We are just back from a two-week stint on the Diamond Princes, a
total of 7 cruises since March, 2004 on that beautiful ship. Since the
beginning, they have had problems with reservations for the four theme
dining rooms. They made an interesting change. The Vivaldi dining room might
have been the least popular, at least it was with us. Right now, the Vivaldi
is used as a traditional early seating dining room. Most ships have a
waiting list for traditional early seating, so this should help. At 8PM, it
reverts back to a theme Italian dining room and PC passengers can make
reservations. We usually had reservations in one of the other three dining
rooms for about 6:15 and there were usually empty tables.

Those of you who have had a table for 2 on the Diamond, did you ever get
tired of those tables being against the wall. I for one got tired of facing
the wall. We were on the ship in January and Lynn did some snooping and
discovered that there is one table for two in each of the other three theme
dining rooms that is not against the wall, so she asks for that table number
when we get to the dining and we always get it. It is so much more pleasant
and the service is even better. Against the wall, they lump 4 or 5 tables
and take orders and serve as a group, which slows things down.

With all of these cruises, we got tired of seeing the same movies over and
over again in both the show room and on the TV. Two of these movies are
Starsky and Hutch and Welcome to Mooseport. Both are good movies, but not
over and over again. Well go figure. We got home two days ago and found that
both of these movies made it to HBO this week.

We highly recommend the Diamond Princess. Smooth sailing
Don