anytime dinning?

[Too blessed to be stressed]

I have never sailed celebrity before. Do they offer a seating plan that you can go to the main dinning room when ever your hungry and not on a schedule?

 

Thanks,

Tammy

[Northern Aurora]

If the MDR is your assigned dining room, ask for "select" dining (instead of traditional). The "select" option means that you are not assigned an early or late seating, and instead show up when you choose. If you select an Aqua Class stateroom, Blu will be your assigned dining room, and Blu uses the "select" seating.

 

Hope you enjoy Celebrity as much as we do!

[Too blessed to be stressed]

Does that cost more or is it just an option when you book?

[KirkNC]

It does not cost more but for some strange reason you have to prepay your tips.

[Denarius]

I sailed on Celebrity Silhouette this summer and chose "select" dining. I was not impressed.

You can turn up anytime or can make reservations for a particular time, which Celebrity recommend. Reserving does not however, guarantee you a table at that time; merely that you will be given priority in the queue over those without reservations. Reservations turned out to be virtually impossible to make if you wanted to dine at a popular time; times between 7 and 9 had all gone within a matter of minutes of booking being opened for the day. So you had to turn up at the restaurant and hope for the best. Two queues formed, one for those with and one for those without reservations. At popular times the latter could mumber up to 20 and you could stand in line for up to 20 minutes waiting for a table. I expected better from Celebrity.

I often sail with P&O who have a similar system, called freedom dining. No reservations are taken, you just turn up when you want to eat. Most evenings you are seated straight away, if not you are given a pager which will alert you when your table is ready. You can then relaxin one of the bars or lounges until you are called. Much more civilised.

[bdpnatl]

The rationale used for prepaying tips is that you do not have the same waitstaff in the MDR each night, unlike a traditional seating. Not sure this entirely makes sense to me but it is the way they do it.

 

We have had select dining on most of our cruises and never had to wait more than 10 minutes for a table and more often than not, we were seated immediately.

[travellink]

Once you are booked you can make Select dining reservations for each night on line. Seems like it kind of defeats the purpose and as said above you still may have a short wait however. Usually the first night is chaotic but it settles down after that. By the way, I like your Cruise Critic name so if it's any indication of your real attitude, and I'm sure it is, you should be just fine. Happy sailing!

[youwash]

I sailed on Celebrity Silhouette this summer and chose "select" dining. I was not impressed.

You can turn up anytime or can make reservations for a particular time, which Celebrity recommend. Reserving does not however, guarantee you a table at that time; merely that you will be given priority in the queue over those without reservations. Reservations turned out to be virtually impossible to make if you wanted to dine at a popular time; times between 7 and 9 had all gone within a matter of minutes of booking being opened for the day. So you had to turn up at the restaurant and hope for the best. Two queues formed, one for those with and one for those without reservations. At popular times the latter could mumber up to 20 and you could stand in line for up to 20 minutes waiting for a table. I expected better from Celebrity.

I often sail with P&O who have a similar system, called freedom dining. No reservations are taken, you just turn up when you want to eat. Most evenings you are seated straight away, if not you are given a pager which will alert you when your table is ready. You can then relaxin one of the bars or lounges until you are called. Much more civilised.

We had Select Dining on Solstice last Feb. and we were not impressed with it. Upon boarding we went to make resevations and found that all times between 7 and 9 were taken-for the whole cruise. We did then make them for 6:30 and when we showed up at our reservation time we were always seated right away.

 

The tables for select dining that we ended up at (table for 4) were always stuck in a corner or looking at the waiters area. The neighbor table is 6 inches away -which is OK if you want to visit with those seated right next to you.

 

We have upgraded to Aqua Class for this next Feb. and hope to have a better dining experience.

[JLSPOOL]

I have never sailed celebrity before. Do they offer a seating plan that you can go to the main dinning room when ever your hungry and not on a schedule?

 

Thanks,

Tammy

 

The MDR is not open all the time. You'll get a schedule showing open hours after you board the ship.

 

It is usually closed for lunch on port days.

 

Relax and enjoy your first cruise on Celebrity.

[SFCAcruiser]

...

