Anyone have experience of MDR dinner reservations on Crown Princess?

[ddvgww]

My husband and I are sailing on Crown Princess in December.   Seems different setup to Majestic where we could choose to book online pre cruise to dine in any of the free restaurants each evening

Da Vinci - looks like can't prebook it so just have to rock up and join the queue any night you want to dine there.   I imagine the lines will be huge around 7pm.  Is that correct? 

Botticelli - can book now online with a variety of times to choose from so may pre book a few nights there .

Michelangelo - can choose to dine there at 5pm or 7.20 but once booked are locked in for the entire cruise.,

I would love to hear from anyone with advice of which dining venue option is best.

Thanks heaps .

[robncruise]

you have picked up the new dining "regime" on Princess. 1 MDR is traditional early or late dining

1 dining room is for walk ins and the other is able to be booked on a nightly basis. From memory I think you have correctly identified each dining room for each type of seating on Crown. There is a thread on this forum where someone has compiled a table showing dining for each Princess ship 

[ddvgww]

Does anyone know if you can perhaps phone in the morning and book a table for that evening for Da Vinci restaurant or do they definitely NOT accept bookings and only allow walking?  Having fears of long queues !!

[skynight]

Botticelli DR, deck 6 aft is designated for those that wish to make reservations. Reservation times are available every 20 minutes. You make them on your app. If you do not have an app I guess you can call. I would think that most passengers that want these reservations plan for it pre-cruise and have them set up prior to boarding. But, I have no information regarding day of availability.

Michelangelo DR, deck 5 mid ship is for fixed early & late seating, same table & tablemates, same waiters. You select this in advance of boarding.

Da Vinci DR deck 6, mid ship. Roughly half of this DR is used for reserve class dining. The remainder is used for walk in dining, no reservations. 

 

 

[arizonaperson]

@ddvgww Here is what the DR is suppose to look like after September 15, 2024 for Crown.( yes it’s new dining from what you are use to)

Answer to phoning in for DaVinci- probably not.

 

Who knows if the walk-in restaurants will be busy at 7 PM ? I think the majority of the people/ passengers  that I’ve heard want to lock in a pre-reserved time. So only time will tell if the walk-in restaurant will be busy or not. And if you don’t want to pre-book either of the other two dining rooms, then don’t worry about it. You don’t have to do anything .

You can do the walk up,the buffet ,the specialty restaurants, the casual venues ,or grab a slice of pizza , etc.

But right now you can go on the app or the web version and book Botticelli restaurant and you can book it for different times every night. It’s also flexible -if once you get onboard, you decide you don’t want that time, You should be able to reserve for another time by the app or calling dine line.

If you want traditional dining room, yes, you would be locked into either the first seating or the second seating with of course leeway to go to specialty dining if you wanted to. But if you know that you’re going to do more specialty than traditional, shouldn’t hold up a table to do that, but it is possible to book traditional and not show up for whatever reason on any given night. Just go to dining reservations on app or web and “ play” around to see what you are after.

 

Crown Princess- 2024-2025( January & September 2025 voyages are available to book now) Traditional & Botticelli are open to reserve

 

Michelangelo (mid deck 5) is traditional 5 pm & 7:30pm

Botticelli (aft deck 6) is reservable every 20 minute reservations (  option of shared or private table at 6 pm)

DA Vinci ( mid deck 6)-walk in

Edited August 22 by arizonaperson

[trbarton]

I overlooked booking my dinner reservations so I’m just going to walk up before 5 pm & hopefully I can get the same time, 5 pm, each night in the same restaurant as their are no 5 pm times available. 
 

Tom😀