Freestyle ????

[Patgo]

Hi,

 

Have sailed NCL but not in several years. Considering giving it another try.

I have sone questions re freestyle dining.

 

Is there ever a wait to get into the dining rooms say if you want to eat at what I consider prime time 7ish.?

 

 

Do most people choose to use the Freestyle ooption of assigned seating in the dining room. This seems confusing to me. I can also see the plus side of not having to hurry to get to a definite time for dinner.

 

I would appreciate your thoughts and if you prefer Freestyle of not. I know this has been probably been beat to death but I would like your opinions.

 

Thanks

[immargaret]

You may find a wait if you want to dine at prime time, at least on occassion. There is NO assigned seating with Freestyle. You can eat when, where, and with whom you want. You can choose to sit by yourself or request to be seated with others who want to share a table.

[The Cellar Dweller]

Patgo

 

Been on NCL numerous times. Keep in mind there are no reservations for the freebee restaurants. Last November on the Sun we generally ate 6:30. When we left the dining area there was a line ocassionly, but the wait was minimal. Reservations are required for the paying resturants. No lines. Depending on the ship your going on it can also determine if there will be lines. For example if there is an early show (entertainment) and its the only showing this could generate sittings earlier therefore causing a back up. As I said IT ALL DEPENDS. But I would not change cruise line. NCL to me is the best.

[peanutJMV]

The dining rooms on the Dawn will take reservations for dinner...

Been on her twice and going for a third.

Wonderful ship and had a great time.

 

Have fun

[Zeno]

On the Sun, the longest I had to wait to dine was less than 5 minutes and that was at 7:15PM

[Hikini]

We've sailed on 2 different NCL ships and only had to wait for a table (for 6 people) one time. It was about a 10-15 minute wait at most. The rest of the time, we never paid attention to what time it might be and walked in whever we felt like it. No waiting, even for a table for 6. And we dined before, during and after what I would consider prime time.

 

Freestyle is what keeps us coming back to NCL. Not only can we dine whenever, and with whomever we choose (at a different table all the time) we don't have to get all fancied up for it. We do follow the ships desire for "resort casual".

 

I like the dining rooms better than the buffet, as far as seating goes. Sometimes you have to really walk around to find a table to sit at, and this doesn't work very well with elderly parents. The buffet food is fine - no complaints there - it's just that the seating can be a hassle. It's perfect in the dining rooms.

 

Have fun - enjoy!

 

Hikini:D

[zimmerjulie]

Yes, it is possible that you could have a wait during the prime times. Usually it is not very long, or can be avoided by adjusting the time a bit or by making a reservation for one of the alternative restaurants. On the Star, you needed to make reservations in the free alternative restaurants, as well, the "Endless Summer" restaurant and la Trattoria. You can make these reservations the same day, or the day before. It can be hard to get them by the end of the cruise!

 

The main dining rooms are mostly first-come-first-served. On the Star, we got reservations for the main dining rooms, but they said they were only offering it for groups and at 5:30 pm or 8:30.

[Aloucha]

On the Sun in February, we ate at different hours almost every night. We waited one night for about two minutes (we didn't even have a chance to sit in the waiting area, they were already calling our name). All the other nights, we went right in.

 

We loved freestyle, we will not consider for now a cruise line with fixed seating. Eating whenever we want fits well with us.

[Lisa n' Jeff]

Our first and only cruise (so far) was on the NCL Sea and one of the main reasons we chose it was because of the freestyle dining. Since we have nothing to compare it to, we can't say whether it's better than the "traditional" cruise dining, but we absolutely loved it.

 

On formal night we sat with 2 other couples, but could have waited and sat alone (in hindsite I wish we had waited, as one of the women at the table was an absolute snob and incredibly nosey... can't imagine having to sit with someone like her at dinner every night.. but that wasn't NCL's fault). We also ate in the main dining room on the last night of the cruise and had a table for 2.. it was great. The other nights we ate in the Big Apple Cafe or in port.

 

We never had a chance to eat at one of the alternate dining places, but have heard mostly good things about them.

 

Since we had such a good experience on the Sea, which is an older ship that wasn't really designed for freestyle dining, I can only imagine how great it must be on the larger ships like the Dawn.

 

I guess, though, that it really depends on the person... we knew freestyle was better for us, but I have friends who've cruised on NCL as well as most other cruise lines, and they just don't care for it. But then again, they are very social people, whereas we're happy just spending time together and don't want to be forced into eating at a certain time or making polite conversation with people we may not really care for.

[newmexicoNita]

We usually eat about 6:30 or a little later and have never waited! We are flexible about eating with another couple or by ourselves which I think helps. Even on our last cruise there were 6 of us and we never waited. Usually we ate around 7pm. I will say, in that case, we had the benefit of the conceirgn (smelling). NMNita

[davy jones]

patgo

 

You don't say what ship that you are sailing on. My take on the boards is that is important with freestyle. The newer ships build for freestyle seem to have less waiting problems than the older ships that were originally built for traditional cruising.

 

We sailed on the Dawn last June and the ship was full. We did not wait more than 5 minutes any evening.

[Patgo]

Thank you everyone for your replies. We were thinking of the Majesty which was not designed for freestyle.

 

We just think it would be fun to sail out of Boston and not have to fly and be tired that first day.

 

Has anyone sailed the Majesty and how was freestyle on that ship/

 

 

Pat