Changing My Time Dining

[Mikewa]

Perhaps a rookie mistake.  Signed up for My Time Dining.  Now with about a month before my cruise, we are rethinking and perhaps want to go with just the earlier set time seating.  in order to do this, on the RCL Website I think I have to cancel My Time, and then sign up for the early seating.  Worried that if I cancel, and the earlier seating is filled, I may loose out on both.  Sorry if this is a basic question,..... but you know how it is...  Thanks!!

Edited June 22, 2022 by Mikewa

[poocher]

If you booked directly with RC, call & ask them to make the switch.  That way if early traditional dining is unavailable, you won’t lose what you have currently.  If you used a TA, have them do it.

[Biker19]

4 minutes ago, Mikewa said:

on the RCL Website I think I have to cancel My Time, and then sign up for the early seating. 

You can't do it on the site - have to call.

 

Biker, who is impressed with this site's ability to shape people's choices.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Biker19

[sdteacher]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

Biker, who is impressed with this site's ability to shape people's choices.

We cruise on Saturday and have always done MTD. After reading all the negative posts about it, I have been so close to switching. We cruised in Nov and it worked well so I am hopeful but you’re right, these boards do shape our choices. Hopeful I won’t regret my decision to stay with MTD. 😳

[poocher]

Do come back & give us your opinion!  We have MTD on Explorer in October.  Despite the negative reviews, we have not considered changing.  We shall see!

Edited June 22, 2022 by poocher

[Surfguyxxx]

I had MTD but after reading a lot of recent negative reviews, I literally changed to early seating about 1 hour ago.  Easy to do.  I'll be on the Explorer OTS if that matters to anyone.

Edited June 22, 2022 by Surfguyxxx

[sdteacher]

We board Explorer on Saturday. We have 3 nights of specialty dining and the rest will be MTD. I’ll let you know how it goes. 🤞🏼

[poocher]

Any opinions are welcome!  It’s just hubby & me & we aren’t too concerned about when we eat.  But it would be nice to have realistic expectations.

[SECdawg]

We have had MTD on all six of our cruises since the restart. We had no problems except for our May Mariner cruise. The wait was 15 -30 minutes with reservations. I think that it is a staffing issue now that they are sailing at higher capacity. We are giving it another shot in August. Hoping things go smoother.

[karena1]

40 minutes ago, poocher said:

Do come back & give us your opinion!  We have MTD on Explorer in October.  Despite the negative reviews, we have not considered changing.  We shall see!

Us either, we love MTD and will never go back to Traditional.  I will say for Explorer, when we went in April, it was one of the rare cruises I actually made MTD reservations b/c the lines were pretty long and we wanted to make the shows.   But by October, should be much better as they get more and more staff on the ship.  

[poocher]

I have always made MTD reservations.  For us it’s just that early dining is too early & late is too late.  Our sweet spot is 6:30-7.

[Mikewa]

5 minutes ago, poocher said:

I have always made MTD reservations.  For us it’s just that early dining is too early & late is too late.  Our sweet spot is 6:30-7.

Yeah, that was our thought as well (regarding the "sweet spot").  But after thinking about it, traditional early seating on sea days might work better.  

 

My brain hurts!

[mpk]

Hmm...   we're stuck in Traditional 1st seating, and can't get into to MTD...   1st world problems.

[maggie416]

We just switched from MTD to the 5:30 seating. We have had MTD for years but now, the earliest you can book is 7 PM. Since we are sailing with another couple, I know we will spend more time dining. Do not want to rush to get all the shows in so we switched. This is a back to back, the first week it’s just the two of us so kept it at 7.

Marg

[S.A.M.J.R.]

On 6/22/2022 at 1:35 PM, Biker19 said:

You can't do it on the site - have to call.

 

Biker, who is impressed with this site's ability to shape people's choices.

But isn't that the point of message boards like this?  To give people information to make the best decisions that work for them?

