Other Dining Options on board

[shanethesaint88]

Are you required to go to any of your main dining room dinners? If not are there other suitable options to eat ( not fast food). Me and my gf are not the type to sit down for an hour plus to eat dinner and are more of an eat a good steak quickly and get back to activities type of people.

 

[com_op_2000]

Palo &/or Remy
Cabanas on all nights but the first and last nights.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

No, you don't have to go to the main dining rooms at all.

If you don't want to spend time, Palo and Remy are probably out (and there is an extra charge for them), and you specified no fast food.

Cabanas isn't open for dinner every night and when it is, it is table service not buffet. You might be able to ask to get served quickly.

There is room service but I am pretty sure they will not bring you a steak.

That is about it.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Are you required to go to any of your main dining room dinners? If not are there other suitable options to eat ( not fast food). Me and my gf are not the type to sit down for an hour plus to eat dinner and are more of an eat a good steak quickly and get back to activities type of people.

As noted, Palo/Remy - but those are generally even longer service lengths. And cost extra.
Cabanas/Beach Blanket - again, as noted, not available on first and last nights of the cruise, and it's also a sit-down service, so does take a bit of time.
Quick serve locations poolside.
Room Service.

 

[ahain]

Our family also doesn't like long, drawn out meals, but we do like the MDR food (you can have steak every night if you want!) What helps us out is this.....We make a request (well before the cruise) for our family to be seated alone. So far we've always been granted our request. We prefer this for a couple of reasons...1) we are not really "chit-chatty" with other people; 2) we arrive to dine VERY promptly (like right when they open the dining room for dinner) and because we are seated alone, our servers don't need to wait for other families to arrive (if at all) before starting our meal service; and 3) to a certain degree, we can keep the dinner moving along at our pace. We don't linger after we're done with the meal and just get up and go on to whatever we have planned next.

 

[shanethesaint88]

Our family also doesn't like long, drawn out meals, but we do like the MDR food (you can have steak every night if you want!) What helps us out is this.....We make a request (well before the cruise) for our family to be seated alone. So far we've always been granted our request. We prefer this for a couple of reasons...1) we are not really "chit-chatty" with other people; 2) we arrive to dine VERY promptly (like right when they open the dining room for dinner) and because we are seated alone, our servers don't need to for other families to arrive (if at all) before starting our meal service; and 3) to a certain degree, we can keep the dinner moving along at our pace. We don't linger after we're done with the meal and just get up and go on to whatever we have planned next.

How do you make the request? That sounds good if we can sort of control the pace.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

How do you make the request? That sounds good if we can sort of control the pace.

Just talk to your server the first night and tell them what you expect. They're very accommodating.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

If you want to request a table to yourselves, call DCL and have the request put on your reservation. It's not a guarantee but it will happen unless they absolutely don't have any tables that they can seat you at by yourselves.

 

[ahain]

How do you make the request? That sounds good if we can sort of control the pace.

We just send an e-mail to our TA and ask them to make the request to DCL on our behalf. If you booked direct through DCL, just give them a call and make the request directly. They will tell you "no guarantees," but as I mentioned, we've always been accommodated so far.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

We are the type that like to eat and get it over with, LOL, so I understand. What we have done in the past was to ask for a private table. We explain to the server on the first night that it is our preference to eat and run. Never been an issue. They will do their best. I say do their best because people that show up late that are in their station can really screw it up for them and other diners.

 

[ZerasPride]

DH and I requested a table for two on our Dream cruise and our request was granted. I called DCL to make the request. I have to say I was worried dinner would be a long drawn out affair but what helped to move things along for us was that we placed our entire order after we received our drinks. We were in and out in about an hour each night - one night it was 45 minutes and we never felt rushed.

I noticed tables around us that had large parties and/or multiple families seated together took much longer. Especially tables where some in the party seemed to come to dinner well past 8:30 (we had late dining).