Currently on Silhouette -- anytime dining is a problem

I agree that "anytime" dining should be just that ... walk up between 6 & 9 and get seated or wait for a table if you choose a prime time. We experience Anytime Dining for the first time on Princess 5 years ago, and it worked great. Never waited very long if at all, and pretty much always got same wait staff as requested. X complicates things with their Select Dining reservation system, and it seems that they just don't manage it very well on some ships. Example: not utilizing empty tables in the Traditional Dining section.

 

(Disclaimer ... my statements re: X are gleaned from CC observations, not experience).

 

BZ

Unfortunately, X cannot use tables (effectively) in the fixed dining area unless they know which tables are not going to be used on any given evening.

If an assigned table is running late, there is no way to know when they arrive, etc... Not sure if they have a cut off time for arrival or not, if they do each traditional diner needs to be aware of the time and be required to call if they are running late. Then that table needs to be vacated in time for the traditional late seating. Tricky to manage, to be sure.

bon voyage

When Lumanae was built within the MDR, it cut deeply into the number of fixed dining seats available. All too often now, unless you request early fixed dining a year or so in advance, there is none available—hence folks being given select dining. Sometimes, even a year in advance is not sufficient. You can always check immediately when you board as to any availability but to tell folks to simply change to fixed dining is not as simple as it might appear. If we are not planning to go to the MDR for dinner, we always let our waiter and the MDR know so that our seats can be used for Select—and yes, Select can be seated downstairs when there is availability at the fixed dining times. We’ve watched people being led down the stairs to tables near us as well as our dinner “mates” telling us that people had been seated at our table by 6:15 so as not to disrupt service.

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When Lumanae was built within the MDR, it cut deeply into the number of fixed dining seats available. All too often now, unless you request early fixed dining a year or so in advance, there is none available—hence folks being given select dining. Sometimes, even a year in advance is not sufficient. You can always check immediately when you board as to any availability but to tell folks to simply change to fixed dining is not as simple as it might appear. If we are not planning to go to the MDR for dinner, we always let our waiter and the MDR know so that our seats can be used for Select—and yes, Select can be seated downstairs when there is availability at the fixed dining times. We’ve watched people being led down the stairs to tables near us as well as our dinner “mates” telling us that people had been seated at our table by 6:15 so as not to disrupt service.

 

 

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I had wondered about that, but reckoned that the extra foot traffic might be disruptive. But as you say if there are Select diners wanting to eat at fixed times, it would make sense to utilise any unused tables downstairs.

In the instance we are discussing on Silhouette, I’d guess that one of the issues is their inability or unwillingness to segregate those guests with reservations from walk up guests.

I’d be pretty disappointed if I’d gone to the trouble of making a reservation and then find out that my table had been given away earlier to some one who hadn’t bothered to make a reservation or was too late in trying to do so.

When Lumanae was built within the MDR, it cut deeply into the number of fixed dining seats available.

So where did the folks in suites eat before Luminae?

So where did the folks in suites eat before Luminae?

Ahh, I see your point:D Before Luminae was created, suite guests dined in the MDR. The only time we upgraded to a suite, there was no Luminae, no dedicated Michael’s Club, and there were no perks (though the price was much lower than it is now lol). We did receive complimentary vouchers for two nights in specialty dining.

Our experience on the Silhouette Jan. 14-26 in Select Dining was excellent. Probably because our party of 6 preferred to dine at 8 pm or shortly thereafter. We did indeed call each morning to reserve our time and each evening we were seated at the designated time or just a few minutes later. Same table except the last night and always the same staff. Hostess was a bit harried but always professional and polite. Never saw long lines as someone described.

I think the root of the problem is that many select diners are unaware that you can reserve a time beforehand and expect that they will be seated immediately upon their arrival at the podium. Hence, the bottlenecks and occasional temper tantrums follow.

So where did the folks in suites eat before Luminae?

Curious how many suite passengers dine as select in mdr to be with non-suite friends and relatives. Just adds to the overcrowding.

I just made a reservation for 6:30 every night in select dining for our December cruise. Took a while online, but I did get it done. Early is to o early for us and late is too late.

Curious how many suite passengers dine as select in mdr to be with non-suite friends and relatives. Just adds to the overcrowding.

And I am curious how many folks from the MDR dine with suite guest friends in Luminae. :D

Perhaps Celebrity need to change the name from "Anytime Dining" to "We Pick Your Time Dining"

LOL

I am sure Celebrity wants to fix it. We were on last sailing of Silhouette Jan 14-26) and ate in BLU and Speciality restaurants. We did try the MDR late seating time around 9 pm to try the escargots to see if they were the same as we were getting in BLU (and they were) and dining room was about 1/2 full on level we went in on the port side. Thus their dilemma. Supply and Demand based on time. Not sure how to fix.

