New dining times on Princess

[OzKiwiJJ]

In the Australian region Majestic is trialing 5:15pm and 7:30pm and another ship (Sun I think) is trialing 5pm and 7:15pm. We're onboard Majestic at the moment and I heard a few grumbles on embarkation day. Our M&G was attended by the Captain and other senior crew including the Hotel Manager so I commented that the new times were getting a lot of negative feedback here and on FB forums.

[kenexx]

Got an email from a Princess this morning for a cruise in March on Majestic.  First Sitting is 1700 and second is 1915 for TD.  

[NSWP]

21 hours ago, kenexx said:

Got an email from a Princess this morning for a cruise in March on Majestic.  First Sitting is 1700 and second is 1915 for TD.  

Same for Regal in 2020 UK to Sydney and Australian operations.    I booked in already for 7.15pm TD.    Who wants dinner @ 5pm?   Cocktail time!!!🍹

[kenexx]

3 hours ago, NSWP said:

Same for Regal in 2020 UK to Sydney and Australian operations.    I booked in already for 7.15pm TD.    Who wants dinner @ 5pm?   Cocktail time!!!🍹

 

Yes way too early but we always do Anytime anyway and will have club access on this upcoming one which I’m looking forward to.  

[RDC1]

Currently on Grand. hours have shifted to the new times.

 

early traditional 5pm

late traditional 7:15

early anytime starts 4:45

 

dining room seems as normal during early dining. some empty seats but not unusually so. a couple of people came in late the first night, but everyone seemed on time after that. line in anytime at 4:45 when it opens, but shorter then I have seen on other ships. have not heard any complaints about the change on board.

 

shows in theater now 6:30 and 8:30. surprisingly am able to walk into early show at 6:25 and easily find seats. don't know about late show.

 

let me know if you have any other questions

[tailspintom]

14 minutes ago, RDC1 said:

Currently on Grand. hours have shifted to the new times.

 

early traditional 5pm

late traditional 7:15

early anytime starts 4:45

 

dining room seems as normal during early dining. some empty seats but not unusually so. a couple of people came in late the first night, but everyone seemed on time after that. line in anytime at 4:45 when it opens, but shorter then I have seen on other ships. have not heard any complaints about the change on board.

 

shows in theater now 6:30 and 8:30. surprisingly am able to walk into early show at 6:25 and easily find seats. don't know about late show.

 

let me know if you have any other questions

We just had a similar experience on Emerald.  Early seating traditional was 5:15, late traditional was 7:30. We had anytime dining and opted to go to the 6:30 show and dine at 7:30 in the traditional/anytime dining room.  It worked rather well with us seldom waiting long for a shared table. The three shows each evening allowed for easy seating.

 

It is interesting that, with all of the complaints I have read about eating too early, the 5:15 early seating for anytime was stacking up with people before 4:45 each day. It might have been the good folk who are accustomed to the early bird specials.  Our experience has been that every cruise has a different demographic that changes the preferred dining times.  I believe that the times Princess uses on the booking site are just placeholder times and the ship makes its determination of dining times on a cruise by cruise basis.

[zigpar]

Who wants dinner in the middle of the afternoon.  We were on the Royal, they sent notice of the change to 4:30 pm.  I called and was told it was customer demand that caused the change.  I'm  a retiree yet I don't need an early bird special!!  So we changed to 7:15 pm.  What a nice surprise that our dinner time was 7:45 pm and that we couldn't change to 5:30 pm because it was full.  Felt we had been lied to by Princess.  Don't know when to book dinner on any future cruise so am putting 5 pm and if it is they can enjoy the empty table!  I don't understand the logic of this or what they are trying to accomplish unless its that they are over booking cruises and want us regular customers to try other cruise lines?

[palolake]

We just got off the Emerald.  We had switched online from early dining to late dining for a table for two after reading about the dining time switches. We were quite surprised to find that we were switched to a table for 6 at 5:15!  The Maître D ended up having two traditional dining times, 5:15 and 7:30 in DaVinci and 5:30 and 7:45 in Botticelli.  There were tons of people trying to get dining switched on the 1st day.  Hopefully Princess gets this figured out but it's really up to the Maître D. 

[Shmoo here]

31 minutes ago, palolake said:

Hopefully Princess gets this figured out but it's really up to the Maître D. 

Which makes the whole situation even more confusing.

 

Princess sets up specific times for TD, then each ship can change the times to suit them.  How do you know WHAT to sign up for when making your initial reservation?

[Wishing on a star]

From what I am hearing,  The Regal Princess also has the split dining 5:15/5:30. and 7:30/7:45.

And, yes...  it seems that while the Princess web-site and Cruise Personalizer show pre-set generic dining times, the actual times might vary as set by each ship / itinerary.  

