Can I go "traditional" as far as dining on Norwegian?

[loveandcruises]

I haven't been on a Norwegian cruise for 20 years, before "Freestyle" happened. Because we in our family prefer traditional cruising, is it at all possible to have the same dining time, table and waiter every night in the Main Dining Room? To us, one of the big pleasures of cruising is establishing a relationship with our waiter.

[styles27]

15 minutes ago, loveandcruises said:

I haven't been on a Norwegian cruise for 20 years, before "Freestyle" happened. Because we in our family prefer traditional cruising, is it at all possible to have the same dining time, table and waiter every night in the Main Dining Room? To us, one of the big pleasures of cruising is establishing a relationship with our waiter.

You can make a reservation for the two MDR’s  before you board but no you will not have the same table/server every night. 

Edited February 25, 2023 by styles27

[johnrich]

They will not “assign” you the same table and/or waiter. However there have been times that we have found a waiter that we like and will request that waiter throughout the cruise. If you tell the waiter you will be requesting them, they will tell you their schedule as they don’t all start as soon as the restaurant opens. 

[BirdTravels]

11 hours ago, loveandcruises said:

I haven't been on a Norwegian cruise for 20 years, before "Freestyle" happened. Because we in our family prefer traditional cruising, is it at all possible to have the same dining time, table and waiter every night in the Main Dining Room? To us, one of the big pleasures of cruising is establishing a relationship with our waiter.

No traditional dining. There is a small chance that you'll be able to get the host to try and track down a waiter for you. Just go with the flow and do it Freestyle.

[complawyer]

after the 1st couple of nights, when you've settled in and found the right time, table etc,talk to the maitre'd . if anyone can arrange what you want, it's probably him. question, i can understand the time and table location, but how will youy know if you want the same waiter on a nightly basis after only the 1st 1 or two nights?

[loveandcruises]

9 minutes ago, complawyer said:

after the 1st couple of nights, when you've settled in and found the right time, table etc,talk to the maitre'd . if anyone can arrange what you want, it's probably him. question, i can understand the time and table location, but how will youy know if you want the same waiter on a nightly basis after only the 1st 1 or two nights?

It doesn't matter to me who the waiter is -- we've been on 40 cruises on various lines and we really like and appreciate every waiter we get, and we always end up having a very nice relationship.

[complawyer]

loveandcruises. i dont care either, but i was responding to styles27 question. he wanted  to know if he could do the older traditional way of cruising, same time, table and server.

 

by the way, styles 27, if you do end up talking to the maitre'd, a $20 handsake couldnt hurt either!

[Turtles06]

4 hours ago, complawyer said:

if anyone can arrange what you want, it's probably him.

or her, even 

[Oakman58]

We tried to get the same waiter on a couple of our cruises and it never worked out.  In my experience waiters might not be working the same restaurant every night.

[PATRLR]

For those who cruise in the Haven - is what the OP is seeking possible if they were in Haven and dined in the Haven dining room?

@loveandcruises I "get" why you like that aspect of cruising.  We do too.  But, I have to say that when looking at the big picture of our cruise vacation, missing that feature has had negligible impact on our enjoyment of our cruise.

Edited February 26, 2023 by PATRLR

[Homosassa]

Here is our experience on several NCL cruises.

 

Like the OP, we prefer having the same waiter in the MDR and we prefer what is called early seating.  We always use the dining room  that has the more rigorous dress code.

 

We always made reservations for the MDR as we left the dining room and requested the waiter that we preferred.

 

After requesting the same time and waiter two nights in a row, the maître d' set us a standing reservation for the same time and waiter.  For our cruises, the waiters did not serve the same table every night but moved around the dining room.

 

As a result, we had the same time, same waiter but moved to whatever station he/she was working that night.

 

By the way, no bribery is needed (twenty dollar handshake)  to make the reservations.

[sailorusvi]

1 hour ago, PATRLR said:

For those who cruise in the Haven - is what the OP is seeking possible if they were in Haven and dined in the Haven dining room?

