Is This True?

[atdahop]

Someone who just got off the Golden said that if you have Traditional Dining and you want to go to Anytime for a night or two you can just do that. Don't they have lists of cabins and dining choices and don't they check when you arrive at the Anytime dining room. Is this what is making the wait times unreasonable?

 

It seems to me that if you choose Traditional dining you must go to that venue.

[Colo Cruiser]

Someone who just got off the Golden said that if you have Traditional Dining and you want to go to Anytime for a night or two you can just do that. Don't they have lists of cabins and dining choices and don't they check when you arrive at the Anytime dining room. Is this what is making the wait times unreasonable?

 

It seems to me that if you choose Traditional dining you must go to that venue.

 

 

Yes this is true and always has been. Each MD on each ship handles things his own way. I believe that this has contributed to longer waits in anytime although I don't think its totally to blame.

Is it fair? No. If you choose trad you should do trad. You have lots of other options to eat if you want to skip a night in trad. JMHO. :cool:

 

You can always give up your trad spot and go anytime but don't expect to jump back and forth.

[AKman2495]

This is one of those "can" vs. "Should". No. Traditional diners should not go to anytime dining. This causes two problems. First, anytime gets back and causes delays for true anytime diners. Second, the traditional venue many time has far too many empty seats, which means that the staff is serving too few diners to be efficient.

 

That said...many time traditional diners can get away with hitting the anytime dining room, which often causes the problems I mentioned.

 

Normally, anytime dining thins out after 8-8:30. If you missed your traditional time and go to anytime around say 8:45 it will probably not cause any problems.

[hpeabody]

It has been my experience that if you miss or want to dine in a MDR at a time other than your assigned table/time (traditional) it was permissible, BUT.... you could not dine in an anytime dining room during the main dining hours of 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm, but you could dine in an anytime dining room outside of those hours. Absolutely they have a list and know who is supposed to be dining where. They have always asked for cabin number when entering anytime dining room.

[OCruisers]

It is allowed ... unfortunately. :(

LuLu

[mr green]

IMO going from traditional to anytime dining should not be allowed.

Early traditional is always the first to be booked solid, one reason, most older folk are told not to dine too late. On cruises that I have been on if I book less than 9 months ahead, First Seating is usually fully booked.

So, IMO if some cruises want the best of both worlds, I consider those persons to to be very selfish.

 

john

[AZJerry]

We only do anytime dining. We have never been asked what cabin we have except when we've made a reservation ahead of time. If they don't ask, there's no way for them to know who "belongs".

[denmarks]

They do not need a list. Your cruise card tells the dining arrangement. I have never seen them check it but I guess they can.

[newport dave]

We've had our cards checked a few times. I think it's down to the MD as others have said. We always do Anytime, and have found the waits to be getting worse over the last couple of cruises. At the start we never had a wait apart from Captains Cocktail evening, which we now don't bother attending has it buggers up the rest of our night, with the massive queue to get into the MDR.

[Pam in CA]

Yes this is true and always has been. Each MD on each ship handles things his own way. I believe that this has contributed to longer waits in anytime although I don't think its totally to blame.

I agree. This has always been true since Anytime was introduced in 2001. However, if you go to Anytime, your Traditional dining seats will be empty and go unused so you're essentially doubling up. Kind of like saving two loungers for yourself, one in the sun, one in the shade. The result is that those who have selected Anytime dining have longer waits since the Maitre d' is accommodating passengers who already have perfectly good seats in another dining room.

 

Yes, it's allowed but it's not the right thing to do. Decide for yourself whether to do it or not.

[Lovetocruiseprincess]

Unofficially they let the traditional diners into the the DR. It annoys the AT diners because they believe it causes backups and at peak times I suppose it might. Most ships do check your cruise card to verify your preference but I suppose on your cruise they just forgot or didn't care.

[IECalCruiser]

IMHO, if you have booked traditional dining and can't make your dining time, you should not be allowed in anytime dining. Depending upon the ship you can go to the buffet, specialty restaurants, Alfredo's, the Trident Grill, Prego Pizza or the International Cafe. We have seen cruise cards being scanned and have had ours scanned. Haven't seen anyone turned away, buy I really wasn't standing at the entrance checking.

 

 

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Edited August 17, 2014 by IECalCruiser

[shepp]

We only do anytime dining. We have never been asked what cabin we have except when we've made a reservation ahead of time. If they don't ask, there's no way for them to know who "belongs".

 

Since we've gone to Anytime, we've always been asked for our cabin number, which is then, if memory serves, written down. However, I haven't seen the HW actually cross-check that with an anytime list. Maybe it's like the ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where all that information just sits untouched in a warehouse in Santa Clarita?

 

I'm really not sure why they don't just ask to see your cruise card, which would be faster and more efficient, anyway.

Edited August 17, 2014 by shepp

[Northender]

We always do Anytime. Yes, we have had our cruise card checked. But I wonder how they could tell someone who is Traditional that they cannot eat in the MDR? I can see the posts now. Princess refused to let us eat dinner and we were starving and the staff did not care.:eek:

 

It would be a tough decision on the MD's part to turn folks away. But my vote is NO, they should not be allowed or told to come back around 8pm:)

[taxmantoo]

I think Holland America handles this properly. If you have traditional dining and elect to go to Anytime Dining (what they call Open Dining) one night, you lose your traditional dining assignment and cannot go back. From that point on, you are considered to be in Anytime Dining.

[Potstech]

I agree Traditional Diners should not be allowed in the Anytime Dining Rooms. I also believe there should be no reservations allowed for the Anytime Dining which results in two lines and take up time at the entrance as the wait staff has to deal with two groups of people. It is another reason lines back up.

