Princess changing traditional dining times

[ronroned]

I have just received an email from Princess Cruises that my 6:00 pm traditional dining times has been changed to 5:00 pm

i can’t believe that they are doing this. Now the days activities time will be shortened 

There will be no time for a cocktail with friends before dinner. This in my opinion is a stupid decision. 

Having sailed on over 50 cruises, 30+ on Princess, i am very disappointed in this new policy. 

I book traditional, so I don’t need to worry about waiting in line for anytime dinning. 

Princess doesn’t allow you to make reservations for anytime dinning before sailing like celebrity cruises.

I hope they reverse this policy ASAP. 

 

[Micahs Grandad]

There is a large thread about this. Would suggest an email to the president of Princess Jan Schwartz.

 

Got a call back and they are monitoring this and hopefully if enough people complain they will reverse this.

[metairiegal]

Here is the on-going thread on the subject:

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2595181-change-in-traditional-dining-times/

 

[nukesubsailor]

Here is the Princess explanation for the change-----

 

A Change in Princess Traditional Dining Times – Here’s why

Hi everyone,

Princess strives to make your lives easier, but we’re not perfect. So, let me say upfront that we apologize for any confusion or inconvenience we may have caused with our recent changes in dining times for your clients booked with Princess.

Now, let me explain the rationale, so you will be prepared to field any questions that come from your clients or fellow colleagues.

First, our top priority is to create the best possible experience for our guests. And based on continual guest feedback with a vast majority asking for earlier dining times, we made the decision to adjust our traditional dining times to accommodate the demand for early seating in our Traditional Dining rooms only.

The changes we made are as follows:

• New Traditional Dining times are: o 5 pm First Seating

o 7:15 pm Second Seating

• Anytime Dining will remain from 5 pm onwards

Although this is now our standard, each ship will retain the flexibility to adjust dining times as needed based on their destination, passenger demographics and seasonal guest demand. In general, we experience a much higher demand for early dining in all destinations other than Europe and South America. Guests will be able to see any changes through the Cruise Personalizer, and travel agents can refer to POLAR Online for the most up-to-date information.

I hope this helps clarify why the changes were made. We apologize for not doing a better job of letting you and your clients know about them in advance. If you have any questions, please contact your Business Development Manager or call 1-800-PRINCESS.

Thanks once again for your understanding, and thank you for your continued support. Best Regards, John Chernesky Vice President, North America Sales Princess Cruises

[Micahs Grandad]

So they want to get people to leave early seating (by making the times earlier than people will want) and go to either late seating or ATD.

 

Perhaps in 6 months they will move it back as they cannot cope with the demand for late seating.

[envy4u]

It really is what it is. If they get a lot of complaints they will revert it back 

[Andrew J. Cat]

It was actually even worse.  They had originally changed the early seating to 4:45pm.  I just noticed the change from 4:45pm to 5:00pm this morning on my two upcoming bookings.  Maybe they're listening to us!

[RDC1]

1 hour ago, Micah's Grandad said:

So they want to get people to leave early seating (by making the times earlier than people will want) and go to either late seating or ATD.

 

Perhaps in 6 months they will move it back as they cannot cope with the demand for late seating.

Not really.  There are currently 2 dining rooms taken up by early traditional.  If enough people leave early traditional then the mid ship dining room that is currently traditional early and anytime late, will most likely convert to anytime all of the time.

 

Princess has for years had two major dining issues:

 

1. Too many people have requested early traditional such that it is almost always wait listed in both dining rooms, forcing people into Anytime. At the same time late traditional has usually been about half full.  This is with early traditional starting as early as 5:30 in one of the dining rooms.  Thus complaints from people not getting into early traditional

 

2. More people have wanted to dine in Anytime prior to 7pm than they have had capacity to service, resulting is complaints about long waits on Princess anytime.

 

These changes should address both issues. by moving early traditional up, a number of people are leaving it for late traditional.  That should eliminate the over subscribing of early traditional.  If enough leave then it should free up the mid ship dining room to be anytime early as will as late.  That will double the capacity between 5 and 7pm in anytime.

