Normal
Well how about putting that all in perspective. The 3 dining areas where you do not need reservations are the two main dining rooms and the buffet, right? It's probably not a stretch to say that at least 75% of the pax eat in 1 of those for their entire cruise Others will go to a rerstaurant where they need a reservation once or twice. Making a reservation takes less than a minute. Do it during the day when you are in that area or make the reservation from the phone in your room. Want to do a specialty restaurant 6 pm one night, 7 pm the next and 8 pm another night? We were on RCI in March and had the same situation with specialty dining so it isn't specific to NCL. It looks like you are trying to equate the 10 restaurants. What you should be doing, IMO is comparing the main diningroom rules on other ships with freestyle dining.