What if I have Premier but all the speciality restaurants are full?

[sable1]

Lady Arwen,

Can you please explain how you were able to book specialty dining without being charged.

We do not have a package, just a regular booking.

Thanks

[arxcards]

We have encountered this issue on short cruises. At one stage, you could pre-book your restaurants via the app with your dining credit, but we have even had those bookings cancelled without notice. Premier seems to be more popular with shorter voyages, as the price premium is not large for the per cruise items such as dining & photos. Princess oversells the premier packages, and there are large numbers of passengers with two specialty dining credits on a 3 or 4 night cruise.

 

They now say they can assign your dining at their discretion for day, time & restaurant. On an occasion we had a booking cancelled due to overbookings, we were given an alternative to use the credit for surf & turf in the MDR. I don't know if this is regularly offered, or was just an on-the-spot solution for us from the maitre D.

 

Since then, I just don't bother with a premier package. Now I will just go with Plus, and use my credit card to pre-book a confirmed specialty restaurant booking at the time and place of our choosing.

[PATRLR]

1 hour ago, arxcards said:

They now say they can assign your dining at their discretion for day, time & restaurant.

Say what?!?  Who is "they" and where have you seen/heard them say this?

I currently have two reservations for the venue and date/time that I want.  Are you saying Princess can change that on me to something totally different?

[arxcards]

Just now, PATRLR said:

Say what?!?  Who is "they" and where have you seen/heard them say this?

I currently have two reservations for the venue and date/time that I want.  Are you saying Princess can change that on me to something totally different?

If booked & pre-paid with credit card, no.

With premier package dining credits, yes. They = Princess, and this is listed in the  Plus/Premier packages T&C. I wont bother to link the Australian version I have pasted from.

 

Specialty Dining – two Specialty Dining meals are available per each Princess Premier guest. Each specialty dining meal consumed by a guest in a stateroom with this package will have the meal credited against the entire stateroom. It is recommended that guests make the Specialty Dining reservations pre-cruise using Princess® App. Princess Cruises reserves the right to pre-assign Specialty Dining times and location. The Specialty Dining included in Princess Premier does not include items with extra charges on the menus. Availability of Specialty Dining might be limited on certain cruises. Restaurants vary by ship.

 

So, as explained to me, if everyone wants Crown Grill and it is booked out, you will not be guaranteed to be able to use both of your Premier package bookings there just because you got in first.

[PATRLR]

28 minutes ago, arxcards said:

If booked & pre-paid with credit card, no.

With premier package dining credits, yes. They = Princess, and this is listed in the  Plus/Premier packages T&C. I wont bother to link the Australian version I have pasted from.

 

Specialty Dining – two Specialty Dining meals are available per each Princess Premier guest. Each specialty dining meal consumed by a guest in a stateroom with this package will have the meal credited against the entire stateroom. It is recommended that guests make the Specialty Dining reservations pre-cruise using Princess® App. Princess Cruises reserves the right to pre-assign Specialty Dining times and location. The Specialty Dining included in Princess Premier does not include items with extra charges on the menus. Availability of Specialty Dining might be limited on certain cruises. Restaurants vary by ship.

 

So, as explained to me, if everyone wants Crown Grill and it is booked out, you will not be guaranteed to be able to use both of your Premier package bookings there just because you got in first.

OK, they can pre-assign.  That doesn't necessarily mean change (and I understand you didn't write "change").  Thank you for clarifying.  

[insidecabin]

Table availability on a walk past is not a representative measure of how busy.

 

On most cruise lines capacity of a restaurant is driven by galley and waiter capacity.

(Fixed dining mass production galley is the exception)

 

They just can't fill every table at 5:30 and produce the level of service required.

(Also no slots till 7:30)

 

To enable the wide range of times and galley throughput they stagger and limit each slot.

 

Once the booking system is at capacity(no availablity on app or reservation line) what I have noticed on quite a few lines/ships is if you schmooze the host they can often squeeze you in as long as you are flexible on time and day.

 

Now there is premier it may be harder as they probably have more to squeeze in but many of those will be the ones that used speciality anyway.

 

[MacMadame]

On 4/17/2024 at 8:15 AM, colsky said:

I sometimes imagine a cruise ship being just full of YouTubers walking around filming, with no "normal" other guests!!

They do sometimes have cruises where they invite a lot of "media' including YouTubers. So maybe not *no* normal other guests but I bet it's enough to stand out and possibly even be annoying. 😄 

[memoak]

5 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

Table availability on a walk past is not a representative measure of how busy.

 

On most cruise lines capacity of a restaurant is driven by galley and waiter capacity.

(Fixed dining mass production galley is the exception)

 

They just can't fill every table at 5:30 and produce the level of service required.

(Also no slots till 7:30)

 

To enable the wide range of times and galley throughput they stagger and limit each slot.

 

Once the booking system is at capacity(no availablity on app or reservation line) what I have noticed on quite a few lines/ships is if you schmooze the host they can often squeeze you in as long as you are flexible on time and day.

 

Now there is premier it may be harder as they probably have more to squeeze in but many of those will be the ones that used speciality anyway.

 

Sorry but when I walked past the Crown Grille at 5:30 it was at least 80% full at 7:45 it was less than 20% full. I have still been able to get reservations on a same day basis and always have

[insidecabin]

21 minutes ago, memoak said:

Sorry but when I walked past the Crown Grille at 5:30 it was at least 80% full at 7:45 it was less than 20% full. I have still been able to get reservations on a same day basis and always have

All those 5:00-5:30 will have blocked out 2hr of most reservations leaving later times.

 

Our upcoming plenty of 8pm on most days.

