Baffled, how do I....re: Specialty Restaurant Package

[tinaincc]

Traveling on APEX in August.  I have a boatload of onboard credit so I went on today to buy a 3 day package.  It said that when I purchased it I would be able to make reservations for night one.  HOW DO I DO THAT?  There is no place to pick a restaurant or time.  

 

Thanks!  Tina

[micruiser2002]

3 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Traveling on APEX in August.  I have a boatload of onboard credit so I went on today to buy a 3 day package.  It said that when I purchased it I would be able to make reservations for night one.  HOW DO I DO THAT?  There is no place to pick a restaurant or time.  

 

Thanks!  Tina

I thought I will give you an option for a time but not a specific restaurant.  They will assign the restaurant and then you can change once on board and make rest of reservations.

[jelayne]

You pick a time for day 1.  It is necessary for the transaction to be processed, it is not binding.  Once on the ship you book the restaurants and times for your 3 dinners, one does not need to be on the 1st night.  

 

Be sure to make your reservations shortly after boarding to increase the chances of getting the dates & times you want

[tinaincc]

1 minute ago, micruiser2002 said:

I thought I will give you an option for a time but not a specific restaurant.  They will assign the restaurant and then you can change once on board and make rest of reservations.

Yes, it said 3PM 😞

[tinaincc]

1 minute ago, jelayne said:

You pick a time for day 1.  It is necessary for the transaction to be processed, it is not binding.  Once on the ship you book the restaurants and times for your 3 dinners, one does not need to be on the 1st night.  

 

Be sure to make your reservations shortly after boarding to increase the chances of getting the dates & times you want

Good call - I hope to board the minute I can - I am in a Sky Suite, not sure if there is 'early' boarding but we are hoping to board, make all of our reservations etc, have lunch then potentially go back out for the afternoon in Amsterdam.  

[sunpuppy]

That exact thing happened to me too. It says you can reserve the first restaurant when you book the package, but I wasn’t able to for my Beyond cruise. It showed 3pm, but no restaurant. Not sure what that was for.

 

We  just got the Edge and people were cancelling their dining packages because they couldn’t get reservations—all booked! And there were only 2000 passengers. I think they were really short on staff, though. We booked Fine Cut on board and got  a 7:30 reservation, but they weren’t even taking names For the waitlist for Eden. The concierge was no help at all.

[cnktodhunter]

When we booked a 3 day dining package on Silhouette in April 2019 we just went straight to Murano when we boarded and booked the nights and times that we wanted. 

[mfs2k]

After spending thousands of dollars on a cruise, I made individual restaurant reservations months in advance and spent another $100 for the peace of mind knowing I’m at the restaurants I want to dine in, when I want to. 

[tinaincc]

11 hours ago, sunpuppy said:

That exact thing happened to me too. It says you can reserve the first restaurant when you book the package, but I wasn’t able to for my Beyond cruise. It showed 3pm, but no restaurant. Not sure what that was for.

 

We  just got the Edge and people were cancelling their dining packages because they couldn’t get reservations—all booked! And there were only 2000 passengers. I think they were really short on staff, though. We booked Fine Cut on board and got  a 7:30 reservation, but they weren’t even taking names For the waitlist for Eden. The concierge was no help at all.

Glad I am not crazy, it was driving me bonkers. No idea why they say if you book now you can pick your first restaurant.

4 hours ago, mfs2k said:

After spending thousands of dollars on a cruise, I made individual restaurant reservations months in advance and spent another $100 for the peace of mind knowing I’m at the restaurants I want to dine in, when I want to. 

This is interesting.  I went in to the reservation portal and saw that times are already greyed out which means they are already booking up.  I may do the same thing which is annoying.  We are in a Suite so have access to Luminae.  I am wondering if I should just book Eden now and forget the rest. 

[sunpuppy]

5 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Glad I am not crazy, it was driving me bonkers. No idea why they say if you book now you can pick your first restaurant.

