Dining questions

[Nebr.cruiser]

We are in our 60's and have cruised since the late 80's. We take longer cruises, so there are few young people on board. We love Anytime and there are obviously lots who agree with us.

 

We're in our late sixties and have cruised quite a bit. We prefer Anytime dining too. I don't think it is just the young or newer cruisers who like Anytime; however, as I posted earlier, we've never had a bad experience with AD, even on Norwegian.

 

We prefer cruises longer than 7 days as well.

[John Bull]

I wonder about ages and cruise experience of people who prefer the anytime dining. We have been cruising since the mid 80's when all they had was the traditional dining and no room service or diner buffet back then. We HATE anytime! We don't like NCL because they have no traditional, had a 40 minute wait once and have seen LONG lines waiting to get into the dining room & not just on NCL.

I get the feeling the new cruisers are the ones who want anytime. What are your thoughts????

 

Yes, like a lot of cruising innovations anytime is a response to demand from newer cruisers.

We've rarely had a long wait for anytime dining, because we prefer large shared tables - the long lines tend to be for two-tops, another innovation, and that's doubtless being taken into account with new ship designs & re-furbs.

 

But nothing wrong with innovation, the world moves on.

Snobs amongst old-style cruisers have to accept that ships nowadays are a vacation for us - the great unwashed masses - as opposed to the giant ferries like Queen Mary which were only for the very wealthy, at a time when a vacation for us was by train to a b&b in a seaside town no more than 50 miles from home, or loading the family jalopy with a tent, primus stove & sleeping bags for a holiday stuck in traffic on the Honiton by-pass. Happy days :rolleyes:

 

JB :)

[NoobCruise]

I wonder about ages and cruise experience of people who prefer the anytime dining. We have been cruising since the mid 80's when all they had was the traditional dining and no room service or diner buffet back then. We HATE anytime! We don't like NCL because they have no traditional, had a 40 minute wait once and have seen LONG lines waiting to get into the dining room & not just on NCL.

I get the feeling the new cruisers are the ones who want anytime. What are your thoughts????

 

We never waited more than 5 minutes for anytime. We are in our mid-40s and new cruisers. Our first cruise was in 2003 with set dining. Hated it. We missed most of the shows and entertainment and we didn't like our tablemates (they complained about everything and were very rude to the waiter). We ended up eating mostly in the buffet instead. 2nd cruise was last Sept with Anytime. LOVED it and we'll select anytime on all future cruises.

[beachgirl65]

Last year we went on the Alaskan Cruise with Princess and had traditional dining at 8:15! I hated eating that late for the same reason; could not make most of the shows that were presented on the ship. Also, the servers were obnoxious. What I mean by obnoxious is by day 3 they started "working" on us and telling us about their many children back home and that they missed their families terribly, but have to travel with the ship for 9 months at a time. What was that about? Next year, we are booked with Princess again and will do Anytime dining. There are 6 of us and you don't think we will have a problem getting a table for 6? Will we have long waits? What is the best time to try to have dinner in an anytime dining room?

 

If I sign up for Traditional dining can I still use one of the anytime dining restaurants?

[marco]

If it were solely based on time we would choose "anytime dining", but we like the fixed sittings as staff knows your likes, preferences, uniqueness after a night or two. IE: If you like coffee with dinner, rather than after, it's there. If you like iced tea, it's waiting for you. If you liked sliced tomato with mozzarella for your salad, it's there without asking. We like the same table, same staff every evening. These factors outweigh the time, so we dine late seating. And even if we do "anytime" it's rarely before 7:30, so for a 1/2 hr difference, we choose the later sitting. We chose 1st seating once and felt we rushed to get ready for dinner on port days and on sea days, the nicest time to sit on the deck is 5-ish. Can't do that if you have to get ready for dinner. Also, you can linger over dessert and coffee dining 2nd seating, they don't need to get you out to set up for the 2nd seating. It's interesting, too that on most lines they refer to the 1st sitting as "main" and the 2nd as "late". But on HAL (at least the last time we were on) referred to 1st as "early" and 2nd as "main".

[cb at sea]

We eat late at home, so we do the same on vacation.....it's what you're comfortable with!

There is no rush if you want to eat early....everyone has to be on the ship (on port days) 30 mins. prior to sailaway, so it's not a big rush!

 

We prefer doing our drinking BEFORE dinner.....so eating late gives us more time for our cocktails!

 

You should choose based on your normal eating practices!

[OCruisers]

We eat late at home, so we do the same on vacation.....it's what you're comfortable with!

There is no rush if you want to eat early....everyone has to be on the ship (on port days) 30 mins. prior to sailaway, so it's not a big rush!

