We have only sailed on Carnival so I guess we're voting with our dollars. We chose it for the price and have never felt the need to spend more just to get a different ambiance. No one has said the rooms, food, or service is any better so we continue to make our money go farther with the lowest priced cruise we can find for the destinations we want.
I saw many dining room tables empty aboard the NCL Pride of Hawaii but they would not let anyone sit there. Reason: not enough staff. NCL has by far the worst service, especially on their cruise ships where the staff is all American. Bob
Interesting that people have so different experiences.
On NCL they ask you if you want to eat with others and you can choose to say yes or no, I can't see any problem with that.
We are not very experienced cruisers, on NCL we have cruised on the Wind, the Dawn and the Jewel, but we have never found it difficult to get a reservation.
When we were on NCL we did state that we wanted to eat with others and were always seated at a table by ourselves and no one else was ever brought to the table. It seems that (on our cruise at least) the rest of the passengers did not want to sit with others. And the host/hostess sure didn't do much of anything to sit more than one party to a table.
On Princess they always make sure to fill a table before starting another. Unless of course the next party to come in is for more chairs that are left. But not so when we were on NCL. Of course the dining rooms never were even half full. Maybe one forth of the table would have people at them at any one time. And this was on the Pearl which was built for freestyle.
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Nancy L
Star Princess 2005, Sun Princess 2005
Caribbean Princess 2006, MSC Lirica 2006 , NCL Pearl 2007, Majesty of the Seas 2008, Carnival Destiny 2008, MSC Lirica 2009, Carnival Valor 2009,Carnival Legend 2010, Carnival Liberty 2010,Carnival Fantsay 2011,Carnival Valor Feb 2012, MSC Poesia Dec 2012, MSC Poesia April 2013
Now I understand what you meant and see your point.
You wrote: "we were asked if we wanted to eat with others and never once did" and I thought that you meant that they asked you and you said no, now I understand that they asked you and you said yes!
I have written on several other places on Cruisemates that for people who wants to share table with others, it can be a problem on NCL. You can always ask to share a table but as you said, most NCL passengers want to sit with those they travel with so it can be hard for NCL to find someone who wants to share a table.
I don't think that the host/hostess didn't do anything about it, they just can't do much if noone else wants to share!
I do see your point and understand your problem, I just missunderstood you from the beginning!
Royal 1st 8)
Carnival 2nd
NCL never tried and have no desire to either.
That would be my list of the three. Iv done anytime dining twice on Princess and would have preferred traditional. I was wait listed once for traditional and the other time was a group cruise and I had to choose it to eat with the group.
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