Apex - Select Dining - No Reservations

[HBDave]

We have a 14-night Transatlantic Cruise booked on the Apex with Select Dining. I made reservations at each the four included restaurants for nights 1 - 4. I wanted to try each of them before making additional reservations for nights 5 - 14. I just checked and now for days 5 - 14 the only available times are 9:00pm and 9:30pm. We prefer to eat around 7:00pm. What happens if we show up with no reservations, will we have to wait until 9:00pm? I'm familiar with them providing pagers, but I'm trying to determine the wait time without a reservation. This is our first time on an Edge Class Ship and we're new to the reservation requirement for the dining rooms. We previous have sailed Horizon, Millenium and Solstice Class Ships and reservations were not required. Thanks!

[kathynorth]

We were on Apex in Feb, but were only at 65% capacity. We did the same as you, making reservations for the first 4 nights to experience the 4 restaurants and then just showed up at our restaurant of choice at our time of choice for the remaining nights. They were very flexible and seated us within approx 10 mins of our arrival even though it looked like there weren't reservations available for our preferred times. 

[motherchic]

Pre Covid we were on a Solstice class ship, did not have reservations and quite a few times we had to wait almost an hour or more to be seated. For our TA at the end of the month we made reservations. Obviously I don't know for certain, but I would imagine if you just show up you may have to wait for a while. It certainly helps with the pagers, so you can grab a cocktail. 

[jelayne]

A wait time and how long will be influenced by if your cruise is at or near full and if the ship has a full crew or are short staff.

We are currently on the Beyond and there seemed to be a wait to be seated even with reservations.  The ship is near full and they are short of staff. Pagers are a pretty common site at the bars as folks wait to be seated. 
 

Pack some extra patience as the crew on board are working hard to provide a great experience

 

[Tudy]

We were anytime dining on our recent cruise. We did not have reservations and the maitre D' said to show up before 6:00 if we didn't want to wait. Although we would have preferred to eat around 7:00, we made sure that we got there a little before 6:00 every night. Never had to wait.