I think it's time to admit that so-called Personal Choice dining is a failure. The staff don't like it because it is much more difficult to plan galley services, the waiters don't like it because it hurts them when it comes to tips (many don't tip beyond the minimum, and of those, many remove their tips), and passengers don't like because it doesn't work as advertised. Fixed seating streamlines the service delivery process. With two or three dining rooms on each ship, the fixed dining times can be set so that everyone can select a time that works best for them. The current set-up is just chaotic.
I agree! We were on the Carribean Princess last year. Had to take personal choice seating as they messed up our reservations for early seating and would not or could not get 4 of seated at early dining. So, we had no other choice. We found it to be hectic, slow service, and low quality food. I don't know if this would have been the same in the "regular" dining room, but it sure doesn't make us want to run out and book again with Princess. They really need to do away with this as we feel it does not live up to the advertising.
just off caribbean princess saturday 10/29,have always done personel choice dining and love it,I would not go with assigned times.I go on a cruise to do what I want and when I want and not have to keep looking at my watch to see what time it is.the only time I even wear my watch on the cruise is when we get off in port so we don't miss the ship.when I am on board I do not care what time it is.
I did not find any problems with the buffet at all.I also after wearing a suit all week for work DO NOT go on vactaion so I can still wear a suit.I do one formal night to make my wife happy and if it was not for that I would not even bring a suit with me.
I understand the benefits of the Anytime option, but it's my belief that it just doesn't work on very large ships. The small, luxury ships can do it because there just aren't that many people on board. With up to 10 times as many people crowding into Anytime on Princess, I think the walk-up system cannot keep up, keep everyone happy, and maintain quality.
Food quality and dining room service on Princess has gone down in the last few years. I think Anytime dining is part of the problem and the system needs to be re-tooled.
The only other mass-market line with a similar approach to dining is NCL, and they don't get high marks for their dining, either. For fast, convenient, and crappy I can go to McDonald's, when I expect better, I'm willing to sacrifice the ability to be impulsive in order to enjoy a higher standard.
Just back from 10 days on the Sun and had no problem at all with anytime dining. Longest wait was maybe 2 minutes while they gave the group ahead of us the beeper. Of course it was only my husband and myself and we always will sit with others. Even the groups of four that I saw had the same with getting a table right away.
On our cruise in Jan on the Star the longest wait we had was about 5 - 10 minutes on first formal night. Which we didn't feel was bad at all.
We have had much longer waits at local resturants, no matter the time of year.
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
My family originally decided to try Princess because of the anytime dining. We always hated traditional dining due to the set dining times, the length of the meals, and having to sit with strangers so when we heard about anytime we were excited.
We tried it on the Sapphire and had no trouble making reservations for the entire 10 day cruise on the first day (family of 9 at two tables close to each other). We ended up canceling our reservations because we discovered that we really liked the Sapphire's buffet, however we did do walk-in at anytime twice and both times were seated right away at two tables close to each other. We thought the service in anytime dining was much faster than traditional, maybe even a little too rushed at times, but we preferred that to the long meals in traditional dining. We thought the food was about the same as traditional.
After cruising on Sapphire, we really thought that we didn't care about anytime dining one way or the other since we had chosen to dine at the buffet on most nights anyway. However, we found that we REALLY missed it when we went on our next cruise on Regal Princess. Regal doesn't have anytime dining and it also doesn't have a very good buffet. We tried the traditional dining on the first night and hated it. Nobody really was ready to eat at our set dining time (early seating) and the meal was way to long. We ended up eating at the buffet the rest of the cruise, even though it wasn't very good.
After cruising Regal, we decided never to take another ship that didn't have anytime dining. The buffet is our first choice if it's good, but if it's not, anytime dining is a nice alternative to fall back on. Traditional dining is something that I just never want to do again.
I think it's great that Princess offers choices. I just think they need to fine tune their system a little so that everybody who wants traditional dining can get it instead of being waitlisted and so that the wait times that some have experienced with anytime dining are reduced.
