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traditional dining pace


5arbusto

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Hi everybody

We'll be sailing on our second cruise this summer and was thinking about trying out traditional dining.  we love the idea of having the same wait staff and establishing a rapport with them.    our previous cruise was to the western med with a lot of port days so my time dining made sense.  for this summer, we will be going to alaska on ovation of the seas with several sea days so we thought it would be a great time to try out traditional dining. 

 

 Our family usually eat pretty quick [ about 45min] and my question is, does the wait staff go at the pace of our table or have to keep pace with the general dining room?   also can you get your food out of order.... ie get entrees first and then appetizers?  or would we need to wait for appetizers to go out first and then they serve entree.   i think the dinner time is slotted for 2hrs and are afraid that dinner will be dragged too long for us.  

also what time is the early dining time for ovation of the seas.... is it 5:30 or 6pm?

 

thanks in advance. 

 

   

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I can't speak to trying to speed up the process (although if you're late, they'll speed things up to get you out "on time") or courses "out of order."

In May, the early traditional dining time is 5:00 p.m. Way too early in my opinion but we're sailing with three other couples, the women all wanted to eat together, and I was the only one happy with 8:00 p.m. dining time.

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7 hours ago, 5arbusto said:

Hi everybody

We'll be sailing on our second cruise this summer and was thinking about trying out traditional dining.  we love the idea of having the same wait staff and establishing a rapport with them.    our previous cruise was to the western med with a lot of port days so my time dining made since.  for this summer, we will be going to alaska on ovation of the seas with several sea days so we thought it would be a great time to try out traditional dining. 

 

 Our family usually eat pretty quick [ about 45min] and my question is, does the wait staff go at the pace of our table or have to keep pace with the general dining room?   also can you get your food out of order.... ie get entrees first and then appetizers?  or would we need to wait for appetizers to go out first and then they serve entree.   i think the dinner time is slotted for 2hrs and are afraid that dinner will be dragged too long for us.  

also what time is the early dining time for ovation of the seas.... is it 5:30 or 6pm?

 

thanks in advance. 

 

   

Traditional dining is going to be at a slower pace than 45 minutes.  MTD, is quicker, usually.

 Yes, the appetizers come first, then entre, then dessert.  They do wait until you have finished one before bringing the next.  I've never asked a waiter to speed things up, but it may be worth asking if it is important to you.

We are quick eaters in my family and can usually do MTD in 1 - 1 1/2 hrs.

As stated above, you can definitely request the same waiter and time all week in MTD - just stop back at the entrance on your way out and let them know you want to do it.

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Traditional dining will probably be around 5:30 and since you might be sharing a table, you will be sort of at the mercy of your table mates. They will want to put everyone's course out at the same time. I don't know how many are in your party, but you could try to request a private table and get things done in that manner. Or your best option is MTD, if you select the same time each evening, you should have the same waiter. 

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We do traditional dining, early, most of the time. We always request a table for just the 2 of us so our experiences might be a little different. We try to be there when doors open and order our entire meal when seated. Never been a problem. The wait staff keeps a good eye on us and brings the next course out when we finish each one. We're easily done in under an hour. Gives us time to catch the early shows and relaxing time afterwards. 

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My experience is that MTD may or may not be faster than traditional.  But I would also say that overall our experience has been that traditional on average is the slowest.  Last week we had our first CK experience and for us it was way faster than traditional, MTD and speciality restaurants!

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We have a party of 6.  How many seats are at the tables?

will 6 people fill up a table?

if traditonal dining doesnt work out… can we change to MTD?

 

in regards to MTD, in our last cruise we did this and it was hard to get a consistent dinner reservation time during the popular times of 6:30-8.   Any suggestions to get your desired time?

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49 minutes ago, 5arbusto said:

in regards to MTD, in our last cruise we did this and it was hard to get a consistent dinner reservation time during the popular times of 6:30-8.   Any suggestions to get your desired time?

Ideally, if you do MTD, it would be great to know all of show times, port schedules, and any specialty dining you want to schedule too.  Currently, it is hard to get the show times in advance of the cruise.  Usually the best you can do is to plan it all out on-board on the first afternoon of the cruise.  Yes, this means waiting in lines but making this effort will give you the best opportunity to get what you want.

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55 minutes ago, LovetoCruise87 said:

We've always done traditional time in the dining room and there have been times that we have requested a faster dining experience due to a show we want to see, and thay have accommodated us. 

What was your dinner time?  I heard various early dinner time.  I’ve seen people mention 5, 5:30,and 6pm.  

5pm seems too early.  Is there a way to find out the early dinner time on my specific cruise?  I cant find it anywhere on website or cruise planner.  Is the only option is to call royal?  Will they have that info is it something they release later along with the show times?

anybody sailed on ovation before and know what time early traditional dinner was on that ship?

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I made MTD reservations in the cruise planner for every night at 6:30 which is pretty much when it opens.  Once on board, I made a few adjustments but at least we had a time for every night & didn’t have to wait in the “no reservation” line.  We were always done in time for evening entertainment.

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@5arbusto  I agree with @Pooch.   @Matt wrote a blog article (it is easy to find) which states Traditional early dining is most often at 5:30PM and Traditional late dining is most often at 8PM.  If you want to dine each night at the same time and can get your TA to book you into your choice of Traditional early or late, then you will have your "same time" dining each night.  MTD starts later like 6:30 - that is what is was on the Anthem last week.  This gives early traditional time to start clearing the dining room.  But you can still get the same time every night with MTD - more so now since many ships are still ramping up to full capacity.

