MSC’s Flexi dining….is it really what it seems?

MSC’s Flexi dining isn’t quite as “flexible” as it seems…

Usually if you book the flexible dining option for your cruise, for example Freedom with P&O, or My Time with Royal Caribbean or Anytime with Princess, then it means just that. You can arrive to the main dining room whenever you choose, of course between the hours they are open, usually from around 6pm until 9pm. It means you aren’t restricted to a set time to arrive for your evening meal and you can dine at different times each evening on your cruise.

MSC have recently introduced a new dining concept which will be firstly available on board MSC Seaside and MSC Meraviglia They have named it Flexi dining which I think sounds just like the flexible option other lines have….however it isn’t quite as flexible as it seems.

You will be able to choose from Early Flexi or Late Flexi, if you select this option you will choose your dining slot between a certain time and this will be the time you dine each evening. For example if you are booked on Early Flexi you can choose a slot (they will be every 15 minutes) between 630pm and 730pm. This will then be your dining slot for your entire cruise unless you decide on a certain day you want to change it. To change your slot it has to be done on the day and before 4pm and is obviously dependent up on the time you want being available. This will be done by the passengers using brand new technology that will be available to them for the first time with MSC.

I think a lot of passengers who have booked this dining option may have been under the impression it’s similar to the other cruises lines Flexible dining and are not quite aware of how it will work. In one way I think that pre selecting your dining slot will avoid lots of waiting around and queues when you arrive at the dining room. As we experienced just recently with Royal Caribbean the My Time dining option can mean you have to wait for your table if they have a rush of passengers all arriving at the same time. In fact we something quite similar to what MSC have introduced, we pre booked our table the evening before for a certain time the following day. We did have the flexibility of dining early or late which of course MSC are not offering under their new Flexi dining but the principle I guess is the same.

I do have to say that flexible dining to me means just that, having the option to arrive at the dining room when you wish, being able to pre book a table if you want to but not having to do this if you don’t wish to. It means not having to rush to get ready for a certain time to get to your table and being able to relax in that you can arrive whenever you please and dine.

Have MSC got this right, is this the way forward for Flexible dining on board? Are you cruising with MSC on board Seaside or Meraviglia?  What dining have you chose?

As always thank you for reading and I would love to hear about your dining experiences.

Abbi x

 

 

 

 


About Me

I have been in the travel industry over 20 years, what was meant to be a short summer working in Menorca when I was just 21 turned into many fantastic years within the industry. I have been lucky enough to travel to lots of destinations all over the world, including…

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