My Time Dining - should expand to one more deck

[StrikeEagle]

Just got of Liberty of the Seas last week,  when I went to My Time Dinning on deck 3,  every night there were very long lines for both with reservations and without reservations. After the long line we got to the host which told us no table is available and we waited for a while for a table.  I did make reservation for MTD for the whole week at the same time.  Right now the only dinning room serve MTD is only on deck 3.   It seems more guests picked MTD instead of the traditional dining time which serves on both deck 4 and 5.    When MTD came out years ago,  I remember there were not long of a line to get a table the dinning room,  but for the last few cruises, I experience long line and waiting time for MTD even when I have reservations every evening.   

 

I just filled out the post-cruise survey and suggest RCI to expand the MTD dinning area to at least one more deck.   Does anyone here beside me felt that MTD is becoming more popular than traditional time dinning?

Edited March 21, 2019 by StrikeEagle

[The Sunset Glow]

1 minute ago, StrikeEagle said:

Just got of Liberty of the Seas last week,  when I went to My Time Dinning on deck 3,  every night there were very long lines for both with reservations and without reservations. After the long line we got to the host which told us no table is available and we waited for a while for a table.  I did make reservation for MTD for the whole week at the same time.  Right now the only deck serve MTD is only on deck 3.   It seems more guests picked MTD instead of the traditional dining time which servers on both deck 4 and 5.    When MTD came out years ago,  I remember there were not long of a line to get in the dinning room,  but for the last few cruises, I experience long waiting line and waiting time for MTD even when I have reservations every evening.   

 

I just filled out the survery and suggest RCI to expand the MTD dinning area to at least one more deck.   Does anyone here beside me felt that MTD is becoming more popular than traditional time dinning?

 

It's definitely becoming more popular. When it first started it was just deck 5 and decks 3 & 4 was traditional. Then once MTD got more popular they switched it to deck 3 because this decks seats more people than either 4 or 5. Now it's probably time to have MTD on decks 4 & 5 and put traditional on deck 3. The MTD lines are starting to get bad and it makes people unhappy - or should I say Hangry?

 

[gatour]

There has been a couple of times that when we shoped for our MTD reservation, they asked us if would mind to go upstairs and be seated there.  We agreed and had no problem with service.

[taglovestocruise]

4 hours ago, StrikeEagle said:

Just got of Liberty of the Seas last week,  when I went to My Time Dinning on deck 3,  every night there were very long lines for both with reservations and without reservations. After the long line we got to the host which told us no table is available and we waited for a while for a table.  I did make reservation for MTD for the whole week at the same time.  Right now the only dinning room serve MTD is only on deck 3.   It seems more guests picked MTD instead of the traditional dining time which serves on both deck 4 and 5.    When MTD came out years ago,  I remember there were not long of a line to get a table the dinning room,  but for the last few cruises, I experience long line and waiting time for MTD even when I have reservations every evening.   

 

I just filled out the post-cruise survey and suggest RCI to expand the MTD dinning area to at least one more deck.   Does anyone here beside me felt that MTD is becoming more popular than traditional time dinning?

Last year we were on Independence. Had late traditional dining and sat along the balcony.  Every night we looked down into a 90% empty deck 3 MTD.  That was on the 15 night TA.

[Ashland]

17 minutes ago, taglovestocruise said:

Last year we were on Independence. Had late traditional dining and sat along the balcony.  Every night we looked down into a 90% empty deck 3 MTD.  That was on the 15 night TA.

I would think that MDR traditional dining would be more popular on a TA.

I too feel that MTD is getting to be the popular choice now for other's.

[John&LaLa]

When MTD first came out we were still sailing Freedom.  It was deck 5, and part of deck 4 back then

[LeeW]

The problem now with traditional is the specialty dining packages.  We (sitting in MyTime) have seen a lot of 8-tops in traditional with only one couple there every night.  Doesn't seem very polite to the tablemates if you aren't going to be there half the time.

 

It should be easy for Royal to know how many dining packages they have sold to traditional diners and adjust the dining room size as needed but maybe the maitre'd and head waiters don't want to do this.

 

We have heard comments from MyTime waiters that many don't like to work there due to lower tips.  But have also had a waiter comment that a MyTime waiter needs to hustle all the time and he got rid of his assistant (second half of our B2B) because the assistant didn't work hard enough.  Our impression of the true MyTime staff was they liked the challenge of juggling handling different orders for different tables and got bored serving coffee at breakfast in the buffet.