 

We prefer doing our drinking BEFORE dinner.....so eating late gives us more time for our cocktails!

 

You should choose based on your normal eating practices!

 

Agree with you! Same here!

Anytime Dining works perfectly for us! :)

 

LuLu

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[Alliezona09]

Always chose early, I hated being so full at 1000 at night~ even if I stayed up till 2! Now that we've cruised NCL and have experienced the Freestyle aspect of cruising~ that's it for me! Anytime dining is the way to go~ never feel rushed after a day of laying around!

[Sailor_Sally]

We have been cruising since the 80's and we love anytime dining . We enjoy the flexibility . The longest wait we had was five minutes on elegant night . Set dining is great if you are at a large table but if you end up at four top it could be brutal.

[Bonnie J.]

WE HATE anytime dining! Hate having to wait for a table and given a beeper- once had to wait 40 minutes. In our 8:15 dinner- 6:15 is just too early- the waiter knows us and what we like- ice tea, coffee, etc. We have met and gotten to know tablemates. On one cruise in 2006 we met a couple who have become good friends and we cruise again together at least once a year & B2Bs. ( They live in MI, we are NC coast and 3 times they have driven to our house and we drive together to a port.) If we ate with different people we'd never really get to know them. Also have cruised again with former table mates.

We do not like NCL for their freestyle dining.

WE are cruise-a-holics- did 13 cruises last year, cruising again tomorrow then in , haven't yet booked but will do B2B in January with our cruise buddies from MI.

[simplelife]

We definitely like fixed dining. We like the one constant on the ship being dinner - a waitstaff who really gets to know us and familiar faces. We pretty much know the first night if we like our table assignment and will ask to change if we need to. We have only done that once because of table location (too noisy in that part of the MDR) and one because we were seated alone and wanted tablemates.

 

Early or late is the question for us. We've done both, and have found that late is usually VERY late for us to eat, and we have fewer choices of evening activities without making it a very late night. The advantage is being able to have more rest time after returning form excursions on port days. Early means we have more flexibility in the evening (we can have a full night of entertainment, rest after dinner and get up for a midnight show, or retire early.) Seems the more we cruise the less we take lengthy excursions on port days, so we rarely have to rush to get ready for dinner. With all that in mind, we have pretty much settled on fixed, early. Works for us.

[puppycanducruise]

We prefer late dining.

We don't like rushing back to the ship after sightseeing. We usually like to sit in the hot tub (never seems busy at that hour), shower, go to the Crow's Nest for a cocktail and then to dinner.

The waiters learn what we like, some times we don't even have to make a request, the item appears.

We've usually been very lucky with fellow tablemates. We request a table for 6 and (with the exception of 1 cruise), really enjoyed the other people. Often, our table was one of the few still occupied at 9:30 or so, because we were laughing and talking.

We don't bother with the shows, so after dinner, we take a stroll around the Promenade deck.

[SteveH2508]

Anytime dining for us. If I want to be told when to eat; where to eat; who to eat with and what to wear I could have stayed in the Army!

[ducklite]

We prefer late because:

 

-few children

-no rush to get to dinner on port days

-can linger over coffee/dessert

 

This, only instead of coffee we like a bit of Port. We then either have a glass of wine in the lounge or head back to our cabin and fall asleep watching a movie. We never eat so much that we fell too full to hit the hay.

 

We now sail small ships so can get a table anytime without a wait.

[griffy116]

We have always chosen early dining because it gives everyone the opportunity to do what they want (show, gambling, pool, etc) after dinner. For our upcoming cruise, we have a couple of tours that will make it impossible for us to do our usual early dining, so we will probably opt for MTD on those nights. We will give our waiter advance notice. We also choose a set time because one of us (not me) is unable to cope with having flexibility. If we say we are going at 7:30, it will be 8 before she comes out grumbling that she was being rushed. She doesn't mind holding us up, but won't hold the waiter up. Go figure. We also love the continuity of knowing the waiter, knowing he'll have us figured out our likes and dislikes perfectly by the second night. If we chose late dining, a few of us would hit the WJ before dinner and at least two of us would be grouchy, irritable and ready to chew someone's arm off by 8:30 p.m., looking for a long wait until we got dessert. Everyone is different. That's why there are options.

[travelnap]

I prefer the anytime dining, for the flexibility of it. If I have excursions that day I don't have to rush back for dinner, and if it's a sea day, I can eat whenever I feel like it. I travel solo so the flexibility is nice. I usually just ask to join another table in the MDR and have been able to meet a lot of nice people that way. No, you don't get to know them as well as when I used to dine with the fixed dining, but you do meet a lot of interesting people you might not have met with the fixed dining. I don't recall having to wait more than 5 minutes to be seated on any line that I have sailed with.

