Thread: teens dress code/cabins and other questions

thank you!I don´t know about anytime dining.Do you have long waits for a table?If the 2nd sitting means sharp time we¨ll make it on time.Anytime dining and established 1st or 2nd sitting are at the same restaurant?

Originally Posted by macia

Thank you very much for your detailed information!We´re less than a month for our cruise and the whole family is really excited about this new experience.
I guess my 11 years old daughter wont be able to be with her sister at the teens remix?She is pretty shy and being with sister and brother would be reassuring.
Which would be the time limit for the second seating?We are scheduled 8.15 but...with teens you are lucky to be on time!Can you show up at say 9.00?Or the alternative if you are late is to have a buffet dining at the Horizons?
By the way my son has asked if icecreams are charged.He probably plans to feed on pizzas and icecream the whole timeThanks again!!!

Originally Posted by macia

thank you!I don´t know about anytime dining.Do you have long waits for a table?If the 2nd sitting means sharp time we¨ll make it on time.Anytime dining and established 1st or 2nd sitting are at the same restaurant?

When it comes to age groupings, there'll pretty much set. It does make it easier for the counselors as I'm sure many parents will badger them with "My child is mature for his age." Which many are wrong on. And if you have a 11 yr old hanging around the 13-17 age group, I would imagine many of the teens would not appreciate it. They don't know the 11-yr-old and want to spend time with their age group for the most part. And your older kids may actually want to be with their age group and not hang around with the younger sibling. The number of staff hired is based on the number of kids in each age group too.

As for the dinner times, usually there's a 5 to 10 minute leeway. But more time than that will complicate the serving. Here's what happens at traditional:

You come in and sit at your table. The waiter will help seat each person, and place the napkin in your lap. Then he or she hands each person a menu. The bread basket and bowl with butter pats are placed on the table while you're looking over the selections. You'll be asked if you want drinks -- those aren't free (wine, alcoholic drinks, sodas -- unless you have the coke sticker). Water, coffee,tea are free. The waiter stands by each person and writes down your selections for food.

The menu has one side with the pasta selections and the "always available" which includes caesar salad, chicken breast, etc. The other side starts with appetitzers, soups and salads, entrees. You just go down each course and tell them what you want. You can skip a course (I usually skip appetizers) or even double up on a course. Sometimes a waiter will recommend something, but just go by what you want.

The waiter and his staff are handling more than one table so if someone shows up, say an half hour late, it messes up the schedule. Some dining room doors will close at a certain time after the meal starts.

(we ended up with anytime, as I said before, and one thing we noticed is that it seemed disorganized compared to traditional dining...plus when you have the same waiter, he/she often gets to know your preferences)

Ice cream cones (soft serve) are free at the poolside location. Shakes, etc. have a charge. In the dining room, there are more flavors of ice cream available at meal time.

There is a traditional dining room if you have traditional dining. The table assignment will be listed on your cabin card. Depending on the ship, there are often two anytime dining rooms. Whether there's a wait or not is dependent on if everyone tries to go eat at the same time, as well as if you're willing to share a table with other parties. The longest wait we had, once we got to the front of the line, is 20 minutes. If the wait is significant, you get a pager so you can go wait in a lounge if you want.

Some ships are also starting to have a special early (like 5:30) sitting that is in one of the anytime dining rooms. That's because of the waitlists for traditional. So if you have anytime, it's probably better to want to eat later.

I did notice that with anytime, we tended to just go eat in the buffet about half the time for dinner. With traditional, we make the effort to get to our seating.

Thank you very much!You have been very helpful.Just one more question about dining:
Is it considered unpolite in case we miss the scheduled dining time and instead of showing up late opt for a buffet dining?Do we have to tell someone we will not be attending dinner that night?

Originally Posted by macia

Thank you very much!You have been very helpful.Just one more question about dining:
Is it considered unpolite in case we miss the scheduled dining time and instead of showing up late opt for a buffet dining?Do we have to tell someone we will not be attending dinner that night?

No problem. Questions you have, maybe others have too.

As for the traditional dining rooms, if you do know you are or may miss your seating, it's considered polite to let your tablemates (if you have ones other than your family) and waitstaff know this so they won't hold things up. As soon as they sit down, the waitstaff will start the process.

But there's always times when the unforeseeable happens. For example, five years ago, my daughter wasn't feeling up to going to the kids' area one night so she was going to stick with us. She also didn't feel like a whole sit down meal. We could have swung by the main dining room and tell our waiter that we were going to the buffet, but I think in that case we either forgot or it was much earlier than our seating...so we just ate and returned to our cabin. I don't think you'll be yelled at. Or at least you shouldn't be.

Originally Posted by macia

thank you!I don´t know about anytime dining.Do you have long waits for a table?If the 2nd sitting means sharp time we¨ll make it on time.Anytime dining and established 1st or 2nd sitting are at the same restaurant?

Anytime dining is in the Michelangelo and Da Vinci dining rooms, two separate venues immediately above each other. Traditional dining is in the Botecelli dining room and has 1st & 2nd seating.
At the Anytime dining rooms, if one has a long wait, just go upstairs or downstair, depending on where you are and see if the other dining room has immediate seating, usually they don't have long waits unless it's a night like Thanksgiving night onboard.

Btw, you should have been back quite a while now.