Dining Question from new cruiser

Hi, We've never sailed Regent; we're taking the Explorer out of Miami for an 11 night roundtrip Caribbean in January! I actually have a few questions; but I'll start with dining. I read that "dining reservations open" on a certain date. On our voyage, night 2 & 3 are sea days, and night 10 is a sea day. I do not know what to expect. What restaurants must be reserved (all of them?)

Is La Veranda / Sette Mari 2 names for the same place? What is the difference? Are they rez? Does Compass Rose require reservations?

Pacific Rim; Prime 7; and Chartreuse are the "specialty restaurants"? Are there any experienced cruisers willing to give me their opinion of what I should book when? We are concierge-D if that makes a difference (how many do I book? I don't even know that!) lol

Thanks! SeaQ

Before travel cat chimes in (;)), I thought I'd give this a try.....we are just "gold" in the seven seas society so newbies for many on this board!

Hi, We've never sailed Regent; we're taking the Explorer out of Miami for an 11 night roundtrip Caribbean in January! I actually have a few questions; but I'll start with dining. I read that "dining reservations open" on a certain date. On our voyage, night 2 & 3 are sea days, and night 10 is a sea day. I do not know what to expect. What restaurants must be reserved (all of them?)

Only the specialty restaurants need a reservation.

 

Is La Veranda / Sette Mari 2 names for the same place? What is the difference? Are they rez?

La véranda is the buffet for breakfast and lunch. It becomes sette Mari in the evening (Italian cuisine) and does not require a reservation.

 

Does Compass Rose require reservations?

No

Pacific Rim; Prime 7; and Chartreuse are the "specialty restaurants"? Are there any experienced cruisers willing to give me their opinion of what I should book when? We are concierge-D if that makes a difference (how many do I book? I don't even know that!) lol

Best to book when your reservation window opens online. You can try to snag more reservations once on board. I tend to book the specialty restaurants on sea days so I can be rested and pay attention to the food.

I'm sure that others will chime in. Enjoy the cruise and get ready to become somewhat addicted! We started cruising on Regent in 2012 and now have 6 under our belts and one in the wings!

 

Thanks! SeaQ

I can't answer all your questions, but I can answer some. The Compass Rose is the main dining room. No reservations. and it is open seating between stated hours. We've found it easy to get a seat there, and we seem to almost always be given the choice of table for two or dining with others. Seating is not "fixed" but it is open. Just go there between the set hours, and we have always been seated quickly. As for the specialty restaurants, we always try to book as many as we can. Even when one of these is booked full before the cruise, you can get on a waiting list which has worked for us over half the time. Your reservation to these will be at a fixed time. There is no additional charge for these that we have experienced.

Hi and welcome to the Regent board!

First I would like to recommend that you start an account on the Regent website for your cruise. By doing this you will see the dates when you can book excursions and dining reservations. Just go into the rssc.com website and go into "My Account" - set it up and go to booked cruises. There won't be any there but you can add your cruise by putting in your sailing date, booking number, etc (bottom of the page). At midnight (Florida time) on the date reservations open, you can go into your account and make reservations.

There are two nights that we do not book specialty restaurants...... the night of the Captain's Reception (usually the 2nd night onboard) and the night of the Captain's Farewell (usually the night before the last night of the cruise). On those nights there are some special items on the menu in Compass Rose that are worth trying. Note: After these events, Compass Rose gets packed so I would recommend either getting there right at 6:30 p.m. or waiting until 8:00 pm.

There are many of us here that will be happy to answer any questions that you have (note: We have been on Explorer four times - it is our favorite ship!)

As well as asking questions on this Board, the Regent website has some useful information, albeit much of it is 'buried' and it therefore takes some practice to find what you are looking for.

The following section of the website gives details of all the restaurants, including sample menus:

https://www.rssc.com/experience/cuisine/

The FAQ section has a wealth of material, including how to go about on-line booking of speciality restaurants and excursions:

https://www.rssc.com/frequently-asked-questions/before-you-sail/

I like to get reservations at one of the specialty restaurants on the night of sailing. They tend to be less crowded then, and it's unlikely that you're missing anything special in Compass Rose.

I agree with the above, we have booked a night in one of the specialties on the first night sailing as well.

Just to be clear, you only get one reservation booking for each venue ahead of time, but you may be able to get additional nights once you're onboard. For this reason you may wish to book earlier in the cruise, especially if you have high hopes of one particular venue.

We do not use up any of our on-line advance bookings for the first night.

It is our experience that we can easily get a first night reservation after we board, especially if we opt for a sharing table.

Also, if the journey to the cruise is less than straightforward then an early night may be in order.

Our advance bookings tend to be influenced by what we are intending to do the day before and the day after e.g. we do not book a speciality restaurant on the evening after a long, late finishing excursion

A slightly different dinning question. What is the ideal dinning time if you want to be on-time for one of the shows?

It depends to some extent on the size of the table. The pace of the meal at larger tables can be somewhat leisurely, so you want to give it 2 hours before showtime. I tend to go for the 6-person tables, so can't speak to the smaller tables, but the 2-tops do seem to finish a good bit faster.

At 6:30 p.m. we can dine in an hour and a half at a table for two. At 7:30 p.m., the same table would likely take two hours. It also depends upon how long you like to sip wine (or a cocktail) at the table before dinner. If you don't like to linger during your meal, arrive early, order fewer courses and tell your server that you are in a rush.