[Sinppu]

We've only once had the early seating, all others have been anytime dining.

We'll stick with the flexible choice.

 

We like to go with flow (and the hubby prefers the buffet. A lot :rolleyes:)

[Alliezona09]

I wonder about ages and cruise experience of people who prefer the anytime dining. We have been cruising since the mid 80's when all they had was the traditional dining and no room service or diner buffet back then. We HATE anytime! We don't like NCL because they have no traditional, had a 40 minute wait once and have seen LONG lines waiting to get into the dining room & not just on NCL.

I get the feeling the new cruisers are the ones who want anytime. What are your thoughts????

 

I did 2, 4-day cruises with NCL in July of this year and never had to wait~ we would dine between 6 and 7~ but I'll be that the bigger the ship the longer the wait~ I'll find out in June when I'm on the Breakaway~ but the bigger the ship the more complimentary dining options there are~ for example the Breakaway has 3 MDR, the buffet and Uptown Bar & Grill along with room service.

Oh and I am 45, hubby is 55~

[jocap]

I've heard that a ship we cruise on for last minute holidays, is now changing from 2 fixed and 1 anytime, to 2 anytime and I fixed MDRs. This must be because of popular demand.

[perkydebrajean]

I like NCL's Freestyle dining.

 

I prefer planning my dining around my day, not my day around my dining.

 

Also doesn't bother me one bit if the wait staff doesn't know what I want before I even sit down. Most of the time "I" don't know what I want before I sit down!

[perkydebrajean]

I wonder about ages and cruise experience of people who prefer the anytime dining. We have been cruising since the mid 80's when all they had was the traditional dining and no room service or diner buffet back then. We HATE anytime! We don't like NCL because they have no traditional, had a 40 minute wait once and have seen LONG lines waiting to get into the dining room & not just on NCL.

I get the feeling the new cruisers are the ones who want anytime. What are your thoughts????

 

I'm 52 and my husband is 57. I never had a wait on my NCL cruise. Was seated immediately.

[Nebr.cruiser]

As to ages and cruise experience of those who love Anytime, my husband and I are 67 and 68 and have done around 30 cruises. We used to do only early traditional, but since Anytime dining has arrived, that is all we have done, except when it was not available, and we love it.

 

Though we've only done one NCL cruise, we never had a wait time more than a minute or two, and the same goes for othe lines. The absolute most we have ever waited was maybe 10 minutes. We have only been given a buzzer once, on Princess, and it went off almost before we sat down in a nearby lounge.

 

We are very flexible though, and rarely try to dine at the most popular times. We also don't care if we sit at a larger table or by ourselves--we'll take what's available. We have come to like dining later, and the one time recently that we had traditional dining (Anytime was full), we did late. We only reserve a specific time once in a great while. If there is more than one Anytime dining room and there is a line at one, we will go to the other.

 

With Anytime we find we are able to work around the shows we want, don't feel rushed to get ready at a certain time, and enjoy meeting new people.

 

You do give up really getting to know tablemates well and waiters also, but to us it's a small sacrifice to have the freedom to eat when we want.

[Gunner22aa]

We are not night owls anymore and used to have early fixed seating for that reason. When Princess went to anytime dining we opted for that. We no longer find ourselves rushed to get ready for dinner after a long day ashore. We also don't feel obligated to tell our fellow tablemates we won't be there so that they arn't kept waiting if we decide at the last minute to dine elsewhere on the ship or order room service. The flexability works well for us.

[jocap]

Our first cruise, with Sea Princess, was booked with a big party of folk from our area by a local TA, and we were all put into first sitting. We accepted this as the norm, but I was so disappointed that we never saw the sailaway from any ports- not only that, but the staff drew the curtains against the bright sun, so we couldn't even see the sea.

Can you believe that it wasn't until the second week that we found out that we could eat dinner in the buffet at any time, thus seeing the sailaways, and not until the end of the full fortnight did we discover that we could have had freedom dining.....we'll never choose anything else.:cool:

[Cruisin' Chick]

We've always had late dining until a couple of cruises ago when anytime was the only type available. We didn't care for it at all (seemed disorganized especially the two times we were seated with people who had already ordered; felt rushed by the waitstaff; missed having waitstaff that usually got to know our preferences). Out of 14 nights on that cruise, we ended up only going to the anytime DR 7 times, with the rest of the times eating in the buffet. Anytime didn't feel special to us; traditional dining is unique to cruising, unless you always go to the same restaurant on land and the staff know you.