5:45 your time dining vs. 6:00 regulars

[ottmar]

We have chosen your time dining and plan on being at the dining room at 5:45 when it opens for us.

 

I am sure there will already be folks in line for the 6:00 o'clock regular seating.

 

Do we just pass them by or what?

 

....Ott

[Geezers]

Not sure what ship you are on. I have found that the "Your Time Dining" is in a different dining room than the scheduled dining.

[urbanhawk]

We have chosen your time dining and plan on being at the dining room at 5:45 when it opens for us.

 

I am sure there will already be folks in line for the 6:00 o'clock regular seating.

 

Do we just pass them by or what?

 

....Ott

 

Not sure about the ships, but when I had YTD on the Miracle, there was a line on the left for us folks, and for the scheduled 6 p.m. diners, they stood in line on the right....I really enjoyed YTD....

[gsu_paintballer]

The time I did it, YTD was on one floor, whereas assigned seating was on the other.

[Geezers]

I looked up your previous posts. I believe you are on the Pride. If that is the case Your Time Dining will be on Deck 3 of the dining room with scheduled dining on Deck 2.

[ottmar]

Thanks, Geezers, I should have mentioned the cruise is on the Pride. So showing up at 5:45 exactly is not neccessary if a seperate dining room is used, we could be there at 6 or so and wouldn't interfere with the regular seating, or am I misunderstanding this?

 

And when would I have found out that it was a particular dining room for us, a notice in the room?

 

I was just curious how that was handled and you answered it, thanks again.

 

...Ott

[ccruisequeen]

YTD line checks in first, then Early dining line checks in with their host/hostess. Each line has their own host/hostess which helps check diners in and assigns tables in case you haven't requested a section (if that makes sense!)

[MpwdMom]

 

And when would I have found out that it was a particular dining room for us, a notice in the room?

 

It's on your S&S card, the dining room and the deck you enter on.

[Banditswife]

As others have posted, we have always been on a different floor than the scheduled diners. But if they did have it in the same dining room, they will have a section for the YTD folks saved. If it's the Pride, you will most likely be 1 floor above the MDR. We've usually been given a table at the railing overlooking the deck 2 MDR. The deck # & dining rm name will be on your S&S card. We love YTD, there may be a line sometimes, but they give you a pager for when a table is ready. It is 1st come, 1st served. We usually go right at 5:45 or wait til about 6:15 to go, so we won't be on the same schedule as the set time folks.

[gelo7]

The time I did it, YTD was on one floor, whereas assigned seating was on the other.

Ditto...

[Frank12]

If you are in the same dining room with set time folks (some ships split the dining room) you will have a separate line.

[okgirl]

But expect a line for YTD even when showing up at 5:45 - 6 and then again around 7....a lot of people want to be the 1st into the dining room to get their choice of tables.

 

On the Pride if YTD is on the upper level then the entire upper level will be YTD....I think I've only been on one ship that had a side to side split on the same level.

[ottmar]

>>>"We love YTD, there may be a line sometimes, but they give you a pager for when a table is ready."<<<

 

After our one and only experience with pagers on our last cruise in December with Norwegian Cruise Line (our worst cruise ever) we were given a pager on four nights and the shortest waiting time was 45 minutes and two were over an hour, enough time to get drunk while waiting in a nearby bar, so the pager story scares the hell out of me.

 

BTW, we have cruised with RCCL 6 times, Princess 3 times, Costa once and this is our second cruise with Carnival but the NCL with it's dozen or more pay specialty restaurants seems to figure that it just does not need the MDRs capacity because so many folks will dine in the specialty restaurants after having done the MDR.

 

There were many other little things that didn't measure up to the other cruise lines, such as no lounge chairs on the pool deck, just tables and chairs, way too many cabins to take care of for the poor cabin stewards, rarely were the beds made up after coming back form lunch, etc.

 

But the pagers annoyed me most. I never had a single complaint about any of my previous cruises they were all great.

 

….Ott

[SadieN]

But expect a line for YTD even when showing up at 5:45 - 6 and then again around 7....a lot of people want to be the 1st into the dining room to get their choice of tables.

 

On the Pride if YTD is on the upper level then the entire upper level will be YTD....I think I've only been on one ship that had a side to side split on the same level.

 

I think it depends on how many ATDs there are. On different sailings of the Spirit once the upper floor was all ATD and another it was split.

[askimdog]

We had anytime dining on the Legend in January. We only went 4 times to the MDR, 2 breakfasts and 2 dinners, the dinners we did do at 5:45. For all 4 of these meals, we never had a line/wait.

 

Pagers for waiting...that's hi-tech! I need to get out more

[Nathanyell]

When we did ATD on the Pride last year it was split on the 3rd floor Dining room. The ATD was on the left, Regular seating on the right. It was a bit chaotic the first day when we arrived at 5:45, because many of the 6:00 people were already there. After the first day people understood what was going on and it was a lot smoother.

 

It was also nice that if you arrived at 5:45 you never had to wait and we sat at the same table with the same waiters all week. We did miss one night when the pride was in Port Canaveral. The next night they said they even held the table for us for a while.

 

Overall it was a great experience!