In terms of which nights to book a specialty restaurant, we like to book on days when we have excursions that get back later so that we have a guaranteed time to dine. We do not like doing between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. - particularly on the Explorer which I believe has a smaller dining room than the other ships (either that or the extra 50 passenger capacity on Explorer fills up the place).

Another thought - CR on Explorer is particularly noisy in the center of the restaurant. Getting a table towards the back - on either side helps that situation.

Thanks, I learned a lot! How do you book a dining rez onboard? Go to the concierge desk on Deck 5? Can you (should you?) go on Day 1 upon boarding?

I doubt I am adding anything new to your good responses, but just want to say we just returned this week from a 10 day Mediterranean cruise on the Explorer. We made reservations for the three specialty restaurants the minute they became available on line. We started with Chartreuse the 1st night, Prime 7 the 3rd and Pacific Rim the 4th. Our thinking was if we wanted to return to one of them, we could do so later. Pacific Rim was our favorite and we tried to make a reservation for our group of six to return. At first we were told they were full, but checked again a couple of hours later and got in for the next to the last night. We ate once in Sette Mari (La Veranda in the day time, but Italian at night) and the other nights in Compass Rose. I enjoyed all of them, but some in our group were not as fond of Chartreuse. Compass Rose has so many choices. Although we tried Prime 7 one day for lunch which was good, we really liked all the variety in La Veranda. Prime 7 and Chartreuse alternate being open for lunch and Compass Rose only opens for lunch on sea days. If you are fortunate enough for a sea day to fall on Sunday, don't miss the brunch in Compass Rose. It is over the top! Enjoy your cruise.

On a somewhat off-topic note, I just made our dining reservations for our upcoming cruise, and I was able to get all three specialty restaurants on the dates and times I wanted, and I got both booking numbers linked so all four of us are dining together.

That's the first time I was ever able to successfully book multiple couples in all venues online without any problems - I even shifted one reservation back a half hour and it worked perfectly.

Maybe Regent is finally fixing their website issues? Huh...

On a somewhat off-topic note, I just made our dining reservations for our upcoming cruise, and I was able to get all three specialty restaurants on the dates and times I wanted, and I got both booking numbers linked so all four of us are dining together.

 

That's the first time I was ever able to successfully book multiple couples in all venues online without any problems - I even shifted one reservation back a half hour and it worked perfectly.

 

Maybe Regent is finally fixing their website issues? Huh...

:o:o:o I haven't seen any pigs flying yet!

Please excuse the off-thread comment of mine. I'll add something more focused in my next post.

Hi, We've never sailed Regent; we're taking the Explorer out of Miami for an 11 night roundtrip Caribbean in January! I actually have a few questions; but I'll start with dining. I read that "dining reservations open" on a certain date. On our voyage, night 2 & 3 are sea days, and night 10 is a sea day. I do not know what to expect. What restaurants must be reserved (all of them?)

Is La Veranda / Sette Mari 2 names for the same place? What is the difference? Are they rez? Does Compass Rose require reservations?

Pacific Rim; Prime 7; and Chartreuse are the "specialty restaurants"? Are there any experienced cruisers willing to give me their opinion of what I should book when? We are concierge-D if that makes a difference (how many do I book? I don't even know that!) lol

Thanks! SeaQ

Welcome to Regent; we, who love cruising on Regent ships, hope that you have as great an experience as we have had. DW and I have had 2 Explorer cruises (38 nights) and another Explorer cruise booked to the Caribbean in February. Let me try to address your questions based upon our experience and what we intend for the February cruise.

I'll book our 3 specialty dining reservations as soon as they "open up" on about 12:01 AM EST of the day noted in the "My Account" on the Regent website. For this cruise because we are going with Daughter and Son-in-Law, I'll get reservations together with them; otherwise, we get a "sharing" reservation. As you're new to Regent, I strongly recommend that you consider "sharing" (the 2 to 4 others at your table will be assigned by Maitre'd). We have met terrific people this way! We never make reservations for later than 7 PM so we can always make the show and get reasonable seats in the theater (another topic).

We (and a lot of others) love the new menu in CR (the main restaurant) so get there no later than 7 PM. Except for Pacific Rim, we'd be happy to eat dinner every night in CR or a few times at Setti Mari. At home, we rarely eat an Asian restaurant but the ambiance and food in Pacific Rim is spectacular for us. We absolutely don't enjoy Chartreuse at dinner.

We have found the lunches on sea days in both Prime 7 and Chartreuse to be delightful; the lunch menus are different than for dinner. These are very popular lunch venues so go as soon as they open (it's first come; first serve).

Setti Mari is our "comfy" dinner spot after a long day. No reservations but very popular; go before 7 (or near closing). We intend to dine there on the Explore's fantastic aft verandah enjoying the Caribbean night.

We've found the Concierge on Deck 5 to be a fantastic help.

Happy sailing

Jim C

Thanks, I learned a lot! How do you book a dining rez onboard? Go to the concierge desk on Deck 5? Can you (should you?) go on Day 1 upon boarding?

There is a dedicated Restaurant Reservations desk on deck 5, opposite Reception which is open daily.

It will be open the day that you board but, if you have already made your three reservations on-line, the staff member on duty may ask that you wait until the next day before making additional reservations (to ensure all guests have the chance of making at least one reservation in each restaurant). They will be able to tell you their thoughts on availability through the cruise - usually depends on the length of the cruise.......short cruises being the most difficult.

Definitely call in to the desk on the afternoon of boarding if you are looking for something on the first night.