Main dining room dessert

[Butterbean1000]

8 minutes ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

 

Maybe none of us should try to tell any of the rest of us how long it should take us to eat.  And maybe we should keep the associated biases and judgements to ourselves.  Because there is no correct answer here.  Your opinion on this is no better than bigdog's or mine or any one else's.

 

 

 

This.

[pusywillow]

I think this is the reason so many people are choosing YTD.  That way you can eat at the pace you enjoy.

[JaxsMama]

This happened to us too on the Conquest in January.  Maybe it's just that ship.

[ShakyBeef]

2 minutes ago, pusywillow said:

I think this is the reason so many people are choosing YTD.  That way you can eat at the pace you enjoy.

 

That is most likely true. 

 

And it is one reason why we will always choose Traditional Seating.  We know our table is there, ready for us at our (pre-)chosen time, for the whole time.  No waiting for the table and no rushing through our meal.

[sanmarcosman]

31 minutes ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

That is most likely true. 

It is true, one table of family or friends can work as a team usually in these situations. YTD is also a good way to avoid table talk about lawn fertilizer or wishing you could watch paint dry than listen to strangers. 😉 To each their own. 

[naxer]

This is why we like Your Time Dining.  We go when we want, stay as long as we want, order how we want, and talk about what we want to talk about.  We've also met people on the cruise who also had YTD, and we just went together sometimes.  This works well for us.  It's not for everybody.  

[Doggielover68]

2 hours ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

I think bigdog1958's point (with which I agree) in response to pusywillow's opinion, is that there are different perspectives on this issue.  A "rusher" might think the "lingerer" rude to make the meal take "too long" for the whole table, while the "lingerer" might see the "rusher" as rude for hurrying what the "lingerer" might want to be a relaxed, social, pleasant, unhurried meal with family / friends.  It's not about how fancy the venue or the meal are.  It is about how we as individuals like to spend our meal times.  Some want to eat fast and get on to the next thing.  Some want to relax and enjoy the present moment.  And that is all fine - we are all different.  But to call one out as being rude for taking longer over their meal than you might like them to is, well, rude.

 

Furthermore, taking longer than what you consider "more than enough time" doesn't mean we are eating any more than you.  Not all who take their time are multi-entree orderers.  To imply that more relaxed diners are gluttons is actually quite humorous in its fallacy.  Those that take more time over their meals statistically eats less than do gluttons.  You might want to consider how judgmental you are coming across.  Your version of "eating like a normal human" in what you arbitrarily proclaim to be "more than enough time" might be my version of "scarfing your food down as if you fear someone might steal it off your plate". 

 

Maybe none of us should try to tell any of the rest of us how long it should take us to eat.  And maybe we should keep the associated biases and judgements to ourselves.  Because there is no correct answer here.  Your opinion on this is no better than bigdog's or mine or any one else's.

 

 

 

The whole reason we go to the MDR for dinner is to "relax" and an hour is enough time to do so. I don't scarf my food down. If I do that, I get sick. I can barely drink water at a normal pace. 

 

Maybe the real difference is who you are dining with. It doesn't take long for a table of 2 to get through a meal. A table of 10 however, or a table with kids, might take longer. 

[Doggielover68]

59 minutes ago, sanmarcosman said:

It is true, one table of family or friends can work as a team usually in these situations. YTD is also a good way to avoid table talk about lawn fertilizer or wishing you could watch paint dry than listen to strangers. 😉 To each their own. 

Hahaha! My husband and I were once seated next to an incredibly racist couple that casually made comments talking about Chinese people. Meanwhile my Asian husband was sitting with me listening to this nonsense the whole time. I prefer to sit as far away from strangers as possible.

[purplephenom]

I would be ok with this- we ask for a table for 2 at fixed dining, so us eating quickly doesn't help/hurt anyone else.  In all honesty, last cruise, my day 3, our wait staff knew we didn't need dessert menus.  Warm chocolate melting cake for each of us please.  

 

It did speed up dining considerably to not look at a dessert menu- the first couple nights we were in the dining room a little over an hour, after that it was down to 45 minutes.  I think one reason was we didn't have to wait until the larger tables around us were ready for dessert.  Also, we were out of the dining room before the dancing started.  

 

It may not work for everyone, but we were kind of already doing this anyways, so this is a change that wouldn't matter to me.  

[beshears]

Just off the Fascination the 7th of April, and we were in the MDR for several meals, and they never ask us what we wanted for desert, until everyone was through with their main meals.

[ShakyBeef]

3 hours ago, Doggielover68 said:

The whole reason we go to the MDR for dinner is to "relax" and an hour is enough time to do so. I don't scarf my food down. If I do that, I get sick. I can barely drink water at a normal pace. 

