Dining time assignments

[craigtompkins]

Does anyone know how dining times are assigned for US cruises?  My wife and I have cruised MSC 4 times now and asked for early dining each time.  We have been assigned late dining (9pm-ish) each time.  We've always sailed via the Bella experience.

For Spring Break we will have 6 of us.  Since we needed to pick our rooms we are doing Fantastica and have requested early dining once again.  The MSC site says with Fantastica you get to "Request your preferred dining time".  When booking Bella we were asked what our preferred dining time was, so "requesting" seems no different to me.

I might be in the minority here, but even on my cruises, I'm normally in bed by 9:30 or 10 since I wake up around 4.  Late dining is terrible for me.  We only ate in the dining room 1 night on our last cruise because I just didn't want to stay up that late.

[Essiesmom]

On the daily program that you get on embarkation there is a small paragraph about dining and it tells you where to go to request adjustments.  EM

[Essiesmom]

On the daily program that you get on embarkation there is a small paragraph about dining and it tells you where to go to request adjustments.  EM

Adding pics from Seaside, location will differ on your ship.  Dining blurb is on backside.

 

[craigtompkins]

Thank you! I definitely didn't see that last week.   In the past we had gone to the restaurant on embarkation day and were turned away saying they could not change it, so we didn't try this time.  I'll keep an eye open for this on our Spring Break cruise if needed.

[ray98]

1 hour ago, craigtompkins said:

Thank you! I definitely didn't see that last week.   In the past we had gone to the restaurant on embarkation day and were turned away saying they could not change it, so we didn't try this time.  I'll keep an eye open for this on our Spring Break cruise if needed.

Remember....this is still not a guarantee.  We were denied last cruise and met many others who were.  Across the board no one wanted late dining.  Service was running around 2 hours so people were not getting out of the dining room until after 11pm.  

[Steeler Nation At Sea]

3 hours ago, craigtompkins said:

Thank you! I definitely didn't see that last week.   In the past we had gone to the restaurant on embarkation day and were turned away saying they could not change it, so we didn't try this time.  I'll keep an eye open for this on our Spring Break cruise if needed.

 

Always try.  I changed tables 2x on last cruise and changed times on the one prior.

[mcoler181]

We have Bella and are hoping we don't get late dining, we have a 9 year old and 13 year old and 10pm will be far too late for us to eat. If that is the case i can't see us eating in the MDR very often if we were unable to change it.

 

To be honest even if we didn't have the kids with us I wouldn't want to eat that late.

 

Is it only MSC that have such a late dining time? We have only sailed RC before (and its been a few years) but I don't recall there being a late dinging time.

[sverigecruiser]

40 minutes ago, mcoler181 said:

 

Is it only MSC that have such a late dining time? We have only sailed RC before (and its been a few years) but I don't recall there being a late dinging time.

 

I don't know if they are the only ones but if they are, it's probably because it's an italian cruiseline and italians often eat late.

[mcoler181]

1 minute ago, sverigecruiser said:

 

I don't know if they are the only ones but if they are, it's probably because it's an italian cruiseline and italians often eat late.

that would make sense

[JamieLogical]

Fantastica is supposed to give you priority over Bella in assigning your preferred dining time, but there are no guarantees. For your Spring Break cruise, since there are 6 of you, this advice probably won't help, but if/when it is just the two of you, make sure you mention that you are willing to do a sharing table to get an earlier dining time if you follow @Essiesmom instructions about trying to get it changed onboard.

[wanderlust0713]

When are dining times assigned?

[craigtompkins]

Our checking documents said early time requested, but we had late listed on our cards.  I don't know when they are assigned, but we didn't find out our dining time until we got our room keys.

[RandomUser123]

On our recent cruise on MSC Meraviglia e requested early dining as our preference and got 6PM so we were happy with that. My guess is MSC tries their best to meet everyone’s preference but probably impossible to be 100%. You will find out dining time when you check in at the port and get your cruise card. 

[Luvtoeat]

Will be on the Seashore soon and selected early dining. Hope it's not very early as we usually eat 7:00-7:30. If we get a time of either 6:30 or 7:30 that would be great. Otherwise will try and get it changed and also will try for a table for two. Don't know if the card showing dining time also indicates table size so will probably have to go to dining room to check it out.

[craigtompkins]

Card does not show table size.

[ray98]

3 hours ago, wanderlust0713 said:

When are dining times assigned?

 

You find out during embarkation, it will be on your cabin card.

[yellow-submarine]

What is the busiest / most popular dining times on Caribbean cruises?

[JamieLogical]

3 hours ago, yellow-submarine said:

What is the busiest / most popular dining times on Caribbean cruises?

 

Early seems to be far more desirable than late, so harder to get, if that's what you want. If you want to switch from early to late, it is almost never an issue.

[Essiesmom]

If there is a high percentage of guests from Europe they will likely prefer late seating.  EM

[EllieinNJ]

When first booking our Meraviglia cruise we requested late dining for two.  Once we got our confirmations it said early dining.  When we boarded our time was 6pm, a little early for us so we went to the MDR and had it changed to 8pm.  The first few days we did not know you an come at 7:45pm but when we found out it worked out great for us.  Now we could see either the early or late shows in the theater.

[jmsnyc]

I know my ticket says late dining but I thought that was like 7:30pm.   Anything after 9pm would be too late for me, I would be really frustrated and would hate to have to be bothered with trying to change it once on board.

 

Just emailed my travel agent and asked him to check.   Thats the point of a travel agent 😃

[JamieLogical]

17 hours ago, jmsnyc said:

I know my ticket says late dining but I thought that was like 7:30pm.   Anything after 9pm would be too late for me, I would be really frustrated and would hate to have to be bothered with trying to change it once on board.

 

Just emailed my travel agent and asked him to check.   Thats the point of a travel agent 😃

 

Late dining can definitely be as late as 9:00pm. My dining time on my last Meraviglia sailing was 8:00pm and that was still too late for me as dinner wasn't completed until 9:30-ish.