Dining times

[Shock1998]

My husband and I are booked on Carnival Spirit in August 2023. We have always chosen late dining but I am now having second thoughts. We live in New Mexico and are on Mountain Standard time. Alaska time is two hours earlier. In choosing late dining at 8:15 I am now hesitant since that will actually be 10:15 at home and thats where our body clocks will be. Can anyone tell me if their 8:15 pm dining time is Alaska time or is it Seattle time as the home port. I am actually considering your time dining but will miss having the same waiters every night.

Thanks for any input and advice. 

[Trueblueky]

Your body will adjust to the time change.  Summer days are looong in Alaska, compared to NM.

[mz-s]

You can do YTD and request the same table/section each night. You may have to wait a little longer for a table to come open, but that is a possibility.

[wemjam]

The ship stays on the same time as the port it leaves from.

As mz-s said you can request YTD.  If you use the hub app to check in, just tell them when you get down there that you would prefer to sit in the same section with the same waiter.  We do it all the time.

[teknoge3k]

Like others said, we will only do Anytime Dining, and we always request the same wait team. It's never been an issue. 

[Illbcruzn4life]

18 minutes ago, teknoge3k said:

Like others said, we will only do Anytime Dining, and we always request the same wait team. It's never been an issue. 

We usually do that but the service was bad on the first elegant night, When we went back to the MDR on the 2nd elegant night we got put in the same section. Thankfully we only ate in the MDR twice which was an anomaly.

 

We usually either do the buffet or MDR all week. The buffet was pretty pedestrian. Since I just retired, we splurged all week. 

[FastShip24]

3 hours ago, mz-s said:

You can do YTD and request the same table/section each night. You may have to wait a little longer for a table to come open, but that is a possibility.

Not really.  Never waited more than ten minutes. Just check in on the app

[groundloop]

2 hours ago, FastShip24 said:

Not really.  Never waited more than ten minutes. Just check in on the app

 

They were talking about requesting the same server team every night....they very well could have a delay in getting a table in that situation. 

 

I've done that just one time, the hostess was annoyed that we were upsetting the apple cart but finally relented and the end result was that our requested server team had one extra table to take care of which slowed things down.  Since then when we do YTD we just go with the flow and take whichever table we're assigned, have never really had any problems.

[jsglow]

The question of 'Will I get the same Waitstaff every night?' has a bit of a complicated answer for YTD, dependent on the ship and the passenger mix onboard.  One can certainly ask at the hostess stand but there should actually be software on the App that handles it automatically. Regrettably, that doesn't exist. In our experience, cruises where MDR utilization is somewhat lower (think families w/ kids up in Lido), the MDR is more likely to sit you in the same section every night.  This past winter we had the exact same table every night on Sunrise, greeted nightly by our head waiter. Loved it. On ships with heavy MDR usage, we just go with the flow.

[mz-s]

4 minutes ago, jsglow said:

The question of 'Will I get the same Waitstaff every night?' has a bit of a complicated answer for YTD, dependent on the ship and the passenger mix onboard.  One can certainly ask at the hostess stand but there should actually be software on the App that handles it automatically. Regrettably, that doesn't exist. In our experience, cruises where MDR utilization is somewhat lower (think families w/ kids up in Lido), the MDR is more likely to sit you in the same section every night.  This past winter we had the exact same table every night on Sunrise, greeted nightly by our head waiter. Loved it. On ships with heavy MDR usage, we just go with the flow.

 

I have noticed that they do try to seat us in the same section whenever possible as well, without us needing to ask.

[dallasdan]

On our last cruise, we were seated in the same section every night without asking.  We ate at all different times.  Now this was a journey cruise to Hawaii where there were a lot of older people on the ship that ate right when the restaurant opened.  Never had to wait more than 10-15 minutes for dinner.

[wemjam]

13 hours ago, Illbcruzn4life said:

We usually do that but the service was bad on the first elegant night, When we went back to the MDR on the 2nd elegant night we got put in the same section. Thankfully we only ate in the MDR twice which was an anomaly.

 

We usually either do the buffet or MDR all week. The buffet was pretty pedestrian. Since I just retired, we splurged all week. 

You can also request a different server area if you have had bad experience.  We have done that 1 time in almost 50 cruises.  Our service staff was just horrible,

[skrufy]

17 hours ago, Shock1998 said:

My husband and I are booked on Carnival Spirit in August 2023. We have always chosen late dining but I am now having second thoughts. We live in New Mexico and are on Mountain Standard time. Alaska time is two hours earlier. In choosing late dining at 8:15 I am now hesitant since that will actually be 10:15 at home and thats where our body clocks will be. Can anyone tell me if their 8:15 pm dining time is Alaska time or is it Seattle time as the home port. I am actually considering your time dining but will miss having the same waiters every night.

Thanks for any input and advice. 

Two times to Alaska . We have chosen YTD both times, we eat around 630-7pm and never had a problem of eating too late. We are in Illinois a couple of tome zones from Alaska.. 

[FastShip24]

11 hours ago, groundloop said:

 

They were talking about requesting the same server team every night....they very well could have a delay in getting a table in that situation. 

 

I've done that just one time, the hostess was annoyed that we were upsetting the apple cart but finally relented and the end result was that our requested server team had one extra table to take care of which slowed things down.  Since then when we do YTD we just go with the flow and take whichever table we're assigned, have never really had any problems.

Since they will put you at the same table, or with the same staff, does not change the fact you must check in on the app, which will tell you a time. You don't have to wait anywhere

[Illbcruzn4life]

13 hours ago, wemjam said:

You can also request a different server area if you have had bad experience.  We have done that 1 time in almost 50 cruises.  Our service staff was just horrible,

Thank you. Luckily we only ate in the MDR the 2 elegant nights. The first night the waiter was basically there by himself. He was delivering the bread, filling the water glass, delivering the food to the tables, refilling the water glasses. He was moving very fast but it was hard to keep up. Didn't have time to ask us if we wanted anything from the bar. I don't blame the waiter, I blame Carnival for being short staffed.

 

The second night we got bread from the asst waiter but no butter. Never saw him again. Asked the waiter for butter and also told him we wanted something from the bar before he took off.

 

Looked like they had the full compliment of dining team but the one guy looked like he was new.

Hey we all have to start somewhere. At the end of the day it's all good. 😀