In a meeting with journalists today onboard the Carnival Splendor, Carnival Cruise Lines’ president and CEO Gerry Cahill stated the line is testing open seat dining options. The program rolled out three weeks ago onboard the Carnival Legend and will also be tested onboard the Carnival Liberty starting November 1. Carnival Legend is sailing from Tampa, and Carnival Liberty will operate from Miami.
Cahill says sections in the upper level of the main restaurant are open for guests to dine between 5:45 and 9:30 p.m. Reservations can be made a day ahead of time and if there is a wait passengers are given beepers if their seating is not available — Carnival says the wait times have been under 10 minutes. So far, feedback has been very positive. If the program proves to be successful it will be implemented fleet wide sometime next year.
Nevertheless, Cahill expressed some concern about the program since the company wants to maintain the close connection passengers have with their dining room waiters — a staple of the Carnival Cruise Lines experience.
What do you think? Is open seating a good idea for Carnival? Post your opinions below.
Leave it alone. I like the same staff and table mates all cruise long.
NO!!!
Getting to know our wait staff is a HUGE part of the dining experience. I just can’t imaging not - especially on the seven day plus cruises - having OUR staff anticipating and suggesting choices and bringing drinks without our having to ask for them. Being consistent personalizes dinner. We’ve discovered and then had whole sections of the dinning room sing Happy Birthday to staff. We’ve gotten great suggestions on places to visit from times when we happened to visit their home country - Turkey was a perfect example last year on the Freedom.
Please NO - don’t take away what has always been a highlight of our cruising experience. Playing numbers games with efficiency is NOT always a good thing… Doing something just because everyone else is is also NOT always a good thing.
I do not think open dining is a good idea. I have been on 43 Carnival cruises and I enjoy getting to know my wait staff. Thus far, all of them have remembered our names, drink preference and dessert likes in the first day or so. I vote NO to open dining.
Thank you
Gloria
I vote NO to “any time dining” … although I will admit it is for a selfish reason.
Our 17 year old son has Autism and “consistancy” is the key where he is concerned. It is hard enough to get him to sit down and eat with the same wait staff and same table every day ….. I can not imagine what it would be with a different one.
He will be Carnival Milestone Rewards Member by the end of the year…so Carnival must be doing something right. If it ain’t broke…don’t fix it!!
If I wanted open seating, I can go on Norwegian or I can go to the Lido deck on any cruise line including Carnival. We are Platinum on Carnival and one of the reasons we are is the fun of getting to know the wait staff. Not just them waiting on us, but really getting to know them.
Carnival —— DO NOT mess with the good things you have going,
Hi Everyone,
This is a tough one. There are a lot of people out there who won’t cruise without having the open seat option — I think Carnival is trying to appeal to them. I get the impression that this is only going to be a handful of tables on the upper levels and the lower level will remain assigned seating.
On the other hand, one of the great things about sailing Carnival is the waitstaff — who are the best in the business. For me, when I cruise Carnival I prefer assigned seating.
Keep the feedback coming!
Best,
Anita
I VOTE AN EMPHATIC NO!!!!!
I ONLY want assigned seating. I want to get to know my waiter and assistant and generally they make the cruise a memorable and much better experience.
I DO NOT want to sit with someone new each time I sit down to dinner.
Dave
We are long time Carnival cruisers. We choose Carnival because it fits our lifestyle and we enjoy the complete vacation experience.
Our very favorite aspect of crusing Carnival is the TOTAL dining experience. My wife and I like getting ready for dinner. It’s like a date, or a special occasion each night. Captain’s night and the Formal night are our favorite. I know we are not alone in saying that Carnival’s dining room experience is like no other. We love forming a relationship with our wait staff. Some of the most memorable experiences of our past cruises involve our interaction with the staff at dinner.
We are from the North East and there is an old Yankee saying that goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We believe that tried and true axiom to appropo to this situation as well.
Please continue to offer Carnival cruisers what we love best.
PLEASE NO!!! DON’T FIX WHAT’S NOT BROKEN!!!
I enjoy forming a relationship with our wait staff. They learn so quickly what we like and don’t like. I have a picture of every one of our wait staff with their names and where they are from.
