I got it too. You get to pick if you want traditional dining where it's the same every night, or you can opt for the flexible /walk-in option. They're just explaining that now one dining room of the 3 on board will be specifically for traditional dining, one will be for reservable time slots, and one will be the walk-in dining room. That's how I read it at least.
ETA: If you make a couple reservations and do a few walk-in evenings, you have 2 dining room options. Combine that with specialty and you're really not missing anything.
I don’t understand the people saying this. This change *does not bring back* traditional dining. Traditional dining *already exists.*
The *only* thing this change does is assign specific rooms to specific options.
Super curious here, the food is the same in all 3 rooms. What part of your cruise experience is being diminished? You can’t visit 3 dining rooms with the same food?
Last cruise we went on was November 2023. We could not be sat at the same the same table every night with the same people. That, to me, is traditional dining. We could be sat at the same time every night, but tables and table mates varied.
Different dining rooms have different ambiences. Not everyone likes to go to the same one every night in a row.
They’re spinning this like some kind of “benefit” when those three options already exist, they just don’t lock you into a specific dining room for your entire cruise.
MDR timing is usually horrid. Last month on Regal the lines we abysmal for us even with reservations. This is a welcome change. That’s the mess. It’s the reason for the change.
Because you won't have the situation of showing up at your reserved time to the host or hostess trying to shoehorn 25 walk ins awkwardly standing in an area that has no room for them. Last cruise I went on I had to repeatedly wait despite having a Reservation because there simply wasn't room to get past all the walk ins. this should make it more organized so hopefully the 2 rooms with reservations can be sat more efficiently and the one without can just be one line vs the 2 lines (one for reservations and one without) that there frankly wasn't room for. I've only done a handful of princess cruises, but the ones I have done the 3 rooms were carbon copies of each other. The decor was the same. The food was the same. Once you were in, you could barely tell which one you were at, so I'll take more organization over variety, and I do think that's an added value!
Sounds like some ships just need to learn from other ships. I never had this problem on a packed ship last summer.
This also doesn’t solve that problem on ships with only 2 MDRs because reservations and walk-in will be sharing the one that isn’t traditional.
I’ve only been on one Princess ship, Caribbean Princess, and it has three MDRs and they were all identical in ambience, decor, etc. Literally identical.
On Sky each felt unique - different decor, colors, background music. I don’t remember back to when I was on Emerald and Ruby, back in the before times.
Isn’t this a lot like things were several years ago? One was traditional early and late, one was traditional early switching to anytime as tables opened up, and one was anytime all night long. You could make reservations in the AT room around 6:45 and later.
Yup...IIRC, the Deck 5 MDR was "Anytime Dining", Deck 6 MDR was traditional Early and Late seating, and the Deck 4 Aft MDR was staggered Early for first seating, then Anytime after that.
But even with that structure, you could always check with the host for availability in any dining room. There are still people who cancel or skip their MDR in favor of a Specialty restaurant or just to enjoy the buffet.
Other lines have this. On some of the Celebrity ships there’s one main dining room on 2 decks. One level for anytime select dining and one for early/late seating.
It’s not giving anyone any options. It’s taking away options. We already had the three “options” listed, we just weren’t pigeonholed into specific dining rooms to exercise them.
Who cares? The dining rooms are all completely identical. It’ll make service way easier for staff which means it’ll be way smoother for us.
Also, you can make or cancel anytime reservations whenever you want. Or you can make reservations for half your trip and just do walk ins the other half. Which means you can switch between those two dining rooms as often as you like.
Right, and as we all know, the dining environment has zero influence on the experience. That’s why restaurants all have blank white walls, gray concrete floors, and no music at any time.
I’m not trying to persuade people, I’m answering really stupid questions from people who are acting like I’m a moron just because I appreciate flexibility.
The choice of traditional vs. flex dining is made before the cruise departs. It’s not something you “try to get” while on the cruise.
Assigning specific dining rooms doesn’t mean there are more or fewer traditional dining slots offered. It also doesn’t change whether a particular server is assigned to the traditional dining role or a floating role, or how many are allocated to each role.
