Anytime Dining vs. Set Time Dining

Cruise Ship Formal Dining Room

THERE IS little question that the "formal" atmosphere of the traditional cruise ship has transformed hugely in the past 10 years. I have discussed dress code here a couple times. For many years the norm on a cruise ship was to have an assigned table and time to dine in the main dining room (MDR). At some point, so-called "specialty" restaurants begin showing up on ships at some point, which gave passengers slightly more flexibility, but at a cost ($$$). Most passengers took advantage of the included dining room, which in my experience, was generally pretty good food. Or, if they wanted more flexibility and less formality, the ate in the buffet (which while decent food, always pales in comparison to the dining rooms in my view).

The good news is that you really don't have to choose between one of the dining styles

EATING IN the MDR generally meant an assigned seating time (there were usually 2; and early and a late seating), at the same table for the entire cruise. Depending on the size of your party and what arrangements you might have made, it also meant that you generally dined with other "table-mates," also for the entire cruise. It had its pros and cons. The expectation was that dress would be more "formal" than other parts of the cruise might be. Diners in the MDR were expected to have at least "business casual" attire on most nights, including long pants (no jeans) and shoes (no flipflops) for men and dressy pants, skirt and blouse or dress for women. There were always "Formal Nights" (the number depending on the length of the cruise). That meant dresses for the ladies and at least suit and tie for the men.

Cruise Ship Formal Dining Room

IN 2000, Norwegian Cruise Line, known for its "firsts," in cruising, changed that up, introducing its "Freestyle Dining" option, which allowed passengers to choose a time each night, within a set window (e.g., 7:00 - 9:00). Freestyle replaced NCL's traditional set time dining and is the default dining offering on all of their ships today. Shortly, other cruise lines followed suit, offering their own versions of "flex" dining. On our most frequent cruise line - Celebrity - they call it anytime dining and depending on the ship, they offer a choice of either a set time or anytime. Generally, the default is still a set time and you have an opportunity to designate anytime dining when you book the cruise. At or near the same time, our other frequent cruise line - Princess - did the same, calling their program "flexible" dining. When we were on the NCL-owned Oceania Nautica, flexible dining was our default.

THEY HAVEN'T really changed the main dining rooms on most existing ships, so you still often get the same food, wait staff, and overall ambiance - just not the same ones during the entire voyage (though you can ask for the same wait staff on multiple nights, and while they cannot necessarily guarantee the same time, table and staff, we have had good luck with that concept). However, many of the newer ships are intentionally designed with the newer dining options in mind. Newer NCL ships have numerous separate restaurants that are included as part of the fare. All the newest "Edge" class ships on Celebrity have their new concept of 4, smaller, "main dining rooms," each with a slightly different cuisine and decor, but all essentially the same setup. We like them and will usually rotate around them during the cruise.

ALONG WITH flexible dining, casual dress has eventually replaced the formal in most cases, with "formal nights" being replaced with "evening chic," "elegant," or even "country-club casual." The dress was slower to evolve; the flex dining was pretty quickly embraced. The degree of formality on these nights depends on the particular cruise line (and from my own observation, the individual passenger's interpretation of that). I still see the occasional tux and fancy evening gown on those nights. Most have probably moved to jackets, or even just button up shirts and nice slacks. I see from anything that yo
 might see in the workplace all the way to formal gowns on women these days.

Formal Dress is (mostly) a thing of the past

I AM probably not that much different than a lot of other folks out there. I don't embrace change immediately, or enthusiastically. However, I have learned (perhaps from cruising more than anything else) as I have aged that sometimes the best thing we can do is approach change with an open mind. I can think of a few "milestones" in our cruising that involved changes which I originally mentally balked at. Flex dining was one of them. One of the tried and true traditions of cruising was having an assigned table and wait staff for each night. I enjoyed knowing where to find my table, and having our waitstaff learn and know our particular peculiarities. For me, those logistics were comfortable. As we moved from that model to "any time" dining, though, my mind was opened to the positives of this program - and the negatives of the set time dining. One complaint we had consistently had was that we were often off the ship on excursions which didn't return until late afternoon or even early evening. Getting back on board at 5-6 p.m. and trying to get ready for dinner and have enough time to relax and have a drink before dinner was a challenge for the early seating. If we had the late seating we had a hard time getting to shows in the theatre, and I never really liked the feeling of a big meal only very shortly before bed time - especially when we had an early morning ahead. Being able to plan our meals at a time that worked for us (even if it differed from night to night) turned into a real positive. We never cruise any other way.

I don't embrace change enthusiastically

IF YOU do want a set time, there is always a way for the ship to accomodate you. Even on lines like NCL who don't offer an official set time, you can ask at the beginning of the cruise to be seated at the same table with the same waiters. You may have to wait a few minutes, but it can be done. We have had very good luck on Celebrity Ships requesting the same waiters and tables, even if it isn't always at the same time. They tend to be very accomodating when they can. We had pretty much the same experience on the HAL Westerdam in Japan a year ago. I read comments about long lines and waits, but we have honestly never experienced that. When there is a wait at all, it has always been very short. On the Celebrity Equinox (with its single MDR) in the Caribbean in 2023, one of us (there were 5 in our party) would go "sign up," for a table and get the "beeper" and meet the others in a nearby bar where we could have a pre-dinner cocktail. I never noticed the wait (which probably was 15 minutes at worst.

ANOTHER APPROACH that has materialized from the flexible dining model is the ability to make daily reservations. We cruised on the Celebrity Apex in the Baltic in 2022, and by the end of the first couple days we had made friends with several other couples. Most nights we dined together. One of us would go in the morning to one of the 4 MDR restaurants and make a reservation for a table of 8 - 10 of us. Never an issue. We rotated around the 4 MDR's on that ship with great success.

WITH CRUISE ships and lines moving to multiple dining options and emphasizing their "specialty" dining choices (another - perhaps ranting - post for another time), and with the ever younger demographic (or is it just that some of us are getting ever older? 😑), I suspect set dining times on the mainline cruise ships will continue to decline. At the same time, though, I think they have made it so that they can pretty much accomodate everyone's style. The good news is that you really don't have to choose between one of the dining styles to "have your cake and eat it too." We sometimes beat up on the cruise lines for things we think have declined. In this case I think the modern approach to dining on cruise ships has been a significant positive!