by Isabelle Esteves

Created on: October 28, 2008   Last Updated: August 05, 2010

We have all heard them, the jokes about dining on a cruise ship. The endless buffets, the midnight extravaganzas, the formal dining, alternative dining and free style dining. How much is truth and how much is myth and legend? Here are a few of the facts about dining on a cruise ship from an experienced cruiser.

Traditional Dining

Traditional dining is held in a specific dining room at a specific time every day. You can choose between early dining or late dining. You will have the same table and wait staff every day. Some cruise lines have themed evening meals, this can be 1950's or Mexican, check with your cruise line before you leave if you want to get into the spirit of things. There are also some dinners where formal dress is the dress of the evening. You won't be turned away if you do not wear a sports jacket or suit but you may feel a bit like a fish out of water. You always have the option of eating at the casual dining buffet if you prefer not to dress up.

With traditional dining you can eat in the restaurant for breakfast and lunch but you will not be at your assigned table, which is just for dinner. The commercials showing you assigned to a table with horrible people are a gross exaggeration. You can request a table for 2, 4 or more, you do have choices. If for some reason you have table mates you have a problem with, the head waiter will make every effort possible to move you to another table.

Free style dining

What is never mentioned when they advertise free style dining is that you will need to make reservations either daily or weekly for your preferred dining time. Yes you can choose 6:30 instead of 5:45 but you will need to cancel the reservation if you can not make it and reschedule. If you try to eat freestyle without a reservation you will wait in line and waits of over 30 minutes are not uncommon. You will also be seated with other diners who may or may not be your favorite people. You will not get to know your wait staff and they will be more like waiters and waitress' in any restaurant on land, some good some not so good.

Buffets

Yes there is always a buffet for every meal and on some cruise lines food is available at the buffet 24/7. It is not of the same quality as the dining room food but is plentiful and you don't need to dress up to enjoy their offerings.

Some cruise lines still offer the midnight buffet or special dessert or chocolate buffets which are extravaganzas of the first order with amazing food and gorgeous ice and fruit carvings.

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