[Northender]

I think Holland America handles this properly. If you have traditional dining and elect to go to Anytime Dining (what they call Open Dining) one night, you lose your traditional dining assignment and cannot go back. From that point on, you are considered to be in Anytime Dining.

 

Now there is a great idea. Are you listening Princess?:)

[Lovetocruiseprincess]

I think Holland America handles this properly. If you have traditional dining and elect to go to Anytime Dining (what they call Open Dining) one night, you lose your traditional dining assignment and cannot go back. From that point on, you are considered to be in Anytime Dining.

 

Princess works pretty much the same.

I still wonder what they do with the empty chairs if someone elects to change 80% into a cruise. It's to late to assign someone to traditional seating so my guess is that they remain vacant. If they let the traditional person dine in the anytime for 1 night they'll probably return to their traditional table the next night.

[Colo Cruiser]

I agree Traditional Diners should not be allowed in the Anytime Dining Rooms. I also believe there should be no reservations allowed for the Anytime Dining which results in two lines and take up time at the entrance as the wait staff has to deal with two groups of people. It is another reason lines back up.

 

 

I have thought this from the start. It defeats the purpose.

[hospvol]

I agree. This has always been true since Anytime was introduced in 2001. However, if you go to Anytime, your Traditional dining seats will be empty and go unused so you're essentially doubling up. Kind of like saving two loungers for yourself, one in the sun, one in the shade. The result is that those who have selected Anytime dining have longer waits since the Maitre d' is accommodating passengers who already have perfectly good seats in another dining room.

 

Yes, it's allowed but it's not the right thing to do. Decide for yourself whether to do it or not.

 

I agree with Pam.

[Azure Moon]

IMHO, if you have booked traditional dining and can't make your dining time, you should not be allowed in anytime dining. Depending upon the ship you can go to the buffet, specialty restaurants, Alfredo's, the Trident Grill, Prego Pizza or the International Cafe. We have seen cruise cards being scanned and have had ours scanned. Haven't seen anyone turned away, buy I really wasn't standing at the entrance checking.

 

 

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I agree, there are alternative dining venues that should be used rather than taking a seating away from someone who made Anytime Dining their original choice before the cruise began.

 

The one cruise where hubby and I missed our traditional dining time (Carnival), we wouldn't have dreamed of going to dinner in Anytime. We went to the specialty restaurant (steakhouse, where we ended up having the best meal we've ever had on a cruise!:cool:...to date :eek:!!! Still dream of it :)).

 

We always do Anytime. Yes, we have had our cruise card checked. But I wonder how they could tell someone who is Traditional that they cannot eat in the MDR? I can see the posts now. Princess refused to let us eat dinner and we were starving and the staff did not care.:eek:

 

It would be a tough decision on the MD's part to turn folks away. But my vote is NO, they should not be allowed or told to come back around 8pm:)

 

But that's why the MD gets the big bucks! To make decisions, sometimes difficult ones.

 

I agree with you, they should be turned away or given a "reservation time" that falls outside of the busy time for anytime dining.

 

 

I'm gonna be a very unhappy cruiser if I have to wait because others couldn't stick with their own choice or be considerate of others.

[Arlened236]

We just returned from the Golden..we were a family group of 22, we had early dining. some night due to tours in Alaska some would be too late to eat at one of our 3 tables...we always told our waiter or the Head Waiter so that others could be seated at our emply table. This also worked if some in our group wanted a speciality restaurant. It just seemed like a common courtesy. It worked well. We were in the Donatello dining room which is 1/2 traditional and 1/2 any time for first seating.

[Cruisin' Chick]

As someone who prefers traditional dining (we did not care at all for anytime dining the cruise that we didn't clear the waitlist), I have never gone to the anytime dining room when we've been assigned to traditional. I wouldn't consider that fair to those whose seats we'll be taking up if we did.

 

The one time in recent cruises that we did eat in the Horizon instead was when my daughter was feeling iffy. We almost went to the Horizon during a late port stay but when we got back to the ship, we went by our dining room and the head waiter waved us in. But we wouldn't have had a problem eating in the buffet.

 

And others have said, if you've missed your seating, there's so many alternative venues to get your dinner at. So I don't get this need to crash another type of dining room.

 

Maybe there should be something more explicit in the dining email that gets sent and the info given in the first day's Patter, that asks passengers to refer to their cabin card as to the type of dinner assignment they will have. It could be that many passengers do not understand the importance of going to the right dining room.

[Lovetocruiseprincess]

I agree Traditional Diners should not be allowed in the Anytime Dining Rooms. I also believe there should be no reservations allowed for the Anytime Dining which results in two lines and take up time at the entrance as the wait staff has to deal with two groups of people. It is another reason lines back up.

 

I used to think that reserving a table for the whole cruise was OK but after seeing some preferential treatment by a some Maître D's I'm now all against it. Even doing it for an individual night slows down the whole process for everyone. Get yourself ready and stand in line like the rest of us. Why should they hold up a table until 6:00 PM for 45 minutes when there are people who could be using it?

[Thrak]

IMHO, if you have booked traditional dining and can't make your dining time, you should not be allowed in anytime dining. Depending upon the ship you can go to the buffet, specialty restaurants, Alfredo's, the Trident Grill, Prego Pizza or the International Cafe. We have seen cruise cards being scanned and have had ours scanned. Haven't seen anyone turned away, buy I really wasn't standing at the entrance checking.

 

 

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When we are scheduled for TD and know we won't make it that night we let the dining room staff know we won't be there so they don't have to wonder if we are coming or not. No sense in making our table mates wait for no reason. In the case that we either can't make it or decide not to eat at our assigned seating that night we just eat in a different venue. I don't think it's right to allow "MDR hopping".