Three things you should never do when booking Oceania

[roberts2005]

Never use one of your reservations for a specialty restaurant on the first night.  There is always availability when you get on board.  

[Norseh2o]

Not necessarily true. Last week on the Regatta 8 day Coastal California Vines trip, we cancelled a dining reservation for our 3rd evening. We had booked all of our dining reservations on the day bookings opened. We were unable to rebook. We were open to fine dining at any time @Toscana. We did not want a shared table. On the last night we managed to secure a 7:30 seating. The meal was definitely worth the wait if not the hassle. 

[pinotlover]

2 hours ago, roberts2005 said:

Never use one of your reservations for a specialty restaurant on the first night.  There is always availability when you get on board.  

Your first night may be someone’s 7th, 10th, 12th, etc night aboard ship and can be very well booked in the Specialties. We’ve seen multiple b2b2betc purposely book turn around nights in Specialties to escape the newbies. Been on cruises where the newly embarked represent a small percentage of the total passengers.

 

As a practice I rarely book a Specialty on our first night because we don’t like being locked into a specific schedule. A lot of activities can occur where we don’t want a fixed schedule.

[Psoque]

2 hours ago, roberts2005 said:

Never use one of your reservations for a specialty restaurant on the first night.  There is always availability when you get on board.  

I would like to know what is so bad about doing this?  Is there a distinct disadvantage in doing this?

[LHT28]

53 minutes ago, Norseh2o said:

Not necessarily true. Last week on the Regatta 8 day Coastal California Vines trip, we cancelled a dining reservation for our 3rd evening. We had booked all of our dining reservations on the day bookings opened. We were unable to rebook. We were open to fine dining at any time @Toscana. We did not want a shared table. On the last night we managed to secure a 7:30 seating. The meal was definitely worth the wait if not the hassle. 

I agree

on the shorter cruises  it is hard to get  a reservation  as everyone has at least 1  res in each restaurant  but  when the ship is full  that can be impossible  to get  even 1

[WESTEAST]

53 minutes ago, Psoque said:

I would like to know what is so bad about doing this?  Is there a distinct disadvantage in doing this?

No disadvantage from our point of view and have done it and will do it again - thoroughly enjoyable and delicious any night!  On the first night of a cruise (could be a B2B), the Terrace and Grand Dining Room can be crowded so Speciality dining is an option.

[janecambridge]

We have booked Toscana on our first night of 21 day cruise as we can’t wait to sit down and enjoy the beautiful light fresh pasta. Miss this speciality. Can’t speak for other countries but here in UK, it is very hard to find a good Italian. 

[Kristal Blade]

10 hours ago, LHT28 said:

It depends on the itinerary  & cabin class 

 

There are still cabins open for Nov- Dec cruises  so not all waitlisted

 

We cruise tomorrow and there are still lots of cabins available, just not the top price ones.

[ORV]

14 hours ago, Psoque said:

I would like to know what is so bad about doing this?  Is there a distinct disadvantage in doing this?

They told you the reasoning in the post. It is because you can frequently get in on the first day as an extra reservation. As Pinot pointed out though that doesn't always work. I really wouldn't but it as one of those things you should never do, but we usually don't. Sometimes we ask for an extra on the first night, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we get an extra, sometimes we don't. As far as getting extra reservations, not willing to share is going to be the biggest problem. 

[Psoque]

30 minutes ago, ORV said:

They told you the reasoning in the post. It is because you can frequently get in on the first day as an extra reservation. As Pinot pointed out though that doesn't always work. I really wouldn't but it as one of those things you should never do, but we usually don't. Sometimes we ask for an extra on the first night, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we get an extra, sometimes we don't. As far as getting extra reservations, not willing to share is going to be the biggest problem. 

“the reasoning” on the original post was not very clear, at least to me.  “There is always availability when you get on board.” could mean a lot of things.  Now I understand, maybe, that it means not to use your allowance of your reservations for the first night, since you can just go there without a reservation??  I insist that the “advice” is not clearly written.

[ToxM]

Most would not want to dine in a speciality directly the evening of embarkation, as they may be tired from the journey, or unpacking etc. It may be that there is plenty of space in specialities because of that, although the opposite may be true. 

