MTD Sold out on Beyond

[YankeesFan4Life]

So our upcoming cruise in August, the MTD is sold out and the only option is an 8:30PM seating.  I've read conflicting posts of showing up and getting a pager for the MDR?  Is that true, or am I stuck with an 8:30 dining option?  I'd hate to eat late and miss the shows...I know I'm going to try to do some of the specialty restaurants but I do want to try all the options in the MDR's on the ship as well...

[Notagoose]

You are not stuck. Just show up at your desired time and you will be given a pager if there's a wait. I never made a reservation on our holiday cruise (sold out ship) on Beyond and never had to wait, but others have reported waiting a bit. It depends on the size of your party as well. If you're with a larger group, I suggest you go to one of the MDRs upon boarding to set up reservations.

 

Also, there's an early show if you ever decide to eat late. 

[cruisestitch]

2 hours ago, YankeesFan4Life said:

So our upcoming cruise in August, the MTD is sold out and the only option is an 8:30PM seating.  I've read conflicting posts of showing up and getting a pager for the MDR?  Is that true, or am I stuck with an 8:30 dining option?  I'd hate to eat late and miss the shows...I know I'm going to try to do some of the specialty restaurants but I do want to try all the options in the MDR's on the ship as well...

Beyond doesn’t have set dining times.  This is an artifact of an old booking system.

[Tyler414]

E-class ships do NOT have assigned dinning times.

[hcat]

we heard some  E ships are doing  the 4 mdr res again,   from the online Cruise  planner.. ... possibly ASCENT.

 

the res system worked well for us. no lines, no beepers!  others without res  would line up ..short wait generally

[kwokpot]

The Ascent has reservations for Early and Late dining times. Any other dining times were first come, first served. Early is 5:30 & 5:45, late is 8:30 & 58:45. Any other dining times cannot be reserved either precruise or onboard. The first few days you may be handed a buzzer with a wait time of 10-15 minutes. As the cruise goes on and passengers are more attuned to the system there were no wait times and we were assigned a table in every dining room we walked into immediately. 

[JHUNTGOLF]

We’ve sailed on the Apex once and twice on the Beyond and have two upcoming sailings on the Ascent.  On each of these cruises, we’ve always made 6:30pm dinner reservations for the four of us at the four MDRs on the ship.  We’ve never had a problem making these reservations, and they are always confirmed via a Celebrity email with the Order details.  We have a copy of these confirmed reservations with us in case there ever is a question.

 

We make these “free” MDR reservations well in advance to make sure we can get our preferred 6:30pm time.  For example, we will be sailing on the January 28, 2024, Ascent sailing this coming Sunday.  We logged into our Celebrity booking and made our 6:30pm dinner reservations at 3 of the 4 MDRs on April 9, 2023–about 9 & 1/2 months before our sailing date.  When I just looked at the Celebrity App’s My Calendar for this cruise, it shows our 6:30pm reservation for each of the seven nights.  I copied our first night below:

 

We’re booked on the 12 night Ascent cruise leaving Barcelona on September 2, 2024.  For this cruise, we again logged into our Celebrity booking on June 29, 2023–about 14 months before our sailing—and made our 6:30pm reservations for 3 of the 4 MDRs for all 12 nights.  
 

We’re definitely into planning early to get the reservations we want and have always been successful.  It may be a case that there are a limited number of reservations available early on so if you try to get reservations later, the system may show no reservations are available.

 

I hope this helps.

 

John

[SFCAcruiser]

9 hours ago, YankeesFan4Life said:

So our upcoming cruise in August, the MTD is sold out and the only option is an 8:30PM seating.  I've read conflicting posts of showing up and getting a pager for the MDR?  Is that true, or am I stuck with an 8:30 dining option?  I'd hate to eat late and miss the shows...I know I'm going to try to do some of the specialty restaurants but I do want to try all the options in the MDR's on the ship as well...

 

Some of your wording suggests it is an E-class ship. In that case, see the above comments. 

I will add you do not need to wait until you board on M and S -class ships. Ask your travel agent, if you used one, to put you on the waitlist for MTD. Whenever I have done that, I have always cleared the waitlist well in advance of the cruise. 

Edited January 24 by SFCAcruiser