To each his own. We were on a Princess Canal cruise a year ago and they offered both anytime dining and traditional. We were stuck on anytime the first two nights but were happy to get second seating for the rest of the cruise. We much prefer traditional dining for many reasons and always second seating because it is too much of a rush to get showered and dressed for first, after being ashore all day, and you frequently miss the sailaway with a cool drink in your hand at the rail, one of the true relaxing nuggets of any cruise. Others may disagree, that is why a choice is good. Neither side is right, just different strokes for different folks. 8)
__________________
RichStacy
Landlocked in Denver, but cruisin every chance we get.
Polynesia, Carib. '86
Cr. Odyssey, Scandinavia, '91, 30 Day S Pac. 2002
Crystal Harm, Aust., N.Z., '94
Royal Odyssey, AK,'96
Old Cr. Pr. Canal, '97
RCCL, Carib, 1998
Volendam, Car, 2000
Ryndam, 35 day S. Am., Antarctica, '03
Is. Pr., Canal, 2004
Statendam, 34 day China, Japan, AK '06
Cr.Pr., Carib. 08
Eurodam, Atlantic, Med. '10 Golden Princess
We tried open seating on an NCL trip as an experiment. I have to say that I really prefer the assigned seating arrangements, mainly because I feel the service in less rushed and we enjoy sitting with the same tablemates each evening.
We found that with the open seating, you never get past the preliminaries in conversation, whereas with the assigned seating you have the opportunity to have more in depth discussions with your fellow diners.
We usually only use the dining room for the evening meal, so we still have lots of opportunity for just the two of us dining at breakfast and lunch.
Also, we did find that there were line ups for the evening meal - and I won't stand in a half hour line up for any meal - not even at our best restaurants at home.
I am disappointed that Princess changed to the open seating since it used to be my favourite cruise line - now unless I get a great deal on NCL or Princess, I'll patronize those cruise lines that still have the traditional seating plan.
Princess still offers a choice between the two on most ships. At least one ship (Regal - there may be others too) only has traditional and not anytime, but there is no ship that only has anytime. The problem is that there is not enough space in traditional for everybody who wants it, so there usually are people who are on a waitlist for traditional and have to have anytime if there waitlist number doesn't come up.
That's kinda what I thought. After observing the "anytime" on the Island Princess last year I'd be amazed if more than a minority opted for it. We were stuck with it two nights because of a SNAFU, and the quality of the food and the service was below the traditional. You didn't know the waiters and you couln't get them to stow your wine for the next night, let alone remember your favorite ice cream, or coffee preference. Not for me.
__________________
RichStacy
Landlocked in Denver, but cruisin every chance we get.
Polynesia, Carib. '86
Cr. Odyssey, Scandinavia, '91, 30 Day S Pac. 2002
Crystal Harm, Aust., N.Z., '94
Royal Odyssey, AK,'96
Old Cr. Pr. Canal, '97
RCCL, Carib, 1998
Volendam, Car, 2000
Ryndam, 35 day S. Am., Antarctica, '03
Is. Pr., Canal, 2004
Statendam, 34 day China, Japan, AK '06
Cr.Pr., Carib. 08
Eurodam, Atlantic, Med. '10 Golden Princess
As I understand it, the tips for ALL dining are pooled ... whether it's traditional or personal choice so that's not a factor.
Personally I prefer traditional as most of the time I travel alone ... even so one time when doing traditional, I joined friends at personal - and the waiter had no problem in getting my wine from my regular table.
If Princess ever goes all personal choice ala NCL, then I'll find another cruise line to travel on. And, I won't go back to NCL (6 cruises) because there is NO choice.
__________________ I cruise the Emerald Princess, Eastern Caribbean on April 16, 2012
The auto-tips or equivalent portion of cash tips are pooled, but any excess goes back to the individual (at least, that's how I understand tipping on Princess). We normally tip an additional amount to our waiters. In Anytime, if you don't reserve a table, this is much more difficult, and I think most of the time the waiters get what's in the kitty from the auto-tips. With no incentive to try a little harder, they don't. I think it brings down the service levels all around.
I would only cruise with personal choice or freestyle dining. Not everyone goes on a cruise to meet people or socialize.
I love the freedom to dine in my own way. You can still have the same table and waiters for the length of your cruise if you like or eat with others etc.
