Anytime Dining Has Gone Downhill - opinions?

[vmom]

I wish instead of appox 1/3 of dining space reserved for traditional and 2/3 reserved for Anytime dining, that Princess would adjust the numbers according to the number of requests for the type of dining.

 

We haven't been able to get traditional dining since they started the anytime dining since we book early, but not early enough. It's obvious by the number of people on the waiting lists, that more people would prefer traditional.

 

Why doesn't Princess offer more slots for traditional? Is it perhaps that they can provide more dining service to more passengers with fewer waiters with Anytime Dining than with Traditional?

 

My understanding is that often with Anytime Dining, a table will be filled and re-filled about 3 x's during the dinner hours where as with Trad. Dining there are only 2 seatings.

[MaryPoppinz]

We haven't seen any problems develop with Anytime Dining yet. But, the last three cruises, Godwin has been manning the clipboard, so....

[Colo Cruiser]

We haven't seen any problems develop with Anytime Dining yet. But, the last three cruises, Godwin has been manning the clipboard, so....

 

 

Great guy!! :D

[flag fan]

I think that the reason more space is reserved for Anytime Dining than Traditional is because more seats are needed for the former with the same number of customers because you are not sure who will show up when. With Traditional dining, you can be sure that only 50% of the diners will show up for dinner at a time; with Anytime, 75% might all show up at the same time. To cut down on wait times for Anytime diners, the cruise line has to devote more seats for them. That is why on Norwegian Cruise Line, which has Freestyle dining for everyone, there are a lot more restaurants and more space on the ship is used for dining venues. Those ships that were not designed for Freestyle and were converted to it, do not work as well and generate more complaints.

 

Princess is in the same position; it has to use facilities that were not designed for Anytime dining for that purpose and has compromised by allocating seating so that fewer people are allowed to reserve Traditional than may want to, but those who choose (or are forced into) Anytime dining will not have inordinate delays. These posts are some indication as to whether or not this system is working. I opted for Traditional on my 1st Princess cruise later this year, but the large number of favorable comments about Anytime have me thinking about switching. I think as more people try Anytime (by choice or not) and find that it works and the more long-time cruisers get used to the idea, the more people will voluntarily opt for it.

[ginagirl]

Had Anytime Dining for the first time in February on the Diamond. Loved it. Just had it again on the Island, and the service was the worst ever!!!! Will try to never have it again.:eek:

[corkpopr]

We love anytime by far over traditional. the flexibility is fantastic. we like to eat at 9 or 9:30 many evenings. we find the waiters we like and stick with them for the entire cruise

[want2cruiseagain]

We like anytime dining. Don't like to eat at 6 p.m. and 8 or 8:30p is too late. I called at 8 a.m., requested our table for 7:15 or 7:30p and it was always ready. We didn't want to eat with six or eight other people, so that we got our fav table just for two.

[MaryPoppinz]

Great guy!! :D

 

Yes, he is.

 

And he also does hs job very, very well.

 

Love that man!

[nho9504]

I understand that alot of people enjoy doing so and one day I will likely share the same opinion. For now though, I like it with just the two of us. Traditional dining is great for people that share your opinion, no doubt about it.

 

I am with you here - we absolutely HATE to be asked the same questions again and again each time we ever sat at a bigger table - Where you come from? Is this your first cruise? No matter how they started their conversation, people eventually go back to this, especially the first question. Almost 100% of the time, such questions are not asked being courteous chitchating, but outright nosy.

 

We dont particularly care about where others are from, how many cruises they have done, what activities they do for the day, have no interest to listen to others opinions and no desire to share ours either.

 

So, unless the traditional has more table for 2, we would stay with anytime dining. We do notice that, on the newer ships, they have increased the table for 2 seatings a lot. Though the "bench" setting along the wall, is not a true table for 2. For that particular reason, when on the 3rd day we found a nice, true table for 2 against one side of the wall, with a sincere and warm wait team, we booked it for the rest of our 16 days transatlantic on Emerald. You would be surprised so many folks asked for table for 2 at the AD dining rooms. We bumped at a woman towards the end of the cruise, she said her Number 1 complain to write down on the questionnaire, is, there is not enough table for 2.

