For most people on a Carnival, Royal Caribbean, MSC, or Norwegian (NCLH) -) cruise the main dining room serves as a gathering and reset point.
During the day families and friends may go off in different directions, but on most nights they gather in the main dining room for a multicourse dinner experience that generally takes about 90 minutes.
Cruise lines have more small tables, so in many cases you're not sitting with strangers as often as you would have been in the past, but dinners in the main dining room remain an important part of cruising.
Dinner brings everyone on a trip together and creates shared memories even when days are spent in different places.
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The main dining room , of course, is not the only option. You can opt for specialty dining or the buffet, or you can just grab a pizza. Still, with the capacity to serve the entire ship across multiple seatings, the main dining room dinners remain a crucial part of the cruise experience on Carnival, Royal Caribbean (RCL) -), MSC, and Norwegian sailings.
Cruisers, of course, love to debate any changes and rules that are enforced or not enforced in the main dining room. Thousands of social-media posts argue how and whether each cruise line enforces its dress code, with some people wanting to wear shorts, hats or flip-flops while others lament that passengers no longer wear tuxedos on formal nights.
Carnival Cruise Line (CCL) -) Brand Ambassador John Heald recently touched off a debate, however, when he outlined on his Facebook page one rule that Carnival does enforce.
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Don't be late for your Carnival main dining room time
Heald spends most days answering questions from Carnival's customers. Sometimes he shares notes that have been sent to him and solicits public response.
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In this case, he shared what happened to one family when it arrived 40 minutes late to its designated meal time.
On our recent Pride cruise from Rome, we had a table of 10. After long days in port, we did not always make it on time for early seating and came into the main dining room at intervals. This really threw our servers off and therefore, OUR service suffered. One evening, we were all 40 minutes late That is all.. The restaurant manager told us we had to eat at the buffet or come back to see if there was a table available at the late seating.
Carnival, like most cruise lines, offers early and late seatings as well as "anytime" dining options. People who have a specific seating will eat at the same table every night, while people with flexible time seating will eat in a different dining room.
The family that arrived late shared more info with Heald.
That is not acceptable with teenagers. If Carnival puts a cruise together with long stays in ports then expect many to be late. We were punished for being 30 mins late. Unacceptable !!! You are monsters!
Carnival's brand ambassador tried to be understanding but also backed the main dining room management's decision.
I also understand as a parent myself that getting a family ready for dinner on time is not easy, especially after a long day in port. However, the waiter has not just this table to serve but others and moving back to serving appetisers while everyone else is about to be served their main course really can cause a massive dollop of stress for the waiter. If perhaps they had Your Time Dinning or late seating it might have been manageable but early seating, nope, I support what the Maitre D did by asking them to use the Lido or come back later for a table
Heald also posted a poll asking his followers to vote on whether directing guests who were 40 minutes late to their seating to the buffet was a correct choice.
His followers overwhelmingly agreed with the cruise line: 97% agreed with the decision and 3% said the cruise line should have tried to accommodate the family.
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A comment from Pam Miller Downey seemed to illustrate how most people felt about the issue.
"They were late...that means not on time..that means they eat somewhere else. Most people who are 40 minutes late wouldn't even dream of going to the MDR. They would automatially go to Lido or one of the other eateries," she wrote.