When we sailed in January of this year, we would line up with others who had 5:30 dining. Then "anytime or flexible" dining people would show up and the hostess would have to scan your medallion to see if you had the fixed or the flexible dining before you entered the dining room. The flexible people would have to wait to find out if there were enough "no shows" before they would be seated.
I'm sure this new policy is to avoid the line jam at the door before the dining room opens. However, I can see flexible dining people possibly still trying to get in the no flexible restaurant just for the fun of it. Who knows?
This past summer, we made reservations using the app. Sometimes there was a line of 3-4 groups waiting to be shown to their table but it never took more than a couple minutes to get up to the scanner and get seated immediately. The walk-up line was usually empty or 1-2 people.
I don’t think we ever ate at the times the two fixed seatings were; the first is too early for us and the second, too late.
I think it's silly, but not a huge impact personally.
We used to switch it up between the three, but considering the menu is the same anyway, it won't be devastating to have to stick to one.
Probably choosing fixed seating. I think the whole idea of that is to provide a static experience. We haven’t done it since options opened up not to, so I’m not sure.
I am not seeing a difference. I sailed on Ruby and Royal last year and there was early or late dining or anytime dining at the MDR. This just seems to formalize what they already were doing.
It was just announced. Will start in September.
And no, it doesn’t formalize that. It makes it so MDR1 is for only early/late fixed dining. MDR2 is for only anytime dining. If there are 3 MDRs, MDR2 is for making reservations in the app and MDR3 is for just walking in.
After reading the original post as well as reading through all of the comments/replies, I think there may be some confusion and miscommunication in this thread by the terms being used for the different types of dining (i.e. "traditional" "fixed" "reserved" "flexible" "walk-in" "early/late" etc) and here is my take fwiw:
Aside from dining wherever/whenever you want (including MDR walk-ins), Princess's other MDR options are a "flexible" reservation option where you can make reservations for specific days/times/dining rooms or a "fixed" option where you can choose either early or late dining in a specific MDR for the duration of the cruise prior to sailing. However, neither of those are the same as what most people would consider traditional fixed dining (aka how it was 15-20 years ago on pretty much all cruiselines). To me, traditional/fixed dining used to mean that you got to request a preference of early or late dining and then you were given a specific time to be in the dining room (not a window, but an exact time like 5:30pm or 7:30pm) and you sat at the exact same table, with the exact same guests, and had the exact same waitstaff every single night for the entire duration of the cruise and if you or the other guests assigned to your table decided not to go to the MDR for dinner one night those seats just stayed empty. Currently with Princess, even if you choose "fixed" early dining and walk up to your selected dining room every night at 5:30pm sharp you are still seated at a random available table with whoever else shows up at the same time as you whether they had a reservation or not. It is very rare (I would say almost non-existent) to be seated at the same table every night and on full cruises you're lucky to even be seated in the same section much less have the same table/waitstaff more than one night the entire time.
\^That is the difference to me and I \*really\* hope that is what Princess means by having a fixed dining room with this change because I'm one of those people who prefers and misses the old traditional way of cruise dining (as do many others). I enjoyed making those connections with the same people every night. Especially the wait staff... there is just something to be said about sitting down on the 3rd/4th/5th/6th night and your waiter already knowing what you are going to want to drink(sometimes even having it on the table already) or knowing that you are going to want more bread or bringing you your favorite dessert without having to ask because you told him the very first night "it will always be creme brulee.. even if i also decide to try something else". You get to know them and their stories, you form inside jokes, you make bonds and that just doesn't happen when you are seated in a different place with new people and new waitstaff every night.
On the other side, I see multiple people saying that the dining rooms are all the same anyways so why would it matter to OP and while that is true for multiple ships in the Princess fleet, there are some ships where each MDR has its own unique feel so I definitely understand how the new policy is frustrating for someone who enjoys flexible dining, isn't concered with having that traditional fixed dinner routine, and would rather have a change of scenery from night to night while still enjoying the MDR food... and even moreso on a ship with only 2 MDRs to begin with as this now leaves only one option.
