I like to take my time to enjoy my meal. I think 45 minutes is not enough time to eat. Disney Cruise line has assigned 2 dining times, 5:45pm and 8:15pm and I always get the second dining time. They also correspond their shows to with their dining times. So, while the first diners are eating, the cruisers with the second dinner time are watching the show and vice versa! To me that works out perfectly!
We always enjoy the down time of dinner in the dining room. A good hour or so just allows us to talk about our day and give thought to the day’s activities.
Make no more changes to the dining experience. It's vacation, take your sweet time. Carnival has taken away the tablecloths, paper menus and several items that were standard on the menu that includes Specialty restaurants not to mention no more late night pizza. The cutbacks with them never seems to end.
The first thing we tell our waiter is that we are NOT in a hurry. We enjoy not being rushed at dinner. 90 minutes seems to be a perfect amount of time for us to enjoy dinner .
Having recently cruised on Royal Caribbean 10 times in the last 6 months I can say that 60 to 80 minutes is the sweet spot for us. We are going on Allure of the Seas in early January and vloging about the food service not only about the length but also how to eat on the healthy side compared to the typical eating experience. Should be interesting! Thanks JJ and happy holidays to everyone!
YES please, order in advance, 45 minutes in and out sounds great. We chat all day and don't really need more than 45 minutes of eating and chatting. I do have family and friends that view dinner as an event and want to hang out for a couple of hours, they drive me crazy. There are so many other things to do on a cruise.
This might just be me, but my feeling is if you don't have the time to come and have a leisurely meal, maybe you need to look into doing the buffet tonight or a quick-service casual. There definitely are nights I just want a burger and to go lounge somewhere, but that's not the MDR staff's responsibility to accommodate my mood.
We almost exclusively cruise on Royal Caribbean. We usually choose early dining (5:00 PM) and generally we find we get out of the dining room by and 6:30. On our recent cruise on the Icon of the Seas, we were out of the dining room between 6:00 and 6:15. 60 to 75 minutes for dinner would be ideal. Ordering ahead wouldn't help as we often have special requests.
Believe it or not, our worst experience was on Oceania Regatta, where we sat for 20 minutes before a server came to take our drink orders and 45 minutes to get our drinks. We ended up leaving after getting our drinks without even ordering dinner.
We cruise Princess and completely stopped going because we hate the slow pace. We eat early, fast and go on to our activities. On Sun Princess they had the American Diner which was a fast and delicious sit down meal. If we could preorder, we would go back to the dining room.
90 mins is the max. Recently on MSC during breakfast, I don't know what happened, but they forgot me, so I got up and was proceeding to walk out when the manager on duty asked what the issue was and begged for me to come back.
For just a straight 3-course dinner with no entertainment/show in the MDR, I think 60-75 minutes is a good length of time, and anything more than 90 minutes is too long. (Now, if you're deliberately savoring your meal and taking your time and socializing, etc., then that's a different story, of course, but at the same time you shouldn't be closing down the place each night. There are bars, lounges, etc., that you can continue your socializing in for the night instead of holding up your table for hours.)
I do not want to spend more than an hour and 15 minutes in the dining room. Happy holidays. 2025 will be the year that you guys hit 100K subscribers. I can feel it!!!!🎉❤🎊
I don't know what I feel like to eat, till I sit down & peruse the paper menu. Waiting for your meal gives one time to chat & I'm not rushing my chewing for no one. I eat slow, I'm not a vacuum cleaner. I like to chat & take my time over dinner, not wolf it down
It helps a great deal to speed up the main dinning process by knowing / placing your order when you 1st sit down, and saying you need to try and be in and out within about an hour.
90 min for most of our meals. We consider dining an experience not to be rushed and also eat more slowly when on vacation. We would definitely do the order ahead of possible and could eat in 60-75 min if that were the case.
I would think that if someone is in a hurry they could grab a bite at the buffet. An alternative could be an all in one service like provided in Business class on airlines, known as express service. I suppose you could always ask your server to bring your app, salad and entree all in one shot. Myself I’m in no hurry as long as the wait between courses isn’t unreasonable. I think the MDR experience should always be grand and luxurious.
