Early, late, or My Time Dining?

Hello... This will be our first RCCL cruise, and we have a large group of about 40 guests... Mostly family and some friends. Right now we have My Time Dining as our chosen dining time. But I am curious as to what everyone thinks is the better dining time and why. Also, I'm not exactly clear on how reservations are made for My Time dining... Is it done every day or do we make reservations the first day and go the same time every day? Can someone please shed some light on this for me? Thanks!

If one of the traditional dining times is acceptable, I would choose one because of the size of your group. MTD would, I think, be a challenge for a group so large. With MTD, you can make reservations online in advance for any day or the entire cruise. You don't need reservations in MTD, but for a large group I would strongly suggest it!

If the object is to eat at the same time and site at tables near each other, then I would try to get one of the traditional dining times.

I've never done MTD, but I've read where large parties that want reservations may be restricted to very early (when the dining rooms first open up) or at the 'last' seating time...this if they want to try and all sit together at tables near each other. Its much harder to do this during the 'prime' seating times of 6:30-7:30.

As another poster suggests, I would pick the Traditional (early or late...your preference) because this way you KNOW every night you will all be together without a long wait.

My only other suggestion here though is to make sure that you hit the dining room at embarkation to check exactly where your dining assignment is...for the whole group. On our Serenade cruise this past March we went to check on our table (we wanted a 2-top, got assigned to a 10-top) and overheard a large family group talking about their assignment. They had booked through a travel agent and were told their request to all be seated together at large tables was in...but their group of 24 was scattered ALL over the dining room. Because they came to see the staff first thing, the dining room manager was able to rework their assignments while working to accommodate all the other changes people wanted. Had they waited until 6pm that night to just 'show up' and see what they had, they would have been very disappointed and making the changes much more challenging.

I agree..for a group THAT large, traditional seating will work best. There is absolutely no way you will all be able to even sit in the same area with MTD...with traditional seating, they can "link" all your booking numbers, and make sure you're groups in the same area....you'll need 4 larger tables!

Thanks everyone! I think I will try to switch to early or late dining.... Just torn between not wanting to eat too early... But also not wanting to eat too late! Lol

Thanks everyone! I think I will try to switch to early or late dining.... Just torn between not wanting to eat too early... But also not wanting to eat too late! Lol

Make sure you link your reservation numbers so that they can seat you together.

We had a group of 43 a couple of years ago. Our travel agent was able to get us all at tables next to each other. We did do late dining. She was able to give us a diagram showing where our tables were, etc... It worked great

Hello... This will be our first RCCL cruise, and we have a large group of about 40 guests... Mostly family and some friends. Right now we have My Time Dining as our chosen dining time. But I am curious as to what everyone thinks is the better dining time and why. Also, I'm not exactly clear on how reservations are made for My Time dining... Is it done every day or do we make reservations the first day and go the same time every day? Can someone please shed some light on this for me? Thanks!

For 40 one of the fixed times.

Unless eating as a group doesn't bother you, then my time may be better.

I agree that traditional dining is best for your group. If you would be willing to do the late dining time you would have an easier time getting side by side tables.

The early seating is most popular and usually crowded. Late dining is less crowded. Often there are many partially filled tables--or empty tables. There is a lot more flexibility.

PS--we ask for the late seating. On our first cruise that was all we could get. We found it worked out very well. There was so much to do on the ship/in ports. Also, we get up later than at home and ate breakfast/lunch later.

We like doing the late seating for a couple reasons. First, we start the cruise on "mountain time" which is 2 hours behind the caribbean (sometimes 3 hours depending on the island). 6:30 dining would mean we are eating dinner at 330-4:30.

Second, we tend to stay on the islands all day, so when we come back we're tired and want a nap and/or shower before dinner. When you have early seating, you don't get to have that break.

If you have late seating and get hungry, you can go to the windjammer buffet for a snack (or a "first dinner" or "late lunch" if you were out all day and forgot to eat lunch at lunch time). It's usually empty because it will have just opened and a lot of people are in the dining room.

Of course if you have early seating and get hungry later on, you could do the windjammer also, but it does close around 9pm I think, so it wouldn't give you much time between dinner and when it closes to eat again.

The biggest thing for me is not having to rush to get to dinner for the early seating, so I like late seating. I can't figure out why early is more popular.

We like doing the late seating for a couple reasons. First, we start the cruise on "mountain time" which is 2 hours behind the caribbean (sometimes 3 hours depending on the island). 6:30 dining would mean we are eating dinner at 330-4:30.

 

Second, we tend to stay on the islands all day, so when we come back we're tired and want a nap and/or shower before dinner. When you have early seating, you don't get to have that break.

 

If you have late seating and get hungry, you can go to the windjammer buffet for a snack (or a "first dinner" or "late lunch" if you were out all day and forgot to eat lunch at lunch time). It's usually empty because it will have just opened and a lot of people are in the dining room.

 

Of course if you have early seating and get hungry later on, you could do the windjammer also, but it does close around 9pm I think, so it wouldn't give you much time between dinner and when it closes to eat again.

 

The biggest thing for me is not having to rush to get to dinner for the early seating, so I like late seating. I can't figure out why early is more popular.

Literally could not have said this better myself, my thoughts exactly.

I prefer late dining because I like to stay up and enjoy the night life on the ship. Of course this can be done with early dining too, but late dining works better for me.

FYI: Breakfast and lunch in the MDR is always "my time". It is probably next to impossible to play breakfast or lunch together as one large group.

And I can just about guarantee you won't sit more than 8 together (and sometimes only 6 or 4) in the Windjammer buffet.

As others said, fixed time dining works best for groups -- it makes a great meeting place at the end of the day.

Tip: Whoever gets to the dining table first can order the fruit/nut/cheese plate and have something to munch on while waiting for the others to straggle in.

Thanks everyone! I think I will try to switch to early or late dining.... Just torn between not wanting to eat too early... But also not wanting to eat too late! Lol

We're early eaters at home...6:00pm like clockwork. But, when cruising we really enjoy dining later...usually 8:00pm. We find the ship very enjoyable (less crowded) when early dining begins so bars, casino, shows, etc. are less hectic and more enjoyable.

We're early eaters at home...6:00pm like clockwork. But, when cruising we really enjoy dining later...usually 8:00pm. We find the ship very enjoyable (less crowded) when early dining begins so bars, casino, shows, etc. are less hectic and more enjoyable.

We find this to be true, also. We wait until the time for early seating and then head for one of these venues or the Diamond lounge.

the one thing I do not like about late seating is that most of the shows scheduled around this dinner seating are before dinner. ugh!!

We've traveled with the large family group before and nothing works better than choosing on of the traditional times in the MDR. They had all of our tables in a "cluster" of sorts. That is not going to work well with MTD. You'll end up being seated and served at different times and scattered. We chose early dining when we all had small children. This summer we will be going on a family cruise (small group) and one of those small children is now in his 20's with a friend going along with us. They have excursions planned and it would rush them to get back to dine with us, so we have chosen late dining. We will have to have a small "snack" to hold us over until late dining, but we did late dining for a couple of Med cruises because our excursions and it worked out well. DO take the advice of a previous poster who suggested you have your travel agent link the reservations for dining.

If you are a very early riser, like to watch the sunrise, early breakfast, etc, then the "dinner and a show" schedule would work best for you. Dinner at 6, show at 8, asleep by midnight or sooner.