Ultimate Dining Package - How do you choose where to go?

[lizzy911]

My husband and I are sailing Royal Anthem in March and got the Ultimate Dining Package. It was only $144 for an 8 night cruise. We haven't sailed Royal before but much prefer specialty restaurants to MDR on NCL, and to a lesser extent on Celebrity. The wine discount is also nice since we aren't purchasing a beverage package.

 

Anyway I know we can't make reservations until we get on board but I'm curious how you decide where to make your reservations... Anthem has 4 specialty so do you tend to go to each one twice? One more than others? The 4 on Anthem are Chops, Wonderland, Jamie's, Izumi.

 

We'll probably take advantage of a few of the included sea lunches at Chops since they have a steak salad option. I can't figure out if Izumi also is open for lunch on sea days but that also seems to be a lighter choice.

 

Any thoughts welcome.

[mkam2821]

They assign the first night (which, ifyou want, you can change once on board) and thenyou make the other reservations once on the ship

[dswallow]

Wonderland usually lets you go there once as part of a package, and charges a small fee per person ($10 I've heard) if you want to book a second/additional night. I don't recall lunch being an Izumi offering, but I rarely pay much attention to Izumi, and as small as it is on Anthem, could believe that they just wouldn't have the business to support the prep of the food for lunch. 🙂

[handbellplayer]

We just had the package on Oasis.  We looked at the menus before we left (most are available if you Google them).  We spread out our dinners to roughly twice in each restaurant.  I made a spreadsheet of our show reservations and chose a dining time based on that. I went to one of the restaurants immediately upon boarding and made our reservations then.  We were able to go to Izumi Hibachi, but it had to be Night 1 with the UDP, so we did that.  We didn't make reservations for lunch (embarkation day and sea days).  Our lunches were at Johnny Rockets, Chops and Sabor.  One note - a good day to eat lunch at Sabor is the day they have the family fun (I can't remember what it was called, but it was on  the last sea day) on the Boardwalk, because you can enjoy the festivities while you eat. 

[JezzaC]

14 hours ago, dswallow said:

Wonderland usually lets you go there once as part of a package, and charges a small fee per person ($10 I've heard) if you want to book a second/additional night. I don't recall lunch being an Izumi offering, but I rarely pay much attention to Izumi, and as small as it is on Anthem, could believe that they just wouldn't have the business to support the prep of the food for lunch. 🙂

 

Had a package on Ovation and went to Wonderland twice - no extra fees. They suggested me to go there only once due to capacity but then I mentioned there isn't any restriction on fine print - so second visit was fine as well.

[new2cruising2006]

Is it difficult to get 'prime time' for reservations if you wait til you get on the ship?  I'd like to eat somewhere between 6-7.

[Clarea]

1 hour ago, new2cruising2006 said:

Is it difficult to get 'prime time' for reservations if you wait til you get on the ship?  I'd like to eat somewhere between 6-7.

 

Hard to predict as this can vary cruise to cruise.  Best to go to a specialty restaurant as soon as you board and make all the reservations you desire.

[MsBehave]

Bookings for Quantums Oct 2019 sailing have just opened but there isn't an ultimate dining package yet. Will that become available closer to the sail date?

[Clarea]

11 minutes ago, MsBehave said:

Bookings for Quantums Oct 2019 sailing have just opened but there isn't an ultimate dining package yet. Will that become available closer to the sail date?

 

Unpredictable, but likely.

[MsBehave]

14 minutes ago, Host Clarea said:

 

Unpredictable, but likely.

Hope so. Wonderland is Au$98 - Izumi nearly $60 etc.