Specialty Dinner Resrevations

[Ipeeinthepools]

How early does Holland America open reservations for specialty dining?  Should we be able to make reservations for a cruise at the end of Januray?

[CruiserBruce]

Generally 4 or so months out. But early in a new year always seems to freak out the HAL website,  and you might not be able to book until 1 or 2 months out. Keep watching your booking.

 

We were able to book Koningsdam March and N. Statendam July specialty restaurants easily 4 or 5 months out.

[Ipeeinthepools]

Thanks, we'll keep looking.  Given all of the Have It All promotions, I suspect there will be a lot of people trying to book early times.

[colin v]

Currently on Rotterdam. We had booked our dining as part of the HIA promo in May. They were on our account until the day before we boarded. Turns out there is now no record of our reservations. Despite my emails as confirmation they don’t really care. Our dates/times are no longer available. Apparently we are not the one ones affected by this glitch. 

[Ipeeinthepools]

27 minutes ago, colin v said:

Currently on Rotterdam. We had booked our dining as part of the HIA promo in May. They were on our account until the day before we boarded. Turns out there is now no record of our reservations. Despite my emails as confirmation they don’t really care. Our dates/times are no longer available. Apparently we are not the one ones affected by this glitch. 

 

Well that's discouraging for a first time HAL cruiser.

[Roktory]

I booked dinners for each night of our December 18 2022  cruise in June.   you have to pay full price but if your have a mariner discount you will be refunded the % to your account.

[Ipeeinthepools]

46 minutes ago, Roktory said:

I booked dinners for each night of our December 18 2022  cruise in June.   you have to pay full price but if your have a mariner discount you will be refunded the % to your account.

 

Thanks for the info.  I was hoping to use the dining credits from the Have It All promotion.

[Seasick Sailor]

16 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

How early does Holland America open reservations for specialty dining?  Should we be able to make reservations for a cruise at the end of Januray?

 

My understanding is for the upcoming new year there are menu changes. Reservations for the new year are available about mid September. 

We are on Rotterdam Dec 11th thru Jan 24th. We were able to make reservations for the first cruise "Collectors Cruise" but still waiting for reservations to open for Dec 28th and Jan 14th.

[Ipeeinthepools]

43 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

 

My understanding is for the upcoming new year there are menu changes. Reservations for the new year are available about mid September. 

We are on Rotterdam Dec 11th thru Jan 24th. We were able to make reservations for the first cruise "Collectors Cruise" but still waiting for reservations to open for Dec 28th and Jan 14th.

 

Thanks for the update.  Please let me know when you can make reservations for your January 14 cruise.

 

Thanks 

[Seasick Sailor]

4 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Thanks for the update.  Please let me know when you can make reservations for your January 14 cruise.

 

Thanks 

 

Ok pee.

[KroozNut]

17 hours ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

Thanks, we'll keep looking.  Given all of the Have It All promotions, I suspect there will be a lot of people trying to book early times.

Maybe, but if you're using OBC for specialty dining as we are (in addition to HIA promo), you have to wait until you're onboard to make the reservations.

[SunNFunCruzer]

17 hours ago, colin v said:

Currently on Rotterdam. We had booked our dining as part of the HIA promo in May. They were on our account until the day before we boarded. Turns out there is now no record of our reservations. Despite my emails as confirmation they don’t really care. Our dates/times are no longer available. Apparently we are not the one ones affected by this glitch. 

 

Colin, can you please explain what your post means? You had an emailed confirmation of your reservation printed out and brought with you and the Rotterdam staff didn't honor your booking? Or you didn't have the email with you?

 

Did you pay by credit card? Use On Board Credit? or credit from the Have it All promotion?

 

You are not the first person I've heard on this cruise complain they couldn't get dining reservations. Is it possible you were bumped for a Suite guest? Or maybe you were a HIA bumped for someone paying full price in cash?  Did you escalate to the restaurant manager? I think their names and titles are on one of the TV channels (I assume for this purpose), and I think there's a guest comment box to the right of the front desk at guest services.  Good luck. Curious to hear how you initially booked.

[Cruise Suzy]

Not Colin. On all 3 of my cruises since the restart, at least 1 reservation that I pre-booked using Complimentary Dines or free MDR reservations needed to be rebooked once onboard. The reservations all appeared in "My Itinerary", and I received a confirming e-mail for each one. But some did not appear on the ship's dining database. The Complimentary Dines were from HAL and my TA.

 

For all but one I was able to re-book the same day/time by calling once onboard. For some reason. the online reservation schedule does not always transfer to the ship's database. Not a big deal, but just aggravating that it had to be redone. The one I wasn't able to rebook: I had 2 Canaletto dines included but the venue was only open on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

I do not have a smartphone, so I pre-book on the Website. I always verify my dining and shore excursion reservations once onboard. Have never had a problem with an excursion reservation not showing on the ship's database.

