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Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

How to not be "that guy" in the Main Dining Room

Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast

Matt Hochberg

Society & Culture, Places & Travel, Royalcaribbeanblog Podcast, Kids & Family

4.8693 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There are certain unwritten rules you should know about before you eat in Royal Caribbean's Main Dining Room.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm often very fond of saying I'm not the arbiter of what you should or shouldn't do on a cruise,

0:06.3

but I don't mind sharing my opinions on what you should or shouldn't do on a cruise.

0:10.3

And perhaps no other place is more apparent than the main dining room,

0:14.1

because there are, I feel, a lot of unwritten rules that go with it.

0:19.0

Rollo-Curdian, I think, purposely keeps it very vague as to what you should or shouldn't do

0:23.6

in the main dining room beyond the, like, really core rules.

0:27.3

But I feel like the more you eat in the main dining room, the more you discover there are

0:31.6

certain things that kind of go with the territory, if you will.

0:36.6

And today I've got some etiquette rules, some unwritten rules about the main dining room to talk about because I feel like there are things that, if you're new to the main dining room, then certainly I'd want to know about it if I was that person. You never want to be that guy. That's always my mantra on a cruise. Just don't be that guy. Don't cause problems. All things otherwise, you're good. So number one, and this one, you know, you might say, well, this one goes without saying, but I do feel like there is that I want to kind of go into how late is late. But don't be late for dinner. The main dining room, you have a set time. If you have my time done, I guess this is less of an issue because if you're late to dinner, they'll just seat you at the next seating, so not a problem. But for traditional dining, you have a seating time. Now, obviously, things happen. You get stuck in an elevator, your kids forget something, whatever. So how late is late for dinner, I guess is really the question.

1:29.0

Certainly, five, ten minutes, no problem at all.

1:30.9

I mean, I don't think they even, in many cases, you're lucky if you get your drink order

1:34.3

in within the first ten minutes of your assigned time.

1:37.7

It really gets into that 15 to 30 minute window where it starts becoming you're late.

1:44.8

And there's a little bit of that factor.

1:46.0

Again, sometimes the waiters do get behind and then you get to sneak in and you're not

1:49.7

that far behind.

1:50.9

I mean, the waiters also will, to their credit, work you in, so to speak.

1:55.0

We've seen it many times where someone's running well behind.

1:57.5

They come in and, you know, they take their order even even so um so obviously

2:02.8

if you're seating with someone who you know someone in your party is going to be knows you're

2:07.6

going to be late you can all sell them that but i generally say like around 20 minutes or so after

2:12.0

that you're late to dinner and you should seek alternatives personally is my opinion on it um

...

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