Set time Dining vs. Anytime dining.

[20165]

We weren't unable to get anytime dining on our Apex cruise next month and had to take set time dining at 6pm.  We haven't had set time dining in years, probably 10+, and were wanted to ask what the process is because we always see a line of people waiting to get into the restaurants and we are really not looking forward to that.  Does anyone know if we will be turned away if we arrive 10-15 minutes late to let the line die down a bit?  And assuming this only applies to the main dining rooms and we can make reservations at the speciality restaurants at any time?

We called Celebrity to try to change to anytime, but they said they weren't able to.  Guess there's a capacity limit??  We are going to attempt to change it when we board to anytime to fingers crossed.  These last minute cruise bookings we have been doing lately aren't without their challenges...

[cruisestitch]

10-15 minutes after the opening time is fine and you will be after all those who waited impatiently for the MDR doors to open.  Don’t fret.  

[terrydtx]

Once onboard you should be able to talk to the MDR manager and get switched to anytime dining, if that is what you prefer.

[cruisestitch]

But if your goal is to avoid lines, and stay with us at dining and just go a few minutes after the doors. You will be able to walk right in and go directly to your table.

[stellarose]

if you want to avoid long waits- my TA said stick with set time dining. 

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, 20165 said:

We weren't unable to get anytime dining on our Apex cruise next month and had to take set time dining at 6pm.  We haven't had set time dining in years, probably 10+, and were wanted to ask what the process is because we always see a line of people waiting to get into the restaurants and we are really not looking forward to that.  Does anyone know if we will be turned away if we arrive 10-15 minutes late to let the line die down a bit?  And assuming this only applies to the main dining rooms and we can make reservations at the speciality restaurants at any time?

We called Celebrity to try to change to anytime, but they said they weren't able to.  Guess there's a capacity limit??  We are going to attempt to change it when we board to anytime to fingers crossed.  These last minute cruise bookings we have been doing lately aren't without their challenges...

 

We have always done Main (Early) Seating.  And yes, if you wait a few minutes before the MDR doors open, you won't find any lines.  During our Constellation sailing that we completed this month, there wasn't any line even at 6pm on the dot.  

 

I know Early Seating or fixed time seating is not for everyone, as @terrydtx said you should be able to get it changed once you get on board.

[terrydtx]

6 minutes ago, stellarose said:

if you want to avoid long waits- my TA said stick with set time dining. 

We have been doing anytime dining for over 10 years and prefer to enter the MDR between 6:30 and 7pm, I do not recall ever having to wait more than 5 minutes to be seated, even on sold out cruises.

[davekathy]

22 minutes ago, stellarose said:

if you want to avoid long waits- my TA said stick with set time dining. 

In our experiences we have never had a long wait when we do SD. We always have reservations and always show up ~5 minutes before our scheduled time and maybe one or two people ahead of us and behind us. Maybe those without reservations for SD have longer waits (?). We would do early TD if we couldn't get early SD. 

[20165]

Thanks for all the info.  Very helpful.  One more question, it looks like Apex has 4 MDR options so does that mean at our set dining time, we can choose any of the 4?

[davekathy]

3 minutes ago, 20165 said:

Thanks for all the info.  Very helpful.  One more question, it looks like Apex has 4 MDR options so does that mean at our set dining time, we can choose any of the 4?

You’ll be assigned one of the four main dining restaurants, while having the option to dine in the other three upon request.

[NutsAboutGolf]

11 minutes ago, davekathy said:

You’ll be assigned one of the four main dining restaurants, while having the option to dine in the other three upon request.

 

To add, you can order off the any of the 4 menus

[carolina_yankee]

3 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

To add, you can order off the any of the 4 menus

Aww, man. I wish I had known that!!

[Mike45LC]

14 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

To add, you can order off the any of the 4 menus

This changed.  Originally on the Edge, each of the four MDR had a core daily menu that was the same, plus its own Always Available menu.   But my understanding is that now all four MDR have the same menu.

