Pre-boarding reservation sign ups?

[We_like_to_cruise]

Hi,

 

Our first VV cruise, 2 weeks long, is in a couple of months.

 

I recall reading on this board that we could sign up for dinner reservations at some point prior.  Could someone please remind me of when that becomes available.

 

What restaurants to do you recommend we sign up for first? 

 

In addition to dining are there other things/events we should be thinking about?

 

I have read mixed reviews of using the app to sign up.  Are there other options?

 

Thanks for any advice !

[jon81uk]

You can book restaurants 45 days out or 60 for rockstar sailors in suites. Shore excursions can also be booked in advance.

 

Everything else book onboard. Smaller fitness classes and activities book up first. 
 

In terms of restaurant bookings it’s more the 7-8pm times are first to go and then Extra Virgin and The Wake are the more popular restaurants.

[lesters]

If you have a tender port and are not booking a VV excursion you can book your tender time in advance as well.  Recently discovered this for our upcoming French Daze & Ibiza Nights sailing. 

[rebeccac]

There are a couple of other ways (besides the app to book dining) before you arrive.  You can call in to Virgin and they may be able to help you or if you booked through a TA, they can also help you.  

 

Some of the restaurants that I find harder to get into at the last minute are Extra Virgin and The Wake.  Neither are my personal favorites, but many others love them.  

[garycarla]

since you have a 2 week cruise - does not really matter what you book first as you will be hitting all of them, and more than once for most.

[Tralfaz1138]

My wife and I did a 2+ week long cruise last year.  To add to what others have mentioned, if you open the Virgin app on your phone or table, you will see dates showing you when booking for excursions and when booking restaurants will become available.  So that's your best source to get an exact date for when you should start trying to do that.  I found, with our cruise, that booking restaurants was a bit broken the first couple of days so if that ends up being the case, definitely call Virgin or your TA if you used one.  I called Virgin and they were very helpful in getting this set up.

 

Also note that, on the date restaurant bookings open up, they will also have a preliminary event schedule available so you can see what shows are currently planned and what times they will happen.  So you can book your restaurants for times that work best for those events.

 

Regarding which restaurants to sign up for first, a number of people on this forum had recommended Gunbae for the first day since it's more of a "social experience".  So if you are interested in that, booking that early makes sense.  Otherwise, as others have mentioned, with 6 restaurants and 2 weeks you'll be at all restaurants at least twice anyway.  We booked a couple for the "3rd time" later in the trip, but changed those bookings as we determined which restaurants were our favorites.  So I'd say just go through all 6 the first week.  The one other thing you might change while there is your Test Kitchen booking.  They have the A menu and B menu.  I'm thinking they changed it every 4 days, but you can ask them when you get there and change your 2nd booking (if you make one) to one with the other menu if you need to.

[cantgetin]

We've done 3 VV cruises of 14 nights or longer.  On each, we booked dinner in advance, but made so many changes after booking that where we ate did not resemble that initial schedule. The first time, we scheduled rotating thru the 6 twice with the additional nights where I thought our favorites would be.  We discovered that places I thought would be great were "just OK" and places I didn't expect to love became favorites.  Also, I followed the instructions that Shoreside Sailor Service gave as to which nights were A and B in Test Kitchen....and they were wrong, so that was changed.  If you book Ship Show, that is a dinner event....another change.  

Bottom line, for my next cruise, I'll still book reservations for each night, but I'll also know that they won't stay that way.

As far as how to book--you can curse your way thru the app as it crashes.  You can contact your TA and have them book for you (their portal opens when the app does).  You can call Sailor Services the next morning and do it thru them.  My TA has me send her my preferences in advance.  Then after the app crashes, I message her and have her finish it.

[We_like_to_cruise]

Thanks all for your useful advice !

[Tralfaz1138]

17 hours ago, cantgetin said:

As far as how to book--you can curse your way thru the app as it crashes.  You can contact your TA and have them book for you (their portal opens when the app does).  You can call Sailor Services the next morning and do it thru them.  My TA has me send her my preferences in advance.  Then after the app crashes, I message her and have her finish it.

Even if the app.doesnt crash it's pretty slow, so yeah, if you have a list of where you want to eat and when, certainly easiest to call someone and read that list off.

[We_like_to_cruise]

Thanks again for all of the replies. 

 

We had no success with the app and minimal success by calling.  Even the reps on the phone were complaining about the "slow computers".  And we got disconnected twice while on hold ...

 

However, we happened to meet a nice TA on another cruise and he called his office to make the reservations for us. 

 

Now he is our new TA !

 

🙂

[cantgetin]

2 hours ago, We_like_to_cruise said:

Thanks again for all of the replies. 

 

We had no success with the app and minimal success by calling.  Even the reps on the phone were complaining about the "slow computers".  And we got disconnected twice while on hold ...

 

However, we happened to meet a nice TA on another cruise and he called his office to make the reservations for us. 

 

Now he is our new TA !

 

🙂

Very similar to how I found my new TA.  Customer service goes a long way.

[monkeydoughnut]

Just got off Valiant Lady, was full cruise, 7 day. If you are just party of 2 you could usually find a reservation on a night, definitely one 8pm or later. If you are party of 4 like we were, we were unable to find opening to switch to on most nights. Occasionally after 9pm there might be one. For walk in there were some slots when they first open then occasionally a couple later on, but you would need to try every couple hours.

 

Wake, Pink Agave and Extra Virgin rarely had any openings even for two. Test Kitchen, Gumbae had openings after first couple nights of cruise for parties of 2 or more. 

 

If you are party of 4 recommend TA to book early as can and then when first get on ship go to area they have setup for dinner reservations to do rest.