We have upgraded to Aqua Class for this next Feb. and hope to have a better dining experience.

The dining experience will likely be better, but be aware many of the tables in Blu are quite close to each other, much like what you've seen in the MDR.

[youwash]

The dining experience will likely be better, but be aware many of the tables in Blu are quite close to each other, much like what you've seen in the MDR.

 

From following posts about Blu, I had realized that the tables are also close together. I am amazed at posts where people talk of the sommelier and having different wines for different courses-I think on our 7 day cruise in the MDR he came to our table once. We had the bar waitress and the waiters bringing us our wine because no one else was.

[helen haywood]

I agree that making a reservation for a time when you are Select seems to be impossible. I tried and was told the time I wanted, 7 pm, was not available. I simply showed up at 7 pm and had a 3-5 minute wait for a table. I really don't want to make a reservation anyway; the whole point of Select is to go when I want. We never had a long wait. It worked for us. Early was too early and Late was too late.

[johnb0529]

We did select on our last Celebrity Cruise and the one we are currently on.

Had no problem making reservations before the cruise (online) for 7:00 for every night of the cruise and then making adjustments as necessary once online, if our plans changed.

 

Don't know why people expect that they can just get 7:00 or 7:30 at any point. There are limited number of Select Tables compared to traditional, plus the reason most people pick Select is that they don't want 6:30 or 8:00. So that would put the majority of people at the 7-7:30 window, meaning you need to plan ahead to beat the crowd!

 

And they do seem to leave a few tables open (non-reserved) for walk-ups...

[bdpnatl]

Youwash

 

Sorry your experience with the Sollelier was so bad. We have been lucky enough not to have that issue. After the second night on our last cruise, ours new pretty much what we liked (I do not care for whites) and made suggestions. He always kept our glasses full and asked if we wanted to try something else at different points in the meal.

[Notagoose]

In my (extremely limited) experience, we had much better luck just showing up for Select when we were ready to eat than actually making a reservation for a specific time. Might have just been coincidence, but it seems like we actually waited LONGER when we had pre-reserved for a specific time. In any event, I don't think we ever waited for longer than 20 minutes, usually much less. And really, what's 20 minutes?

[Too blessed to be stressed]

It does not cost more but for some strange reason you have to prepay your tips.

 

Thats fine I like to prepay my tips anyway. I like to have as much prepaid as possible so I go in know whats in my pocket is extra money not what I will owe before I leave the ship.

 

Thanks,

Tammy

[techgirl502]

We recently booked our cruise and traditional dining was not available so I am on a waiting list. For select dining, I saw someone mention you can make a reservation. I do not see that as an option, does that mean those reservations are booked? Also, with Select, when is the best time to dine if you want limited wait? Are you still seated with other people or just with your party?

 

Thank you

[Going Coastal]

In answer to the last question, the staff will usually ask if you want to be seated with others. It is a nice way to meet new friends and when you wish to be alone you can ask for that, too.

Tammy, I agree about prepaying. I like to have as much taken care of before the cruise as possible.

[bbqoug]

We recently booked our cruise and traditional dining was not available so I am on a waiting list. For select dining, I saw someone mention you can make a reservation. I do not see that as an option, does that mean those reservations are booked? Also, with Select, when is the best time to dine if you want limited wait? Are you still seated with other people or just with your party?

 

Thank you

 

Here are some instructions that were posted in another thread explaining how to make reservations for select dining. The website is definitely not user friendly.

 

OK - I just found another way to get into the daily dining reservations....

 

1. Log in to your reservation and, depending on which page you land on, click on "My Reservation" or "My Cruise Summary" in the top left corner

2. Now click on "Specialty Dining" (I know....it's not specialty dining that you want to book....just go with me

3. Under the "Your Dining Reservations" heading click on the "Purchased" hyperlink. This brings you to the "My Cruise Extras" page which has otherwise disappeared from the website!

4. At the bottom right you should see "Add more" and a drop-down box showing "Shore & Land Excursions". Click the arrow on the drop-down box and select the last option which is "Celebrity Select Dining"

5. Click the blue "GO" button to the right of the drop-down box

 

And there you have it....the Celebrity Select Dining page

 

Now choose your preferred dining time for each day. Unfortunately you do have to do it for each individual day of the cruise - they don't have an option like 7pm each night.

