Norwegian Jewel From New York-Freestyle Dining?
March 15, 2010 by
Filed under new york dining
Hi- We booked our second cruise, our first with NCL. This is a belated honeymoon. We are sailing out of New York on the Norwegian Jewel for 7 days. I am kinda confused about the freestyle dining. How soon in advance do you have to make reservations for one of the dining rooms? Is it complete chaos?
Kim, I’ve booked cruises different ways. I’ve booked online recently, but I’ve also had good success with local travel agents in the past. They can still create great packages that better than many online travel brokers. I found a website of local cruise travel agents here: http://www.cruiselinesrated.com I belive that you can get a great deal in one of two ways, book way early, or book as close to departure time as possible. Have fun!
Kim, we have cruised on Jewel’s sister ship the Gem (not identical but close). For several of the dining rooms you do not make reservations at all, you just show up. On the other hand, many of the specialty dining restaurants do take reservations (I think w/in 48 hours of the reservations) though you can book all the way through the cruise if you are in a suite. It is not complete chaos, occasionally there is a wait (though almost never if you dine early) but they give you a pager or tell you which other restaurants have less of a wait. For more detailed and recent info check out boards.cruisecritic.com, subfolder NCL.
I have been on the Jewel 3 times in the past year. I love that ship!
Depending on the category of stateroom, you may make reservations for the main dining rooms between 24 hours (suites and villas, and upper categories) and 48 hours (standard staterooms) ahead of the time and day you wish to dine. We always made reservations at the beginning of the cruise and we never had any trouble. Reservations are not a requirement, but if you show up at peak early hours, you can expect to wait a short time; you are given a pager and they call you when your table is ready. In my experience, the line moves rather fast.
The only real difficulty is tables for 2. Tables for 2, which are generally window tables, are fairly popular, so you might have to wait for one. If you’re willing to share with between 2 and up to 10 others, you should not have too much of a problem. They have tables for 4 which they may assign to 2 people, but obviously and logically, they’d prefer to have 2 couples, or people willing to share at these tables. It doesn’t mean they won’t seat 2 people there, though, but that may depend on the dining time and how busy they are.
We rarely go to the specialty restaurants, but if you plan to dine at one, you should reserve about 48 hours in advance.
Enjoy your cruise!
No need to make reservations. There are two main dining rooms on all NCL ships. One dining time is 5:30-9:30 and the other is 6pm-9:30(times may vary).You just show up at one of the restaurants and you will be greeted by a hostess. She will ask..How many in the party? If you are willing to share a table, just tell the hostess. Of course you can ask to sit with people you know on the ship. Its a very good system. We like it because you just walk in and order.
Hope I helped!