 

TLDR....party of 2 little issue, larger parties will have issues.

 

This is by far worst "issue" with sailing Virgin, but certainly would not keep me from sailing with them again, had a wonderful time.

[Actuality251]

I’ve been been trying for three days to reserve meals.  The app hasn’t worked. This app has the potential to wreck my first cruise. I think I will stop using it and forfeit all activities and dining opportunities. I’d rather starve than struggle with it. I was in tears last night. And this morning after they updated their app, all my pre boarding info has disappeared. Security photo, passport, basically everything except my credit card number. 

Edited March 21 by Actuality251

[rebeccac]

11 minutes ago, Actuality251 said:

I’ve been been trying for three days to reserve meals.  The app hasn’t worked. This app has the potential to wreck my first cruise. I think I will stop using it and forfeit all activities and dining opportunities. I’d rather starve than struggle with it. I was in tears last night. And this morning after they updated their app, all my pre boarding info has disappeared. Security photo, passport, basically everything except my credit card number. 

 

You might want to try calling Sailor Services (or your TA) to try to get them to book your dining for you.

[garycarla]

1 hour ago, Actuality251 said:

I’ve been been trying .... I’d rather starve than struggle with it. I was in tears last night. ...

 

You will not starve. There are still other options besides the dining rooms that need reservations.  There are usually some other times if you do not mind eating later.  And as said above, they release many more once onboard.

[cantgetin]

On 3/21/2024 at 3:51 PM, Actuality251 said:

I’ve been been trying for three days to reserve meals.  The app hasn’t worked. This app has the potential to wreck my first cruise. I think I will stop using it and forfeit all activities and dining opportunities. I’d rather starve than struggle with it. I was in tears last night. And this morning after they updated their app, all my pre boarding info has disappeared. Security photo, passport, basically everything except my credit card number. 

Yup I've had it happen where I lost all my preboarding info too.  If you call sailor services oryour travel agent, they MIGHT be able to book dinners for you (if there is anything left for "in advance."  The good news is that a huge number of reservations are held back until after boarding.  If you go to Razzle Dazzle on deck 5 after boarding, they can assist you with getting the reservations you want or changing what you've already booked.

I had so much trouble with the app this time that I reached the point of "I don't even care any more."  If it is anything other than an unbelievably great cruise, it may well be my last on VV....mostly because I'm tired of fighting with the app and the wheelchair assist issues.

[Actuality251]

9 hours ago, cantgetin said:

If you call sailor services oryour travel agent,

 

9 hours ago, cantgetin said:

Yup I've had it happen where I lost all my preboarding info too.  If you call sailor services oryour travel agent, they MIGHT be able to book dinners for you (if there is anything left for "in advance."  The good news is that a huge number of reservations are held back until after boarding.  If you go to Razzle Dazzle on deck 5 after boarding, they can assist you with getting the reservations you want or changing what you've already booked.

I had so much trouble with the app this time that I reached the point of "I don't even care any more."  If it is anything other than an unbelievably great cruise, it may well be my last on VV....mostly because I'm tired of fighting with the app and the wheelchair assist issues.

 

[Actuality251]

Just now, Actuality251 said:

 

 

“If you call sailor services oryour travel agent.”  It never occurred to me to use a travel agent. I didn’t realize they still existed. They used to have storefronts. I haven’t seen one in years.  My Boomer-ness is showing. 

[rebeccac]

Most travel agents these days work from home.  No storefront needed.  However, we are not allowed to recommend any on here.  I would suggest, when you get on the ship, ask others.  Someone may be able to point you in the right direction.  

[cantgetin]

2 hours ago, Actuality251 said:

“If you call sailor services oryour travel agent.”  It never occurred to me to use a travel agent. I didn’t realize they still existed. They used to have storefronts. I haven’t seen one in years.  My Boomer-ness is showing. 

I'm old....and found an amazing agent.  On VV, they are called First Mates.  Mine is all about customer service, and ranked in the top 10 on VV in 2023..  Given the level of pre-boarding frustration on VV, a good one is a great person to have on your side. As above, we aren't allowed to recommend people here. Ask your new friends on board or on other social media sites.

[DCGuy64]

We love our TA, he does all our cruise bookings for us. Thanks for the tip on having the TA book dinner reservations. We'll definitely be doing that.

[We_like_to_cruise]

So, after all of you provided helpful advice, and after a long time on the app and the phone, eventually, as noted above, our new TA was very helpful in getting all of our dinner reservations in place.

 

Today I wake up to numerous messages on the VV app.  All of our previous reservations have been cancelled and new ones - different dates, times and restaurants are on my Agenda. 

 

WTH ??

 

Not an auspicious start to our first cruise with VV.

 

😞

[cantgetin]

3 hours ago, We_like_to_cruise said:

So, after all of you provided helpful advice, and after a long time on the app and the phone, eventually, as noted above, our new TA was very helpful in getting all of our dinner reservations in place.

 

Today I wake up to numerous messages on the VV app.  All of our previous reservations have been cancelled and new ones - different dates, times and restaurants are on my Agenda. 

 

WTH ??

 

Not an auspicious start to our first cruise with VV.

 

😞

You can try  thru your TA or by calling VV.  Or you can deal with getting what you want after boarding.  Yeah, the app does odd things sometimes.  Do you have anyone other than your cabin linked on your reservation?  This could even be someone who is a FB friend?  There are supposedly 2 settings for the way people link.  What we have experienced on all our previous cruises is that linked people can mess with your reservations--the idea is that you are setting thing up to eat or go to shows together or whatever.  There is supposedly a new setting where you can see them but they can't fool with your stuff; but I haven't worked with that yet.