First time suite guest; booking included speciality dining?

[KarmaCruisers]

So this will be my first time in a suite..I see it includes speciality dining on the first night..can I book this in advance or do I need to do it once I get on the ship?

[jwattle]

Mixed reviews on this, but we have 100% been able to book through the app in advance 🙂 Happy cruising and enjoy the suite life! 

[DiRonT]

We always book in advance (especially if you want The Catch). The app has charged us sometimes and not other times.  If it charges us I just go to the Concierge once onboard and have it reverse the charge and we get it back as onboard credit.  Concierge will be your best friend when sailing in a suite!

[memoak]

We never book in advance just call the dine line. It is guaranteed 

[KarmaCruisers]

2 minutes ago, memoak said:

We never book in advance just call the dine line. It is guaranteed 

Ahh ok. I kinda thought the same thing..but if catch is sold out..

[cr8tiv1]

I have yet been able to book a complimentary Crown Grill time yet!  Did try twice on up coming cruise.  Both times charged my account before “asking/confirming”.  Cancelled both times since I don’t want more OBC.  Currently getting unavailable or error message.  I just call when I get onboard. 

 

Have a great time on your well earned cruise.  

[julia]

We are booked in a full suite in a few months, and NO WAY am I playing that game "charge my credit card in advance for an included perk, and here's an OBC credit back". 

😲 Nope and Nope.

[worldtraveller]

We normally don't either but in December we are on the Sun and want to try the Tepanyaki place and with only two sittings I have a feeling it may be sold out if we wait until we get on board.  Thoughts?

[voljeep]

23 minutes ago, worldtraveller said:

We normally don't either but in December we are on the Sun and want to try the Tepanyaki place and with only two sittings I have a feeling it may be sold out if we wait until we get on board.  Thoughts?

this - as did we, and also the Catch ... I currently have $180 on my card charged for the 2 nights reservations, and yes, we also have the Premier package with the 2 specalty dinners included.

 

I'm not going to be shut out again, sorry, not this time

 

I'll deal with the credit onboard, refundable OBC, if any leftover, casino, shops, yeah, right, leftover.

 

As far as I'm concerned, all I did was prepay some refundable OBC - I can live with that for 180 days or so

[cr8tiv1]

I can see your point.  BUT....it shouldn't be handled this way by Princess.  Just a lot of unnecessary steps to jump through with the same results. 

 

How hard can it be to "fix" this?  (aka Sheldon Copper).

 

1 hour ago, voljeep said:

this - as did we, and also the Catch ... I currently have $180 on my card charged for the 2 nights reservations, and yes, we also have the Premier package with the 2 specalty dinners included.

 

I'm not going to be shut out again, sorry, not this time

 

I'll deal with the credit onboard, refundable OBC, if any leftover, casino, shops, yeah, right, leftover.

 

As far as I'm concerned, all I did was prepay some refundable OBC - I can live with that for 180 days or so

 

[J13C85]

12 hours ago, voljeep said:

As far as I'm concerned, all I did was prepay some refundable OBC - I can live with that for 180 days or so

That is our attitude as well and that is what we did last time. To the OP, if you are on a Royal Class ship or higher, one AWESOME perk is the Suite Concierge Lounge. On our voyage, Concierge took care of getting us our credits (for all three specialty dining meals we prepaid) on embarkation day (took her all of 5 minutes). We were on a B2B and the day before turnaround day I decided I wanted to get new flowers for the cabin

 It was kind of last minute but the Concierge (her name is Georgia) got that done for me. The Concierge team can do do much and they are wonderful.

[memoak]

12 hours ago, J13C85 said:

That is our attitude as well and that is what we did last time. To the OP, if you are on a Royal Class ship or higher, one AWESOME perk is the Suite Concierge Lounge. On our voyage, Concierge took care of getting us our credits (for all three specialty dining meals we prepaid) on embarkation day (took her all of 5 minutes). We were on a B2B and the day before turnaround day I decided I wanted to get new flowers for the cabin

 It was kind of last minute but the Concierge (her name is Georgia) got that done for me. The Concierge team can do do much and they are wonderful.

I still don’t get why anyone would prepay for a guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night. They leave tables empty on purpose. We have sailed exclusively in suites over the last 10 cruises and have never had a problem getting reservations on board. We sail plus package so that is our only free one but we usually look at dinner menus in the morning and if we decide to go specialty that night we just see the manager In Sabatini’s for breakfast and get reservations for 7:30 or 8:00 never been an issue

[KarmaCruisers]

FWIW; it charged my card; but I definitely want to make sure I get a spot at Catch the first night.

it sucks it charged for two; when the “wife” 99% chance won’t show.

[Rick&Jeannie]

13 minutes ago, KarmaCruisers said:

.... but I definitely want to make sure I get a spot at Catch the first night.

This ^^^^^

[J13C85]

3 hours ago, memoak said:

I still don’t get why anyone would prepay for a guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night. 

