My husband and 2 teenage daughters are booked on the Grand Princess this March. I'm confused about which type of dining to go for. If you pre-book for traditional, do you have to eat at your scheduled time in the traditional dining room each night, or can you choose, some nights, to go for Freestyle? Alternatively, is it better just to go for Freestyle and eat when we want, or will we be stuck standing in line waiting for a table? We don't care about who we're seated with or who is serving us. Our preference would be to eat at around 7 or 7:30, so freestyle sounds appealing.
I was also wondering about the food - is it the same in the traditional dining room as in the "no fee" freestyle dining rooms?
Finally, what happens on Formal nights if you are eating freestyle?
Any advise would be appreciated.

Book the traditional. You can then also go to Personal Choice (Freestyle is NCL) (you just show up at the dining room door and wait to be seated). I always go with a "traditional" but last Princess trip only ate in dining room with assigned seating twice, all the rest of the time I went to personal choice. Food is the same and there is usually not a long wait if you agree to be seated at any size table. I doubt I waited more than 5 minutes.

The menu in the main dining rooms is the same whether you choose traditional or personal choice. With personal choice, you still have the option of making a reservation for the following evening if you're concerned about having to wait. The dress code applies regardless of whether you're doing traditional or personal choice. Your other dining alternatives on board the Grand Princess would be the buffet, a southwestern, and an Italian restaurant (the latter two have an extra charge). To me it's a bit inconsiderate to book traditional, but then use the personal choice dining room since they will be holding your table every night in the traditional dining room. There's often a waitlist for traditional too.

We just returned Sunday from a cruise on the Grand, and we thought the food was the best we've ever had on a cruise.

There were 4 of us, we had "personal choice dining" as it's called on Princess, and you can't make reservations for only 4 people. We'd go to the dining room (usually about 7:00) and put our name in. We had to wait one night for about 20 minutes, but the rest of the evenings, the wait was only a few minutes. We'd go to DaVinci and put our name in, then go downstairs to the Michelangelo and do the same. Whichever restaurant called us first is the one we dined in. For some reason, the 5th floor dining room never had much of a wait.

We also ate once at the Mexican restaurant and enjoyed it. We made reservations one night at Sabatini's, the alternative, $20.per person Italian restaurant, but the maitre'd had such an attitude that we cancelled and went Mexican. Same thing happened last year on the Golden, only that time we had the dinner.

We all enjoyed the personal choice, especially if you prefer to have some flexibility with the times you dine. Enjoy your trip, it's a nice ship.

Ruth- I beg to differ with Unn..

We just got off the GOLDEN PRINCESS in DEC ...When we booked our cruise,traditonal dining was not available..We were apprehensive about personal choice..but once we tried it , we were HOOKED! IT is fantastic!

In addition, YOU CAN book a table for 4 on Personal Choice..as we did it for 7 nites of the cruise...

On the first nite, it was the hardest..When you get on the ship, call down to the Personal Choice dining room that you want to eat at..THAT nite is the longest wait for a table as everyone wants 8pm...

If you like your servers and tables, WRITE down the servers names and the table number..
THEN, the following morning, at 8am, call down to the dining room and request the SAME WAITER and TABLE..
You have to do this EVERDAY --and yes, you can get them...It was great!

WE also ate one nite in the Desert Rose, and 1 nite in Sabbatini's (not worth it, IMHO as the wait staff was awful)..But the SHIP was great, the food was fabulous, and the service was GREAT~~

I know you are going on the Grand, but the Golden is the sister ship and all I have said about the Golden is the same for the Grand...

Have a BLAST.>>> YOU will not be able to get 730pm ( we kept trying nightly and they also bumped us up to 8pm) but you should be able to get 7 pm..I think that they like to schedule people on the hour rather than the 1/2 hr...

ONLY difference from the traditional vs personal choice is there are no flaming baked alaskas or flambeeing tableside like in traditonal..but it is a smaller restaurant and actually feel more like a restaurant than a large ballroom..

We are hopeless CONVERTS to PERSONAL CHOICE...

And we are going on another cruise with the same couple that went on the Golden with us, and all of us have said that we really want personal choice, only we are going on Celebrity and they don't have that luxury!

FOOD is the SAME in both rooms!