Dec 20th Island Princess Tipping

Dec 20th sailing Island Princess Hawaii
We will be taking the whole family four adults 39, 43, 50 and 73 with kids 10 and 12. We are wait listed for seating in the dining room, which time is better for quicker service under two and half hours? Would it be wise to tip $100 or more to the Mater D? (To insure seating time) Please reply. All coments welcome thank you so much!

Laura, what on earth??? Just go to the Personal Choice dining room, it has the same menu as traditional( and the same dress code) and get a table when you want one. You don't have throw a handful of money at the maitre'd( correct spelling) to dine together at a reasonable time.I am sure he would apprieciate an extra tip, but don't get carried away.
It is easy to get out of dining room in under 2 1/2 hours.. I would imagine an early seating time would ensure this as they do like to flip tables( fill them twice) . Early being anytime before 7- 715.
If on the first night you like your waiter, request a reservation with him the next night, then you will have the same wait staff and it is almost like traditional dining.
We tried PC dining this last cruise, ( we have had early seating trad, and late seating trad) and we really enjoyed the freedom. We would never go back to traditional dining, mind you we also don't care to make " life long friendships" with our waiters, we just like decent service and an occaisonal smile. Some cruisers really do look forward to the socail aspect of bantering back and forth with their waitstaff, we don't.

Anyways sounds like a fun Christmas cruise, enjoy.

[LisaK]

i totally agree with pg., that's ridiculous. Go for the Anytime Dining. Since there is a group of you, it would be a good idea to make reservations all you have to do is call from your stateroom, to avoid a possible wait for a large table.
If you find a wait-team that you really like you can request to be seated in their section when you make your reservations.
Traditional dining books up very fast and most folks who get into traditional dining, won't give up their reservation to someone on the waitlist.

[Franknca]

This is a sold out cruise and traditional is always booked full. It is nice, when one has a family, to be assured of the fixed seating. We are a family of 6 adults and 5 children and are in first seating on this cruise, which we prefer. Cruise after cruise we see people upset that they couldn't get into traditional or their TA told them they were but they really weren't. That kind of mix up on the first night does not set a good tone for the cruise.

As your only choice now is PC dining, your best bet is to get a reservation in as soon as you board. It does get crowded and backed up at the usual dining times, especially if one does not have a reservation.

I've always wondered why Princess handled dining this way when there were so many people that seemed to prefer traditional. I think that some of the traditional diners hurt the system by deciding to use PC after having the traditional seats and not informing the wait staff that they won't be there on certain evenings. So they end up with empty tables that others could have used while adding to the numbers going to PC that evening. The proper thing to do is to advise one's waiter the night before when they are going to miss a meal in the traditional seatings.
Frank-in-CA

Good point Frank, why do people switch from trad to Pc? If they have requested trad, and it IS harder to get, then why don't they stick with it?

My opinion is that Pc is better, so I can understand,why they want Pc, but then why go through the motions of requesting trad.?
Is it possible that some cruisers are worried that they don't get the same menu, or that they won't have a formal night with Pc.?