Specialty Dining - Have you been able to book for Feb/20?

[Alberta Quilter]

We are 125 days until sailing and are unable to book any specialty dining.  My past experience has been that one can book within 6 to 9 months prior to sailing.  The only exception to that was when Le Cirque was available and it was usually delayed for early in the year.  We will be sailing on the Nieuw Statendam in Feb/20.  Any ideas what is going on?  I only want to book the PG and Tamarind for two specific nights.

[fatcat04]

Our cruise is at the beginning of January and we haven't been able to book dining yet. I check everyday. 

[dmg1956]

Thanks much for your posting. We are on NS for a 14 day cruise beginning January 5 and I check everyday as well. Good to know that others are having the same experience, especially fatcat04. 

We always book Tamarind for our embarkation night dinner so as to avoid the semi-controlled chaos of the MDR on embarkation night (or another venue if the ship does not have Tamarind).

Having a mild case of obsessive compulsive disorder (in a good way) I always like to have everything in place by 3 months out from embarkation. This situation must be another of HAL's changes some of which are good and others that are just plain annoying. We always purchase one of the specialty dining packages for a cruise but book the embarkation night dinner separately.

 

I guess we will just have to be patient and wait for HAL to do it's thing.

Cheers,

dmg1956 

[kazu]

HAL seems to delay bringing out the specialty dining for the New Year for some reason.

 

I’ve been in the same boat (so to speak) and usually they show up around October - early November.  I’m not sure why they are delayed but it seems to happen on a regular basis each year.

 

The only thing we can do is keep checking and once they come out hopefully someone will post 🙂 

[Alberta Quilter]

Thanks everyone!   Guess I'll have to be patient (not one of my virtues!).

[RuthC]

As Kazu posted, this is typical when the new year is approaching---the books don't open up until later in the year before. I don't remember them opening as early as Kazu does, though. I thought it was in November, or possibly even early December some years. 

[kazu]

29 minutes ago, RuthC said:

As Kazu posted, this is typical when the new year is approaching---the books don't open up until later in the year before. I don't remember them opening as early as Kazu does, though. I thought it was in November, or possibly even early December some years. 

 

I’m just going by memory and checking my confirmations from HAL, Ruth.

 

A lot of my sailings got caught in this in the past.  On one cruise, I could book around Oct. 20th and I think the others were pretty much early November.  I didn’t wait until December for any of them - but that’s only my experience and who knows what holds this year? 😉 
 

I’m watching as I do want to book a couple of nights that I know I want so, if mine come up, the odds are the others do too and I will certainly post.

 

 

[Djptcp]

We are on the Koningsdam on Jan. 2nd and still couldn't book specialty dining as of yesterday.

[Alberta Quilter]

Update - I was able to book all of our specialty dining for our Feb/20 cruise yesterday.  

[kazu]

23 minutes ago, Alberta Quilter said:

Update - I was able to book all of our specialty dining for our Feb/20 cruise yesterday.  

 

Good news. 🙂 

 

I could book for our April sailing but not the one a few months later next year.

 

[KroozNut]

Booked PG rezzie last Wednesday for our Oosterdam sailing in March '20.

 

I think it just depends on when the Ship's coordinator gets around to loading the specialty dining availability for a particular ship/sailing.

[Djptcp]

We were finally able to book specialty dining last week (first week of Nov.) for our Jan. 2nd Koningsdam cruise. Still can't book our Feb. 5th Veendam cruise specialty dining.

[Djptcp]

Oops - just checked and I could make specialty dinner reservations on Feb. 5th Veendam cruise.

[Alberta Quilter]

2 hours ago, Djptcp said:

Oops - just checked and I could make specialty dinner reservations on Feb. 5th Veendam cruise.

 

That's good!   I was wondering since our cruise is after your Feb 5th cruise.