Early dining question

[gi333]

Hi

I'm sailing on Oasis on August 13th and my dining time shows 5.00 pm. It was supposed to be 5:30.  It's confusing because on the menu on the MDR still says 5:30- 5:45.

It's my first time and I don't know what is right.  

Thanks 

[PPPJJ-GCVAB]

Recently Royal decided to change the dining times to 5:00pm and 7:30pm.  So for you 5:00 is correct.  However, the app IT team has not caught up with this change yet so the times are still not accurate!  My app still lists 5:30 and 8:00 as the MDR dining times but my profile shows I have 7:30 seating.  Looks like that is how it is for many folks.  Someday Royal will figure it out!   

[gi333]

Are you allowed to go eat later? Let's say stand by? Can you do that if ever you cannot make it for early dining?

Thanks 

[Ampurp85]

37 minutes ago, gi333 said:

Are you allowed to go eat later? Let's say stand by? Can you do that if ever you cannot make it for early dining?

Thanks 

Not in the MDR. You either have traditional or MTD and if you miss traditional dining you have to eat in the Windjammer or some other venue. If a port excusurion goes long they may make a one time exception.

[gi333]

i feel like i got screwed over. We had my time before changing to early dinung. My time was a 6:45 and i found it late. Now we have 5:00 instead of 5:30. Does anyone know when is my time now? Was that changed also ?

 

Can anyone recommended other restos besides the buffet?  We have a voucher for Johnny Rockets and want to go to port side bbq. Anywhere else that is within that price range ?

 

thanks

Quote

 

 

[Ampurp85]

MTD has not changed but 5pm is not a guarantee. I have late traditional dining on Allure in Oct, it says 7:45 instead of the 8pm time I thought I had. I know some people are seeing 5/7:30 but my app shows 5:15/7:45. The thing is you have about a 20min leeway, so if you show up around 5:15/5:25 they will not turn you away. 

[OCSC Mike]

55 minutes ago, gi333 said:

Can anyone recommended other restos besides the buffet?  We have a voucher for Johnny Rockets and want to go to port side bbq. Anywhere else that is within that price range ?

Solarium Bistro requires reservations for dinner but is free. It’s part buffet but entrees are ordered & served. Menu in the app.

[CruiseGus]

14 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

MTD has not changed but 5pm is not a guarantee. I have late traditional dining on Allure in Oct, it says 7:45 instead of the 8pm time I thought I had. I know some people are seeing 5/7:30 but my app shows 5:15/7:45. The thing is you have about a 20min leeway, so if you show up around 5:15/5:25 they will not turn you away. 

Please DO NOT encourage folks to just show up late when they have Early Traditional dinning it causes major problem, not only for early time staff, but increases the wait time for folks on MTD if you happen to be in the dining room that services MTD. 

Royal in the past year has been brining forward Early Traditional times on some if not most ships in an attempt to accommodate the changes to MTD that were made after the restart.

 

[Ampurp85]

4 hours ago, CruiseGus said:

Please DO NOT encourage folks to just show up late when they have Early Traditional dinning it causes major problem, not only for early time staff, but increases the wait time for folks on MTD if you happen to be in the dining room that services MTD. 

Royal in the past year has been brining forward Early Traditional times on some if not most ships in an attempt to accommodate the changes to MTD that were made after the restart.

 

Not encouraging people to show up late, trying to ease the stress of this person who says their time shown differs from what they expected. Also, as a person who does MTD exclusively, I have yet to be placed in the same dining room as early and traditional. MTD has been deck 3, while deck 4 and 5 are traditional. 

[gi333]

Like I don't understand why some people get upset like that.....

[melmar02]

@Ampurp85 we we're MTD on the same deck as traditional, but it was on Radiance so only 2 decks of dining. 

[Ampurp85]

1 minute ago, melmar02 said:

@Ampurp85 we we're MTD on the same deck as traditional, but it was on Radiance so only 2 decks of dining. 

That makes sense when there are only two decks. I haven't been on a ship like that yet, so my experience was that MTD is only deck 3. Did they rush you in order to ensure everyone got sat?

[Last Lion]

My experience on two deck dining is that traditional is always on the lower deck and MTD is top deck with some overflow on the lower deck.

Has anyone experienced different?

 

[ScottD]

On 7/25/2023 at 6:25 PM, Ampurp85 said:

Not in the MDR. You either have traditional or MTD and if you miss traditional dining you have to eat in the Windjammer or some other venue. If a port excusurion goes long they may make a one time exception.

I'm glad you said that, we have the 5pm traditional dining and my wife swears if we "just ask on night one" that we'd be able to change a night or two to MTD if we tell them we might not make 5pm. I tried to explain I don't think they let you just show up for MTD if you have a traditional set time already. So I actually already made reservations for Solarium on the one night she figures we will be late, because I figured we wouldn't be able to her plan. Now I'll look like a genius because I had the back up plan already in place! lol

[melmar02]

17 hours ago, Ampurp85 said:

That makes sense when there are only two decks. I haven't been on a ship like that yet, so my experience was that MTD is only deck 3. Did they rush you in order to ensure everyone got sat?

No, we never felt rushed. However, this was during the restart with the ship at only 70% Capacity.

 

@Last Lion our MTD was on the lower of the two decks.

[jbrinkm]

We found that the new menus sped things up automatically. We were always done in about an hour, no more than an hour + 20 min. We didn't feel rushed - it was just that there was less time between finishing a course and getting the next one. When we sailed the year before (2021) with the traditional menus, I remember lots of waiting time but had very little on this year's cruise. So 5:15pm dining time was usually done between 6:15-6:30pm. 

[CruiseGus]

On 7/26/2023 at 4:05 PM, Ampurp85 said:

Not encouraging people to show up late, trying to ease the stress of this person who says their time shown differs from what they expected. Also, as a person who does MTD exclusively, I have yet to be placed in the same dining room as early and traditional. MTD has been deck 3, while deck 4 and 5 are traditional. 

I believe you are mistaken that MTD dining does not follow Early Traditional (5:00 or 5:30ish) on deck 3 of the larger ships.  MTD has followed the Early Traditional in on of the dining rooms on every ship I have been on this year.

If as it was pre-Covid and MTD had it's own dinning room or at least a section of one of the dining rooms it would not have the delayed start of 6:45 (which is after Early Traditional has started to clear out)

I will agree with you that MTD is almost exclusively on the lowest dining deck, normally Deck 3.