ovccruiser]

It may depend on the ship, recently on QE late dinner was 7:45pm to 9:00pm and the table had to be booked. When you arrived at you allotted time you were asked what size table you would like as in table for 2,4,6 etc you were then shown to your table. I have a cruise booked for late February and asking the question, Cunard advised that is still the system. You may be able to negotiate with the Maitre'd to give you the same table each night and also with the same people on your table if you like company of others, obviously negotiated with them also. This was done on my cruise in October.

 

Forgot, table times can be reserved at the Pursur's desk and you can book the same time every night with them in one go, you do not have to book each day..

Edited December 31, 2021 by ovccruiser

[seasickphil]

We disembarked the Queen Elizabeth on  Dec 13th, there was 4 of us and on the first 2 nights we booked via the My Voyage App for 7.45pm after speaking to our waiters, we were told that if we wanted the same table we should speak to the maitre'd, this we did but was told that we could only have the same table if it was available when we arrived. He did tell us though that there was no need to book on the app and that if we went on deck 3 to enter Britannia and not deck 2, we could arrive and be seated earlier than 7.45pm if we wished.We never went earlier but did go without booking every evening at around 8.00pm and apart from the last night when we were later than 8.00pm we got either one of the same 2 tables side by side with the same waiters.Things could obviously be different on subsequent cruises, although we were told that Cunard could be looking at bringing these procedures in on future cruises, this would not suit everyone i know but for us anytime dinning is fine. The one thing we found was that when asked, the waiters did not seem to be aware of the always available items (not shown on the menu) if there was nothing on the menu that took your fancy, they had to get the maitre'd who then quickly sorted everything out.

 

 

 

[seasickphil]

Aday10,

Regarding the food, our companions were sailing for the first time on Cunard and they thought the food was very good. We ourselves thought the food to be no where near as good as previous sailings, there wasn't any, what i call premium fish dishes on the menu including on the three Gala nights. To be fair to Cunard, after the last 20 months where it has cost Carnival millions of pounds, cut backs can only be expected. The cruise we just had, with all the restrictions of Covid to us was way inferior to pre Covid cruises but what can we expect in these very uncertain times. Everybody like different things on a cruise, we much prefer anytime/freedom dining, call it what you want, to fixed dining, in fact 90% of our cruises in the last 10 years have been when you can dine when you want, so i am probably not the best person to advise you. If you can get a Club Balcony though for only £200 extra then i would definitely go for that, whilst we haven't been in a Club Balcony, we have been in Princess & Queens Grills and there you have the same table & waiters for the duration of the cruise, so i would expect the same to apply to dining in the Club Balcony restaurant.

[frankp01]

18 hours ago, seasickphil said:

Regarding the food, our companions were sailing for the first time on Cunard and they thought the food was very good. We ourselves thought the food to be nowhere near as good as previous sailings, there wasn't any, what i call premium fish dishes on the menu

We were travelling with two who were on Cunard for the first time. Their previous experience has primarily been with Celebrity. They both thought the food (in Britannia) was much better than that on Celebrity. I found that a surprise, since I'd always heard good things about dining on Celebrity. I thought the food was very good, as well. Being primarily a vegan I wasn't paying close attention to the ingredients. I thought the dishes I had were all very tasty, and my companions both thought their dishes were very good, as well. The sole one night was particularly good.

[foodsvcmgr]

Good news about the food quality, not good from my perspective as far as eliminating late traditional dining.

Same thing happening at Princess.

The rub is that now in order to dine late at the same table one is forced to upgrade to Club.

£200 is not too bad, sometimes even a 7 day cruise the upgrade is more like £1000!

[sandancer]

The advantage of open dining is being able to choose a time. For us early it too early and late is too late. 7.45 is just right. We were not the only ones able to have the same table/waiter every night. Looking around us we saw the same people at the same table every night even though we were initially told this was not possible. However, you do have to take into account that the ship was not full. Full capacity would mean it would be harder to arrange this. 

