Restaurant Reservations

[Crcketfan]

We are on the Spirit in July.Pretty well on the day When restaurant bookings opened I tried to book for La Dame and the other top places.Everything was booked out not available.Our friends are on the Spirit in September and have had exactly the same experience.

Is this happening on other ships/cruises

Is there some block bookings going on.It all seems rather suspicious and unfair

[A Tucson Guy]

One the last three post covid SS cruises, we have always managed to get a ressie in La Dame and other restaurants that need a  ressie's. We book it the day bookings are open.

[sanne]

When do they open? 

[Host Jazzbeau]

19 minutes ago, sanne said:

When do they open? 

According to My Silversea for my NZ/OZ cruise, "Booking available from 120 to 2 days prior your sailing date" – but it also says "Available' for every day on my cruise, which is still 219 days away!

 

But – they aren't telling me which nights are Formal or Informal, so a fat lot of good it does me to be able to book the restaurants.  Maybe "Available' just means that the restaurant isn't sold out – which would be true if no one has been able to make a ressie yet...

[1954]

Tried to book La Dame for the night of our 40th wedding anniversary. At the time My Activities was showing “Available” but actually entering a booking then threw up an “At Capacity” error. Query with Silversea went to London office, who referred it to Sydney office, who basically said talk to your butler when you board. Now notice many weeks later it eventually shows “Not Available”. No idea what is going on.🤷‍♂️

[drron29]

Basically it means that it was full. however it is obvious that some people book multiple nights and when on board cancel some so may be available.

So SS says ask your butler. However I believe that you should first ring the restaurant and if no answer - or maybe even first - go and talk to the restaurant manager as to whether there have been cancellations. I would do this on the first night.

Seeing it is your 40th wedding Anniversary very likely at the least the restaurant manager will take note of your name and call you if someone does cancel that night.

[1954]

8 minutes ago, drron29 said:

Basically it means that it was full. however it is obvious that some people book multiple nights and when on board cancel some so may be available.

So SS says ask your butler. However I believe that you should first ring the restaurant and if no answer - or maybe even first - go and talk to the restaurant manager as to whether there have been cancellations. I would do this on the first night.

Seeing it is your 40th wedding Anniversary very likely at the least the restaurant manager will take note of your name and call you if someone does cancel that night.

Yes I realise it is full, but it seems it was full when it was also "Available" - so is it actually full when it shows "Not Available"? More of a gripe at Silversea's booking system. Any way food in La Dame is apparently same as MDR so no great loss. Might just dress up and have dinner in suite.

[turtlemichael]

My understanding was that a proportion of seats were held back and made available on board. I have no idea what proportion. I would see the restaurant manager as soon as I boarded and be very confident I'd get the booking I want.

[Crcketfan]

I think some groups are abusing the system by making lots of bookings

Regent only allow one booking at Prime ( or used to ) to give everyone a chance,then on board you could book a second if there was availability Silversea should do this

To 1954 I would say the the food and wine and service in La Dame is much better and it would be great for your anniversary.I am sure the manager will fit you in Enjoy !!!!

[Rothko1]

Definitely go onboard and speak to the restaurant manager.  They usually can work some magic and get you in to wherever you want to go, at least once per cruise.  You might have a later dinning time, but they can usually squeeze you in.

 

I agree that it really should be only one booking per restaurant per week.  Let everyone have opportunities to go to the specialty restaurants.  And frankly, it's not like the MDR is an Applebees (which I've learned is a very bad restaurant apparently).

[datone]

Restaurant bookings have just opened for our cruise in December on Silver Muse.   As this is our first Silversea cruise, just wondering if you actually need to book ahead of time or whether you can leave it until you are on board.   Also, when do you find out which nights are formal so you can organise any restaurant bookings around this.  I thought I had read that you would see a bow tie to indicate which ones are formal, but where do you find this?   Thank you.

[jpalbny]

3 hours ago, datone said:

Restaurant bookings have just opened for our cruise in December on Silver Muse.   As this is our first Silversea cruise, just wondering if you actually need to book ahead of time or whether you can leave it until you are on board.   Also, when do you find out which nights are formal so you can organise any restaurant bookings around this.  I thought I had read that you would see a bow tie to indicate which ones are formal, but where do you find this?   Thank you.

 

If there is a time/date that you really want, book it ahead of time. If you are willing to be flexible, wait until you are on board, but you may get off times and you may get shut out of some restaurants. It's a risk.

 

The bow ties will (usually, eventually) appear but the timing is highly variable. On one of our last voyages then never did appear, though! You can usually count on the second night being a formal night.

[jollyjones]

 

Embarkation and the night before disembarkation are usually casual. The bow tie should appear on the timeline on my silversea.

