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Where (and what) would be your first dinner on board?


trvlfan

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Can we make a reservation for embarkation evening once we board by going to the specialty restaurants to see what may be available?

 

We did not want to use up one of our reservations for the first night aboard.

 

Thanks!

 

The first night is often a good opportunity to make an extra specialty restaurant reservation, because many people arrive at the ship too tired from travel to make much of a night of it.

Those reservations cannot be made at the Restaurants themselves, however, as they wont be open yet.

On the larger ships there is a designated "restaurant reservation" desk on deck 5 in the main lobby, and for the smaller ships you should ask when you check in where that desk will be, as the location varies.

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Can we make a reservation for embarkation evening once we board by going to the specialty restaurants to see what may be available?

 

We did not want to use up one of our reservations for the first night aboard.

 

Thanks!

Yes, you can try to make an additional reservation on the first night. We tried have once (successfully). Apparently the first night is more available than others. If many others feel the same as you and prefer to not use one of your guaranteed seatings on the first night there will be room.

We usually go to the Terrace depending on the time and scenery and weather or that 'cavernous dining hall' to socialize a little more. We enjoy the GDR. Also I think a lot of PH and suites dine in that night based seeing so many butlers carrying trays.

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As I have said before (hopefully not on this thread), when we boarded Marina in Oct '11 we tried to set up a table for 6 at Jacques. It was actually for the second night, not the night we left. (The first night we just went to the Terrace.)

 

But our butler couldn't make the reservation because we hadn't been able to give him the room numbers of the two other couples.

 

So we said, okay, we'll just go to the GDR.

 

We got there and asked for a table for six and they7 said, "Would you like to go to Jacques?"

 

That would NOT have happened later in the cruise!

 

And we had a fabulous dinner. They hadn't yet run out of mussels ...

 

We were seated in front of the kitchen which was most entertaining.

 

Just because you may not be able to book one of the restaurants online before the cruise does NOT mean that you won't be able to get a reservation once you board. And especially, the first or second nights are probably not to hard. (If you're on a port intensive cruise that's probably true ... if you are on a TA with lots of sea days, it could be different.)

 

Mura

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Our cruise is port intensive and I know we will be maximizing our time in each port.

 

We prefer to dine late and an 8:30-9:00 dinner time will be our preference. Hopefully, these times will not be as popular as I keep reading that O cruisers are generally early to bed.

 

Only 5 months and we will be experiencing O for the first time. I appreciate the wealth of info shared on this forum.

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We dine later and have walked past the specialty restaurant on our way to the MDR on the first night and ask if there is seating available. We have usually been successful.

 

You can also try after 4 pm at the reservation desk by the destination services counter.

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