My Time Dining - I don't like it

[Liesel]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

[firstcruise05]

I was under the impression that you choose traditional seating or my time dining before the cruise. If that is the case then the people who choose traditional dining would be grouped together and you probably wouldn't notice too much of a difference in empty seats (beyond normal specialty restaurant disruptions I mean).

 

I'm pretty excited about the my time dining...it was one of the reasons why I was going to try Princess.

[alicam]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

I've done the MyTime dining and really liked it...however, nobody forces you to sign up for it (and yes..you have to request it)...if you prefer the traditional style, then that is what you can have

[JAYV1]

My time is for those who want flexibility, traditional dining is still the standard.

[MrZoey]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

 

If you have traditional dining, it won't effect your table mates. You can't switch back and forth. We wanted MTD on our last cruise in December and couldn't get it because it was "full".

[The Big Booper]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

 

Royal Caribbean does not force you into MYTime Dining. You have to request it and the ship capacity controls it. This is the opposite of Princess which puts people into Anytime if they want it or not because Princess capacity controls Traditional.

[Bobal]

Shouldn't the title of this be My Time Dining - I don't like the sound of it. How can you say you don't like something when you haven't tried it - sounds a bit like my son with eating vegetables ;)

[NCPDCBOP]

I'm with you about the early/late seating. I was on Azamara May of '07 to Bermuda. It was a crazy cruise as it was suppose to be Celebrity. They ended up with the "open seating". I too enjoyed meeting our table mates and sharing the days adventures. Another downside is that you have a different wait staff each time....makes it difficult to tip. I like to establish a rapport with my waiter...can't do that with open seating.

[jebl]

We have always done traditional dining on RCI. We did use the anytime dining on Princess and really liked it. We were with a large group so we always had the same tablemates.

 

We are trying MTD on Enchantment this Apr for the flexibility. Early is too early and late is too late for us. We'll see how we like it.

[alicam]

I'm with you about the early/late seating. I was on Azamara May of '07 to Bermuda. It was a crazy cruise as it was suppose to be Celebrity. They ended up with the "open seating". I too enjoyed meeting our table mates and sharing the days adventures. Another downside is that you have a different wait staff each time....makes it difficult to tip. I like to establish a rapport with my waiter...can't do that with open seating.

Not true...you can have the same waiters if you want (we did)...and in regards to tipping...to enjoy MyTime Dining...you must prepay tips as they are pooled and split amongst the waiters who work the MyTime area...that way they don't get "stiffed" by cheap patrons

[VASOXFANN]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

 

So you haven't even tried it? :confused: :rolleyes:

 

I have, and I DO like it!

[Pomperaugrr]

I wasn't fond of the idea of My Time Dining when I first heard that RCI was contemplating it. Two weeks ago on the Serenade we gave it a try, since one of our favorite waiters was working the MTD area. We loved it. We had the same table and wait staff each night. The extra half hour we picked up was great, as we pretty much kept to 6:30, instead if the 6:00 main seating. The service team was outstanding and the food was hot and fresh. We will definitely sign up for it again on our next cruise.

 

Keep an open mind and give things a fair chance before putting down something new. I'm glad we did that!

 

Eric

[HMSDingy]

Royal Caribbean does not force you into MYTime Dining. You have to request it and the ship capacity controls it. This is the opposite of Princess which puts people into Anytime if they want it or not because Princess capacity controls Traditional.

 

 

Unless they've changed the policy since then, on our last 4 Princess cruises we also had the CHOICE of dining. No one forced us into Anytime Dining.

[ERTHDOG]

yeah, at first i was reluctant to try mtd , but once i relaxed my thinking ,i decided why not try? so, i am gonna try it in april and i cant wait actually.

 

i will definitely post my experiences after my cruise:)

 

dave

[mamacat3]

I hear that RCI is now offering "My Time Dining"--lets you choose when you dine. I do not like the idea!!

