My Time Dining on FOS

[pell]

Just back from a wonderful trip on FOS! After much deliberation with my hubby, we decided to try "My Time Dining" last week (4/13 sailing). Overall, it was a positive experience... although we did encounter a few minor problems. Here's the low-down:

They told me that they capped off the "My Time" section to 240 diners when I signed up our party of 4 (DH and sons ages 8 & 12). Section was a small area on deck 5, far less than half of the dining room... never seemed full. There appeared to be about 3 or 4 waiters and 3 or 4 assistants serving this area from 6:00-9:30p.m. We lucked out with Bongay & Mark as our servers on the first night... LOVED them!! We requested them each subsequent night, but that's what seemed to cause some of the above-mentioned problems. Here's my list of pros & cons: Pros= flexibility was MAGNIFICENT (especially on late ports of call), less rushing/arguing with the kids to "hurry up and get your shoes on," no crowds waiting at the door to get herded in, AMAZING views (We had the perfect window seat 5 out of 7 nights), and the same great food & service as "regular dining." Cons= If you want the same servers each night, you will find their section full sometimes. Then you need to either come back later, or ask that they "squeeze you in" (which they usually did after some grimaces)... Then the wait staff is overloaded, and different waiters try to help out, which results in miscommunication and gaps in the service & overall dining experience. This happened to us on a couple of the nights. So, the moral of the story is: You can't have your (warm chocolate) cake and eat it, too! If you want to reap the rewards of My Time flexibility, you should be willing to use different servers. This is what we surmised, anyway, though others may feel differently. We would do it again, for sure, but we'd try not to fall in love with any given server. (Tough, I know, when the wait staff is so amazing!) I'd be happy to answer any questions from others as I know many of the CC members were curious about this dining "experiment."

[mckinna]

Did you have to make "reservations" or did you just show up what time you want to eat and wait for a table?

[pell]

No reservations were necessary... Just show up! I liked not having to call for reservations because then you didn't have to watch the clock. We were seated instantly every night, except for the times when we had to wait for our "waiter of choice." 7:00-8:00 seemed to be the fullest time, but even then, you didn't wait for a table. The head waiter did keep track of times in a log book in an effort to predict (I think). A few patrons did come at the same exact time every night, and they had a table waiting. We varied our dining times according to our activities, and it was never a problem.

[Cruising89143]

Thanks. We are set up for this in November on the Freedom. I am looking forward to trying it. It worked out great on HAL last month.