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A big deciding factor for us on when to have dinner will be the start times for the shows onboard.  

our previous cruise was on the oasis of the seas which was huge and jam packed.  There were lines for everything.  So in order to get good seats for shows, people had to line up 20 minutes before the doors open.  I imagine that this summer, the ships will be at full capacity again so crowds will be a factor so we will need to be done with dinner 30 min before the show.  

i read that show times are coordinated around traditional dining time.  Is that true? 
 

what show times have you seen on your cruises?

 


 

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20 minutes ago, 5arbusto said:

i read that show times are coordinated around traditional dining time.  Is that true? 

On the smaller classes of ships (Freedom class and below), the show times are mostly coordinated with traditional dining times.  They typically perform each show twice each night.  So early diners go to the late show and late diners go to the early show.  There are also different later night shows which are after all dining times (10PM or later).  On these ships, using My Time Dining to eat right in the middle (so 7 PM-ish) requires planning around the shows. 

On Oasis and Quantum class ships, there are so many more shows/activities/entertainment/etc available that there is less coordination with the traditional dining times.  This works OK though because the shows aren't always at the same time each day.  The Monday 6PM performance of a certain show would conflict with early dining, but the next performance of that show might be 8PM on Wednesday which would work with early dining.  So whether you do traditional or MTD on the big ships, you still have the opportunity to see each show.

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19 hours ago, 5arbusto said:

We have a party of 6.  How many seats are at the tables?

will 6 people fill up a table?

if traditonal dining doesnt work out… can we change to MTD?

 

in regards to MTD, in our last cruise we did this and it was hard to get a consistent dinner reservation time during the popular times of 6:30-8.   Any suggestions to get your desired time?

You will be able to request a table for the six of you…no problem.  Not sure about changing to MTD from traditional time.  

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Even if they don't allow you to change to traditional dining, you can set a time to always eat with MTD and have the same waiter. They shouldn't have any problem sitting just your party of 5 or 6. It is my understanding that any parties over 4 will automatically be seated together at their own table. It is only parties of 2 or less that, with traditional dining, get sat with others. 

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On 4/13/2022 at 9:52 AM, RWDW1204 said:

We do traditional dining, early, most of the time. We always request a table for just the 2 of us so our experiences might be a little different. We try to be there when doors open and order our entire meal when seated. Never been a problem. The wait staff keeps a good eye on us and brings the next course out when we finish each one. We're easily done in under an hour. Gives us time to catch the early shows and relaxing time afterwards. 

I have since, seen that you are a party of 6, so most likely they will not try to seat you with another party.  Though for reference after the first few cruises of shared tables and having to wait on slow and or late people, we now always ask for and receive a private table weather a party of 2 or 4.

I also tell my waiter the first night, that we have already seen the menu and know what we want.  and we have no desire to siting the dining room more than an hour, in fact the faster the better.

Like @smokeybandit we are usually in right when they open and out always before an hour.

We have no problem catching the early shows as we get up early in the morning, so no late nights.

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16 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

I have since, seen that you are a party of 6, so most likely they will not try to seat you with another party.  Though for reference after the first few cruises of shared tables and having to wait on slow and or late people, we now always ask for and receive a private table weather a party of 2 or 4.

I also tell my waiter the first night, that we have already seen the menu and know what we want.  and we have no desire to siting the dining room more than an hour, in fact the faster the better.

Like @smokeybandit we are usually in right when they open and out always before an hour.

We have no problem catching the early shows as we get up early in the morning, so no late nights.

What is your success rate on requesting this? I would prefer to have a table with my partner, so was going to ask once we board, but I'm just curious is it's more or less likely they'll be able to accomodate.

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17 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

I also tell my waiter the first night, that we have already seen the menu and know what we want.  and we have no desire to siting the dining room more than an hour, in fact the faster the better.

I like this idea!  So 1) get in early, 2) order meals right away (know your choices beforehand), 3) order drinks after meals???  Do you skip apps or deserts? 

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1 hour ago, Lexster said:

What is your success rate on requesting this? I would prefer to have a table with my partner, so was going to ask once we board, but I'm just curious is it's more or less likely they'll be able to accomodate.

The success rate would be higher if it is noted pre-cruise. Either call a rep or tell your TA to note this. It will give you some priority. It is definitely much easier to get a table for 2 with MTD than traditional imho. 

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11 hours ago, Lexster said:

What is your success rate on requesting this? I would prefer to have a table with my partner, so was going to ask once we board, but I'm just curious is it's more or less likely they'll be able to accomodate.

I have great success, I email 2 weeks before cruise asking for a private table.

FYI, we carry our wine into dinner with us, that not only allows us to skip the sometimes horrendously slow MDR bar service, but also use up those free bottles of wine that show up in our cabin

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41 minutes ago, CruiseGus said:

I have great success, I email 2 weeks before cruise asking for a private table.

FYI, we carry our wine into dinner with us, that not only allows us to skip the sometimes horrendously slow MDR bar service, but also use up those free bottles of wine that show up in our cabin

Who did you email for that?

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