What's your opinion on Freestyle Dining?

[pezgirl43]

We are thinking about cruising on Norwegian Pearl to Alaska but I have not been hearing good things about freestyle dining. I hear that there are long waits and hidden extra charges for tips. Any one have and experience with freestyle dining? Got any advice? Thanks for your help!

[eh2zed]

It does have its advantages in terms of choosing when to dine, more informal dress for some, different restaurants. However, we are a bit more traditional. We like to get to know our dining room stewards, table mates, etc. We prefer set times to aim for. Whatever you choose its usually a pound a day.

[kitty9]

If you have kids, or are completely against dressing up for dinner, Freestyle seems to work. I'm not at all a fan of it. I don't like having to wait for a table to open up if I go to dinner at the busiest time, I don't like having different waiters every night and I prefer to dress up and have a more traditional cruise experience. People have said you can request to sit with the same waiter every night, but that can be a problem, and you can increase your wait time, if the area where your waiter works is full.

[rebeljohn]

I'm not a fan of freestyle dining, but I can see where it would appeal to many. We will be doing our 3rd NCL cruise over New Years, but we chose the ship because of the price and close departure port, NOT because of freestyle dining..........

[cruzeluver]

I like both Freestyle and traditional dining.

 

Have never had more than a ten minute wait for a table on NCL, and we are prime time diners (between 6:30-8:00).

[Janan]

I'm another vote against freestyle dining...we feel that the service is non-existant (because you are not able to establish a relationship with your waiter), but it beats starving:D

 

Andy

[Bonnie J.]

Hate it! Have had as long as 40 minuite wait for table- 8:15-, asked to share a table, twice got table for two, service not as good, waiters really take their time when someone leaves and they have to set table again - no wonder it can take so long to get a table. Its one of the main reasons we don't go on NCL anymore! (We have been on 50 cruises over 20 years.)

[Bonnie J.]

Fogot another reason we won't go on NCL. They are now allowing JEANS in the dining room for dinner!!!!

[linda_22003]

I'm another vote against freestyle dining...we feel that the service is non-existant (because you are not able to establish a relationship with your waiter), but it beats starving:D

 

We had excellent service in "freestyle", but the line we took has smaller ships and has not just adopted freestyle, but has been using it for some time.

[blindrid]

We happen to like it. We have never had a long wait and the service was just fine. That is one reason I prefer NCL over the other mainstreams.

[Jiminkcmo]

I prefer freestyle because I'm not a "dress-up guy".

 

Worked in management positions all my employment life and refuse to wear coats and ties and such.

 

And a conversation with a working person is preferable to me than one with a stuffed shirt.

 

And I wear jeans, might say a four letter word occasionally and am not a phoney.

 

Just my $0.10.

 

Jim

[bakechef]

The dining is similar to land dining. If you show up at a land restaurant at peak dining times, there could be a wait.

 

This is good for those who are flexible, I sailed on an NCL ship, that was NOT designed for freestyle, and it worked out fine for us. Here are some pro's for freestyle.

 

Too full for dessert, leave and come back for dessert and coffee later.

 

Meet some cool people, have dinner with them, no problem!

 

With luggage weight restrictions, leaving formal wear at home helps.

 

Choice of up to 12 dining venues, with approx half at no extra charge.

 

Here are just a few, I liked freestyle so much, that I was dreading the dining experience on this next cruise, but I will live!:D

 

MAC

[Mary Ellen]

NOT fans of 'freestyle' 'personal choice' 'as you wish' or whatever dining. We put up with that type of seating at lunch, but it is ALWAYS like a 'first night' conversation. Where are you from? How many cruises/which lines? How do you like this cruise?......

 

I strongly suggest Princess or HAL for Alaska. They have been sailing there the longest of any of the cruise lines. If you want to see Glacier Bay, they pretty much have all the permits sewn up. We been there 5x on HAL, but last summer a friend sailed on Princess with the 'Personal Choice' dining. She loved it for Alaska as she found it very easy to have dinner whenever they returned to the ship on such a port intensive itinerary. We like that HAL has so much open deck area for viewing the scenery and sailing from Vancouver has MUCH better scenery than Seattle.

[caviargal]

There are no "hidden" tips. NCL charges 10 per person per day to the onboard account and the tips are split.

 

I am not a fan of NCL's version of Freestyle and I found the food and service in the free dining areas mediocre at best. I ended up opting for ala carte dining every night of the cruise to get a set time as well as better food and service.

 

I also do not care for the informality of NCL.

[Grandpaul]

I have found that even with Freestyle cruising you can still sit with the same people every night if you want. We have made many friends over the years with people we have met on the first night and ate with them every night. So there really isn't any difference between that and the old system they used. Except now if you don't get along with the people at your table you're not stuck with them for the whole cruise. I find it much better.

[miami]

Freestyle dining and casual resort attire is what made me decide on NCL. I love it. I've been on the Dawn and the Star and never had to wait more than 5 minutes to get a table. Two nights we had a group of 11 and were able to make reservations in the Versailles.

[jkloni]

We don't mind Freestyle, but really prefer traditional dining. In Feb we were on the Sun with my parents. It worked fine because it was just 2 couples deciding when to eat. We never waited, but then again we eat late - 830p. Even ate at 9:15 one night after a long day in port.