 

[20165]

5 hours ago, Mike45LC said:

This changed.  Originally on the Edge, each of the four MDR had a core daily menu that was the same, plus its own Always Available menu.   But my understanding is that now all four MDR have the same menu.

 

From the Website.

Celebrity Apex® offers not one but four complimentary main restaurants—Normandie, Tuscan, Cosmopolitan, and Cyprus. Every restaurant features the same mouthwatering menu that changes nightly, plus each one offers its own ambience, along with a selection of exclusive, regionally inspired dishes and drinks.

 

So of course this prompted another question...  Someone mentioned above that with the set time dining that we have, we would be assigned to on of the 4 MDRs.  So does that mean if we can talk them into giving us anytime dining we can choose any of those dining rooms each night?  Sorry, i know im over thinking this, but our kids really look forward to the dinners at night for some reason.  Guess we dont take them out enough...

thanks

[davekathy]

19 minutes ago, 20165 said:

So does that mean if we can talk them into giving us anytime dining we can choose any of those dining rooms each night? 

If you want to change from TD to SD I would call whoever you booked with and request the dining change before the cruise. Then you can go into your CP and select the restaurant you want each evening and time for each evening. Or just walk up to the SD podium for no reservations. Or stick with TD and request what dining room you want for that evening and time and see if they can accommodate you. See post #10. 

Edited November 24, 2022 by davekathy

[NutsAboutGolf]

23 minutes ago, 20165 said:

From the Website.

Celebrity Apex® offers not one but four complimentary main restaurants—Normandie, Tuscan, Cosmopolitan, and Cyprus. Every restaurant features the same mouthwatering menu that changes nightly, plus each one offers its own ambience, along with a selection of exclusive, regionally inspired dishes and drinks.

 

So of course this prompted another question...  Someone mentioned above that with the set time dining that we have, we would be assigned to on of the 4 MDRs.  So does that mean if we can talk them into giving us anytime dining we can choose any of those dining rooms each night?  Sorry, i know im over thinking this, but our kids really look forward to the dinners at night for some reason.  Guess we dont take them out enough...

thanks

 

5 minutes ago, davekathy said:

If you want to change from TD to SD I would call whoever you booked with and request the dining change before the cruise. Then you can go into your CP and select the restaurant you want each evening and time for each evening. Or just walk up to the SD podium for no reservations. Or stick with TD and request what dining room you want for that evening and time and see if they can accommodate you. See post #10. 

 

@20165, to oversimply it, take these steps:

1) Call X, request to change to Select Dining

2) If no luck, board the ship early and visit your assigned restaurant's host stand to request Select Dining

[20165]

6 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

 

@20165, to oversimply it, take these steps:

1) Call X, request to change to Select Dining

2) If no luck, board the ship early and visit your assigned restaurant's host stand to request Select Dining

Thanks.  we did 1 a week or so ago, no luck.  2 is our plan right when we get on.  

thanks again

[mickeysgal]

We were recently on Apex - by the time we booked the cruise, Anytime was unavailable and we took the 6pm time slot. That said, we did try to go and change it on day 1 and they said we didn’t have to change it. All they said to do- since it was just the two of us (and not part of a large party) is show up where ever we wanted to dine and whatever time we wanted to dine.  And that’s what we did, and we never had an issue. On each restaurant’s menu, there were the featured specialties of that restaurant and a core group of standard selections that were the same no matter which restaurant we visited. 

[helen haywood]

4 minutes ago, mickeysgal said:

On each restaurant’s menu, there were the featured specialties of that restaurant and a core group of standard selections that were the same no matter which restaurant we visited. 

Just to clarify, the featured specialties of any one of the four MDRs can be ordered in any of them.  Meaning you can order an appetizer from Cyprus and an entree from Cosmopolitan while seated in Normandie.

[mickeysgal]

43 minutes ago, helen haywood said:

Just to clarify, the featured specialties of any one of the four MDRs can be ordered in any of them.  Meaning you can order an appetizer from Cyprus and an entree from Cosmopolitan while seated in Normandie.