And I am curious how many folks from the MDR dine with suite guest friends in Luminae. :D

Only the ones who are willing to pay something like $30 pp (space available basis). We opted to meet our suite friends in Murano instead:D

"Any Time Dining" is a term Norwegian and maybe some other cruise lines use. Celebrity uses "Select Dining". They have a limit on how many people can sign up for "Select" (based on # tables), and they offer those people the opportunity to make advance reservations, or not. Most times, the people with reservations can get their table fairly easily. If "Select" people want to just show up at "any time" without reservations, they might be lucky--or they might have to take a beeper and wait--just like land based restaurants.

People just need to understand how it works. We have never had a problem with "Select Dining".

And, if Celebrity chose to combine the "reservation" line and "those without reservation" into one line, the "with reservations" get priority. It's all in the computer.

The first night experience is always a challenge for the crew and the passengers. You are on vacation--be happy!

:cool:

We like Aqua Class or a Suite on X and have Blu or Luminea so have never eaten in MDR. Have Infinite Veranda on Edge in our upcoming B-to-B so may end up in MDR unless we eat in specialty restaurants. The second leg is in a Suite so we get Luminea. Our select seating experience on other lines varied. On Holland America you sometimes get a pager but a free drink coupon comes with it so you don't mind hanging out in the nearest bar waiting for your call so much. Regent has no fixed seating but their MDR is built to accommodate most passengers at the same time. But you're talking about a luxury line. Cunard doesn't have other than set times but, if you want to pay for a more expensive stateroom, you get open seating in three other restaurants.

The situation in Select has got worse year by year in my opinion. Several years ago I did not even know reservations were possible, so maybe it was not happening in such numbers, or even at all. Folk just wandered up at any time, and the only time I saw a queue was when the theatre emptied. The system worked as was expected and was a relaxing and an enjoyable experience.

What has changed to cause the constant queues and the necessity to hand out pagers other than accepting reservations? I cannot think what else could have caused this. I know some people like to dine at the same time each night, and not early or late as in Traditional, but it used to work by just turning up.

We were on the 12/14 Silhouette sailing and I agree with Select Dining not working....It's an easy fix....either expand the tables or limit the number of takers and I would like them to eliminate reservations within...you show up and get seated or take one of the two fixed times..This has been going on way too long...Come on Celebrity, you can do alot better at resolving this over giving me a pager everynight....

The Celebrity Select Dining did NOT work well on the Infinity. Celebrity should have the Traditional and the NCL version of Anytime Dining with walk up service only, no reservations. The reservations are what puts a kink in the system. Having two podiums one for Select "reservations" and the other for walk ups makes for a lot of frustrated guests and not a lot of waiting room area. Someone posted that they limit the amount of reservations....from my observation it was a LOT of reservations and they couldn't seat everyone and the wait times were long. Maybe it was the ship (Infinity) but the dining rooms were crowded and waiters passing trays over our heads and walking guests to seat them between close spaced tables did not make for a fine dining experience. Having only 1 main dining room didn't help much. We did find the specialty dining rooms at extra cost very nice.

I think the reason anytime dining (they actually call it ‘freestyle dining’) works so well on NCL is because 1. The entire ship is on it and 2. They offer so many complimentary dining options. On our last NCL cruise, there were a total of 4 free sit down restaurants you could choose from each night. 2 were MDRs with the same rotating menu, 1 was a casual eatery with a set menu, and 1 was Chinese with a set menu. We are around 6:30 most nights and never had an issue getting in. If you went to one MDR with a wait, you could go to the other one. Worst case, if they both had waits (never ran into that), you could go to the casual restaurant; (the Chinese restaurant was excellent and always had a wait).

I really think that when they try to do traditional and select on one ship; and then further complicate the system with reservations, that they are tanking the concept. In today’s cruising culture with people going to specialty restaurants multiple times per cruise I think if the ships switched over to all select they would be much more successful.

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Cruise ship mdr's are designed for tables to be turned 2x. You might have 1,000 guests assigned to Select, but only 500 seats. Many guests don't wish to dine when doors open at 6pm so unlike Traditional room is slow to fill. Then around 7pm 800 hungry folks start lining up outside. Just doesn't work.

Reservation system only makes things worse. A 7pm reservation forces a table to be held empty from 6-7pm and then occupied by one group from 7-9pm giving it only 1 turn.

We like Aqua Class or a Suite on X and have Blu or Luminea so have never eaten in MDR. Have Infinite Veranda on Edge in our upcoming B-to-B so may end up in MDR unless we eat in specialty restaurants. The second leg is in a Suite so we get Luminea. Our select seating experience on other lines varied. On Holland America you sometimes get a pager but a free drink coupon comes with it so you don't mind hanging out in the nearest bar waiting for your call so much. Regent has no fixed seating but their MDR is built to accommodate most passengers at the same time. But you're talking about a luxury line. Cunard doesn't have other than set times but, if you want to pay for a more expensive stateroom, you get open seating in three other restaurants.