This is interesting.  I went in to the reservation portal and saw that times are already greyed out which means they are already booking up.  I may do the same thing which is annoying.  We are in a Suite so have access to Luminae.  I am wondering if I should just book Eden now and forget the rest. 

 

I think that's a good plan. If you really want to try Eden, which I hear is AMAZING, that's probably what you should do. 

 

We were just on the Edge and Eden was completely booked by the time we got on the ship. They weren't even adding names to the waitlist at that point. Although, I did hear of a couple times people did get called from the waitlist. We were lucky to get a 7:30pm reservation for Fine Cut. (When we got on the ship at 11:30am we dropped our bags in the cabin and then went straight to Fine Cut and Eden. We were in the first group to board.) People were in line at Guest Services later cancelling their Specialty dining packages since they couldn't make reservations. 

 

We had 2017 passengers on board (the most they'd had in a while) and I don't think the ship was fully staffed, so that was a big part of the problem.

[tinaincc]

7 minutes ago, sunpuppy said:

 

I think that's a good plan. If you really want to try Eden, which I hear is AMAZING, that's probably what you should do. 

 

We were just on the Edge and Eden was completely booked by the time we got on the ship. They weren't even adding names to the waitlist at that point. Although, I did hear of a couple times people did get called from the waitlist. We were lucky to get a 7:30pm reservation for Fine Cut. (When we got on the ship at 11:30am we dropped our bags in the cabin and then went straight to Fine Cut and Eden. We were in the first group to board.) People were in line at Guest Services later cancelling their Specialty dining packages since they couldn't make reservations. 

 

We had 2017 passengers on board (the most they'd had in a while) and I don't think the ship was fully staffed, so that was a big part of the problem.

Thank you.  Since you did try Fine Cut what did you think?  

[sunpuppy]

Fine Cut was very good. However, I keep thinking of when we first started going to Chops on RCI and how great that was. It falls short of those days, but the filets we had were cooked perfectly and very tender. Mushrooms were just sliced mushrooms, not the button mushrooms you used to get. No baked potato. My husband loved the Mac & Cheese. Service was great, too.

[Tyler414]

I usually always go to at least three specialty restaurants each cruise, but never bought the "package" for this reason.  Just got back from an Apex cruise and booked Eden once and Fine Cut twice months before the cruise.  After night one at Eden I wanted to cancel one of my Fine Cut and go back to Eden, but I was told it was already booked for the cruise, went back on the third night to try again and was still booked...

[tinaincc]

4 hours ago, sunpuppy said:

Fine Cut was very good. However, I keep thinking of when we first started going to Chops on RCI and how great that was. It falls short of those days, but the filets we had were cooked perfectly and very tender. Mushrooms were just sliced mushrooms, not the button mushrooms you used to get. No baked potato. My husband loved the Mac & Cheese. Service was great, too.

Good to know - since I have Luminae and I hear the filet is good there, we may skip FC then.

3 hours ago, Tyler414 said:

I usually always go to at least three specialty restaurants each cruise, but never bought the "package" for this reason.  Just got back from an Apex cruise and booked Eden once and Fine Cut twice months before the cruise.  After night one at Eden I wanted to cancel one of my Fine Cut and go back to Eden, but I was told it was already booked for the cruise, went back on the third night to try again and was still booked...

Ooooh Tyler, do tell.  Eden was THAT good?  I was hoping to go to Eden on Embarkation night for sure.

[mfs2k]

4 hours ago, tinaincc said:

Glad I am not crazy, it was driving me bonkers. No idea why they say if you book now you can pick your first restaurant.

This is interesting.  I went in to the reservation portal and saw that times are already greyed out which means they are already booking up.  I may do the same thing which is annoying.  We are in a Suite so have access to Luminae.  I am wondering if I should just book Eden now and forget the rest. 

You can book now and cancel later but at least you’ll have reservations when you want. 
PS. It’s likely they only allow pre reservations for a limited percentage of all availability otherwise no one would be able to book when they get onboard and there would be a lot of unhappy passengers. So when you see it’s booked it’s probably only 40-50% booked 

[mfs2k]

4 hours ago, sunpuppy said:

If you really want to try Eden, which I hear is AMAZING, that's probably what you should do. 

