Cruise cutie answered most of your questions, but I already had some of this typed up, so I will post it anyways:
As for your dining questions..... you are correct, there are 2 choices for dining on Princess... "Traditional" and "Personal Choice". You make your dining choice before cruising. If you prefer the traditional option, that means you must choose (prior to sailing) between two seating times, "early" seating which is at approx 6:30pm or the "late" seating which is at approx 8:15pm. You will go to dinner at whichever of those 2 times that you elect every night. You will sit at the same table (table # will appear on your cruise card). You will also choose a table size prior to cruising, from a table for 2 up to 10 or so. You will be seated with the same passengers each evening. If you opt for the PC dining, then you can go down for dinner to whichever dining room is designated for PC dining at any time within their dining hours (Im guessing between 6 and 9?? they will post the times for you). You will be seated at a different table each night, with different table mates. You may ask for any size table you wish each evening, meaning you can have a private meal for just 2 or be seated at a large table with several others. There are certainly pro's and con's to each of these numerous choices. Some prefer one, some prefer the other. Get opinions from others and see which seems to fit you best. As for breakfast and lunch, I think you used to be stuck to certain times when choosing the traditional seating option, but if I remember right, last time I was on Princess, we went to breakfast and lunch in the dining room whenever we wanted within the specified hours. There is always the buffet choice for all three meals as well. Now, for some reason if you want to eat in an alternative restauant, its suggested that you should notify your waiter ahead of time, just as a courtesy to the dining staff. They wait for the entire table to arrive before they begin serving. Also, they do go out of their way for your drinks and other preferences to make your dining experience pleasant, and it helps them to know ahead of time if you will not be there for a particular meal (speaking of dinner only here). The surchages you read about apply only to the "alternative" restaurants (does not apply to the buffet or the poolside grills), sorry I can not help you further with that as we have not tried any of them. Hope we have helped and not made it more confusing. Feel free to email me if I can help further.
Edited to add: this was already long enough but I will offer my reasons for choosing the option we do. I have tried and enjoyed the traditional seating. We made some wonderful friends which we are still in contact with many years later. It was nice to have "new friends" onboard to do things with, we even took an excursion with them later in the week. We chose the late seating so that we would never have to rush back from being in port to make our seating time. Last time we signed up for traditional seating, we ended up with tablemates from hell.... so we requested to switch to the PC dining. We didnt expect to care for it, but ended up loving it. We had no schedule to keep, ate when we wanted, and met many more people this way. We saw people we "knew" (or were at least aquainted with) at the shows, at the pools, at lunch, in port, etc. That made it kinda fun. So, its a tough choice... good luck!
Post Edited (08-02-04 17:46)
