Specialty Dining Alaska Ruby Princess Night 7? (Victoria 7 to midnight)

On the last night, Night 7, of our May '18 Ruby Princess Alaska cruise, the ship's in Victoria 7 pm to midnight. We have traditional dining reservations; I read that these go away after Night 6. Will specialty dining options be available on Night 7? I was thinking that if you weren't doing a formal excursion in Victoria, you could eat a nice 6:00 dinner on the ship, say at the Crown Grill or Share or the Salty Dog, and then go for a walk into Victoria for a bit. Would that work? How/when would you make reservations for this? Thanks so much.

You can reserve for the specialty dining on the Dine Line, just like you would for regular or formal nights.

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

We went to the Crown Grill on Day 7 of our July 1, 2017 cruise on Ruby. I called that Friday morning and had no problem getting a early reservation for our party of 13. It was not very busy in the restaurant, I think most people made the most of their time in Victoria.

You can also make a reservation, now, in your cruise personalizer. Yes, you will have to pay the cover charge up front, but you will be assured of a reservation. You can request a table at 5:30, 7:30 or 9:30.

This is exactly what we did when in Victoria. We had an early dinner at the Crown grill that evening and then when the rush to get off had died down, we got off the ship and took a walk around the area and found a nice pub to have a beer or two before heading back to the ship. Later that evening, we found the delights of the late evening buffet aboard ship! :) I had no idea what was available up there until that last night of the cruise! Rookie mistake. ;)

Great advice! Thanks!

On our Ruby cruise to Alaska last month, not only did dinner on night 7 become all open seating, but they opened the doors around 4:30pm, and our waiters said that was "normal" for night 7. Apparently, a good number of passengers need to attend immigration activities around 6:00pm. I realize that the OP is actually planning to go to a specialty restaurant that night, but do keep in mind that if you have TD (especially early-seating TD) and you LOVE your waiters, you NEED to go line up EARLY, like at least 4:15 if not earlier. We saw the people who had table 122 for late seating beat the table 122 early seating people by less than a minute, and a little bit of frustration therein.

OP here. I read somewhere that one's traditional seating table wouldn't be available to you on night 7. Maybe this varies? But yes, we were thinking specialty dining on night 7.

We had our regular table and waitstaff in traditional dining the evening in Victoria. The line to get off the ship was incredibly long so we went to dinner (which was open seating) before leaving the ship.

Sounds like unless my travel friends are really excited about something in Victoria, we should avoid the long line getting off the ship.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

OP here. I read somewhere that one's traditional seating table wouldn't be available to you on night 7. Maybe this varies? But yes, we were thinking specialty dining on night 7.

We were on the Ruby a month ago. Although the night 7 dinner in the MDRs is open seating, that's not to say that you CAN'T have your table...you just have to beat everyone else to your table, so you have to be willing to hurry up and wait, by lining up outside the MDR before the doors open. We had our traditional seating table that night, but we went down to line up about 15 minutes before the doors opened.

If I remember correctly, I forgot something that we wanted to take to dinner that night. My wife waited in line while I ran up to the room to grab whatever it was. I got back to the MDR just as the last of the crowd was making its way in, and I ended up walking in with the people at table 122 who we recognized from early seating. The people who had table 122 for late seating had gotten there already, and were fully seated and settled in, and I could see that the people I walked in with were rather disappointed that they wouldn't have Sadudee and Alex. They did make it a point to visit with Sadudee and Alex before leaving, but...