 

We changed from MTD to Early earlier this week.  We had MTD set for 7p each night, thinking we could get in/out in time to catch the evening shows.  But, based on threads here, we decided to move to early.  

 

We figured if we have to wait 30 minutes to get seated, we're going to miss the evening shows.  PLUS, 5:30 is closer to the time we normally eat anyway (usually by 6).  And I believe the last time we did MTD, we were able to get 6p.  Now the earliest was 6:45p.

Edited June 23, 2022 by S.A.M.J.R.

[Biker19]

3 hours ago, S.A.M.J.R. said:

But, based on threads here, we decided to move to early.  

 

We figured if we have to wait 30 minutes to get seated, we're going to miss the evening shows.

The reporting of MTD being a debacle by some is unlikely to be true for many in reality. Having to wait at peak times for MTD seating on some ships on some days is not a COVID thing- that was true pre COVID as well. 

[BirdTravels]

On 6/22/2022 at 2:09 PM, poocher said:

Do come back & give us your opinion!  We have MTD on Explorer in October.  Despite the negative reviews, we have not considered changing.  We shall see!

We only do MTD. And hope that RCCL does away with traditional doing soon like other cruise lines. 

[poocher]

Not sure why it would be necessary to do away with traditional dining?  Although we don’t partake, a great many do.  Once the staffing issues have been resolved, is there not room for both?

[Jerseygirl1416]

31 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

The reporting of MTD being a debacle by some is unlikely to be true for many in reality. Having to wait at peak times for MTD seating on some ships on some days is not a COVID thing- that was true pre COVID as well. 

But it’s the new late start of MTD that turned me off. If I can’t go to the dining room until 6:45-7:00 I don’t consider that MTD anymore. That’s more like 2nd seating for early dining. 

[davekathy]

18 minutes ago, poocher said:

Not sure why it would be necessary to do away with traditional dining?  Although we don’t partake, a great many do.  Once the staffing issues have been resolved, is there not room for both?

No need to get rid of TD. Yes TD and MTD worked well pre covid cruises. 

[davekathy]

7 minutes ago, Jerseygirl1416 said:

But it’s the new late start of MTD that turned me off. If I can’t go to the dining room until 6:45-7:00 I don’t consider that MTD anymore. That’s more like 2nd seating for early dining. 

On out March B2B cruise on the Explorer, MTD didn't start until 7:15 PM. We switched to early (6:PM) TD (prior to the sail date) and glad we did. When we left the MDR the lines for MTD stretched all the way back to Studio B entrance, every night. If MTD continues like that we will stick with early (6:PM) TD. 

[S.A.M.J.R.]

1 hour ago, Biker19 said:

The reporting of MTD being a debacle by some is unlikely to be true for many in reality. Having to wait at peak times for MTD seating on some ships on some days is not a COVID thing- that was true pre COVID as well. 

But they've cut down on the hours of MTD, so there's less time available, meaning more "peak" times.  So I decided to go with the "sure thing", because I was concerned if we did happen onto one of the "peak times", we wouldn't be able to switch to TD.  

[Mikewa]

17 hours ago, maggie416 said:

We just switched from MTD to the 5:30 seating. We have had MTD for years but now, the earliest you can book is 7 PM. Since we are sailing with another couple, I know we will spend more time dining. Do not want to rush to get all the shows in so we switched. This is a back to back, the first week it’s just the two of us so kept it at 7.

Marg

That's exactly our thoughts! 

[sdteacher]

We had MTD and just returned from our 8 day cruise on Explorer. I thought MTD was great! We used it on 5 of the nights. We made reservations for 7:15 on each of the nights but sometimes we went as early as 6:30 and never waited more than 10 min. Sometimes there was a line for reservations but there was never more than a handful of people in the line. The line for no reservations was a bit longer but it didn’t look unreasonable. The first night we went was on day 3 so I have no idea how crazy it was on the first 2 nights. In years past, the first few nights are always disorganized. I’m glad we stayed with MTD. It worked for us.