 

We have done a 5:30 CG is just starting by the time we leave it's filled up steady stream of arrivals and tables clearing as they finish

 

 

 

 

[karatemom2]

1 hour ago, MacMadame said:

They do sometimes have cruises where they invite a lot of "media' including YouTubers. So maybe not *no* normal other guests but I bet it's enough to stand out and possibly even be annoying. 😄 

While I do appreciate some of the videos on different itineraries and ships that provide a nice preview for things like stateroom selection, ship information, and excursion planning, I do see how intrusive and annoying it has become for crew and fellow passengers. 
 

I particularly cringe at the vloggers who literally shove their cameras in crew members’ faces. It is incredibly inconsiderate and invades their privacy while they are trying to do their jobs. 
 

We had the misfortune of being seated adjacent to a couple of “influencers” filming their dinner in the MDR on our New Year’s cruise on Discovery. Talk about entitled and obnoxious! They yammered loudly through dinner with their cameras filming constantly - and completely putting our wait team on edge and annoying fellow diners, many of us exchanging “looks” and being extra nice to our waiters who were clearly stressed by the entire ordeal. 
 

Edited April 18 by karatemom2

[FancyPants21]

58 minutes ago, karatemom2 said:

While I do appreciate some of the videos on different itineraries and ships that provide a nice preview for things like stateroom selection, ship information, and excursion planning, I do see how intrusive and annoying it has become for crew and fellow passengers. 
 

I particularly cringe at the vloggers who literally shove their cameras in crew members’ faces. It is incredibly inconsiderate and invades their privacy while they are trying to do their jobs. 
 

We had the misfortune of being seated adjacent to a couple of “influencers” filming their dinner in the MDR on our New Year’s cruise on Discovery. Talk about entitled and obnoxious! They yammered loudly through dinner with their cameras filming constantly - and completely putting our wait team on edge and annoying fellow diners, many of us exchanging “looks” and being extra nice to our waiters who were clearly stressed by the entire ordeal. 
 

If that happens near us on our next cruise I will be saying something to them and complaining to the management. I have no issue with vloggers providing they are consider of other passengers when they film. There are some good ones... Ben and David for example... Emma is pretty good too.

[insidecabin]

41 minutes ago, FancyPants21 said:

If that happens near us on our next cruise I will be saying something to them and complaining to the management. I have no issue with vloggers providing they are consider of other passengers when they film. There are some good ones... Ben and David for example... Emma is pretty good too.

Ben and Dave have been caught out for being intrusive in MSC Yacht club.(not handled well)

They made claims in their we are upset vlog that if you look at previous vlogs were stretching their credibility and they could not get their story straight.

 

A bigger issue with a lot of vlogs these days  is to be super considerate a lot of the filming shows a near  empty ship which is often far from the reality of that ship.

 

 

 

 

[arxcards]

5 hours ago, PATRLR said:

OK, they can pre-assign.  That doesn't necessarily mean change (and I understand you didn't write "change").  Thank you for clarifying.  

The pre-assign happens on embarkation morning. They will look at their bookings and adjust if required prior to sending to vouchers to cabin. Until then, unless pre-paid, it is just a reservation.

 

A pre-assign can include changing an existing booking. It has happened to us, per my previous post. By the time the suite vouchers and premier vouchers are assigned, particularly on short cruises, these restaurants are already oversold prior to embarkation. This is certainly true for Coral Princess in Australia, where the ship only has Bayou and Sabatini's.

 

If you are on a newer ship for 7 nights or longer, you are not likely to have any bookings changed. There will be heaps of capacity over 7 nights to satisfy everyone's dining credits. 

[FancyPants21]

22 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

Ben and Dave have been caught out for being intrusive in MSC Yacht club.(not handled well)

They made claims in their we are upset vlog that if you look at previous vlogs were stretching their credibility and they could not get their story straight.

 

A bigger issue with a lot of vlogs these days  is to be super considerate a lot of the filming shows a near  empty ship which is often far from the reality of that ship.

I have seen most of B&D's videos and I don't agree. Their behaviour on MSC was not intrusive AFAICS and that situation looked like it was created entirely by the behaviour of the ship's crew. If they didn't want them to video they should have still treated them with respect.

 

Recording when the ship is empty... often prior to most people boarding... is the way they guarantee not to intrude. They don't set out to show what it is like when fully occupied when they are doing a ship tour.

 

What we need to remember is that recording, and then putting it up on YouTube, is what a lot of people do and so the only difference with vloggers IMO is that they have a big following. So the way I see it... if videoing is permitted for everyone then everyone should be permitted to video... people with large followings and those that have less.

[tulok]

We have linked bookings with others and all have premier. The app let us book one speciality for all of us, no charge but wouldn’t let us book another one except individually without charge. Good news, I got on chat and agent Mary, who was awesome, and booked us a table together without charging using all our speciality dinner credit. 

You might try chat on the app. I know it’s a hit and miss but that’s twice now they have been very helpful.

 

[Hobby3333]

We don’t cruise until July on the Sun fro Barcelona.  I have been trying to book our dining every day with no luck.  I called Princess and the rep told me not to worry since I am in a suite.  Not sure if I believe them but I will continue to try to book every day and if not successful then we will see if the rep was correct. 

[memoak]

Just now, Hobby3333 said:

We don’t cruise until July on the Sun fro Barcelona.  I have been trying to book our dining every day with no luck.  I called Princess and the rep told me not to worry since I am in a suite.  Not sure if I believe them but I will continue to try to book every day and if not successful then we will see if the rep was correct. 

We have never had an issue with booking specialty dining while on board. Regular dining will be in whatever dining area is specified for suites. If this is like the other ships there is no reservation no wait 

[memoak]

Just a note we walked into Sabatini’s last night with no reservation at 7:30 only 5 tables occupied. No problem. Today on the app all times are showing available for reservations at Crown Grill. This is on Ruby Princess