 

I have never been approached and asked if I wanted to dine in a speciality on O, but it has happened on other lines. 

 

Hope that is more explicit for you 🙂

[Flatbush Flyer]

6 hours ago, ToxM said:

Most would not want to dine in a speciality directly the evening of embarkation, as they may be tired from the journey, or unpacking etc. It may be that there is plenty of space in specialities because of that, although the opposite may be true. 

 

I have never been approached and asked if I wanted to dine in a speciality on O, but it has happened on other lines. 

 

Hope that is more explicit for you 🙂

On a “slow” night for any particular specialty restaurant, there will be a maitre d’ at the GDR entrance asking if anyone wants to eat “right now” at whichever specialty has space. Not a regular occurrence but it does happen.

[PhD-iva]

On 9/30/2022 at 12:30 PM, Psoque said:

 I insist that the “advice” is not clearly written.

You INSIST? Not necessary 

[susiesan]

9 hours ago, ToxM said:

Most would not want to dine in a speciality directly the evening of embarkation, as they may be tired from the journey, or unpacking etc. It may be that there is plenty of space in specialities because of that, although the opposite may be true. 

🙂

I always try to eat in a specialty the first night. I find the menus at the other restaurants to be the least interesting on embarkation night. I will be the last group to be able make a reservation online for my 4 specialty dinners on Marina in December, being in an outside cabin with a sold out ship so I doubt I will even get any advance reservations made. I will have to wait and check each day to see if I can get in. Because most O pax don't want to share tables anymore, everyone wants to eat alone, the bigger tables will be occupied by only 2 people and it will take longer to accommodate everyone who wants to eat in the specialties as the tables won't be full.

[LHT28]

1 hour ago, susiesan said:

I always try to eat in a specialty the first night. I find the menus at the other restaurants to be the least interesting on embarkation night. I will be the last group to be able make a reservation online for my 4 specialty dinners on Marina in December, being in an outside cabin with a sold out ship so I doubt I will even get any advance reservations made. I will have to wait and check each day to see if I can get in.

Never had a problem getting my res  even in the last group

 

Then Menu in the specialties is the same 1st  night  & all nights during the cruise 🤔

[susiesan]

13 minutes ago, LHT28 said:

Never had a problem getting my res  even in the last group

 

Then Menu in the specialties is the same 1st  night  & all nights during the cruise 🤔

Yes, I know that. I was referring to. the menu in GDR and Terraces on the first night.

 

Because we like to eat early, we have often had problems making advance reservations online ahead of the cruise. Usually all that is available is 9:00, too late for me. Maybe it will be different now post pandemic, but with a completely full ship I doubt it.

[LHT28]

15 minutes ago, susiesan said:

Yes, I know that. I was referring to. the menu in GDR and Terraces on the first night.

 

Because we like to eat early, we have often had problems making advance reservations online ahead of the cruise. Usually all that is available is 9:00, too late for me. Maybe it will be different now post pandemic, but with a completely full ship I doubt it.

Must be you then

 We always get 6:30  res  & in a B or C  cat

JME

[sunlover12]

2 hours ago, susiesan said:

I always try to eat in a specialty the first night. I find the menus at the other restaurants to be the least interesting on embarkation night. I will be the last group to be able make a reservation online for my 4 specialty dinners on Marina in December, being in an outside cabin with a sold out ship so I doubt I will even get any advance reservations made. I will have to wait and check each day to see if I can get in. Because most O pax don't want to share tables anymore, everyone wants to eat alone, the bigger tables will be occupied by only 2 people and it will take longer to accommodate everyone who wants to eat in the specialties as the tables won't be full.

I haven't seen any larger tables in the specialties occupied by only 2 people. They were full. This was post-pandemic and the cruise I was on was at about 80%.  The specialties were at capacity on the nights we ate there.  

I think as long as you're willing to share a table, you shouldn't have a problem getting a reservation and it doesn't have to be 9:00.  

JMO

[ToxM]

We are late eaters so never have a prob finding a time. It even worked well on our Sirena TA where there was a pinch point of busyness in The Terrace that we overcame by eating when the officers did about 8pm.It was difficult to find a pinch point with so few onboard, but its definitely there earlier in the evening . 

