Early dining closed---10 months out?

Wow...I just booked Enchantment of the Seas for Oct. 26th and when I requested early dining, they said it wasn't available and at this time, there is no wait list. That really surprises me. The vacation planner suggested I check a couple of months before my cruise to see if early dining has opened up.

Is this normal? 10 months out? I chose MTD because I definitely didn't want to eat later in the evening. I'm hoping someone has advice on the chances early dining may open up and the best way of signing up for it. Thanks in advance....

I would ask my TA and "POOF" I would be in early dining. I wonder though, if early dining is filled up, are there cabins available still for this cruise? I'm noticing for our November cruise on the Adventure there are no "E" cabins available.

Same thing happened to us and we booked 11 months out. Right now we have 8:30 dining but I am hopeful we can switch to the early one. My TA has been checking every week.

If worse comes to worse we'll switch to MTD but I really don't want to do that.

I booked mine in 11 months time for August and I was on waiting list for early dinning, now I check they put us in late seating, this is too late for us, tried to contact our TA and still no reply, the worst is MTD if not early. This is very bad and we still have good 7 months to go.

I have been wondering the same thing. I was perhaps thinking they haven't got their ducks lined up so far in advance...excursions aren't available and MTD is not available - they have us on late seating. Could it be those in charge are just not opening things up this far in advance?

We are on the Mariner Mar 11. I had booked it about a year and a half ago, chose early seating, 6 PM.Then I get my E docs , and they changed it to 5:30, which is too early for us, but did not want late either, so it turned out to be a real hassle to get My Time , as there was a wait list. I am no sure what is going on with all these dining time problems.

how far in advance can you make my time dining reservations? I tried to do that but doesn't seem I can do it yet. Not sure how long I have to wait.

I'm on the Oct. 26th Enchantment sailing...there seem to be a lot of cabins left but I can't really tell.

I booked directly through RCCL so I won't have a TA watching out for me. For those of who you have experienced this and waited to see if it opened up, have you noticed a good time to check back? 6 months, 3 months out?

This is the first time this has happened...and 10 months out? A sailing out of Baltimore? I can't imagine they are almost full. But heck...what do I know? LOL!

yeah - we booked May 2011 for our Feb 2012 cruise and early dinning was not available - and no wait list - so we chose MTD

how far in advance can you make my time dining reservations? I tried to do that but doesn't seem I can do it yet. Not sure how long I have to wait.

 

Usually you can make MTD reservations 2 - 3 months out. Are you already registered for MTD? If not, do it now!

I booked the other day for a Nov 2012 cruise and early dining was full and was placed on wait list. Two days later, I noticed I was taken off wait list and got early dining.

Wow...I just booked Enchantment of the Seas for Oct. 26th and when I requested early dining, they said it wasn't available and at this time, there is no wait list. That really surprises me. The vacation planner suggested I check a couple of months before my cruise to see if early dining has opened up.

 

Is this normal? 10 months out? I chose MTD because I definitely didn't want to eat later in the evening. I'm hoping someone has advice on the chances early dining may open up and the best way of signing up for it. Thanks in advance....

Same problem here. :confused: We just booked the 11/4/12 sailing on Explorer and all we were offered was MTD. Just turned Diamond and never was waitlisted in all my other sailings. Even my TA said that it is probably just a ploy to get guests to pre-pay the gratuities since so many passengers feel they do not have to tip at all. With MTD you must pre-pay the gratuities.

MARAPRINCE

I encountered the same thing when making my reservations for our upcoming cruise, and it was also booked months in advance. We had no problem getting assigned to early seating, after calling our TA about it. Also we had a group of 11 that wanted to be seated together & they confirmed that also for the early seating. It is an interesting theory that they are trying to influenced people to do MTD. I hope they never change the MDR totally to that. I enjoy the traditional early & late seatings. But, as long as we are given the option of choosing MTD or traditional, I'll be happy.

I just called the Crown and Anchor D+ desk and had no problem switching one of my Allure weeks in December. However, for my February 27 and March 10 sailing on the Enchantment I was put on early dining waitlist.

When I originally booked the Freedom 11/4 sailing (and I did this in Jan, ten months in advance), the early seating was full and we were put on the wait list. I was :eek: that it could be full already. No idea if it really was, or if the arrangements just weren't available yet.

Ended up changing to the 10/21 sailing (not for this reason), and obtained the early seating with no problem. <shrugs> Who knows.

I really wonder Who Knows? I wanted MTD and was told only late seating was available - there's no wait list but the RCI rep told me he would "watch it" and change if it becomes available. Now is this standard practice? to not have MTD 9 months out? and no early seating either? Just curious in when do they open up options for dining and entertainment and excursions. Perhaps it is managed by the different home ports (we are cruising out of Cape Liberty NJ in Sep).

