Anytime dining is not at "any" time on the Diamond!

[skarletohara]

Well said, Shipkicker. I think we were on the same 9/25 cruise.

Yes, PC and/or anytime dining absolutely was the most inflexible experience
we've had as well.

All the dining issues aside, we did have a great time though!

[Tarheelbelle]

My experience with Personal Choise is that it has been getting worse as more people are choosing it. When we were on the Grand in 7/2001, it worked well and there was never an issue with getting seated whenever we showed up for dinner. On the Dawn Princess 11/01, it was also easy to be seated, and we did make reservations several nights with some peple we met on board. On the Sea Princess in 11/02, we began to experience some long lines and even on formal nights when we made resevations we had to wait for a very long time to be seated. On the Sun Princess 11/03, it was the worst! The Maitre d' flatly and curtly told us we had to make reservations for one of 2 times---can't remember what they were---and we couldn't get through to the reservation line most days. We made reservations for the second formal night and after waiting in line almost 45 minutes, we left the line and went to the Traditional Dining Room and spoke to the Maitre d' there, whom we had known and liked on the Dawn 2 years earlier. There was no line there, of course, as it was just after the second seating time. We told him about our experience and he quickly found a table for 8 where there were 2 unbooked seats! Ironically, several of the people at the table had been seated with us on the Dawn 2 years earlier! Just luck for us that night!

My traveling companion like PC dining even though there are a lot of glitches---and truly the concept is great, but it just doesn't work at present. I really prefer Traditional dining over the current PC situation.

I am wondering how it will be on the Coral this November. Anyone on the board with info on how that ship is doing in this regard currently?

[seafish]

We're booked on Diamond Aus/Nz cruise. We have always selected traditional late seating. But-for this return cruise decided on PC Anytime Dining. Reading all the distrurbing Diamond Dining comments begs the questions. Does Princess really view this as a problem? - is Princess planning to make any changes that may improve the PC dining process? We have really enjoyed our Princess experiences but - the PC problem as-is may require a cruise change if Princess has no intention of addressing this issue they tout so well as a competitive advantage. Your input appreciated. SeaFish

[tigre]

I have to say I absolutely love anytime dining. I'm booked on the Diamond in November, and will take all of the recommendations from this thread with me to navigate through the dining situation on that ship. I just have to wonder, why in the world they are making this more complex than it needs to be? You would think that Princess would benchmark against other cruise lines to determine what has been truly successful.

We were on the Norwegian Wind at the end of 2001 and experienced their freestyle dining for 19 days, and it was WONDERFUL. We waited only a few times the entire trip and no more than 10 minutes. Their system is simple. Only the specialty restaurants take reservations. When you arrive at one of the non-specialty dining rooms, they asked how many were in your party, and if you would mind sitting with others or prefer to sit alone (there were only 2 of us). Then they would seat you accordingly. We had a wonderful mix of dinners alone and dinners with several others throughout the cruise.

The issues I've read about on the Diamond make me think it's probably not a software issue....it would seem more like a management issue - either in the dining rooms and/or the kitchen. The elimination of reservations, would probably alleviate the conjestion by allowing everyone to actually go when they prefer. Heck, the daily newsletter could even recommend certain times to go to avoid the possibility of a wait.

Just my two cents....

tigre

[SueSea]

[quote name='tigre'] We were on the Norwegian Wind at the end of 2001 and experienced their freestyle dining for 19 days, and it was WONDERFUL. We waited only a few times the entire trip and no more than 10 minutes. Their system is simple. Only the specialty restaurants take reservations. When you arrive at one of the non-specialty dining rooms, they asked how many were in your party, and if you would mind sitting with others or prefer to sit alone (there were only 2 of us). Then they would seat you accordingly. [/QUOTE]
There is a big difference between NCL's Freestyle Dining & Princess' Anytime Dining. On NCL all the restaurants are Freestyle. There is no traditional dining. That means there are more (in fact, all) seats available to Freestyle diners. Their restaurants can offer more than two services per night per table due to their extended hours. Conversely, Princess has blocked off a number of seats for traditional dining. Those seats are only available for two seatings and are reserved for particular passengers. But traditional diners are allowed to use the Anytime Dining Rooms as well. When they do, the number of passengers desiring an Anytime seat increases, but the number of seats do not. I have heard that Princess plans to allow Anytime diners to occupy traditional seats when they know the traditional diner will be eating elsewhere that night (they may have already started this). But that will only alleviate the overcrowding problem somewhat, and they will get even more complaints about Anytime Dining not being Anytime at all.

