Queen Victoria late dining current arrangement

[wooltonhill]

Is the late dining "open" from 7.45 or fixed 2nd sitting at 8.30 as in the past? Voyage  personaliser  no help.

[999andretired]

There is no definitive answer to this, if you search ‘dining’ in the FAQ’s, there are so many differing policies, depending on what fare you are travelling under, and of course which restaurant.  One of the statements states that dining arrangements will be confirmed once on board.  Whatever the outcome I’m sure the food will be up to usual Cunard standards, sorry I couldn’t be more specific. Enjoy your cruise. We are on QV next week. 

[Bell Boy]

I have just recently disembarked from Queen Victoria. The evening dining time in the main Britannia Restaurant ( at present)  First Sitting from 6.pm -last orders 6.30pm - Second sitting 8.30pm - last order 9.pm.

Since the 13th August 2021 the evening dining times ( main Britannia Restaurant ) on Queen Mary 2 and Queen Elizabeth were changed to an 'Open Dining' concept . We understand this new concept was a trial for the new ship Queen Anne where Open & Fixed dining will be offered in the Britannia category.

Shortly before June 5th Fixed dining times have now returned to the QM2 & QE in line with Q.Vic's return to regular service .

 

I understand from speaking with a member of the ships management during my recent time on Victoria, that with effect from 'September 2022' Open & Fixed dining will be introduced in the Main Britannia Restaurant,  by utilising the upper and lower area of the restaurant .

 

This should please everybody, we shall to wait and see. 

 

 

Edited July 1, 2022 by Bell Boy

[wooltonhill]

thank you, just what I needed to know.

[Poole Boy]

Dining at the moment is 6:00 and 8:30 , however the doors are open by 8:15 for second seating. With so few people in the dining room and most of the tables are for 2 people it is possible to be finished with dinner by 9:30.

 

given the numbers using the MDR and the vast majority of people dining on tables for 2 Cunard should move to one sitting similar to breakfast or lunch 

 

[Bell Boy]

1 hour ago, Poole Boy said:

Dining at the moment is 6:00 and 8:30 , however the doors are open by 8:15 for second seating. With so few people in the dining room and most of the tables are for 2 people it is possible to be finished with dinner by 9:30.

 

given the numbers using the MDR and the vast majority of people dining on tables for 2 Cunard should move to one sitting similar to breakfast or lunch 

 

That could only work if guests could be guaranteed a 'dedicated table and same waiter' in the evenings, of course, some might say  they don't go on cruise ship to make friends with the crew.  

[ClefsDor]

8 hours ago, Bell Boy said:

I understand from speaking with a member of the ships management during my recent time on Victoria, that with effect from 'September 2022' Open & Fixed dining will be introduced in the Main Britannia Restaurant,  by utilising the upper and lower area of the restaurant .

Would this just be on QV or on QE too? I very much hope this happens on QE for our cruise in November. I dislike fixed dining immensely - 6.00 too early, 8.30 too late. This is one reason why we would happily pay extra for Britannia Club but unfortunately we booked late and are waitlisted. If they do revert to open dining by then our dilemma is over.

[Bell Boy]

9 hours ago, ClefsDor said:

Would this just be on QV or on QE too? I very much hope this happens on QE for our cruise in November. I dislike fixed dining immensely - 6.00 too early, 8.30 too late. This is one reason why we would happily pay extra for Britannia Club but unfortunately we booked late and are waitlisted. If they do revert to open dining by then our dilemma is over.

Yes as I understand it, Open & Fixed dining will be introduced across the Fleet in September 2022

[Host Hattie]

11 minutes ago, Bell Boy said:

Yes as I understand it, Open & Fixed dining will be introduced across the Fleet in September 2022

That's interesting, we're sailing on Queen Victoria in late September and there's no mention of it so far. We were offered Early or Late.

[longton]

We are on Queen Victoria at the moment. We reach the Britannia dining room at 6:30pm and then watch the 8pm show.

 

One of our waiters told us they are changing all the chairs in Britannia tomorrow in Southampton.

[exlondoner]

41 minutes ago, longton said:

We are on Queen Victoria at the moment. We reach the Britannia dining room at 6:30pm and then watch the 8pm show.