 

For as many folks who enjoy meeting new people and talk thru their dinners, there are probably equal number of people who like to enjoy their dinners quietly with their partners only. :)

[nho9504]

Had Anytime Dining for the first time in February on the Diamond. Loved it. Just had it again on the Island, and the service was the worst ever!!!! Will try to never have it again.:eek:

 

I would chalk it up to Hit or Miss of the wait staff - as you said it, you had a wonderful experience with AD on Diamond - so it is not the concept of AD, but the luck of having had good wait team.

 

With AD, it is rather easy to find which wait team / area of the dining room you like or not like - and then you can make arrangement to stick with the fav ones.

 

On our 16day transatlantic on Emerald, the same table upstair has had great wait team, downstair has had lousy wait team. While the physical location of the tables are identical, except for the deck, the wait staff are day and night. Needless to say, we picked our fav and made a reservation for the remaining 12 nights.

[nho9504]

We haven't seen any problems develop with Anytime Dining yet. But, the last three cruises, Godwin has been manning the clipboard, so....

 

He is great. He made our standing reservation 8pm either No.480 or No.481 table for 2 on our 16day transatlantic on Emerald.

 

It was very nice each night as soon as he saw us, he would either say our table was ready, or popped in dining room to check, then came back to tell us it was OK, just missing a few silverware.. :D And we walked right in...

[nho9504]

You need to sail the Grand class ships in order to be fully benefited from the Anytime dining. The Sun Class ships are ill-equipped for that, particularly the Table for 2. In fact, even in the Grand Class, the newer ships, such as Emerald, have increased the number of Table for 2, versus on Diamond or Saphire, the Table for 2 are mostly confined to the "Bench Style" with one or two along the rail.

 

From our observation, there are a lot of folks prefer Table for 2 and Princess is slowly responding to that needs.

 

Our first Princess cruise was on the Grand. This was also our first experience with "Personal Choice Dining"; the experience was so wonderful that it had been difficult to cruise with lines that do not allow such freedom of choice. At the Grand, we never waited more than 10 minutes and were able to get a table for 2 anytime we requested it.

 

We just returned from the Dawn Princess and will tell you that there is NO such thing as "Personal Choice Dining" or "Anytime Dining"... It was a disaster. It was so bad that we chose Horizon Court (2) , La Scala Pizzeria (2), and Room Service (2) and only went to the restaurant 4 evenings! The only evening that we were able to get a table for 2 was the one evening that all dining venus were empty because it was a "bad weather" night and the ship was rocking and rolling pretty bad. We were fine, sea bands do work!!!

 

If you wanted a reservation, you had to call "the same day" after 8am to make a reservation for that evening. Needless to say that it was difficult to get through, the line was very busy early morning, and by noon, reservations were all taken!!!! On boarding day, they refused to take reservations for a table for 2 for the entire 10 day cruise.

 

It was a true hassle every night to have dinner at the Florentine dinning room, an obnoxious french head waiter (Antoine) made it very difficult. There were also an italian and a portuguese head waiters, much nicer and professional in their service behavior, still they always refused to provide us with a table for 2!

 

I'm not sure what is happening, but I was truly dissapointed about this Personal Choice Dinning. Next time, I will probably choose Traditional Seating which gives me the option of not showing up and dining in any of the other dining venues. Uhm, this is truly beginning to sound more "personal choice"...

 

Otherwise, our Alaska cruise was perfect!

 

AlinaMaria

[ginagirl]

On the Island, which was a 19 day sailing, it took us about a week to finally find a table that had competent and pleasant waiters. So, I don't agree that it is easy to find the good waitstaff and live happily ever after. You sit where you're assigned, cross your fingers, and smile, say please and thank you, and hope for good service one night at a time. If and when you finally hit the jackpot, you can then request that table for the remainder of the cruise. But there is no guarantee that you will hit the jackpot at all. When you spend $6,000 for a cruise, is it too much to expect an enjoyable dinner with competent service??? In all our years of sailing, we have never, ever had poor service for dinner until we sailed on the Island, but I believe that was because we had traditional dining in the past. We were just extremely lucky with the staff we had on the Diamond.

[Colo Cruiser]

You need to sail the Grand class ships in order to be fully benefited from the Anytime dining.

 

 

 

This can be a pain on Sapphire/Diamond due to the 4 seperate dining rooms. :)

[Knuklehead]

When anytime dining began, it sounded like a great concept to us. Those that did not have assigned traditional had anytime dining. Then those that were scheduled for traditional started going back and forth from traditional to anytime which really hampered the anytime dining concept. Then they began taking reservations for the same table, same server, each night in anytime, and that made it even worse. If Princess would stick to the reason anytime dining was created in the first place, I think it would be easier on the servers and the passengers. Those that choose traditional, should not be allowed to go to anytime dining, it would cut down on the lines and the wait. It is everyone's choice what they choose for dining, if they don't want traditional, then they should not be assigned seats in traditional dining rooms that sit empty half the nights to bog down anytime dining. IMHO of coarse.

