Main dining question (first time Princess)

[hjlee7215]

I will be on Ruby Princess in June for inside passage Alaska cruise.

This is my first time cruising with Princess.

I thought I chose "early dining" at the time of booking, my travel summary doesn't have any dining preference listed (all the other cruise companies had this info on the booking summary).  

Anyways, now I have downloaded the app and it looks like I can make reservation for dining for each day.  Do I have to do this? or I assumed my preferred dining option is secretly listed somewhere in the system?

[arxcards]

Allocation of dining preference while booking your cruise no longer applies. Dining reservations are now done via the app. You can do each day individually, or book the same restaurant/time for the whole cruise.

[Potstech]

Or just go to a dining room and request a table at a time you feel like eating. There maybe a wait so be flexible.  All main dining rooms have the same menu

[arizonaperson]

2 hours ago, hjlee7215 said:

I will be on Ruby Princess in June for inside passage Alaska cruise.

This is my first time cruising with Princess.

I thought I chose "early dining" at the time of booking, my travel summary doesn't have any dining preference listed (all the other cruise companies had this info on the booking summary).  

Anyways, now I have downloaded the app and it looks like I can make reservation for dining for each day.  Do I have to do this? or I assumed my preferred dining option is secretly listed somewhere in the system?

Agree with other posters…

Now that you have downloaded the app -yes you can make a reservation for any or all of the days and times that are available. And no, you do not have to do any reservations at all. Because maybe one night you want to eat at speciality ,maybe one night you want to go to a casual restaurant ,or one night you may want to go to the buffet or you’ve been out on tour all day, and you just want to grab something quick at the international café if your ship has one. So a wide variety of choices ,but if you know that you need or want to eat at a certain time in the main dining room, then try to make a reservation and if you cannot -just go to the restaurant when you’re hungry and just realize there may be a wait. There may be a wait, even if you have a reservation. 

You may even decide on the day of dining or once you get your patter/event listing that you want to go see a particular show that evening -so you can adjust your dining time based on that. Some people get so set in making all their dining reservations, they end up changing them once onboard or not showing up because they want to go see the comedian or they want to go see the marriage game or they want to take a nap, etc. 

 

Don’t assume your dining preference is secretly listed somewhere. It should tell you on app. Once you make a reservation if you do -try to print them all out so that you can see where you’re supposed to be on any given night..

Edited May 8 by arizonaperson

[CRUISEWITHH]

Does anyone know if the menu is/was different in each dinning room.  I never went to different dinning rooms, I stay with one DR.

[memoak]

3 minutes ago, CRUISEWITHH said:

Does anyone know if the menu is/was different in each dinning room.  I never went to different dinning rooms, I stay with one DR.

The menu is the same in all MDR’s

[BamaVol]

10 hours ago, memoak said:

The menu is the same in all MDR’s

The decor is different.  The service may be different.  The location and sometimes the deck is different. The menu is the same. We stick to one dining room in an effort to get to know the staff, and vice versa.

[HotRoot]

2 hours ago, BamaVol said:

The decor is different.  The service may be different.  The location and sometimes the deck is different. The menu is the same. We stick to one dining room in an effort to get to know the staff, and vice versa.

We have always gone with the flow.  This time we picked a table for every night.  We really liked having the same staff every night.  We did not have to tell them we did not want the bread basket.  In the future we will pick a table and keep the same staff for the entire cruise.  

[BamaVol]

7 hours ago, HotRoot said:

We have always gone with the flow.  This time we picked a table for every night.  We really liked having the same staff every night.  We did not have to tell them we did not want the bread basket.  In the future we will pick a table and keep the same staff for the entire cruise.  

For some reason, even though I tell them the first night that I don’t eat dessert, they try to tempt me after every dinner.

[doghog]

11 hours ago, BamaVol said:

The decor is different.  The service may be different.  The location and sometimes the deck is different. The menu is the same. We stick to one dining room in an effort to get to know the staff, and vice versa.

We stay with the same MDR as we always have a reserved time and the same two top for the entire cruise. 

[Cruisemeister2002]

Have a cruise booked on Sky Princess for later in the year. A day after the new arrangements come into force in fact. I do believe that I will not be contacted by Princess with regards to what dining we require until after we have paid the balance. We were quite pleased to see they had reintroduced the fixed time dining as apart from one cruise where we didn't have a choice due to late booking we have always gone for second sitting. I understand that the times on Princess are different to P&O, as P&O are 6.30 first sitting and 8.30 second sitting. Please correct me if different but aren't Princess 5.30 or 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. ?