 

One of our waiters told us they are changing all the chairs in Britannia tomorrow in Southampton.

 

That should be a sight to see. 😀 I wonder if they'll look the same? 

[cook68]

12 hours ago, exlondoner said:

 

That should be a sight to see. 😀 I wonder if they'll look the same? 

I am on tomorrow will take a photo 

[ClefsDor]

I certainly hope they do change to open dining. I have a feeling that our waitlist for Britannia Club is not going to open up in November and being able to dine any time we want was the main reason for trying to book BC.

[Colin_Cameron]

Is it just me that thinks "open dining" doesn't mean dining when you want. It means dining when they have space for you?

[exlondoner]

5 minutes ago, Colin_Cameron said:

Is it just me that thinks "open dining" doesn't mean dining when you want. It means dining when they have space for you?

 

I think probably, at the moment, with the ships not nearly full, it probably works fine. Turn up when you feel like it and there'll be a table. When the ships are full again, it will be much trickier.

[Colin_Cameron]

2 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

I think probably, at the moment, with the ships not nearly full, it probably works fine. When the ships are full again, it will be much trickier.

Agreed. I had actually written this but then deleted it.

[exlondoner]

Thinking about the QG, where, obviously, people can turn up when they feel like it, there are quite a few who come in at 6.30, as soon as it opens, and a number who come in after 8.15, but most people, as you would expect, turn up between 7.30 and 8. If this pattern were replicated on a full Britannia, it would seem rather tricky.  The mix of nationalities on board would also probably influence peak dining pressures.

 

 

 

[carlmm]

12 hours ago, ClefsDor said:

I certainly hope they do change to open dining. I have a feeling that our waitlist for Britannia Club is not going to open up in November and being able to dine any time we want was the main reason for trying to book BC.

Well, I hope Cunard fully reverts to fixed seating again. One of my reason to book Britannia on Cunard on purpose  is to have the same waiters and table mates in the traditional way.

 

Thus I hope for you that you get your BC cabin and seating as wanted but please do not spoil the experience for those who are more than happy with the traditional fixed seating.

[exlondoner]

12 minutes ago, carlmm said:

Well, I hope Cunard fully reverts to fixed seating again. One of my reason to book Britannia on Cunard on purpose  is to have the same waiters and table mates in the traditional way.

 

Thus I hope for you that you get your BC cabin and seating as wanted but please do not spoil the experience for those who are more than happy with the traditional fixed seating.

Mightn't two sessions fixed on one level, open seating on the other, work for everyone?

[Colin_Cameron]

15 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Mightn't two sessions fixed on one level, open seating on the other, work for everyone?

Not without a larger space / more seats for the same number of people. Whether it's the whole restaurant or half of it, the problem is the same.

 

If you have 800 people to feed on one level of the restaurant, and 400 seats, you can do it easily in two 400-seat sittings. If you have open dining and only 200 turn up at 6pm (because early, is too early) half the seats sit empty for some time until most people (let's say another 400) turn up sometime in the middle of the evening (because early is too early, and late is too late) but they can't all be seated because some of the first to arrive are still eating. The only thing to do is to tell some of them to come back later. When they do, along with the last 200, there are still not enough seats because some of the 400 mid-evening arrivals are still dining. You can't really tell them to come back earlier. Because those seats sat empty at the beginning of the evening there will never be enough seats for everyone.

 

The only solution is more seats (or fewer passengers), which could be designed into a newbuild but won't work on the existing ships, unless they can somehow squeeze more seats in or increase the size of the restaurant.

[Host Hattie]

We had it on a P&O ship, it often involved being given a pager. After a few days we realised that the food was so poor in the MDR we gave up and paid for the extra cost options.

[elmsliebev]

we had it on a Marella ship and it worked fine. Mainly because there were 6 of us travelling together and the lovely staff ended up saving us the same round table table every night at pretty much the same time! 

[TheOldBear]

Mrs Bear and I usually book Britannia second seating, and we hope the traditional assigned tables and uniform seating time returns. 
We’ll be onboard for 26 nights for our next sailing, and think it’s nice to have the same waitstaff at dinner.

We had the same waiters for sailings in 2008, 2010, and 2017 - and they dropped by our table to say hello on our 2019 sailing. I guess we are fairly memorable.