Booking Large Groups at Chops???

[NHRAgroup]

Has any one ever booked a large group at chops without going through a travel agent? We want to have a wedding dinner (daughter getting married on island while on cruise) for about 20 guests and the travel agent said RCCI wants us to book the whole venue for $2,500. and that is the only way we can reserve it for 20 people at the same time. So has any one booked for a large group before sailing through the web site and pre-paid?

[rednancy1]

I believe that if even 2 people book Chops or Portofino through the RCI website they must prepay. :)

 

The only time you don't prepay is when you book onboard.

[bajathree]

Has any one ever booked a large group at chops without going through a travel agent? We want to have a wedding dinner (daughter getting married on island while on cruise) for about 20 guests and the travel agent said RCCI wants us to book the whole venue for $2,500. and that is the only way we can reserve it for 20 people at the same time. So has any one booked for a large group before sailing through the web site and pre-paid?

 

I was just on IOS and someone I knew was staying in the Royal Suite as they were having a wedding on the ship. Their group had about the same amount of people as yours as they had a total of 10 rooms. In any case they wanted to have the reception at either Chops or Portofino and were told pretty much the same thing....they must rent out the entire restaurant for the evening.

[gerif]

We were having dinner at Portofino on Explorer one night and there was a large table set up in the back of the restaurant for a wedding party - it looked like there were about 20 people in the group. The rest of the restaurant was open to individual bookings.

[Cattie]

Has any one ever booked a large group at chops without going through a travel agent? We want to have a wedding dinner (daughter getting married on island while on cruise) for about 20 guests and the travel agent said RCCI wants us to book the whole venue for $2,500. and that is the only way we can reserve it for 20 people at the same time. So has any one booked for a large group before sailing through the web site and pre-paid?

 

We are trying to do this for Portofino's on the Explorer in 2 weeks. I tried going through the group dept since we're not using a TA. I was told different times, since I asked each time I had to call, that they no longer make reservations for groups prior to sailing. You can only make an online reservation for 6 and that blocks out that time. On the Explorer thread, I asked someone who is sailing now to do me a favor by going and asking if I can make a reservation for 20 people if I do it as soon as we get on the ship. I'm really hoping I can do this. I will let you know the answer if/when she gets back to me.

[Janet Foster]

It was frustrating because we had our cruise arrangements direct through RCCL. We wanted to make reservations online with CHOPS and PORTOFINIO'S. The system would only allow us to do 6 people reservations. So what we ended up doing , was that we made two (5 people) reservations. The times were a half hour off of each other. One was at 8:30 and one was at 9:00. We just wanted to lock in the times.

 

Once we got on board we went directly to the two restaurants and told them that we wanted the two parties combined at ONE TIME. They were very accomodating. We also each prepaid our own fees at the time of the reservation booking and it was very easy to do under one itinerary because we were able to put in other people's itinerary number and let them use their own charge card to pay for it. Sounds confusing but it worked.

[wildernesslady]

How far in advance can you book the specialty restaurants? Also, do you know when the Formal nights are in the dinning room? We are sailing on the Freedom on Oct. 4. Thanks for any help. I'm new to this forum and trying to figure some things out.

[Merlin139]

On the Independence TA last November we had 12 of us in Portonfino's at the same time on the same table no problem at all. We did not book in advance. I think the reservation was made about 2 days prior to the night we ate there.

[Dem920]

We had 24 people, but our TA booked it. Not sure how he did it, but I checked as soon as I got on board and it was all set.

[bajathree]

If anyone is staying in a suite, you could ask the concierge to help.

[drarill]

The concierge made the Portofinos and Chops reservations for our group last year on the Jewel. We had 14 people. In Chops they had us in two tables. In Portofinos they had us at the same table.

As bajathree said, if anyone is staying in a suite, ask the concierge for help.

[CAT GIRL]

For those of you wanting to book a large group please be aware of

your noise level. We were in Chops one time and there was a group of

10 women or so and they were LOUD! Think bachelorette party. It

really took away from the intimate dining experience we were hoping to

have.