Norwegian Cruise Line dining room dress code enforcement.

[Kwami]

NCL has always permitted shorts and tshirts in most MDR’s and most specialties. As for freestyle dining, absolutely love it! We never even have to make reservations, just show up when you want to eat (I think they stopped taking reservations in the MDR’s do even easier). Disliked fixed on DCL, trying to get 5 kids ready by 5pm, ugh.

Unless "when you want to eat" is when everyone else does. Then, you get to wait an hour.

 

[Pens Fan]

We sail NCL a lot. The change did surprise me as the whole Freestyle thing has been their schtick for a while now. But in our experience, most people do dress up a bit for the specialty restaurants so it's not that big of a deal. The only one that gives me pause is the Haven restaurant. For folks sailing in the Haven that is basically their MDR.

But for the most part I am just amused that the article includes a picture of a Princess ship .

 

[mjkacmom]

Unless "when you want to eat" is when everyone else does. Then, you get to wait an hour.

We are a family of 7, never once waited. I was hoping for a beeper and getting a drink at the bar (drink service during dinner is abysmal) but nope! Always went to the larger MDR, more large tables.

 

[Pens Fan]

We are a family of 7, never once waited. I was hoping for a beeper and getting a drink at the bar (drink service during dinner is abysmal) but nope! Always went to the larger MDR, more large tables.

Same for us as a party of 2 most of the time. We've never waited more than 5 minutes (usually no wait at all) for a MDR table. One thing I love about NCL is all the different options for dining. It spreads everyone out and I rarely feel as if I'm on a ship with 3000 - 4000 other people which is not something I can say for DCL if I'm being honest. The Mickey boat is still our favorite though , but I do prefer NCL's Freestyle dining over the traditional fixed model. Different strokes for different folks and all that jazz!

 

[tvguy]

NCL has always permitted shorts and tshirts in most MDR’s and most specialties. As for freestyle dining, absolutely love it! We never even have to make reservations, just show up when you want to eat (I think they stopped taking reservations in the MDR’s do even easier). Disliked fixed on DCL, trying to get 5 kids ready by 5pm, ugh.

Kids were the reason we hated freestyle. An hour wait with hungry kids was not a happy experience. But we figured out you CAN make reservations in the MDR 24 hours in advance and request a same server team. So basically we turned it into traditional cruise dining.
Oh lord, I can see 5 pm being a nightmare with kids. We are west coasters and always have late eating, 830 pm. On east coast cruises that was STILL about an hour to 90 minutes earlier for dinner than our bodies were used to.
We did the Princess cruise in September and had late seating which is 730 for them. But we had dinner two nights in the anytime dining dining room and the group wanted to eat at 5 pm. We were in Halifax with a 4 hour time difference so 5 pm dinner was 1 pm for our bodies!!!! Thank goodness for snack options.

 

[Kwami]

We are a family of 7, never once waited. I was hoping for a beeper and getting a drink at the bar (drink service during dinner is abysmal) but nope! Always went to the larger MDR, more large tables.

As I wrote before, I've only been on one NCL cruise, so my experience is limited. But every night, I had a choice of eating early, waiting an hour, or getting a burger at the pub. It was awful.

 

[starvenger]

(Bad) luck of the draw, it seems. That is my major fear with freestyle/open dining.

 

[mjkacmom]

As I wrote before, I've only been on one NCL cruise, so my experience is limited. But every night, I had a choice of eating early, waiting an hour, or getting a burger at the pub. It was awful.

I’ve only been on 4, but never once waited, and we definitely didn’t show up at 5 or 8. DCL was our first cruise with 5 kids, and it was a dinner struggle every night with early dining (but kids were 4, 4, 6, 9 and 11, so didn’t want late seating. We also live 20 minutes from an RCL cruise port but the dining put us off (I know they have a version of anytime dining, but you still need reservations and at set times.

 

[DCLGirlie]

Same for us as a party of 2 most of the time. We've never waited more than 5 minutes (usually no wait at all) for a MDR table. One thing I love about NCL is all the different options for dining. It spreads everyone out and I rarely feel as if I'm on a ship with 3000 - 4000 other people which is not something I can say for DCL if I'm being honest. The Mickey boat is still our favorite though , but I do prefer NCL's Freestyle dining over the traditional fixed model. Different strokes for different folks and all that jazz!