The drink is a nice comp.

We ate in BLU on Jan 14-26 Silhouette sailing. We showed up typically between 6:15 and 6:30 and never had to wait. I can also say that most table set ups are two tops in BLU that can be pulled together and also pulled apart. There are, as I recall, 4 larger round tables that too can have table settings added or removed to go between 6-8 seating, as I recall. This table for 2 set up is how MDR should set up to better work, I think. Not sure they can set up for a mass show up between 6:30 and 7:30 pm which seems to be prime time.

My big question would be 'what is the ratio of Aqua Class cabins to table space if everyone wanted to eat at the same time, or what is the capacity of BLU as a percent of AQ cabins. I would think it is pretty high compared to MDR.

The sad part, Qsine was about 1/4 full the timeframe we ate there at 6:30 pm. We also noticed that Tuscan was about the same when we walked out of BLU each night we ate there. Supply and Demand capacity is their issue at peak time for passengers. We ate at Muranos also at 6:30 and if seemed pretty full.

I can only guess that Celebrity is expecting that enough passengers will eat in speciality restaurants that are assign to MDR to reduce the strain. I would guess that more people from AQ and suites eat in specialty restaurants vs MDR passengers.

OP here after several days without internet access. We spoke with a dining manager during the cruise, who confirmed there were issue with Select Dining on this particular cruise. Apparently nearly 2500 passengers wanted to dine early (around 6 pm) and the dining room can hold only 1500. They began opening early, starting at 5:15 by cruise end. It was definitely an older demographic. We ended up in the buffet to avoid the whole mess. For those who recommended fixed dining, you may not be aware that it was booked up a full year in advance and late fixed or select we're the only options.

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We were on the Jan 26th sailing of Silhouette along with the OP. We only ate in the MDR once, but they were obviously having issues with Select Dining that night. We went in around 7:45 but our buzzer didn't go off until around 8:25, at which point we returned to find a large crowd of people who had clearly been waiting just as long. We were all herded to a newly-opened section of the MDR (port side on 3) and all seated simultaneously, presumably right along with the 8:30 fixed seating people.

We didn't care about the wait but I did think it rather ridiculous that they would offer "Select" times only to make people wait until the next fixed seating.

I guess I'm glad now that my TA booked us with Early Dining not select like I was thinking of.

OP here after several days without internet access. We spoke with a dining manager during the cruise, who confirmed there were issue with Select Dining on this particular cruise. Apparently nearly 2500 passengers wanted to dine early (around 6 pm) and the dining room can hold only 1500. They began opening early, starting at 5:15 by cruise end. It was definitely an older demographic. We ended up in the buffet to avoid the whole mess. For those who recommended fixed dining, you may not be aware that it was booked up a full year in advance and late fixed or select we're the only options.

 

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This is what happened on our one and only Princess cruise. Early seating was fully booked so many people made a reservation for the same time as early seating, but in the Anytime dining room. After a couple of days of walking up and waiting a couple of hours we decided to shift our evening and went to the show first and then had dinner later. It wasn't ideal but it was less frustrating once we accepted the reality that we just weren't going to get into the dining room at our preferred time.

We've always gotten Select dining since we've started cruising with Celebrity and we've never had a problem. Infinity seemed to handle it the best, but we've had no real problems on any of the other ships we've been on. We will be on Silhouette later this year, so I hope this isn't a permanent problem.

The situation in Select has got worse year by year in my opinion. Several years ago I did not even know reservations were possible, so maybe it was not happening in such numbers, or even at all. Folk just wandered up at any time, and the only time I saw a queue was when the theatre emptied. The system worked as was expected and was a relaxing and an enjoyable experience.

 

What has changed to cause the constant queues and the necessity to hand out pagers other than accepting reservations? I cannot think what else could have caused this. I know some people like to dine at the same time each night, and not early or late as in Traditional, but it used to work by just turning up.

You are right, but its not just Select Dining...but many things on Celebrity. When we go to the MDR (Select) we will often see queues outside the MDR, but once inside we notice many empty tables (and seats). At times it almost seems like there are not enough waiters to handle all the tables. When we were recently on the Reflection we showed-up at the MDR for breakfast (about 1/2 hour after opening) only to discover a long queue of passengers waiting to be seated in a near empty MDR. We finally were seated at a large table (our preferrence) and then waited for over 30 minutes to get our breakfast. Our waiter (who we didn't even see for the first 10 minutes) apologized and explained that they were somewhat overwhelmed. But yet, the MDR was pretty empty (they did not even fill 1/4 of the lower level tables. There simply was not enough staff to serve the tables and (according to our waiter) the galley was not able to keep up with the orders.

This makes me wonder about Celebrity cut-backs and staffing. Getting back to Celebrity dinner....we have learned to not even order dinner until after we have been served our wine. Otherwise, one runs the risk of getting wine for dessert. Another staffing problem.

Hank