Show time on Sapphire Princess

[irvine]

Hi everyone!

 

I am trying to decide which dining time to choose for my Alaska May 16 cruise. I would ideally like to have dinner first then watch their broadway style shows. But Princess only has 2nd traditional seating available now other than anytime dining. My questions are:

 

Will there still be a show after I finish dinner with the 2nd traditional dining time slot?

 

If not, what are the chances of me getting into the 1st seating through waitlist?

 

Does Sapphire Princess allow reservations for hte whole week when we go onboard?

 

I am just concerned that there will be a long way every night for anytime dining if they don't allow us to make reservations for the whole week when we board. THere are 7 of us in the party. Thanks in advance for your inputs.

[MSN-Travelers]

Hi everyone!

 

I am trying to decide which dining time to choose for my Alaska May 16 cruise. I would ideally like to have dinner first then watch their broadway style shows. But Princess only has 2nd traditional seating available now other than anytime dining. My questions are:

 

Will there still be a show after I finish dinner with the 2nd traditional dining time slot?

 

If not, what are the chances of me getting into the 1st seating through waitlist?

 

Does Sapphire Princess allow reservations for hte whole week when we go onboard?

 

I am just concerned that there will be a long way every night for anytime dining if they don't allow us to make reservations for the whole week when we board. THere are 7 of us in the party. Thanks in advance for your inputs.

Shows are generally timed to match the traditional dining times. As an example: One show takes place during the first traditional dining period and the second show takes place during the second traditional seating. That way each has a chance to see any given show. I don't recall any broadway shows that occur after the second traditional seating.

 

Chances of getting first traditional seating are dependent on where you are on the wait list.

 

Standing reservation policy for anytime dining seems to vary from ship-to-ship. General policy has no reservations between 6 PM and 8 PM but many will tell you that they have had different experiences.

 

Wait times are generally short with a group your size. Problem seem to occur when the party is larger than 8.

 

Enjoy!

[chloe kitty]

Hi everyone!

 

I am trying to decide which dining time to choose for my Alaska May 16 cruise. I would ideally like to have dinner first then watch their broadway style shows. But Princess only has 2nd traditional seating available now other than anytime dining. My questions are:

 

Will there still be a show after I finish dinner with the 2nd traditional dining time slot?

 

If not, what are the chances of me getting into the 1st seating through waitlist?

 

Does Sapphire Princess allow reservations for hte whole week when we go onboard?

 

I am just concerned that there will be a long way every night for anytime dining if they don't allow us to make reservations for the whole week when we board. THere are 7 of us in the party. Thanks in advance for your inputs.

 

I was on the Sapphire in Dec. 2008. At that time, if you had anytime dining, they only allowed you to make reservations 3 days at a time.

I never waited more than 10 minutes, but we were only a group of 2.

On most nights, the late show is at 10:15 or 10:30pm. Prior to the offer of anytime dining which is GREAT, we always took late seating and always made the show.

 

Enjoy Alaska, it is beautiful.

[cdngrl]

hi irvine. if you'd like, please join our roll call, here's the link to those of us on the may 16 cruise:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=18417924#post18417924

[caribill]

Shows are generally timed to match the traditional dining times. As an example: One show takes place during the first traditional dining period and the second show takes place during the second traditional seating.

 

 

 

As the previous post says, the show for late traditional dining is usually after dinner at 10:15 or 10:30 PM.

 

One or two days it might be before dinner (around 7 PM) if there is a big event after late traditional that most people might like to attend.

[lovespositano]

Your question is the reason we do anytime dining. Have you tried it? It gives you full flexibility and they can seat the 7 of you together, no problem.

[irvine]

Your question is the reason we do anytime dining. Have you tried it? It gives you full flexibility and they can seat the 7 of you together, no problem.

 

We did anytime dining with NCL on 2 cruises. The first one was a disaster. Long wait lines with no pager, but that was 2004. Last year, it wasn't so bad because we actually reserved our table for the whole cruise on NCL Pearl. It was call anytime dining, but we had to fix our dining time in order for them to reserve us the table for the whole cruise. I am just afraid that we might end up waiting for a long time with anytime dining on Princess since I don't know what the experience is like. When I was on Island Princess, there was only traditional dining, and that was 2005. Anyone with more experiences to share on anytime dining on the Sapphire for a group of 7?

[sackman]

You may be pleasantly surprised and clear the waitlist. My group was something like 200 on the traditional first seating waitlist for the Sapphire cruise Feb 7-14. I guess there were enough people who wanted traditional that they opened up the DaVinci dining room for traditional seating. My understanding is that it's usually an anytime dining room. The same thing could happen for you.