Group Dining Reservations

[Earthworm Jim]

We're traveling with another couple and want to make joint dining reservation. So I connected our cruise booking numbers via "Manage Reservation", linking our reservations for dining, hotel, and air. In Plan My Cruise to book dining reservations, it only showed my wife's and my name, not the connected couple. So I use the a link to Add Guest, and now their names show up. However, it says "Because these guests have a different booking currency or group ID, they must make their own reservations."

 

What does that mean? They are US citizens, same as us, and just booked from the Celebrity website as we did so there's no special group. Can we not dine together?

 

For what it's worth, until yesterday when it expired we had a complementary hold on a different cabin that was showing up with my name as an additional party to book dining with and that had the same "different booking currency or group ID" warning. That made sense though, because there was no deposit was associated with that hold, so they shouldn't let me book dining for that one.

Edited May 20 by Earthworm Jim

[jelayne]

Are you trying to make reservations in the MDR or specialty dining?  If it is the MDR do you have Anytime dining (Select) or traditional fixed dining?

 

If it the MDR and you both have anytime dining you can both go ahead and make your own reservations, then just show up together and you will be seated together.

[Earthworm Jim]

21 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Are you trying to make reservations in the MDR or specialty dining?  If it is the MDR do you have Anytime dining (Select) or traditional fixed dining?

 

If it the MDR and you both have anytime dining you can both go ahead and make your own reservations, then just show up together and you will be seated together.

 

We're trying both MDR (Anytime) and specialty dining reservations, and get the same result either way. Good to know they'll seat us together, though that kind of defeats the purpose of an Anytime Dining reservation. If we both had separate reservations, they'd presumably be holding 2 tables for two, not 1 table for four.

Edited May 20 by Earthworm Jim

[jelayne]

1 hour ago, Earthworm Jim said:

 

We're trying both MDR (Anytime) and specialty dining reservations, and get the same result either way. Good to know they'll seat us together, though that kind of defeats the purpose of an Anytime Dining reservation. If we both had separate reservations, they'd presumably be holding 2 tables for two, not 1 table for four.

I wouldn’t say they actually “hold” a table.  In the MDR they frequently move 2 2 tops to make a 4 or divide a 4 to make 2 two tops.

I think the specialty restaurants may be different, fewer tables, less ability to move tables.  We are traveling with another couple ( both booked with the same TA) I linked our reservations and was able to make specialty dinner reservations for all of us.  The hitch was I had to pay for all when I booked them.

[lv2cruisgrl]

We travel with 1 or 2 other couples.  When making restaurant reservations we all do our own reservations for the same night and time.  When we get onboard we go to the restaurant and ask them to put us all together.  Never have had an issue.

[Earthworm Jim]

OK, thanks all. I'm somewhat reassured, but only somewhat. I'd definitely feel more comfortable if we could book the specialty restaurant together, as it seems the system is intended to allow, but it doesn't work properly. I was going to pay for all 4 of us myself.

 

Is this group booking issue just a problem for me, or do others have the same problem?

[gold1953]

Both being ' American' has nothing to do with your booking in any way

[SSAtlantic]

I have had this same issue recently. My sister and BIL cruised with us in November and will be going again in 2 weeks. Both of those cruises, I had the same message. We have another booked together in a year that I can link. All we can think of is they booked those 2 cruises late and after final payment, so we are not sure if booked differently. Neither of our TAs could figure it out. The first one I called and the person I spoke to sent an email to the ship and we were linked. The next one I have not gotten a positive answer when I call. We will go to all dining rooms once on board to fix I guess. 

[sushraya]

We are traveling with three other couples.  I was able to make reservations at the MDR for all eight of us.  But I had to add them to the reservation - explicitly specify the reservation number and last name.

[Earthworm Jim]

12 hours ago, gold1953 said:

Both being ' American' has nothing to do with your booking in any way

 

OK. But the "different booking currency" line to me implied a currency other than US Dollars, which being Americans booking from the US we both used. 

[Earthworm Jim]

1 hour ago, sushraya said:

We are traveling with three other couples.  I was able to make reservations at the MDR for all eight of us.  But I had to add them to the reservation - explicitly specify the reservation number and last name.

 

Yes thanks. I did go through that part. Which resulted in their names being listed on the dining reservations page, but they are grayed out and can't be selected. 

[Liao]

19 hours ago, Earthworm Jim said:

OK, thanks all. I'm somewhat reassured, but only somewhat. I'd definitely feel more comfortable if we could book the specialty restaurant together, as it seems the system is intended to allow, but it doesn't work properly. I was going to pay for all 4 of us myself.

 

Is this group booking issue just a problem for me, or do others have the same problem?

Celebrity website is known for being wonky and has challenged some tech savy folks on here.  You’ve done everything right, they will take good care of you all on the ship.  Have a nice cruise!

[Earthworm Jim]

Update from OP- Tried to make the dining reservations today using the app on my phone instead of the website on my computer this time. And it worked fine. Go figure. 

 

So all is well. Thanks everyone.