Moderno speciality

[dpepper64]

We are booking our dinners for our Med. cruise in September,  no issues on all our dinners except for Moderno.  We have 6 total night pre paid but they keep wanting to charge us for that dinner.  Any ideas?

[graphicguy]

5 minutes ago, dpepper64 said:

We are booking our dinners for our Med. cruise in September,  no issues on all our dinners except for Moderno.  We have 6 total night pre paid but they keep wanting to charge us for that dinner.  Any ideas?

How many dinners have you booked so far?  Did you get the Speciality Dinner Package?  If so, you get 3 specialty restaurant dinners.  If you’ve already used those, they will charge for additional ones.

 

Going to any of those speciality restaurants without a pre-paid package and ordering a la carte is pricey. 

 

How many did you get?

[dpepper64]

We have 4 with the cruise and we have purchased 2 additional dinners.  It was kinda weird as the first night we tried to book was Moderno and they tried to charge us.  I went ahead and booked other dinners and all went well.

[babba]

I would go ahead and call NCL Dining ... I always have a problem with booking Moderno for the same reason ... I believe it has to do with the "prefix" price rather than a la carte ... 

[graphicguy]

41 minutes ago, babba said:

I would go ahead and call NCL Dining ... I always have a problem with booking Moderno for the same reason ... I believe it has to do with the "prefix" price rather than a la carte ... 

I agree.  If you've already purchased the dinning, make sure you have some sort of person on NCL's end showing your purchases and have them put it in writing.  Better to have it and be able to show it when/if they try to charge you for your dinner and you have to get the restaurant manger involved once you've already eaten, than to have to go to customer service after the fact (and wait in line for them to figure it out).

[CaptainWoody]

How far in advance is NCL letting folks book dinners now?

[dpepper64]

we booked at 120 days out

[BirdTravels]

If you want to eat at Moderno or Teppanyaki, you need to book them first. It should ring up free. Then book other specialty restaurants. You can decide at the time you dine how you pay for the dinner (SDP credit or room charge). 

[dpepper64]

We went ahead and used the call the agent on the web site and she was able to get the reservation for us.  Real easy.

[CaptainWoody]

Thanks for the good info.  I've marked my calendar for 120 days out from our October cruise.  

 

Good to know about booking the Teppanyaki first.  It doesn't look like the Bliss has a Moderno.

[Paul Bogle]

17 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

If you want to eat at Moderno or Teppanyaki, you need to book them first. It should ring up free. Then book other specialty restaurants. You can decide at the time you dine how you pay for the dinner (SDP credit or room charge). 

 

5 hours ago, dpepper64 said:

We have 4 with the cruise and we have purchased 2 additional dinners.  It was kinda weird as the first night we tried to book was Moderno and they tried to charge us.  I went ahead and booked other dinners and all went well.

 

My first thought was the booking order. Since dpepper64 seems to have made the bookings in the correct order but still received a charge, what is one to conclude?

 

I'm glad a call was able to sort this out but it seems the automated system defaults to a charge for the fixed price venues. 

[dpepper64]

I would go with Tapanyaki, Q, cagney and LOs Lobos

 

[dpepper64]

It all worked out.  Yes having a fixed cost seem to make a charge from the start.    I never had used the chat on email but the service worked out great.  

[CaptainWoody]

Slightly off topic.... But Moderno is the only truly bad specialty restaurant experience we had.  If the OP likes their meat pink and juicy (like in the pictures), they may wish to think twice.  No matter what they brought us, it was over cooked (i.e. dry and no pinkness).  I'm guessing since they have to try to please everybody, they cook everything at least medium-well.  I complained to NCL and we received some on-board credit for out next cruise.  So, it worked out fine in the end.  That said, I doubt I'll eat at Moderno's again.

[sanger727]

On 5/23/2021 at 3:47 PM, CaptainWoody said:

Slightly off topic.... But Moderno is the only truly bad specialty restaurant experience we had.  If the OP likes their meat pink and juicy (like in the pictures), they may wish to think twice.  No matter what they brought us, it was over cooked (i.e. dry and no pinkness).  I'm guessing since they have to try to please everybody, they cook everything at least medium-well.  I complained to NCL and we received some on-board credit for out next cruise.  So, it worked out fine in the end.  That said, I doubt I'll eat at Moderno's again.

while I don’t completely disagree with your assessment, as a point of comparison; our moderno experience was much better than our cagney’s experience. When we arrived at cagneys for our reservation there was a woman complaining to the host that her food was bad, she sent it back, and when another one came back it was also bad. We assumed she was being dramatic but were wrong. We ordered two medium steaks and got one medium Rare and one medium well. We could deal with that except nothing had an ounce of flavor to it. Since we were there on our ‘free’ Dinners we ate enough to not be hungry and went to the buffet later. 
 

moderno, on the other hand, had some good and some bad. And that’s part of what I enjoy about it. Yes, some of the meats were dry and over cooked. But they kept coming around with more options so if you didn’t like something there was always something else to try. And the side dishes were outstanding. We left cagneys still a little hungry, we definately left moderno stuffed.

[tony s]

We have better luck at Le Bistro. We gave up on Cagney's after asking for medium three times and either got purple or black,no medium. Waiter stated it was best chef could do. That is what you get for pre-paid service charge

 

[BigRedFan]

On 5/23/2021 at 9:10 AM, dpepper64 said:

We are booking our dinners for our Med. cruise in September,  no issues on all our dinners except for Moderno.  We have 6 total night pre paid but they keep wanting to charge us for that dinner.  Any ideas?

I ran into the same problem a while back using dining plan and Platinum 2 meal perk.  Someone on Cruise Critic posted a very helpful explanation on the order that you book your specialty dining so that you are not charged and then have to be refunded on board.  I hope this info is still relevant  and will help you.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2561613-updated-speciality-restaurant-booking-guide/?tab=comments#comment-55222117

 

 

[hallux]

On 5/23/2021 at 2:47 PM, CaptainWoody said:

It doesn't look like the Bliss has a Moderno.

Correct, no Moderno on Bliss...

[CaptainWoody]

On 5/25/2021 at 3:08 AM, sanger727 said:

Yes, some of the meats were dry and over cooked. But they kept coming around with more options so if you didn’t like something there was always something else to try. And the side dishes were outstanding. We left cagneys still a little hungry, we definately left moderno stuffed.

In our case, they did keep coming around and my plate just kept piling up with more charcoal.  OTOH, I've never had a bad experience at Cagney's, but don't question that some have.  Steak in the MDR?  That's never turned out well....