I need real info on freestyle dining

[3GR8Sons]

This is one of the best discussions that we have had on this Freestyle subject on this board. (usually they turn downright nasty.)

 

If you take my post, Boa's post and wack001's post, you can see a good cross section of what different people like and dislike about Freestyle. As we have said many times, Freestyle is not for all and some people like parts of Freestyle, but hate others.

 

Thank you all for these great comments and examples!

 

Well apparently I'm nasty and I didn't even know it!!!

[3GR8Sons]

Pardon me for not being hip but I only know pita to be a bread. Catch me up, please. Thanks.

 

Oh I just figured it out.. Pain in ........

 

Pain

In

The

A--

[Ms belp]

Originally Posted by Ms belp

It's a PITA; I'd skip NCL and stay with your other cruise lines.:rolleyes:

 

 

 

 

I believe Ms belp was being a bit facetious (please note the eyes toward heaven smiley). I read her remark as being .. Just go on believing it's a PITA, so I can go on enjoying all the benefits of freestyle without having to share them to much. ;)

 

Thanks oLEEander; that is exactly what I meant! :)

[3GR8Sons]

I do. :D I work nights at home so it's nice to see the mornings on vacation and not sleep half the day away as I am forced to do at home.

 

To answer your question, on our cruise, MOST specialty restaurants were booked if you tried to make same day reservations. This was a New year's cruise and everyone wanted to eat specialty it seemed. So it was easy to make reservations for the following day IF I was up and at the desk early. This was my experience only.

 

I talked to the girls at the specialty desk later in the day when they weren't busy and they said it was really bad this week. My husband watched a woman, who we dubbed "the teppanyaki lady," holler and carry on b/c she couldn't get a teppanyaki reservation. It was ridiculous. They actually had to call the tall, burly maitre'd to help handle the situation. Who knew teppanyaki could cause such wrath? :rolleyes: Come to find out, again b/c I talked to some staff members later.....they'd all heard about her....she actually COULD get a reservation, but not at the actual teppanyaki table. On the Sun, there is room for only 11 people at the actual teppanyaki table, and then there are regular tables away from it that you are served the same food. Hence the hollering and carrying on my husband witnessed.

 

I can understand why you would want to do something different on your vacation. I have to get up early every day so I love to get some extra sleep when I go away. Of course when we leave the ship we are up early, but otherwise I like my sleep. My MIL is usually up early....but if it were up to me we would have nowhere to eat.

 

I don't evey know waht teppanyaki is so I certainly would not be causing a ruckus over it. :D

[dathy]

we were a mini suite on the pearl 9 day which ended 1/6. we had no problem getting a reservation because we had concierge. concierge is no longer a perk for mini suites.

 

we met a family who saw a man sit in line at 6 am only to be told when reservations opened at 7 am that nothing was available that evening.

 

you need to look at peoples opinion of freestyle when people cruised. we were on the new years eve sailing when the ship was completely packed. check out opinions only from people on holiday sailings. there's a huge difference between a xmas sailing and one in february passenger wise.

 

the food itself was very good. the selection was phenomenal because of the amt of choices of restaurants on board. you should also know that the steak restaurant, cagneys, is $20/person, kids half price. there is an additional selection which is $10/person extra (24 oz porterhouse, whole lobster and one more thing).

 

suites get priority, then repeaters then you. i agree that it's great that you get your own table always. but i cannot stand the system the way it is. regardless of what category room you have, EVERYONE should have the opportunity to eat in every single restaurant at the time of their choosing at least once or twice.

 

freestyle concept is good, reservation system is not.

 

if you can't get a reservation, you're in the buffet. and you can't drive to another restaurant. hope that answers your question honestly.

[insidecabin]

 

suites get priority, then repeaters then you. i agree that it's great that you get your own table always. but i cannot stand the system the way it is. regardless of what category room you have, EVERYONE should have the opportunity to eat in every single restaurant at the time of their choosing at least once or twice.

 

freestyle concept is good, reservation system is not.

 

This is just not possible(timing) but something close is,

 

Looking at the Jade(jewel class) as an example,

 

Total seating capacity not including the buffet/blue laggon/sushi with the tables being used twice a night is 3126 which is plenty to have eveyone dine wait service each night so no need for anyone to use the buffet.

 

Again on the assumption that each table can be used twice can we give everyone a chance in every restaurant.

 

Cagnies it takes 336 so for a typical 7night cruise thats 2352 which just about does everyone once, but probably not at their prefered time

Asian and Le Bisto hold less so no chance of everyone once, salsa/papas is down to 200/212 so only 1400/1484 in a week, If they can get some to eat early then they could turn a table 3 times which would increase the numbers a bit.

Tepanyaki well they do 3 sitting so 102pd 714pw still no where near enough for everyone to have a go.

 

So it is not possible to give everyone a go everywhere.

 

Since they only allow reservations one day in advance(for most people) what they could do is introduce a priority booking system,

every cabin gets 1 booking for Cagnies or Le Bisto and can book ahead any day

every cabin gets 1 booking for tex-mex or Italian and can book ahead any day

 

Your first booking in any of these restaurant uses you priority booking unless it is a happy hour booking(those identified as outside peak times).

If you book a table for more people than are in your cabin you need the other cabin Nos(which could be an issue).

 

Another way to capacity contol is to allow only one booking ahead at a time and you have to have eaten before you can book the next one, not sure how well this would work in practice need to think about it.

[cynbar]

How reliable are the capacity screens around the ships for the restaurants?? I have the Gem booked for June but, honestly, I'm having second thoughts. It all sounds like a real headache, and beyond that, it sounds like reservations at the specialty restaurants are just impossible to get. Does anyone think this might ease up a little now that mini suites don't have concierges to pre -reserve a lot of the spaces?? The suites can't possibly lock everything up unless they have LOTS of friends and bring them all along! How about reserving for the following day --- are those all gone also by 7:20 am ??? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.....

