Crcketfan Posted June 24, 2023 #1 Share Posted June 24, 2023 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 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare A Tucson Guy Posted June 24, 2023 #2 Share Posted June 24, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanne Posted June 25, 2023 #3 Share Posted June 25, 2023 When do they open? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare Host Jazzbeau Posted June 25, 2023 #4 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1954 Posted June 25, 2023 #5 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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.🤷♂️ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare drron29 Posted June 25, 2023 #6 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1954 Posted June 25, 2023 #7 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turtlemichael Posted June 25, 2023 #8 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crcketfan Posted June 25, 2023 Author #9 Share Posted June 25, 2023 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 !!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rothko1 Posted June 26, 2023 #10 Share Posted June 26, 2023 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). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datone Posted August 10, 2023 #11 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare jpalbny Posted August 10, 2023 #12 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jollyjones Posted August 10, 2023 #13 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted August 10, 2023 #14 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jollyjones Posted August 10, 2023 #15 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClefsDor Posted August 10, 2023 #16 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bahamamama11 Posted August 10, 2023 #17 Share Posted August 10, 2023 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mofrances Posted August 11, 2023 #18 Share Posted August 11, 2023 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClefsDor Posted August 11, 2023 #19 Share Posted August 11, 2023 Thanks for sharing your experience Mofrances. I will keep checking to see if the bow ties appear - they never did for our last cruise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Work for Tiramisu Posted August 12, 2023 #20 Share Posted August 12, 2023 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Work for Tiramisu Posted August 12, 2023 #21 Share Posted August 12, 2023 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!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crcketfan Posted August 13, 2023 Author #22 Share Posted August 13, 2023 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 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now