Why would anyone want to be stuck with one table and one time to eat no matter what was going on for them that day?
My only experience with freestyle dining was unpleasant. On 21 cruises, my experience with traditional was great. Thus, I will only cruise on a ship where I can get traditional seating.
That's what makes the world great, the opportunity for all of us th chose what we wish.
On two cruises with family we have cruised on NCL and done Freestyle and it worked perfectly. We were able to dine together each night when we wanted to and never had a problem with a table. This also accomodated everyone's daily schedule.
The other positive was that my wife and I were able to ditch the in-laws and eat in the alternative restaurants and there were so many of them we had many chances to "ditch" them.
Take care,
Mike
__________________ Cruisemates Community Leader/Moderator
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I have always hated traditional dining. I hated having to eat at a set time, especially since early is too early and late too late. I also hated the whole sitting with strangers thing. I am on the shy side and that was always very stressful for me.
On our last cruise on Princess, we had Anytime dining and loved it! There was 8 of us and we were concerned that there would be a long wait to get a table together, but on the first night we waited only 5 minutes. We really liked the waiter, so we made 8:00 reservations at the same table for the remainder of the cruise. On the next night, all 4 of the children traveling with us decided to eat at the buffet and skip formal dinner so that they could go to the kid's club. When we checked in at the restaurant that night, we explained that we had reservations for 8 but that we were really only 4. I expected them to either reseat us at a table for 4 or put us at our original table for 8 and fill the empty spaces with 4 others (as I said, I am kind of shy so I would have hated that). I was surprised when they led us to our original table and didn't seat anyone else there.
Later, when the maitre'd came around to chat, he asked about the 4 empty spaces and we explained that the children had decided to ditch us in favor of kid's club. We told him that we didn't quite know what we should do because we could not predict on any given night how many of the children would decide to eat with us. He assured us that the whole table would be waiting for us every night regardless of how many actually showed up.
So far, it wasn't so different from traditional since with 8 people we probably would have had a table to ourselves anyway and since 8:00 is very close to traditional late seating, but what was really nice was that on 3 nights we decided that 8:00 didn't work for us and was easily able to change it. On one of the nights, we called at about 7:00 and was able to change the reservations to 9:00 (same table) and on the other two, we just did walk-in (once at 7:00 and once at about 9:00). The checkin lady recognized us, so both times she asked if we wanted our usual table and we explained that we would like it, but that we only had 4 people with us. No problem! In less than 5 minutes we had our original table! It couldn't have worked out better.
While waiting to check in each night, we would listen to other people requesting tables who didn't have reservations. The longest wait that we heard anyone quoted was 20 minutes, and that was for a private table for 2 on formal night when the restaurant was quite busy (for some reason, on both formal nights there were alot more people wanting to eat at 8:00 than on any of the other nights).
After experiencing Anytime Dining, it would be very difficult for me to ever go back to traditional so I hope it stays around.
Open seating (which I prefer) must be done right, or it won't work. Lines like Silversea, Radisson, Seabourn, and Oceania have made open seating work right, and many of us who have experienced it would never go back to fixed, two seating dinners.
But first, the line has to start with the design of the ship, and make the main dining room hold almost as many guests as are onboard. This is due to the tendency for most guests (if given total freedom) to show up at about the same time --- usually about 7:30. If the main dining room is no larger (relative to the number of guests) than on ships with fixed two seating dinners, there is going to be a problem!
And then, the ship has to have more wait staff, as they must be prepared to serve nearly the whole guest population at about the same time.
True open seating done right costs the cruise line money. First, additional square footage must be devoted to the main dining room instead of revenue-producing space like cabins. Then, the line has to almost double their waitstaff. That's one reason why the "lux" and "premuim" lines I mentioned above have a larger crew in relationship to the number of guests than other lines with fixed two seating dinners.
We LOVED anytime dining. We would never go on a line without it now! We don't like being told what time to be at dinner on OUR vacation, and we don't feel the need to see the same strangers everynight , we like different ones!
We have cruised and tried late seating and early seating, and we just found niether ideal.
We prefer to make our OWN schedule. One night I was feeling a little ill , so it was nice to have a table for two that night.