Jerks . For a table to go unused in traditional is akin to mutiny . Throw them overboard . There are , on every cruise not enough assigned seating for all the requests . For someone to move over to AD and then bogart a nice table is just inconsiderate and selfish . Make a choice and stick with it . Tables for two are always a problem . We take what we get and often times meet interesting people at the group seatings .:mad: :mad: :mad:

[nho9504]

On the Island, which was a 19 day sailing, it took us about a week to finally find a table that had competent and pleasant waiters. So, I don't agree that it is easy to find the good waitstaff and live happily ever after. You sit where you're assigned, cross your fingers, and smile, say please and thank you, and hope for good service one night at a time. If and when you finally hit the jackpot, you can then request that table for the remainder of the cruise. But there is no guarantee that you will hit the jackpot at all. When you spend $6,000 for a cruise, is it too much to expect an enjoyable dinner with competent service??? In all our years of sailing, we have never, ever had poor service for dinner until we sailed on the Island, but I believe that was because we had traditional dining in the past. We were just extremely lucky with the staff we had on the Diamond.

 

What we normally do, is NOT to be assigned randomly. On every sailing, in the afternoon we first boarded the ship, we would go into the dining room to check out the tables - take note which areas we prefer, and what table numbers we like to be seated, as well as what table numbers we DONT want. Then we REQUESTed to be seated in particular area / table numbers. In the past when there was no choice we had BAD traditional dining experiences. So bad that we went to Matre'D to complain and got new table. Luckily it was not a full sailing and he could switch us. It would be the same thing, try your luck and see if if would work. At least at Anytime Dining, you can change it yourself versus at Traditional, you have to ask for change thru the MaitreD, and hope there is another table available, and try your luck again. So to us, it is the samething to try your luck, but we have more control over how to do it at Anytime.

 

As far as for competent service, I agree with you but I also give the wait staff some levy - such as when the silverwares are not ready, or the breadbasket is missing. The silverwares are delivered to the waitstation from the kitchen? Too often, they were not completely dry. The wait staff would fully dry them with a napkin. We saw every wait staff do that. If you dine at the 8pm to 830pm timeframe, too often the wait staff were very busy and not had time to attend to the newly delivered silverwares. Ditto for the fully-stocked breadbaskets. You dont think the ship carries one set of silverware per passenger, do you? More likely, it is 60 to 65% I imagine. You can tell by the fact that sometimes they literally run out of silverwares, especially at the Horizon Court.

 

If having the table perfectly set, everything is ready and waiting when you arrive is VERY IMPORTANT to you, then you probably would be disappointed at Anytime Dining anyway. Our wait staff definitely FAILED in that compartment - but what they made up for, were their sincerity, their honesty, and their genuine interest in our well-being, thruout the whole cruise. They did not even expect us to give them extra tipping judged by the way they acted on the last night - same warm and friendly service, but not lingered around, hoping for something. We had to call them over before we left, to give them our small tokens of thanks. But then, may be we lucked out as we have visited their home countries and their hometowns (Thailand and Philippines), so we had something in common to talk about.

 

There were 2 tables for 4 next to us, that apparently there was a standing reservation for 6 persons at the earlier dining hour, may be 6:30pm. They put the 2 tables together for the earlier group but often not have enough time to re-do the table back to 2 tables of 4 when the first group finished. Very often when we arrived at 8pm, the big table was not reset, yet. A lot of the times, the Headwaiter would pitch in to help move the table top back to kitchen area and the big table returned to be 2 tables for 4. Those 2 tables were occupied half of the time, generally by folks who came in between 8:30 and 9:00pm. I am sure those folks who dine this late would truly appreciate the Anytime versus the Traditional.

 

Because of the above, we also did not make a fuss about our missing silverware, especially the butter knives, which went missing about 1/3 of the nights when we first sat down. ;-) A simple friendly reminder has it fixed in no time. They always apologized for the oversight and we always told them not to worry.

