Dear Princess Management, I Hope You Read This

[foodsvcmgr]

Kay - I 100% agree with everything you are saying.

I don’t desire to prohibit anyone the opportunity for open seatings that wants it, why does everyone delight in my loss of TD?

After a number of Princess cruises my future bookings are currently with HAL and Celebrity with late seating TD confirmed.

I have voted with my feet, certainly most on this thread will say good riddance.

[NownZen]

5 hours ago, Wakepatrol said:

If traditional dining was such a flop why were peoples faces pressed against the glass of the dining room doors at 4:58 

every night like they hadn’t eaten in a month?

 

1 hour ago, Kay S said:

Regardless of the numbers of people at the windows or up the stairs or the number of people who never liked TD in the first place, the fact remains that there are still people on this board who liked it and are sorry to see it go.  The only recourse now is to switch to lines that still offer TD (and yes, they do exist) but I still feel sad for the OP who wished the Princess he knew and loved had not eliminated something he valued.  I am, frankly, surprised by the number of responses here that celebrate his disappointment.  I have seen very few "sorry for you but I prefer the new way" but more "my way is better, get over yourself."  OP, I am very sorry you have lost something you valued, and I will not celebrate your misery.  The goodwill we used to see on Princess ships is apparently a thing of the past.  

 

This will now devolve into a chorus of TD foes telling us we are wrong for not agreeing with them.

We are not a foe of TD but we just do not like it and eat in the buffet where we can eat when we want, how much we want and take whatever amount of time we want. There are people who enjoy the TD and that is fine. It is just not for everyone.

[Kay S]

1 hour ago, NownZen said:

 

We are not a foe of TD but we just do not like it and eat in the buffet where we can eat when we want, how much we want and take whatever amount of time we want. There are people who enjoy the TD and that is fine. It is just not for everyone.

I was not directing my remarks to you but to some here who have been borderline hostile and downright mean to the person who started this.  You don't like TD, no problem.  You don't tell someone who does he is wrong and it's his "turn to endure something he doesn't like."  I just don't understand why some feel it's necessary to be nasty and celebrate another person's disappointment. 

 

Is this a glimpse of the "new Princess"?

Edited October 2, 2022 by Kay S

[Kay S]

1 hour ago, foodsvcmgr said:

Kay - I 100% agree with everything you are saying.

I don’t desire to prohibit anyone the opportunity for open seatings that wants it, why does everyone delight in my loss of TD?

After a number of Princess cruises my future bookings are currently with HAL and Celebrity with late seating TD confirmed.

I have voted with my feet, certainly most on this thread will say good riddance.

My last cruise was late seating HAL and I had so much fun!  See you there!

[Wakepatrol]

3 hours ago, SantaFeFan said:

 

 

How do you know that there were hundreds of people waiting "out the door and up the stairs" every night at 4:48? You had to have been one of those hundreds every night to know that. 😇

No we eat at 8:15- 8:30 when cruising. Even on the second seating we would be the last on the long line of people waiting for the dining room doors to open, because we were running late.

[Wakepatrol]

3 hours ago, PTMary said:

 

We traveled with a couple who liked to enter the dining room right when it opened when traditional dining was the norm, and we would sometimes join them waiting at the doors if we all had a drink together in one of the lounges. I never - repeat - NEVER saw "hundreds" of people waiting to enter. Two or three dozens, perhaps, by absolutely not "hundreds". 

 

And I would guess that the people who arrived early wanted to pick their favorite chairs at their assigned table. On a cruise for just the two of us, we shared a table that was located in a corner with six other people who always arrived before us - they might have been waiting before the doors opened as you have observed. We spent every dinner during the entire cruise staring at these six people and the blank wall behind them. Never once did any of them offer to switch places so we could look out towards the dining room at least one time. And they pretty much kept their conversations between the six of them. In retrospect, I wish we had arrived before opening at least once to score the better seats. Unfortunately, I often take too much time getting ready, and we always arrived after everyone else.

 

I am so happy that traditional dining has gone the way of the dinosaurs! No more of those bad table problems!

I have no experience with this we always request a table for two. I’m sorry you had these problems. On a side note. There’s presently 1,315 threads on the app not working. We took a cruise this summer, app didn’t work never used only to open door and could care less about it.

We had a couple of dud waiters then found Fisher and asked for him when we went to the dining room each evening and all went great. I like the same waiter each evening so I can find out about him/her and get to know them

[Guest ldtr]

2 hours ago, foodsvcmgr said:

Kay - I 100% agree with everything you are saying.

