sptrout

1 minute ago, phoenix_dream said:

Exactly! I am going back many years with my comment, when all there was was the MDR. Not even specialty restaurants. I started sailing X in 1993.

I am showing my age too LOL. We started with Celebrity 01/95 for our Honeymoon. I do not remember the dessert cart, but there are a lot of things that I do not remember about that cruise.....ah never mind.

But, we did get invited to the Captains Table one evening. No idea why, we were the poor folks at the table. I am shy, my wife is not, we both wish we were elsewhere......ah never mind.

We do dine at Speciality resturants from time to time, but since all our more recent cruises have been in Sky Suites, and previouly in Aqua Class, we have had no need to go elsewhere, other than try something different.

Since the OP specifically mentioned Beyond, I will limit the remainder of my comments to our recent Beyond cruise (week of 01/08/23). Our Beyond cruise was just 7 nights, but we decided to try both Eden an Le Voyage for one night each. I assumed both would be a great experience based on past comments here on CC. The other five nights and nearly all other meals were in Luminae.

To be honest Eden was disappointing. The food was fine but nothing better than Luminae. It was a nice change, but will likely not go back. The view was nice, but since sunset is around 6PM, that special viewing is time restrained and on our evening it was pouring rain so no setset, but a nice waterfalls (water running down our window).

Le Voyage was a "knock your socks off" evening/meal. The food was outstanding and the severice was the best that we have ever experienced on any of our cruises. We will be going back this upcoming January during our 11 night cruise at least once maybe twice. If deired reserve well before your cruise, they do sell out.

I really do not understand the comments about people wanting, or not, to spend their money on Specialty Dining (SD). SD is no diffentent than the many other options available the moment you step on a cruise ship. A cruiser can spend their money on a great many things; casinos, SDs, stuff at the over priced shops, art, pictures, bingo, and the list goes on and on. Personally, I find most of the items on this list to be a waste of money, but I could care less if others want to buy whatever. Ships are floating resorts and should be treated as such when it comes to spending ones own money fron embarkation to disembarkation.

Nothing to do with Sky Lounges.

According to TSA Rules (as we have been made to understand it - the hard way), airlines are not allowed to check-in passengers, and/or luggage, until a maximum of 3 hours prior to their scheduled flight time. A year ago we were made aware of this rule and not allowed to check-in until afternoon even though we arrived around 8:30AM. Therefore, we and many others, were stuck in the area between the main doors and the check-in counters. There is no seating or access to anything except restrooms down on the luggage retrival floor. We had to either sit on our suitcases or on the floor for hours.

The above happen last January (2022) so this time (two weeks ago) since our flight time was at 4:30 we took a ship sponsored) Fort Lauderdale tour to eat up some of the time. We still arrived more than 3 hours, but just bareley. The agent still checked out flight time, but allowed us to check-in a couple minutes early. It was obivious by the masses of people sitting on the floor or luggage that they were caught in this trap.

I have never seen this rule mentioned, but it has casued us a lot of problems.

Packaged or not this is a great resturant. Sells out long before a cruise so make reservations early! 

We were on the Beyond the week of 1/8 and the meal there far exceeded any other place we ate all week incliding Eden and Luminae. Do not miss this rare oportunity!.

Have menu pictures ever been posted? If not, I have the original copies of the Tasting and Dinner Menus (no dessert menu). Let me know if pictures would be useful.

 I thought that I remembered that Chilean Sea Bass was being overfished and that it was no longer acceptable to fish for it. However, I still see it on menus, land or sea based resturants, so am I remembering wrong?

1 minute ago, RichYak said:

I like a nicely prepared Toothfish myself... especially when they call it Chilean Sea Bass. 😊

Funny how a name change can make a big difference in taste or acceptance. Escargo or Mahi Mahi anyone?

Baked Alaska for afters ( melted inside)

The baked Alaska was the only dessert that I had in Luminae that I thought was up to the previous Luminae standards (but, without the flames). The other Luminae desserts were always available either later that night or the next day in the buffet. I had one type of chocolate cake at least three or four times at different outlets including the forementioned and Cafe Del Banco (SP?).

Le Voyage won the the dessert contest running away, not even in the same race.

9 minutes ago, bigbenboys said:

What about creme brulee is it gone?

My wife had it somewhere last week; Eden maybe?

16 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

based on many negative comments on CC.  Good lord if I based what I was or was not going to do based on this, I'd probably never leave my damn cabin.

Agreed, but the Boulud feature never looked good to us so reading CC had no effect on our non-choice.

We have not tried the Boulud Chicken mainly based on many negative comments on CC. However, we did go to Le Vogage last week and it was outstanding, The food was great and the service was over the top. We lost track how many servers and others stopped at our table to make sure that evergthing was great. 