 

To us, the ATTITUDES of the wait staff far outweigh the perfectly set up table, and the drinks that wait for us upon arrival - our only drink water anyway. It is the attentive attitude that makes our waiter notice what we like from the items we ordered, and he could make suggestions when he felt there were something on the menu we would like - such as the Pawn shrimp cocktail - that was not the tiger shrimp but some gigantic pawn, or the lobster and monk fish dish, he suggested if we want, he could ask the kitchen to have twin lobster and skip the monkfish... (we had 3 lobster dishes over the course of the cruise, each one was paired with something else, not lobster alone). When there were more than 2 things we like, he would suggest to order 3, and made us to share the 3rd dish... This type of service is more meaningful to us and we were quite happy for what we got.

 

We tried downstair dining room for the same location of table before we made the standing reservation . The waiter was a very talkative type without any sincerity - it gives us an uneasy feeling, especially he handed the comment card to us and half-jokingly said we must fill it out with excellent and handed to headwaiter on our way out... That was the end of that table - we know we would refuse to be assigned there.

[nho9504]

This can be a pain on Sapphire/Diamond due to the 4 seperate dining rooms. :)

 

We sailed on Diamond when the 4 dining rooms still have the individual theme menu. Boy, we missed those days. We love the Italian one so much that we spent our last 4 nights dined in that one. We did not care for Santa Fe or the Sterling (it changed name, didn't it?) and only went there once. The Pacific Moon was OK, as long as we did not eat the sushi. :D Frankly the glass noodle with tiger shrimp wasn't bad. We are saddened to see that set up was terminated due to the confusion it has caused.

 

The problem of that 4 themes are, there are bound to be fav and not so fav - and people dont know you have the SAME main menu in every dining room. I really dont understand why it is so hard for people to understand... All you do is just sitting in different restaurant. :) Though argubly, the ambience, or the lack of, of a particular dining room, may have contributed to that favoritism. For example, we dont like the decor of Sterling at all, and also find Santa Fe looks "cheap" - more importantly, we dont like anything on the specialty menus of these 2 dining rooms, so we went to the Asian and Italian instead. I am sure others have their own preferences and prefer one over the other.

[lovingretirement]

We just returned from an Alaskan cruise on the Star. We had AD and never had to wait for a table in either of the two dining rooms. This was our fifth cruise with Princess. We have had AD on every cruise, and it has been great. We have only had to wait once, and that was about three minutes on a formal night. Guess we have been lucky.:)

[Sandytoes]

This may be somewhat off topic, but on our last cruise, (on which we opted for personal choice dining as we normally do) another couple was able to reserve the same window seating for two, for the entire 15-day cruise. We checked with the Maitre d' and were told the pax had a firm 8:15 booking and unless we wanted to eat at least one hour early so they could serve us and clear the table in time, we could not be seated at that particular table. If you're going to eat at the same time at the same table I wonder why you wouldn't want traditional? I wonder if anyone else has come across something like this?

 

 

Yes!!! Me...:)

 

We always pick "Personal Choice".

First night we pick a dining room. Maitre D' seats us. If we like the waiter we will arrange - reserve him for the entire cruise.

If we don't, the next night we do the same. Usually by the second night we luck out. Never had a lousy waiter.

We always had a table reserved at a particular time (before show) waiting for us. No waiting for a table.

We do not do traditional because I rather pick the time I want to eat not when they want me to. :)

[California Native]

Many of you have asked why....

Do people have a set reservation for anytime dining...

 

I will explain

I am one of those people.

As some of you know from reading my other posts

I have stage 4 endometriosis. I live with chronic level 8 pain 24/7.

Sitting for more than 30 minutes takes it to a level 9.

I can not sit through a traditional dining paced meal with any other passengers.

There's is also a limited window of time when I take my pain meds

that I can then enjoy sitting down properly in a chair for a dinner.

(in the horizon court or at home I have the luxury of slouching in my chair)

I am a traditionalist cruiser,

I love having a relationship with my waiter throughout the cruise.

We make a reservation in the anytime dining room at 5:45pm for every evening for a table for 2. The Maitre D, head waiter,and waiter are aware of my health and all of us work together to create a system...so my order is coming out as soon as each line opens up. and then my dessert order has been placed with my dinner order.

Everyone has been fabulous about this.

If we won't make it one particular evening, we call and release the table

This system has worked for us with 6 different Maitre D's on twice as many ships.

I also know of 2 diabetics that have begun having set reservations during anytime dining.

So, don't be so quick to judge others because they do something that seems unconventional to you!

Why should we be denied the same experience that you

are able to enjoy, just because we physical can't do it?