I don’t desire to prohibit anyone the opportunity for open seatings that wants it, why does everyone delight in my loss of TD?

After a number of Princess cruises my future bookings are currently with HAL and Celebrity with late seating TD confirmed.

I have voted with my feet, certainly most on this thread will say good riddance.

The problem Princess and the other cruise lines have faced is that they have limited dining capacity. Even prior to Covid it was becoming pretty clear that the number of people signing up for and actually showing up for traditional dining was dropping fairly rapidly. I used to always sign up for traditional dining. Have been doing about 50 to 70 cruise days a year on Princess. Since they started offering any time the number of people showing up, even in early TD has dropped rapidly. Princess used to have full TD dining rooms. In 2018 and 19 not so much. a lot of the tables would be empty, many of those with people would be half full.

 

Under the current system we have done 7 cruises on 4 different ships. We have had no problem getting the same effect as td. All you have to do is book the same time for the entire cruise. The time needs to be within 30 minutes of the dining room opening (basically when early td was) or around 7pm when late td was (makes sure the table is turned over from anyone dining early. Then the first night stop by the check in desk and tell them that you would like the same table each night for the cruise and give them the table number.  Has worked just fine for all 7 cruises.

 

Once that is done if you have a change of plans for 1 night just cancel the reservation for that night. That enables them to still use the table for someone else that night, but leaves everything in place for the rest of the cruise.

 

The only downside from the old td is that you still have to check in before going to your table every night, whereas with td you could just go directly to your table after the first night.  relatively minor issue.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by ldtr

[Guest ldtr]

2 minutes ago, Wakepatrol said:

I have no experience with this we always request a table for two. I’m sorry you had these problems. On a side note. There’s presently 1,315 threads on the app not working. We took a cruise this summer, app didn’t work never used only to open door and could care less about it.

We had a couple of dud waiters then found Fisher and asked for him when we went to the dining room each evening and all went great. I like the same waiter each evening so I can find out about him/her and get to know them

Yep and most of the problems have either been when the app was first released, or people with phones with insufficient cpu and memory to run the app, or those that just through up their hands at the first problem. There are still some issues, but not nearly has many assume would have you think.

 

We have found a lot of benefits from the app from the embarkation process, to on board functions (ordering, finding where other members of our party are on ship, changing dining reservations, etc)

[Kay S]

57 minutes ago, ldtr said:

 

 

The only downside from the old td is that you still have to check in before going to your table every night, whereas with td you could just go directly to your table after the first night.  relatively minor issue.

 

 

There are other downsides (from the viewpoint of old-time TDers.)  The old system would seat you with people at a table (we requested 6 tops) and you would meet them the first night.  You would have the same wait staff for the entire cruise.  It was often fun to meet new people and get to know them over the course of a cruise.  Long cruises, say 21 days, and you would often have new friends for life.  It was good knowing when and exactly where dinner would be, and there were never lines waiting to be seated.  It was not necessary to make a reservation every single day.  Show up, sit down, eat and have a good time.   Was it always perfect?  No.  But it was perfect more often than not.

 

I have been told it is possible to approximate TD with DMW, but I have heard of only a couple of people who have managed it.  Good for them, I say.

 

Now, I know some one doesn't like meeting new people, doesn't like eating at the same time every day, doesn't like the same wait staff and doesn't like eating with other people at all.  Got it.  I do like these things, but having seen the scorn displayed on this thread, I imagine I'll be hearing again about how TD is awful and how it serves me right it's gone.  (I have two cruises booked on two other lines where I'm going to enjoy TD, enjoy it very much, thank you.)

[Guest ldtr]

33 minutes ago, Kay S said:

There are other downsides (from the viewpoint of old-time TDers.)  The old system would seat you with people at a table (we requested 6 tops) and you would meet them the first night.  You would have the same wait staff for the entire cruise.  It was often fun to meet new people and get to know them over the course of a cruise.  Long cruises, say 21 days, and you would often have new friends for life.  It was good knowing when and exactly where dinner would be, and there were never lines waiting to be seated.  It was not necessary to make a reservation every single day.  Show up, sit down, eat and have a good time.   Was it always perfect?  No.  But it was perfect more often than not.

 

I have been told it is possible to approximate TD with DMW, but I have heard of only a couple of people who have managed it.  Good for them, I say.