 

I think Freestyle is especially bad when you have a large group. It makes it very difficult to coordinate when/where to eat. I know you can make reservations in the non-speciality restaurants for a group, but our only options given were 530pm and 930pm. Way too early, way too late.

 

Going with 9 of us in November. Hopefully we'll do fine with the when/where to eat. So if you are going by yourself or with just couple of friends, you may enjoy it - especially if you don't try to eat at 730p when everyone else is. And I'm am NOT a fan of the speciality restaurants because my food is already paid for. I don't think it is worth the add'l costs. But others try to get into to pay for dinner every night.

Different strokes for different folks!

 

Kathy

[firefly333]

Iv gotten stuck with it on Princess. There is a reason that traditional fills up and is wait listed and the rest have to do anytime dining and dont want to.

 

I prefer to know my table mates and wait staff.

[ce2000]

We are thinking about cruising on Norwegian Pearl to Alaska but I have not been hearing good things about freestyle dining. I hear that there are long waits and hidden extra charges for tips. Any one have and experience with freestyle dining? Got any advice? Thanks for your help!

 

I think that you should give the Pearl a try. Freestyle dinning is definitly different than Traditional dining. I have done both and much prefer Traditional Dinning, that is not to say that I would never do Freestyle again, because I would like to give it another chance someday. With all of the different choices of eating establishements on NCL ships, I believe it could be a foodies paradise if they would upgrade the quality of food in the main dinning rooms. The specialty restaurants onboard are very good, the evening dinner served in the main dinning rooms is very medicore. I believe that with just a little more investment and effort NCL could have the best dinning at sea. Why can't they serve a better dinner than HAL or Princess, etc. I know that price is a consideration when booking a cruise, but it is not the only consideration. Would you pay a little more for a cruise that had fantastic food and service, I would.

[newmexicoNita]

We are thinking about cruising on Norwegian Pearl to Alaska but I have not been hearing good things about freestyle dining. I hear that there are long waits and hidden extra charges for tips. Any one have and experience with freestyle dining? Got any advice? Thanks for your help!

I am going to answer before I read the other postings because what you have heard is blown totally out of perportion.

 

1-Alaska, like Hawaii is pretty port intensive, so if most of the cruisers plan on day long tours and all want to eat at 7pm in the main dining rooms, yes, especailly if you are a group of 6, 8 or more, you will have a wait. If there are 2 or 4 of you, no problem. coming up will be our 7th freestyle cruise, except when we had about 20 of us from CC we have never waited more than 3 or 4 minutes. Normally we eat about 6:30 or 6:45. Sometimes, if we want to dine in a specialty dining room we have to be a little flexible with our times. Extra, hidden tips, absolutely not. The daily tips are applied to your cabin account to the tune of $10 per person per day, less than the recommended amount on the cruise lines that do not add the $10, but most do exactly what NCL does. There is a 15% tip added to drinks, just like on any other line. If you choose to dine in a specialty dining room with a sur charge most people do leave $5 or $10 like other lines. No one has to leave the extra but the service is so spectacular you will probably want to. If you choose to add something extra to someone who has gone out of their way to make you cruise special feel free to do so. No one expects this.

 

Please do not get the idea you will be tipping more on NCL than other lines, probably it will be the opposite unless you are among those who do not think tipping is something that should be done.

 

Nita

[newmexicoNita]

If you have kids, or are completely against dressing up for dinner, Freestyle seems to work. I'm not at all a fan of it. I don't like having to wait for a table to open up if I go to dinner at the busiest time, I don't like having different waiters every night and I prefer to dress up and have a more traditional cruise experience. People have said you can request to sit with the same waiter every night, but that can be a problem, and you can increase your wait time, if the area where your waiter works is full.

 

Kitty, Actually you can request the same table and wait staff the first couple of days if you find a situation that fits your needs. This somewhat defeats the benefit of freestyle dining, but it can be done. You are right, if you just show up and the table or section you want isn't available, then, like a land based restaurant you will have to wait.

 

Nita

[newmexicoNita]

Fogot another reason we won't go on NCL. They are now allowing JEANS in the dining room for dinner!!!!

could I ask, if you hate freestyle so much and can't cope with NCLs new rules about Jeans (which wasn't something the OP asked about) why do you bother with this board? AS for waiting 40 minutes after 8pm, I wonder why and what ship you were on? This is the first time I have heard anything like that.

 

Nita

[Wormy53]

Love anytime dining on Princess. Now we are trying Freestyle on NCL. I think this is the best way to go for us. We do not mind dressing up, we just want to eat when we are ready, and preferrably a table for 2. I think this is probably the wave of the future, and for us - I am glad!

[hesfireshes911]

We hated it. We liked getting to know our wait staff and they getting to know us and our dinner preferences. We think it is something the cruise line cooked up to get more work out of the wait staff by keeping them moving all the time. We also like late dining and knowing that our table is assured. Good Luck.

[PennyAgain]

After having some really bad situations with table mates, we love having choices.

 

My husband won't return to Crystal after we had awful table mates who bragged about themselves, their children and everything in their lives and stopped only to preach religion.

 

We've had some good table mates over the decades, but some that have really been either sick and suffering or didn't want to talk to us at all.

 

We book lines that give us a choice.