We’ve been cruising on RC exclusively for the last 20 years. One of the things we enjoyed before Covid was being sat at a large table and getting to know other people. In that case, we were ok with 1 1/2 - 2 hours. But since we’re sat alone, just the three of us now, that is WAY too long. We look at the menus and decide what we want prior to entering the MDR. If we could pre-place orders, we would in a heartbeat. We spend 90% of our day together, so no need to catch up. I think 45 mins would be PERFECT. That would mean we weren’t waiting 15-20 minutes between courses! I can’t tell you how many shows we miss because it takes too long in the MDR! Even after telling the waiter we have a show! That’s so frustrating! You can’t just walk into a show 5 mins before it starts anymore. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have to eat in the buffett if I want to see a show! 😡
I get the anytime dining because it is better to time yourself for the shows because going to a 6pm dining and being there till 8pm is not something I enjoy but there probably is people who want the 2 hour dining experience.
We always go to the buffet. The MDR is much too slow especially if you are stuck sharing a table with other people who order multiple courses. The waiters make you wait for your entree while the other people are still working on appetizers.
I think 45 min is an interesting OPTION. If someone wants to eat in the MDR but has plans like a show, this sounds great - but only if this is something a person can choose and not forced on them.
we love the sit down dinners in dining room. 1 to 1/2 hours is good. after that it is too long for comfort. we have been on disney, carnival, royal, and princess. only one tooooo long was the inaugural of carnival panorama. but, that is expected on first sailing until kinks are out. we did panorama this august with 16 family members and it was fantastic...
My family’s FAVORITE part of our Royal Caribbean Cruise last summer was the MAIN DINING Room …yea that’s right. We all looked forward to meeting up “later tonight at dinner” while goofing around all day doing whatever we all wanted to during the day. So what ever RC is currently doing as far as time goes for the Main dining is perfect IMO. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
I don’t mind the wait time in Carnival’s MDR. My husband, on the other hand, has issues with the wait time. He doesn’t like waiting more than 15-20 minutes for our food.
We prefer to go over the menu after being seated. We compare notes and see what sounds good and what we can share. If we are getting a full meal - appetizer, salad, main course, dessert - we like to spend 90+ minutes to enjoy the experience.
On Princess, the app has a dining preferences page where you can mark slow, medium, or fast. I travel solo and mark fast. I am not concerned so much with the number of minutes but with the amount of time between courses. Eating alone, I like the appetizer to come shortly after I order and for each successive course to come shortly after I've finished the one before. I may linger over dishes, but I generally don't want to wait long from one to the next. I do expect a specialty restaurant meal to take longer and budget my time accordingly. And if I'm eating in the buffet I may deliberately read a chapter of my book between courses.
As a solo cruiser I always opt for a shared table if available. It gives me a chance to meet others onboard and I prefer for the dinner service to not be rushed. It is often my evenings "main event". Perhaps they could have a set dining time for those in a hurry with express service including pre-ordering before you arrive. Personally, I am on vacation and have no reason to hurry anywhere at dinner time. I may be the odd man out on this subject as I also like to dress a little nicer for dinner at the MDR.
We sail on the Enchanted Princess the full month of February this year. The first of the three voyages, we had a great team serving us dinner, every night at the same table and time. We asked to be placed in the same area for round two. (This was our 30th cruise with Princess.) We lasted two nights and then told the head waiter we’d be dining elsewhere for the rest of that voyage. It was the slowest, the staff didn’t speak English and got orders wrong throughout the full meal. We were traveling the first two voyages with another couple and they agreed. The third round had us by ourselves. We found out that our favorite waiter had been promoted to one of the specialty restaurants. So, we visited him there three times! It was well worth the extra dollars to do so. On other nights, we went to the anytime dining room and got seated right away. It was ok, but we’d been spoiled! We will be on a different ship soon so we will be at the starting point once again. . .
Between 75 and 90 minutes. Big salads, fettuccine, and onion soup take longer to eat than a shrimp cocktail with 5 small shrimp. So, time needed depends on the appetizers.
To me, 1 - 2 hrs is fine for me. If I know there is another event we would like to attend that may interfere with a long dinner, then we would opt for buffet or some other shorter time option for dinner.
