Zuiderdam Upper vs Lower dining

[juliecat]

Hi,

I've just booked my first cruise on Holland America (cruised 7 times on other lines). I'm a bit confused about this upper vs lower dining thing. Could someone please explain?

Thanks,
Julia

[wwinfl91]

There actually isn't any difference in the food or the service. Most of the HAL ships have two story dining rooms and in an attempt to divide up the dining times a little more HAL now has an early lower seating, an early upper seating, a late lower seating and late upper seating. The times are about 20-25 minutes apart for each of the early and late seatings. It means that it is a little less crowded around the dining room doors before dinner. It also allows people to get seated on the one level and for the waiters and assistants to get them started with their menus and drinks before the next level arrives for their dinner. I suspect they did it so they could share the assistant waiters among more tables. It also allows the wine and bar waiters to handle one level at a time and therefore they don't need quite as many of them.

Basically if you are used to early dinning then ask for early and you will one of the two early seatings or the same for late. There really didn't seem to be any difference on our last HAL cruise when we first experienced this change.

Have a great next cruise.

[juliecat]

Thanks for the clarification!