 

I find it easier to guess when I might want to eat in a specific restaurant at a specific time and, if once on board I find good reason to change it, it is easy to cancel (before 2pm on the day of course). Getting a different reservation may not work though.

I tend to base my guesses on what I will be doing during the day - eg on a long and tiring port day, I wouldn't book anything because I might want to cool out and do something casual for dinner.

 

You could book something every night with the plan of cancelling most of it, but that seems a little unfair to other pax. I try and steer a middle course between that and having no bookings at all, and make bookings perhaps for one night out of every three or four and generally go to most if not all of them.

 

 

[Observer]

37 minutes ago, jollyjones said:

it is easy to cancel

 

Sadly, in my experience this is not the case. Let's say that one decides to cancel at 3 PM. The restaurants are closed. The butler is on his/her (well deserved!) break. And reception is clueless. The last time I called reception to cancel the dinner reservation, the reception agent apparently canceled all of my reservations for the rest of that long booking.

 

AFAIK only LaDame assesses a penalty for no-shows or late cancellations.

 

One should be able to do this online during the cruise.  

 

 

[jollyjones]

Reception in my experience is not clueless. 
I have never had a problem strolling to the desk and making it clear which reservation I want cancelled and they do it with no trouble. 

 

And even if you are not charged for a cancellation, you are depriving someone else of a booking if you don’t cancel in good time. 

 

[ClefsDor]

We are on the Dawn holiday cruise and no bow ties are showing yet. We are about a week out from being able to book restaurants. Does anyone have any experience on when the formal nights usually are on a holiday cruise? I'm assuming Christmas Eve and NYE but it's a 15 day cruise so there will be at least one more. I would think it might not be on the 2nd night of the cruise as Christmas Eve is only 2 nights after that - cruise departs Dec 21.

[bahamamama11]

We were on the Silver Muse in May, in a group of 6. Prior to boarding we could not get reservations at laDame on any night. (I do admit we were a bit late to the party on this cruise, booking only 2 months ahead.) We spoke with the dining room manager right after we boarded, and were able to get reservations for all of the specialty restaurants without any difficulty. We did not have any preference as to which night we wanted to eat in each.

That being said, we found Atlantide to be superior to all of the specialty restaurants with the exception of la Dame. If you tell the staff at Atlantide what you would like to eat the next night, they will provide it so long as they have the ingredients on the ship. 

[mofrances]

3 hours ago, ClefsDor said:

We are on the Dawn holiday cruise and no bow ties are showing yet. We are about a week out from being able to book restaurants. Does anyone have any experience on when the formal nights usually are on a holiday cruise? I'm assuming Christmas Eve and NYE but it's a 15 day cruise so there will be at least one more. I would think it might not be on the 2nd night of the cruise as Christmas Eve is only 2 nights after that - cruise departs Dec 21.

 

When we were on the holiday cruise in 2021 in South/Central America, the formal nights were the second night out, Christmas Day and NYE (so not Christmas Eve). But we embarked on Dec 18, so not quite as close to Christmas as your cruise. 

 

We are doing the holiday cruise on the Muse in AU/NZ this year and are assuming the formal nights will be similar. But not really sure as our second night out we are in port until 11 pm, so I don't know if that would kick the Formal Night to the third night out. Regardless, we are so looking forward to it!

[ClefsDor]

Thanks for sharing your experience Mofrances. I will keep checking to see if the bow ties appear - they never did for our last cruise. 

[Will Work for Tiramisu]

In my limited experience, I found LaDame to be bout 75% hype and 25% superior food/cooking.  A nice room, attentive service, better wine, but I was not wowed by the actual food sur le plat, as compares to something you'd find in any decent French bistro.  A fun space, but I had a sort of "Where's the Beef?" feeling.  Whereas, many offerings from Atlantide definitely floated my boat, not to mention at La Terrazza. My theory is some of the pan-Asian offerings at the former are closer to home for the actual chefs in the kitchen, and at the latter, as an (formerly) Italian-centric cruise line, they pay attention to doing Italian right. 

 

On our next cruise, rather than tell them what I'd like them to make (although I'd love to have a proper Coquilles St Jacque, or Lobster Thermidor), I'd like to ask what countries the chefs are from and ask them to make something that their grandmothers taught them how to make - you might get some really wonderful food lovingly prepared by someone who is familiar with that cuisine, whether south Indian, Malaysian, Philippine, or wherever.  

[Will Work for Tiramisu]

I just looked at the Food Hacks thread.  Looks like the esteemed posters there beat me to the punch regarding getting the chefs to make foods they are familiar with, and probably really good at. Imitation (on my part) is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess!  Let me know when they hire a few native born French chefs, and I'll go back to La Dame!! 

[Crcketfan]

I was happy to meet the chef of La Dame on the Spirit recently after eating a top meal which he cooked.He is Ukrainian,I am pleased it wasn’t an Asian meal