THoughts on Anytime diner?

[cowgirlsrock]

I'm thinking for the 1st time taking anytime dining . THere are just 2 of us and we like to join other parties ! Let me know your thoughts please. Jen

[Dare2Believe]

We've used anytime dining once, and plan to on our February cruise as well. We LOVED having the ability to choose when we ate..it was great. We personally like to have a table to ourselves, but I think anytime dining is great for people who want to meet others as well!

[Medtech2]

I'm thinking for the 1st time taking anytime dining . THere are just 2 of us and we like to join other parties ! Let me know your thoughts please. Jen

My daughter and I did anytime dining. They will definitely seat you with others at large round tables if you so desire. In fact, the first night they did not ask our preference and proceeded to show us to a large table full of people. Unfortunately it was smack dab in the middle of the dining room and I felt too closed in to stay.

 

After we requested to be seated along the edges we were on a 2 top...

 

So if you want to meet many people you can definitely have that option! Or not!

[txmom11]

It wasn't our cup of tea, but my daughter and son-in-law loved it.

[SadieN]

Just know that there might be a wait to be served if you decide to share a table. The waiters won't start until the table is full.

[Denise72]

I found on my one cruise that I didn't get the exceptional, they know your name and what you want and have it on the table before you sit down, kind of service that everyone raves about. We had good service, what I would expect from any restaurant, just not the over the top Carnival/cruise dining experience. None of our servers ever even introduced themselves.

 

That said, I still chose YTD for our upcoming cruise. I would like to experience the whole set time, same table mates, exceptional service once, but we do not live on any kind of schedule. We may skip lunch and be starving at 5, or we may eat a late lunch and not be hungry until 10. YTD works better for us in that way.

[Cruisin 4 Ever]

We love anytime dining and have gone with that on our last 3 or 4 cruises.

We've had mostly good experiences with being seated with others but one of the last times we chose the regular seating, we were seated with 2 families. One family never came to the table and the other family was not the least bit social. It became very awkward as we sat at one end and they sat at the other end of the table and no matter how much we tried to make conversation it never went anywhere. So the next time we cruised we chose ATD and were seated on our own. Honestly it is so much better. We get to just visit amongst ourselves, no effort to make, we come whenever we feel like it, it's great.

[ccruisequeen]

You can be seated in a row of three or four 2-tops, which can give you a chance of meeting other people. If you like the location and serving team, you can request them every night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sue Do-Over]

We always choose Anytime/Your Time dining. The tables allocated to YTDiners are in one section, and have the same wait staff every night.

 

You can request private tables or to be added to a group; they'll follow that direction until you say otherwise. You can also request a particular waitstaff team (but might have to wait for a table to open up).

 

Only caution is that, like in any restaurant, large groups often have a long wait. For a group of 6 or more, I'd recommend a set dining time.

[kybluecruiser]

Love it..... Only do traditional now if i am with a large group.

[PAPERBKWRITER]

To each his own. Did that open seating several times on NCL which worked out good. Then did it on Princess and it was a disaster. Most of the anytime folks arrived at the same time every evening so it was pretty much the same people every night for us. I like the idea of having the same tablemates and servers every night. If you get a big table one stinker won't spoil the experience. Last year we had a big table on a 15 day cruise and one old man sat there every night and pouted (the only time he opened his mouth was to either complain or shove shove more food in) after the first night he was ignored even by his wife.

[crusinfamof4]

We love anytime dining, wouldn't do anything else. And we always get a table to ourselves :)

[YaWk3Y_BoMb3r]

On only cruise I've been on, we did Anytime and it was fine. There was only 2 of us, we asked to be seated by ourselves and it was fine. Only downfall is there was occasionally a wait to sit, particularly on elegant night. We waited maybe 15 minutes to sit that night. Maybe one other time we waited 2 or 3 minutes and all others we were seated immediately. I would definitely recommend it. On our next cruise though, with a group of 6, we chose late time dining bc we figured there would be a long wait to seat a large group at anytime dining.