Jewel Baltics - early or late dinner?

[cefh]

Does anyone have an opinion? I know that scheduled and actual times for the early and late seatings vary a lot. On Celebrity our 8:30 late seating rarely sat us down before 9:00 and on the Mariner our early seating was earlier than we were told it would be, so does anyone have any actual experience on this cruise/ship to help me out?

 

 

Thanks!

[critterchick]

Don't know about the Baltics (ask me in August), but on Jewel in November/December, the doors to the dining room opened at 8:30. It took a bit of time for everybody to be seated, especially on the first night, so the waiter didn't usually take our orders until closer to 9:00. I think early seating was at 6:00.

[putte]

Hello

 

My name is Patrik and I live in Sweden. I will go on my first cruise ever with Jewel of the seas in May from Oslo/Norway.

 

I do not know witch diner seating you should take, but I can give you some advice. You will probably leave Stockholm at 17.00pm, that`s a normal time for cruise ships to leave over here.

 

After that you will have a fantastic 3 hour beautiful cruise. I can inform you that our archipelago is wonderful to watch, with thousands of mini ilands. That`s something you should not miss. You will not see anything close to this in Helsinki or in St Petersrburg.

 

So maybe a the later dinner would be perfect?

 

At www.shipimage.com you can find some pictures of Cruise ships in our archipelago. Just go to gallery/cruise ships and then click on a picture. Or DOUBLE click on it if you want it bigger.

 

I will pubish a new verison of this site in may with som interesting information about what to see when you are cruising true our archipelago.

 

Best regards/Patrik

[NH Cruiser]

When we were on the Jewel Baltics cruise, we had early seating and it worked out perfectly. For most ports, sail away was in plenty of time to make dinner. We left ports between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. (Copenhagen I believe was 7:00 p.m. but we were back by 5:00 worn out from walking all day). I'd vote for early seating.

[madforcruising]

I´ve done the Jewel Baltics cruise twice and I say late is the way to go. It just gives you more time to come back from shore trips, relax a bit and enjoy the sailaway without being rushed. And like Patrick said, Stockholm sailaway is great as well as the sailaway through the Oslo Fjord.

[btribou]

Hello Fellow Baltic's

 

A different way of thinking about meals is to skip both early and late seating. My wife & I decided a number of cruises ago that we want to eat in the windjammer. It is very close to the same menu. We have found that when we committed to strictly windjammer and let the head waiter know this, it made things easier. If we saw something on the main menu we simply ask for it and it was brought to us. We treated the wait staff a little better because they were used differently.

[dennbr9]

Windjammer for dinner does not do it for us, we really enjoy the atmosphere and service of a sit down dinner, and always do traditional.

 

We also alway do late seating to enjoy the full day at the port with no rush back to get to dinner. Maybe sneak in a power nap, or a small pre-dinner meal at 6ish?

[cb at sea]

Pick the scheduled time closest to when you eat at home. Late seating won't end until about 10:30. That's ok with us, but it's late for others! That means you're too full to try the midnight buffet, or cook-out, or whatever late night "munchies" they provide. That's the downside to late seating!

You won't have to miss any shows, whichever seating you choose. There's plenty of time to return to the ship on port days for early seating, as well. Basically, leave it to your stomach! What is it telling you?!