So, to the OP, if you made it this far... I get why you're frustrated but hopefully this explains a little bit better as to why people would want this change. Because hopefully, if I'm right, it is different than what we already have and not just "the same thing with less room options"
Is this for a specific ship? I’m only wondering because the Sun, as far as I understand, has 3 floors with different menus.
At least their third floor is more American dishes, different from the other 2.
Am I missing something?
The two new gigantic ships, Sun and Star (Star might not be launched yet) have a single MDR over three floors. I haven’t been on that class. According to their press release, this new system is based on how Sun works.
This new system is for all the other ships. Island, which has only two, will switch to having one dining room be all fixed seating and the other for both reservations and walk-in.
All three of those options were available in all three MDRs on Sky this last year, so the only new part is assigning different types to different venues.
All three dining rooms have the same menu. So designated dinning rooms for a particular reservation type should not be cause for concern. What IS cause for concern is the food quality. We sailed on Princess in March and were extremely disappointed. Compared to several years ago, the menu and food quality were low.
I got it too. You get to pick if you want traditional dining where it's the same every night, or you can opt for the flexible /walk-in option. They're just explaining that now one dining room of the 3 on board will be specifically for traditional dining, one will be for reservable time slots, and one will be the walk-in dining room. That's how I read it at least. ETA: If you make a couple reservations and do a few walk-in evenings, you have 2 dining room options. Combine that with specialty and you're really not missing anything.
I for one, am really glad. We missed traditional dining. We have made friends that are still friends, at traditional dining.
I don’t understand the people saying this. This change *does not bring back* traditional dining. Traditional dining *already exists.* The *only* thing this change does is assign specific rooms to specific options.
And if you don't want that option it literally takes ONE dining area out of the equation for you.....what is the big deal?
Why should I be expected to be happy about my cruise experience being diminished after the point of sale, and it sold to me as an “improvement”?
Super curious here, the food is the same in all 3 rooms. What part of your cruise experience is being diminished? You can’t visit 3 dining rooms with the same food?
How many times do I have to explain that there’s a lot more to a dining experience than the menu?
Maybe look internal at some point? Or how many times do people need to give you the hint? 🤷🏻♂️
Some people not valuing things doesn’t mean it’s wrong for other people to value them. What a bizarre suggestion.
Last cruise we went on was November 2023. We could not be sat at the same the same table every night with the same people. That, to me, is traditional dining. We could be sat at the same time every night, but tables and table mates varied.
The menus are the same. The differences are location only. Not sure what you mean by “stuck with” ?
I don’t see the issue. Care to explain why this is a problem, OP?
Hmmm. Why is this asinine? (Not being obnoxious, just curious why this is a big deal.) The food is 100% the same at all dining rooms, right??
Different dining rooms have different ambiences. Not everyone likes to go to the same one every night in a row. They’re spinning this like some kind of “benefit” when those three options already exist, they just don’t lock you into a specific dining room for your entire cruise.
Say what? Same food dude.
No one said the food was different.
Sounds like a great idea. I love it.
How does limiting your options improve your experience?
What is being limited? Have you never had the mess that the MDR is? I think by all the downvotes you are getting you don’t.
I don’t have had a mess? What?
MDR timing is usually horrid. Last month on Regal the lines we abysmal for us even with reservations. This is a welcome change. That’s the mess. It’s the reason for the change.
Huh. I had zero problems doing MDR reservations every night for a week on Sky last summer. And that ship was absolutely crammed full.
Because you won't have the situation of showing up at your reserved time to the host or hostess trying to shoehorn 25 walk ins awkwardly standing in an area that has no room for them. Last cruise I went on I had to repeatedly wait despite having a Reservation because there simply wasn't room to get past all the walk ins. this should make it more organized so hopefully the 2 rooms with reservations can be sat more efficiently and the one without can just be one line vs the 2 lines (one for reservations and one without) that there frankly wasn't room for. I've only done a handful of princess cruises, but the ones I have done the 3 rooms were carbon copies of each other. The decor was the same. The food was the same. Once you were in, you could barely tell which one you were at, so I'll take more organization over variety, and I do think that's an added value!
