Reserve Collection Dining?

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, drizzle63 said:

Hello! Didn't want to start another thread, so thought I'd ask this here... has anyone had success bringing a regular mini-suite guest for Reserve dining?

 

I have a Reserve and unless another one free's up, my travel companion will be in a regular mini. Since it looks like I will be able to dine when I please, wondering if they will let me bring a non-reserve passenger with me.

 

In reading the materials, Princess says this isn't allowed, but one person told me she was able to bring friends. Anyone have an onboard experience with this?

No

[bigbenboys]

45 minutes ago, drizzle63 said:

Hello! Didn't want to start another thread, so thought I'd ask this here... has anyone had success bringing a regular mini-suite guest for Reserve dining?

 

I have a Reserve and unless another one free's up, my travel companion will be in a regular mini. Since it looks like I will be able to dine when I please, wondering if they will let me bring a non-reserve passenger with me.

 

In reading the materials, Princess says this isn't allowed, but one person told me she was able to bring friends. Anyone have an onboard experience with this?

Are both of you solo cruises? 

[drizzle63]

Just now, bigbenboys said:

Are both of you solo cruises? 

Yes, we're both solo.

[memoak]

51 minutes ago, drizzle63 said:

Hello! Didn't want to start another thread, so thought I'd ask this here... has anyone had success bringing a regular mini-suite guest for Reserve dining?

 

I have a Reserve and unless another one free's up, my travel companion will be in a regular mini. Since it looks like I will be able to dine when I please, wondering if they will let me bring a non-reserve passenger with me.

 

In reading the materials, Princess says this isn't allowed, but one person told me she was able to bring friends. Anyone have an onboard experience with this?

They will scan your medallion and see that she is not eligible. If they did that for everyone and immediate seating was then not available that would not be good. I have seen a suite passenger bring a non suite person to breakfast and they very quietly said to them “please don’t do this again”

Edited August 22, 2023 by memoak

[reedprincess]

5 minutes ago, drizzle63 said:

Yes, we're both solo.

In this scenario, they MAY - reiterate MAY - allow you to bring your travel companion with you, as it's still only two people.

All you can do is ask. And be prepared for a no.

I do know of one scenario where friends were traveling in a suite while their mother was in an inside - and the maitre'd graciously allowed the mother to dine in the Reserve dining area with them, and also invited her to the suite breakfast.

Doesn't hurt to ask, but it's not standard practice at all.. 

[drizzle63]

Just now, reedprincess said:

In this scenario, they MAY - reiterate MAY - allow you to bring your travel companion with you, as it's still only two people.

All you can do is ask. And be prepared for a no.

I do know of one scenario where friends were traveling in a suite while their mother was in an inside - and the maitre'd graciously allowed the mother to dine in the Reserve dining area with them, and also invited her to the suite breakfast.

Doesn't hurt to ask, but it's not standard practice at all.. 

Helpful to know! Yes, I can see it being case by case. Ideally, we get her upgraded into a Reserve. Just trying to understand the possible consequences if we can't. Other challenge is around the priority boarding. Hate to leave her behind in those lines! 

[Steelers36]

On 8/15/2023 at 4:43 PM, Robkat said:

Well done!  Kudos to your proactive TA, who did this for you!

Thanks for the reply.

Not a proactive TA - they just made the change requested by their customer.  It is up to Princess guest to spot and take advantage of a better offer or price drop after booking a voyage.

 

From original pricing, a price drop could find a higher category cabin (say, M1) pricing lower than a guest originally booked a MA or MB at.  However, the same MA or MB will also have gone down in price.

 

Guest can either get a price savings on original cabin or decide to spend the savings on a self-made upgrade.  That's a nice thing to happen for a Princess guest.

 

I have done that a couple of times in moving from an Inside to a Balcony.  In the case above, I guess I would still be looking at the value proposition for what Reserve Dining cost me versus my new lower priced original cabin.

[memoak]

52 minutes ago, drizzle63 said:

Yes, we're both solo.

If you are close friends have you thought of sharing the Reserve Mimi ?

[Fortunate 2 travel]

1 hour ago, drizzle63 said:

Hello! Didn't want to start another thread, so thought I'd ask this here... has anyone had success bringing a regular mini-suite guest for Reserve dining?

 

I have a Reserve and unless another one free's up, my travel companion will be in a regular mini. Since it looks like I will be able to dine when I please, wondering if they will let me bring a non-reserve passenger with me.

 

In reading the materials, Princess says this isn't allowed, but one person told me she was able to bring friends. Anyone have an onboard experience with this?