 

I suspect in the entire population of Princesses cruises a fair number stay with the early traditional times, enough to at least fill one dining room.  I also suspect that late traditional will fill, resulting in that unused capacity, now being fully used. With a trend of new cruisers to select anytime rather than traditional, Anytime capacity is certainly a problem that Princess has needed to address.  If they can empty the mid ship early traditional, then they have that capacity.

 

As with most changes a number of people will not like them, before even seeing how it works, just as a number of people complain about the previous dining issues. Once it works out it should result in a more efficient use of the dining capacity that is available on Princess ships.

[RDC1]

20 minutes ago, Andrew J. Cat said:

It was actually even worse.  They had originally changed the early seating to 4:45pm.  I just noticed the change from 4:45pm to 5:00pm this morning on my two upcoming bookings.  Maybe they're listening to us!

 

It is a smart thing to do.  If they left it with two different times, with would need to leave 2 dining rooms as early traditional.  By setting both to the same time, they can consolidate in the stern dining room, if enough people shift and accelerate the changeover of the 2nd mid ship dining room to early anytime as well as late. Something I expect they are planning to do at sometime in the near future.

[BIGADORF]

While I understand business is business, I believe that from reading the many posts from this thread and the other threads throughout Cruisecritic,  most people are not in favor of the 5:00 TD time. For all the people who have Anytime Dining, while I respect your opinion, this change really doesn't impact you yet. However if you want to dine with the same people every night, or at least have the choice do so, my choice at the time I booked the cruise was for a 6:00pm dinner. If you buy something based on one thing and then given something else, in my opinion that doesn't seem right. People on vacation should get what they want, if it is in reason. I realize that I could change to Anytime Dining, but I shouldn't have to. Everyone deals with things differently on a day to day basis, but on vacation you should get what you thought you were paying for. I realize it is a small thing, but the small things are what used to set Princess Cruises above the rest. Again to reiterate, I understand from Princess point of view it is a business decision, perhaps they should reconsider and go back to the times as they were before.

[RDC1]

9 minutes ago, BIGADORF said:

While I understand business is business, I believe that from reading the many posts from this thread and the other threads throughout Cruisecritic,  most people are not in favor of the 5:00 TD time. For all the people who have Anytime Dining, while I respect your opinion, this change really doesn't impact you yet. However if you want to dine with the same people every night, or at least have the choice do so, my choice at the time I booked the cruise was for a 6:00pm dinner. If you buy something based on one thing and then given something else, in my opinion that doesn't seem right. People on vacation should get what they want, if it is in reason. I realize that I could change to Anytime Dining, but I shouldn't have to. Everyone deals with things differently on a day to day basis, but on vacation you should get what you thought you were paying for. I realize it is a small thing, but the small things are what used to set Princess Cruises above the rest. Again to reiterate, I understand from Princess point of view it is a business decision, perhaps they should reconsider and go back to the times as they were before.

Actually we have always booked early traditional, usually mid ship.  We will continue to book early traditional. If we have a late port, then we will eat else where, as we have always done.

 

Considering that active cruise critic participants are a pretty small minority of cruisers in general, as well as Princess. Out of that minority very few individuals have commented. So you are correct that out of the maybe 3 dozen individuals making comments the majority have been negative. Not exactly an over whelming number.  When you consider that cruise critic tends to be people that have cruised multiple times, one would expect that it is a population that would expectations based upon past experience and preferences and more likely to react negatively to a given change than the general population of Princess cruisers.  Also when you consider that those upset with the change are more likely to comment than those who are accepting of the change (especially when those against it tend to use rather degrading comments about who would be crazy enough to eat that early). I would not consider the number of negative comments to constitute a tidal wave among the population of Princess passengers. Especially since about half have indicated the new late traditional time would work.

 

Princess on the other hand has far far more data on their passengers then we will ever have.  I think the number of people upset about the change in how excursions were booked (needing to prepay) had resulted in far more outrage here, than the change in dining times, yet that change has become permanent.

 

Over the months there have been far more negative comments about problems with traditional dining, as well as those that have not been able to get into early traditional.

[Mary loves to travel]

I love the change.   Previously, early was too early, and 8 pm was too late.  

Something between 7 and 7:30 pm is perfect for us.  

 

Hope this change sticks.   