[fathercop]

I cannot think of anytime that we had a bad experience with Personal Choice/Anytime Dining, except we had one waiter who to me did not seem friendly. (He could have been having a bad day, not feeling well, etc.)

 

However we had great servers most of the time.

 

If we find a server we like or a seating area we enjoy, we make a standing reservation for that table and time. What is nice about PC/AT dining is that if we have to change our reservation due to a port, activity, show, or extended cocktail hour, we still will not miss our dinner. We have eaten as early as 5:30 PM (our preferred time) and as late as 9:30 PM. We usually do a table for two, but sometimes we might join friends, or if our girls are with us, we have them join us. The flexibility is what I like and I make the dining experience work for us.

 

Good luck and enjoy your cruise.

[BJS]

.......

So, don't be so quick to judge others because they do something that seems unconventional to you!

Why should we be denied the same experience that you

are able to enjoy, just because we physical can't do it?

You don't have to have any reason for making a standing reservation the Head waiter even suggests doing so.

 

We just did a 15 day TA followed by a 10 day Baltic cruise on the Crown Princess. The first 10 days we would arrive at the Anytime dining room between 6 and 6:15 and were promptly seated at a table for two. We always received good service.

 

On the 10th night the Head Waiter asked if we were staying on board (550 people did) for the following cruise. We responded that we were. He suggested that we have a standing reservation for a table for two.

 

In the past we've always made a standing reservation, at one point during the cruise, but decided to see just how well the system worked walking up each evening. It did work well but took him up on his offer just for the convenience of walking directly into the dining room without having to be seated or waiting in a line.

 

.

[ccrain]

You don't have to have any reason for making a standing reservation the Head waiter even suggests doing so.

 

.

 

 

Some ships do standing reservations, others do not, and others only in certain circumstances. It depends on the management staff and how they handle anytime dining.

 

As always, the man to talk to is the area Head Waiter or the Matre' De.

[Northender]

Wheretonext - I don't think anyone would deny the fact that you need a set time due to illness. Only a fool would think otherwise.

 

What I fail to understand is you pick AD because you don't want to be locked in to a certain time, yet making a reservation everynight for the same time is almost the same as Traditional - at least that is how I see it.

 

We go to dinner when we go to dinner. Wait 10 minutes, no problem, wait for our fav waitstaff, no problem. I dunno, maybe it is just me:D

[jag27]

I apologize, but I didn't read through the entire thread, but here was our experience with AD on the CB two weeks ago.

 

We originally requested traditional dining, but was waitlisted. My plan was to find the Maitre D on the first day, but we decided to give AD a try (never done AD and from what I read on CC, people seemed to like it). I didn't think it would be a problem since it was only two of us. On the first night, we didn't go to the dining room.

 

On the first formal night, I called that morning to make a reservation for 7:30pm and were told that we would be seated with other people - that was fine with us as we like to dine with others. We had no problems that night.

 

The few nights we went to AD without a reservation, we were seated with a group of people, which we were ok with. Here was one problem I had - if they were sitting you at a table for 8 or 10 people and we were the first couple there, we would have to wait until most of the table was filled. When people were sitted, they would take everyone's order at the same time. So being the first couple at the table, we would have to wait over 20 mins for our order be taken! This lead to eating to many rolls from the breadbasket!:(

 

One night we had great service and no problem getting a table for two since we got the dining room at 5:30pm for dinner.

 

On the second formal night, I called to make a reservation in the morning and was told they couldn't except anymore reservations, but just to come down to the dining room as they always have tables open for walk-ins. No problem. So we go to the AD dining room around 8:15pm and was told there was a 10 min and was given a pager (the only time we were givin a pager). We saw another couple we sat with the previous night walk in and they came up to us and asked if there was a wait. Well, they got seated right away. Come to find out, we were waiting for a table for two and the Maitre D never asked us if we were ok with sitting with other people! We would have prefered that!

 

So we get seated and dinner service was looooooong! Now, I know the waiters have a few tables, but DH was not happy and stated that there was no reason for the long delays! DH was a former waiter a very busy restaurant and knew the five tables of two the waiter could have handled it! We waited almost 30 mins for our dessert, which at that point we got up and left!:eek:

 

So, for our entire cruise on the CB, the AD was the let down. We just didn't have great service in there except for one night, and even that wasn't spectacular. I like being in traditional where you can develop a friendship with your waiter and tablemates.