 

Maybe the real difference is who you are dining with. It doesn't take long for a table of 2 to get through a meal. A table of 10 however, or a table with kids, might take longer. 

 

It appears that you've missed my point(s) entirely.

[Shaded Lady]

5 hours ago, ShakyBeef said:

Maybe none of us should try to tell any of the rest of us how long it should take us to eat.  And maybe we should keep the associated biases and judgements to ourselves.  Because there is no correct answer here.  Your opinion on this is no better than bigdog's or mine or any one else's.

 

I love this, Shaky!!! 

[CruisingAgain]

When I started cruising (in the 80's) we always had dessert on the dinner menu and ordered it with everything else. This was before we started cruising with Carnival so it was other lines.  In fact now that this is mentioned I remember finding it "odd" that we didn't order like that when we started cruising with carnival.

[KittyCatRya]

We just got off the Conquest in yesterday. Had the same experience with being asked to order dessert at the beginning of the meal. We loved it, our dinner took about one hour (still were waiting around between courses though) and then we were off doing other things.  Very efficient, especially at large tables that some ppl come late/talk too much/take too long.

[maynovmom]

15 hours ago, sanmarcosman said:

OP: were you handed the dessert menus with the dinner menus or were you given a new menu combining both? Either way if this is a trial balloon they should stick a pin in it. 

They tried to give us both menus at once. We said we wanted to wait on dessert. Two waiters were fine with it and two were annoyed and tried to talk us into ordering then. We didn’t and we did ask the front desk about this policy. They said it was two weeks old. I don’t like it and mentioned it in my email review. It’s tacky. Otherwise an awesome cruise! 

[maynovmom]

15 hours ago, sanmarcosman said:

OP: were you handed the dessert menus with the dinner menus or were you given a new menu combining both? Either way if this is a trial balloon they should stick a pin in it. 

They tried to give us both menus at once. We said we wanted to wait on dessert. Two waiters were fine with it and two were annoyed and tried to talk us into ordering then. We didn’t and we did ask the front desk about this policy. They said it was two weeks old. I don’t like it and mentioned it in my email review. It’s tacky. Otherwise an awesome cruise! 

[maynovmom]

10 hours ago, naxer said:

This is why we like Your Time Dining.  We go when we want, stay as long as we want, order how we want, and talk about what we want to talk about.  We've also met people on the cruise who also had YTD, and we just went together sometimes.  This works well for us.  It's not for everybody.  

 

7 hours ago, ShakyBeef said:

 

It appears that you've missed my point(s) entirely.

My husband and I dined alone. Table for two. Anytime dining. We do enjoy a leisurely meal and had no complaints about the food. We just aren’t ready to choose dessert when we sit down. I do see how some people in different situations might want to but the staff should all be fine if we say that we would like to wait and see after the main course. That’s the point I was making. It’s a trial and the hostess told us it’s supposed to be fine either way we choose. Some waiters weren’t very nice about it and that’s the issue. 

[Quilcruisers]

We have done YTD the last few cruises and dessert menus always given at the end. Like others here, I already know what I want when I sit down. I have started to get the fruit plate every time, I just can’t eat those big meals anymore.  My system can’t handle the rich desserts. I tried the key lime mousse and had to stop myself after 1 spoonful, it was divine but knew it would not end well for me if I continued.  YMMV. 

[gtouch]

If you have to complain about having to order dessert at the beginning of your meal then your life is pretty good. Everyone please enjoy your cruise and relax.

[wytygr8]

Getting rushed in the MDR is what? Going from a snail’s pace up to a tortoise? This sounds amazing.

[ray98]

I am a fan of anything they do to speed up the meal.  Many times we skip dessert just to speed things up.

[ProgRockCruiser]

Maybe Carnival needs to offer up two types of fixed-time seating in the MDRs: one MDR can be "Daytona 500 style", where you get in and out in 45 min, guaranteed!  Also, no dancing waiters!  They could do three separate sittings a night. 

 

The other one would be the "no hurries, no worries" style, where each sitting takes the full 90 min.

[schazzy]

1 hour ago, ProgRockCruiser said:

one MDR can be "Daytona 500 style"

 

I don't know if I'd want dinner to take almost 4 hours to finish

[MistyRo76]

I do agree that the number of people you have at your table can greatly impact how long dinner takes. We often travel with a larger group (12-24 people) and many of us choose to dine together. Since we do have a bigger group, we always select late assigned dining. We expect that our dinner will take 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours. And honestly, we are fine with that as we use that time to catch up on our days and enjoy each other's company. Even though we travel as a group, we often do our own things during the day. 

 

On our recent cruise, those who ate dinner on the ship when we were docked in Cuba noted how much quicker things went that night having only 8 vs. the normal 15. 

 

[abby1257]

On 4/22/2019 at 11:10 AM, Butterbean1000 said:

This.

Agree....