[Lisa63]

From reading these posts and others, it appears that one of the problems is that Traditional diners are welcome to use the Anytime Dining rooms at the same time as the Anytime diners. IMO -- and as one who is confirmed for Traditional on my upcoming cruise -- this is plain wrong. There should be a system in place which gives priority to Anytime Diners, or at least limits Traditional diners to non-peak hours. After all, the menus from the Anytime Dining rooms are available in the Traditional Dining room, from what I've heard. (Somebody please correct me if needed.)

[Shipkicker]

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]The problem as I see it seems to be with the Diamond and (I suspect) Sapphire Princess. On the sun class ships and the grand class ships they have the traditional dining room and an anytime dining room both serving the same menu, both (I believe) are the same size. Traditional is just that, two seating at specific times. The anytime dining room is open from (I believe) 5:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m where you can walk in and most likely be seating quickly.. Along with the two dining rooms there are two or three other dining options (Personal Choice), Sterling, Horizon, etc.. The problem as I see it on Diamond and Sapphire is that there is no anytime dining room; instead there are four other small restaurants. Therefore, those that could have chosen the anytime dining room are all trying to get into the other four along with the traditional diners that choose to skip the traditional dining.[/size][/font]

[font=Times New Roman][size=3]I won’t be sailing on the Diamond or Sapphire again because of this problem.[/size][/font]

[skarletohara]

And, I might add, I was really surprised at how scant the menu was for each of the 4 "specialty restaurants. Before sailing on Diamond, I was under the impression that there would be not such a limited menu for Mexican food.
i.e., When we finally were able to dine in Sante Fe, the menu was Catfish,
guacamole, Kahlua rice pudding and one other thing, I believe. I mean, I thought we would be able to pick from like 4 or 5 entrees in each specialty
restaurant instead of one or possibly two entrees! In Pacific Moon, the
specialty menu was dim sum? Sushi? I find it weird to mix chinese and japanese foods in the same restaurant to begin with. And then they had
some entree with shrimp in it and a couple other little things, but certainly
not an extensive menu, at least not one worth waiting for in any of the
4 restaurants! I think if Princess wants to do the 4 specialty restaurant thing, they should make it just that, a more extensive menu in each of the
4 restaurants OR, truly, I think they should just dispense with this specialty
notion and go back to all traditional menus with anytime dining WITHOUT reservations! Oh, the Sterling did have Prime Rib everynight and New York
steaks and a couple other things. I can't remember what Vivaldi had, but
as Princess always has a pasta dish on the menu anyway, Vivaldi's concept
is a bit redundant.

[coiran]

I think it is time to kill this thread - OK Chris??

[Shipkicker]

[quote name='coiran']I think it is time to kill this thread - OK Chris??[/QUOTE]OFF TOPIC! Princess really nees to address this problem on Diamond and Sapphire! (On Topic)

[susanv64]

Hey, Shipkicker! Nice to see you back on the boards! Interesting reading your comments regarding this dining problem. Before reading your post, I didn't realize the difference between the "Anytime dining rooms" and the "Personal Choice" dining. Get's a bit confusing!

Hope you had a great time after we left you on the Sapphire. We had so much fun meeting you and your wife! Sue

[calikak]

[quote name='Lisa63']After all, the menus from the Anytime Dining rooms are available in the Traditional Dining room, from what I've heard. (Somebody please correct me if needed.)[/QUOTE]
I think this is sort-of right. When we sailed on the Diamond to Alaska in May, we were in traditional, and on 4 nights of our 7-night sailing, they had a menu from one of the Anytime dining rooms available to us in the traditional dining room, along with the regular traditional menu. So, like one night our waiter gave us our regular traditional menu and also the Vivaldi menu and we could have ordered off of that if we'd wanted to, and one night we had the Pazcific Moon menu, and some nights we had no Anytime menus, just the traditional one.

We didn't ever ask if we could get something from an Anytime dining room when that dining room's menu wasn't offered to us, because we always liked what was on the traditional menu. But if you can ask for something from Vivaldi when you're in Pacific Moon, I don't see why you couldn't ask for something from Vivaldi when you're in the traditional dining room, even if they don't offer you the menu. I guess you'd have to scope out what the Anytime dining rooms had to offer that night, and then ask your traditional dining room waiter. Has anyone tried this yet?

I haven't done Anytime dining on other ships, but don't they generally offer the same menu for traditional and Anytime diners? Is it maybe that the different menus in different dining rooms on the Diamond and Sapphire are part of the problem? Just guessing here since I always choose traditional.