Having cruised with a variety of friends and family for 8 times before this, for our ninth cruise we took the recommendation to try the My Time dining option. We were cruising with 2 other couples, and this was the first time for all of us on a Freedom class ship.

We found the dining room to be lovely, but the My Time dining option was not a good experience. We will return to the traditional dining schedule/seating for our next cruise! The lines for My Time seating were extremely long and slow, and that was even with reservations and early arrival. We were disappointed that we could not have the same waiters for the duration of the week with this dining option, but tried to make the best of it. We have always enjoyed the daily conversations with the same waiters/assistant waiters, and missed that during this cruise. It did seem like the wait staff simply doesn't care quite as much about the service of the My Time diners. The extra spark & charm which they add to each meal was missing, because we weren't returning each evening to the same table/staff.

We had reservations to eat at Chops Grille one evening, and it was a wonderful experience! The food selections were all superb, and we found that though each person orders his own preferred side dishes, the sides are all served family style. For our table of six, we had approx. 12 side dishes served in large family style dishes. We got steaks which were far bigger and better than anything we had ever been served anywhere. My filet Mignon was butterflied because of my medium-well preference, and was still tender, juicy, and thicker than any steak I've eaten that wasn't butterflied. The dessert selections were unique to this restaurant, and were far beyond of the wonderful desserts we've gotten in the main dining room. We could not praise Chops enough, and plan to take one night out to eat at this restaurant on our future cruises! Read more