Dining Time For Princess

[mike&elena]

1 hour ago, MissP22 said:

The exact same thing could have happened with the old way of placing people at tables in the DR. Unless you knew which table you were placed at by visiting the Maître D' on embarkation day, it was always pot luck.

So blaming at app isn't appropriate.

The difference is that, under TD, the Dining Room Manager had the authority to reassign tables.  Now tables are permanent assigned by the App for the entire cruise and cannot be reassigned even though they may not be used by the assigned party.  I was told by the staff that they have no discretion since the App holds the tables and assumes the people will be using them each night which, under Dine My Way, is often not the case.  A traditional dining experience did not happen on our last cruise after six nights of asking the Dining Room Manager for a fixed table. It took an extraordinary effort and the involvement of the Food & Beverage Manager and Restaurant Operations Manager to get a fixed table assignment on Day 7.  We've cruised with Princess for over 20 years and never had this problem until the App came along!

[Jadn13]

5 minutes ago, mike&elena said:

The difference is that, under TD, the Dining Room Manager had the authority to reassign tables.  Now tables are permanent assigned by the App for the entire cruise and cannot be reassigned even though they may not be used by the assigned party.  I was told by the staff that they have no discretion since the App holds the tables and assumes the people will be using them each night which, under Dine My Way, is often not the case.  A traditional dining experience did not happen on our last cruise after six nights of asking the Dining Room Manager for a fixed table. It took an extraordinary effort and the involvement of the Food & Beverage Manager and Restaurant Operations Manager to get a fixed table assignment on Day 7.  We've cruised with Princess for over 20 years and never had this problem until the App came along!

I changed my table on the first night of a two 10 day B2B cruise after speaking to the crew working the door. I ended up with the same table/time for 20 days. 
I think it can be done but some may choose not to deal with it and use DMW as an excuse. 

[Steelers36]

7 hours ago, MissP22 said:

But it is possible to arrange to be at the same table with the same people for the entire cruise. All you have to do is talk to the DR host who will relay your request to the DR head waiter. Nothing has changed the way I see it.

Maybe I'm missing something. 

No, not really.  That first night table may have all other guests who are dining randomly.  There is no guarantee everyone at that first night table is interested in continuing, whereas with the old system , everyone there had signed up for the same thing.  I would say it is almost impossible to have a group dining in the old traditional way with random guests who will be together for the voyage.  You would have to recruit your own group from other "strangers".  Either that, or you have your own travel group from the get-go.  Who knows - perhaps some folks will start recruiting tablemates for dining on Rolls Calls like they do for private excursions?

[Steelers36]

2 hours ago, SantaFeFan said:

 

With traditional dining you ALSO might not like the table/server, plus you might ALSO not like your table mates! I don't see how your argument makes any sense when considering the crap shoot that was traditional dining. In the prehistoric days we have had good tables in perfect locations, bad tables back in a crowded corner, good servers who treated us like family, bad servers who had difficulty getting our orders correct, good table mates who we enjoyed talking to, and bad table mates from hell (like those four religious zealots who demanded that we stop talking while they prayed and then asked us not to order wine with our dinner because alcohol offended them - seriously! And it went down hill from there). 

 

Most of the passengers I have talked to, and most of the posters on these forums who share their dining experiences, prefer the new Dining My Way format, considering it far superior to the archaic traditional dining system of ancient times. 

 

Sorry that you had a bad experience. But considering how loudly you are complaining about it, perhaps your attitude was part of the problem?

 

Most people who have had a poor sharing experience likely want to dine alone or form their own dining party from family/friends on the same voyage.  We avoid sharing tables for the reasons you have had bad experiences, plus it just slows things down more than we want.

[MissP22]

1 hour ago, mike&elena said:

The difference is that, under TD, the Dining Room Manager had the authority to reassign tables.  Now tables are permanent assigned by the App for the entire cruise and cannot be reassigned even though they may not be used by the assigned party.  I was told by the staff that they have no discretion since the App holds the tables and assumes the people will be using them each night which, under Dine My Way, is often not the case.  A traditional dining experience did not happen on our last cruise after six nights of asking the Dining Room Manager for a fixed table. It took an extraordinary effort and the involvement of the Food & Beverage Manager and Restaurant Operations Manager to get a fixed table assignment on Day 7.  We've cruised with Princess for over 20 years and never had this problem until the App came along!

We didn't have one bit of a problem changing both the DR and then getting a table for the rest of our cruise 6 days into our cruise.

(which we choose).

Of course the ship was sailing partially filled in March so that may have made a big difference, 

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, mike&elena said:

The difference is that, under TD, the Dining Room Manager had the authority to reassign tables.  Now tables are permanent assigned by the App for the entire cruise and cannot be reassigned even though they may not be used by the assigned party.  I was told by the staff that they have no discretion since the App holds the tables and assumes the people will be using them each night which, under Dine My Way, is often not the case.  A traditional dining experience did not happen on our last cruise after six nights of asking the Dining Room Manager for a fixed table. It took an extraordinary effort and the involvement of the Food & Beverage Manager and Restaurant Operations Manager to get a fixed table assignment on Day 7.  We've cruised with Princess for over 20 years and never had this problem until the App came along!

Sorry this happened to you and you should not have had to go to extraordinary lengths to get something that Princess promises and still advertises.  I have read this before - about the App controlling everything and DR staff cannot override.  They must have found a way to do it since many folks are reporting getting accommodated with the TD experience.  I hope it was not on Island as we will be on her at end of October.  I am hopeful we will get the same table and waiters each night.  

 

ETA:  The only way this is ever going to be fixed is to have folks register for TD who want it and have a DR set aside for it - excluded from DMW.  The DRO does the table setups as before and any excess space can be released back into DMW pool at start of voyage.  No way a computer system is going to replicate TD.

Edited August 8, 2022 by Steelers36