Your choice dining on the Dawn

[cruiselover53]

The beautiful one and I are going on the Dawn 7th March.Will be our 3rd cruise.How good is the "Your choice dining".Does it work well or do you end up having trouble getting a booking?

[sunlover62]

If you book early in the morning you will be fine. Personally, I prefer the dining room for meals. Not tempted to eat too much that way. It's nice to be waited on also. I know a lot of the families liked the buffet because it offered heaps of choices and you could sit where you liked. Even then you sould get to the buffet early or a little later as it is very busy. Queues etc. There are other threads on here that discuss the anytime dining. You can use the search at the top right.

[dea71]

We have cruised with both Star Cruises in Asia and on NCL in the US both having anytime dining - always found it fine and if it was a wait for a table for 2 then you could usually find some new friends to share a table with! Having said that we are cruisng for the first time with our children (age 1 and 3) so will probably be a little less inclined to 'come back after a drink at the bar' this time!! We have always preferredd the less chaotic dining room but I do fear that the buffet will be the quicker option this time around with Little Miss 'I'm still Hungry' and Master 'Enough'! :rolleyes:

We are also travelling on the Pacific Dawn on March 7 - not long now!!

Dea

[suey]

I think I was under a misconception about anytime dining. I thought it meant you could go to the restaurant at any time for dinner but it still really only works on two dinner sittings early and late (early being 5.30 till about 6.30 start).Apparently a lot of people also thought you could rock up at any time for a table as the Maitre-d spoke about this at the wine tasting my brother attended on the second sea day explaining about the two sitting times. We always used the dining room phone after breakfast to book our table for that night (got to be a routine) we prefer eating in the restaurant - We like being waited on and the atmosphere there more. One thing I did notice was that they were enforcing the dress standards more than recently on other ships, we saw many people sent away for arriving at dinner in shorts or thongs etc:)
We also always had brekky in the dining room but lunched in the buffet - no queues ever and always found a table easy (except last day lunch when it took a little more searching - 4 mins instead of 1);)

[Skyrules]

I think I was under a misconception about anytime dining. I thought it meant you could go to the restaurant at any time for dinner but it still really only works on two dinner sittings early and late (early being 5.30 till about 6.30 start).Apparently a lot of people also thought you could rock up at any time for a table as the Maitre-d spoke about this at the wine tasting my brother attended on the second sea day explaining about the two sitting times.

Is this a change from the earlier cruises?? I don't remember any of the other PD cruisers mentioning this limitation. To me this sounds like the complete opposite of anytime dining - all it's done is taken away being assigned to a specific table.

[cruiselover53]

Thank you all,this has been very informative

[karmac]

I think I was under a misconception about anytime dining. I thought it meant you could go to the restaurant at any time for dinner but it still really only works on two dinner sittings early and late (early being 5.30 till about 6.30 start).Apparently a lot of people also thought you could rock up at any time for a table as the Maitre-d spoke about this at the wine tasting my brother attended on the second sea day explaining about the two sitting times. We always used the dining room phone after breakfast to book our table for that night (got to be a routine) we prefer eating in the restaurant - We like being waited on and the atmosphere there more. One thing I did notice was that they were enforcing the dress standards more than recently on other ships, we saw many people sent away for arriving at dinner in shorts or thongs etc:)
We also always had brekky in the dining room but lunched in the buffet - no queues ever and always found a table easy (except last day lunch when it took a little more searching - 4 mins instead of 1);)

I'm a little confused here. There certainly wasn't 2 sittings when we cruised on her. It was definately anytime dining. Sometimes we ate at 6.30, sometimes around 7-7.30 and on the two formal nights (the ONLY nights I booked beforehand) it was 8.30.:confused: :confused:

Karen

[suey]

I'm a little confused here. There certainly wasn't 2 sittings when we cruised on her. It was definately anytime dining. Sometimes we ate at 6.30, sometimes around 7-7.30 and on the two formal nights (the ONLY nights I booked beforehand) it was 8.30.:confused: :confused:

Karen

We were definately given the impression that it was either an early or late time to book (with scope of about an hour for start of meal). Not sure about walk-ins but most nights there was a sign at the entrance stating no walk-ins until 9pm. As I said the Maitre-d made special mention of the fact that they could not accommodate people arriving at all different times. This was definately not what I expected but as Mum is diabetic we always booked at 6pm anyway:)

[icemaiden2310]

I'm a little confused here. There certainly wasn't 2 sittings when we cruised on her. It was definately anytime dining. Sometimes we ate at 6.30, sometimes around 7-7.30 and on the two formal nights (the ONLY nights I booked beforehand) it was 8.30.:confused: :confused:

Karen


Maybe they have changed few things since the maiden voyage karen because I was thinking the same thing:confused: Even though we had a permanent booking everynight ( which now you cannot do) our table was quite near the front and people were coming and going all night. Sometimes we sat there till well after 9pm and no one hurried us or even expected us to vacate our table for another sitting

Icy

[Skyrules]

I guess all will be revealed in September :D It will probably have all changed again by then

[sunlover62]

Maybe they have changed few things since the maiden voyage karen because I was thinking the same thing:confused: Even though we had a permanent booking everynight ( which now you cannot do) our table was quite near the front and people were coming and going all night. Sometimes we sat there till well after 9pm and no one hurried us or even expected us to vacate our table for another sitting

Icy

I understand that they stopped giving permanent bookings because some people didn't turn up. I think you should still be able to have a permanent booking but the first time you don't turn up on time you should lose it. If you are always going to be there on time I don't see the problem. We had a 6.00pm booking and did feel a little rushed as you no sooner finished your entree then your main meal was there. Our waiter told us the next booking was 7pm so we had to be finished by then. In fact one night we must have been a bit slack because the next people arrived while we were sitting there talking over our coffee. I think having the option of the buffet is good but I would like to see the Dining Room go back to its first and second sittings. If you don't book in time then go to the buffet. Easy.

[bennob66]

We are cruising tomorrow on W805 and even though we have been told we cannot have a permanent booking we need to eat at 5 30 as my wife is Hypoglycemic. I hope we can just make a regular booking for this time and also not be rushed to finish in 30 mins!!

[Charlie Girl]

We were NEVER rushed and just book for 5.30 each night
cheers

[fishtaco]

In reallity anytime dinning on the Dawn means if you book you will get a seat if you dont you may have to wait,once they close a table in a section you cannot be seated there and will have to wait for a table in the section being served at the time.
We booked every night after we finnished dinner and never had a problem and towards the end the guy at the front desk penciled us in knowing our cabin number and prefered time.
The only people to have trouble getting a table were non regular Palm Court dinners who tried to book an early formal sitting on the day of the formals.
If you want an early sitting for formals you are best to book the night before.

Den