Freedom Dining - Ventura

[Pontius Navigator]

I have read lots, and heard at first hand, issues with freedom dining on Oceana. Essentially the issue would appear to be too many passengers wanting early dining or 2-seat tables.

 

How is it working on Ventura?

 

Is there a greater capacity with a reduced pressure for seats?

 

Are there bottle-neck times?

 

Would you opt for freedom dining a second time?

[chyanmor]

I have read lots, and heard at first hand, issues with freedom dining on Oceana. Essentially the issue would appear to be too many passengers wanting early dining or 2-seat tables.

 

How is it working on Ventura?

 

Is there a greater capacity with a reduced pressure for seats?

 

Are there bottle-neck times?

 

Would you opt for freedom dining a second time?

 

PN have you seen http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=799849 to be honest we have gone for the normal dining arrangements as well freedom is good if you have the same table every night but when it is a turn up and be given a pager to wait till it bleeps it looses it's attraction.

[Pontius Navigator]

Chyanmor,

 

Thank you. I am surprised however how few comments there appear to be. Maybe experienced cruisers don't use freedom dining and hence have no opinion.

 

Bleepers were mentioned.

 

On Oceana another couple told us that the bleeper system did not work. A bleeper would be issued and maybe alert after an hour or so. However the people may then chose to continue their conversation, drinks, cigarettes or whatever on the assumption that 'their' table reservation would be held until they arrived.

 

Some people would not turn up for 20 minutes or so and then find the maitre'd had let table to another couple.

 

The main issue would appear to be matching tables to peoples time of dining requests. Clearly with Club Dining you are required to opt for early or late and even then might be given the opposite time simply to balance numbers. With Freedom Dining there will, over time, be a statistical base to show that the split might be 6pm - 30%, 7pm 45%, 8pm 20% and 9pm 5%. Unless they can provide 75% of the covers in that 6pm-8pm period then there would be queues.

 

To take the Ventura as a case in point, it might work, with the figures above plucked from the air they might have 2 dining rooms as Freedom and one as Club until 8pm and 2 as Club and one as Freedom from 8pm. You can only make that sort of arrangement once you are aware of the probable dining patterns of 2000-3000 passengers.

 

As an aside, a similar problem occurs on the Oceana for the buffet breakfast. People hog tables and people surge at certain times. I suspect one answer to the Ocean problem is do not go for breakfast on-the-hour.

[MJ5]

Interesting that so many seem to know so much about Freedom dining on Ventura, when they haven't actually been on the ship.

 

We were on the last cruise. The fact is, there are simply too many passengers on the ship for the amount of space available for Freedom Dining.

Forget all this business about what times the British want to eat.

P&O got it badly wrong when they designed the interior of the ship.

It will never get better, unless they somehow make some more space for diners, which is near impossible..

[chyanmor]

Interesting that so many seem to know so much about Freedom dining on Ventura, when they haven't actually been on the ship.

 

We were on the last cruise. The fact is, there are simply too many passengers on the ship for the amount of space available for Freedom Dining.

Forget all this business about what times the British want to eat.

P&O got it badly wrong when they designed the interior of the ship.

It will never get better, unless they somehow make some more space for diners, which is near impossible..

 

MJ5, the fact we do is that we've heard it from people who have been on there and also it didn't sound like it was going to work in the first place. Or alternatively read it on many forums/blogs etc.

 

It works if you have a ship that has equal room to dining as you have passengers like the QE2 or like it's sister (QM2) were you have separate dining for the higher grades. On an up side your never sat next to the same people i guess.

 

Comment from the Po cruise community board itself:-

 

In practice, worse, from an organistional point of view. Also dining with new "strangers" every night makes every night like a first night and the law of averages will mean that you are bound to dine at least once on the cruie with the "passengers from hell".

 

The majority of experienced cruisers, who have tried Freedom, prefer and go back to Club. Polls on this site and the configuration of the 3 Ventura main restaurants (2 Club, 1 Freedom), would appear to confirm a 2/3'rds preference for Club.

[tom_uk]

Does anyone have any figures for the capacity of the three main restaurants - Cinnamon, Saffron & Bay Tree? I'm wondering of it would be possible to be very adventurous and change which restaurant is assigned to which dining mode, cruise by cruise, to better match the capacity for each mode to the demand.

 

I certainly get the feeling that during the summer there's been a big demand for Freedom dining, yet only one restaurant has been assigned to it. Perhaps, in fact, as the passenger mix changes through the autumn (fewer young families; more older people?) perhaps the demand for Freedom dining will diminish and the complaints will also go down.

[pretenda]

The same size ships on Princess (Grand Class) have two of the dining rooms set aside for anytime dining and one for traditional. There doesn't seem to be too much of a problem then.

 

I can't understand why anyone would book freedon dining and then want to book the same table for the same time every night. Seems to defeat the object somewhat.

 

I haven't yet been on Ventura either - but I can read, cruise often and I do have an opinion.:)

 

Glenda

[chyanmor]

to be honest I think it depends on what your mindset is. As long as you go with the thought i might have to wait and that is fine. However if you have experienced things like the QM2 and QE2 then freedom has a completely different meaning which I think is where the confusion lies and hence people's complaints. To be honest I like the old style and from reading as I posted previously it seems a lot of people are turning back to the old style of set dining tables.

 

To me freedom is to turn up every night any time and be automatically shown to a table and not have to have first night nerves each time you go to the table. Perhaps it is because of the above that I've turn a snob?

 

Also you get to know people more dining on bigger tables in the main dining room and tend to keep in touch with them over time which is always a plus. Even been invited back to join people on cruises :)

[Pontius Navigator]

Interesting that so many seem to know so much about Freedom dining on Ventura,

 

Nothing wrong with discussing theory.

 

there are simply too many passengers on the ship for the amount of space available for Freedom Dining.

Forget all this business about what times the British want to eat.

 

The two are inseperable. 'too many passengers' and the 'time they want to eat' says it all.

 

Yes, they would appear to have it wrong and it will take time to shake down.

[KathyW]

We were on the 17th August Ventura cruise and had booked Freedom Dining. As other people have posted, freedom dining did not seem to work very well but once you got a table the food and service was great! Having travelled on Princess cruises before with two Personal Choice dining rooms, the arrangement seemed to work a lot better and we could always get a table within 10 minutes of arriving at the dining room at, say, 7.30 p.m. This time we had to really book a table by visting the Cinnamon Dining Room after 8.00 a.m. in the morning and booking for up to two days in advance. I think this took the "freedom" out of dining! Luckily we met up with another couple, with whom we got on very well, and booked tables for the rest of the cruise. Would I go on Ventura for freedom dining? - possibly not but in spite of that and negotiating the crowds of sunbeds around the ship, the cruise was great and we would probably try another ship in the P&O fleet. The only thing that puts me off is the lack of an efficient "personal choice" dining option on any of the ships in the fleet. I did put pen to paper to comments on "freedom dining" with a letter to the hotel director while on board but had no response to my concerns.

 

KathyW

[MJ5]

KathyW

 

Agree with your thoughts.

 

We will try another P&O ship next time.

 

Freedom will never work on Ventura, as ther simply isn't enough space.

[chyanmor]

KathyW

 

Agree with your thoughts.

 

We will try another P&O ship next time.

 

Freedom will never work on Ventura, as ther simply isn't enough space.

 

 

I just don't get the word freedom, may be it is just ventura being small, but in p and o view booking a table each night doesn't suggest to me freedom, may be it is just being spoilt on the QE2 and QM2 with proper freedom.