Reservations at a speciality restaurant?

[JimS4210]

Hi all,

We're 54 days away from our cruise on the Sun and I just logged onto My NCL and saw that I can now make reservations at the speciality restaurants. This will be our very first cruise and we're still trying to figure things out. Our vacation style is pretty laid back and we sort of wing it when it comes to certain things, eating being one of them. We've booked our excursions ahead of time but I'm hesitant to book meals ahead of time. What if we find somewhere we want to eat while in port and can't because we have a 7:30 reservation at Le Bistro that we've already paid for?

 

Is it necessary to book ahead of time or are walkups possible? Also, we'll be in a Penthouse Suite and I heard that the butler or concierge can try to squeeze you into a booked restaurant. Is this true? Thanks in advance!

 

Jim

[Sauer-kraut]

Hi all,

We're 54 days away from our cruise on the Sun and I just logged onto My NCL and saw that I can now make reservations at the speciality restaurants. This will be our very first cruise and we're still trying to figure things out. Our vacation style is pretty laid back and we sort of wing it when it comes to certain things, eating being one of them. We've booked our excursions ahead of time but I'm hesitant to book meals ahead of time. What if we find somewhere we want to eat while in port and can't because we have a 7:30 reservation at Le Bistro that we've already paid for?

 

Is it necessary to book ahead of time or are walkups possible? Also, we'll be in a Penthouse Suite and I heard that the butler or concierge can try to squeeze you into a booked restaurant. Is this true? Thanks in advance!

 

Jim

 

Don't book now... In MY opinion all this pre-booking of restaurants totally defeats "Freestyle" cruising. Yes you will probably be able to book for the day of, and the concierge will help you do this. ALSO you can book the night before once you figure out how your days have been running. The only one to pre-book would be Teppanakyi because those are very limited seats and tend to book up quickly.

[AF-1]

From what I've seen on other threads; you can pretty much make onboard reservations or show up every day. One person posted a thread with pictures of wait times. On a seven day cruise; the specialty restaurants get more crowded on day six and seven; so there you have it. Don't book now if you don't want to.

[KeithJenner]

Don't book if you don't want to, unless you have a very specific requirement for a particular restaurant at a particular time.

 

This was my experience last week on the Spirit. I can't see why it should be much different on the Sun.

 

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2034024

[JimS4210]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I think we'll wait and take our chances. My life is regimented enough. I don't want to have to figure out where and when I'm going to eat two months ahead of time!

 

Jim

[Ron_L]

For our cruise on the Epic we decided to wait and take our chances on board and had no problems getting into any of the specialty restaurants. We typically made reservations the day before but in most cases there were open tables the whole time we ate. We could have even gotten into Teppanyaki as long as we weren't picky about the night. It was wide open on the Friday and Saturday night of our cruise (Sunday - Sunday).