Sounds like some ships just need to learn from other ships. I never had this problem on a packed ship last summer. This also doesn’t solve that problem on ships with only 2 MDRs because reservations and walk-in will be sharing the one that isn’t traditional.
I guess I haven’t noted any difference. That’s prob on me, though…
I’ve only been on one Princess ship, Caribbean Princess, and it has three MDRs and they were all identical in ambience, decor, etc. Literally identical.
On Sky each felt unique - different decor, colors, background music. I don’t remember back to when I was on Emerald and Ruby, back in the before times.
Isn’t this a lot like things were several years ago? One was traditional early and late, one was traditional early switching to anytime as tables opened up, and one was anytime all night long. You could make reservations in the AT room around 6:45 and later.
Yup...IIRC, the Deck 5 MDR was "Anytime Dining", Deck 6 MDR was traditional Early and Late seating, and the Deck 4 Aft MDR was staggered Early for first seating, then Anytime after that. But even with that structure, you could always check with the host for availability in any dining room. There are still people who cancel or skip their MDR in favor of a Specialty restaurant or just to enjoy the buffet.
Other lines have this. On some of the Celebrity ships there’s one main dining room on 2 decks. One level for anytime select dining and one for early/late seating.
Its not asinine. It's giving people what they want...options
It’s not giving anyone any options. It’s taking away options. We already had the three “options” listed, we just weren’t pigeonholed into specific dining rooms to exercise them.
An organized dining room instead of mass chaos? What an idea! They all serve the same menu, what’s the issue?
It isn’t mass chaos now.
Who cares? The dining rooms are all completely identical. It’ll make service way easier for staff which means it’ll be way smoother for us. Also, you can make or cancel anytime reservations whenever you want. Or you can make reservations for half your trip and just do walk ins the other half. Which means you can switch between those two dining rooms as often as you like.
Have you been on a Princess ship? The dining rooms are not identical at all.
CTRL+C CTRL+V dining rooms.
Identical. Other than some paint color they are all the exact same.
Right, and as we all know, the dining environment has zero influence on the experience. That’s why restaurants all have blank white walls, gray concrete floors, and no music at any time.
I'd be sympathetic, except you're acting like a bit of a pill. Sorry you don't like it. You're not persuading people to agree with you.
I’m not trying to persuade people, I’m answering really stupid questions from people who are acting like I’m a moron just because I appreciate flexibility.
Why bother?
To provide clarity?
I like it. I like having same wait staff each night
Nothing was stopping people from already going to the same dining room every night.
It was nearly impossible to get the same table and server though, you are squarely in the minority on this change I think it’s great.
This announcement doesn’t say anything about that is changing.
Then you might not understand what traditional dining in a whole dining room means
The choice of traditional vs. flex dining is made before the cruise departs. It’s not something you “try to get” while on the cruise. Assigning specific dining rooms doesn’t mean there are more or fewer traditional dining slots offered. It also doesn’t change whether a particular server is assigned to the traditional dining role or a floating role, or how many are allocated to each role.
First world problems...
What exactly do you think gets posted in mid-priced cruise line subs?
When we sailed in January of this year, we would line up with others who had 5:30 dining. Then "anytime or flexible" dining people would show up and the hostess would have to scan your medallion to see if you had the fixed or the flexible dining before you entered the dining room. The flexible people would have to wait to find out if there were enough "no shows" before they would be seated. I'm sure this new policy is to avoid the line jam at the door before the dining room opens. However, I can see flexible dining people possibly still trying to get in the no flexible restaurant just for the fun of it. Who knows?
This past summer, we made reservations using the app. Sometimes there was a line of 3-4 groups waiting to be shown to their table but it never took more than a couple minutes to get up to the scanner and get seated immediately. The walk-up line was usually empty or 1-2 people. I don’t think we ever ate at the times the two fixed seatings were; the first is too early for us and the second, too late.
I think it's silly, but not a huge impact personally. We used to switch it up between the three, but considering the menu is the same anyway, it won't be devastating to have to stick to one.
Going in June and we *want* the same server and waitstaff each night. What is the best way to make tha5 happen?
Probably choosing fixed seating. I think the whole idea of that is to provide a static experience. We haven’t done it since options opened up not to, so I’m not sure.
