DINING & ENTERTAINMENT

There's definitely nothing quite exciting as dining at sea. Especially when you can choose to have your meals in the leisurely elegance of formal dining rooms or in the casual ambiance of an outdoor poolside cafe. Either way you choose to dine, you're sure to have some of the most memorable dining experiences of your life.

Most cruise lines offer more dining options for today's cruiser. Totally open seating (Total Choice-Carnival, Freestyle-NCL, Personal Choice-Princess) offers a choice of when, where and with whom you would like to have dinner. Single meal seatings, in which the passenger arrives within a given time frame and occupies an assigned table for the duration of the cruise. Two meal seatings, in which passengers are assigned to dine at a particular table at a specified time, usually 6 or 8:30 p.m. for dinner, with breakfast and lunch comparably early or late as well.

As ships get bigger, after-dark entertainment options increase. Most cruise passengers want to step out after dinner; take in a show, listen to some music, maybe hit the dance floor or head for the casino.

Big-ship cruising means high-tech shows featuring dazzling laser-lighting effects, pyrotechnics, video backdrops, actors "flying" in and out, and large casts of singers and dancers performing everything from Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber tunes to fast-paced contemporary music revues.

Lounge entertainment varies not only from ship to ship, but from room to room on the same ship, providing enough variety to please passengers with varying tastes. Combos or solo acts pop up all over most large ships at night, with at least one band playing dance tunes. If a quiet piano bar isn't for you, try the disco.

You'll think you're in Vegas or the Riviera! All your favorite games of chance including Poker, Craps, Caribbean Stud, Roulette and Slots, Slots, Slots.