How do you decide what night to dine at Chops and/or Portofino

[zaxmomm]

I know we should try to make reservations for Chops and Portofino's as soon as we can. But how does one know which night to make the reservation for?

 

I've seen the menus for the dining room and some of those meals look so good. I'd hate to miss a great night in the dining room and wish I'd picked a different one.

 

Is it possible to see all the menus for our sailing upon boarding??

[Host Kewlguy]

I know we should try to make reservations for Chops and Portofino's as soon as we can. But how does one know which night to make the reservation for?

 

I've seen the menus for the dining room and some of those meals look so good. I'd hate to miss a great night in the dining room and wish I'd picked a different one.

 

Is it possible to see all the menus for our sailing upon boarding??

 

We usually pick the following night after formal night as the quality of the menu tends to drop off.

[Sue L]

The menus are the same fleet wide so what you have seen is as they say what you get. Go with the night that is your least favorite choices. If you miss something you can get it on your next cruise.:D

[cruisin4kicks]

We'll be spending our 35th anniversary on the Liberty in October. Our anniversary will be Monday October 15th. We'll be having dinner at Chops that evening. For some reason, that just seemed like the right night for us to make reservations for.

 

Tim

[RenieRaider]

We'll be spending our 35th anniversary on the Liberty in October. Our anniversary will be Monday October 15th. We'll be having dinner at Chops that evening. For some reason, that just seemed like the right night for us to make reservations for.

 

Tim

 

Well.... there ya go. Happy Anniversary!!!!

[CLQ]

On our first couple of cruises we looked for what might be considered a "caribbean" night. That's gotten a little harder to identify lately, and I realize there are those (my CC friend B.V. included!) who love the Caribbean menus. So, we pretty much dodge formal nights and just pick one. It's probably what we'll do on Serenade in March. We've mostly assumed that what we'll get in the specialty restaurants will appeal more to us than what we would get in the main DR. I do try not to miss Lobster though...oh gosh, now I'm going to hear from the New Englanders who don't consider RCI to have real lobster.

[RenieRaider]

CLQ~ you are correct. The lob-stah is REAL just not Maine Lobstah! :-)

 

We usually have 2nd seating for dinner SO..... we make reservations for Early seating in Chops and Portofinos, 6:00 or when they open. Formal night is a nice time to go too as your dressed up; Meet the Captain, have dinner, then Go to the Show. A nice evening. Don't forget it is a 2-2 1/2 hour experience.

Enjoy! It's all good!

[Murphy]

We used the specialty restaurants to adjust our dining schedule! We book late seating for our main dining, but if we have an early excursion the next morning, I book an earlier reservation in one of the specialty restaurants the night before so we can get to bed a little earlier to rest up for the excursion!

[Tranquil Waters]

We also have traditionally tried to pick Caribbean night to do Portofino's (if we are only going to do one it will be Portofino's over Chops - both are excellent but we have a really good steak place at home and so can miss Chops if we have to).

 

However, we tried something different on our last cruise. It was sort of a last minute cruise and had not been that long since our last cruise. We decided that maybe it would be fun to travel "lighter" for a change and skip the formal wear. I have always loved formal nights but, as I said, it had not been long since I had been able to do that. So this time we packed a sport coat for DH and a nice, long flowy skirt for me - and we did Portofino's one formal night and Chops the other.

 

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the choice. The food in the maining DR, even on formal nights, is not really outstanding (not bad, but not something that I regret missing). And I do love Portofino's and Chops.

 

When we travel with friends or family I will probably want to do formal nights again. But at other times, I will certainly consider going casual again.

[cb at sea]

We generally wait until we have met our tablemates! That is what really determines if we want to skip a meal in the dining room! We had some really wonderful tablemates, and would hate to miss dining with them! It's the highlight of our day!

Only on 1 cruise have we felt the need to "get away" and dine on our own.

And remember, only a small fraction of the passengers ever use the specialty restaurants, so unless you MUST eat at a specific time, reservations aren't that hard to come by!

[skis2]

We generally go to one of the specialty restaurants the second formal night. This cuts down on the number of formal outfits we need to pack for the cruise. If we choose to go to both Portofinos and Chops in one week, we try to choose a night we are pulling out of port later in the evening for the second dinner. Less people seem to be in the main dining room that night and there are some great views pulling out of port from those restaurants.

[Tranquil Waters]

We generally wait until we have met our tablemates! That is what really determines if we want to skip a meal in the dining room! We had some really wonderful tablemates, and would hate to miss dining with them! It's the highlight of our day!

Only on 1 cruise have we felt the need to "get away" and dine on our own.

And remember, only a small fraction of the passengers ever use the specialty restaurants, so unless you MUST eat at a specific time, reservations aren't that hard to come by!

 

We just talk our tablemates into going to Portofino's with us. ;) :D

[zaxmomm]

The menus are the same fleet wide so what you have seen is as they say what you get. Go with the night that is your least favorite choices. If you miss something you can get it on your next cruise.:D

 

If this is true, would I know the menus based on the themes. I saw a link with menus. Is there a way to find out the themes for each night at the beginning of the cruise?

[zaxmomm]

We're doing the Eastern Caribbean cruise the week of Thanksgiving. The 3rd night we're in San Juan until 11 pm. Would one expect that they won't have a popular menu in the diningroom that night since many people will choose to stay in town? Perhaps that would be a good night to go to one of the other restaurants.