MDR seating changes - Persist

DisneYE

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 7, 2013
I'm ecstatic because today we were changed from 2nd to main seating on our upcoming March WBPC cruise.
I sent about 1 email every month and today they finally came through - After my 5th email yesterday.
For many reasons, I literally hate 2nd seating and it would have soured our cruise if they didn't change it.
I explained that to DCL and I'm so glad they honored my request and saved me the time/pain of having to plead with them onboard on embarkation day.
I'm so happy.

Remember kids: Hope, and persistence, are good things in life. And no good thing ever dies. (Thank you Andy Dufresne - And DCL!)
 
Yep - that is pretty much the "normal" for the waitlist processing in my experience--I don't know that the emails really made any difference. The CMs that handle the guest emails and phone calls don't even have the ability to let people off the waitlist--I believe it is embarkation guest services that does it.

What i have come to realize is that the waitlist is not actually a waitlist. A true waitlist to me would mean the main dining is full, and you are standby to see if any spaces open out from people canceling the cruise or switching to late. Instead, DCL only allows a tiny fraction of the main dining capacity to be booked in advance online or by phone, and hold most of the space to distribute at various points advance of the cruise or on onboard. It's very much like how character meets that are "sold out" online have plenty of spots open at guest services on embarkation day.

I find this irksome. A true "first come, first serve" approach would be more fair. Or at least, they should start letting people into main dining off the waitlist sometime before PIF to reduce stress and uncertainty. On our last cruise, several folks in our social media group cancelled on PIF day because they were not able to get off the waitlist and were not willing to eat at late dining for various reasons, when in reality Disney at that point had not moved anyone off the waitlist. And every single waitlisted person in our social media group who stayed was switched to Main Dining as a big batch all on the same day about a month after PIF when DCL finally got around to processing it.
 
I didn't send any emails and we were moved last month for our February Fantasy cruise coming up. Normally I have to get it switched when we get on board.
 


A true "first come, first serve" approach would be more fair.
Possibly, but DCL is also trying to balance the load at all seatings.

On our Hawaii cruise (a number of years ago) there were so few people there weren't enough to justify 6 seatings (3 dining rooms, 2 seatings each). So one of the rotations only had an early seating.

That meant the servers on that rotation were only getting gratuities from one set of dinner service.
 


Yep - that is pretty much the "normal" for the waitlist processing in my experience--I don't know that the emails really made any difference. The CMs that handle the guest emails and phone calls don't even have the ability to let people off the waitlist--I believe it is embarkation guest services that does it.

What i have come to realize is that the waitlist is not actually a waitlist. A true waitlist to me would mean the main dining is full, and you are standby to see if any spaces open out from people canceling the cruise or switching to late. Instead, DCL only allows a tiny fraction of the main dining capacity to be booked in advance online or by phone, and hold most of the space to distribute at various points advance of the cruise or on onboard. It's very much like how character meets that are "sold out" online have plenty of spots open at guest services on embarkation day.

I find this irksome. A true "first come, first serve" approach would be more fair. Or at least, they should start letting people into main dining off the waitlist sometime before PIF to reduce stress and uncertainty. On our last cruise, several folks in our social media group cancelled on PIF day because they were not able to get off the waitlist and were not willing to eat at late dining for various reasons, when in reality Disney at that point had not moved anyone off the waitlist. And every single waitlisted person in our social media group who stayed was switched to Main Dining as a big batch all on the same day about a month after PIF when DCL finally got around to processing it.

Wow people cancel over not getting their desired MDR seating preference?! That's bonkers.
As much as I hate second seating I would never cancel a cruise over that.
Once we were not able to switch to main seating so I skipped several dinners (like 5 out of 7) and instead spent that time either at the hot tub/bar/reading.. For me 8-9 PM dinner is way too late.. I can't eat anything past 6pm, I just can't sleep with a full stomach. Canceling an entire cruise is too radical imo.
 
Wow people cancel over not getting their desired MDR seating preference?! That's bonkers.
As much as I hate second seating I would never cancel a cruise over that.
Once we were not able to switch to main seating so I skipped several dinners (like 5 out of 7) and instead spent that time either at the hot tub/bar/reading.. For me 8-9 PM dinner is way too late.. I can't eat anything past 6pm, I just can't sleep with a full stomach. Canceling an entire cruise is too radical imo.
I do get it—a not insignificant part of the cost of the cruise is the included dining, of which the MDR dinners are a big part (think of what that meal would cost at WDW). For families with small kids that simply can’t make it to a late dinner, they’re losing something they’ve paid quite a bit for.

I think if they did something like 5 and 7:30 it would be much more reasonable.
 
We always had late seating in 98% of our cruises and our kids did just fine. It is all personal preference. We prefer late seating. No way could I eat dinner at 5:45 pm.

MJ
 
Best things that ever happned to us was being forced to take late seating on our first cruise. Even though it was tchnically past bedtime at that point, the kid rallied, and just slept later to compensate. And in the meantime we were aboe to relax after port excursions, have spa treatments before dinner, etc. I would never switch to dinner at 6:00 and the rushing around that would entail.
 

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