On our last cruise, there were people sitting before us and we got our food first and I can see they were getting frustrated so I went up the the waiter and asked why their food was taking so long. Their food finally came and they ended up not eatting and walked out cuz the food took so long (Carnival miracle)
An hour would be perfect but I would go with 45 mins.- 75 mins. Like you two, we usually decide what to order prior to going to the dining room as it does save a lot of time.
Happy holidays to you both! I love the idea of preordering food, but yes the time limit would be better at 60-75 minutes. Some tables the turnover will be faster and this will offset those on the longer end. This time limit can come in handy too as sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’ll be out in time for a post dinner activity. Buffets gross me out, so having meals there to be faster is not an option for me. Your video about the lady licking BBQ off her fingers then touching the serving tongs comes to mind just thinking about why I find buffets gross. 🤣
45 minutes is too tight if you are enjoying the multiple courses, especially desert course with an after dinner coffee. We are Platinum on Carnival and can say they seem to have actually gotten a little slower with MDR service , don’t see them pulling off 45 minutes with all courses offered.
We haven’t set foot in a MDR on any line since 2015. The long waits along with the menu cutbacks make it a total waste of time. We do a lot of specialty and of course lido or on carnival guys is usually open til 6.
We enjoy our dining time and have never worried about how long it takes. Of course, we would be annoyed if we didn't always have a drink iin front of us duriing that wait. Our group has cruises together for several years now, and we are never in a rush to do anything after dinner. We enjoy the slow pace and haviing time between courses so we don't feel rushed or stuffed.
It really depends on the size of the group you're dining with. However, I believe believe at least 90 minutes is good. I don't want to feel rushed on vacation.
90 minutes max in the dining room. How about 2 designated DRs, one for order ahead service with shorter dining time (an hour maybe) and one for those who want to sit and order off the menu. We are loyal to Royal and haven't had any issues, for the most part, with the dining room service. Great question!!!
1-1/2 hours unless you’re doing some type of “experience” like 360 or a chef’s table. I don’t want to wait all evening for dinner, but I do not want to feel pressured to gobble it down and be kicked out.
I'm with you Jordan, I think 75 mins is a reasonable time frame for dinner. I personally don't like to loiter at a dinner table and would rather move to a more comfortable location to continue chatting or whatever with my group.
the pre order and 45 minutes is only good if you are served your meal immediately. Then it's 40 minutes or so to eat, talk, have a drink.. that kind of stuff. I don't see this as a cutback, I see this as staff not having to work until 3 am with the cleaning of the dining room (especially the dishes).
I don’t like having a limit. I’ve been on nine cruises some of them so some not. Four different lines, Carnival, Princess, Holland and NCL. Service was not slow on any of them. They all do the same thing they come up and ask for your entire order from appetizer through dessert. Doesn’t make a difference if I was Danny solo or with other others. 45 minutes is too short of a period of time. Possibly they should do a test half the dining room is 45 minutes and the other is at the diners leisure? I sometimes look at the menu in advance of getting to the dining room.
We can usually get in and out within an hour and that’s about what we prefer most nights. My car Royal Caribbean has the worst dining room experience overall.
1 to 1/2 hours is enough for me. On my last cruise , I sat for a good 30-45 minutes for my first appetizer to arrive. The whole experience took 2 1/2 hours. A little too long for a solo cruiser, in my opinion.
You know what doesn’t make sense ??? Most of the food in main dining rooms is “banquet style”. Cold dishes are preplated for wait staff to grab and go. And many entrees are off a steam table. The only way I can see carnival doing this is to reduce waste by knowing entrees in advance.
I would say 1 hour, 45 minutes would do but I would not be able to enjoy desert with a cup of coffee and chat with friends...Never had a bad dinning situation. LOVE your vids!
Seems like it takes a hour for all the different courses of the meal to come out. We have barely had time to get to a show. Seems like Carnival can serve faster and if people eat and chat slowly, thats not on Carnival. But dont put time limits on it. People dont want to feel rushed on vacation.
I would love to be in and out of the dining room in 1 hour. Honestly, the menus in the MDR are not exciting enough that they should be treated like a special event. Now, if I'm dining in a high-end specialty restaurant, that's a different story and I'm fine with dinner taking longer because this is "dining" not "eating." I've only sailed on RC so far, so I can't compare dining experiences. I rarely eat in the MDR because I buy specialty dinner packages, however, things will be different on my 6 day cruise with RC in Feb because I was so disappointed in many of the specialty restaurants on my last cruise that I'm going to try cruising using all the free venues and seeing if there's that much of a difference. Great content. Happy Holidays to both of you.
