What is your preferred dining option

[gilly88]

1st dining every time it gives my stomach a chance to catch up it is a bit of a rush sometimes eg:rome, so then we go to the buffet diner that night.. no probs as long as i don't have to cook it, or wash up, its all fine by me.

[mrsbsw]

1st sitting for us every time.
I agree that it can clash with sailaways but since we cruise predominantly later in the year sailaways tend to be held earlier as it is going dark earlier.
It's a good job we don't all like the same thing as there wouldn't be room for all of us on a single sitting!
Ann

[HK phooey]

Freedom dining starts at 6pm. Every evening at just after 5pm a queue had started to form. Bizarre!

[JohnTheDog]

I KNOW!! It fascinates us...but at least I can sort of see the reason on freedom...but why do people queue for club dining? there is enough food, they have a table, they won't serve until probably 15 minutes after the dining time anyway. We used to sit in the bar on Arcadia & watch literally a hundred or so people queuing right down the ship for 8-30 dinner, we would think looking at the queue ....time for another G&T I think..

[Manoverboard]

Club dining - we are often there on the button because we like to read the Menu in advance and to decide at our leisure rather than at the table and especially so on a Formal night.

Some days we get there hours early to take a pic of the Menu, retire to cabin with a G&T, chose and then pre order our wine.

It is said that the pleasure is in the anticipation ... is it not

[JohnTheDog]

We get to the restaurant as soon as we don't have to queue up...I must say it's a bit more difficult to choose now the "always availables" no longer seem to be available, I will always find something on ther menu but my wife does not always.

[wolfie]

Often the doors are not opened at 8.30pm so inevitably a queue forms, plus those who have arrived early, so resulting in a long queue. We don't join the queue but wander away and wait until its gone.

We like to be on time, not late, that is just discourteous to our fellow diners and waiters so usually leave our cabin/the bar about 8.25pm

[Kendhni]

Club dining - we are often there on the button because we like to read the Menu in advance and to decide at our leisure rather than at the table and especially so on a Formal night.

Some days we get there hours early to take a pic of the Menu, retire to cabin with a G&T, chose and then pre order our wine.

It is said that the pleasure is in the anticipation ... is it not

We always have our mid afternoon dander down to the restaurant to look at the evening menu ... but we usually finish our drink and let the queue die down before heading down. I suppose that was helped by our table mates often joining us for pre-dinner drinks.

[Kendhni]

We like to be on time, not late, that is just discourteous to our fellow diners and waiters so usually leave our cabin/the bar about 8.25pm

Agree there Wofie, we once had a table with one couple who continually turned up about 20 minutes late .. after a few days I had a quiet word with the waiter and he took the orders for rest of the table whether or not the stragglers had arrived. We had usually just received our starters by the time they arrived ... sadly they never got the hint!

[oldbluefox]

We tend to get down to the MDR about 8.30 and if they are not going in we have a wander around the shops or somewhere near and join the tail end of the queue when most have gone in.

It's not only disrespectful to your fellow table guests to be late but also to your waiters who have probably been up since the crack of dawn and would appreciate being done and dusted so they can get set up for breakfast and go off duty. If you are late it throws their routine out as well.

[Quizzical Bob]

We like to be on time, not late, that is just discourteous to our fellow diners and waiters so usually leave our cabin/the bar about 8.25pm

Agree there Wofie, we once had a table with one couple who continually turned up about 20 minutes late .. after a few days I had a quiet word with the waiter and he took the orders for rest of the table whether or not the stragglers had arrived. We had usually just received our starters by the time they arrived ... sadly they never got the hint!

We had that recently. One couple would arrive 15 to 20 minutes late, so we were always served much later than the other tables. It also meant that we often had to miss the coffee in order to get to the events at 10:30.

[Meg 50]

Part of our day's routine is to check out the evening menu - and then we can use the wine line to select our wine - which will be ready when we arrive in the MDR - makes a lot of people's lives easier

[Romig1]

That's what we do too, Meg. With the increasing pressure on the wine waiters it makes sense to us to pre-order the wine...well at least the first bottle each night!

[JohnTheDog]

We have never used the wine line, but it does make sense as they seem very busy.

[david63]

We usually order the wine at the end of the meal for the following night

[Romig1]

We usually order the wine at the end of the meal for the following night

Heathen.....don't you match wine with food???

[Quizzical Bob]

We usually order the wine at the end of the meal for the following night

Heathen.....don't you match wine with food???

The wine waiter will bring tomorrow's menu, if he's got any sense.

[Romig1]

...or do you employ the Onelife version of wine/food matching?

ie Shellfish - Willy Willy Shiraz
Soup - Willy Willy
Sole - Willy Willy
Chicken - Willy Willy
Sorbet - Willy Willy
Pudding - Willy Willy

etc etc etc.

[david63]

We usually order the wine at the end of the meal for the following night

Heathen.....don't you match wine with food???

Of course I do - I will be having food therefore I will be having wine - simples!

[wolfie]

Ordering a bottle of each obviates the problem of which wine, Romig.

[Romig1]

We usually order the wine at the end of the meal for the following night

Heathen.....don't you match wine with food???

Of course I do - I will be having food therefore I will be having wine - simples!

I'm liking your logic.

[Romig1]

Ordering a bottle of each obviates the problem of which wine, Romig.

Wolfie, I know I enjoy a bottle or two with dinner, but the P&O wine list has approx 100 wines on it.....even Wina and I would struggle with a bottle of each

[Wina G]

We usually have a bottle of white & a bottle of red at dinner so there's usually some left for the next night

[HK phooey]

We noticed that on the nights we shared a table on Freedom dining, we were usually the only ones to order wine...and the after dinner special

[wolfie]

Ordering a bottle of each obviates the problem of which wine, Romig.

Wolfie, I know I enjoy a bottle or two with dinner, but the P&O wine list has approx 100 wines on it.....even Wina and I would struggle with a bottle of each

I omitted the word, 'colour' R. I'm sure you could manage 3 per night, if you tried.