We never waited more then ten minutes and that was only on the evening we requested the table for two.
We will have our first taste of freestyle dining on our Hal cruise in a couple of weeks.
Things still sound a little confused, from what we understand we understand from our TA, it is freestyle dining with 4 specific dining times! So...we really don't know what that means???
Guess we'll find out soon enough.
Still I enjoyed this thread for the insights on the ins and outs of freestyle.
We will have our first taste of freestyle dining on our Hal cruise in a couple of weeks.
Things still sound a little confused, from what we understand we understand from our TA, it is freestyle dining with 4 specific dining times! So...we really don't know what that means???
Guess we'll find out soon enough.
Still I enjoyed this thread for the insights on the ins and outs of freestyle.
Hm, HAL does not offer real freestyle dining such as NCL or personal choice like Princess, so Yes I can see where you would be confused.
Hm, HAL does not offer real freestyle dining such as NCL or personal choice like Princess, so Yes I can see where you would be confused.[/quote]
arwenmark:
Evidently...this is something new that Hal is trying...and they are testing out on a couple of ships....Our TA who usually has most answers... didn't understand the new dining ins and outs on Hal, so all we know is that we have upper level...early seating BUT not the first early seating???
Oh well...it's fine...we don't make a big deal out of dinner anyway because there is always plenty to eat everywhere on a ship...
I personally think Princess has the best dining program. You can opt for assigned, two seating and dine in one restaurant. Others who prefer open seating have another restaurant. Makes everyone happy. Waiters are out of line if they voice complaints to passengers. If they don't like it, move to another cruise line.
I completely agree with Anne on this one....Princess, by far, has the best dining options. The best part is that it is your choice and no one elses. Why would anyone want to be told when they had to eat and where on their long-awaited vacation? Too many things in life are regimented as it is. For those who like traditional, they can pick that, so its all good. We have never had to wait for a table and always had excellent service, but we like to eat early and see the show, so possibly the wait is longer at other times. I have done traditional on cruiselines that have no choice and also Freestyle on Norwegian. For me, Princess comes out on top because they cater to everyone's preferences. They also have the 24 hr. buffet for a late snack when on some other lines there is nothing available but room service after a certain time. For variety and flexibility, you can't beat Princess. They get an A+ from this cruiser.
One of the main reasons I cruise with Princess is because of the pc dining. I socialize every day with my business and when I am on vacation I seek a little more privacy and quiet time with my hubby.
I have sailed on both the Golden & Grand Princess and love their personal choice dining. I am not a snob but I do not like being sat at a table full of strangers and feel I have to make conversation. I am around people and on the phone all day at work and I just want to have a quiet dinner with just me and my hubbie. I wish all the ship would be like Princess.
I like the personal choice dining and have no problems with it, but have tended to go for the buffet choice more and more as the menus are not that great and we don't really want to dress up on holiday either.
I do think that what they need to do is NOT take reservations for pc dining at all. That seems to defeat the entire purpose of it.
I really like the personal choice dining Princess has. We were on the RCCL Mariner in October. When we went to embark on the ship it was late coming in so in turn didn't sail until 6:00 our assigned dining time. Needless to say, everyone at our table was upset that we missed being up on deck for the sailing out.
not a snob but I do not enjoy sitting at a table full of strangers feeling I am forced to make conversation.
We have cruised on Carnival and RCCL and I am ready to go back to Princess because I do love their personal choice dining and get a table for two whenever I want.
We just returned from the Sapphire Princess. We tried the PC dining and did not really like it. We will opt for traditional from now on. We had no problem getting a table, never made a reservation but we always had a table for 2 or so they say. The person next to you on each side was only 2 feet away. We also missed the beautiful 2 story, staircased dining rooms. These rooms were small and had very low ceilings. We finally held out for a shared table and enjoyed that more as did the ones we shared with. Even though you don't have an assigned time, most want to eat early to make the 8pm show. Again, just our experience and opinions.
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CU@C,
Teresa and Larry
#35-Coral Princess 3/27/12
14 night Westbound Panama
60th Birthday Celebration
#36-Allure of the Seas 9/20/12
7 night Eastern Caribbean
Please go back to fixed seating Princess
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