We will be on the Jewel to Panama Canal 2/19/09, and I believe they will already have that dining feature then. We are very disappointed. If I wanted to have free-style dining, I would take Norwegian. You might end up sitting all alone at your required large table. We enjoy meeting our table mates at dinner and sharing the day's events.

Has anybody experienced this yet???

 

I too was not a fan of the MTD idea. We just did the Jewel Panama Canal trip in Jan. and signed up for MTD to try it. We LOVED it!!!! We met some othr people on the ship that I had chatted with on our M&M thread and we really hit it off so we ended up sitting together for dinner for the cruise. If you make reservations and tell the maitre d what type of table you wish you willget it. Giancarlo is a very professional and accommodating person. Just tell him what you'd like and you will get it. That is if you try it!!

 

I'm with you about the early/late seating. I was on Azamara May of '07 to Bermuda. It was a crazy cruise as it was suppose to be Celebrity. They ended up with the "open seating". I too enjoyed meeting our table mates and sharing the days adventures. Another downside is that you have a different wait staff each time....makes it difficult to tip. I like to establish a rapport with my waiter...can't do that with open seating.

 

We sat at the same table with the same waiter and assistant waiter each evening even though we changed our dinner time each evening!! I will not revisit the tipping as it has already been addressed.

Please try to keep an open mind about this. If you prefer traditional dining then please do so but unless you have tried MTD please don't kill it!!

Good luck and happy sailing!!

[jplotts865]

Don't tell me RCI is caving in to this dreadful trend! I would never even consider NCL for a cruise because of that dratted "freestyle" dining program they have (and started). I have always thoroughly enjoyed traditional dining on all of my various cruises but have begun to cool in my enthusiasm of late...for cruising in general. The ships are too big and too casual for my taste. I love to dress for dinner and have wonderful conversation with "new friends" I make at the table in the dining room for the entire voyage. I'll probably try RCI once more...and request (demand?) traditional dining. My last cruise on Celebrity over Christmas was an utter disaster...never so glad to get off a ship in my life (and the first time THAT ever happened). Cruise ships are now nothing more than floating resort hotels...if I want that sort of venue I'll just fly to an island and check in...geez.

[RoofingPrincess]

Unless they've changed the policy since then, on our last 4 Princess cruises we also had the CHOICE of dining. No one forced us into Anytime Dining.

Actually, they do in a way. They have a limit of how many passengers are allowed in Traditional Dining. Once that limit is reached, you're in Anytime Dining whether you want it or not.

We took a large group (40-50 people) on the Caribbean Princess, and some people booked later than others. The latecomers did not clear the waitlist for Traditional Dining, so to keep the group together, the TA moved the entire group to Anytime Dining. We had a standing reservation for the same time every night.

I don't know if it was typical Princess waitservice, Princess Anytime waitservice, or just our waitstaff, but it was the least satisfactory dining experience I've had on a cruise.

[emilygrace]

I'm pretty sure RCL is the reverse of Princess....it is the My Time Dining that has a limited capacity and when that is full you are assigned to Traditional dining. But you do have the choice when you book. We have not tried it yet, but the Serenade had it when we were on board last May and it was running perfectly. Several of the people in our "group" (our CC group) had chosen it and were VERY pleased with it.

 

We tried the Anytime Dining on Princess and I have been on one NCL cruise (we won't even go there!), but other than that we choose Traditional dining. On our upcoming HAL cruise we had no choice.....As You Wish dining was the only thing available. We shall see how that is!

[negc]

Unless they've changed the policy since then, on our last 4 Princess cruises we also had the CHOICE of dining. No one forced us into Anytime Dining.

 

You may have been fortunate since we still hear tales of long waiting lists for traditional dining because of the way Princess designates its dining rooms for anytime or traditional dining which doesn't necessarily reflect the actual demand for each on a particular cruise. :( From the start, Princess has allotted more space to anytime dining than to traditional even when the requests were heavily weighted in the other direction. RCI seems to be a bit more flexible and, at least at the beginning while they become used to offering two systems, limit the number of diners they accept in My Time Dining but setting it up so that they can expand or retract the MTD section of the dining room to reflect actual demand. We have always preferred traditional dining but from most of the favorable comments we have heard from those who have tried MTD, we may do the same on one of our upcoming RCI cruises.:)

[julia]

How someone can offer an opinion on something they have NEVER even tried is beyond me!!

