Anytime dining or traditional?

[LONES]

We're cruising on the Golden Princess next summer with extended family
(5 familes, 17 people). My MIL organized the trip and chose to do the anytime dining. I've never cruised and am trying to understand how it works. Do you just show up and wait for a table, or can you make a 6:00pm reservation for "tonight" when you get up in the morning? Or does it work both ways? Also, are there formal nights when you do the anytime dining? Thanks!

[BruceMuzz]

Originally Posted by cb at sea

The food should be exactly the same. Both take place in the MDR.
We love traditional BECAUSE of the tablemates....we just enjoy having others to talk to! We can (and do) eat by ourselves most of the time at home (empty nesters!) and enjoy the company of others!
None of the shows conflict with either of the traditional dining times, and there's still plenty of time to be "active"....
Give traditional a try. It's certainly the more "fun" option!

The food should be the same in both systems - but it rarely is.

And for very good reasons.

When we invented "Traditional Dining" back in the 1980's, we did it because ships had gotten too large to accommodate everyone for dinner at the same time - which is what REAL Traditional Dining is. So we decided to feed you in shifts - like in a factory or high school. That is what traditional dining has become today. There are many really good reasons (mostly financial) to do it this way. If most everyone eats at the same time, we can cook everything at the same time - in very large quantities. This requires far fewer cooks to accomplish the same job. Instead of one cook preparing 3 or 4 steaks at the same time (like in your local restaurant or in open dining on a ship), he can prepare 100 steaks at the same time, giving far less attention to the one you are about to eat.
And since everyone eats at nearly the same pace in traditional dining, we can accomplish serving the food with far fewer waiters. They feed you on a production line.

With Open Dining, people arrive at all times and eat at different paces. Our cooks are forced to prepare the food in small batches, giving them more time to pay more individual attention to what they are doing. Open Dining requires 20% more waiters to do the same job, since guest arrivals are unpredictable and we cannot serve everyone the same thing at the same time.

On ships that offer both Traditional and Open Dining, ratings for service are typically higher in the Traditional Dining rooms - not because the service is better, but because it is more predictable. And that pleases the average diner.

But the food quality ratings are always higher in the Open Dining rooms, where more care and attention has been taken in preparing your food.

If you are more interested in having the waiter know in advance that you want your salad dressing on the side, and your iced tea waiting for you, you should choose Traditional Dining.
If you are more interested in eating better prepared food, go for Open Dining.

[sherilyn70]

Originally Posted by BruceMuzz

If you are more interested in having the waiter know in advance that you want your salad dressing on the side, and your iced tea waiting for you, you should choose Traditional Dining.
If you are more interested in eating better prepared food, go for Open Dining.

That is some very interesting and helpful insight Bruce. Thanks for sharing that! It makes a lot of sense once I thought about it. I would rather have great food with okay service than okay food with great service.

[Hlitner]

Ahhh Bruce Bruce Bruce! We know you spent a lot of time working on ships....but we have spent a lot of time (more then 2 1/2 years) cruising on ships (more fun then work). We have actually found that doing open (Anytime, Select, etc) dining has lots of advantages for those who like to dine pretty late (after 8). We do notice that the quality of our food prep is normally somewhat better (you pointed out the reason) but we also love the quality of service. When folks dine early the waiters are under pressure to get their charges out of the dining room as soon as possible so they can accomodate the later seating or later diners. But when you go into the MDR after 8 the only pressure on the waiters is to get everyone out so they can go "home." But most waiters actually seem to enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere that happens with later diners and we usually (not always) get terrific service. There is another aspec to fixed dining that can be very problamatic. Most ships now have multiple alternative dining venues and many passengers try some (or all) of these restaurants. We prefer a large table because we enjoy the socialization. But we (and others we know) have had large tables at fixed dining times when the others at the table may not show-up because they decide to eat elsewhere that night. A table of 8 feels very empty if there are only 4 (or even 2). This never happens with Anytime dining since we always ask to share a large table and they always fill up.

Hank

[SMSACE6]

From now on, it will be anytime dining for me, or freestyle on NCL!

[Cruisin'Oma]

We enjoy the anytime. Our table was usually close enough to another table to talk with if we wanted to.

[cath7227]

So timely that I found this thread! Hubby and I have enjoyed traditional dining on past cruises, but for our upcoming journey I've been thinking about anytime dining. Many thanks to all for your insights, it's definitely given me some more to think about!