It’s so nice to know where our table is, have our drinks waiting for us, they work so hard to try to please us and we appreciate it. We have always tipped our wait staff much more than is suggested because of their effort. I would not enjoy our meals nearly as much if I had a different wait staff at every meal.
Please keep it like it is. Change is NOT always a good thing!
I vote an emphatic NO. I have special needs due to food allergies. I like having one waiter, one hostess that know what I can and I can not eat. I don’t want to have to go thru this night after night with first one waiter, after another. We like eating at
the same time every night unless we have gotten back from an excursion at a port.Even then we try to eat at our scheduled time.
Please don’t fix what ain’t broken.
This is very unsettling. I agree that the dining room experience is one of the highlights of our cruises. We are platinum members and we completely enjoy getting to know our waiters, learn about their families and their homelands, and tell them about hour homes and family. We also enjoy them being able to anticipate our wants and needs usually after just one meal.
I think this is a big mistake for Carnival to make it a requirement fleetwide.
I’ve tried it on another cruise line and I didn’t like it. The wait staff wasn’t near as accommodating when they had new faces each night. It is so much more pleasurable having the same wait staff as you get to know each other and a sweet relationship develops - and they know what your final drink at the dinner will be.
I vote to stay as you are unless it will be as Anita says - a few tables for others who prefer open seating, but assigned tables for those who prefer that.
We have always enjoyed getting to know our wait staff and would not care for open seating. The fact is we do not eat in the main dinning room for lunch and breakfast because of the seating arrangements.
My vote is NO,NO,NO.
The dining experience is much better when you get to know your wait staff and they get to know you and your preferences.
While I have never been on Norwegian, my previous boss had been. One of the things he HATED was the open seating.
Don’t change what is one of the best things about Carnival and her ships, assigned dining.
I want the ASSIGNED seating. I like having the same waiters and dinner mates every evening.They know what I like to drink and what bread I like usually by the second night. I do no like having different people and wait staff every day we get that during the breakfast and lunch seating and to tell you the truth it lacks something. I actually find myself wishng I had “my” “Blaze” or “Francisc” or “MAssimo” who know me. and fins my self looking for them. I had open seating with “beepers on Proncess it was ok but I was not fond of it. We found ourselves with different people every night which was ok for socializing however insteasd of asking what did you do today the conversation was always where are you from, my name is, snd it got redundant night after night and the wait staff was never the same and often it was not as good. IF IT AIN”T BROKE DON”T FIX IT!
IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT,,,,,,, I think if Carnival wants to do this they should do it for ONE dining room NOT ALL…
Please don’t stop having assigned seating in the dining room! Like others have said, having the same wait staff and table mates is one of the things that makes cruising fun. My selfish reason is that I’m rather shy, and trying to get to know new people every night would just be stressful.
Don’t change a thing, leave it as it is! Getting to know the staff is the best part of eating on a Carnival ship! Now that’s not saying the food is bad, but it IS saying the dining room staff is full of AMAZING people who it is a gift to talk to.
Carnival if you read this you will see so far all 17 have said NO. Every time John Heald on his blog has brought up this topic his bloggers have said no many times over. The IDEA sounds good but in real life it don’t work. Cruiser hate lines and this only makes the possibilty of more lines. It is just like any chain restaurant if you come at rush time your going to wait. Every port day you will have everybody wanting to eat late. So they walk down to the dinning room and seeing a long line they go up to the Lido. Ooooops! I just spilled the beans that’s the whole idea to get people away from the dinning room up to the cheap Lido buffet.
I went to the grill on day for the MINUTE steak. The cook told me that would be 10 minutes for the minute steak. That they only cook them on order. Well you know what I did just as you wanted me to do I had a cheapo hot dog because it was ready
I do not think open dining is a good idea too. I always enjoy getting to know my wait staff.
I say NO to open dining.
Mr Cahill just came on board and he is already trying to “Rock The Boat”.We enjoy what Carnival has for our enjoyment, interacting with some of the Staff at least in the dining room.What is the real reason? Perhaps cutting staff and services.Please leave it as is.