Flexible Dining-The End of Singing/Dancing Waiters?

[DKMDE]

I understand that they are performing a "half and half" flexible dining program, but can this be the end? After all, if one deck is freestyle and the other is fixed seating, won't it get a little crazy with the noise?

 

By the way, I prefer set dining over freestyle, just so you know.

[Kurbanfan]

I understand that they are performing a "half and half" flexible dining program, but can this be the end? After all, if one deck is freestyle and the other is fixed seating, won't it get a little crazy with the noise?

 

By the way, I prefer set dining over freestyle, just so you know.

 

It is more like anytime dining not freestyle. And if they implement it like Princess it works out great.

[mcfam5]

Is this being implemented fleet wide or only on specific ships?

[navybaby1113]

Hah! My last cruise didn't even having singing/dancing waiters and it was before all this flexible dining stuff.

[G'ma]

I understand that they are performing a "half and half" flexible dining program, but can this be the end? After all, if one deck is freestyle and the other is fixed seating, won't it get a little crazy with the noise?

 

By the way, I prefer set dining over freestyle, just so you know.

 

I'm with you. I prefer the traditional dining. However, I won't miss the dancing waiters if they do away with all that......neither will the waiters,methinks.

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Is this being implemented fleet wide or only on specific ships?

 

they are just testing it out on the Legend for now.

 

Bill

[WE LIKE TO CRUISE]

hi: freestyle or anytime dinning is the way to go. by,by singing waiters.

take care and keep on cruising:)

[Squidly]

I believe some great relationships are began over a 4,5,or 7 day cruise eating with the same people.Its hard to get acquainted over one meal.There are other options if people don't like formal dining.:D Just my 2 cents worth.:rolleyes:

[DraTz]

Wow a fellow cruiser from ocala... hmm.. whats this freestyle dining? I am going on the legend in a few months, and I am curious as to what it is...

[snc421]

I believe some great relationships are began over a 4,5,or 7 day cruise eating with the same people.

 

Definately the case for DH and I. Our tablemates were a couple from Seattle on their 25th anniversary. I came to really enjoy our dinners together. Late seating made it even better. What a way to wind out the day, a great dinner with nice people. They actually bought us a glass figurine for a 'wedding present!' (Quotes cuz they didn't know us when we got married.) They gave it to us on our last night. The photographer took a pic of the four of us that night. We bought that and a Legend frame to send them. (We have pics of the four of us taken on our camera.)

[jessemon]

Nope...singing and dancing will continue. If someone is doing the flex dining they will just have to wait for their soup, or salad, or entre.....while they sing and dance....hehehehehehehe....

[cathyoo]

Ahh, its cute, the singing and dancing.. depends on my mood and if I am in a hurry to get to a show as to how much I enjoy it but I love to watch the kids' faces. They just light up.

 

Sure some servers don't like it but others appear to be in their element. Remember you are on the FUN ship.

[flowerchild]

I believe some great relationships are began over a 4,5,or 7 day cruise eating with the same people.Its hard to get acquainted over one meal.There are other options if people don't like formal dining.:D Just my 2 cents worth.:rolleyes:

 

You can do this with Anytime dining too. If you like your dining companions, reserve a table every nite for the party.

 

This is a big misconception of the Anytime/Freestyle dining concept. If you like traditional style dining, you can make reservations with the Maitre D for the same table, waiter, time, and companions for every nite of the cruise. If you care to dine when YOU want, you can just stroll up to the desk and usually be seated in less than 5 minutes.

 

Anytime/Freestyle is all about choices. It worked very well for us on our last NCL cruise.

[morriscats]

We just did anytime dining on Diamond Princess and we loved it. I hope they start this on Carnival as well.

[snowbird1]

I am looking forward to trying it as well. While I appreciate the singing and dancing I really prefer to eat and get out of the dinning room especially since I eat late seating. Now I will try to eat somewhere between 1st and 2nd seating, say 730pm. I realize a lot of people like the singing and dancing but after many cruises I prefer to eat and enjoy the activities on the ship rather than sitting in the dinning room past 10pm.

[Kudos2Fly]

My only problem would be when My husband and I are just cruising together. Would we then be seated with different people all the time.. Or can we get a table for two when we walk in? Its so hard to feel comfortable if you are seated with different people every night. Not to mention people will be coming at different times to eat. If you are going to be seated with different people all the time, then I would just prefer traditional dinning..At least you can get to know you table mates.

 

As for the singing waiters.. I can take them or leave them...

[Kurbanfan]

My only problem would be when My husband and I are just cruising together. Would we then be seated with different people all the time.. Or can we get a table for two when we walk in? Its so hard to feel comfortable if you are seated with different people every night. Not to mention people will be coming at different times to eat. If you are going to be seated with different people all the time, then I would just prefer traditional dinning..At least you can get to know you table mates.

 

As for the singing waiters.. I can take them or leave them...

 

If it is anything like Princess and RCCL (which I believe it is) you can just request a table for your own party.

[Kudos2Fly]

If it is anything like Princess and RCCL (which I believe it is) you can just request a table for your own party.

