Specialty Dining showed up 222 days out

[Sea42]

For our January 6th cruise, reservations opened up 131 days before the cruise.

[ExArkie]

1 hour ago, ExArkie said:

Additional data point: I had an email from HAL this morning showing my reservation number in the subject line, so I knew it wasn’t just “sale-of-the-day” marketing. It informed me I could make specialty dining reservations for our April 27, 2025, transpacific on Noordam. The app said the time to departure was 238 days, 15 hours, and 36 minutes when I opened it. (Really? To the minute?)

 

When I went to the Web site to check on reservations, I was given the option of booking Canaletto using my dining credit or to book Tamarind Pop-Up with no credit. We have credits for one Pinnacle Grill dinner and one Canaletto dinner. Pinnacle Grill was not offered as an option for reservations on the Web site.

 

Being curious, I opened the Navigator app to see if it was the same. On the app, I was offered the opportunity to book Canaletto and Pinnacle Grill using the credits, but the Tamarind Pop-Up didn’t appear. Have to check later to see if it shows up.

 

 

 

 

Correction: The app did NOT let me use the credits to book Pinnacle Grill. It said "there are no complimentary options" for PG, even though our confirmation shows one PG dining credit per person. Canaletto was no problem.

 

Guess this requires a phone call...

 

 

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, Sea42 said:

For our January 6th cruise, reservations opened up 131 days before the cruise.

There is just no rhyme or reason to when dining opens. It opened on our January 6th Antartica cruise on Oosterfam the exact same date as it opened for my Feb 15 Tahiti cruise on Koningadam (so roughly 170 days early). 
 

I thought opening might be ship dependent, but obviously that isn’t the case either. 

[Ken the cruiser]

All of the specialty restaurant options for our April 2025 Panama Canal cruise on the Eurodam just became fully available today as well. Thanks @POA1 for opening this thread, as we would have otherwise waited until about 2-3 months out to book them and may not have been able to get our desired early reservation times. 

[Sea42]

46 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

There is just no rhyme or reason to when dining opens. It opened on our January 6th Antartica cruise on Oosterfam the exact same date as it opened for my Feb 15 Tahiti cruise on Koningadam (so roughly 170 days early). 
 

I thought opening might be ship dependent, but obviously that isn’t the case either. 

Yeah, it's strange but I can deal with waiting. It is 4 months out so it's not as if it is last minute. But it is quite a big deal on other lines. I know on our Oceania cruise people talked about getting up at midnight to book their dining for their cruises!

[bluesplayer]

This happened last week.  We are booked Vancouver - Tokyo 9/29/24.  Many of us had made reservations months ago for Pinnacle Grill.  They have decided to covert the Pinnacle Grill to the Tamarind for about 2 weeks.  All Pinnacle Grill reservations were canceled.  You had to rebook if you wanted keep your time and have the Tamarind menu.  

[BermudaBound2014]

1 hour ago, Sea42 said:

Yeah, it's strange but I can deal with waiting. 

me too- it’s just weird that HaL doesn’t have a standard practice for opening things up. I didn’t even make reservations for my Hawaii/Tahiti trip because trips that long really don’t have a problem getting in. But we did a 7 day bus run on NCL last year and sadly I  did log in at midnight. When everyone on the ship gets 2 free speciality diners and the trip is only 7 days long competition is stiff. That is one of the downsize to some of the mega ships.

[AerynSun_JohnCrighton]

21 hours ago, Sea42 said:

Yeah, it's strange but I can deal with waiting. It is 4 months out so it's not as if it is last minute. But it is quite a big deal on other lines. I know on our Oceania cruise people talked about getting up at midnight to book their dining for their cruises!

Sounds like Disney World. Been there and done that.

[cruisin'mama]

Our dining reservations for our NA cruise on 2/2/25 opened up a couple of days ago. I was able to book our HIA credits through the Navigator app.