Portifinos...What night to book

[butterfly2]

We want to have a special dinner celebrating my husbands parents 50th wedding anniversary. We thought we would take them to Portifinos,... but which night should we go? We definately don't want to miss formal night or any night that they would serve lobster in the Main Dining Room. When we get on the ship how do we figure out which nights are lobster and formal so we could go ahead and book a reservation at Portifinos?

Thanks

[Merion_Mom]

The Maitre D' at Portofino's, when you go there to make your reservation, will have all of the menus in the main dining room for the week. He will help you select.

[truffles2]

We often book the first night by going to the Restaurant as soon as we board. The first night is usually the least enticing night in the dining room for us but we always go to our table first to meet the waiter, asst. waiter, and tablemates and explain our absence. It is easy to get a reservation for the first night.

[Merion_Mom]

Don't get your hopes up, but a couple of years ago, the first night of the cruise in Portofino's (Explorer, I'm pretty sure) was only $10 per person.

[firstcruise05]

We narrowed it down by picking the nights we definately wanted to eat in the dining room.

 

We wanted to eat dinner in the DR on:

the first night to meet our table mates and servers (we didn't want to be the new kids on the block the next night after everyone else at the table already met each other) (which was a Sunday)

 

The two formal nights (which were on Monday and Friday)

 

lobster night (which turned out to be the last formal night on our cruise) (which was on Friday)

 

And the last night (Saturday)

 

So by process of elimination that left us with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

 

We wanted to eat at both Portofino's and Chops. Wednesday was Caribbean night which we've heard is weak for the dining room...we chose Chops for that night. Then we had to decide Tuesday or Thursday for Portofinos. In the end we decided that since Tuesday was a sea day and thursday was St. Maarten we would eat at Portofinos on tuesday so we didn't have to rush back on the ship and get dressed up for a dinner reservation (we had late seating in the dining room which gave us plenty of time after St. Maarten to get ready to eat)

[hblackmon]

We always eat in Portofinos on Caribbean night (food not as good) or Italian night (since the italian is SO much better at Portofinos). We love this restaurant - have fun!

[Kevbear]

Congratulations you picked Chops and Portifino just the way we do it and for the same reasons! :D Enjoy!!!

Kevin

[bubbie617]

ditto about caribbean night. we always skip that one and dine elsewhere.