sharktums

I've done this many times before with groups from 10 - 22 and we've done pretty well. Like the poster above said, get on the ship early and head immediately to the specialty dining reservation desk or one of the specialty dining restaurants. Have in mind what nights/lunches you want to dine where. Have everyone's cabin numbers written down as well. Dining early or late will give you the best chance of eating together. Some ships they have put big tables together for us so we can all sit together and some ships they'll put us at separate tables next to each other. I usually make a pretty simple document and print it and give it to the person working along with a $20 bill for the trouble of making all the reservations. It is a process for them.

What did you need to call for? I find I can do most of what I need online without talking to a human. I far prefer not talking to people on the phone!

^^I think you're reading way too into this. They're not going to do an authentic 1800's old west menu as that wouldn't appeal to most of their demographic.

Does anyone on the inaugural have the Ultimate Dining Package? Very curious to hear where and how you can use that at all the new venues. Mostly the '$20 ala carte' type places?

Bumping this thread from the dead to just see if anyone has recent experience on the 3 night Navigator cruises and what is actually open for Embarkation Lunch? App says only Hooked, JR Express, and Playmakers for embarkation lunch, but I had read previous reports where it was Jamies?! Any recent Navigator peeps can share?

Interesting seeing a lot of success on Indy, I wonder why it's so empty? We actually just got our RoyalUp accepted for Indy over Thanksgiving which I never expected and especially didn't expect this far before the cruise! Went from a very cheap interior guarantee to $55 a person promenade (which we like a lot) so I'll consider it a win!

It seems to differ by ship and staff. And we were even told one time they couldn't, so instead I booked a full remove polish and then the nail tech was like, oh yeah, of course I can do a fill!

There seems to be 'selective enforcement' with the "you must be in the photo" rule. Sometimes we've been told you can't and sometimes it isn't even questioned.

We did this last summer on a private bus for my group and both ways it was less than two hours each way. As long as you go early there usually isn't traffic. Meanwhile, those who had done the train fell victim to Italian train strikes and some people missed the cruise.

Yup, we also had this glitch for our Icon cruise planner yesterday. Dumb.

I thought Wiegand was announced to be doing all of the dry and water slides on Royal for a bit?

We did the Ultimate Dining over Thanksgiving on Wonder and while it was the most challenging ever to get the reservations we wanted we did really well and got almost everything at the early times we like. Hibachi was by far the hardest, followed by Mason Jar.

On Adventure right now and saw this…

^^Our letter said we would be charged for an extra day (at a discount) of any internet, drink, or dining packages. Normal food and all activities were included. ^I'm still waiting for the folio email, when we left this morning we still didn't have our bill on our door. Saw some of the room stewards putting them up as we left.

I cruise a lot with groups of 8 - 20+, we always have just made the reservations as soon as we board and you have to be prepared to split tables as most will only do a table of 10 at the most. Also with big groups they want you to either dine in the 5pm or 9pm hour.