 

If that's the case. I wouldn't mind giving it a try.

[CruzVinnieCruz]

It's hard to compare other ships from cruislines that were designed for anytime or freestyle dining. I personally do not believe it's going to be as smooth as some make it sound. First if everyone who is doing anytime dining wants reservations during normal dinner times I can't see how they are going to be accomandated.

[okgirl]

I hope it doesn't go fleet wide, but if it does I hope that you can make a permanent reservation even prior to boarding the ship.

It's not that I'm unfriendly....I eat most of my meals in the dining room and enjoy open seating during breakfast and lunch.....do I "really" get to know the new people at the table??? It depends on them.....some I chat with long enough to recognize each other during the remainder of the cruise and speak and catch up everytime we do.....

But by the end of the day, I'm ready for sister and I to be at a table by ourselves.......

[Kurbanfan]

It's hard to compare other ships from cruislines that were designed for anytime or freestyle dining. I personally do not believe it's going to be as smooth as some make it sound. First if everyone who is doing anytime dining wants reservations during normal dinner times I can't see how they are going to be accomandated.

 

Not sure why everyone choosing anytime would make reservations. The whole purpose is to go at anytime not a set schedule. It seems to me if someone wanted reservations every night they would choose traditional.

But I agree I am not sure how it will work since the restaurants are not set up for anytime. Evidently though it seems to be working on RCCL which was also not set up for it.....

[rhecker]

we enjoyed it on Princess. We were able to wait until our son had an activity he wanted to do to eat. The first night we ate alone but found it boring. After that we just ate wherever they put us. We ended up meeting more people this way instead of just our tablemates. The only time we had to wait for a table was on new year's eve because people wanted to eat a little earlier but that was only a 5 or 10 minute wait. We just got a drink at the bar and then our table was ready.

[flowerchild]

My only problem would be when My husband and I are just cruising together. Would we then be seated with different people all the time.. Or can we get a table for two when we walk in?

 

I traveled with another couple last cruise, my sis and BIL, on NCL. We did not always eat dinner together. We were seated at tables for 2 when we dined alone. AND the nice thing was that the tables were close enough together that we ended up chatting with a lovely couple seated next to us and saw them throughout the cruise.

 

The first time I tried Freestyle was on the NCL Sun in 2003. It did not work as well for us then, but we were a party of 10 and I understand that it is harder to seat that size a party. We made reservations every day, and the longest we had to wait was 15 minutes to be seated, but it was only once.

 

I was unimpressed. To be fair, I had not tried any of the signature restaurants and did not know that some of them are FREE. I did not know that I could have worn jeans in the dining room and that I could have packed far less. I did not realize that a larger party like ours was much harder to accomodate.

 

When planning the next cruise we took, I was very hesitant to consider NCL and even told my husband that I did not want to sail them at all. But when they came in the least expensive for the itinerary I wanted, and for a balcony, to boot, I decided to try it one more time.

 

I started reading up on it here and found out about all the ins and outs and realized that this might actually work for us.

 

Well, let me tell you that we were very pleasantly surprised at how well Freestyle worked on the Star. Going to dinner when we wanted to, eating when I was hungry, not because it was my set dinner time, not having to rush back to the ship to get ready for early seating, or be eating until 10pm with late seating. Eating by ourselves or with another couple.Trying all the free restaurants on board as well as the ones with a fee (which, BTW, the most expensive was $20, as opposed to Carnival's $30). There were so many choices, it was awesome.

 

We were kinda dissapointed that NCL was priced higher than Carnival for our next cruise, simply for this reason. I would have appreciated the flexibility, especially since we are sailing with my 8 yo daughter for the first time. It's not quite as easy vacationing as a family as compared to a couple! We get ready in half an hour. With our kid, and the craziness, not so easy... Not that it really matters, though, we have sailed Carnival B4 and are quite happy with them, too.

 

Try it and see if it works for you. The worst that could happen is that you end up making those reservations for the week at the same table, waiter, etc. to make it more like traditional dining.

 

There obviously must be a demand for this type of dining since most of the lines are looking at possible changes to thier present formats. You will also hear lots of people complain that the dress codes are too lax and that they miss the days of dressing up for dinner. I used to like to dress up but things have changed. Now I'm a work at home mom, I never wear heels and have gotten quite used to wearing comfy clothes all day. (I just threw away two huge bags of 4 inch heeled shoes that would probably cripple me these days!) I just don't want to be bothered, I am on vacation after all. That and the luggage restrictions now. If you still want to get dressed up, I say Go For IT! I will admire you from afar, in my mom jeans, nice top and boots.

[DraTz]

Well, I tell you what, we are set up for the experimental flexible dining on our cruise on the legend 9/14... I will tell you how it turns up when I get back.

[tershall]

When we did our NCL cruises the "free style dining" worked very easily. Whenever we were hungry for dinner, we would walk to whichever restaurant we were interested in eating at, and ask for a table (we would sometimes request a table alone but we also asked to dine with others). We would be seated at the next available table, usually within a few minutes. Our longest wait was 20 minutes, we believe it took this long because we requested a table for 2 in front of the window.