Dining options on sapphire

[grandmaa]

We are just off the Sapphire Princess. Had a wonderful time but found one big issue for us.

Because of the 4 smaller dining rooms eating times are a bit tricky. The International Dining room is traditional as well as Vivaldi for first seating. The other 3 restaurants..Savoy, Pacific Moon, and Santa Fe have any time dining..but not really. You can make reservations for dinner for 3 days at a time at a specific time when you call the Dine Line..but no one tells you that..so when you go down to dinner at say 6:30 not knowing you could make a reservation..you could/would get a table, get a buzzer, or they would tell you to try another dining room or wait 45 minutes to 1 hour. By the way Vivaldi becomes anytime dining after 8:15 every night. We were a party of 6 and found this sometimes to be an exercise in futility and frustrating. So..a word to the wise..if you are going to be on the Sapphire make your reservations early and be insistant!!

[DanJ]

I think you'll find 630-700pm is a tough time to show up for anytime dining on any of the ships

[ssbeagle]

I'm surprised they let people make reservations during the prime dining hour in the anytime dining rooms. The one time we did it they would only take reservations for very early or very late seating. They told us it was first come, first served during 6:30 to 7:30. After using anytime dining once we decided to stick with our traditional dining on subsequent cruises.

[Putterdude]

We have never had a problem with ATD on the Diamond or the Sapphire but in this case I suspect the problem was the size of the party.

[Pam in CA]

We have never had a problem with ATD on the Diamond or the Sapphire but in this case I suspect the problem was the size of the party.

The size of the group would definitely make a difference since you'd need a table for six. Anyone with a group like that should expect waits or delays.

 

I prefer Traditional if only so I don't have to worry about waiting, getting a table, having to make a reservation, etc.

[dfields1814]

We also had a problem on the Sapphire for ATD and we are a party of two willing to share and we arrived before 6:00. If the have a reservation system they need to let the passengers know about when boarding. We found out about it the hard way.

[grandmaa]

I'm surprised they let people make reservations during the prime dining hour in the anytime dining rooms. The one time we did it they would only take reservations for very early or very late seating. They told us it was first come, first served during 6:30 to 7:30. After using anytime dining once we decided to stick with our traditional dining on subsequent cruises.

 

It was my impression that with the smaller dining rooms they allowed reservations for half of the dining room and then walk up ATD for the balance..so when we went down at 6:15 we were told all the tables were taken. Then given a buzzer in Pacific Moon and that took 1 hour..next evening went to Savoy same issue..no buzzer took cabin number. Then they said call the "Dine Line" between 8-5 and when we did "Sorry" all the reservations are taken..just walk ups. It was frustrating..so we made dinner reservations for 8PM and the dining rooms were half empty!!! Just wish that ATD was just that without the reservations at the most popular dinner hour..JMHO.

[4cats4me]

We always have a different experience with AT when sailing on the Sapphire. Last year after eating in Santa Fe on the first night, our waiters

suggested that we reserve that table for the week. We asked the head

waiter if we could and he let us do it, so we had our traditional experience

in AT dining. We had the table for 6 p.m. every night.