 

Now, I know some one doesn't like meeting new people, doesn't like eating at the same time every day, doesn't like the same wait staff and doesn't like eating with other people at all.  Got it.  I do like these things, but having seen the scorn displayed on this thread, I imagine I'll be hearing again about how TD is awful and how it serves me right it's gone.  (I have two cruises booked on two other lines where I'm going to enjoy TD, enjoy it very much, thank you.)

Problem is that by 2018 and 2019, the random assignment of shared tables had broken down to a large degree. One could ask for a shared table and be lucky if one other couple even showed up.  

 

If you want a shared table under the new system ask for one, if you and the people you share the table with them ask at the check in desk after the first night for you to continue to share the rest of the cruise with the same people. Works just fine. some friends of ours who actually cruise more than we do take that approach and have had it work just fine  They even combined their table with 2 couples they met the first night on their last cruise with another couple that was friends with one of those two to fill out their 8 top for the rest of the cruise. Easily done under the new system, not aseasily done under the old. One just has to have a mind set aimed at how to make it work for what they want and then work with dining room personnel.

 

The key isthe time either when it opens similar to early TD or 7pm and make your reservation at thr same time. Then have the dining room personnel adjust the others that you want to stay at your table to your time and table.

Edited October 2, 2022 by ldtr

[Mike45LC]

If sui many people hated TD, why were we (and many other people) wait listed for Traditional Second Seating?   That suggested to me that the Late Seating fans more than filled an entire dining room.

[Guest ldtr]

54 minutes ago, Mike45LC said:

If sui many people hated TD, why were we (and many other people) wait listed for Traditional Second Seating?   That suggested to me that the Late Seating fans more than filled an entire dining room.

When?

 

Remember that while there was two dining rooms for early td and only one for late. they would often be wait listed prior to some cruises. Late td tended to be fuller  for European cruises, less so for US based cruises.  However by 2019 the waitlist prior to the cruise often did not match up to the number of people that actually showed up with many converting to anytime once actually on board. The norm originally was to default people into td first. 

[Kay S]

18 minutes ago, ldtr said:

When?

Used to happen all the time, back in the distant past before 2019.  Some of us have been cruising since the last century.🙂  Princess was a different cruise line then.

[Guest ldtr]

8 minutes ago, Kay S said:

Used to happen all the time, back in the distant past before 2019.  Some of us have been cruising since the last century.🙂  Princess was a different cruise line then.

key is back before 2019. Go back far enough and their was only td. Then anytime was introduced, but at the start the default was to put people into td, so often there would be waitlists.  but by 2019 and the start of 2020 such td waitlists were far less common, and even when they occurred precruise many would

 change to any time on board. For our last 5 cruises at the end of 2019 and just before the shutdown in 2020 we noticed many tables empty or half full during TD, with the TD dining rooms getting sent Any time over flow to fill in the empty tables. Of course while that did use the empty tables it did increase workload on the staff since a td dining room and an any time dining room operate with a different flow and pattern.

Edited October 2, 2022 by ldtr

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:40 AM, JimmyVWine said:

 Traditional Dining has its fans among the 300 or so people who post here regularly.  It is far from the favorite way of dining for the 1 million other Princess cruisers who never use CC.  Do you really think that Princess has not surveyed this and instead removed TD in the blind?  

 

I think Princess removed the TD not because they felt many people did not want it (after all, there were usually pre-cruise waitlists for at least one of the sittings), but because someone truly believed that DMW could replicate TD.

 

Of course this was probably the same someone who believed that if you made a reservation for a table at 7:30, that a table would actually always be available then.

 

Without TD with the same table at the same location at the same time every evening, you cannot walk directly into the dining room after the first evening and quickly get to your TD table. Instead, everyone, even those with reservations, must line up  just like the first evening and be escorted to an available table somewhere in the dining room.

 

And one feature of TD that is sorely missed is that if signed up for TD, the times were coordinated with Princess show times. Now you must make a wild guess months in advance of the cruise when showtimes might be and then decide on a time to reserve for dinner. Yes, Princess suggests several times for this, but at least two of those times are not the best timing option. If you wait until you know the show times pre-cruise, it is likely that the time slot you want is filled that close to embarkation.

[Kay S]

49 minutes ago, ldtr said:

  For our last 5 cruises at the end of 2019 and just before the shutdown in 2020 we noticed many tables empty or half full during TD, 

Your experience is yours.  Mine is mine, 27 Princess cruises on 15 ships.  I remember what happened.  I'm not senile yet.  🙂 

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:46 AM, travelin.sisters said:

we have been able to have the same table/staff for our entire cruise on all 3 cruises we have taken this year...I make a DMW reservation before sailing for the same time/dining room for the entire cruise, then the first night I check that we will have the same table each night & this has worked out for us.