I agree with both of you. I think an hour and 15 minutes is fine and enough time to spend in the dining room. Any more than that is a waste of time, and I would be concerned that I would miss any type of show or entertainment that I want to see.
Good video! I would prefer a maximum dining time of 1.5 hours. I've been in situations where it took 2 hours, which is ridiculous because if you have a show to watch afterward, you might miss it. Your video reminded me of when I went to a specialty restaurant on Celebrity Cruises, Le Petit Chef. The experience was amazing, but the whole dinner lasted over 2 hours because they had to wait until every table finished their dish before playing the next animated show. It was disappointing. For example, you'd get your appetizer and then wait 45 minutes for the entrée, followed by another 30 minutes for dessert. Anyways, it would be nice to pre-book your meals beforehand at the main dining room to save time.
Seems the whole world these days want things done online. I personally would not want to order in a app. It takes away from the personalization you get from the wait staff. I always tip extra for those experiences as well. I think probably 60-90 minutes is standard for main dining.
45 minutes is doable with only 1 or 2 ppl. 2 -6 is gonna take minimum an hour 15. More than 6 will be 90minutes minimum. 45 minutes a bit rushed with more than 2 ppl. Pre/ordering might work for 2 providing everyone is one time. Question would the food be hot 🤔? Folks gotta be on time and slow kitchen makes a difference.
1 1/2 max..have had good and bad service..not unique I feel to a particular ship. There are good wait teams and not so good. Last cruise we enjoyed folks at our table so not a big deal. But indeed skipped dessert most nights because slow service. We opted to just do buffet when we knew we wanted to get out at a specific time.
I don't mind the 75 minute time for a nice dinner. I have experienced 2 hour dinners on several Celebrity cruises and really think this way to long. 75 -90 minutes should be the maximum.
a gratuity is defined - something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service. Everyone knows that if it is not given voluntarily... it's a service fee. I believe that all cruise lines should get rid of the gratuity and pay their employees more...and put it in the cost of the cruise. The whole gratuity thing is really getting tired. All-inclusive resorts have been doing this for years...and so has Virgin. Make cruises all-inclusive... I'll take that cruise.
I say an hour, maybe 1.5.....but thats only if im getting my food in a timely manner, and actually have a drink. Half the time my drink wont come till halfway througgh.😮
I like to take my time to enjoy my meal. I think 45 minutes is not enough time to eat. Disney Cruise line has assigned 2 dining times, 5:45pm and 8:15pm and I always get the second dining time. They also correspond their shows to with their dining times. So, while the first diners are eating, the cruisers with the second dinner time are watching the show and vice versa! To me that works out perfectly!
If they are mandatory, they are not gratuities, they are service fees.
45-60 minutes is too short for us. I hate feeling rushed. 1-1/2 hrs is what we prefer.
No more than 1 1/2 hours for dinner. The bar service is usually the biggest hold up.
I always grab a fresh cocktail before dinner as the bar service in the MDR is never great.
I agree
We always enjoy the down time of dinner in the dining room. A good hour or so just allows us to talk about our day and give thought to the day’s activities.
Wishing you both a very merry Christmas and a Happy & Safe New Year 🥰
75-90 minutes is the sweet spot I believe. However if there was an option to order ahead would be a great option.
Make no more changes to the dining experience. It's vacation, take your sweet time.
Carnival has taken away the tablecloths, paper menus and several items that were standard on the menu that includes Specialty restaurants not to mention no more late night pizza.
The cutbacks with them never seems to end.
The first thing we tell our waiter is that we are NOT in a hurry. We enjoy not being rushed at dinner. 90 minutes seems to be a perfect amount of time for us to enjoy dinner .
75 minutes is perfect. I agree 100%. A couple of sailings it's been 2:15. This was on Celebrity.
90 minutes seems good for me. Carnivals dining room always feels chaotic to me
Having recently cruised on Royal Caribbean 10 times in the last 6 months I can say that 60 to 80 minutes is the sweet spot for us. We are going on Allure of the Seas in early January and vloging about the food service not only about the length but also how to eat on the healthy side compared to the typical eating experience. Should be interesting! Thanks JJ and happy holidays to everyone!
