Freedom dining.

[vinob]

Good morning folks, need your assistance again.

We have cruised with Princess couple of times Prior to the Medallion App using freedom dining, we always just turned up at the restaurant and were given a pager if there wasn't a table available right away.

We are due to cruise on Enchanted Princess this summer, a relative who was on the Enchanted last month has told me I would be wise to book my freedom dining before we sail or we might not be able to get the usual times we eat which is anywhere between 7.15 and 8.45pm.  There were other passengers telling my relative that when they tried to book on the day they were been told they only had  6.15pm slots or late slots.   I thought the whole point of Freedom dining was just to turn up and take a pager if a table wasn't quite ready.   It seems with the medallion app people are booking before they even sail.  I don't really want to book until I know what's on and when, so I can build our dining around those events.

Can you please share your experiences of freedom dining with this new app.   Any info greatly appreciated.

 

[skynight]

Freedom Dining (What Princess called Anytime Dining) as well as Traditional Dining has been replaced by Dine My Way (DMW). Passengers have reported that they have shown up at anytime and they will be seated as tables become available. The vision for DMW was that you decided each day what time you wanted to dine then went into the app to book that time or something near that time. DMW also was intended to provide you with the ability to book a single time each day for the entire cruise or different times for the entire cruise before you board. From what I have read it is filled with issues. 

[Ombud]

I also eat anywhere between 6:30-7:30. Not quite the same time as @vinobbut close. I'm getting on the Discovery Princess in less than 4 weeks and, just like my last 2 post shutdown cruises, I am not using the DMW part of the app. I used it last summer and it was useless. 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, vinob said:

Good morning folks, need your assistance again.

We have cruised with Princess couple of times Prior to the Medallion App using freedom dining, we always just turned up at the restaurant and were given a pager if there wasn't a table available right away.

We are due to cruise on Enchanted Princess this summer, a relative who was on the Enchanted last month has told me I would be wise to book my freedom dining before we sail or we might not be able to get the usual times we eat which is anywhere between 7.15 and 8.45pm.  There were other passengers telling my relative that when they tried to book on the day they were been told they only had  6.15pm slots or late slots.   I thought the whole point of Freedom dining was just to turn up and take a pager if a table wasn't quite ready.   It seems with the medallion app people are booking before they even sail.  I don't really want to book until I know what's on and when, so I can build our dining around those events.

Can you please share your experiences of freedom dining with this new app.   Any info greatly appreciated.

 

Guests can still walk-up as before and request private or shared seating.  Your wait will vary depending on the time and other guests.  Not sure if you walk-up to a single DR, or whether you would choose between two of them.

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

And it depends on the capacity of the ship. Right now, with ships not sailing full, the old anytime dinning method is still available. We just got off the Discovery sailing at 60% capacity. We had daily 8pm reservations but showed up early if we were ready and there was no problem. Dinning room was barely 50% full when we were eating. 

[vinob]

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply it has been most helpful.

Kind regards Viv.

[Daddysbaby]

My concern is that I am a solo traveller and in the past I have headed to the "Anytime Dining" Dining Room whenever I felt like having dinner that day and asked to be seated at a large table to share.  It has worked out quite well and I have met some interesting people and enjoyed dining with different people every night.  Will I still be able to do this?  I should also mention that I am a dinosaur from the last century and don't do the cell phone/app thing. Thank you for your help.

 

Sheila😀

[teecee60]

42 minutes ago, Daddysbaby said:

In the past I have headed to the "Anytime Dining" Dining Room whenever I felt like having dinner  and asked to be seated at a large table to share.  It has worked out quite well and I have met some interesting people and enjoyed dining with different people every night.  Will I still be able to do this?  I should also mention that I am a dinosaur from the last century and don't do the cell phone/app thing. 

 

YES... you will still be able to do that. We have NEVER made reservations and have never waited more than two or three minutes to be seated... just avoid "opening time." (from a fellow dinosaur😉)

[MissP22]

I suppose I don't see the advantage of making standing reservations but as I see it if you show up at your selected time (with the DR filled to capacity and people queued up for dining), might you be next to be seated ahead of them? 