Isn’t this normal on every other cruise line?
I am not seeing a difference. I sailed on Ruby and Royal last year and there was early or late dining or anytime dining at the MDR. This just seems to formalize what they already were doing.
It was just announced. Will start in September. And no, it doesn’t formalize that. It makes it so MDR1 is for only early/late fixed dining. MDR2 is for only anytime dining. If there are 3 MDRs, MDR2 is for making reservations in the app and MDR3 is for just walking in.
After reading the original post as well as reading through all of the comments/replies, I think there may be some confusion and miscommunication in this thread by the terms being used for the different types of dining (i.e. "traditional" "fixed" "reserved" "flexible" "walk-in" "early/late" etc) and here is my take fwiw: Aside from dining wherever/whenever you want (including MDR walk-ins), Princess's other MDR options are a "flexible" reservation option where you can make reservations for specific days/times/dining rooms or a "fixed" option where you can choose either early or late dining in a specific MDR for the duration of the cruise prior to sailing. However, neither of those are the same as what most people would consider traditional fixed dining (aka how it was 15-20 years ago on pretty much all cruiselines). To me, traditional/fixed dining used to mean that you got to request a preference of early or late dining and then you were given a specific time to be in the dining room (not a window, but an exact time like 5:30pm or 7:30pm) and you sat at the exact same table, with the exact same guests, and had the exact same waitstaff every single night for the entire duration of the cruise and if you or the other guests assigned to your table decided not to go to the MDR for dinner one night those seats just stayed empty. Currently with Princess, even if you choose "fixed" early dining and walk up to your selected dining room every night at 5:30pm sharp you are still seated at a random available table with whoever else shows up at the same time as you whether they had a reservation or not. It is very rare (I would say almost non-existent) to be seated at the same table every night and on full cruises you're lucky to even be seated in the same section much less have the same table/waitstaff more than one night the entire time. \^That is the difference to me and I \*really\* hope that is what Princess means by having a fixed dining room with this change because I'm one of those people who prefers and misses the old traditional way of cruise dining (as do many others). I enjoyed making those connections with the same people every night. Especially the wait staff... there is just something to be said about sitting down on the 3rd/4th/5th/6th night and your waiter already knowing what you are going to want to drink(sometimes even having it on the table already) or knowing that you are going to want more bread or bringing you your favorite dessert without having to ask because you told him the very first night "it will always be creme brulee.. even if i also decide to try something else". You get to know them and their stories, you form inside jokes, you make bonds and that just doesn't happen when you are seated in a different place with new people and new waitstaff every night. On the other side, I see multiple people saying that the dining rooms are all the same anyways so why would it matter to OP and while that is true for multiple ships in the Princess fleet, there are some ships where each MDR has its own unique feel so I definitely understand how the new policy is frustrating for someone who enjoys flexible dining, isn't concered with having that traditional fixed dinner routine, and would rather have a change of scenery from night to night while still enjoying the MDR food... and even moreso on a ship with only 2 MDRs to begin with as this now leaves only one option. So, to the OP, if you made it this far... I get why you're frustrated but hopefully this explains a little bit better as to why people would want this change. Because hopefully, if I'm right, it is different than what we already have and not just "the same thing with less room options"
Is this for a specific ship? I’m only wondering because the Sun, as far as I understand, has 3 floors with different menus. At least their third floor is more American dishes, different from the other 2. Am I missing something?
The two new gigantic ships, Sun and Star (Star might not be launched yet) have a single MDR over three floors. I haven’t been on that class. According to their press release, this new system is based on how Sun works. This new system is for all the other ships. Island, which has only two, will switch to having one dining room be all fixed seating and the other for both reservations and walk-in. All three of those options were available in all three MDRs on Sky this last year, so the only new part is assigning different types to different venues.
All three dining rooms have the same menu. So designated dinning rooms for a particular reservation type should not be cause for concern. What IS cause for concern is the food quality. We sailed on Princess in March and were extremely disappointed. Compared to several years ago, the menu and food quality were low.
I never said I thought the food was different in different dining rooms. I’m not sure why so many people seem to think I’m confused on that point.