YES please, order in advance, 45 minutes in and out sounds great. We chat all day and don't really need more than 45 minutes of eating and chatting. I do have family and friends that view dinner as an event and want to hang out for a couple of hours, they drive me crazy. There are so many other things to do on a cruise.
This might just be me, but my feeling is if you don't have the time to come and have a leisurely meal, maybe you need to look into doing the buffet tonight or a quick-service casual. There definitely are nights I just want a burger and to go lounge somewhere, but that's not the MDR staff's responsibility to accommodate my mood.
We love you guys!!! Happy holidays!!!
We almost exclusively cruise on Royal Caribbean. We usually choose early dining (5:00 PM) and generally we find we get out of the dining room by and 6:30. On our recent cruise on the Icon of the Seas, we were out of the dining room between 6:00 and 6:15. 60 to 75 minutes for dinner would be ideal. Ordering ahead wouldn't help as we often have special requests.
90 minutes is perfect! RC's service is way too slow.
Believe it or not, our worst experience was on Oceania Regatta, where we sat for 20 minutes before a server came to take our drink orders and 45 minutes to get our drinks. We ended up leaving after getting our drinks without even ordering dinner.
We cruise Princess and completely stopped going because we hate the slow pace. We eat early, fast and go on to our activities. On Sun Princess they had the American Diner which was a fast and delicious sit down meal. If we could preorder, we would go back to the dining room.
90 mins is the max. Recently on MSC during breakfast, I don't know what happened, but they forgot me, so I got up and was proceeding to walk out when the manager on duty asked what the issue was and begged for me to come back.
For just a straight 3-course dinner with no entertainment/show in the MDR, I think 60-75 minutes is a good length of time, and anything more than 90 minutes is too long. (Now, if you're deliberately savoring your meal and taking your time and socializing, etc., then that's a different story, of course, but at the same time you shouldn't be closing down the place each night. There are bars, lounges, etc., that you can continue your socializing in for the night instead of holding up your table for hours.)
I do not want to spend more than an hour and 15 minutes in the dining room. Happy holidays. 2025 will be the year that you guys hit 100K subscribers. I can feel it!!!!🎉❤🎊
I don't know what I feel like to eat, till I sit down & peruse the paper menu. Waiting for your meal gives one time to chat & I'm not rushing my chewing for no one. I eat slow, I'm not a vacuum cleaner. I like to chat & take my time over dinner, not wolf it down
1 hour is perfect.
I agree with 75 minutes. We always check out the menu before we go and order right away.
45 min is too short. Max 90 minutes. Really depends on the speed of food prep and service.
It helps a great deal to speed up the main dinning process by knowing / placing your order when you 1st sit down, and saying you need to try and be in and out within about an hour.
90 min for most of our meals. We consider dining an experience not to be rushed and also eat more slowly when on vacation. We would definitely do the order ahead of possible and could eat in 60-75 min if that were the case.
The perfect amount of time for dinner on a cruise ship in the main dining room should be between 1 hour and an hour and a half Max
I would think that if someone is in a hurry they could grab a bite at the buffet. An alternative could be an all in one service like provided in Business class on airlines, known as express service. I suppose you could always ask your server to bring your app, salad and entree all in one shot. Myself I’m in no hurry as long as the wait between courses isn’t unreasonable. I think the MDR experience should always be grand and luxurious.
Yes,yes,yes!coffee machines! A good meal takes time, but don't do 2 hours for dinner. The buffet is for quick dinners. 😊😊
We’ve been cruising on RC exclusively for the last 20 years. One of the things we enjoyed before Covid was being sat at a large table and getting to know other people. In that case, we were ok with 1 1/2 - 2 hours. But since we’re sat alone, just the three of us now, that is WAY too long.
We look at the menus and decide what we want prior to entering the MDR. If we could pre-place orders, we would in a heartbeat. We spend 90% of our day together, so no need to catch up. I think 45 mins would be PERFECT. That would mean we weren’t waiting 15-20 minutes between courses!
I can’t tell you how many shows we miss because it takes too long in the MDR! Even after telling the waiter we have a show! That’s so frustrating! You can’t just walk into a show 5 mins before it starts anymore. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have to eat in the buffett if I want to see a show! 😡
I get the anytime dining because it is better to time yourself for the shows because going to a 6pm dining and being there till 8pm is not something I enjoy but there probably is people who want the 2 hour dining experience.