What's to keep people from making standing reservations and then just showing up at any time to eat knowing they still have their reservation as a backup? Somehow this seems to be a self defeating  way of running a DR unless everyone was in sync with the developers of this idea. 

 

[skynight]

8 minutes ago, MissP22 said:

I suppose I don't see the advantage of making standing reservations but as I see it if you show up at your selected time (with the DR filled to capacity and people queued up for dining), might you be next to be seated ahead of them? 

What's to keep people from making standing reservations and then just showing up at any time to eat knowing they still have their reservation as a backup? Somehow this seems to be a self defeating  way of running a DR unless everyone was in sync with the developers of this idea. 

 

Princess decided to correct a dining system that was not broken so it could use the medallion app.  The previous system only required some adjustments.

[MissP22]

40 minutes ago, skynight said:

Princess decided to correct a dining system that was not broken so it could use the medallion app.  The previous system only required some adjustments.

They seemed to have forced the DR crew to adjust to it by letting them run it the best they can. 

On our last trip we had standing reservations for the complete cruise in one of the DR's and we changed to a different DR- same table each night. At that point it became impossible to cancel our original reservations. 

What good does it to leave the existing reservations on place especially if you can't modify them when on the ship? It only slows down seating for others standing in line.

[chisoxfan]

I have been trying to follow the Medallion App posts but with 130plus pages it tells me something is wrong.

We have a Sept. cruise and just made final payment.  I was pleasantly surprised to make a dining res. on the first night of the cruise without fanfare (usually a hectic dining night). I told my wife we should sit down and schedule some dinners since apparently this app was functional. No dice. Additional attempts in the following days show an 'error' despite multiple times, dates, and venues. We downloaded the app in an I Pad also without any difference. So now I am concerned as the app seems to 'work' (it made one res and this rese does seem to stay on my record (ie. I went to the same evening and it said we had a res and do we want to cancel). Is one supposed to spend endless time just logging on and seeing what happens? While I would not be happy if it said times were not available at least I would know things were working and I would adjust my schedule accordingly. I cannot believe calling Princess will give me any knowledge or satisfaction as their input in the past on this cruise has been

non helpful.

Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

My cynical side (supported by past Princess experience) will be that we will show up for anytime dining

every evening and be told there is a one hour wait and we should have made reservation.

[jinpasco]

We were just able to make dining reservations for the entire cruise thru the online venue. Miracles do happen !  It's also easier to do it on your tv once on the ship than the app. Not to say it won,t disappear but we are one step closer.

If anyone else has done this ...a question... There is a place that says  " link reservations ". Is that what I need to do to link our travel  friends to ours for dinner ? Or should  I leave that to our TA ?

[JF - retired RRT]

1 hour ago, jinpasco said:

There is a place that says  " link reservations ". Is that what I need to do to link our travel  friends to ours for dinner ? 

yes

[bjkTX]

On 6/2/2022 at 1:03 PM, Daddysbaby said:

My concern is that I am a solo traveller and in the past I have headed to the "Anytime Dining" Dining Room whenever I felt like having dinner that day and asked to be seated at a large table to share.  It has worked out quite well and I have met some interesting people and enjoyed dining with different people every night.  Will I still be able to do this?  I should also mention that I am a dinosaur from the last century and don't do the cell phone/app thing. Thank you for your help.

 

Sheila😀

Greetings from another dinosaur!  We currently don't have a smart phone but we do have an old cell phone my wife keeps in her purse for emergencies - and the odd company that insists on sending us a code by text so we can get in our account...  That will probably change before our cruise in Sep since they tell me our old phone won't work when they switch to 5 G.   But all that aside - we had company this past weekend and the wife had just been on a sister's cruise out of California and she said to order dinner at a table in the MDR you had to do it on your phone - that there were no paper or regular menus...She said if you didn't have a phone you needed to borrow one.  I said that couldn't be...  She said it was nuts - everyone at the table on their phones - just like home....

[Steelers36]

15 hours ago, jinpasco said:

We were just able to make dining reservations for the entire cruise thru the online venue. Miracles do happen !  It's also easier to do it on your tv once on the ship than the app. Not to say it won,t disappear but we are one step closer.

