For anyone that has cruised before, you’ve likely experienced the Main Dining Room, or MDR for short. These are the large sit-down dining rooms, versus the buffet or specialty restaurants of which there are many on this ship. Some MDR’s have traditional reserved seatings for 5:00pm and 7:30pm, and some are anytime dining, allowing flexibility for reservations. On the Star Princess, there are two MDR’s; Aurora which is the traditional format, and Celestial is the flexible format.

We’ve dined most nights in the Aurora. When you’re sailing with a large group, it just seems easier if there is a set time for dinner each night. You can either participate, or not, but at least you know you have an assigned table. When we have dined at a couple of the specialty restaurants, we’ve let our MDR waiter know the night before, and have cancelled our reservation for that particular night.

The Aurora is massive, seating over 900 people. The Celestial is smaller, seating 550. By comparison, on the smaller ships that we’ve sailed, the MDR usually seats between 400 – 500 guests. Despite the size, it feels very personal and homey, due to strategic walls and seating areas.

For this journey, we’ve been lucky to have had a beautiful table at the back of the restaurant, with a view of the wake. The windows are two stories high and the early sunsets when we were headed east were wonderful. Alas, over the course of our three weeks onboard, the sunset time has gotten earlier and now it is mostly dark when we sit down at 7:30pm.

The space is airy, modern and well laid out. The food has been excellent. Our waiter, Jonathan from the Philippines, and Junior Waiter, Godwin from India, along with restaurant manager, Dominic from India, have taken very good care of us. You get to know each other and it’s always sad to say goodbye.

Tomorrow: Sea Day 5 of 7