Fixed re Anytime Dining
 

I sailing on the Sea Princess in November. I currently have a fixed 2nd seating dining request but thinking would prefer Anytime. Once I am on the ship can I go to Anytime and book a table for 2 each night. At the moment the smallest tables Princess offer is for 4. I am happy to cancel my 2nd seating once on board and let someone on th waitlist have it. Or should I change my dining request now before I go.

thank you and happy cruising.

In respect to the many others who are very likely waitlisted for Traditional Dining it would be courteous to cancel now.

If you want a table for 2 the only way to make sure that happens is to do Anytime.

Hi Morton,
We sailed on the Caribbean Princess on June 17th. You can read my review here on Fodors or on my website. We booked our cruise the week before sailing and the fixed dining wasn't available. Immediately after finishing our embarkation buffet The Crabby Old Guy went to speak to the Maitre De about our dining arrangements. We were surprisingly pleased that he was so accommodating. We asked for a table for two each evening at 7:30 and he agreed. Each evening we had the same table and waiter. His one request was that we notify him in advance on days we weren't planning to eat in the "anytime" dining room in order for them to use that table for other guests. Two evenings we had dinner at the specialty restaurants and notified him. For us this dining arrangement worked out great. Hope you have blue skies and calm seas.

Stay Savvy!
Hugs,
The Savvy Old Lady
www.thesavvyoldlady.com

we had anytime last cruise and it was easy to get a table for 2. next cruise it will be 7 of us. my question is will it be easy to get a table every night with Anytime for 7? or would it be better to do fixed? thanks in advance for your replys!

It shouldn't be any more difficult to get a standing reservation for 7 than it is to get one for 2 people. It might even be easier since there are generally more large tables in the dining rooms than tables-for-2.

Linda Coffman
Author, Fodor's The Complete Guide to Caribbean Cruises

From my experience on the Golden Princess June 2006, when we showed up at the dining room, if they didn't have a table ready for us they gave us a pager. We could walk around or go for a drink while waiting, it never took very long to be paged; usually from 10 to 20 minutes.

This formula worked very well for us as I believe we are on tight schedules every day and a vacation should not be that way. A little wait for dinner is better than having to rush to be ready for dinner at a fixed hour every day...

We were on the DIAMOND Princess in September and loved the anytime dining option. We had a choice of 4 dining rooms but ended up in same room, same waiter for 6 of the 7 nights. We didn't make any reservation, just walked in about 5:30 and had our pick. We ended up with same nice table for 2 for 4 nights. We met another couple at the ship and decided to have dinner together, walked in and had table for 4, same waiter.

On the last night, we finally made a reservation but decided to change the time last minute. Called from the cabin at about 3:30, changed our reservation time with no problem, ended up with same table and same waiter.

We had wine with dinner and they kept the bottle for the next day. Other than the standard "tip" they charge daily, we tipped the head waiter and the busboy separately earlier on, maybe that made the difference. ;-)