Traditional vs. My Time Dining On Harmony of the Seas

[SarafinaPink]

It's been 8 years since I've cruised with RCCL, so I'm not too familiar with the My Time Dining. My Family (4 adults) is looking into sailing on Harmony of the Seas in May 2018. I'm very familiar with the traditional dining set up of an early and a late dinner.

 

Can someone give me the pros and cons of both systems? I'm mostly worried about how difficult coordinating MTD and the various evening entertainment offerings (we for sure want to do the Aqua Theater Shows, Grease, 1887, and possibly other smaller events like comedy show, quest, etc...)

[mad-dog74]

MyTime is a little more flexible. You still need somewhat of a time to show up but it can be modified from day to day depending on your schedule with activities/shows etc. You may or may not get the same wait staff or table every night.

 

We have done traditional each cruise up until our last cruise and we went with MyTime. With my time, you wait to be seated. With Traditional (or Late) you have your assigned table... you go to your table.. and you know who you wait staff is. We've met some really nice people and connected more with them that we did with MyTime.

[cb at sea]

ON smaller ships, the shows revolve around the traditional seating times...not so on the BIG ships....they schedule things "willy nilly", so you almost have to plan your shows/dining in advance, if you want to do everything. If you're good with "winging it", then you can plan your time one day at a time, based on the info in the Compass...

 

We, too, prefer, traditional seating with tablemates. Just makes dining more fun!

[Ashland]

We just sailed on Harmony this past March and had MTD...we were a family group of 7 (but only 6 of us) ate at MTD on 3 nights...we opted for no reservation and easily just walked up on each of these nights at a time we wanted to dine...no problem.

[jpennin217]

We are finalizing our cruise on the Allure and it is only giving us an option for traditional dining. How do we get the MTD? Thank you

[Clarea]

We are finalizing our cruise on the Allure and it is only giving us an option for traditional dining. How do we get the MTD? Thank you

Contact whoever booked your cruise. If MTD is full, ask to be put on the wait list.

[SarafinaPink]

Sounds like MTD is the way to go then if we have plenty of options to see shows. I just am not a big fan of either traditional times, would like to do around 7, so I think we will go with this.

 

Do you have to set up reservations in advance or do you do it on the ship?

[yuvraj]

Sounds like MTD is the way to go then if we have plenty of options to see shows. I just am not a big fan of either traditional times, would like to do around 7, so I think we will go with this.

 

Do you have to set up reservations in advance or do you do it on the ship?

 

My advice to book the shows online as soon as you can. Slots get booked up very quickly in my experience.

 

I have not sailed on Harmony but been on sister ships Oasis and Allure. It is a different experience to the smaller ships with traditional evening format of dinning and shows. You do need to do more to plan your days by booking the shows and then work out your dinning around this.

 

Personally, I don't believe traditional dinning works on this class of ship.