iujen94 Posted January 2, 2019 Report Share Posted January 2, 2019 Hi! We're cruising on Radiance next June from Vancouver to Seward, Alaska. Our ship departs at 4:30 pm. We've cruised Royal Caribbean a number of times, and usually we like to board as early as possible. However, I love Vancouver (my family has never been), and I'd love for us to have some time to explore the city before we board. My concern is specialty dining reservations. We bought the ultimate specialty dining package (yay Black Friday sale!), so we'll want/need reservations every night. I've mapped out our preferred dinner times for the week, and they are all in the 6:30-7:30 range, when I'm sure EVERYONE wants to eat. Normally I'd board as early as possible and head straight to make our dining reservations. If we wait and arrive at the port around 1 or so (boarding around 2, I'm thinking?), do you think that couple of hour difference will make a big difference in our ability to get the reservations we want? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiny260 Posted January 2, 2019 Report Share Posted January 2, 2019 Maybe the time of day might need to be adjusted, but that would be it. My experience is that the 6:30 to 7:30 is usually open, it seems like the 8pm time frame is usually the busiest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted January 3, 2019 Report Share Posted January 3, 2019 14 hours ago, tiny260 said: Maybe the time of day might need to be adjusted, but that would be it. Agreed. In general, if you get a dining package you should be prepared for some level of flexibility. You are trading off the ability to get the exact times every day for paying roughly half the cost. It's well worth the trade off, in my opinion, but it does mean you may have to eat earlier or later on a day or two than you might otherwise prefer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iujen94 Posted January 3, 2019 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2019 Oh, I totally get that I'll need to have some flexibility just by virtue of using the dining package - and I'm hoping the fact that I don't care which restaurant I eat in on which night will help. I'm just wondering if a 3-4 hour delay in boarding (and making our dining reservations) will have a big impact on the times that are available. Thanks everyone! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted January 3, 2019 Report Share Posted January 3, 2019 53 minutes ago, iujen94 said: I'm just wondering if a 3-4 hour delay in boarding (and making our dining reservations) will have a big impact on the times that are available. If you book it all on day one, you should be fine. It's people that wait until later in the cruise that I think run into real problems. Keep in mind a vast, vast majority of cruisers don't read sites like this and have no idea to book early. Baked Alaska and JennyB 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2mybugs Posted January 4, 2019 Report Share Posted January 4, 2019 14 hours ago, Matt said: If you book it all on day one, you should be fine. It's people that wait until later in the cruise that I think run into real problems. Keep in mind a vast, vast majority of cruisers don't read sites like this and have no idea to book early. I know that, and I'm still in a panic over getting the bogo for allure in March. We really really really want to go to central park on night 2, though we can switch it to night one. Sigh....I will run to the first person I see and ask where to go. I can totally just head to central park and go right to any restaurant right? Someone will be there as soon as boarding starts? We always aim for getting to the port by 10 so we should be on by 1130! Jane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JennyB Posted May 22, 2019 Report Share Posted May 22, 2019 On 1/3/2019 at 11:07 AM, Matt said: Keep in mind a vast, vast majority of cruisers don't read sites like this and... ...and therefore have to sift through all the Facebook drama to find answers...THIS blog and these forums are WAAAAYYYY friendlier and helpful. SpeedNoodles 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.