New to NCL - 90 days til sailing. What do I need to book?

We sail on Epic out of Barcelona in September. I can now book Specialty meals and shows. How necessary is it that I do immediately? Is one more important than the other? I’m a Disney traveler and at 180 days out, you must get some restaurants booked or you will not get a reservation in them. I’d love suggestions on the specialty restaurants, though I understand it’s subjective. Thanks in advance.

Dining and entertainment reservations now open up 120 days out, so unfortunately you are 30 days late.

Things can change very much from cruise to cruise, so it is difficult to say what the effect will be. Log onto myncl and see what is available. I suspect that prime times will now have gone for some venues.

As to what you should book, that is up to you. Some book everything, some nothing. It depends on how flexible you can be. If you can still get reservations for Teppenyaki (and want to go there) then I would get that booked, although last time I was on the Epic we could book that restaurant onboard the day before we wanted it.

We sail on Epic out of Barcelona in September. I can now book Specialty meals and shows. How necessary is it that I do immediately? Is one more important than the other? I’m a Disney traveler and at 180 days out, you must get some restaurants booked or you will not get a reservation in them. I’d love suggestions on the specialty restaurants, though I understand it’s subjective. Thanks in advance.

we go in less than 2 weeks and i would advise that you book your shows asap - better to have them booked than not. although there are stand by queues on the night, it saves the last minute thing.

re the restaurants, take a look at the website and see what you like the look of, then book them too. the ship only release a % of bookings so people can book when you board, but again, better to have them booked as soon as you know :-)

We sail on Epic out of Barcelona in September. I can now book Specialty meals and shows. How necessary is it that I do immediately? Is one more important than the other? I’m a Disney traveler and at 180 days out, you must get some restaurants booked or you will not get a reservation in them. I’d love suggestions on the specialty restaurants, though I understand it’s subjective. Thanks in advance.

You are already late in booking. You are stroingly advises to book Percilla and Burn the Floor immediately, then book any specialty dining, including the additional fee Cirque show dinner show.

Prime time dining sells out fast. They do hold tables for onboard booking, but that means your fussing with reservations as soon as you embark. No real need to book the MDR, but you can for faster seating. Cagneys steak house and Teppanyaki are the most popular and will sell out prime time first. (On our cruise last week, Cagney’s was sold out for the entire cruise by 1 pm on embarkation day).

We just got off the Breakaway. We had booked our specialty restaurants and maybe two MDRs in advance. We discovered, once onboard, that we were unable to book any MDRs from the screens onboard. When we asked at the MDR check-in desks, we were told we could only reserve a 5:30 seating (if there was availability). For any other time, we should just show up (and hope they had availability). They handed out buzzers once you were on the list. We wanted the flexibility some of the evenings, but found it too hard to get into an MDR without prior reservations.

We sail on Epic out of Barcelona in September. I can now book Specialty meals and shows. How necessary is it that I do immediately? Is one more important than the other? I’m a Disney traveler and at 180 days out, you must get some restaurants booked or you will not get a reservation in them. I’d love suggestions on the specialty restaurants, though I understand it’s subjective. Thanks in advance.

You will want to try and book your dinner reservations as soon as you can, which was a month ago, but we have found it is just as easy to wait until we board the ship. The only problem is we sometimes can not get the exact time we want, but can get within a 1/2 or so time. The restaurants save about 1/2 the spaces in restaurants for those booking on board. When you book now because bookings have been opened for a month, you may, very well find the time you want showing not available.

Dining and entertainment reservations now open up 120 days out, so unfortunately you are 30 days late.

 

Things can change very much from cruise to cruise, so it is difficult to say what the effect will be. Log onto myncl and see what is available. I suspect that prime times will now have gone for some venues.

 

As to what you should book, that is up to you. Some book everything, some nothing. It depends on how flexible you can be. If you can still get reservations for Teppenyaki (and want to go there) then I would get that booked, although last time I was on the Epic we could book that restaurant onboard the day before we wanted it.

You can only book 120 days ahead for specialty dining if you are in the Haven or a Suite. If you are in a balcony, it is 90 days.

We have the dining package for our Dawn NE and Canada cruise and I tried to book all restaurants reservations the morning of 90 days prior (I tried earlier but was not able). Because NCL only frees up about 30 percent of the spaces, it was impossible for me to book the times that I wanted for our group of 6. I don't want to eat at 8:30.

I made reservations for two of our nights for 4 and will try to revise the reservations as soon as we board the ship.

You can only book 120 days ahead for specialty dining if you are in the Haven or a Suite. If you are in a balcony, it is 90 days.

If that is the case for you then either they have changed the timings back again, or there is some issue with your booking.

I do not sail in a suite, and I made all my bookings 120 days out for my August cruise. I am in a balcony on that cruise. Many other people have reported the same on these boards.

People in the Haven have been able to book 130 days out.