[Micahs Grandad]

Just because a handful of people line up before their dining times do not understand why everyone suddenly has such early dining times

[franktown]

It not just a handful.  On the crown last February around 4:30 people were lined up from the dining room door all down the hall up the stairs waiting for dining to open.  I would estimate over 100 couples.   We went to look at the posted menu and you couldn't get near it.  I thought there was a special event until I asked.  We do not eat till around 8 so was very surprised.

[zigpar]

1 hour ago, franktown said:

It not just a handful.  On the crown last February around 4:30 people were lined up from the dining room door all down the hall up the stairs waiting for dining to open.  I would estimate over 100 couples.   We went to look at the posted menu and you couldn't get near it.  I thought there was a special event until I asked.  We do not eat till around 8 so was very surprised.

If I use your math that’s 3% of the folks on the ship dictating what the rest of us want. Just open Anytime dinning and let them in. Why does the minority always control the majority? Oh, Princess doesn’t care about us! 

[Tedferg]

4 hours ago, palolake said:

 The Maître D ended up having two traditional dining times, 5:15 and 7:30 in DaVinci and 5:30 and 7:45 in Botticelli. 

Does this mean Da Vinci did not switch to Anytime after Early Traditional ?

[OCruisers]

45 minutes ago, Tedferg said:

Does this mean Da Vinci did not switch to Anytime after Early Traditional ?

Confused by this too!

Da Vinci has always changed to Anytime after Early Traditional.  

[karioncruising]

We received the email as well and we were waitlisted on early seating which was 5:30. Of course, we are now on early seating of 5 because many people switched to late seating which is a more reasonable time for dinner. We then switched to ATD due to the late days in port. It's going to be a nightmare for ATD now. 

Kari

[Shmoo here]

1 hour ago, zigpar said:

If I use your math that’s 3% of the folks on the ship dictating what the rest of us want. Just open Anytime dinning and let them in. Why does the minority always control the majority? Oh, Princess doesn’t care about us! 

I agree, if the reasoning for Princess to think that we want earlier dining is because people on Anytime are lining up early (so they can get in quicker, presumably), just change the opening time for Anytime.  Or learn to live with the lines they have created.... Just stop messing with those of use who opted for a more civilized early time of 6:00.

[karioncruising]

On 10/23/2018 at 10:46 AM, Cruise Raider said:

We experienced this on our last sailing, although were assigned to anytime dining per our request.  The anytime dining lines were crazy because some of those that had their traditional times changed without notice showed up in the anytime dining lines.  Very disappointed in Princess for doing this! 

 

It is going to be crazy. I tried to get the Princess rep to change us to ATD and she said I have to get my TA to do this. I told her that I wanted to switch because our table for six would only have four people seated or possibly only two seated every night because 5 pm would be too early on most Port days. And, they claim this was due to popular demand. 

[zigpar]

Just got an update that dinner was changed to 5 pm on our next cruise in March die to the high demand. Again the minority speak for the majority!  I’d do anytime but they don’t have a very good system in place.  

[jagsfan]

On 11/25/2018 at 5:44 PM, franktown said:

It not just a handful.  On the crown last February around 4:30 people were lined up from the dining room door all down the hall up the stairs waiting for dining to open.  I would estimate over 100 couples.   We went to look at the posted menu and you couldn't get near it.  I thought there was a special event until I asked.  We do not eat till around 8 so was very surprised.

Were they Anytime or Traditional?

i’ve seen Traditional like that which makes me laugh. Do people think someone will take their table?

The doors open for my club luncheons at 10:30am for a meeting before lunch. There are no bad tables. The line used to form by 10 o’clock. 

Now if you arrive after 9:15 you’re behind 100 women. 

Thank goodness we don’t think like Princess. We’d be eating lunch before 10am. 

 

[zigpar]

Laughing at myself! Got a Holiday card from Princess.  In it you can return a post card to a ship or crew person you want to recognize.  I sent mine back to Jan Swartz telling her happy holidays and that I want my dinner times back.  I know it won't do anything since they only listen to the few but I had fun doing it!

 

Merry Christmas 

[ozzie passionate cruiser]

I am booked on Ruby Princess in March. My sister has just come back from the same cruise, she had anytime dining. I have booked early not realising it is 5 pm. I am used to 6pm, I can't imagine getting ready that early. I can't believe Princess would do this. I thought we would leave it, and change on the cruise.

[Ombud]

1 minute ago, ozzie passionate cruiser said:

I am booked on Ruby Princess in March. My sister has just come back from the same cruise, she had anytime dining. I have booked early not realising it is 5 pm. I am used to 6pm, I can't imagine getting ready that early. I can't believe Princess would do this. I thought we would leave it, and change on the cruise.

It's real. Change to ATD and eat at 6pm

[ozzie passionate cruiser]

Thank you. 

[OzKiwiJJ]

On Ruby in December they opened the Da Vinci dining room to Anytime diners right from the start of the evening as they had insufficient people wanting Early Traditional. However despute that the queues for Anytime at both MDRs were longer than expected every night.