Main Dining Room walk up wait?

[Derekweb]

Its been a number of years since I cruised Norwegian. We will do Norwegian Sun Seward to Vancouver soon.

 

Question: Without reservations, how is the wait time to just walk up to the main dining room (not buffet) at Dinner time? Is it best to reserve?

 

Thanks

[Loonbeam]

If you can plan its always better to reserve, just in case. Otherwise who knows. If you get a ship full of groups, or people who like to eat when you do, you may wait. If you are an early diner, and the ship skews late you can wander in. Have had cruises with no wait every night, and others with wait every night at the same time.

[Sauer-kraut]

If you go at a very popular time of course there might be a wait, but usually no longer than 15 minutes. It really isn't necessary for the MDR's -- how do you know when you will be back on the ship, if you want to take a nap after a long port day, etc. See how it goes for a day or two and you can judge if you need to make reservations.

 

Have a wonderful cruise, I love the SUN.:)

[garycarla]

Sometimes a short wait, many times no wait.

 

The big factors that cause a backup is right after a show when all those people head to dinner, or folks before the show sometimes.

 

We never made reservations and did fine.

[vince_g]

Never had a wait when we went by 6:30 or so. It really starts getting busy after that time.

[Mrdell]

Never had a wait when we went by 6:30 or so. It really starts getting busy after that time.

I agree.... Between 5:30 and 6:30 PM you can usually walk right in! After that it gets busy.

[BirdTravels]

No need for reservations. Walking in is fine. There will be a short wait in prime time.

[CruisinStump]

Even prime time, our longest wait on our June Sun trip was 3 minutes. We didn't wait for a table, we waited for a host to walk us to one.

 

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[MikeBTN]

The worst waits are at O'Sheehan's. Shouldn't wait but 5-15 minutes at MDRs.

[fshagan]

The only time we have had any kind of a wait was when we were with a group of 7. And then, even at the busiest times, we only waited about 15 minutes in the aft main dining room.

 

There's some confusion from people who read that you should make reservations for the specialty restaurants and extend that to the main dining rooms. In our 7 cruises since 2010 on NCL we have never, ever made reservations for the MDR. And except for one night, with a large group, we have never had to wait.

[SuiteRose]

All you need to do is to practice some common sense... I see hundreds of people line up before the dining room opens.. of course its going to take them time to seat everyone (so showing up before it's open is pretty silly unless you have a specific reason)... if you are at a show and it lets out and you walk with hundreds of people toward the dining room, again, it's going to cause a line to be seated.. most times the line isn't for a table it's for your turn to be seated... every once in a while there is a wait during the busiest times when the dining rooms may be at their capacity.. but that's rare ... so if you just use some common sense you won't be in that situation and can most all times, walk up and be seated immediately.

[deliver42]

We were on the Jewel, and eat about 5:30 - 6:00, and never had to wait, regardless of which dining room we went to.