Making Specialty Dining Reservations Onboard - How Difficult?

[cruisegal#116]

My husband and I are sailing on the Eclipse 1/29 - 2/5/11. We want to try each of the Speciality Restaurants Murano, Qsine & Tuscany Grill during our cruise.

 

Generally speaking how hard it it to get these reservations if we wait to book them once we are onboard? We are in Concierge Class and are Elite. Supposedly we have some sort of priority here.

 

I just am not sure I want to be tied to a date and time now not knowing what will be happening on board the ship that night. We generally like to dine between 7:30 and 8:30pm. I think these might be prime times so I am not sure if I should wait or just take my chances and book now.

 

Any insight you can provide would be most appreciated.

[spearmint]

My husband and I are sailing on the Eclipse 1/29 - 2/5/11. We want to try each of the Speciality Restaurants Murano, Qsine & Tuscany Grill during our cruise.

 

Generally speaking how hard it it to get these reservations if we wait to book them once we are onboard? We are in Concierge Class and are Elite. Supposedly we have some sort of priority here.

 

I just am not sure I want to be tied to a date and time now not knowing what will be happening on board the ship that night. We generally like to dine between 7:30 and 8:30pm. I think these might be prime times so I am not sure if I should wait or just take my chances and book now.

 

Any insight you can provide would be most appreciated.

 

We. also Elite members, have always waited until we are on board, and have never had difficulty obtaining the night and the time that we wanted to go to the specialty restaurant. That being said, our upcoming cruise on Solstice is the first time on this class (the others only have one spec. rest.) and we will again wait until we are onboard to make reservations.

 

Bill

[emileg]

My husband and I are sailing on the Eclipse 1/29 - 2/5/11. We want to try each of the Speciality Restaurants Murano, Qsine & Tuscany Grill during our cruise.

 

Generally speaking how hard it it to get these reservations if we wait to book them once we are onboard? We are in Concierge Class and are Elite. Supposedly we have some sort of priority here.

 

I just am not sure I want to be tied to a date and time now not knowing what will be happening on board the ship that night. We generally like to dine between 7:30 and 8:30pm. I think these might be prime times so I am not sure if I should wait or just take my chances and book now.

 

Any insight you can provide would be most appreciated.

We tried to book specialty dining online for a recent Summit cruise and it was sold out. Although we were one of the last ones to board, we went to the specialty restaurant and had no problems getting a reservation for the night of our choice at our preferred time of 6:30.

[Gonzo70]

On Equinox this past December all the prime times were booked up in advance. I was among the first couple hundred to board the ship and went directly to the specialty restaurants and they only had real early or real late time slots available.

[Chicago Boy]

Hi There,

 

We are on the Equinox Oct 31, 2010 for the Trans Atlantic crossing. We went on line and booked the Murano and Tuscan Grill about 3 weeks ago. You might consider doing that. The Murano is $35.00 P.P and the Tuscan Grill is $30.00 p.p.

 

Enjoy your cruise:o

[dmk]

We always make our reservations on boarding day and have never had a problem with having our requests met.

[cb at sea]

These boards would have you think the "specialty" restaurants are jam-packed...99% of the time, they are NOT!

[lvcruiser]

These boards would have you think the "specialty" restaurants are jam-packed...99% of the time, they are NOT!

 

Agreed. I've never had a problem getting the time and day I want by waiting until the first day of the cruise. I prefer to use my OBC for this purpose.

[ArtM]

These boards would have you think the "specialty" restaurants are jam-packed...99% of the time, they are NOT!

 

Definitely true. This is what makes it nice; the reservations are staggered so that there is a constant, although almost imperceptible turnover of tables.

 

This helps maintain the relaxed atmosphere. At the specialty dining room staff to table ratio, it would be total chaos if every table was occupied and all those servers were running around.

 

Art

[MessyJessy]

We waited and booked on board at Tuscan Grille. We wanted to use some of the on board credit we received from our TA. There was plenty of availability and we chose the date and time we had planned on booking in advance. We had a lovely table near the windows and excellent servers.

[gaelan]

We just came off the Solstice, our first Celebrity cruise, and just after check in we were approached by a uniformed crew member asking if we had booked our speciality dinning. Both DW and I wanted to try Murano, and after being told it would be sold out soon after departure we asked for a Wednesday night 8-8:30p, seating. We were told Wednesday was avaiable but not the time and were offered 9:00pm which we accepted. At the time of the Murano booking we were told that they would try to accomodate our request for an earlier time and sure enough we were able to get the 8:30pm slot. Starting about tuesday they did open a booth at the entrance to the buffet offering the speciality restuarants of Tuscan Grill, Murano and Silk Harvest. We signed up for the Silk Harvest for Thursday and had several time slots available. My sense is that booking in advance gets the best time slots and days of the cruise but there is availability. However if celebrating a special event I would certainly book in advance if possible with the Tuscan Grill and Murano being the more poular venues.

[NnJ2010]

How far out do they open the online booking, does anyone know? is it earlier for certain folks then the rest?

 

Ditto with spa appointments, I assume that they aren't all sold out they just only put out so many online and reserve some for onboard?

[Project_gal]

How far out do they open the online booking, does anyone know? is it earlier for certain folks then the rest?

 

It varies. We were able to book in May for our Constellation cruise in November. It is clear from thee boards that other cruiseshave openned up much close to the sail date. I believe that it will open for everyone at the same time.

 

Sue

[Gonzo70]

How far out do they open the online booking, does anyone know? is it earlier for certain folks then the rest?

 

Ditto with spa appointments, I assume that they aren't all sold out they just only put out so many online and reserve some for onboard?

 

With specialty dining it can be good to book in advance because they do not offer discounts during the cruise and they do on some sailings get booked up. With the spa, IMHO one should never book in advance. The spa very rarely is fully booked up and on all of my cruises they start offering discounts (often deep discounts) on the second day of the cruise. The spa tends to have "brochure pricing" but I have usually been able to get about 50% off the list prices by waiting.