 

I made my reservation for the first night, which was the only one I wanted to do.

[BCHappyGal]

WE have enjoyed Select Dining on our last 3 cruises ...

However I wish they would do away with the reservations (except for large groups of say over 6) as the whole Idea of Select is dine when you wish - if you want a scheduled time stick with the old fashioned early or late dining. Reservation in Select to my way of thinking just defeats the purpose of Select Dining!

We have always just walked up and been seated very quickly usually right aroudn the 7pm time!

[BarbaraM]

We sailed last summer on Solstice, wait listed for Select but it went through apparently. I was not impressed how Celebrity handled select vs. RCL anytime dining. the tables for two are so close together you are literally as close to your neighbor as if you we're at the same table. To talk to your dining partner, who was so far away, it was impossible to share a private conversation. We did snag a window table a couple of times, but overall, it was not an enjoyable experience due to service and the terrible crowding of all the tables. We never lingered over coffee or an after dinner drink, and often didn't even wait for dessert. When you get served has more to do with timing your meal with the fixed dining times than anything. This was so different on the RCL cruises we took where the my time dining host knew our names, always managed to seat us in the same wait staff area, and our service was exceptional-

 

But then, you have exceptional alternate venues to eat on the Solsitce,which balanced out the experience. We never ate in the alternate venues on our RCL cruises as the Mytime dining was so exceptional.

[DebbieMacG]

I didn't like Select either :( when I booked the cruise I'm about to go on I chose select because I had never done it before. After booking it I then took a last minute cruise on the Eclipse in May and did select. The first night was a nightmare, the others not much better, we had reservations for every night at different times but they had no separate queue for bookings/non bookings so we had a long wait every night.

 

I spoke to the Maitre D and it slightly improved the next night.

 

We always got at table for two even when we asked for larger and missed the social aspect of a larger table, also we felt service was much lower and I didn't like different wait staff.

 

Although late dining is a bit late for me on this port intensive cruise I have changed to it as I don't want to do Select again

[ghstudio]

being seated at the select dining room varies ship to ship depending on who is in charge of that dining room. Our experience was always good on the eclipse, two lines, seating where you wanted to sit (same waiter...not by the kitchen, etc). I agree that the service is slower...they probably have the same number of passengers per waiter, but since everyone is at a different point in their meal, the waiters are overwhelmed at times. Finding the Sommelier can also be iffy. We had no problem with a table for two being close to another. We like to talk to different people and if the folks next to us wanted to talk, we had a conversation..if not, we talked ourselves. We weren't looking for a private table to whisper sweet nothings or unmentionables to our spouse....that's why Murano and the Tuscan Grill are there :)

[techgirl502]

These directions were awesome. Thanks!!

 

Here are some instructions that were posted in another thread explaining how to make reservations for select dining. The website is definitely not user friendly.

 

OK - I just found another way to get into the daily dining reservations....

 

1. Log in to your reservation and, depending on which page you land on, click on "My Reservation" or "My Cruise Summary" in the top left corner

2. Now click on "Specialty Dining" (I know....it's not specialty dining that you want to book....just go with me

3. Under the "Your Dining Reservations" heading click on the "Purchased" hyperlink. This brings you to the "My Cruise Extras" page which has otherwise disappeared from the website!

4. At the bottom right you should see "Add more" and a drop-down box showing "Shore & Land Excursions". Click the arrow on the drop-down box and select the last option which is "Celebrity Select Dining"

5. Click the blue "GO" button to the right of the drop-down box

 

And there you have it....the Celebrity Select Dining page

 

Now choose your preferred dining time for each day. Unfortunately you do have to do it for each individual day of the cruise - they don't have an option like 7pm each night.

 

I made my reservation for the first night, which was the only one I wanted to do.

[youwash]

As backround I should have said that we booked about 2 weeks before the cruise and would have taken early or late seating but these options were no longer available. I didn't have the opportunity to learn from CC that we should make some select reservations online before-hand.