 

Just to be sure, was the reservation for a time other than when the dining room first opens?

 

And did were the number of passengers close to 100% occupancy on your cruises?

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:51 AM, sonomaphil said:

I'll like to be the first to say we like Dine My Way and despise traditional dining.  Please take note of that Princess.  

 

DMY implemented properly is a good replacement for the past Anytime Dining when most passengers showed up when they wanted and often had to wait for a table. Theoretically, with DMW andone that used to have AT could schedle a time to arrive an be quickly seated.

 

But DMW and TD can still exist together. Based on pre-cruise demand for TD, just reserve the proper number of tables for TD at fixed times and thus with guaranteed seating at the scheduled arrival times. All the other tables could be used for DMW.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 12:51 PM, roxievegas said:

we were on a B2B cruise New England/Canada cruise on Caribbean, Aug 31 to Sept 20th.  We had logged on to app and tried to put in for 5:00 dining, but it would not allow us that time.  We waited until we were on board, and then tried again.  I was able to put in for private table for two every night for 5:00. 

 

Each time we reported to the dining room, we asked for the same table #101 - our waiter was Chris and we liked him after the first time and each time we got our same table.

 

 

That can easily work when you make a reservation for the time the dining room first opens.

 

But I wonder how well that would have worked if you had wanted a dining time of 6:20 instead of 5:00. Would that table #101 actually be available at that time every evening?

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 1:53 PM, JimmyVWine said:

  Some people long for the leisurely pace and congeniality of the old TD model.  But the increased passenger load simply does not allow for that any longer.  Princess knows this.  They aren't stupid.  

There is no reason that DMW dining cannot also have a leisurely pace. No matter what time you reserve a table for, once you are seated nobody will force you to eat quickly.

 

Unless Princess forces you to eat in xx minutes time, then the increased passenger load still cannot be accommodated in dining rooms that are not sized for the increased ship capacities.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 2:16 PM, NownZen said:

Was that why they would put us in traditional dining and wait list us for the anytime dining?

 

Princess never had a limit of how many people who could sign up for AT. The restriction was for how many could sign up for TD.

 

Carnival, on the other hand, did it the opposite way. There was a limit of how many could sign up for AT. Once that limit was reached, people were forved into TD.

 

But RCI, with a three level dining room, did it differently. One level was reserved for TD, one level for AT, with the third level having a combination of TD and AT, the number of TD tables on that level depending on the demand for that cruise.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 2:18 PM, JimmyVWine said:

And the complaints from the ATD people skyrocketed.  The Transitional MDR (early TD switching over to ATD) made the switch at 7:15.  The newer, larger ships simply cannot block out an MDR from 5:00-7:15 for one seating of people.  The math simply does not work.  

 

So the people that would have wanted TD at 5 PM will just show up at the now AT dining room at 5 PM. Same number of people showing up to occupy the same tables for up to 2 hours (or longer).

 

Making the dining room totally AT (with DMW) does not make eating (or service) any faster than when it was TD.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 2:57 PM, latebloomer56 said:

We like early TD  this will be our first cruise with DMW. Will see how it goes, I'm on a cruise so I know I will never go hungry 😁.

 

Early TD was when the two dining rooms first opened each evening.

 

So if you make a DMW reservation at that time for every evening, you have no problem being seated when the restaurant first opens. Almost like the old TD.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 5:11 PM, Kay S said:

That was a problem, true.  But since there is no Anytime Dining anymore, I guess people will just have to show up on time for their reservation.  Aren't some people just prone to being tardy?

 

AT still exists.

 

You do not have to make a reservation to eat in a dining room with DMW.

 

Just show up when you want to and, as in the past, you will be seated when a table is available which could be immediately or after a wait.

[caribill]

On 9/30/2022 at 6:00 PM, sloopsailor said:

One other comment: in days past, a few decades ago, traditional dining was the ONLY option. I remember cruises that had only the main dining room for a proper sit down dinner.

 

And I remember when, at least on Princess, this also applied to breakfast and lunch.

 

There were two seatings at each. If you had early TD for dinner, then you had early TD for breakfast and for lunch. They still just used one dining room for those two meals since demand was not there for more rooms.