Specialty Restaurant online reservations question.

[Andersoncd]

Booked an upcoming cruise many months ago. Back in July, I was able to make my reservations for specialty dining (Carnival requires payment at time of making reservations online). The reservations appeared in my planner. Yesterday I checked my planner again and the reservations are all gone. Tried calling Carnival, but no answer. I have the credit card receipts from my payments to prove I paid for them. Has this happened to anyone else? How did you get it resolved, or were the reservations still in effect when you boarded? 

[tattoos]

This has also happened to me.  I logged out of the carnival.com web site and waited until the next day, signed in again and the specialty dining reservations were there.

 

This happened a few times prior to my sail date.  I brought a hard copy of the receipts with me.

 

FYI:  my first reservation was at Cucina del Capitano and we had terrible food and a belligerent waitress, not a good experience.  The next day, I went down to Guest Services to cancel our dining reservation for Ji-Ji's for the next night and was told that because I prepaid, they would not be able to process a refund for me.  I gave him my Diamond card and he changed his demeanor and said he would attempt to cancel my reservation and process a refund.  The refund eventually appeared on my bank statement a month later.

 

From now on, I will never make a specialty dining reservation and pre-pay until I am standing in the Atrium.

[Andersoncd]

Thanks. I too plan on taking my receipts.

[Cruisesfun65]

1 hour ago, tattoos said:

This has also happened to me.  I logged out of the carnival.com web site and waited until the next day, signed in again and the specialty dining reservations were there.

 

This happened a few times prior to my sail date.  I brought a hard copy of the receipts with me.

 

FYI:  my first reservation was at Cucina del Capitano and we had terrible food and a belligerent waitress, not a good experience.  The next day, I went down to Guest Services to cancel our dining reservation for Ji-Ji's for the next night and was told that because I prepaid, they would not be able to process a refund for me.  I gave him my Diamond card and he changed his demeanor and said he would attempt to cancel my reservation and process a refund.  The refund eventually appeared on my bank statement a month later.

 

From now on, I will never make a specialty dining reservation and pre-pay until I am standing in the Atrium.

Ahhhh, too bad. Jiji's is excellent. Cucina not so much.

[tattoos]

Cruisesfun65:  We went to JiJi's for lunch when it was free, it was soooo good.  We are going to make dining reservations at JiJi's for dinner on our next cruise.

 

I agree with you regarding the food at Cucina Del Capitano.  After the waitress took our order, she brought out garlic bread.  I told her that I did not like garlic and requested plain rolls.  She said she had to ask the Chef and came back with two pieces of toasted bread which had garlic on it and I couldn't eat it.  My grandson ordered the fried calamari for his appetizer and he liked it.  I ordered the arancini (rice ball) and she told me that the Chef would not let her serve it to me because it had garlic in it.  I told her that I would like to order a different appetizer and she said every appetizer has garlic in it.  Antipasti and burrata has garlic in it???  The waitress also stated very sternly that the only entree I could order that doesn't contain garlic was the veal served with greasy potatos.  I ordered the veal and it was so tough, I couldn't chew it.  

 

My grandson and I ordered the apple dessert which was terrible.  What a terrible experience we had, never again.  The Chef should be able to satisfy a simple request and be able to offer food choices that do not have garlic.  I'm sure there are other people that do not eat or like garlic.  There is a wonderful Italian restaurant in south Florida that we have been frequenting regularly that offers complimentary garlic AND plain rolls with dinner.  There are numerous menu items I can choose from that contain NO GARLIC.

 

Our waitress was sorely lacking in manners and knowledge.  There was only two other people eating when we were there.  I was very disappointed with the food quality and the wait staff and expressed my feelings to the Guest Services Rep when I cancelled my dinner reservation at JiJi's.  

Edited January 7, 2022 by tattoos
word left out erroneously

[TexasBrit]

Not a direct answer to the original question, but making these reservations online requires a credit card payment. it is not possible to charge them to your OBC.

 

For our cruise back in October on Breeze, we had to go to the service desk onboard and was initially told that I could only cancel the online reservation and then make a new reservation using the OBC but may not get the same time, noit simply switch the form of payment.

We got a different time for the steakhouse which was acceptable, but got the same time for Cucina. The credit card charges were refunded the following week to the account.

 

No idea why the reservations could not be charges to OBC in the first place.

Edited January 8, 2022 by TexasBrit
clarification

[Cruisesfun65]

39 minutes ago, TexasBrit said:

Not a direct answer to the original question, but making these reservations online requires a credit card payment. it is not possible to charge them to your OBC.

 

For our cruise back in October on Breeze, we had to go to the service desk onboard and was initially told that I could only cancel the online reservation and then make a new reservation using the OBC but may not get the same time, noit simply switch the form of payment.

We got a different time for the steakhouse which was acceptable, but got the same time for Cucina. The credit card charges were refunded the following week to the account.

 

No idea why the reservations could not be charges to OBC in the first place.

 

Starting March 15th you can use your obc to pre'-book specialty restaurants, pay for excursions, wifi, etc before your cruise.

[TexasBrit]

19 minutes ago, Cruisesfun65 said:

 

Starting March 15th you can use your obc to pre'-book specialty restaurants, pay for excursions, wifi, etc before your cruise.

Thank you! Good to know, and pleased to see this improvement.

[travelplus]

On 1/7/2022 at 9:32 AM, tattoos said:

Cruisesfun65:  We went to JiJi's for lunch when it was free, it was soooo good.  We are going to make dining reservations at JiJi's for dinner on our next cruise.

 

I agree with you regarding the food at Cucina Del Capitano.  After the waitress took our order, she brought out garlic bread.  I told her that I did not like garlic and requested plain rolls.  She said she had to ask the Chef and came back with two pieces of toasted bread which had garlic on it and I couldn't eat it.  My grandson ordered the fried calamari for his appetizer and he liked it.  I ordered the arancini (rice ball) and she told me that the Chef would not let her serve it to me because it had garlic in it.  I told her that I would like to order a different appetizer and she said every appetizer has garlic in it.  Antipasti and burrata has garlic in it???  The waitress also stated very sternly that the only entree I could order that doesn't contain garlic was the veal served with greasy potatos.  I ordered the veal and it was so tough, I couldn't chew it.  

 

My grandson and I ordered the apple dessert which was terrible.  What a terrible experience we had, never again.  The Chef should be able to satisfy a simple request and be able to offer food choices that do not have garlic.  I'm sure there are other people that do not eat or like garlic.  There is a wonderful Italian restaurant in south Florida that we have been frequenting regularly that offers complimentary garlic AND plain rolls with dinner.  There are numerous menu items I can choose from that contain NO GARLIC.

 

Our waitress was sorely lacking in manners and knowledge.  There was only two other people eating when we were there.  I was very disappointed with the food quality and the wait staff and expressed my feelings to the Guest Services Rep when I cancelled my dinner reservation at JiJi's.  

I would have pulled the waitress aside and had a friendly but firm talk with her. Then I would go up to the host stand and ask for the Maitre D or Director of Specialty Dining and have a word with them.

 

I had an issue in the Steakhouse on another cruiseline and the Maitre D comped us another Dinnef the next week with s Bottle of Wine