If you did not...

[VegasFella]

If you did not book a specialty restaurant (in advance), can you on a whim go by and kindly ask "Is there a table available?".  An

example... Giovanni's?  Chop's?  Or, is that just not done?

[Ogilthorpe]

Yes, from my experience, you can be successful with that approach. Being flexible  on the time will help. The number in your party can be an influence  also.

[VegasFella]

20 minutes ago, Ogilthorpe said:

Yes, from my experience, you can be successful with that approach. Being flexible  on the time will help. The number in your party can be an influence  also.

Good to know.  Thanks my friend!

[Atlantix2000]

Not booking before the cruise is certainly acceptable.  In fact, everyone with a dining package has to wait until on board to book their reservations so there will be plenty of times at all restaurants available at the START of the cruise.  If you wait until day 5 of a 7 day cruise, to decide to you to try specialty dining, you're probably going to need to be flexible on time or location or both.

[ChrisK2793]

On 12/26/2019 at 1:11 AM, Atlantix2000 said:

Not booking before the cruise is certainly acceptable.  In fact, everyone with a dining package has to wait until on board to book their reservations so there will be plenty of times at all restaurants available at the START of the cruise.  If you wait until day 5 of a 7 day cruise, to decide to you to try specialty dining, you're probably going to need to be flexible on time or location or both.

‘Not everyone ...... if you are staying in a Grand Suite or better, the suite concierge emails you a week to 10 days before the cruise to welcome you and they will make all your unlimited dining plan reservations for you if you email back and give them the dates and times you want at each restaurant.

 

[Big Tule]

On 12/30/2019 at 2:29 PM, ChrisK2793 said:

‘Not everyone ...... if you are staying in a Grand Suite or better, the suite concierge emails you a week to 10 days before the cruise to welcome you and they will make all your unlimited dining plan reservations for you if you email back and give them the dates and times you want at each restaurant.

 

I was not aware of this ...Have stayed in GS twice and always paid each reservation separately because I assumed bookings had to be done on board with packages...will keep this in mind next cruise

[ChrisK2793]

On 1/12/2020 at 6:22 AM, Big Tule said:

I was not aware of this ...Have stayed in GS twice and always paid each reservation separately because I assumed bookings had to be done on board with packages...will keep this in mind next cruise

 

For some reason, if you don’t know you can make UDP reservations thru the suite concierge pre-cruise, they don’t seem to tell you when they send out their email.

 

[WAAAYTOOO]

22 minutes ago, ChrisK2793 said:

 

For some reason, if you don’t know you can make UDP reservations thru the suite concierge pre-cruise, they don’t seem to tell you when they send out their email.

 

Yes, I'm sure they don't want to make extra work for themselves.  As I mentioned elsewhere, I normally just make the first day/night's reservations through the Concierge pre-cruise to minimize their effort.  Then when I get onboard, I make the rest of them.

[ChrisK2793]

22 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

Yes, I'm sure they don't want to make extra work for themselves.  As I mentioned elsewhere, I normally just make the first day/night's reservations through the Concierge pre-cruise to minimize their effort.  Then when I get onboard, I make the rest of them.

We always make the entire weeks worth of UDP reservations pre-cruise thru the suite concierge to make sure we get the times and days we want at each restaurant.  We figure we’re paying for the extra service in all the extra we pay for the suite ..... and on the cruise itself, we’ve pretty much never had to bother the concierge for anything else, ..... so since it is part of their job as a suite concierge, we figure making our dinner reservations is the least they can do for us in exchange for all the extra we pay to stay in a suite.

 

 

[VillainsGin]

If you did not book prior to sailing on the cruise planner and would like to book spontaneously during sailing i recommend what i did below:

you can save some money by hunting down those specialty dining salesmen that walks around the windjammer asking people if they're interested in buying. Most of the time they find you when you don't want them to but in your case you'll have to look for them.

I saved more money going through those "salesmen" that actually going directly to the restaurant itself because they kind of 'negotiate' pricing and are able to lower the price or even increase the incentive of booking through them.

 

[VegasFella]

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2020 at 3:34 PM, TJ! said:

If you did not book prior to sailing on the cruise planner and would like to book spontaneously during sailing i recommend what i did below:

you can save some money by hunting down those specialty dining salesmen that walks around the windjammer asking people if they're interested in buying. Most of the time they find you when you don't want them to but in your case you'll have to look for them.

I saved more money going through those "salesmen" that actually going directly to the restaurant itself because they kind of 'negotiate' pricing and are able to lower the price or even increase the incentive of booking through them.

 

Nice.