[CRUISEFAN0001]

We also heard plenty of complaints from both passengers and staff about My Time Dining.

 

It seems to be one of those ideas that at first sounds good on paper- eat when you want- but when there are thousands of passengers...it’s a nightmare to execute by staff and messy mix of availability times for passengers.

 

We much rather have a predictable time so we can plan all sorts of other activities, knowing when we have dinner and at a reasonable time.

[HappyCruiserettu]

On 3/23/2019 at 2:46 PM, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

 

It seems to be one of those ideas that at first sounds good on paper- eat when you want- but when there are thousands of passengers...it’s a nightmare to execute by staff and messy mix of availability times for passengers.

 

"Sounds good on paper"  One of my favorite expressions. LOL

 

[jetta8300]

We really would LOVE a set dining time if we could actually guarantee a table for two.  Or a table for just our party.  I would love the same time, table and server each night.  But Because we can't guarantee that, we have always done MTD, and there is usually a wait and much more of a demand on every cruise we have been on.   It's annoying. 

 

One cruise we went on there was probably 200 people in line for MTD at 5:30 each night.  It was insane.  It was an East Coast cruise though, and people from east coast ports tend to eat earlier.  

[dizgal64]

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 3:46 PM, CRUISEFAN0001 said:

We also heard plenty of complaints from both passengers and staff about My Time Dining.

 

It seems to be one of those ideas that at first sounds good on paper- eat when you want- but when there are thousands of passengers...it’s a nightmare to execute by staff and messy mix of availability times for passengers.

 

We much rather have a predictable time so we can plan all sorts of other activities, knowing when we have dinner and at a reasonable time.

 

I'm wondering if we just lucked out but then we've sailed 3 different times, 2 different ships (Oasis and Explorer) with different party sizes and we've never had an issue with MTD. That's 25 nights, no problems. But, we make our reservations months before sailing, make them for around 6:30 every night. We have the same waiters every night also. (we've always liked who we have gotten and requested to stay with them) We even get the same table. Most of the time we don't even have a wait. 

 

We sail on Adventure in sept for new England/Canada. I hope we have the same experience as before with MTD. Fingers crossed. 

[CRUISEFAN0001]

10 minutes ago, dizgal64 said:

 

I'm wondering if we just lucked out but then we've sailed 3 different times, 2 different ships (Oasis and Explorer) with different party sizes and we've never had an issue with MTD. That's 25 nights, no problems. 

Glad it didn’t cause you issues...it sure did for numerous passengers on multiple cruises.

 

In our case...early when we booked our cruise...we had no choice / option except MTD.

 

In one case, we managed to switch to traditional dining...that worked out great.

 

The other case...stuck with MTD...and every dining evening was more than an “adventure”...more like a rectal pain.

[rachel_f99]

I prefer a traditional seating.  We just booked for this summer and it wasn’t available, we’re on the waitlist and we have MTD for now.  So, it’s not always by choice that people have MTD.

[ShillyShally]

I prefer traditional but early is too early as I hate missing sunsets (my favorite part of sailing) and late is too late and we found ourselves eating before that when we were on Indy a couple weeks ago.  I am considered a 2020 sailing and MTD is already full which we would have tried.  So if I can't get MTD we'll go with late traditional and either adjust our days or plan on just the WJ and other ship venues as we did recently.

[ALSEAU]

We have only been cruising on Oasis class ships the last several  years.

 

We prefer traditional early seating. Almost always put on a wait list even though we book a year out. I don't know if it is because we are Diamond C&A but we have always gotten  traditional early seating. IMHO I think the seating assignments are held back to have room for large groups and Suite guests that book later. 

 

On these big ships MTD is popular due to trying to schedule dining time around show reservation times.. My experience the last couple of years has been that MTD dinners have been being seated on Deck 4 & 5. Another popular thing is specialty dining. As a result if a table on Decks 4 & 5 notify their waiter that they are dining somewhere else the next evening the staff will seat MTD dinners at the open table. Also if there are open tables not assigned for the week those tables will be made available to MTD.

 

This information comes from our waiters that served us and their MTD guests.

[barbeyg]

Our Adventure cruise was interesting this past December.  The My Time dining was on the main floor of the dining room which could accommodate a lot more people, and those with reservations had the upper balconies.  

