Specialty dining questions

[Almondjoy1]

I’ve tried searching and I’m not finding the answers!

 

Our dining reservations open tomorrow. Is there a set time they open, as with excursions? (I know I saw it on some paperwork, but now I can’t find it). 

 

We are traveling with friends, in the same cabin class, and I will be making the reservations for the group. I know I need to invite them in MJV, and I have room and booking numbers. Once I invite them, do they need to do anything to accept?  
 

Thanks!

[Frenchberet]

Sign in to My Viking Journey and the date and time for booking reservations should pop up.

[CDNPolar]

You should also receive an email the day before - today - with the time.

 

We are on EDT and ours always seem to be 12:00pm PDT which is 3:00pm for us.

 

Ours opened today for our cruise in October and we found them open at 2:30pm.

[CCWineLover]

Theoretically the reservations open at noon Pacific Time.  (Like the excursions).

However, I have found, and many others have reported this as well, that with the dining reservations, they tend to open up several hours earlier than noon Pacific on the day in question.  Some have reported they could book even early in the AM just after midnight on the day scheduled.

Naturally this has frustrated many people, as it is definitely not consistent.

 

In any case, we never book ahead of time reservations - always wait until the first day on board, as a huge quantity (50-60%) of available tables are released on that day.  We've never had any problems getting what we want.   And then during the cruise people cancel or no-show so always keep checking.   

[Mich3554]

27 minutes ago, CCWineLover said:

 

 

In any case, we never book ahead of time reservations - always wait until the first day on board, as a huge quantity (50-60%) of available tables are released on that day.  We've never had any problems getting what we want.   And then during the cruise people cancel or no-show so always keep checking.   

We have never booked reservations for dinner before we board.  If a CT menu is up we want to have, we will book either on the TV or at WC in the morning.  We book Manfredi’s similarly.  
The one thing I have discovered is that we never book specialty restaurants on sea days.  Everyone seems to want to do this, and we really don’t care.  We also try to book later in the evening.  

[TayanaLorna]

They open at noon pacific time but check earlier.   When you invite others they do not have to confirm.  It just appears on their MVJ calendar.  Everyone must be in the same cabin category - DV or PV etc.  I have done this several times.  Only problem I ever had was trying to invite 3 other couples.  System will only take a reservation for 6 tops.

[Planning to cruise]

In the UK the time falls in the night or at best late at night. 

[millybess]

2 minutes ago, Planning to cruise said:

In the UK the time falls in the night or at best late at night. 

Several years ago booking was at 12 midnight Pacific time -- 3:00 a.m. in Toronto.  That certainly would have been better for you.

 

That's when I knew I was obsessed, just once, and never again. 🙄😴

 

 

[odblnt]

As mentioned above, 12 noon (Pacific Time), but see my comments in the MVJ thread. We couldn't book anything, even though I accessed MVJ after the opening time. Calling customer svc didn't do any good, but accessing the chat feature finally did the trick, even though they had to manually do my reservations.

 

[CCWineLover]

4 hours ago, Planning to cruise said:

In the UK the time falls in the night or at best late at night. 

Opening at noon Pacific means 8 PM UK time.

 

Often they open up even earlier, so check earlier than 8 PM UK time.  Not quite "late at night" but maybe you are an earlier to bed person 🙂

 

[Redtravel]

Making reservations at Chefs Table is crazy.  Menu changes every 3 days. When you make reservation, you have no info about which menu will served that night.  On Mars now.  Made my 2 allotted reservations in Chefs table.  Got on ship and looked menus. First reservation was French. I love French food. However, the description of the menu was not to my liking. Cancelled reservation. Made additional chefs table reservations for each of the other menus on the cruise.  It would be better if you could see the menus that would be served on the days of your trip. It might avoid that long line to rearrange reservations. 

[millybess]

26 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

Making reservations at Chefs Table is crazy.  Menu changes every 3 days. When you make reservation, you have no info about which menu will served that night.  On Mars now.  Made my 2 allotted reservations in Chefs table.  Got on ship and looked menus. First reservation was French. I love French food. However, the description of the menu was not to my liking. Cancelled reservation. Made additional chefs table reservations for each of the other menus on the cruise.  It would be better if you could see the menus that would be served on the days of your trip. It might avoid that long line to rearrange reservations. 

Several years ago Viking would display the menus on MVJ before dining reservation date opened.  That was when CT didn't have too many menus to choose from.  It's probably more difficult to do that now, but it was very helpful.

[CCWineLover]

38 minutes ago, millybess said:

Several years ago Viking would display the menus on MVJ before dining reservation date opened.  That was when CT didn't have too many menus to choose from.  It's probably more difficult to do that now, but it was very helpful.

Must have been a LONG time ago.  We've done Viking Ocean Cruises (many of them) for 6 1/2 years and Chef's Table for us was always a different menu every 2-3-4 days and always was set ahead of sailing.   One Restaurant Manager explained it to me - there are so many factors going into deciding what will be served when (mainly availability of certain supplies), that presetting the menus months in advance is not practical anymore.  They generally do a rough month ahead schedule (I was given the opportunity to see their planning spreadsheet), but even those can change at the last minute, given certain supply aspects.

 

It again is the major reason we never anymore book CT ahead of time.  They withhold 50-60% of the availability at CT until onboard - partly just for this reason.  (Again told to me my several Restaturant managers).  That gives more than half the crowd the chance to book when they get onboard and see the menus.  I think that is a good compromise.

[Mich3554]

1 hour ago, CCWineLover said:

Must have been a LONG time ago.  We've done Viking Ocean Cruises (many of them) for 6 1/2 years and Chef's Table for us was always a different menu every 2-3-4 days and always was set ahead of sailing.   One Restaurant Manager explained it to me - there are so many factors going into deciding what will be served when (mainly availability of certain supplies), that presetting the menus months in advance is not practical anymore.  They generally do a rough month ahead schedule (I was given the opportunity to see their planning spreadsheet), but even those can change at the last minute, given certain supply aspects.

 

It again is the major reason we never anymore book CT ahead of time.  They withhold 50-60% of the availability at CT until onboard - partly just for this reason.  (Again told to me my several Restaturant managers).  That gives more than half the crowd the chance to book when they get onboard and see the menus.  I think that is a good compromise.

I’m trying to figure out when this was.  Our first cruise was Dec 2018 and don’t remember seeing menus before the cruise.  
We don’t book CT anymore either until on board.  There are specific menus we like and will try again.  The Indonesian menu was introduced on the 22-23 world cruise and DH was all over that.  They had brought an Indonesian chef on board to develop the menu.  As DH had spent a few years there, he was happy to see food from that period.  Between then and our most recent trip on the Orion, the menu had been dumbed down.  The spices were a fraction of what they were on the Neptune.  If we go again, he wants to talk to the chef to see if he can’t get his meal back to the original spice level.  

[LindaS272]

We experienced advance menus from our first booking in July 2019 & when we did Sept. 2019; Nov. 2019, Feb. 2020. I understand the increased issues now but wish there was a better way.