[Ipeeinthepools]

1 hour ago, Cruise Suzy said:

Not Colin. On all 3 of my cruises since the restart, at least 1 reservation that I pre-booked using Complimentary Dines or free MDR reservations needed to be rebooked once onboard. The reservations all appeared in "My Itinerary", and I received a confirming e-mail for each one. But some did not appear on the ship's dining database. The Complimentary Dines were from HAL and my TA.

 

For all but one I was able to re-book the same day/time by calling once onboard. For some reason. the online reservation schedule does not always transfer to the ship's database. Not a big deal, but just aggravating that it had to be redone. The one I wasn't able to rebook: I had 2 Canaletto dines included but the venue was only open on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

I do not have a smartphone, so I pre-book on the Website. I always verify my dining and shore excursion reservations once onboard. Have never had a problem with an excursion reservation not showing on the ship's database.

 

Thanks for telling us about your experience.  The message seems to be print out the confirmations before you leave and confirm them as soon as you board.  Take the confirmations as evidence.

[CruiserBruce]

6 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

 

Thanks for telling us about your experience.  The message seems to be print out the confirmations before you leave and confirm them as soon as you board.  Take the confirmations as evidence.

If you are using the Navigator app, you should see them in the itinerary section before you sail.

[Ipeeinthepools]

2 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

If you are using the Navigator app, you should see them in the itinerary section before you sail.

 

Thanks

[SunNFunCruzer]

20 hours ago, Cruise Suzy said:

Not Colin. On all 3 of my cruises since the restart, at least 1 reservation that I pre-booked using Complimentary Dines or free MDR reservations needed to be rebooked once onboard. The reservations all appeared in "My Itinerary", and I received a confirming e-mail for each one. But some did not appear on the ship's dining database. The Complimentary Dines were from HAL and my TA.

 

For all but one I was able to re-book the same day/time by calling once onboard. For some reason. the online reservation schedule does not always transfer to the ship's database. Not a big deal, but just aggravating that it had to be redone. The one I wasn't able to rebook: I had 2 Canaletto dines included but the venue was only open on Wednesday and Thursday. 

 

I do not have a smartphone, so I pre-book on the Website. I always verify my dining and shore excursion reservations once onboard. Have never had a problem with an excursion reservation not showing on the ship's database.

 

Interesting. I know the casino is run by an outside company, and the shops are independently run. What about specialty dining? and excursions? Does HAL run and control specialty dining and excursions? Maybe the answer to that question can provide an explanation. 

 

I wonder where Colin is off to? Warm but quite overcast in Kristiansand today.

[ChinaShrek]

18 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

If you are using the Navigator app, you should see them in the itinerary section before you sail.

 

Do they disappear once you are on the ship because none of my reservations were in the itinerary section of the Navigator App when I was on the cruise. In fact, they weren't on the website either!

[CruiserBruce]

55 minutes ago, ChinaShrek said:

 

Do they disappear once you are on the ship because none of my reservations were in the itinerary section of the Navigator App when I was on the cruise. In fact, they weren't on the website either!

Nope. There were there until the day after the dinner reservation. 

[ChinaShrek]

4 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Nope. There were there until the day after the dinner reservation. 

Maybe something was wrong with my App. I had to call dining reservations to find out the time of the reservations that I made!

[colin v]

On 8/23/2022 at 7:09 PM, SunNFunCruzer said:

 

Colin, can you please explain what your post means? You had an emailed confirmation of your reservation printed out and brought with you and the Rotterdam staff didn't honor your booking? Or you didn't have the email with you?

 

Did you pay by credit card? Use On Board Credit? or credit from the Have it All promotion?

 

You are not the first person I've heard on this cruise complain they couldn't get dining reservations. Is it possible you were bumped for a Suite guest? Or maybe you were a HIA bumped for someone paying full price in cash?  Did you escalate to the restaurant manager? I think their names and titles are on one of the TV channels (I assume for this purpose), and I think there's a guest comment box to the right of the front desk at guest services.  Good luck. Curious to hear how you initially booked.

We have the HIA package. I do have my email confirmation of all dining reservations booked I May. My account shows no dining booked. All were showing on the app until the day we boarded the ship and then poof they were gone. The app does start to really take life and change on your embarkation day so I didn’t sweat it. 
 

we checked at club orange and she said sorry you haven’t booked. I escalated it to guest services and received the same answer each time. That is in the next cruise ( we are on for 21 days) and they say they cannot adjust the 14 night segment while on the first 7 night segment. It has been escalated to Seattle (I assume). 
 

I’m not overly fussed about it anymore. We are really enjoying the food in club orange. My wife and I are really happy to avoid all of the maskless on board. We certainly won’t go hungry.  
 

The staff in board are doing a tremendous job. They don’t need my usual level of entitlement to ruin their day, nor do I need it to ruin my trip. Happy 50th year on this earth to me!!