No.  It’s only for Reserve mini suites and full suites.  You can always eat with your friend in the MDR.

[drizzle63]

12 minutes ago, memoak said:

If you are close friends have you thought of sharing the Reserve Mimi ?

Not interested in doing so, but to answer your question.. of course we have! 🙂 

[bigbenboys]

20 hours ago, drizzle63 said:

Yes, we're both solo.

Personally I dont see a problem. You are going to take up a table for 2 anyway.

[Steelers36]

1 hour ago, bigbenboys said:

Personally I don't see a problem. You are going to take up a table for 2 anyway.

We could think that, but there may be another solo guest who also has Reserve and they might encourage them to sit together.  Of course, the guests wouldn't have to agree, but it seems a slippery slope perhaps.  Imagine it is up to the DRO, but I wouldn't count on it.

[drizzle63]

2 hours ago, bigbenboys said:

Personally I dont see a problem. You are going to take up a table for 2 anyway.

Yes, I get that sense as well.

[Fortunate 2 travel]

By asking to have someone who is not in a reserve class mini puts the poor host/hostess in a unfortunate situation.  Why do that?

[WAvoyager]

I thought I had read reports of people informing the host that some of the party were non-Reserve cruisers, and the whole party was seated near the Reserve section, and Reserve guests were allowed to order from the reserve menu.

 

haven’t tried it ourselves - didn’t hear about that until after our last trip as a “mixed” group.

[Crashe]

We’ve had non-reserve members dine with us and had no issues.  I wouldn’t do it for the entire cruise but a night or two.   Just ask the concierge.  It allows non reserve to experience the difference.  

[memoak]

21 minutes ago, Crashe said:

We’ve had non-reserve members dine with us and had no issues.  I wouldn’t do it for the entire cruise but a night or two.   Just ask the concierge.  It allows non reserve to experience the difference.  

 Concierges are only on Royal class ships and only handle full suite passengers. We have watched many people turned away by the hostess. If you are going to ask for a favor on one night or so I would check with the Reserve class manager 

[Crashe]

Then it was the hostess.  

[drizzle63]

Thanks to everyone for responding. Problem solved. It pays to obsessively stalk availability on Princess site. This morning a nice aft suite came up and I grabbed it consolidating us into one room with the same perks.

[memoak]

48 minutes ago, drizzle63 said:

Thanks to everyone for responding. Problem solved. It pays to obsessively stalk availability on Princess site. This morning a nice aft suite came up and I grabbed it consolidating us into one room with the same perks.

You will really enjoy your cruise 

[trbarton]

On 8/14/2023 at 10:57 AM, Rick&Jeannie said:

Well, I have a different slant on the Resrve dining. We have the same problem as the OP where we have Reserve and our traveling partners do not. When we originally booked we were "standard" dining but our TA notified us that we could get Reserve and end up actually paying less than what our original fare would be in a standard mini-suite. Of course we jumped on it! Then, our friends booked but Reserve was fully booked up.

Now, we *were* going to take advantage of Reserve (of course) but now that our friends are involved we prefer to eat with them. (We might take 2 or 3 meals in Reserve...)

The issue that I have is that I cannot book any non-Reserve dining for all of us except for SD.  When I try to do so it only shows us specialty dining since the system "knows" that we are Reserve!

 

I realize this is not going to be a common issue for most! We have done this once before when it was known as Club Class. We only did the upgrade primarily because of the overall savings we were going to get. 

 

I am posting just to point this out with the DMW app. Our friends ended up having to book all of our dining since we could not. Again,  not a big deal...it's just that I am usually the one who handles all of the details like this for our group.  Just FYI...

I wonder what would happen if your friends inquired once on the ship?

 

Tom

[Crashe]

18 hours ago, drizzle63 said:

Thanks to everyone for responding. Problem solved. It pays to obsessively stalk availability on Princess site. This morning a nice aft suite came up and I grabbed it consolidating us into one room with the same perks.

Awesome!  Enjoy your cruise!

[Steelers36]

15 hours ago, trbarton said:

I wonder what would happen if your friends inquired once on the ship?

 

Tom

No.  Totally different situation IMO than a single person asking another single to use an otherwise empty chair.  And we don't even know that would be kosher.

[abouna]

I wonder how "Reserve" dining will differ from "Signature" dining as far as offerings.

[emeraldcoastmike]

On Sun Princess, is Reserve Dining in a separate restaurant or a reserved section of the Main Dining Room (MDR)?  Thank you for any help.