75 minutes is good for us!
And safe travels ALWAYS!!!
I think having your dinner pre-order is the key. When I'm seated and my dinner is already being served 45 minutes is enough for me. 6:53
I enjoy the entire dinner service
We always go to the buffet. The MDR is much too slow especially if you are stuck sharing a table with other people who order multiple courses. The waiters make you wait for your entree while the other people are still working on appetizers.
I think 45 min is an interesting OPTION. If someone wants to eat in the MDR but has plans like a show, this sounds great - but only if this is something a person can choose and not forced on them.
We always get the early time dining and in order to get to most shows we need to be out in one hour.
we love the sit down dinners in dining room. 1 to 1/2 hours is good. after that it is too long for comfort. we have been on disney, carnival, royal, and princess. only one tooooo long was the inaugural of carnival panorama. but, that is expected on first sailing until kinks are out. we did panorama this august with 16 family members and it was fantastic...
My family’s FAVORITE part of our Royal Caribbean Cruise last summer was the MAIN DINING Room …yea that’s right. We all looked forward to meeting up “later tonight at dinner” while goofing around all day doing whatever we all wanted to during the day. So what ever RC is currently doing as far as time goes for the Main dining is perfect IMO. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
I don’t mind the wait time in Carnival’s MDR. My husband, on the other hand, has issues with the wait time. He doesn’t like waiting more than 15-20 minutes for our food.
We prefer to go over the menu after being seated. We compare notes and see what sounds good and what we can share. If we are getting a full meal - appetizer, salad, main course, dessert - we like to spend 90+ minutes to enjoy the experience.
On Princess, the app has a dining preferences page where you can mark slow, medium, or fast. I travel solo and mark fast. I am not concerned so much with the number of minutes but with the amount of time between courses. Eating alone, I like the appetizer to come shortly after I order and for each successive course to come shortly after I've finished the one before. I may linger over dishes, but I generally don't want to wait long from one to the next. I do expect a specialty restaurant meal to take longer and budget my time accordingly. And if I'm eating in the buffet I may deliberately read a chapter of my book between courses.
As a solo cruiser I always opt for a shared table if available. It gives me a chance to meet others onboard and I prefer for the dinner service to not be rushed. It is often my evenings "main event". Perhaps they could have a set dining time for those in a hurry with express service including pre-ordering before you arrive. Personally, I am on vacation and have no reason to hurry anywhere at dinner time. I may be the odd man out on this subject as I also like to dress a little nicer for dinner at the MDR.
75-90 minutes is good for an MDR meal. Longer for formal nights. Those in a rush, eat fast and tell waiter you’d like them to expedite
We sail on the Enchanted Princess the full month of February this year. The first of the three voyages, we had a great team serving us dinner, every night at the same table and time. We asked to be placed in the same area for round two. (This was our 30th cruise with Princess.) We lasted two nights and then told the head waiter we’d be dining elsewhere for the rest of that voyage. It was the slowest, the staff didn’t speak English and got orders wrong throughout the full meal. We were traveling the first two voyages with another couple and they agreed. The third round had us by ourselves. We found out that our favorite waiter had been promoted to one of the specialty restaurants. So, we visited him there three times! It was well worth the extra dollars to do so. On other nights, we went to the anytime dining room and got seated right away. It was ok, but we’d been spoiled! We will be on a different ship soon so we will be at the starting point once again. . .
an hour and a half is about correct
Between 75 and 90 minutes. Big salads, fettuccine, and onion soup take longer to eat than a shrimp cocktail with 5 small shrimp. So, time needed depends on the appetizers.
To me, 1 - 2 hrs is fine for me. If I know there is another event we would like to attend that may interfere with a long dinner, then we would opt for buffet or some other shorter time option for dinner.
On our last cruise, there were people sitting before us and we got our food first and I can see they were getting frustrated so I went up the the waiter and asked why their food was taking so long. Their food finally came and they ended up not eatting and walked out cuz the food took so long (Carnival miracle)
An hour would be perfect but I would go with 45 mins.- 75 mins. Like you two, we usually decide what to order prior to going to the dining room as it does save a lot of time.