As Polonius said "To each his own". For us, we sail in full suites with the Premier Package. We like to make our trips as all inclusive as possible so we will buy some OBC to help offset on ship purchases. We will pre purchase and pay for all three SD meals (embarkation and 2 for Premier pkg) with a credit card and choose our desired times. When we first visit suite concierge lounge, they take care of converting those payments to OBC. To us, this is always about buying roughly $206 in OBC while guaranteeing the times and dates we want. In all honesry, I probably would not pre buy on a Grand Class ship as they don't have Suite Concierge and I prefer to avoid Guest Services, but on any Royal Class or above I utiluze the Concierge team. 

 

@memoak If nothing else, now you know at least one reason why someone would prepay for guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night. 🍽😀

[memoak]

1 hour ago, J13C85 said:

As Polonius said "To each his own". For us, we sail in full suites with the Premier Package. We like to make our trips as all inclusive as possible so we will buy some OBC to help offset on ship purchases. We will pre purchase and pay for all three SD meals (embarkation and 2 for Premier pkg) with a credit card and choose our desired times. When we first visit suite concierge lounge, they take care of converting those payments to OBC. To us, this is always about buying roughly $206 in OBC while guaranteeing the times and dates we want. In all honesry, I probably would not pre buy on a Grand Class ship as they don't have Suite Concierge and I prefer to avoid Guest Services, but on any Royal Class or above I utiluze the Concierge team. 

 

@memoak If nothing else, now you know at least one reason why someone would prepay for guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night. 🍽😀

And we avoid Royal class ships unless we love the itinerary due to the noisy piazza. Plus I don’t like loaning Princess money for s

a year or more

Edited June 9 by memoak

[J13C85]

@memoak did not think this was a referrendum on Royal Class Ships or 1 year "interest free loans that we give to Princess. You simply stated "I still don’t get why anyone would prepay for a guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night." and I provided you with a reason why some would. FWIW I prepay for mine after Final Payment so the interest free loan is only 90 days.

[memoak]

9 minutes ago, J13C85 said:

@memoak did not think this was a referrendum on Royal Class Ships or 1 year "interest free loans that we give to Princess. You simply stated "I still don’t get why anyone would prepay for a guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night." and I provided you with a reason why some would. FWIW I prepay for mine after Final Payment so the interest free loan is only 90 days.

Why make a loan on a free meal ?

[J13C85]

4 minutes ago, memoak said:

Why make a loan on a free meal ?

It's not about the loan on the free meal, to us it is a loan on an OBC. As for the Interest Free Loan, on a different thread I wrote: 

I really wanted to address this point. All of us who cruise happily provide "Interest Free Loans" to the cruise lines and never bat an eye. For example, on Princess, at the 90 day point we all have to pay in full. That means that you are paying in full 3 months before you receive your product and essentially giving them 90 days interest free (in my case just under $9K for my next cruise). Of course, this is not unique to cruising but can be argued for anything you pay in advance (airline tickets, non refundable pre paid hotels, etc). If you think about it all of these are interest free loans.

 

This is not a complaint but I am merely pointing out a simple fact. Side note, I looked at a cruise on Viking that was 15 months out. They wanted final payment within 90 days of booking (which would have been giving them a one year interest free loan and that was too much for me). I even confirmed this w/Viking before I decided against the cruise. Personally, I like to pre pay but not that far in advance.

[memoak]

2 minutes ago, J13C85 said:

It's not about the loan on the free meal, to us it is a loan on an OBC. As for the Interest Free Loan, on a different thread I wrote: 

I really wanted to address this point. All of us who cruise happily provide "Interest Free Loans" to the cruise lines and never bat an eye. For example, on Princess, at the 90 day point we all have to pay in full. That means that you are paying in full 3 months before you receive your product and essentially giving them 90 days interest free (in my case just under $9K for my next cruise). Of course, this is not unique to cruising but can be argued for anything you pay in advance (airline tickets, non refundable pre paid hotels, etc). If you think about it all of these are interest free loans.

 

This is not a complaint but I am merely pointing out a simple fact. Side note, I looked at a cruise on Viking that was 15 months out. They wanted final payment within 90 days of booking (which would have been giving them a one year interest free loan and that was too much for me). I even confirmed this w/Viking before I decided against the cruise. Personally, I like to pre pay but not that far in advance.

I don’t pay for things I don’t have to. I get my free embarkation dinner just by calling dine line and say where and what time I want to eat. We have an average of $500 OBC on any given cruise and free cabins.

[J13C85]

53 minutes ago, memoak said:

I don’t pay for things I don’t have to. I get my free embarkation dinner just by calling dine line and say where and what time I want to eat. We have an average of $500 OBC on any given cruise and free cabins.

@memoak..that is fantastic for you 😀. My point to all of these posts was simply to provide you with insight as to your statement:

 

I still don’t get why anyone would prepay for a guaranteed specialty dinner on embarkation night

 

The point is I'm not asking or trying to understand what you do (as those decisions are up to you and what is best for you and your family), but to help you understand why someone else would pre pay for the dinner since you stated you do not understand why anyone would do this. Hopefully, I was successful in that effort.

[memoak]

Basically I am trying educate passengers to not panic about booking food venues way in advance as there is always empty tables after 7:30 in all venues and if you are in a suite the manager in Sabatini’s for breakfast will make sure you can get it. At least that has been my experience in 35 years of cruising and 60 Princess cruises