WestCoast505

Celebrity seemed to be aware of the problem hence the signs on every table asking people to move on once they finished eating. I think even if all the "table hogs" moved on, that buffet would still have issues with seating regardless. Seemed more like an overall capacity issue. Celebrity could extend the buffet hours also to accomodate more guests. They could also make the lunch choices better in the MDR to entice more people to go there. The buffet was excellent for lunch and many people seemed to be aware of that. MDR was maybe at 30% capacity for lunch.

I think the issue was made worse by several things: because the weather in Alaska was cold and wet no one wanted to sit outside. Also the food at lunch time in the buffet was in my opinion much better than the main dining room. So the buffet was almost a victim of its own success. Celebrity is obviously aware of the problem since they had the signs on every table. The easiest solution would be to have overflow seating in one of the other restaurants during breakfast and lunch servings. That was how Norwegian handled the problem. Unfortunately the design of the Celebrity ship didn't allow for that since the buffet wasn't near any other restaurants or the main dining room. I'd be curious to know if the ship designers have a 'buffet ratio' that sets the size of the seating compared to the overall passenger count.

The ship was Celebrity Eclipse doing an Alaska cruise.

On a recent Celebrity cruise we found that it was impossible to get a seat in the buffet at lunch time unless you arrived 30 minutes before it opened. There were signs on every table asking guests to leave once they have finished eating their meal, but we found some people just ignored. Is this common on other cruise lines? We've only done 2 cruises and this is the first time encountering this problem. The food overall was good in both the buffet, MDR, and specialty restaurants. The lunch in the MDR was good, but we also liked the variety of food choices in the buffet for lunch and were frustrated we couldn't eat there at noon without having to plan ahead. On a Norwegian cruise we saw the buffet use a specialty restaurant as overflow seating at lunch time. Celebrity didn't do this as the buffet was at the other end of the ship to the restaurants.