Dining on POH

[crusader]

Have any of you recently sailed on the POH.

 

What were your dining experiences.Should we take a chance in the main dining room or just go to the buffet or specialties?

 

Do you have any specialty restaurants to recommend.

 

Does anyone know the current policy of making reservations. How far in advance can you book these.

 

Thks in advance

[mitsguy2001]

Have any of you recently sailed on the POH.

 

What were your dining experiences.Should we take a chance in the main dining room or just go to the buffet or specialties?

 

Do you have any specialty restaurants to recommend.

 

Does anyone know the current policy of making reservations. How far in advance can you book these.

 

Thks in advance

 

I was on the 4/30/07 POH cruise. You can make a reservation for the same day and the next day. They accept reservations for both the main and specialty restaurants. Some employees claim that you can't make a reservation for a party of 2, but that is not true: they always let us.

 

We enjoyed all the restaurants. My suggestion: since there are 7 nights and 7 restaurants, book a different one for each night. That's what we did. We never had dinner in the buffet, but we had breakfast there every day, and had lunch there twice. We had one lunch in Blue Lagoon (not open for dinner), and the other lunches we had off the ship.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[gr8Cs]

We enjoyed all the restaurants. My suggestion: since there are 7 nights and 7 restaurants, book a different one for each night. That's what we did. We never had dinner in the buffet, but we had breakfast there every day, and had lunch there twice. We had one lunch in Blue Lagoon (not open for dinner), and the other lunches we had off the ship.

 

Blue Lagoon isn't open for dinner?

The NCL web site says it's 24 hours. Is that not true?

[mitsguy2001]

Blue Lagoon isn't open for dinner?

The NCL web site says it's 24 hours. Is that not true?

 

According to the Freestyle Dailies, it was open only for breakfast, lunch, and late night snacks. It shares a seating area with Paniolos, which is open for dinner. So I guess something in that space is almost always open.

[Qwackertoo]

My husband read somewhere that suites were still allowed to book the full week in advance with concierge. Can anyone that has sailed recently confirm?

 

Thanks,

 

Deana

[teachntravel]

We were on the April 16th cruise. We have been on over 20 cruises and have to say that though the food choices on POH were not exceptional, the majority of our meals were very good. Service however was pretty pathetic. The only place where we got what we ordered the first try was at the Italian restaurant. The servers are friendly but it is obvious that the majority of servers are new and I question if most have ever even worked in a restaurant. We usually ate with either 6 or 8 people and it was a disaster as far as everyone getting what they ordered. I ordered a glass of white zinfandel every night in whatever restaurant we were in and never once received it. Our typical dinner was 2 and a half hours. We just remembered we were on vacation and talked and laughed our way through the time even though it was difficult when some were getting their main entree before their soup.

[mitsguy2001]

We were on the April 16th cruise. We have been on over 20 cruises and have to say that though the food choices on POH were not exceptional, the majority of our meals were very good. Service however was pretty pathetic. The only place where we got what we ordered the first try was at the Italian restaurant. The servers are friendly but it is obvious that the majority of servers are new and I question if most have ever even worked in a restaurant. We usually ate with either 6 or 8 people and it was a disaster as far as everyone getting what they ordered. I ordered a glass of white zinfandel every night in whatever restaurant we were in and never once received it. Our typical dinner was 2 and a half hours. We just remembered we were on vacation and talked and laughed our way through the time even though it was difficult when some were getting their main entree before their soup.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. I was on the POH only 2 weeks after you were, and did not have any of those issues. Other than the one issue I mentioned at Paniolo's on my review, service was excellent. We were always given the exact food that we ordered, never had to send anything back, and were always served in a timely fashion. I wonder why your experience was so different. I wonder if they give poorer service to larger parties (we were a party of 2), which doesn't make a lot of sense. Or I wonder if maybe the service is better at certain times of day (we typically ate around 8:00 or 8:30 PM). Or if maybe we just got luckier. I hope you have a better experience on your next cruise.