It's Official... Celebrity is rolling out Open Seating on all ships

[Jeka]

Will be interested to see how this works--

We have been in early seatings, and late seatings...there are advantages to both...

 

Our next cruise is open seating but a significantly smaller ship...

 

After seeing that show about how cruise ships make their $ (in this case Nrowegian) I am not sure I would like that flex option which I giess can create lines or waits perhaps...

 

If it eases your mind at all,we've done My Time on Royal six times and have never waited, with or without reservations.

 

Our last cruise was on RCCL's Explorer of the Seas. We selected My Time Dining and loved it. We showed up anytime between 6:15 and 7:00 and never had to wait for a table. We always got a table for 2 at our request. Service was excellent. There seemed to be extra assistent waiters working the entire MTD area. Dinner wasn't rushed but it was quicker. We hate sitting at dinner for

1 1/2 to 2 hours. Our next cruise in Oct. is on the Explorer and we requested MTD again.

 

After a 3 1/2 year absence from Celebrity, we just booked the Summit for April 2010. We weren't looking forward to traditional dining. We're so happy that Celebrity is including Celebrity Select Dining (MTD) as an option.

 

Glad to see another positive response to My Time on Royal!!! I think in the time Royal has offered My Time, going on 2 years on some ships, I've read less than a half dozen complaints about it.

[The_Big_M]

The details on the web site make it sound like a nice implementation.

[Jeka]

After I posted what 'X' had put on their website on Select Dining, I posted a concern about a post that an Equinox cruise in June 10 had both Traditional settings Wait-listed and only Select Dining was available. That would infer that there was a limited Traditional seating available and those wanting Traditional would be required to take Select, ala Princess and not RCL. That didn't make sense.

 

So I went to that cruise and checked it out. Turns out if you select Suites, there are Traditional times available, if you select some other classes, those seatings aren't. It has errors. It is the only cruise that has both Traditional seating times wait-listed, so it looks as if it is the classic computer glitch.

 

Which means Traditional seating is probably not limited as the Select Dining info stated it wouldn't be. Celebrity site states Select Dining has set seating availability and those that want it but can't, will be assigned a Traditional seating time.

 

Denny

 

Denny, I would be dumbfounded if Celebrity forced anyone into SD. That certainly hasn't happened on Royal.

[J & G]

So if traditional becomes consistently overbooked and waitlisted, will they decide that they made a mistake?

 

It was just the opposite on our RCI cruise this past winter. MTD became very crowded as the week progressed and traditional dining had lots of empty tables. Interesting turn of events......

[Penney80]

Hi

How are they seating the differnet dining areas. Bottom td or upper at? We like TD

to meet other people as we don't have friends that like to cruise.

Joann and Bob

[hcat]

Still hoping for traditional with our usual top tier table..that's what we have confirmed for all our upcoming trips..

 

Royal C. is a fun cruise line but when we are on Celebrity we expect much more in the way of dining experiences. The two lines are not the same & dining is one area where that shows!

 

It sounds like X has carefully thought this out& is trying to preserve its usually elegant dining experience while yielding to market forces...

 

we'll hope for the best...

[Bridge Maven]

It was just the opposite on our RCI cruise this past winter. MTD became very crowded as the week progressed and traditional dining had lots of empty tables. Interesting turn of events......

 

That doesn't surprise me because on our Brilliance of the Seas cruise last year, we met quite a few passengers who booked traditional dining and then changed to my time dining during the cruise and liked my time dining much better.

[Gracie115]

It sounds like X has carefully thought this out& is trying to preserve its usually elegant dining experience while yielding to market forces.....

 

 

Which is what I've said all along, that X would do it better, have learned the good and the bad from other lines and will present the superior product they always do.

 

But it's NOT just market forces, some people who LOVE to cruise, just prefer this option, like us. Would we never cruise again without it? Of course not. Will it make the cruise better FOR US?...most defiinitely. Will it harm anyone preferring Traditional...not at all.

[Bridge Maven]

Hi

How are they seating the differnet dining areas. Bottom td or upper at? We like TD

to meet other people as we don't have friends that like to cruise.

Joann and Bob

 

If it is done the way Royal Caribbean does my time dining, it is actually better for people who like to meet other passengers during dinner. On the first night you can ask to be seated with other passengers who arrived at the dining room at the same time. Then if you enjoy that group of table mates and wait staff, you can ask to be seated together with the same wait team every night. However, if you don't you can ask to be seated with a different group the following night. In our case we tried a different group for the first few nights and then created our own table with our favorite table mates. The best part is you then have table mates that you really enjoy and the wait team you thought was best at a time that is most convenient for you.

 

A few years ago, the idea of my time (select) dining did not appeal to me at all and now I consider the lack of that option to be a real negative.

[rool]

I did MTD on the Brilliance back in April this year and certainly enjoyed it's flexibility although it was somewhat less flexible for a table of two. I was told that we could only have 6.30pm or 7.30pm for these. It wasn't a problem as most days we did eat at 7.30pm anyway.

 

The other slight downside is that we didn't always get the same service staff and found that when served by a different team the level of attention dropped a fair bit and in one case the waiter was always keeping an eye on his regulars whilst speedily throwing our food to us to move on to them.

 

That's what we have to weigh up before our next cruise.

[FinelyCruising]

I did MTD on the Brilliance back in April this year and certainly enjoyed it's flexibility although it was somewhat less flexible for a table of two. I was told that we could only have 6.30pm or 7.30pm for these. It wasn't a problem as most days we did eat at 7.30pm anyway.

 

The other slight downside is that we didn't always get the same service staff and found that when served by a different team the level of attention dropped a fair bit and in one case the waiter was always keeping an eye on his regulars whilst speedily throwing our food to us to move on to them.