Funny thing though at Le Voyage they excepted our request to use wines from our Premium Package, no arugment, At Eden they were very insistant that we buy wine from their wine list (by the bottle with 20% discount). They may have relented, but we got tired of aruging and just bought ta low cost bottle on their wine list. We drink wine on osscasion, but cannot tell the difference detween a $25 bottle and a $100 bottle. 

Bottomeline, it costs condsierable less to dine at Le Voyage than it did at Eden. No comparsion between the food and service; Le Voyage won handsdown. We will be in Le Voyage during our next Beyoud cruise.

10 hours ago, terrydtx said:

I hope the French Onion soup is still available, last year when were not too hungry for dinner we had bowls of the FOS delivered to our cabin. It is by far the best FOS on any cruise line.

On the Beyond last week I saw it served, but it was never on the menu. Same for Escargot, not on the menu but was available when my DW asked for it and then another night it was served in addition to what she ordered.  We had an excellent waitress.

I think that the rack of lamb was either on the last "chic" night or the last night (#7) I do not remeber if they were on the App or not, I usually did not look at the menus on the App so I would be surprised,

For our 1/29 Beyond sailing, rack of lamb shows on Day 6. Loin on day 3. 
 

With all the apparent changes going on, I’m not sure the app is accurate, we will soon see. 
 

mac_tlc

Last week on the Beyond we had both types of lamb mentioned.

I had beef nearly every evening. Beef, and lamb, are usually safe items. One thing missing though (maybe always missing) the size is seldom not mentioned. This could be just my bad memory. 

Just now, WonderMan3 said:

Sounds like a shrimp...

Very small shrimp.

45 minutes ago, RichYak said:

OP specifically referred to changes to lunch and dinner menus. Did you notice any changes to the menus?

Sorry, but I missed the OPs intent of this thread. In any case I cannot remember previous Luminae menus. However, as I danced around this subject earlier the menus can be "word-smithed" to say about anything. Items sounded good but delivery was lacking all our previous Luminae experiences. IMO no wow factor as in previous years.

Lobster is a good example. My wife had lobster in three restaurants and even if they were cold water lobsters they were so small that they did not spend much time in the water. None were bigger than my thumb. 

Anyway, in my opinion the menus have not changed that much.

We were on the Beyond last week staying in a S1 cabin (corner aft, deck 12). Both of us noticed considerable food cutbacks. The portion sizes in Luminae were reduced, with just very small servings of sides (veggies, etc.), the sides that were included were more for looks than complete sides. The biggest cutback was in the size of the desserts, nothing all that special and many times could be found the next day in the buffet. I need not need big desserts, but the reductions were obvious. Note that the menus may look the same as previous Cruises, but that can be deceiving. 

As usual the service was great and very friendly. The food cuts, even though deep, were not bad enough to cancel our 11 day Beyond cruise January 2024.

We also went to Eden and Le Voyage. Eden was so so, but with nice view. Le Voyage was outstanding and was the special meal of the week.

22 hours ago, dreamer321 said:

I'm sailing on Beyond starting next Sunday.

 

 

I checked the latest room inventory:

2 Iconic Suites

1 Aqua Sky Suite

1 Sky Suites

4 Aqua Class staterooms

6 Concierge staterooms

1 Sunset Veranda staterooms

5 Edge Staterooms with Infinite Veranda

1 Porthole Veranda staterooms

38 Oceanview staterooms

95 Deluxe Inside staterooms

 

154 rooms available => implies we are sailing 3260 (advertised capacity) - 308(based on double occupancy) = ~2952 passengers, about 90%, slightly more than the cruise that just finished where Capt. Kate said they were sailing at 84% capacity.

Just curious, but how were you able to get these detailed numbers?

16 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

Don’t count on reduced capacity.  If it happens, that’s good. If somebody wants to book a cabin, Celebrity will sell it.  In June, we were told that our cruise was reduced capacity.  It wasn’t reduced. It was crowded.  Spouse got Covid.  Not sure if we will ever book on Celebrity again.  

Agree with the others. You cannot avoid COVID unless you live in a bunker 30 miles from no where. I rather have the flu than COVID, flu is the real danger now.

5 minutes ago, asnaleah said:

Other than doing a mock booking, is there a way to see available cabins?

No. Mock bookings will give you an idea, but TAs hold blocks of rooms until?? Try different TAs websites and you will likely see different cabins available. 

The above comment subject to immediate changes the closer to sail date.

Off Beyond today, Captain Kate yesterday said that the passenger count was 84%.

Great picture! Rough seas LOL.

Let me add that there are two lounge chairs, two chairs and one small table. A lot of room.

I would guess at about 50/50 covered vs uncovered. For various unrelated reasons we have not been on the balcony that much.

Beautiful cabin and view of the wake. Just be prepared to walk to about anything. It is a distance to the first set of elevators and a long walk to the second set of elevators. IMO this ship needs three sets of elevators, although crowds have not been a problem and per Captain Kate there are over 4,000 passengers on board.

We need to look into this!