If anyone else has done this ...a question... There is a place that says  " link reservations ". Is that what I need to do to link our travel  friends to ours for dinner ? Or should  I leave that to our TA ?

 

14 hours ago, JF - retired RRT said:

yes

 

No, it isn't.  In the MC App, you need to add Travel Companions.  In order to do that, exchange Booking Confirmation numbers with your friends and then add them with this number.

 

Once added, you can then include them in a Dining Party before selecting time & type of seating.

 

The other "Link Booking" is supposedly to add a booking into your MC App profile.  However, the System includes your active bookings in the MC App, so this should just work automatically - unless your data situation has a bug.  I am not sure why Princess has this feature there for guests as I am not sure when it comes into play.

[skynight]

12 hours ago, bjkTX said:

Greetings from another dinosaur!  We currently don't have a smart phone but we do have an old cell phone my wife keeps in her purse for emergencies - and the odd company that insists on sending us a code by text so we can get in our account...  That will probably change before our cruise in Sep since they tell me our old phone won't work when they switch to 5 G.   But all that aside - we had company this past weekend and the wife had just been on a sister's cruise out of California and she said to order dinner at a table in the MDR you had to do it on your phone - that there were no paper or regular menus...She said if you didn't have a phone you needed to borrow one.  I said that couldn't be...  She said it was nuts - everyone at the table on their phones - just like home....

What ship? My understanding is that on Princess ships regular menus are available.

[5:00_Somewhere]

12 hours ago, bjkTX said:

Greetings from another dinosaur!  We currently don't have a smart phone but we do have an old cell phone my wife keeps in her purse for emergencies - and the odd company that insists on sending us a code by text so we can get in our account...  That will probably change before our cruise in Sep since they tell me our old phone won't work when they switch to 5 G.   But all that aside - we had company this past weekend and the wife had just been on a sister's cruise out of California and she said to order dinner at a table in the MDR you had to do it on your phone - that there were no paper or regular menus...She said if you didn't have a phone you needed to borrow one.  I said that couldn't be...  She said it was nuts - everyone at the table on their phones - just like home....

 

6 minutes ago, skynight said:

What ship? My understanding is that on Princess ships regular menus are available.

 

We are just off Discovery Princess and I have a couple of comments.

 

First, Princess does drive passengers to use the Medallion App on a SmartPhone for nearly everything related to a cruise these days, from checking in and preparing in advance for embarkation to scheduling your nightly dinner reservations, planning excursions, viewing your onboard account, ordering room service, etc. Princess recently added an option on their website for your pre-embarkation preparations, so you can do everything there instead of on the app.  As for the app, when it works it's pretty convenient, but there are frequent glitches with the app. And, as others have said, you can still do things "the old fashioned way", although it's a little like fitting a square peg into a round hole at this point. But, it'd doable.

 

As for menus, at least on Discovery, there were physical paper menus available at all dining venues, although there were also Lucite holders with QR codes that you could scan with a SmartPhone to get menus as well. At bars and in the Horizon Court, there were also stickers on the countertops with the QR codes. But, yes, you should have paper menus available at most, if not all, locations; and I suspect you could ask if they aren't initially provided. 

[JF - retired RRT]

8 hours ago, Steelers36 said:

No, it isn't.  In the MC App, you need to add Travel Companions.  In order to do that, exchange Booking Confirmation numbers with your friends and then add them with this number.

I bow to the master.👑

[nijh]

On Enchanted at the moment.  
 

2 queues for MDR, one for booked, one for walk-ins.  Booked queue is generally longer and doesn’t move any faster.  20-25 mins queue to get seated when turning up at around 8.00 - 8.10.  No pagers.

 

Met a few people (in the queue!) saying they couldn’t book and were told just to show up.

 

Maitre D did ask us last night how long we queued for so clearly recognise there’s a problem.

 

Buffet tonight cos can’t keep queuing like that.  Worried everyone else will have same idea and we end up queuing at the buffet!
 

Other  than that (and the hour + queue at the port just to get in the terminal), great ship, great staff, great food.
 

Great to be back on a ship.

Edited June 5, 2022 by nijh
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