[PORT ROYAL]

5 minutes ago, foodsvcmgr said:

Good news about the food quality, not good from my perspective as far as eliminating late traditional dining.

Same thing happening at Princess.

The rub is that now in order to dine late at the same table one is forced to upgrade to Club.

£200 is not too bad, sometimes even a 7 day cruise the upgrade is more like £1000!

There is always the option to dine in the Verandah or King’s Court/Lido Alternative, with or without a balcony stateroom.

 

[wenlyn]

On 12/30/2021 at 1:50 AM, aday10 said:

I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the current situation is with the late sitting time in the Britannia restaurant?
 

E.g

1. is it still needing to be booked? and if so, can you book a time slot on the first day for your whole cruise? 
2. if you have a linked booking and only want to dine with those passengers, will you be given an allocated table or a different table each night? 
3. if you are able to book a time slot for the whole cruise, do you get the same waiters? 
 

And finally has anyone thought the restaurant has gone down hill with the mew changes? 

We were on QM2 1/12/21 for 12 nights and had second sitting open dining. We managed to get the same table the for 3 nights and managed to dine with a couple we met the 2nd night for the rest of the cruise but it was way more trouble than before and was resulted in embarrassing confusion on one night 😞 We also found it made retrieving your wine more of a performance than when you dine at the same place every night. The staff are still great at remembering when you do return to their zone but we didn't like it as much.

 

That said the food was really good, although there were fewer nights I felt spoilt for choice. I would say the menu has been modernised and globalised compared to last time we were onboard. 

 

I would hope that if the change remains longterm someone will come up with an app or a roll call feature that allows you to link up with others who'd be happy to locate others who are interested in creating a set table experience so you can meet up and put that in place rather than having to hope you come across a tableful of them in the first day or so on board

 

 

[foodsvcmgr]

Couldn’t all this be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction by allocating Britannia upper levels to traditional fixed dining and the lower floor to open seating just as Holland America does?

[watsonbeau]

What time do the 2nd sittings start ? Is it from about 7pm ? We are on first at the moment but I have always found 6pm too early but 8.30pm too late so on balance have tended to opt for 1st. 
 

So am thinking of trying 2nd if 7pm -ish possible. Thank you.

[majortom10]

2 hours ago, watsonbeau said:

What time do the 2nd sittings start ? Is it from about 7pm ? We are on first at the moment but I have always found 6pm too early but 8.30pm too late so on balance have tended to opt for 1st. 
 

So am thinking of trying 2nd if 7pm -ish possible. Thank you.

Not that earlly if my memory serves me right on our cruise I think it was after 7-15pm but it could have been pushed further to 7-45pm since.

[watsonbeau]

I think I might leave as 1st until onboard then see what options are open. 7:30 ok but wouldn’t want later. Thank you 

[majortom10]

I think it was pushed to a later time because those on first sitting at 6pm struggled or felt rushed. On the very first cruise on QE a UK Seacation in August first sitting was 5-30pm but that didnt go down well so that is why times have changed.

[Glad Bailey]

Although strictly not a dining question,could someone on QE advise

the times of the shows in the theatre

 

Many thanks

[sandancer]

On 13th December sailing they were 8pm and 10pm. 

[Glad Bailey]

Thanks Sandancer

[SybilUnrest]

On 1/1/2022 at 10:41 AM, frankp01 said:

We were travelling with two who were on Cunard for the first time. Their previous experience has primarily been with Celebrity. They both thought the food (in Britannia) was much better than that on Celebrity. I found that a surprise, since I'd always heard good things about dining on Celebrity. I thought the food was very good, as well. Being primarily a vegan I wasn't paying close attention to the ingredients. I thought the dishes I had were all very tasty, and my companions both thought their dishes were very good, as well. The sole one night was particularly good.

Would love to know more details on the vegan options; we are sailing on QM2 this summer and I had resigned myself to dull food, but it sounds like this was not your experience!