speciality dinning no reservation question

[TexasCigarGuy]

Just got off the Star earlier this week and as we stood waiting for Cagney's to open for dinner and our 5:30 res, we witnessed at least 10 couples/groups being turned away by the hostess and manager with a "I'm sorry, we can't accommodate any walk-ups tonight. We're completely booked for the evening.". This occurred the second to the last night.

 

One lady in particular was extremely upset as she had unused dinners on her SDP. They wouldn't budge and she stormed off grumbling under her breath.

 

Made us very glad we had booked it before sailing, as it turned out to be a fabulous meal and experience.

[BirdTravels]

I read another post about a week ago, that they are going to start charging for no shows. You have to cancel 24 hours ahead of time according to what I read.

 

Candi

Other cruise lines have no problem with tagging no shows with fees. NCL should take a lesson.

[newmexicoNita]

We are a couple who enjoys making 6:00 pm specialty restaurant dinner reservations in advance of our cruise. Nothing worse than calling for a reservation on the ship and being given the choice of 8:30 or 9:00 pm.

exactly or walking up and finding the only thing available is 9 or 9:30 and you are a bit tired. We usually do our booking prior to sailing or as soon as we get on the ship. It is easier to book and cancel or adjust than take a chance of getting a decent time that meets your needs. We have made them the day of, but it has been a day when we were able to adjust and we went to the reservation desk early. I think most of us can, safely plan ahead. We know pretty much what we are doing, when. When we are on a regular vacation we do not decide an hour ahead of time to dine at an upscale restaurant. deciding at the last minute is for the MDRs or O'Sheelan's.

[Raleigh Traveler]

The following is part of a review I wrote for a TA on the Jade this past spring;

This subject defies all logic and understanding. On eachship, there are complimentary and specialty restaurants. You can makereservations at all the specialty sites and some of the complementary butsimply put, the system is broken. First, there is the ability to bookreservations online pre-cruise but it appears that there may be a percentage ofseats limit and some have been told by staff that it may only allow 25% to bebooked pre-cruise. Once on board you should be able to book using theiConcierge app but that never worked for us. Second, you should be able to bookat the restaurant or at the reservation desk next to reception. There are alsoscreens around the ship that show each restaurant and how booked it is for eachtime slot that evening.

Now for reality. Even though the screen showed a restaurantfull, twice we walked up and were seated immediately in a specialty restaurantthat was actually half full. Once we asked for a booking at Cagney’s and weretold the earliest seating would be at 8:45pm. At 6pm we walked up without areservation and were seated immediately. The restaurant was about 25-30% full.I counted 14 empty tables for two and several larger tables. By the time weleft the larger tables were still empty as well as 6-8 of the tables for two. Ihave read about this enigma and have now seen it with our own eyes. We askedstaff about this inconsistency and always got answers that avoided thequestion, like talking to a politician.

[cruise4kicks]

The restaurant was about 25-30% full.I counted 14 empty tables for two and several larger tables. By the time weleft the larger tables were still empty as well as 6-8 of the tables for two. Ihave read about this enigma and have now seen it with our own eyes. We askedstaff about this inconsistency and always got answers that avoided thequestion, like talking to a politician.

Raleigh, my understanding is this has more to do with staffing than the availability of tables.

[Aldeya]

We prefer to book all our dining including MDR online before boarding. We didn't plan to dine in any specialty restaurants on our upcoming Gem Holiday cruise.

 

It will be our first cruise as Platinum and I didn't realize we would have two specialty dinners as one of this Latitudes level perks. Anyway when I tried to cancel two MDR bookings and book two specialty restaurants the system doesn't let me do it online.

 

It looks like I have to call to make changes. I'd prefer to do it onboard hoping for better time slots (only late time slots are left anyway) but now I'm not sure if it's a good idea to wait. Any suggestions?