Here's an item that strikes at the very heart of our love of cruising.
Dinner reservations on Norwegian.
As you may have read here before, we came back to cruising because Norwegian was the first cruise line NOT to insist on fixed dining. No traditional times. No identical 
dining partners, night after night. All of these things appealed to us so…Norwegian Star, here we came. It was the introduction of Freestyle Cruising.
Now, reservations are creeping back into Norwegian.
It started on Pride of America, the Hawaii ship. Norwegian told its customers it could reserve space in the dining room up to 90 days in advance. As people who don't know what time dinner is tonight, or any night, this is foreign territory. The offer has now been extended to all Norwegian ships and, no, you don't have to make reservations…you can still do the Freestyle thing.
But here's the real catch: Reservations are offered at 5:30, 6:30 and 8:30. Fixed times.
The more things change, the more they remain the same?
Today at Phil Reimer's portsandbows.com: Crystal…way up north
Ruby Princess
14 nights
September 8, 2014
London, Bergen, Lerwick, Akureyri, Isafjordur, Reykjavik, St. John’s, New York
Inside: $1,299
Cost per day: $92
www.princess.com