Dinner without reservations?

[littlerockboys]

I’m sure this topic has been addressed previously but didn’t find anything in a search. We have 20 people booked on the Scarlet lady on June 14. We wanted to get reservations for 8 of us for dinner each night if possible and our travel agent said they could book those for us, no problem. My mother-in-law is one of them and doesn’t like to eat late so we asked for something around 6:00-7:00. After multiple follow ups with the TA we were told there won’t be a problem, up until tonight when he said that he has been unsuccessful. Boy, it would have been nice to have known that when we had the opportunity to book our own in the app. 😔

 

Anyway, my question is what are the possibilities of getting decent reservation times when we board and where can these be made? We are very experienced cruisers, but first time on Virgin and just realizing how different it seems to be.  Thanks in advance for any info on this topic 

[cantgetin]

38 minutes ago, littlerockboys said:

I’m sure this topic has been addressed previously but didn’t find anything in a search. We have 20 people booked on the Scarlet lady on June 14. We wanted to get reservations for 8 of us for dinner each night if possible and our travel agent said they could book those for us, no problem. My mother-in-law is one of them and doesn’t like to eat late so we asked for something around 6:00-7:00. After multiple follow ups with the TA we were told there won’t be a problem, up until tonight when he said that he has been unsuccessful. Boy, it would have been nice to have known that when we had the opportunity to book our own in the app. 😔

 

Anyway, my question is what are the possibilities of getting decent reservation times when we board and where can these be made? We are very experienced cruisers, but first time on Virgin and just realizing how different it seems to be.  Thanks in advance for any info on this topic 

About 35% of dinner reservations are held back till boarding.  That should help if you have an early boarding time.   You have a big group--my suggestion would be to book 2 groups of 4 as close in time as you can get in advance.  Even if you have to do 4 groups of 2 between  6 and 6:15, that will help; they can put you together at the restaurant.  It is always better to have something booked, then to fine tune it after boarding.  If you go to the restaurants, they will do everything possible to meet your needs.  Eating at 6 should be NO problem; that's a lot earlier than many people want.  If you go to a restaurant at 6pm on the first night and they can't seat 8 of you on that night, ask if they can do it on a later night,  We never had a problem getting a table without a reservation, but our biggest group was 6.

My opinion is that your TA dropped the ball for you.  The app didn't work on our first day to be able to book in advance, but my TA used their portal and got everything we wanted!  I'm guessing that if the TA couldn't get it, Sailor Services won't be able to help, but it might be worth a phone call to them.

If I'm not mistaken, that is a 4 night cruise, so you won't be able to eat in each restaurant.  You might look at brunch reservations at The Wake and Razzle Dazzle so you can enjoy those locations as well as the other 4 restaurants at dinner.

[littlerockboys]

Thanks you, that’s very helpful!