Personal choice dining vs traditional

[mjp0499]

This is our first time on Princess. We will be on the Sapphire Princess on 11/14. Can someone tell me the difference, and pro and con to each.

 

MJ

[pungo3]

Traditional dining is an assigned time and table that you have dinner at every night. You have the same servers and same tablemates. Anytime dining is in a separate dining room where people come and go at will. You eat when you are ready to eat. You'll be at a different table each night, with different tablemates and servers. I enjoy anytime dining because I never feel rushed to be at dinner at a certain time. However, you do miss out on establishing a rapport with your server and becoming friends with your tablemates. I do like meeting lots of people, however, by doing anytime dining.

[katisdale]

I like both traditional and anytime dining. In traditional I like getting to know my tablemates and servers. In anytime I like just showing up when I feel like eating. I have never had to wait for a table as many have described. We have never been given a beeper. The biggest difference I have noticed is that people are eating on different schedules all around you in the anytime dining room, just like a restaurant at home. You may be eating your entree while the next table is having appetizers while the table on the other side is ordering their desserts. The food is the same.

[Druke I]

On Princess, we prefer Traditional First Seating, which closely matches our dinner time at home.

[willysgrandma]

We like Anytime Dining - we like to eat early but we don't want to have to rush back from an excursion or doing anything else to make a set dinner time.

 

We also like it because if we don't care for our tablemates, we never have to eat with them again. And if we find tablemates we like, we often arrange to meet at a pre set time to dine with them again.

 

In addition to the info in post #2, the dress code is the same whether you have tradtional or Anytime DIning.

[Stevesan]

I like both traditional and anytime dining. In traditional I like getting to know my tablemates and servers. In anytime I like just showing up when I feel like eating. I have never had to wait for a table as many have described. We have never been given a beeper. The biggest difference I have noticed is that people are eating on different schedules all around you in the anytime dining room, just like a restaurant at home. You may be eating your entree while the next table is having appetizers while the table on the other side is ordering their desserts. The food is the same.

 

I've experienced this in Traditonal, too. Unlike HAL and Celebrity, Princess doesn't close the dining room doors. On a recent cruise the adjacent table, a large family, showed up late every evening, and not just a few minutes late, more like 45 minutes. Accomodating them caused our staff to significantly delay our service. Traditional is not staffed for that. Princess should close the doors 15 or 20 minutes after opening time.

[Druke I]

I've been on several Princess ships where they do in fact close the Traditional Dining Room doors 15 minutes after the appointed time.

 

Most recently, Regal Princess, Mar 06, 'round the Horn.

[Sandytoes]

I've been on several Princess ships where they do in fact close the Traditional Dining Room doors 15 minutes after the appointed time.

 

We always choose Anytime dining.

 

While on RC we had not choice but to do Traditional.

Passengers were allowed to enter anytime they chose.

Waiters weren't happy because they had to serve those really quickly before the next seating.

[Pam in CA]

I've experienced this in Traditonal, too. Unlike HAL and Celebrity, Princess doesn't close the dining room doors. On a recent cruise the adjacent table, a large family, showed up late every evening, and not just a few minutes late, more like 45 minutes. Accomodating them caused our staff to significantly delay our service. Traditional is not staffed for that. Princess should close the doors 15 or 20 minutes after opening time.

We experienced this on our Crown cruise in July. For some reason, one of the tables in our waitstaff's area was open every night and since there were 40-minute waits for tables in Anytime dining every night after 8PM, they would seat people at this table, sometimes as late as 9:15PM. This totally disrupted our dinner and often delayed getting our dessert menus and/or coffee; several of our group who wanted to go to a show or something else had to skip dessert and coffee several times. Since late Traditional dining started at 8PM (not 8:15 or 8:30PM), this made for a very, very long dinner every night. That's one of the reasons why, after a long day of touring, several of us opted for the buffet instead a couple of times; we just couldn't face a 2 1/4 - 2 1/2 hour dinner. And our area wasn't the only one. There were people walking in at 8:15, 8:30, 8:45, etc. for their table and they weren't being seated by the Maitre D.

[Susie51]

I enjoyed Personal choice dining on Diamond Princess. We had 4 dining rooms to choose from. We made reservations on the first night for the first 3 nights that would fit into our schedule. It was fantastic. There were plenty of tables for 2.

[Putterdude]

We would prefer traditional but find 5:45 to early and 8:00 just to late. So lately we have opted for AD which we kind of like because it allows us to meet a whole new bunch of tablemates each evening plus it gives us flexibility particularly on port days.:)

[Tak8]

I prefer traditional. 6:00pm is close to what I eat at home. I also like having the same wait staff. They learn your likes/dislikes better. Works well for showtimes also.

Anytime is great if you want to eat at different times.

[Red Rox]

The other really nice feature about Anytime Dining on the Sapphire is that they do offer four different dining room options. Each dining room has a different theme for decor and style and they do all have a signature dish that is unique to that dining room. The menus are the same otherwise, but having the variety and additional choices is nice. We enjoyed the Sapphire and the AD options.

[CruzinNoony]

I have been on 37 cruises and always choose late traditional. We have met some wonderful people over the years. Of course, some tables have been better than others! But, we have never changed tables. And we have never eaten in the buffet for dinner. It is nice to have the same waitstaff every night waiting for you. I like late seating because you have time to take a nap, take a shower, dress, have a drink or two before dinner. ;)