Happy holidays to you both! I love the idea of preordering food, but yes the time limit would be better at 60-75 minutes. Some tables the turnover will be faster and this will offset those on the longer end. This time limit can come in handy too as sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’ll be out in time for a post dinner activity. Buffets gross me out, so having meals there to be faster is not an option for me. Your video about the lady licking BBQ off her fingers then touching the serving tongs comes to mind just thinking about why I find buffets gross. 🤣
45 minutes is too tight if you are enjoying the multiple courses, especially desert course with an after dinner coffee. We are Platinum on Carnival and can say they seem to have actually gotten a little slower with MDR service , don’t see them pulling off 45 minutes with all courses offered.
Hi, JJCruise ❤. I think an hour is enough time. I've been on Carnival and thank goodness, we didn't have to wait long for dinner in the MDR.
We haven’t set foot in a MDR on any line since 2015. The long waits along with the menu cutbacks make it a total waste of time. We do a lot of specialty and of course lido or on carnival guys is usually open til 6.
We enjoy our dining time and have never worried about how long it takes. Of course, we would be annoyed if we didn't always have a drink iin front of us duriing that wait. Our group has cruises together for several years now, and we are never in a rush to do anything after dinner. We enjoy the slow pace and haviing time between courses so we don't feel rushed or stuffed.
Wow we love a nice long dinner it’s part of vacation if you don’t go to the buffet
It really depends on the size of the group you're dining with. However, I believe believe at least 90 minutes is good. I don't want to feel rushed on vacation.
90 minutes max in the dining room. How about 2 designated DRs, one for order ahead service with shorter dining time (an hour maybe) and one for those who want to sit and order off the menu. We are loyal to Royal and haven't had any issues, for the most part, with the dining room service. Great question!!!
1-1/2 hours unless you’re doing some type of “experience” like 360 or a chef’s table. I don’t want to wait all evening for dinner, but I do not want to feel pressured to gobble it down and be kicked out.
1 hour is perfect, for the most part we know what we want to order ahead of time.
I'm with you Jordan, I think 75 mins is a reasonable time frame for dinner. I personally don't like to loiter at a dinner table and would rather move to a more comfortable location to continue chatting or whatever with my group.
Worst service in a dining room this year of 7 different cruises has been Carnival Splendor. Absolutely shocking every night.
1 1/2 hrs is plenty.
NO more than 2 hours for dinner, if you sit with a larger table they bring everything at the same time. The bar slow the service down.
the pre order and 45 minutes is only good if you are served your meal immediately. Then it's 40 minutes or so to eat, talk, have a drink.. that kind of stuff. I don't see this as a cutback, I see this as staff not having to work until 3 am with the cleaning of the dining room (especially the dishes).
An hour to 75 minutes is what I like. And I need quicker I wi)l let the wait staff know and they do their best to accommodate.
An hour is good. The ability to preorder and pick up your meal would be even better.
I don’t like having a limit. I’ve been on nine cruises some of them so some not. Four different lines, Carnival, Princess, Holland and NCL. Service was not slow on any of them. They all do the same thing they come up and ask for your entire order from appetizer through dessert. Doesn’t make a difference if I was Danny solo or with other others. 45 minutes is too short of a period of time. Possibly they should do a test half the dining room is 45 minutes and the other is at the diners leisure? I sometimes look at the menu in advance of getting to the dining room.
Why not have two sections in the MDR?
One where you are in and out in 45 minutes and one section where dining is more leisurely?
We can usually get in and out within an hour and that’s about what we prefer most nights. My car Royal Caribbean has the worst dining room experience overall.
Order in advance. Then in and out in 45 minutes? SCORE!!! That's a dream come true!
1 to 1/2 hours is enough for me. On my last cruise , I sat for a good 30-45 minutes for my first appetizer to arrive. The whole experience took 2 1/2 hours. A little too long for a solo cruiser, in my opinion.
You know what doesn’t make sense ??? Most of the food in main dining rooms is “banquet style”. Cold dishes are preplated for wait staff to grab and go. And many entrees are off a steam table. The only way I can see carnival doing this is to reduce waste by knowing entrees in advance.
