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Specialty Dining for Lunch on Navigator of the Seas available since their is basically no sea day anymore...


edurbin79

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Hello,  we are going on a cruise on the Navigator of the Seas in early October. Our 4 day cruise is now going to CoCo Cay 2 days instead of one day and will be at Nassau on one day/evening.  This begs the question will there be any lunches available at the specialty restaurants?  I ask this because we were at the very least planning on having lunch at Jaime's and the Hooked Seafood Restaurants while on our cruise...but NOW the only "Sea Day" and that is the first day.  I am not sure they even offer a lunch in specialty dining... as they use to have Chops for first lunch and now it is moved to the Main Dining Room... what? WHY?

Additionally, we were also thinking of getting the all inclusive dining package if we could eat in the for pay restaurants at lunch time, as there is one night we want to eat in the Dining room.. the night they have prime rib, as it is my bestie's absolute favorite and is only offered one night. We figured we would recoup if we could eat at Jamie's., Hooked or the Steak house for lunch at least one day, or eat at Johnny Rocket's a couple of times. 

And another complication is that usually there is prime rib on the first night, and that is when they want you to have a reservation up front for specialty dining.  We would likely skip specialty dining the first night and wanted to add a lunch or 2 instead on the unlimited dining package.

Has anyone had a similar situation or circumstance?  And I know that the Perfect Day at CoCo Cay 2 day visits is new...but will that eliminate the ability to eat in a specialty restaurant on a day where we are at Nassau or CoCo Cay?

Thanks!

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I have not had that exact situation but we were on NAV for B2B in June/July.  It was not well publicized but Izumi was open for lunch a couple of times on port days. We just happened to be up that way one day and noticed that it was open.  I guess the best thing to do is ask at the restaurant you are interested in and see if they plan on being open for lunch on any of the port days.  I would NOT trust the Cruise Compass as a final authority as it was not accurate in this regard when we were there.

 We recently sailed on LIB and they now have a policy where they "rotate" between having Chops, Sabor and/or Giovanni's open for lunch on port days.  Again the Compass was WRONG about which one was open so it is definitely advisable to just ask at the restaurants themselves.  I think having specialty lunches on port days is a rather new thing and each ship is trying something different but it seems like a GOOD trend for those of us who purchase the UDP.

BTW, we LOVED Hooked.  It is our favorite Specialty restaurant now.  I wish they had it on all of the ships.  Was sorely disappointed when I learned they were not adding it to Oasis.

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I emailed RC Dining to ask about the specialty restaurants lunches with no days at seas and whoever answered said there were no specialty restaurants except the Chefs Table on the Navigator of the seas...   SAY WHAT? I know this is not true. It's really irritating that no one seems at RCCL to know about specialty lunch availability on the NAV now that they have no sea days... 

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10 hours ago, edurbin79 said:

What is the Tutti Bar?

On sea days, at least the ships I have been on, they offer a salad bar in the MDR for lunch. You walk through having a MDR staff member make a freshly tossed salad for you from any of the toppings that is offered. There is a regular menu to choose from and usually a couple of hot buffet items to choose from.  It's kind of like a combination of the MDR, menu and table service with the added buffet choices of the salad bar and hot items like the WJ. It's great and always the highlight of sea days, if not the cruise in general.

Happy Cruising!

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13 hours ago, edurbin79 said:

I emailed RC Dining to ask about the specialty restaurants lunches with no days at seas and whoever answered said there were no specialty restaurants except the Chefs Table on the Navigator of the seas...   SAY WHAT? I know this is not true. It's really irritating that no one seems at RCCL to know about specialty lunch availability on the NAV now that they have no sea days... 

Navigator has Jamie's, Hooked, Chops and Playmakers.  Typically if you have the package and the restaurant is open you can eat there if there's availability..even if it's NOT a sea day during lunch time.  They can change operating hours from cruise to cruise, so you can't really ever know for sure until you get onboard what is going to be open for lunch and when.

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On 9/12/2019 at 10:20 AM, AshleyDillo said:

Navigator has Jamie's, Hooked, Chops and Playmakers.  Typically if you have the package and the restaurant is open you can eat there if there's availability..even if it's NOT a sea day during lunch time.  They can change operating hours from cruise to cruise, so you can't really ever know for sure until you get onboard what is going to be open for lunch and when.

And there lies the problem... no one knows so it's impossible to know if when you pre-purchase specialty lunches IF any will be available on a cruise with no Sea days.  Plus if we knew for sure that there would be lunches available we would probably get the unlimited dining package... because one night for sure we would be eating in the main dining room... It's frustrating to me to get a "WE DO NOT KNOW" from Royal  Caribbean. They have same answer to our travel agent... They said if we prepurchased a lunch they'd give us Inc if it wasn't available... ugh.

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The best thing you can do is look at past Cruise Compasses to gauge.  I looked at a random 4-day and embarkation day had Jamie's open.  CocoDay day had no onboard options open for lunch.  Nassau had Izumi Sushi open for lunch.  You can find the compasses at https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=280

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On 9/15/2019 at 12:45 PM, AshleyDillo said:

The best thing you can do is look at past Cruise Compasses to gauge.  I looked at a random 4-day and embarkation day had Jamie's open.  CocoDay day had no onboard options open for lunch.  Nassau had Izumi Sushi open for lunch.  You can find the compasses at https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/cruise-compass?ship=280

Thanks. Since there are 2 days at Coco Cay...no specialty linches on those days... and sushi (my friend hates sushi) on  Nassau day. That leaves embarkation day if they stick to that. Jaime's would be fine.  Wish we knew so we could make reservations...

 

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9 hours ago, edurbin79 said:

Thanks. Since there are 2 days at Coco Cay...no specialty linches on those days... and sushi (my friend hates sushi) on  Nassau day. That leaves embarkation day if they stick to that. Jaime's would be fine.  Wish we knew so we could make reservations...

 

You can't make reservations with the dining package until you are onboard the ship. Hopefully at that point they can tell you what's going to be open at lunch on each day.

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14 hours ago, AshleyDillo said:

You can't make reservations with the dining package until you are onboard the ship. Hopefully at that point they can tell you what's going to be open at lunch on each day.

 

Unless you’re in a suite ....... if you’re in a suite, you can ask them to make all your nightly reservations for the unlimited dining plan when they email you 7 to 10 days before the cruise.  Just let them know what time and restaurant you want to eat in each night.

 

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