 

You don't have to like MTD. Just ignore it even exists. It won't affect your dining experience in the very least. But for those who prefer the flexibility of dining when and with whom they choose, MTD fits their expectations, and I am VERY glad to see it being offered.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Don't tell me RCI is caving in to this dreadful trend! I would never even consider NCL for a cruise because of that dratted "freestyle" dining program they have (and started). I have always thoroughly enjoyed traditional dining on all of my various cruises but have begun to cool in my enthusiasm of late...for cruising in general. The ships are too big and too casual for my taste. I love to dress for dinner and have wonderful conversation with "new friends" I make at the table in the dining room for the entire voyage. I'll probably try RCI once more...and request (demand?) traditional dining. My last cruise on Celebrity over Christmas was an utter disaster...never so glad to get off a ship in my life (and the first time THAT ever happened). Cruise ships are now nothing more than floating resort hotels...if I want that sort of venue I'll just fly to an island and check in...geez.

 

No one is forcing you....they are simply offering options for those of us who dislike eating with strangers and at a set time.

 

###

[RetireeWannabee]

Seems to me that you run the risk of being at a big table all alone more in Traditional, with the people that don't show for their assigned times.

 

With My Time, people show up and are seated - can't figure how you would be alone at a giant table??

[printingchick]

Just cruised on Freedom and we selected MyTime Dining. I was a little concerned because we've always liked the social aspects of traditional dining. However, we found we just LOVED the flexibility of MyTime.

 

We expected it to be more like going for breakfast in the dining room, where you are seated with others who arrive at the same time. It's not that way - or at least was on on the Freedom. The area that was set aside for MyTime diners had mostly small tables. We were always seated at a table for two and nearly always right next to the window.

 

You will be seated in the same section each night, so you will get to know your waitstaff, just like in traditional dining. You will NOT get to see the waitstaff perform, however. With everyone eating at different times, the staff can't stop everything to perform on schedule. Some folks went to the railing and looked down at the lower levels to watch the performances, which you can certainly do. You just don't see your own waiter performing. A couple of nights, when they introduced the cooks for example, they did march through the MyTime area. In general though, you do sacrifice that perk for flexibility.

 

I never noticed just how much pressure sometimes results from the traditional dining schedule. If you're running late, you worry that you're keeping others at your table waiting. You have to schedule your activities around your dinner time. And it's hard enough to fit in everything on a RCI cruise! We sometimes missed things because the only time we could go interfered with our dinner time. On this cruise, we scheduled our dinner around our activities, rather than vice versa. We found it very liberating!

 

We will definitely choose the option again. The small sacrifices are well worth the flexibility.

 

I highly recommend giving it a try. If you don't like it, asked to be switched to a traditional slot. What have you got to lose?

[alwalaska]

I'm with you about the early/late seating. I was on Azamara May of '07 to Bermuda. It was a crazy cruise as it was suppose to be Celebrity. They ended up with the "open seating". I too enjoyed meeting our table mates and sharing the days adventures. Another downside is that you have a different wait staff each time....makes it difficult to tip. I like to establish a rapport with my waiter...can't do that with open seating.

 

With MTD on RCCL you prepay tips. You can also request to have the same staff each night and they can usually accomodate you.

 

I am really glad we have this option and others can still keep their traditional dining if they want.

[tip]

How someone can offer an opinion on something they have NEVER even tried is beyond me!!

 

You don't have to like MTD. Just ignore it even exists. It won't affect your dining experience in the very least. But for those who prefer the flexibility of dining when and with whom they choose, MTD fits their expectations, and I am VERY glad to see it being offered.

 

 

Well said! Some folks just can not tolerate change! In this case, you do not have to change unless you want to do so!