If the web site is not letting you go on a wait list, Call RCCL. When I booked my Allure dining back in October, I was put on a wait list for the early dining, and a couple days later, my reservation showed early. About 2 months out, my wife and I decided to do MTD and try to get a table for 2, but when I went to work the MTD times, all of the times conflicted with my show schedules! The times I wanted actually showed available but when I hit the reserve button, the system came back with not available.:eek:

So I went back to early dining and back to the wait list. After 2 days, I was confirmed. My guess is that they hold back seats for Diamond and Suite requests, but free them up as they get closer.

IMO it is a game that RCI plays to try to fill the late seating for dinner first. We booked 8 months ago for our upcoming cruise and they too told us that only late seating was available and MTD had not been released for booking yet.

We have 2 young children so 8:30pm dining was not an option for us. Magically when I called to cancel our cruise to rebook on another cruise line, RCI's customer service rep found an early dining table for us and subsequently another family who had chose to join us on the cruise.

I think that the same applies to cabins. I think that RCI only offers the less favorable cabins like aft or those below pool decks, when bookings open than as the cruise date gets closer and rooms fill they open up blocks of cabins mid ship and on the more favourable decks.

I booked a cruise in 2010 3 months before sailing and secured a great mid ship balcony cabin(and early dining). This year we booked 8 months prior to the sail date and only had the option of aft cabins on either deck 6 or 10, not to mention the problems with dining times I mentioned earlier.

Just off the Enchantment 12 day - great ship and cruise BTW.

We got early when we booked way back, but friends booked 8 months ahead and both early and MTD were closed. I told them to just be patient, and sure enough, about 3 months before the cruise all dining opened up again.

I've decided that some weird stuff goes on that is unique to Enchantment. At the guest talent show, there were about 10 acts, and when introduced, every one of them was attached to a large group. I think what is happening is that all kinds of groups in the mid-Atlantic area love the Enchantment because they can set up a bus-and-cruise excursion and avoid the hassle of flying their group. This is causing big time blocking of rooms and dining by the TAs involved. Of course this is driving up prices, mostly because Celebrity bailed from Baltimore, and now demand way exceeds supply.

On a related note, RC really needs to do something about overcrowding in the undersized Enchantment theater. On our cruise, they scheduled a lot of 10:30 shows for late seating diners, who responded by chowing in the WJ and then going to the early show.

Interesting insight from the Enchantment area of operation (PSCcruiser)...I'm betting that may be the case on the Canada/N Engl cruise out of NJ. High populated area; only 4 cruises to the N.Engl area (considering there are 52 weeks in a year) - possibly TA's have blocked rooms for group sailings and thus dining options limited, etc. We are on the Brilliance - but wondering if RCI is not ready to manage the bookings this far out and are, indeed, booking late seating first, etc. as Xlration suggests.

Thinking there are so many "in the know" about so much stuff, that perhaps there may be a sound rhyme and reason behind the scenes.

Interesting theories.

We encountered the same problem on our last cruise. I kept calling RCCL every week for two months and finally got someone to say that there was no wait list for early seating. The persistence paid off!

Next cruise, I am doing MTD.

Early dining for our November Allure cruise was also closed out back about a month ago. My friends were waitlisted for early and just this week got it.

yeah it does seem something strange is going on. Well, I am officially booked for the MTD. I always pre-pay gratuities so I don't mind that...I did call yesterday and NOW I am on the waitlist for 6pm. Two days prior there was no wait list.

My reservation says MTD dining, 6pm traditional, wait list. So I'm assuming i'm set for MTD and if early seating becomes available they will change it.

I'll check back in a few months to see what's happening. I now realize that I'm only going to spend 3 out of the 6 days in the dining room anyway. They have two formals and I don't do formal night and I'll spend one evening in Chops. So if we are stuck with MTD, not too much of a big deal.

I do think it's odd that certain dining room seatings are booked so far out. I'm not a RCCL expert, but have been on several cruises and this just seems to be popping up since MTD came about (my last 3 cruises). Our last cruise on Serenade was booked 8 months out and we were put on the waitlist but when I called a week later to put down more money, early seating was opened up.

can anybody tell me when i can book excursions ,entertainment etc? we sail on may 28 on the liberty,and as yet it won't let me do either,or drinks packages.

also we asked for main dining and thats showing as 9.30?? should it be 8.30??

thankyou...

I am suspicious of the dining choices filling up, early in planning. I am not an experienced cruiser, but was recently on AOS. Late dining was full, early on, and we decided on MTD. My time dining is...............THEIR TIME DINING. Only certain MTD "times" were available. Loved the cruise, loved the food, loved the MDR and the service, but.............there are problems with signing up to dinner (any times ) in advance.