Dining on Sojourn

We will be taking our second Seabourn cruise in October and I have a few questions about dining options that I am not clear on. Our last cruise was on one of the small ships so this will be our first Seabourn cruise on one of the newer ships.

From what I understand, it looks like R2 will still be the alternate restaurant on Sojourn this October (that is, has not changed over to TK). I believe you must make a reservation for R2 but I don't see anything on the website where you can make this reservation ahead of time. So how is that accomplished?

Is the Colonnade open for dinner and if so, what kind of food is served there? You are served there, it is not a buffet in the evening, correct?

TK dinner items will or may appear on the menu in the main Restaurant? In reading the reviews, it seems that in general these menu items have not gone over that well. It seems to me that many of these items are sort of "southern" in nature. Since we live in Atlanta, I don't really need to go on a cruise to get ribs, mac & cheese, bbq beans, etc. ( and we don't enjoy those dishes much anyway) so I hope they have not taken better items off the restaurant menu in order to make room for the TK items. The food was the best we have ever had on a cruise on our previous Seabourn cruise so looking forward to that again!

Thanks for your help.

From what I understand, it looks like R2 will still be the alternate restaurant on Sojourn this October (that is, has not changed over to TK). I believe you must make a reservation for R2 but I don't see anything on the website where you can make this reservation ahead of time. So how is that accomplished?

 

Is the Colonnade open for dinner and if so, what kind of food is served there? You are served there, it is not a buffet in the evening, correct?

 

TK dinner items will or may appear on the menu in the main Restaurant?

 

Thanks for your help.

R2: You will be given a reservation, but you may also call and change it and/or get additional reservations.

Colonnade: Yes, open for dinner. "Family Style" some nights. No Buffet for dinner. Variety of styles, which change nightly.

TK: We did not find this anything to write home about.

Our summary of Seabourn food: Generally good cruise food. But, the best cruise food is rarely better than our favorite restaurants at home. We don't cruise for the food, but somehow, the food finds us anyway. :)

You can book R2 when you board the ship. The nice thing about doing so at that point is they will be able to tell you the time for each night in case that helps you decide when to dine there.

Approximately two nights a week there will be a TK only menu for dinner in the Colonade -- at present these are the riffs on comfort foods but it could also be a specially sourced steak as the main. Also remember that even at breakfast and lunch when there is s buffet you can ALWAYS order from the menu. People seem to get hung up on the idea of a buffet for some reason when it is first of all nothing like those free for all buffets I have seen pics of on big ships and and secondly it is not the only dining option.

In the MDR on most evenings there will be an insert in the menu with a TK option for each course. These most definitely are not "southern" in nature but more representative of TK's French Laundry menu items.

Thanks for the replies. So it seems straightforward to just wait until we board and make our reservation for R2 then.

Sorry for my confusion on the TK menus. I believe I understand this correctly now: 1) There are usually two nights per week that the Colonnade is set up for the TK menu only, this has to be reserved, and is generally the "comfort" food menu that is served family style. 2) The TK course options in the main Restaurant are items representing his French Laundry restaurant menus and one can order all three items (app, main course, and dessert) or just pick and choose and order any one of the items or of course order none of the TK featured items and just order from the main menu. For me personally, I admit that trying something from the French Laundry type menu is more appealing than my previous notion that all items were comfort food (bbq, ribs, etc.).

Thank you, really looking forward to our cruise in October.

Thanks for the replies. So it seems straightforward to just wait until we board and make our reservation for R2 then.

 

Sorry for my confusion on the TK menus. I believe I understand this correctly now: 1) There are usually two nights per week that the Colonnade is set up for the TK menu only, this has to be reserved, and is generally the "comfort" food menu that is served family style. 2) The TK course options in the main Restaurant are items representing his French Laundry restaurant menus and one can order all three items (app, main course, and dessert) or just pick and choose and order any one of the items or of course order none of the TK featured items and just order from the main menu. For me personally, I admit that trying something from the French Laundry type menu is more appealing than my previous notion that all items were comfort food (bbq, ribs, etc.).

You have to wait until you're onboard to make the R2 reservation, you can put in a request beforehand but you get a stern warning that they'll do what they can but nothing is guaranteed until you've boarded. That's different from the new TK Grille which can be booked for one night before you even get on.

1) It was one night on our first week and two nights on our second week. We would have tried the first one on the second week however it was up against the Chef's dinner and that was a really good menu so we only tried the other one. The Herald (daily event summary) was pretty confused that second week and claimed one night was a TK dinner when it wasn't, and said something entirely different on the night it was. So best to just look at the daily menu, if it's 4 courses and no choices in the colonnade, it's the TK menu and you have to book it. Reservations for other nights in the Colonnade are 'recommended' but we did show up one night without one and it was fine, it seems more of an attempt to stagger diners a bit else everyone shows up at 730 and wants an outside table.

2) There seemed to be such an option about once every 2 days on average. You didn't get it on Chef's dinner night, nor on any night they were running the TK dinner in the colonnade, most other nights you did. They're just really extra choices on the menu, just listed in a different place and you can have any, all or none of them, you could probably have two if you liked! There's usually one starter (and those we tried were very small), two mains, one of which is vegetarian and one dessert. The only other difference is you can't order those dishes for room service as you can the other dishes in the MDR. And of course Seabourn Classics are always available in the MDR, so there's quite a lot of choice.