 

Apparently flipping from balcony to main floor is feasible when the My Time dining is greater than the two seatings.

 

Never had to wait for a table, and the main floor was full the three nights we ate there.

[barbeyg]

On 3/24/2019 at 8:04 PM, ShillyShally said:

I prefer traditional but early is too early as I hate missing sunsets (my favorite part of sailing) and late is too late and we found ourselves eating before that when we were on Indy a couple weeks ago.  I am considered a 2020 sailing and MTD is already full which we would have tried.  So if I can't get MTD we'll go with late traditional and either adjust our days or plan on just the WJ and other ship venues as we did recently.

 

We ran into this situation on a recent cruise.  Like you, the times for early/late dining don't work for us, but MTD was unavailable to book.  We boarded and went to see if we could change to MTD at a preferred time, and they changed it for us right then.  Maybe RCI could accommodate you on your cruise too.  

[ShillyShally]

8 minutes ago, barbeyg said:

 

We ran into this situation on a recent cruise.  Like you, the times for early/late dining don't work for us, but MTD was unavailable to book.  We boarded and went to see if we could change to MTD at a preferred time, and they changed it for us right then.  Maybe RCI could accommodate you on your cruise too.  

Thank you, that's what we figure we'll do 🙂  If it doesn't open ahead of time we will check day one and if not, play it by ear - on vacation we're pretty easy to please 🙂

[Joseph2017China]

One of the reasons, I like cruises is that I never worried about waiting in lines to eat dinner.  Just walk in, sit at my table, just like at home.  I always wonder why people pick MTD and than want to eat at 6:00 every night.  I had MTD once, and just didn't understand why people want to wait in lines.  I know people have reasons, but are they really that important on a ship?  Especially when fixed dining is so easy and stress free?

[barbeyg]

4 minutes ago, Joseph2017China said:

One of the reasons, I like cruises is that I never worried about waiting in lines to eat dinner.  Just walk in, sit at my table, just like at home.  I always wonder why people pick MTD and than want to eat at 6:00 every night.  I had MTD once, and just didn't understand why people want to wait in lines.  I know people have reasons, but are they really that important on a ship?  Especially when fixed dining is so easy and stress free?

 

We usually only eat in the dining room 3-4 nights on a 7 night cruise because we like the smaller venues of the specialty restaurants.  It's a personal preference, and feels more like a 'date' for us so we get a 3 night package.  Since we are only showing up 3-4 nights to the dining room, we choose MTD.  We find that early seating is too early for us, and late is definitely too late.  So, we go with MTD.  

 

That said, we've never had to wait in line so far.  Maybe it's just been our luck, but the only time we've stood in a short line is for breakfast in the dining room. 

[Mikew0805]

23 minutes ago, Joseph2017China said:

One of the reasons, I like cruises is that I never worried about waiting in lines to eat dinner.  Just walk in, sit at my table, just like at home.  I always wonder why people pick MTD and than want to eat at 6:00 every night.  I had MTD once, and just didn't understand why people want to wait in lines.  I know people have reasons, but are they really that important on a ship?  Especially when fixed dining is so easy and stress free?

We have had MTD on every cruise we have done, since it was offered. The longest we ever waited was 15 minutes, and most of the time it is less than 5. We do not make reservations, and show up when we are ready to eat. If traditional dining was all that was available, I would eat in the WJ or elsewhere. I do not eat on a schedule, rather we eat when we are hungry. Usually dinner for me/us starts between 600p-730p depending on the meals earlier in the day. 

[JP82]

Sorry to hijack with a stupid question, but if doing MTD do you pick your time and stick to it then every night. Or can you pick every night any time you want?

[Clarea]

8 minutes ago, JP82 said:

Sorry to hijack with a stupid question, but if doing MTD do you pick your time and stick to it then every night. Or can you pick every night any time you want?

 

Either, your choice.  Plus you can just show up with no reservation.

[sellwingri]

With the exception of Jewel, all of my recent cruises have MTD on the main floor and set dining time upstairs.  Sounds like it’s just me but I’m not a fan of MTD and have only done it once.  I like the set dining time and getting to know the people at my table.  

[nelblu]

I'm not sure it's needed.  On my last 4 cruises (Allure, Symphony & Anthem) the MDR traditional was being used for overflow for My Time Dining diners.  What I don't understand, even one year out, if you want Traditional you have to be wait listed--What gives. .