 

Mary

[BIGADORF]

After reading all the posts on all the threads, about 15-20 pages long, I feel like Goldilocks. One is too early, one is too late, one is too crowded. I guess like everyone else, we will just see how it all works out.🤪

[casandbliz]

1 hour ago, Mary loves to travel said:

I love the change.   Previously, early was too early, and 8 pm was too late.  

Something between 7 and 7:30 pm is perfect for us.  

 

Hope this change sticks.   

 

Mary

 

We agree with you Mary! We like to watch sail-away, and then have a drink or two before dinner. Very tough to do with a 6pm- ish dinner time, especially when I need to start getting ready around 4:30. I was pleasantly surprised when I read times had changed and switched our next 3 cruises to the 7:15 TD, rather than the Anytime Dining (a whole other beast, by reading comments on THAT).  We typically do not go to the shows, so don't have to worry about that.

[Times Prince]

IF they actually stick with the 7:15 later Traditional time, we will probably reconsider TD.   

For too many cruises we have shifted out of Early Traditional Dining after they changed the time from 6 to earlier.  An earlier time just doesn't work for us as our body clocks are still on our home time zone west of the cruise zone, and Princess schedules activities we enjoy, like ballroom dancing, during the early evening.  Like others, we would rather use our full afternoons relaxing and/or touring, and 5 PM is just too early.

 

We, like many, have found the 8+PM late dining to be just too late, and we have now opted out of that to dine in the Horizon Court (not a bad choice with the cuisine on Royal Princess).  The late dining time had us retiring for the evening with full stomachs, even if we ate lightly.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Times Prince

[getting older slowly]

I think the main thing wether early or late sitting for dinner, is to fit eating around your activities.

To us we dine each night at home, so dinning on board is the same thing not to rush relax.

So to do early sitting, have breakfast early and very light lunch. and bingo.

 

Or if one is so concerned about the early time do anytime dinning.... remember you are on holiday relax.

 

Cheers Don

[crystalspin]

From what I read here, about the wait-listing for early seating et al, it seems that Princess has interpreted people wanting early seating, with them wanting earlier seating. Not the same thing! 

 

Fortunately, when we travel just the two of us, we sign up for ATD. By the time we take 3-4 family members on Princess in 2020, this will have sorted...

[antsp]

Just boarded the Crown today Nov 3rd. The fixed dining times are 5.30 and 8.  Our cruise personaliser stated late was 7.15. So not sure why its not the same. 

[casandbliz]

We will be boarding the Ruby today. Will report back on her dining times.

[TW6cruiser]

On 11/3/2018 at 8:10 AM, antsp said:

Just boarded the Crown today Nov 3rd. The fixed dining times are 5.30 and 8.  Our cruise personaliser stated late was 7.15. So not sure why its not the same. 

Thanks for the info.  Our Crown trip next year moved our early dining to 5 pm (instead of 6).  I was hesitant to move to the 7:15 time for fear they would move it later on board.  That appears to have happened at least on your trip.  I'll stick to 5 pm (even though that's crazy early) and hope for 5:30.....

Enjoy your trip. 

[antsp]

I have since been informed by the maitre d, the new times will start when the ship ports in Fort Lauderdale 

[casandbliz]

On 11/3/2018 at 8:27 AM, casandbliz said:

We will be boarding the Ruby today. Will report back on her dining times.

 Just got back- Ruby was still at 8PM

[abqmommyof4]

Just off the island.  show  times  are now  6 pm  and 8 pm.    

 

[pris993]

We always did traditional late... now we have decided to go to the Crown Grill most evenings... then you can go whenever you want.  If we don't do the Crown Grill, we do the buffet... again you can go anytime you want.    Other days, if they do the fish and chip luncheon, we do that and skip dinner... we have figured out what works for us regardless of what the ship does.   

 

We eat 2 meals a day at home and 2 meal a day on a ship, we do room service for breakfast... very easy.   We have 26 princess cruises, about 65 cruises on 9 different cruise lines.    We focus on what we enjoy and go with it. 

[KKB]

hmmmm....with our port intensive cruise to the British Isles in June, 5 would be much too early. We really enjoy traditional, sitting with others, getting to know our waiter. 7:15 is terrific for this itinerary but 8PM is just too late to eat anymore.

Well, if they change it onboard, we will have to change.