 

That's what we have to weigh up before our next cruise.

 

So were you in a segregated area or were you among all the other diners in the dining room at random tables? I am trying to get a handle on if this is a separate area in the dining room or not. Thanks!

[gkm]

Cheryl, we had a separate section in the dining room and didn't find anything disruptive. We had a wonderful wait staff and had the same table every evening.

 

Garry

[The Big Booper]

Based on what we saw on the IOS, the dining room is divided with TD on one side and MTD (SD) on the other half. In addition, there were smaller empty tables on the TD side that were empty most of the nights, but which were used on a few nights for MTD overflow.

 

So the system as worked out by RCCL works fine on RCI and should be OK on =X=.

 

Same senior corporate management.

[FinelyCruising]

Thanks Garry and Mr Incredible. :)

[A Sixth?]

Darn. Our ship only will start Feb 1 2010 with select dining, we sail January 11th. :(

 

Please introduce it on the Millennium in time for our cruise!!!:o

 

The option to choose Celebrity Select Dining is available today for all other participating ships beginning with the sailing dates noted below and continuing through all cruises currently open for sale.

 

Celebrity Solstice - January 10, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Constellation - January 17, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Century - January 23, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Millennium - February 1, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Summit - February 13, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Mercury - February 15, 2010 sailing -- Celebrity Infinity - February 28, 2010 sailing Guests planning to experience Celebrity Eclipse, the third ship in Celebrity's new Solstice Class, which will enter service in April 2010, will be able to elect Celebrity Select Dining on a date that will be announced later.

[rool]

So were you in a segregated area or were you among all the other diners in the dining room at random tables? I am trying to get a handle on if this is a separate area in the dining room or not. Thanks!

 

Hi, sorry for delay, just got back to this.

 

We were in a separate area upstairs on the balcony areas overlooking the main dining hall. I think we entered from Deck 5 on the port side. There were a mixture of different sized tables and it was more like eating in a restaurant, with people coming and going, rather than at a function and everyone being served at the same time. It wasn't at all unpleasant.

[FinelyCruising]

Hi, sorry for delay, just got back to this.

 

We were in a separate area upstairs on the balcony areas overlooking the main dining hall. I think we entered from Deck 5 on the port side. There were a mixture of different sized tables and it was more like eating in a restaurant, with people coming and going, rather than at a function and everyone being served at the same time. It wasn't at all unpleasant.

 

Thank You!!!:)

[BettyNL]

On HAL, the lower level of the MDR was for traditional (early & late) and the upper level was open for walk-ins from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, much like you would find at a nice restaurant !!

[hcat]

We were in a separate area upstairs on the balcony areas overlooking the main dining hall. I think we entered from Deck 5 on the port side. .

 

Looks like the pime seats are going to MTD--top tier--along the rail! Guess we'll have to look for another nice spot for ourselves...

[Bridge Maven]

On HAL, the lower level of the MDR was for traditional (early & late) and the upper level was open for walk-ins from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, much like you would find at a nice restaurant !!

 

That is what it was like when we did My Time Dining on Brilliance of the Seas.

[Jeka]

 

We were in a separate area upstairs on the balcony areas overlooking the main dining hall. I think we entered from Deck 5 on the port side.

 

Looks like the pime seats are going to MTD--top tier--along the rail! Guess we'll have to look for another nice spot for ourselves...

 

hcat, you've come to an incorrect conclusion. Yes, some MTD tables were along the rail on deck 5 on the Independence and the Liberty, but the majority of the rail tables were available for traditional dining on this deck, so no need to look for another spot.

[J & G]

A few years ago, the idea of my time (select) dining did not appeal to me at all and now I consider the lack of that option to be a real negative.

 

That is exactly the same for us....I was totally opposed to anything other than traditional dining. Then on Voyager, the week that MTD was introduced, traditional main dining was moved to 5:30 PM. We thought that was ridiculously early for us, as it began before sailaway....so we decided to try MTD.......

 

MTD was wonderful! Not without a few minor first-week kinks, but we all loved it. We had almost the same table and exactly the same wait staff every evening.....just like traditional, except on our schedule! We are very excited to see that Celebrity is moving in that direction.

[GeriatricNurse]

On HAL, the lower level of the MDR was for traditional (early & late) and the upper level was open for walk-ins from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, much like you would find at a nice restaurant !![/quote]

 

 

Betty, sorry to contradict you but you have that reversed! On HAL, the LOWER LEVEL of the MDR is for OPEN dining (and it is open at 5:30 p.m.) while the UPPER LEVEL of the MDR is for TRADITIONAL dining (and the first seating is at 6:00 p.m.)! At least that is how it was when I cruised with HAL on three different ships since the "As You Wish" dining was introduced, unfortunately!

 

 

 

[A Sixth?]

1047[/left]869]Looks like the pime s

eats

are going to MTD--top tier--along the rail! Guess we'll have to look for another nice spot for ourselves...

 

Why shouldn't MTD get a fair share of the primo spots in the dining room dependant on the numbers signed up for it? If 1/2 are MTD than 1/2 of the very best tables are assigned to that group. If 3/4 sign up for MTD than 3/4 of the prime tables are assigned to them. The opposite is true if traditional diners make up 3/4 of the booking.

 

That's how it's going to be I trust.

[jackdiamond]

We expect that the Blu will remain traditional; and, that is fine with us. We usually eat at the late seating; and that allows a visit to Michael's Club. Additionally, a little sushi and pizza makes for a pleasant appetizer, in addition to the canapes delivered to the cabin. Of course, we will concentrate on additional excercises the following day, either on the ship or at the beach, or both of the aforesaid.