90 minutes is perfect, no longer
I would say 1 hour, 45 minutes would do but I would not be able to enjoy desert with a cup of coffee and chat with friends...Never had a bad dinning situation. LOVE your vids!
Love my Level 8!
Seems like it takes a hour for all the different courses of the meal to come out. We have barely had time to get to a show. Seems like Carnival can serve faster and if people eat and chat slowly, thats not on Carnival. But dont put time limits on it. People dont want to feel rushed on vacation.
For me, an hour is perfect
60 minutes is perfect. I don’t want to just sit there. I am like you, check the menu before going in.
1 hour is fine if we can order drink and meal as soon as waiter comes to your table.
I agree…… 75 mins is plenty
75 minutes, I guess you do not want dessert on Norweigan
I would love to be in and out of the dining room in 1 hour. Honestly, the menus in the MDR are not exciting enough that they should be treated like a special event. Now, if I'm dining in a high-end specialty restaurant, that's a different story and I'm fine with dinner taking longer because this is "dining" not "eating." I've only sailed on RC so far, so I can't compare dining experiences. I rarely eat in the MDR because I buy specialty dinner packages, however, things will be different on my 6 day cruise with RC in Feb because I was so disappointed in many of the specialty restaurants on my last cruise that I'm going to try cruising using all the free venues and seeing if there's that much of a difference. Great content. Happy Holidays to both of you.
I agree with both of you. I think an hour and 15 minutes is fine and enough time to spend in the dining room. Any more than that is a waste of time, and I would be concerned that I would miss any type of show or entertainment that I want to see.
Good video! I would prefer a maximum dining time of 1.5 hours. I've been in situations where it took 2 hours, which is ridiculous because if you have a show to watch afterward, you might miss it. Your video reminded me of when I went to a specialty restaurant on Celebrity Cruises, Le Petit Chef. The experience was amazing, but the whole dinner lasted over 2 hours because they had to wait until every table finished their dish before playing the next animated show. It was disappointing. For example, you'd get your appetizer and then wait 45 minutes for the entrée, followed by another 30 minutes for dessert. Anyways, it would be nice to pre-book your meals beforehand at the main dining room to save time.
Seems the whole world these days want things done online. I personally would not want to order in a app. It takes away from the personalization you get from the wait staff. I always tip extra for those experiences as well. I think probably 60-90 minutes is standard for main dining.
Too short!!!! I eat very slowly. Another reason we Xed Carnival years ago. Not going to any restaurant on any cruise I have to chock down food.
45 minutes is doable with only 1 or 2 ppl. 2 -6 is gonna take minimum an hour 15. More than 6 will be 90minutes minimum. 45 minutes a bit rushed with more than 2 ppl. Pre/ordering might work for 2 providing everyone is one time. Question would the food be hot 🤔? Folks gotta be on time and slow kitchen makes a difference.
1 1/2 max..have had good and bad service..not unique I feel to a particular ship. There are good wait teams and not so good. Last cruise we enjoyed folks at our table so not a big deal. But indeed skipped dessert most nights because slow service. We opted to just do buffet when we knew we wanted to get out at a specific time.
I don't mind the 75 minute time for a nice dinner. I have experienced 2 hour dinners on several Celebrity cruises and really think this way to long. 75 -90 minutes should be the maximum.
I think 75 to 90 minutes
I'm on vacation. I want to linger over my dinner. 45 minutes is not enough time.
a gratuity is defined - something given voluntarily or beyond obligation usually for some service. Everyone knows that if it is not given voluntarily... it's a service fee. I believe that all cruise lines should get rid of the gratuity and pay their employees more...and put it in the cost of the cruise. The whole gratuity thing is really getting tired. All-inclusive resorts have been doing this for years...and so has Virgin. Make cruises all-inclusive... I'll take that cruise.
We have found NCL to be on the low side of the scale. Not for us !! 90 minutes is about right.
I think Carnival could focus more on the quality/taste than timing…. Last cruise the food was horrible….
About 90 minutes to talk and unwind and relax and digest.
I say an hour, maybe 1.5.....but thats only if im getting my food in a timely manner, and actually have a drink. Half the time my drink wont come till halfway througgh.😮
We think 45 minutes to an hour would be best for us, but we wouldn’t want to force others who enjoy a longer dining experience to be rushed.
Jordan, that's what the Buffet is for!