Dining Times in Specialty Restaurants on Onward

[excitedofharpenden]

26 minutes ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Trouble is there is limited seating in the two speciality restaurants, so if they didn’t take reservations and everyone wanted to eat at the same time one night, then a lot of people would be disappointed! You can eat anytime at all other venues on the ships - no reservations needed for Discoveries MDR, Windows buffet or the Patio.

Just turning up when you want to there is hardly a special experience. I know I've responded again, but this matter is being given too much thought and airtime IMHO. 

 

Phil 

[Riocca]

26 minutes ago, excitedofharpenden said:

Just turning up when you want to there is hardly a special experience. I know I've responded again, but this matter is being given too much thought and airtime IMHO. 

 

Phil 

Spot on Phil, we seem to have lost the perspective that these are specially restaurants not main restaurants. I don’t know of any cruise lines where you don’t have to book speciality restaurants in advance in fact with many you have to book months before you even board the ship.

Azamara main restaurants are anytime dining, if you are in a suite of any grade and want to use the specialities as your restaurant then you need to follow the rules.

[Nippy Sweetie]

Haven't been restricted as to times in speciality restaurants on other cruise lines. 

[uktog]

13 minutes ago, Nippy Sweetie said:

Haven't been restricted as to times in speciality restaurants on other cruise lines. 

Which ones give you unlimited time choices?  My experience on Celebrity, Viking and all river cruises is it’s the two sitting model for specialities but it doesn’t bother us

Edited October 20, 2022 by uktog

[Riocca]

5 minutes ago, Nippy Sweetie said:

Haven't been restricted as to times in speciality restaurants on other cruise lines. 

But most other cruise lines with smaller ships restrict the number of times you can use speciality restaurants by cabin grade including suites and also give priority booking by grade. 
If Azamara have to restrict each table to only being used once per evening then that’s going to happen on Azamara as well.

[norn iron]

During June we spent ten out of eleven nights dining in Prime C and Aqualina. Our bookings were made for 20:30 every evening, however, we arrived anywhere between 19:50 and 20:20 and were welcomed with  greetings and smiles every evening. 

 

[marinaro44]

3 hours ago, Grandma Cruising said:

Trouble is there is limited seating in the two speciality restaurants, so if they didn’t take reservations and everyone wanted to eat at the same time one night, then a lot of people would be disappointed! You can eat anytime at all other venues on the ships - no reservations needed for Discoveries MDR, Windows buffet or the Patio.

Puzzling that some can't seem to understand this.  Would be chaos if reservations weren't required.

[uktog]

27 minutes ago, marinaro44 said:

Puzzling that some can't seem to understand this.  Would be chaos if reservations weren't required.

I think the issue is some cannot accept that the operation uses two time slots 1800-1845 and 2000-2045 which is as we’ve experienced elsewhere. 
This allows the very small speciality galley serving two restaurants to effectively manage the workflow with chefs concentrating on appetisers etc at two time slots, these chefs leave the limited space to the main meal guys. 
Maybe if guests saw pictures of how small the deck 10 galley is they’d better understand this workflow. 

[Nippy Sweetie]

I have no problem making reservations as I do and have done in restaurants on various ships and onshore. I'm happy that some of you are happy with the situation on Azamara but note that others agree with me. 

@Host JazzbeauGood idea to separate off this topic from the main one. Clearly we must all agree to differ on the matter.

[uktog]

Time to close this thread Host?