MTD on RCCL

[Casey & Kathy]

We have never done the my time dining and knowing the ship only allows about 140 Passengers to do it,Will I be making a mistake if I change to it? I know you have to prepay your gratuities but we are on a 14 night cruise and I am told that the MTD slots have been filling up fast.

[Dave]

Will I be making a mistake if I change to it?

Nobody can answer that question. If you change to it and like it, then you didn't make a mistake, and vice-versa. The more important question is, can you switch back to an assigned seating if you don't like My Time Dining.

[penny3333]

It depends on what your preference is. We prefer the anytime because you don't have to worry about being at your table at an assigned time. A lot of people do not like it because you don't get the same wait staff every evening, neither are you seated with the same tablemates every evening. We enjoy meeting others on board, so sharing a table with different people is a pleasant experience for us. Having a different wait staff does mean they don't get to know your preferences, but we have good fortune in having very attentive service. Maybe you should try it on a shorter itinerary to see if you enjoy it. We don't have the option available on our upcoming cruise, so we are stuck with traditional. Not that it's a bad thing, but we really do prefer to be able to select when we want to go to dinner.

[Hank]

We used to be very big fans of the traditonal 1st and 2nd seatings until we had a bad experience on a RCI ship(Adventure of the Seas). We always request a large table (because we love to meet new friends) and on that AOS cruise we got a table for 8. The 1st night we were the only 2 folks to show-up at the table. And, it was that way for the rest of the cruise as the other 6 (we never met any of them) must have eaten every meal at the buffet or Portofinos. The big loser was the waiter who got no tips for those missing 6. If you look in the dining rooms on most RCI ships, you will generally see quite a few empty seats for those that eat elsewhere. On other lines where they have long had Anytime dining schemes (such as Princess) we simply eat when we please and usually request a large table. The result is that every night we are at a full table, and often after a few days we start forming our own dinner groups from those we have met on previous nights. RCI is the last mass market cruise line to adopt an Anytime Dining program.

Hank