[ratherBcruizin']

How reliable are the capacity screens around the ships for the restaurants?? I have the Gem booked for June but, honestly, I'm having second thoughts. It all sounds like a real headache, and beyond that, it sounds like reservations at the specialty restaurants are just impossible to get. Does anyone think this might ease up a little now that mini suites don't have concierges to pre -reserve a lot of the spaces?? The suites can't possibly lock everything up unless they have LOTS of friends and bring them all along! How about reserving for the following day --- are those all gone also by 7:20 am ??? Any tips will be greatly appreciated.....

 

We're looking at the Pearl next month and have some of the same concerns. Just not sure. It sounds great. Call me anti social or whatever but I do not enjoy eating with strangers. Even with that though I keep going back to looking at Carnival bc its familiar I guess. I don't know. I'm running out of time so it may end up not mattering anyway.

[Toyz711]

about the restaurant screen -

we noticed that, even at the main dining rooms, they took our sign/sail cards to swipe it..then punched some numbers in. took a minute to figure out that they were adding that information to the system that feeds those screens. so, yes, they are kept current...it's an automated system.

we saw that la trattoria was near empty, instead of waiting an hour or more for our reservation, we walked by and got right in.

the screens are great, but you have to remember...the specialities could be holding tables for the next round of reservations or lack of servers. when we did la trattoria, they told us that a couple of the servers had been held up with other duties and if we didn't mind that they only had 1 servers? we weren't in a hurry and that 1 server was very nice. when the other servers got there, she came over and introduced herself..the switch was painless.

[3GR8Sons]

we were a mini suite on the pearl 9 day which ended 1/6. we had no problem getting a reservation because we had concierge. concierge is no longer a perk for mini suites.

 

we met a family who saw a man sit in line at 6 am only to be told when reservations opened at 7 am that nothing was available that evening.

 

you need to look at peoples opinion of freestyle when people cruised. we were on the new years eve sailing when the ship was completely packed. check out opinions only from people on holiday sailings. there's a huge difference between a xmas sailing and one in february passenger wise.

 

the food itself was very good. the selection was phenomenal because of the amt of choices of restaurants on board. you should also know that the steak restaurant, cagneys, is $20/person, kids half price. there is an additional selection which is $10/person extra (24 oz porterhouse, whole lobster and one more thing).

 

suites get priority, then repeaters then you. i agree that it's great that you get your own table always. but i cannot stand the system the way it is. regardless of what category room you have, EVERYONE should have the opportunity to eat in every single restaurant at the time of their choosing at least once or twice.

 

freestyle concept is good, reservation system is not.

 

if you can't get a reservation, you're in the buffet. and you can't drive to another restaurant. hope that answers your question honestly.

 

This is one of my fears...that we can never get a reservation for a sit down dinner. When we go away I like to have my dinner served to me and I don't want to have to send someone down to some desk somewhere at the break of dawn just so we can have dinner together.

[Toyz711]

here's how it works for us:

if one of the main dining rooms happens to be busy, we go to the other.

never has been a problem, by busy i mean if there are 2 parties waiting to be seated. usually the smaller of the rooms is quiet. since there are no reservations for these rooms, it's strictly 1st come, 1st seated. i have never had to wait longer then it took the seating hostess to check her chart.

it's only the specialities that MAY have a problem with reservations. that varies on each cruise. that's not a problem for us, we don't like making reservations on a cruise..

don't confuse the specialities with the main dining rooms.

[hawaiilvr]

On the Pride of America in November, we never had a problem getting a reservation at the steakhouse, or the Italian restaurant. We just stopped by the reservation desk on our way off in the morning and made a reservation at either place. We made reservations for 8:00 PM. On day we just called the restaurant on the internal phone and made a reservation directly with them. Never a problem, and not a hassle at all. We only ate in the main dining room once (lobster and prime rib night) and had to wait for about ten minutes. We could have gone right in had we wanted to dine with others.

 

We loved the freestyle dining concept, and although it wasn't perfect, to us it was much more enjoyable than traditional cruising. YMMV.

[jetz]

This will be my first cruise, and I'm sailing on PofAm at the end of March. You mentioned "lobster night". Is this in the regular dining rooms, or one of the speciality, gotta pay extra restaurants? I've been to Hawaii before and I live in NC now. I am craving seafood and was hoping the dining rooms that are included in the cruise cost weren't like Golden Corrals. My kids and I aren't super picky, but I can do Golden Corral here - this is vacation!!! ;-))

[jetz]

Hi! Can you tell me which restaurants you have to pay extra for and approximately how much extra it is per person??

 

Thank you.

 

Karin

[newmexicoNita]

Hi! Can you tell me which restaurants you have to pay extra for and approximately how much extra it is per person??

 

Thank you.

 

Karin

 

Karin,

 

I will try and give you a quick run down, but I am sure someone will have even a more complete list than me:

 

2 main dining rooms, no charge

buffet, no charge

Tangos (Mexican) no charge;

Blue Lagoon, snacks and comfort food like fish and chips, no charge

mama's Kitchen: Italian, no charge

Cagney's steak House: steak and seafood: $20 unless you want a special which is Lobster, 24 oz Steak or Surf and Turf: if so add $10.00

Le Bistro: French, $15, again they do offer a couple of specials for an additonal $10.

 

Nita

[coffeebean]

Nita...

 

You didn't mention one of my favorites on NCL ships...Teppanyaki which is $20.00 per person and worth every penny. The entertainment is worth half that. Someone mentioned on this message board if you don't care for the Miso soup, you can order a soup from the regular menu in the Asian restaurant which is part of the trio of Asian fusion restaurants.