[susiesan]

16 hours ago, sunlover12 said:

I haven't seen any larger tables in the specialties occupied by only 2 people. They were full. This was post-pandemic and the cruise I was on was at about 80%.  The specialties were at capacity on the nights we ate there.  

I think as long as you're willing to share a table, you shouldn't have a problem getting a reservation and it doesn't have to be 9:00.  

JMO

Were tables for 4 being used by only 2 people? Were people willing to share on your post pandemic cruise? I was on an NCL Baltic cruise in August and every night when we went to dinner in the dining room we asked to start a share table. In 10 nights of dinner not a single other person coming to dinner wanted to share.We ended up eating alone every night when we would have liked to meet new people.

 

Based on the posts on the roll call for my sailing Dec. 4 on Marina, there is a lack of interest in sharing excursions, meeting up, or anything. Maybe it's O cruisers who are still afraid of covid and are going to keep to themselves and isolate socially. This could be a very boring cruise.

[Kristal Blade]

We are on Sirena right now.

last night was our first night. 
We ate in the main dining room, found lots of good things on the menu and started a sharing table. We were quickly joined by 2 other couples and had a really good night of interesting chat.

No boredom for us!

[sunlover12]

2 hours ago, susiesan said:

Were tables for 4 being used by only 2 people? Were people willing to share on your post pandemic cruise? I was on an NCL Baltic cruise in August and every night when we went to dinner in the dining room we asked to start a share table. In 10 nights of dinner not a single other person coming to dinner wanted to share.We ended up eating alone every night when we would have liked to meet new people.

 

Based on the posts on the roll call for my sailing Dec. 4 on Marina, there is a lack of interest in sharing excursions, meeting up, or anything. Maybe it's O cruisers who are still afraid of covid and are going to keep to themselves and isolate socially. This could be a very boring cruise.

Your post referred to the specialty restaurants so I was replying to that. Polo and Toscana were at capacity on the nights we ate there. I did not see any open tables. The larger (6-8) tables were full and the tables for 4 had 4 people.  This was in March of this year on Regatta. 

 

On the nights when we ate in the main dining room and requested a sharing table, they sat us at a table for 4 with another couple. We only ate alone when we wanted to. 

 

Our next O cruise is later this month and the roll call has been very active. A lot of private shore excursions being planned.  

[pete_coach]

On 10/1/2022 at 3:57 PM, susiesan said:

I always try to eat in a specialty the first night. I find the menus at the other restaurants to be the least interesting on embarkation night. I will be the last group to be able make a reservation online for my 4 specialty dinners on Marina in December, being in an outside cabin with a sold out ship so I doubt I will even get any advance reservations made. I will have to wait and check each day to see if I can get in. Because most O pax don't want to share tables anymore, everyone wants to eat alone, the bigger tables will be occupied by only 2 people and it will take longer to accommodate everyone who wants to eat in the specialties as the tables won't be full.

It has been a number of years since our last O cruise, has this become normal?

Sitting at a table with others has always been  great experience. New people, possibly new friends.

[susiesan]

4 hours ago, sunlover12 said:

Your post referred to the specialty restaurants so I was replying to that. Polo and Toscana were at capacity on the nights we ate there. I did not see any open tables. The larger (6-8) tables were full and the tables for 4 had 4 people.  This was in March of this year on Regatta. 

 

On the nights when we ate in the main dining room and requested a sharing table, they sat us at a table for 4 with another couple. We only ate alone when we wanted to. 

 

Our next O cruise is later this month and the roll call has been very active. A lot of private shore excursions being planned.  

Maybe it is just the Dec. 4 Marina sailing that has a lot of unsociable people onboard. I am the only one on the roll call who has planned private excursions which I am excellent at doing. Only 2 other couples have joined in the planning.

 

 

[susiesan]

1 hour ago, pete_coach said:

It has been a number of years since our last O cruise, has this become normal?

Sitting at a table with others has always been  great experience. New people, possibly new friends.

Maybe my recent NCL cruise was a one off one as to sharing dinner tables. I hope so. If people areafraid to dine with others because of covid it's time to get over it and rejoin the world as it carries on.