Anytime Dining: How long is the meal?

[Silverspringcruiser]

My wife and I just got back from the 7/29-8/3 Glory cruise. Our one complaint was how slow the dinner service was. We gave ourselves over an hour for dinner (and sat with other people so we didn't have to wait) but twice we either had to skip dessert or eat it quickly to catch the show. And this was with ordering only one appetizer. Am I unreasonable? Should I have expected dinner to take that long? How does it compare to fixed time dining?

[funinthesun1964]

Actually, I think ATD is quicker than assigned dining. I have spent no longer than about an hour, hour and 15 min. at dinner, including dessert. We do go early, before 6:30 usually, so we don't have to wait. Our service has been good. Must have been your particular servers.

[Lovefuninthesun]

For traditional dining we always plan on 2 hours, so anything less would be fast for us

 

 

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[LakeMomNY]

We were on the same cruise, late dining.

 

We also ordered one app course, main course and sometimes dessert. I don't believe we were ever in the dining room more than an hour.

 

We were very impressed with our waiter. He seemed very efficient and very on the ball.

 

I'm so sorry you didn't have the same experience!

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Actually, I think ATD is quicker than assigned dining. I have spent no longer than about an hour, hour and 15 min. at dinner, including dessert. We do go early, before 6:30 usually, so we don't have to wait. Our service has been good. Must have been your particular servers.

 

I agree with you. Always faster for us when we eat in MDR with ATD.

 

Bill

[richstowe]

Budgeting just over an hour for dinner in the MDR is certainly less time then set dining times takes.

 

Personally we don't want to rush through supper as it is our favorite pastime on a cruise.

 

We also cruised on the Glory with MDT and found the wait to get in to the dining room annoying.

The wait was anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. We realized that with occupancy at over 120%, there were bound to be delays.

In the end, Summer cruises are always going to have delays with lot and lots of kids.

[OCruisers]

Anytime/MyTime seems to us to be lots quicker than TD ... but it's been a while since we've had TD since we like AT much better.

 

LuLu

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[98Charlie]

I think a lot of it can be the luck I'd the draw.

 

We were on Dream in February ant ATD was the only thing available. I've never done it on Carnival before but have sailed NCL a number of times and enjoyed the Freestyle dining.

 

On this cruise it seemed like everyone with ATD wanted to eat early. There was always a long line at opening. We would show up 15 minutes prior to the dining room opening, wait in line and finally get to a table 15 minutes after the opening time!

 

The wait staff worked hard but actual time at the table was around 1:15 to 1:30. I can't fault Carnival because there is no way of predicting the habits/desires of the ATD diners on any given cruise.

 

At any rate I will avoid ATD on Carnival in the future.

 

Charlie

 

 

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[Noel182002]

When we do early dining it usually lasts about an hour and a half from start to finish

[swscruiser]

We've done ATD the last 4 Carnival cruises and it has averaged 45-60 Min.

[Express Man]

Same here..Avg night 45-60 min and on Elegant night we ask to slow the pace with service and usually end up that night in 1 1/2 hr range. Never had issue as we sit with just our group and don't have to wait on others for next course. That's advantage of ATD for us not missing a show and doing it on our time frame to set nights plans as needed.

[askimdog]

The length of meals is one of several reasons we have officially given up the MDR. (singing waiters, people sitting inches from you or overcrowding, taking forever..or even getting a requested item like steak sauce/tabasco etc..non-hot food etc.)

 

We used the MDR twice on our last 7 day cruise...by Wednesday we had been converted, as faithful buffet diners.

[bridgetjonesni]

I've not sailed with Carnival yet but on our last cruise (Royal Caribbean) dinner in the MDR took anywhere between 1hr 15mins and 2hrs depending on the night. This was late dining too - I heard that early dining took even longer. We quite liked it though, as a chance to relax and enjoy good food, drink and company. If we were in a rush we went to the buffet instead.

[serene56]

I can not even imagine the meal taking 45 minutes for the entire meal?

 

do you skip a course or two? was your table the only table being waited on?

 

In our past few cruises the waiter seems to get more and more tables. Last cruise he had 6 tables. Ours was a 4 person. 2 round 8 person and 2 rectangle 6 person.

One head waiter and 2 asst waiter.

 

Ran like clock work-- each table got the appetizer then each table got the salad, soup, etc. etc. some took longer then others.

 

We were outta there before the singing and dancing starts-- usually dessert time

[elcuchio24]

Ours rarely goes over an hour. We usually eat 7ish and are out of there by 8. We dont dilly dally either.