Agreed 100%. I feel like what appeals to people about NCL's format is completely different than what folks that prefer DCL like and that's fine.

I definitely prefer how non-Disney lines do dining, but that makes me a minority on here. I've said it before but I'll probably stop using DCL once my extended family stops using them as family reunions and it is almost entirely because I don't like how dinner works on DCL.

 

[happycamper47]

So much for enforcement. On the JOY saw shorts worn in La Cucina last night.

 

[ilovebassets]

So much for enforcement. On the JOY saw shorts worn in La Cucina last night.

La Cucina was never listed as a no-shorts venue. It was the Haven restaurant, Cagney's, and Le Bistro specifically. La Cucina has always been more casual.
Regardless, over on Cruise Critic, people are posting numerous screenshots from both onboard at NCL restaurants and from online that the dress code requirement has changed again. They ask that people look "put together" and "appropriate to the venue" with no swimwear or short shorts. I think the backlash was strong.

 

[mjkacmom]

La Cucina was never listed as a no-shorts venue. It was the Haven restaurant, Cagney's, and Le Bistro specifically. La Cucina has always been more casual.
Regardless, over on Cruise Critic, people are posting numerous screenshots from both onboard at NCL restaurants and from online that the dress code requirement has changed again. They ask that people look "put together" and "appropriate to the venue" with no swimwear or short shorts. I think the backlash was strong.

Yes I saw they backpedaled.

 

[tidefan]

Love Virgin's response!

 

[DCLMP]

(Bad) luck of the draw, it seems. That is my major fear with freestyle/open dining.

An hour I'm guessing is an extreme exaggeration. I find that hard to believe. If that were truly the case then people would not like freestyle dining so much and all the cruise lines would not have adopted it. NCL has been doing this for years and people that sail NCL like it.

 

[starvenger]

Love Virgin's response!

I dunno. Wearing a bucket hat indoors feels a bit sketchy, if you ask me...

(ok, not really)

 

[DCLMP]

La Cucina was never listed as a no-shorts venue. It was the Haven restaurant, Cagney's, and Le Bistro specifically. La Cucina has always been more casual.
Regardless, over on Cruise Critic, people are posting numerous screenshots from both onboard at NCL restaurants and from online that the dress code requirement has changed again. They ask that people look "put together" and "appropriate to the venue" with no swimwear or short shorts. I think the backlash was strong.

I don't think you can change American culture at this point. I give NCL some credit for trying. Many people just dress like slobs. I have seen people show up to the MDR in Pajamas... so nothing shocks me.

 

[Liastaob]

We are a family of 7, never once waited. I was hoping for a beeper and getting a drink at the bar (drink service during dinner is abysmal) but nope! Always went to the larger MDR, more large tables.

Wow, our experience was completely different. On our Alaska NCL cruise we frequently either had to wait, or pick a random little restaurant that for whatever reason was not as popular.

The buffet every morning was an absolute madhouse. The only time we didn't stress about where to eat was when we actually had premium dinner reservations.

 

[DCLMP]

On DCL you either have to eat extremely early or extremely late. It's been an issue discussed at nauseam on this boards. An alternative would be nice. I would be Okay showing up at 7pm grabbing a drink and waiting until 730 to be seated. I would imagine 630-730 would be prime time on any cruise line offering my time dining.

 

[imbelle]

As I wrote before, I've only been on one NCL cruise, so my experience is limited. But every night, I had a choice of eating early, waiting an hour, or getting a burger at the pub. It was awful.

I've also only been on one NCL cruise but it was my experience as well that it was a lengthly wait to get into anything other than the main dinning room at peak meal times. I wouldn't say that any of the food on NCL (even at the specialty restaurants) was worth waiting for, but we picked NCL specifically for the itinerary so we just considered it as fuel.

 

[mjkacmom]

Wow, our experience was completely different. On our Alaska NCL cruise we frequently either had to wait, or pick a random little restaurant that for whatever reason was not as popular.

The buffet every morning was an absolute madhouse. The only time we didn't stress about where to eat was when we actually had premium dinner reservations.

And we always sailed during times when there were a lot of kids onboard. Ate at the largest MDR, no wait, and in the buffet sat in an overflow dining room (cucina?). Always empty tables (our daughter with celiac would order breakfast the night before and call the dietary manager before leaving our cabin, and he’d deliver to our table).