- I've been on 110 cruises. I don't like onboard flexible dining, when you can eat whenever you want.
- Traditional dining is a great way to make new friends and have reliability at sea.
- Flexible dining is nice for some, but it's not foolproof. I hope it doesn't become the only option.
I took my first cruise in 1977 and have since been on more than 110 ships. I'm in my 90s, and I still love traveling this way.
It's great that more young people are getting on board with cruises, which are surging in popularity. But some newer trends puzzle me.
Above all, I can't get behind flexible dining, which also goes by names like "my time dining," "freestyle dining," and "anytime dining." They're all just a way of saying passengers can eat whenever they want and sit in a new spot with different servers every night.
It's a move away from traditional dining on cruises, where travelers select in advance the daily dinner time they'll have for the duration of their cruise. They're assigned the same table and waitstaff for the whole trip.
Flexible dining sounds ideal for anyone who prefers to set their own pace. But I think that it's better in theory than in practice and that it kills some of the magic of old-school cruises.
Eating dinner on a ship whenever you want isn't foolproof
Norweigan Cruise Line is credited with creating this category of onboard eating, which it calls freestyle dining.
With it, passengers show up to one of its restaurants during operating hours and wait for their party to be led to a table. But though people can eat whenever that doesn't mean they do.
Passengers have routines that carry over onto a ship, and restaurants can get crowded between 6 and 7:30 p.m.
Years ago, my wife and I experienced it firsthand while dining on the Norwegian Wind. After two nights of standing in long lines to try for a 6 p.m. dinner, we started showing up later to try to dodge crowds. I wished we could've just had our desired mealtime locked in, but NCL doesn't do traditional dining.
A few weeks ago, I tried flexible dining again on a different cruise line while sailing with my free-spirited son, who I thought might appreciate the lack of a schedule.
On the first night, at 7 p.m., we found several lines leading into the main dining room. We were asked if we had a reservation. Puzzled, we explained that we didn't need one because we were doing flexible dining.
We were directed to a different line for people without reservations. On the way, we passed the noticeably shorter line for passengers with assigned dining times.
We waited about 20 minutes to be seated. After our meal, we made dinner reservations for the rest of the trip.
Flexible dining can make it difficult to build new connections
While partaking in freestyle dining on the Norwegian Wind, my late wife and I asked to be seated with other people every night so we could see some fresh faces. But that never ended up happening: In our eight days, we ate only with each other.
Though I loved having dinner with my wife, we did so every night at home. At sea, we wanted to expand our world.
I missed sharing tables with strangers, the standard with traditional dining (unless you have a large group). We'd share meaningful conversations with strangers who had become friends.
Flexible dining takes away the chance to build connections like this. You can request to sit with strangers as we did, but it doesn't always happen — and it's unlikely you'd connect with the same people twice.
Without repeat seats and mealtimes, it's also hard to build any real relationship or personal connection with the dining-room staff.
In the older days of traditional dining, servers who'd been paired with our table for the whole trip would tell us stories of living abroad and remember our order preferences and names.
When it was time to tip at the end of the cruise, we parted willingly with the suggested gratuities, often more.
I hope the traditions of more formality in the dining rooms aren't lost for future cruisers
A lot of people love flexible dining for the freedom it can provide on a cruise — but I think that's best saved for breakfast and lunch.
When it comes to dinner, I enjoy the old-school traditions that have made cruises so popular.
Fortunately, major lines like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Princess Cruises that offer some version of flexible dinners still have options for traditional ones.
If given the option on your next cruise, consider keeping your dinners old school with a set time and table. You might just make a new friend, avoid a long wait, and enjoy the reliability of it all.