Now that I don’t know- the waitstaff never pointed that out to us. We just ordered off the menus in our hand which were specific to the restaurant we were in at the time. 

[20165]

just a quick update on this, we are about 2 weeks out from our cruise and tried calling one last time to change to anytime dining and i guess we got the right person and he did it for both cabins.  He was also able to change our kids cabin bed configuration where other reps told us we had to wait until we got on the ship.  both items we have been trying for weeks to change and he was able to do both of them in about 2 minutes...  I should have gotten his direct line number.

[machineknitter]

On 11/24/2022 at 10:27 AM, davekathy said:

If you want to change from TD to SD I would call whoever you booked with and request the dining change before the cruise. Then you can go into your CP and select the restaurant you want each evening and time for each evening. Or just walk up to the SD podium for no reservations. Or stick with TD and request what dining room you want for that evening and time and see if they can accommodate you. See post #10. 

What do all those initials mean....TD, SD, CP, SD podium?  Celebrity has Celebrity Select Dining at a set time and Celebrity Select Dining at Anytime. None of your initials have an A for Anytime. I and my group are totally confused. Celebrity website is not helpful. We had Select Dining at a set time, but heard that meant you always ate at the same table in the same MDR (yes initials, meaning main dining room) all the time and you could not go to one of the other dining rooms. We wanted to sample them all, so our group (now 3 couples with 2 different Travel Agents) switched to Anytime Dining. Now when we try to book our time and place to eat we are offered only 9 pm!! Are we trying to select our time too far away from our sail date (Jan.13)?  Do you have any ideas on how we can get through/around this problem? 

[amcco]

2 hours ago, machineknitter said:

What do all those initials mean....TD, SD, CP, SD podium?  Celebrity has Celebrity Select Dining at a set time and Celebrity Select Dining at Anytime. None of your initials have an A for Anytime. I and my group are totally confused. Celebrity website is not helpful. We had Select Dining at a set time, but heard that meant you always ate at the same table in the same MDR (yes initials, meaning main dining room) all the time and you could not go to one of the other dining rooms. We wanted to sample them all, so our group (now 3 couples with 2 different Travel Agents) switched to Anytime Dining. Now when we try to book our time and place to eat we are offered only 9 pm!! Are we trying to select our time too far away from our sail date (Jan.13)?  Do you have any ideas on how we can get through/around this problem? 

Let me try to help. Acronyms can be so confusing but I think I have this one. 
TD - traditional dining so early or late

SD - select dining; also known as select dining anytime. 
CP - cruise planner

SD podium - dining check in podium for MDR. 
Confusing because although celebrity calls each Select Dining - Early, Late or Anytime, a lot will refer to Select Dining for anytime dining. 
 

As you will have seen in the comments, even with early dining you would have been able to go to the other MDRs with just a word to the maître’d. But now that you have changed with multiple travel agents, I would just stick with anytime. 
 

Chances are you are too late to get reservations now at the high peak times (7:00 - 7:30). We booked ours in March for our January cruise. Rumour on these boards is that they hold 40% of the tables for reservations.  But all you have to do is show up to the podium and ask to be seated. If they are busy you will get a pager to come back. They will also help out if another MDR is less busy. 
 

Hope this helps!

[davekathy]

3 minutes ago, amcco said:

TD - traditional dining so early or late

SD - select dining; also known as select dining anytime. 
CP - cruise planner

SD podium - dining check in podium for MDR. 

Exactly. 

[20165]

11 hours ago, amcco said:

But all you have to do is show up to the podium and ask to be seated. If they are busy you will get a pager to come back. They will also help out if another MDR is less busy. 

Given we are only 2 weeks out and just switched to Anytime dining, we arent able to make any reservation, at least before 930... We are on Apex so does that mean that we can show up to any of the 4 MDRs and they will give us a pager if there are no tables available?  If thats the case, we actually prefer it.  gives us some bar time prior to dinner.

Also, most of the speciality restaurants are also full so has anyone just showed up to those and gotten seated or a pager?  We tried this on Silhouette a month ago without much much luck.  Worked once out of three tries...

thanks