Dining Reservations No Longer Guaranteed

[Heidi13]

9 hours ago, uktog said:

I think our concern will be we have a very special birthday onboard and will want to be sure of a booking in Manfredi that night - as its Day 2 there is not a lot of time to fix it

 

You may want to contact tellus and ask if you can book the Manfredi's private room. If not, this is also an option once you embark.

[donaldsc]

5 hours ago, photopro2 said:

 

 

Please note this issue only relates to those in DV cabins. You may not have experienced any difficulty yourself, donaldsc, as your post suggests you may be in a higher grade cabin.

 

I was in a DV4 cabin.

 

DON

[neecerz69]

20 hours ago, donaldsc said:

It is beyond understanding why everyone is finding it so complicated with dining arrangements.  It is absurdly simple.  

 

1. There are 4 restaurants on board.  Two of them (the buffet and the main restaurant) are available every night  w/o reservations.  You just walk in and they seat you.  You might have to wait a few minutes if you are at a busy period such as when the restaurant just opens but this happens on any ship.  We typically ate between 7 and 8 PM and there was never any wait.  

 

2. There are 2 by-reservation restaurants - Manfredi's which an Italian restaurant and the Chef's table which does 4 rotating menus over several nights of the cruise.  The menu is usually available for 2 or 3  nights.  When we did our Caribbean cruise we did 3 of the 4 fixed menus - Xiang which is Chinese, Asian Panorama and California cuisine.   The by-reservation system is the one that some people appear not do to understand although it appears on this thread that some also have difficulty with the buffet and main restaurant arrangements.  Depending upon your status you can make a reservation or reservations at Manfredi's and one of the Chef's table restaurants before you board.  We had no problems getting advance reservations at the restaurant of our on the day that reservations for our cabin class opened although we did not get our preferred time.  This does not mean that you will only be able to dine at Manfredi's once or at one of the Chef's Table however that you will be stuck with the time of your pre cruise reservation.

 

3. Once you get on board they open up additional reservations that you can book w/o problems and we did not have to rush to the dinner reservation desk as soon as we got on board to get restaurant spots.  We reserved for 2 additional days when we got on board and could have gotten additional days if we wished.   Again we did not get the exact times for our dinners although they were close.  On the day of the dinner we appeared at the restaurant at the time we really wanted and never had any time getting seated early.

 

To summarize.  Four restaurants - 2 walking w/o reservations and 2 with reservations needed.  Two reservations can be made before you board - Manfredi's and 2 Chef's table.  Additional reservations can easily be made on board.

 

DON

 Except that NO, I was NOT able to make reservations before boarding...that is my issue.

[donaldsc]

5 hours ago, neecerz69 said:

 Except that NO, I was NOT able to make reservations before boarding...that is my issue.

 

I guess that I must have lucked out.  I was able to make reservations.  If my success was an exception that is a real problem.

 

DON

[photopro2]

15 hours ago, donaldsc said:

I was in a DV4 cabin.

Oop's sorry Don, it was your reference to 2 advance reservations in Chef's Table that led me astray. DV's normally only get one.

9 hours ago, donaldsc said:

If my success was an exception that is a real problem.

 I know from personal experience, social media and talking directly to numerous people directly on board that this is a real "thing" at the moment. It seem to have become worse in recent months, maybe as the ships are getting full again? It would be interesting to know when you last booked on MVJ without any issue? 

[photopro2]

On 7/24/2022 at 1:06 PM, photopro2 said:

However, I will be contacting Viking again to suggest they should immediately remove that valueless “guarantee” from their promotional material so as not to mislead customers who book in future.   

It has taken rather longer than I would have hoped but Viking have finally taken up my suggestion and removed the word "guaranteed" from their cabin descriptions.

 

From a practical point of view this will make no difference as the so-called guarantee was already meaningless, as detailed in my original post back in July 2022. Those in DV cabins will still be able to make "priority" reservations in advance and I am sure that the excellent restaurant staff will continue to assist with reservations on-board as they always have.

