Dining Reservations

Hi, We are new to Regent, having mainly cruised with Seabourn and Azamara. We have made a late booking on The Mariner for an Alaska cruise to SF. I have just tried booking speciality restaurants for this 10 day cruise and am finding very little available. For example for Prime 7, for two, there were three days only with 9 p.m. for sharing there were a few more. Chartreuse was totally full for the whole cruise both for two and sharing. Signatures was much the same. Therefore struggled to make my allowed 3 reservations.

Is this normal, or do things change once on board, or is that as good as it gets. I have a birthday celebration on our first night and can get nothing but a shared table.

Any suggestions as to what we could do.

Thank you in advance

We are on the same cruise and also booked late. Regent always holds back some reservations for people that do not book online or are in the same situation that we are (note: we were able to make dining reservations and if we had booked for the first night would have gladly given up our reservation as we prefer dining in Compass Rose). Check with Reception when you get onboard and they will direct you to the person that is taking reservations. Or, you could go to the restaurant that wish to dine in just before they open and check with them.

Forget Chartreuse. There is no Chartreuse on the Mariner at this time. I believe Signatures is due to be converted to Chartreuse configuration during refurb next Spring. Mistake on website showing Chartreuse. Have you checked with your Travel Agent for assistance regarding reservations?

Yes - I didn't notice the Chartreuse comment. The Regent website is prematurely showing the restaurant. After refurbishment, Chartreuse will go "live" and Signatures will be removed.

Thanks for your replies and for the information with regard to Chartreuse, I can see that now after looking further into it. I will see what I can do on embarkation for bookings. I presume that all of the other dining venues including Compass Rose do not require reservations?

Thanks for your replies and for the information with regard to Chartreuse, I can see that now after looking further into it. I will see what I can do on embarkation for bookings. I presume that all of the other dining venues including Compass Rose do not require reservations?

Correct. Prime 7 and Signatures/Chartreuse are the only ones with reservations (Explorer has a third reservations only venue: Pacific Rim). Compass Rose and Setti Mari (nighttime La Veranda) are walk-in. Because the Regent ships were designed for open dining rather than set times, they have a lot of capacity. Rarely will you have a wait at Compass Rose other than the time that is required to seat the folks ahead of you. Setti Mari can sometimes have a bit of backup. The key to any restaurant is whether you are interested in a table by yourself or are willing to share. Since we usually opt for the latter, we have dined every evening on Regent in exactly the restaurant we wished. No kidding, >175 nights and we have always been able to dine where we wish (though sometimes not at the precise time we wished). Many times this has been a same day decision based on the menus which are posted on the TV.