European specialty dining reservations

[KeithJenner]

10 minutes ago, willetstravel said:

Thank you for your response - one more question (newbie here).  We have the free at sea and then we also purchased the upgrade for 2 more additional meals.  I booked reservations for teppanyaki and le bistro - when I went to add reservations for the Brazilian steakhouse, it wanted me to pay the cost of $110.  I just purchased the additional package today... it shows as purchased, but wondering if it takes a little time to reflect on reservations...?  Any thoughts?

To be honest it isn’t something that has ever been relevant to me, as I have never wanted to reserve more fixed price places than I had free at sea dining credits for. My understanding is that it should recognise your purchased package, but this isn’t the first time that I have heard people say that it doesn’t work like that in practice.

 

if it doesn’t resolve itself then I would just wait until you board and then book Moderno. It tends to be one of the slower ones to sell out anyway.

 

For future reference, always book the fixed price restaurants first to avoid this problem.

[Twocoasts]

This board is such a great source of information! Just booked dining for our May 24th cruise out of Rome. 

[Twocoasts]

1 hour ago, willetstravel said:

Thank you for your response - one more question (newbie here).  We have the free at sea and then we also purchased the upgrade for 2 more additional meals.  I booked reservations for teppanyaki and le bistro - when I went to add reservations for the Brazilian steakhouse, it wanted me to pay the cost of $110.  I just purchased the additional package today... it shows as purchased, but wondering if it takes a little time to reflect on reservations...?  Any thoughts?

I got that too but when I refreshed my cart the charge went away. Like you I had 2 Free at Sea and purchased two more evenings. I just checked out and it didn't charge me anything.

[Trimone]

I’ve just booked le bristo for 6th July 

[The Shrike]

1 hour ago, Twocoasts said:

I got that too but when I refreshed my cart the charge went away. Like you I had 2 Free at Sea and purchased two more evenings. I just checked out and it didn't charge me anything.

I had a similar problem for the Star Iceland/Greenland in July.  I called my PCC and he was able to complete my dining reservations in about two minutes.  He was puzzled, though, as to why I couldn't do it but he could.

[jkbec101]

I just played with dining reservations on our Epic cruise out of Barcelona on 9/18/22 and it said to check back after 5/21/22 which corresponds to the date of our final payment.  I don't know if it's just a generic warning or if we will truly be able to make dining reservations after that date.

 

[KeithJenner]

6 hours ago, jkbec101 said:

I just played with dining reservations on our Epic cruise out of Barcelona on 9/18/22 and it said to check back after 5/21/22 which corresponds to the date of our final payment.  I don't know if it's just a generic warning or if we will truly be able to make dining reservations after that date.

 

That is 120 days out, which is when dining reservations are available unless you are in a higher category room or have higher latitudes status. You will be able to make the reservations then.

 

It isn’t directly related to final payment date. They just happen to be the same in some places.

[TrumpyNor]

As others have pointed out, the dining options are now available to prebook also for European cruises if the cruise is less than 120 days out. I tried numerious times to prebook speciality restaurants for 4 nights on my July cruise, and everything goes smoothly until after the payment is "done" allthough the amount is zero (except it is not "done", as it then pops up a message stating that "We've encountered an error. Please log out and try again later".  And then further down the page, it also states that "Some items in your cart are no longer available to purchase and have been removed". And then ALL items in my shopping cart has been removed).

 

I tried this many times over the last couple of hours, both on my regular computer and in the NCL app on my phone. All with the same negative result. Nothing wrong with NCL and nothing wrong with my credit card, as I in the middle of trying making the dinner reservations booked a shore excursion for the same cruise using the same credit card, and that worked out fine. 

 

I have 2 promotional speciality dinners available, plus 2 "Diamond dinners". Turns out the pre-booking is only available to do for my promoitonal dinners, and not for any additional a-la-carte reservations. And THAT is new...... 🤔😒 When I just tried to book only two speciality dinners instead of 4, then everything went smoothly and it was confirmed right away...

Edited April 12, 2022 by TrumpyNor

[KeithJenner]

1 hour ago, TrumpyNor said:

As others have pointed out, the dining options are now available to prebook also for European cruises if the cruise is less than 120 days out. I tried numerious times to prebook speciality restaurants for 4 nights on my July cruise, and everything goes smoothly until after the payment is "done" allthough the amount is zero (except it is not "done", as it then pops up a message stating that "We've encountered an error. Please log out and try again later".  And then further down the page, it also states that "Some items in your cart are no longer available to purchase and have been removed". And then ALL items in my shopping cart has been removed).

 

I tried this many times over the last couple of hours, both on my regular computer and in the NCL app on my phone. All with the same negative result. Nothing wrong with NCL and nothing wrong with my credit card, as I in the middle of trying making the dinner reservations booked a shore excursion for the same cruise using the same credit card, and that worked out fine. 

 

I have 2 promotional speciality dinners available, plus 2 "Diamond dinners". Turns out the pre-booking is only available to do for my promoitonal dinners, and not for any additional a-la-carte reservations. And THAT is new...... 🤔😒 When I just tried to book only two speciality dinners instead of 4, then everything went smoothly and it was confirmed right away...

I was able to book 4 meals at the weekend despite only having 2 free at sea meals.

 

The restriction I am experiencing is that I don’t appear to be able to book any restaurant twice. So, for example right now I can add Le Bistro to my basket and take it right through to the confirmation page (I don’t want to try any further than that as I don’t want a reservation there), but if I try to add any of the four places I have already booked then they don’t even add to my basket.

[TrumpyNor]

1 hour ago, KeithJenner said:

I was able to book 4 meals at the weekend despite only having 2 free at sea meals.

 

The restriction I am experiencing is that I don’t appear to be able to book any restaurant twice. So, for example right now I can add Le Bistro to my basket and take it right through to the confirmation page (I don’t want to try any further than that as I don’t want a reservation there), but if I try to add any of the four places I have already booked then they don’t even add to my basket.

And that is exactly what I was trying to do - book Cagney's twice and Le Bistro twice..... 

Strange.....!!!!!

[KeithJenner]

1 minute ago, TrumpyNor said:

And that is exactly what I was trying to do - book Cagney's twice and Le Bistro twice..... 

Strange.....!!!!!

Yeah, they seem to have restricted the ability to book the same restaurant more than once. I can only assume it is deliberate. I suppose it avoids the chance of people not being able to get into a specific restaurant whilst others visit multiple times.

[kellymccrea]

This happening to me too with just the dining room.  I did ok with making my specialty reservations, but now trying to make regular dining room reservation and was only able to do one night.  I know it isn't really necessary, but I like to have things planned out.

[Gen X Life]

On 3/10/2022 at 2:05 PM, Two Wheels Only said:

Before you board the ship on embarkation day, see if you can log into the ship's Wi-Fi. You might be able to make your reservations with the app before anyone even boards.

This is Genius!!!