 

I just got off the Getaway and saw a few groups sitting at the same table every time we were there.    I did notice they were not sitting others at a 4 top near the windows, then a party of 3 came in and was sat there.  I'm assuming they worked out something with the host.  We rotated been 3 different waiters, the restaurant on the the Getaway isn't very big and believe it would be easy to request a certain server.

[BirdTravels]

2 hours ago, PATRLR said:

For those who cruise in the Haven - is what the OP is seeking possible if they were in Haven and dined in the Haven dining room?

Make friends with the restaurant manager and you can always ask. They may be a bit more accommodating than the Manhattan Room where people would be clogging the entrance waiting for a specific table and waiter. And the waiters move around in the dining room, so you may get the same waiter at a different table location. 

 

Some years back, there was an gentleman who was flashing some $100 bills at the Haven restaurant manager saying, "This money is yours if you have this table available to me every night around 7:00 pm". The manager declined saying that the restaurant is small and they have to keep all tables available for seating at all times. 

 

We take care of our Haven waiters. And have dined on other ship's in specialty restaurants where they were working and they remembered us (we're still sitting there saying to each other "isn't that the waiter from the Epic Haven" as they are coming up to greet us). We also take the time to build relationships with restaurant managers... like the Food Republic manager on the Encore in 2021 came running up to us in the Indulge Food Hall to give us a hug on both of our Prima cruises last year (she actually works in the Prima Food Republic for evening service). And last year, the Haven restaurant manager would go and personally clear and clean window tables for us after the Hostess assigned us a table at the back of the restaurant. 

[palpieha]

2 hours ago, PATRLR said:

For those who cruise in the Haven - is what the OP is seeking possible if they were in Haven and dined in the Haven dining room?

 

No you cannot. The Haven restaurant doesn't take reservations and that's strictly enforced so that all Haven guests have first come first serve access to the restaurant. 

 

However, you can request a specific server if they are working at the time (staff does rotate sometimes, and they have breaks!) and there's a table open in their section.

[cruiseny4life]

On 2/26/2023 at 9:46 AM, PATRLR said:

For those who cruise in the Haven - is what the OP is seeking possible if they were in Haven and dined in the Haven dining room?

Over our last three cruises, we've found that Haven servers will swap tables when they see someone come in they would like to serve. This has led to us having no more than two to three servers the entire cruise (seven - nine day cruises). Even if one of the servers isn't serving us, they have always made it a point to come over and say hi. So, while you cannot reserve a table, you most likely will have the same server repeatedly throughout the cruise....or so, that's what my experience has led me to believe. 

[complawyer]

if you're in a haven ,chances are on embarkation day, you will get priority boarding and be escorted directly to cagneys for lunch. at that time, it would be a great idea to introduce yourself to the maitre'd. (this is also where the proverbial "vegas handshake" will come in handy). after that he is usually most accomodating. we were on the ncl gem and had the same waiter whenever he was working, by the way, we have never had a problem getting a table for breakfast or lunch in the haven restaurants

[RocketMan275]

11 minutes ago, complawyer said:

if you're in a haven ,chances are on embarkation day, you will get priority boarding and be escorted directly to cagneys for lunch. at that time, it would be a great idea to introduce yourself to the maitre'd. (this is also where the proverbial "vegas handshake" will come in handy). after that he is usually most accomodating. we were on the ncl gem and had the same waiter whenever he was working, by the way, we have never had a problem getting a table for breakfast or lunch in the haven restaurants

Cagney's for lunch?  What ship? 

[BirdTravels]

33 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Cagney's for lunch?  What ship? 

Non-Breakaway/Breakaway+/Epic/Prima-class ships.

Edited February 27, 2023 by BirdTravels

[palpieha]

31 minutes ago, RocketMan275 said:

Cagney's for lunch?  What ship? 

On smaller ships that don't have a dedicated Haven restaurant, you get breakfast and lunch at either Moderno or Cagney's. The menu is the standard Haven menu, not the menu for those restaurants.