My Time Dining? Chance Would Be A Fine Thing!

As some of you will know from my last blog myself and my husband Jamie have been looking forward to our cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of The Seas sailing The Emirates from Dubai.

I must say we had the most incredible time in Dubai and thought the City was really special the ship was also very impressive and over the coming weeks I’ll be sharing with you my thoughts about Dubai and The Vision of The Seas.

We did have one big issue on this ship which I wanted to tell you about; My time dining….

We have been fortunate enough to have been on many of the world’s finest ships and each time we have opted for the flexibility of my time dining…

For us we just felt it gave us more flexibility and could get ready for dinner without time pressure.

We have sailed on vessels carrying over 6,000 people and we have never needed to pre-book our dinning slot when we have had anytime dining. Usual practice is to turn up at the main dining room when you are ready to eat and the matre D usually sits you within 5 minutes’ maximum.

This was so far from the case on The Vision of The Seas.

We only manged to be seated in the main dining room twice during our seven-night cruise. We travelled as a family of four and wanted to be seated together.

We found this very strange and somewhat disappointing considering the windjammer cafe was also busy and they also had fine dining restaurants on board it did make us wonder how this ships main restaurant copes for dinner and why they insist on a fine dining option when clearly, they struggle to accommodate this request.

According to Royal Caribbean to dine with my time dining you must call the restaurant on the day of the booking to confirm what time you wish to dine.

One night we turned up at the restaurant and was given a buzzer that would advise us when our table was ready.

It was an anticipated 30-minute wait but in reality, it took over 45 minutes for our table and the buzzer wasn’t working so we had to keep checking the status of the table.

These situations have seriously made me think again about My time dining options and next time I cruise or recommend customers I would suggest a time slot for dinner if you want to guarantee yourself dinner in the main restaurant. Now it’s important to know this is different ship to ship and I’m sure on usual circumstances Matre D’s do their best to accommodate your dining requests but it was not my experience this time on board the Vision.

On the positive side, all food on board was exquisite.

Please let me know your thoughts on this issue and what ships have served you well with flexible or My Time dining options.

Stay Tuned on my blog for my review of The Vision of The Seas Coming Soon.