I reserved Eden twice for my Beyond cruise because of all the recommendations. 

[Tyler414]

5 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Good to know - since I have Luminae and I hear the filet is good there, we may skip FC then.

Ooooh Tyler, do tell.  Eden was THAT good?  I was hoping to go to Eden on Embarkation night for sure.

It was on a March 2022 sailing, they said they were only seating 50% of the tables...It was honestly in my top 3 best dining experiences ever, all the courses were delicious (one of which I have no clue what I ate 🙂 ) the staff was on top of everything, it was an awesome experience, with an awesome staff.

I have a Beyond cruise in January 2023 and have Eden booked three times, I agree with mfs2k you can book and always cancel...

[tinaincc]

33 minutes ago, Tyler414 said:

It was on a March 2022 sailing, they said they were only seating 50% of the tables...It was honestly in my top 3 best dining experiences ever, all the courses were delicious (one of which I have no clue what I ate 🙂 ) the staff was on top of everything, it was an awesome experience, with an awesome staff.

I have a Beyond cruise in January 2023 and have Eden booked three times, I agree with mfs2k you can book and always cancel...

Tyler - one more question.  Is there a 'perfect' time to eat dinner there?  Is there entertainment that cannot be missed.  We are going to book two night just not sure it we should be booking at 7:30 or earlier/later for the best experience.

[mfs2k]

2 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Tyler - one more question.  Is there a 'perfect' time to eat dinner there?  Is there entertainment that cannot be missed.  We are going to book two night just not sure it we should be booking at 7:30 or earlier/later for the best experience.

 

You may want to time it with sunset for your cruise,  since there are so many windows looking out from the stern of the ship.  We're sailing out of NY in October so we reserved 630pm

[Tyler414]

8 minutes ago, tinaincc said:

Tyler - one more question.  Is there a 'perfect' time to eat dinner there?  Is there entertainment that cannot be missed.  We are going to book two night just not sure it we should be booking at 7:30 or earlier/later for the best experience.

We were seated at 6:30 on embarkation night, I do not recall any entertainment while eating.  The entertainment is upstairs and I think it starts a little later. I did come back every night to the bar for one of the drinks (Shaman) and seemed like every time I went to grab a drink around 9:30ish it seemed like the entertainment was finished or on a break.

[micruiser2002]

I have a question about Eden menu, isn't that the one that everyone said recently changed to the same as Apex?  We are on Apex in August and honestly the menu doesn't look that great???  What am I missing?

[Tyler414]

2 hours ago, micruiser2002 said:

I have a question about Eden menu, isn't that the one that everyone said recently changed to the same as Apex?  We are on Apex in August and honestly the menu doesn't look that great???  What am I missing?

If I did not like a menu, I would not go…

[LGW59]

5 hours ago, micruiser2002 said:

I have a question about Eden menu, isn't that the one that everyone said recently changed to the same as Apex?  We are on Apex in August and honestly the menu doesn't look that great???  What am I missing?

Only thing your missing is whatever is not on the menu that would appeal to you.  You’ll find one that does I assume.

[micruiser2002]

10 hours ago, LGW59 said:

Only thing your missing is whatever is not on the menu that would appeal to you.  You’ll find one that does I assume.

I guess I should have been clearer.  Those who are raving about Eden did they have the old Edge menu and not the new menu?

[D C]

On 4/11/2022 at 4:55 PM, tinaincc said:

Traveling on APEX in August.  I have a boatload of onboard credit so I went on today to buy a 3 day package.  It said that when I purchased it I would be able to make reservations for night one.  HOW DO I DO THAT?  There is no place to pick a restaurant or time.  

 

Thanks!  Tina

If you booked the 3-night package, do NOT use it on the first night.  The first night discount without a package is so good that  "First night discount + 2 regular price meals" can be cheaper than the total of the 3 night package (depends on where you eat).   It looks like the 4n package is where it gets much better on a per-dinner basis.