Main dining room waiting list

Hi I just booked Freedom of the Seas for Jan 8th 2012. Our second cruise ever and we're pumped!

I was very surprised to hear that the Main dining room was already full for the 6:00 seating! The RCCI agent put me on a waiting list but in the meantime set me up for My Time dining. I have 2 children and I'm concerned that I'm going to be fighting to get a table for 6:00 every evening so I can get them fed!

Do you think the "waiting list" will ever magically... open up? If I recall correctly, the agent said I can make the My Time reservations 90 days before the cruise? Maybe that will help guarantee some peace of mind!

I was wondering same thing with the opposite problem.. I just booked a cruise on the Splendour and only the 6:30 dinner was open.. We like to eat later, and they said there isnt even a wait list available. Any suggestions??

For our cruise, early traditional is full with no waiting list available. We took MTD, and then were able to make reservations online for 6:30 every night. This is on Allure, but I believe you can do this for all ships.

Try to go into your reservation online and see if it is possible for you to make MTD reservation now.

That happened to us earlier this year. In January, we booked a cruise for this coming July and were told that the early dinner seating was full, as was the wait list. I called RCCL once each week from January until the 2nd week in April...and there was finally an opening for early dining. Maybe they just got tired of hearing from me!

My guess is 99% of the time you will be able to get the dinner seating you wish. If you haven't been put in your preferred seating arrangement, head down to the MDR as soon as you walk on the ship, and ask for it. They are very good, and can be very creative when trying to accommodate everyones requests.

If they are unable to get you on the time you wish, make sure you pre-book the time you wish online for MTD. At least this way you are guaranteed to have the dining time you are hoping for.

Back in the old days of cruising, if you needed to make changes in your dinning, a visit to the Matre Dei (SP?) with some green in your hand worked really well. Does that still work today?

We booked our cruise to Bermuda 5 months ago, through RC. At that time we were told that the early seating was completely full so we ended up with the 8:30 seating. We booked two cabins. Our friends booked one cabin, through a TA and their TA told them the same thing about the seating. I happened to call this past Tuesday about changing something about our reservation, and when the rep was finished she asked me if there was anything else she could help me with. I figured I'd give it a shot and asked about changing the seating. To my amazement-she said "We can certainly do that-there are plenty of openings for the 6pm seating." I told her what the original rep had told me and she said she didn't know why we were told that! So she changed the time. I immediately called my friend, who immediately called her TA, who checked and said yes, there were plenty of open seats! So we all ended up with the time we really wanted, but we're still not sure how! Has this ever happened to anyone else?:confused::D

I have found that RCCL usually starts shuffling things around between 120 and 90 days before the cruise. For my next cruise I was originally assigned late seating and waitlisted for MTD. About a week or so ago I was assigned MTD.

To be safe make your MTD reservations as soon as they open up for your cruise. Again the time frame is usually between 120 and 90 days before departure. That way you will be all set no matter what happens.

Thanks folks! I feel much better about my situation now and will continue to pester RCCI over the coming months. Sounds like they are very good at accommodating just about everyone.

FYI, I called last night and the agent said I was moved off the waiting list and into a 6:00 dining slot... one day after I made the booking!

I also called today and was moved to the later dining which is what we wanted, eventhough I was told twice before that it was full and no wait list!! Much happier!

FYI, I called last night and the agent said I was moved off the waiting list and into a 6:00 dining slot... one day after I made the booking!

Glad to hear it. I was going to tell you that we were waitlisted for early seating for our Oasis cruise and within a month or two we were moved to early seating. It is always nice when things work out :D

I'm sailing Vision at the end of the month, at the time of booking MTD was waitlist only, so I booked the early seating. Now I see that I've been moved to MTD and the 6PM seating is waitlist only.

Things can definitely change, and I'm glad it worked out for both of us :)

We booked our upcoming Monarch cruise just six weeks out and were only able to choose early dining, with the MTD and Late seating both having closed wait-lists. I emailed the RCI dining and they were able to get me switched to MTD this week. We are happy campers!

I'm sure there are plenty of people like me... that as they think more about their cruise they change their minds on dining times. I originally had 6:00pm on Oasis scheduled but then realized that the ports were open longer than I expected and that I plan on skipping out a few times for specialty dining. Factor in that I also ended up with pre-paid gratuities from a TA and I switched us to MTD, thus freeing up a spot for someone else if it had been full.