 

However, I am pleased to see that Viking have recognised that it is wrong to guarantee something that is not always delivered and have made changes to their promotional material accordingly.

Edited May 7, 2023 by photopro2
Added additional comment

[PRH]

The ships are sailing full so getting reservations at Manfredi’s and Chef’s Table are more difficult.  We were in a suite but unable to make Manfredi’s reservations pre-cruise.  Another part of the problem is staffing.  There were evenings in Manfredi’s when only half the tables were occupied but the restaurant was turning people without reservations away.  Covid was active on the ship and the commitment is to staff the restaurant over Manfredi’s if staff are ill.  Do not count on being able to simply show up and get a table but it is worth trying as there are those who cancel/fail to keep their reservation.  This was our experience a few weeks ago so take it for what it was.

[Gropo]

On Viking Venus right now. Was able to secure pre cruise, on day reservations opened, only Manfredi’s one time and Chef Table one time, for PV1. Eventually, checking back several times, got both of them reserved one more time. On board, checking with the Viking Voyager, the last two had been dropped without notice. After dinner at both, first time, we presented our confirmed reservation from the final documents and they added us to the reservation list. 
Dinner scheduled second time at Manfredi’s tomorrow … we shall see. 
 

[neecerz69]

5 hours ago, photopro2 said:

It has taken rather longer than I would have hoped but Viking have finally taken up my suggestion and removed the word "guaranteed" from their cabin descriptions.

 

From a practical point of view this will make no difference as the so-called guarantee was already meaningless, as detailed in my original post back in July 2022. Those in DV cabins will still be able to make "priority" reservations in advance and I am sure that the excellent restaurant staff will continue to assist with reservations on-board as they always have.

 

However, I am pleased to see that Viking have recognised that it is wrong to guarantee something that is not always delivered and have made changes to their promotional material accordingly.

Thank you for this. Maybe enough people have said something. I complained about that also. Don't guarantee something if you are not going to follow through, especially consistently. I was able to get 1 8:00 Chef's Table reservation at a shared table pre-departure, but was able to move everything around once I was on board, but it still is wrong to guarantee if you aren't able to actual complete it.

[jmfdr]

On 7/25/2022 at 8:23 PM, shadowlover said:

Seriously?  Why are you taking a cruise vacation?  It's really a lot about community...Try to branch out and meet some new people you may actually find that it's fun and opens you up to a totally different cruise experience.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with you.  Cruising is not about mingling with strangers in your cruise community---unless you choose to do so.  We definitely prefer to dine by ourselves or with friends with whom we are traveling.  To us nothing is more uncomfortable than trying to make polite conversation with strangers during a nice meal..  

[Breckski]

11 hours ago, jmfdr said:

Sorry, but I totally disagree with you.  Cruising is not about mingling with strangers in your cruise community---unless you choose to do so.  We definitely prefer to dine by ourselves or with friends with whom we are traveling.  To us nothing is more uncomfortable than trying to make polite conversation with strangers during a nice meal..  

 

I totally agree with you on this one.  We did a Viking river cruise and the common table at dinner is the one thing we disliked.  We tried to eat dinner in the city where we stopped for the day, but sometimes the ship left so early we had to eat onboard.  These dinners reminded me of many such meals while working in my profession - so it felt a bit like a job to me.

[Gropo]

On 5/7/2023 at 5:39 PM, Gropo said:

On Viking Venus right now. Was able to secure pre cruise, on day reservations opened, only Manfredi’s one time and Chef Table one time, for PV1. Eventually, checking back several times, got both of them reserved one more time. On board, checking with the Viking Voyager, the last two had been dropped without notice. After dinner at both, first time, we presented our confirmed reservation from the final documents and they added us to the reservation list. 
Dinner scheduled second time at Manfredi’s tomorrow … we shall see. 
 

The Manfredi reservation came off without a hitch. During service ALL tables  were eventually filled. Food was fine. Only glitch was that four different people introduced themselves as our waiter. They were right, each of them served or removed. Maybe a staffing issue? Overall, pretty good.