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Cruise News for the Corporate Travel Professional

Carnival Cruise Line recently announced the launch of a new shipboard dining program called “Your Choice Dining.”

Your Choice Dining provides a selection of three different dinner seating options. In addition to Early and Late assigned seating, Carnival is rolling out “Your Time” open seating to accommodate individual guest preferences.

Carnival ran a pilot program for open seating on a few ships beginning late last year and received exceptionally positive guest feedback. That prompted the decision to extend it fleetwide.

Guests may choose Early dining at 6pm, Late dining at 8:15 pm or “Your Time” open seating. Guests on “Your Time” may dine any time between 5:45pm and 9:30pm (if applicable depending on ship and sailing date) and are able to request any table size or waiter. While most guests will be seated immediately upon arriving at the dining room, if a modest wait time is required, they will be given a pager so they may relax elsewhere on the ship until their table is ready.

“Your Time” open seating is currently available on five ships and will be implemented one vessel at a time over the next several months as modifications in dining room table configurations are completed on each ship. An additional eight ships are scheduled to be converted by the end of year and the balance of the fleet by summer 2010. As Your Time dining is implemented on each ship, we will contact you by email or fax so you may reach out to your booked clients and provide the opportunity to switch to Your Time dining or retain their original choice.

Another enhancement of "Your Choice Dining” is we will now confirm the dining option selected at the time of booking (subject to availability) for all ships fleetwide. If the preferred dining choice is not available, guests may confirm an alternate choice and be placed on a waitlist for their first preference.

Below is a timetable for the introduction of Your Time open seating throughout the Carnival fleet:

Already implemented: Carnival Legend, Carnival Liberty, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Miracle.
  • End of April: Carnival Conquest, Carnival Elation, Carnival Pride.
  • Mid-June: Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Spirit.
  • Late September: Carnival Dream.
  • Mid-October: Carnival Ecstasy.
  • Mid-December: Carnival Glory.
  • February 2010: Carnival Fascination.

By summer 2010: Carnival Imagination, Carnival Inspiration, Carnival Destiny, Carnival Triumph, Carnival Valor, Carnival Splendor, Carnival Freedom and Carnival Victory.

Carnival feels confident the new “Your Choice Dining” program will prove to be an extremely popular enhancement to the Carnival vacation experience and that it will provide clients with yet another valuable closing tool.