new to Princess - personal choice dining question

Hello. We just booked our first Princess cruise and we picked late seating traditional dining (we like to meet other couples at dinner). Does this mean we will miss some shows? If we want to switch haf way through the cruise can we then choose personal choice? If so, are we given a set time and will we eat with others? Thanks for the help!

Summit, November 2002

Brilliance, March 2003

Serenade, August 2003

It seems like this is a duplicate question. You may change but notify the maitre d' so that he can give your seating to someone that is waitlisted. You may sit with others at both traditional and personal choice. Personal choice is more flexible. We choose personal choice because we like to eat alone. If you like to meet people, traditional will be fine for you and you will not miss any shows.

Hi,

I am still somewhat confused about the personal choice dining. Do you typically make a reservation in the morning for that night or do you just show up? If the latter, how long is the average wait to get a table and then do you simply request to sit with others if that is your preference?

Thanks for any input - my husband and I will be cruising on the Grand Princess on 11/27/04 and it is our first time on Princess Cruise lines.

Thanks!!

you can make a reservation or just show up. Normal waiting time duriing peak dining hours (6pm-8pm) without a reservation is from 1-10 minutes. On formal nights I would suggest making a reservaion. One other thing you can do with personal choice is if you like your waiters you can request that you be seated at the same table every night and at the same time period, say 745-800 or whatever. The maitre d' will reserve the table for you.

I have another question about PC dining, if we choose traditional dining can we use the PC restaurants once or twice during the cruise?

KK, I don't think you will have any problem wit PC on the grand. If you have traditional, you can eat in Pc a couple of times, but out of respect for your waiters and table mates, please inform the waiter that you will not be there the following evening. If you decide to change the day of, please call the dining room and let the maitre d know. :)

I'm so torn... On the one hand, we would like to get acquainted with others and it could be fun to meet up with the same group of people every night at dinner. But, on the other hand, we do like flexibility and think PC dining would be nice to just go eat when we feel like it. If we feel like taking a quick nap after being in port all day, we could eat later, etc. I just can't decide...

We've had traditional three times and PC once. I like traditional better, even though we only had great tablemates on our last cruise. (Although I shouldn't really say that about our first Princess cruise when we had a table for two in traditional. The problem was we had requested a table for 6 or 8.)

You'll still be able to see the shows with traditional dining.

I have another question about PC dining, if we choose traditional dining can we use the PC restaurants once or twice during the cruise?

Depends on the ship, in general NO. Those venues are for the PC diners, not fair for them to wait while someone who has table elsewhere is in line ahead of them.

If you like the traditional experience, by all means dine that way, but bouncing in and out causes problems for others, your original tablemates and stafff and the people who would be sitting where you are now at, no one from PC will show up to traditional and take your seats.