Suite specialty dining first night

[san diego sue]

We just bid up to a Suite, something we never book normally.

Question: We will be able to have free dining in a Specialty Restaurant the first night of our cruise.

Doesn't look like we can book in advance of cruise.

How is this handled? Do we get a notification once on board? We are traveling with another couple who also will be in a suite

and we want to eat together.

Edited November 6, 2022 by san diego sue

[memoak]

Never had a problem going to the venue after boarding and booking a time. Calling the dine line will get you a limited amount of time options but we have actually just walked in on embarkation night and been seated

[san diego sue]

29 minutes ago, memoak said:

Never had a problem going to the venue after boarding and booking a time. Calling the dine line will get you a limited amount of time options but we have actually just walked in on embarkation night and been seated

Thanks for the information. We will go to the venue and book .

[Hobbes67]

Normally they book it for you and leave information in your suite of the time.  If it doesn't work for you, you can call and change it. 

[voljeep]

wonder how much getting reservations has changed since Premier includes a couple of specialty dinners?

[dides]

1 hour ago, san diego sue said:

We just bid up to a Suite, something we never book normally.

Question: We will be able to have free dining in a Specialty Restaurant the first night of our cruise.

Doesn't look like we can book in advance of cruise.

How is this handled? Do we get a notification once on board? We are traveling with another couple who also will be in a suite

and we want to eat together.

We have always managed to book our first night of suite speciality dining using Dine My Way on the app. It knows you are booked in a suite and won't display a charge. You can add also guests here using their booking number but never tried that for other suite passengers.

[san diego sue]

39 minutes ago, dides said:

We have always managed to book our first night of suite speciality dining using Dine My Way on the app. It knows you are booked in a suite and won't display a charge. You can add also guests here using their booking number but never tried that for other suite passengers.

I tried that but said can't book till closer to the cruise. Don't know how much closer we can get , our cruise is in three weeks.

[KeepCalmBearOn]

We've never had an issue booking the steakhouse on embarkation day with our suite benefit. I doubt there is an issue in any of the specialty dining on most Princess ships.

[san diego sue]

37 minutes ago, scottca075 said:

We've never had an issue booking the steakhouse on embarkation day with our suite benefit. I doubt there is an issue in any of the specialty dining on most Princess ships.

Thank you. I would think  that if it is a suite benefit, will have no problem getting in.

[riffatsea]

I have booked it on the app before boarding with no problem

I'd call immediately when you get onto the ship

Suites can board early

[donswife]

What ship? I booked our suite special dinner through the app about a month ago, but since the last app update I only get this when I try to book other nights 

[nnzz]

On 11/6/2022 at 1:06 PM, dides said:

We have always managed to book our first night of suite speciality dining using Dine My Way on the app. It knows you are booked in a suite and won't display a charge. You can add also guests here using their booking number but never tried that for other suite passengers.

We have always been able to book on the app and we were not charged.  We sail next month and the app will not let me book without being charged.  Just called Princess and the "navigator" didn't even

know that specialty dining on embarkation day was included and she asked supervisor who told me

we would have to pay upfront.  Doesn't look like they know what they are doing .  I know we will have

no trouble getting in so I will wait till we board but it is very disappointing to get this kind of customer

service and the level of knowledge from someone who told claimed to be an experienced rep is

troubling.

[san diego sue]

Thank you for all your responses. When I try to book it on the Appl. it says I need to check back closer to sailing date. We will be on the Diamond Princess end of this month. Since it will be the second sailing since the shutdown, don't know how organized the staff on the ship will be .

Right now we still can't even select arrival times.Ship will be sailing from San Diego, another first for Princess in many years. The Port handles everything differently than San Pedro as well.

I don't even want to call Princess  on any items because our answers will be different every time we call. My Appl. shows my husband and I as Blue  card instead of Elite. have been trying to fix this for many months. Started out correct, then mine was blue, then both of us. We have been Elite members since 2011.

Princess has us correct on their web site and the Medallions have been coming to us Elite.  However, with each booking we remain first time cruisers on the Medallion.

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by san diego sue

[waltd]

Gloria I doubt you will have any issues.  If its not resolved by boarding they have a specal line at the Customer Service desk, or they use to, that handles all suite issues.    We have used them and they resolved all our issues.   You can also call them from your stateroom.   

[Cruise Raider]

We only had a problem once when trying to get into the Crown Grill the first night for our suite dinner.  They assigned us to Sabatini's instead.  We were able to switch our included specialty dinner to the second night instead as we really wanted to go to the Crown Grill and the first night was completely packed.  

So, they will work with you.  

[franktown]

If you are on a Royal class ship you can go to the concierge lounge and the concierge will book it for you.

[jeromep]

15 minutes ago, franktown said:

If you are on a Royal class ship you can go to the concierge lounge and the concierge will book it for you.

Good tip, if there is a concierge lounge on your ship, let the suite concierge do the work for you.  That is what they are there for.  Of course, I suspect that you'll get better and more complete features in the app as your sailing gets closer.

 

Everything depends on the sailing, but last time we took advantage of the complimentary specialty dining on embarkation evening we found that the Crown Grill (in our case) was nearly dead.  We did call the dine line after we got on board to secure a reservation for our party, as it was 5 people, but once we got there we discovered that we could probably have just shown up and been seated.  It was not busy at all.

 

The complimentary specialty dining is a nice suite perk, however the reason it is only provided on the first night is also functional for the cruise line.  First, it is my impression that specialty restaurants are not heavily used on the first night, again varies by sailing, and it also helps to get some passengers out of the MDR.  What better way to spread your pax out than to encourage your suite passengers to have specialty dining embarkation evening and get them out of the MDR flow, get some usage out of the specialty restaurants which will may be underutilized that night.