Is Viking going to have fixed or flexible dining?

I have just looked at the website for future cruises and was surprised to read that the DV category is able to make reservations in the main dining room about a couple of months ahead of the cruise. I assume the higher categories of cabin can book even further ahead. The lowly V categories can't make any reservations.

I find this very puzzling. When we were on the Homelands cruise the main dining was first come, first served ( ie flexible dining) and only the speciality restaurants could be booked in advance.

Can someone from Viking clarify this?

If Viking is going to permit reservation in the main dining room based on a hierarchical structure of cabin type we would never book with them again.

They don't learn

We are just finishing the current Homeland cruise. NEVER had a problem with flex dining. Only had to wait for 5-10 minutes once. Groups of 6 or more have been able to get fixed dining from the beginning. Reservations by any sort of hierarchical structure in the "The Restaurant " was never an issue. Overall, ALL dining facilities have been impressive, especially Manfredi's.

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When we were onboard for the maiden cruise, we were curious about the change from fixed to flex and we were told they didn't have any kind of system in place to implement fixed dining. For large parties (and for 2 if you're adamant that you want the same table and waiter ;) ) they do it all manually. They have a separate manual list that they use to take "reservations" and a color coded map of the dining room. The color codes are done with colored markers. Green for "reserved" and yellow for "taken". If they do ever go to fixed dining I think it will be a while. Not because they are listening to their customers, but that they don't have the systems in place to do it.

I like flexible dining and it was certainly working on our Homelands cruise. I am just concerned that Viking might be re-thinking this and going to fixed dining. I think that would be a mistake especially if most passengers opted for fixed.

Whatever they did on our cruise was just fine and I hope they continue with it.

It is my guess that from the start, Viking intended to have flexible dining in the (main) dining room, as that is what they announced from the start. When they came out with a choice on My Viking Journey (and they may have called it "preference" or something like that, but people took it to mean fixed) I'm guessing they were just trying to get an idea of when people wanted to eat, not to actually reserve and assign tables and times.

It has been pretty clear to me that most people feel the flexible dining process works well (as it does on other cruise lines I've used that have it), and that waits, if any, have been minimal. We don't like cruising on a ship that doesn't offer flexible dining, as we're not always ready to eat at 7 PM on the dot!

I agree with roothy....Fixed dining only works if there is a separate dining room for flexible and fixed (as there was on our recent Celebrity Infinity cruise).

Viking Star is too small for that so the better option is to stick with flexible. It really seemed to work just fine. No one waited for more than a few minutes and on most evenings were was no wait at all.

I am not sure how Viking dealt with larger parties - say 6. We have neighbours and friends going next year and they are a party of 6 (on basic veranda). Anyone know about how that was handled? I know there were few dining problems on the inaugural cruise but I understand that the ship did not have a full complement then (only 700 plus). Does anyone know if there have been problems with larger groups since they went to the full complement?

Larger groups on the cruise were able to have fixed dining.

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