Please post your select dining experience now that Luminae has been built

[ghstudio]

Hopefully, this will be a thread of experiences on board with the reduced seating in Select Dining after the area for Luminae (suite dining) was carved out.

 

Initial posts from the Reflection would indicate select dining seating is now a disaster...but that might be only one person's experience. I'd like to know what folks are experiencing on each of the ships.

 

While I know it won't help....please try to keep "oh that's terrible" or "that's great news" or "if that happens to me, I'll do xxxx" to some other thread. Let's just accumulate actual experiences in this thread.

Edited April 14, 2015 by ghstudio

[dkjretired]

Hopefully, this will be a thread of experiences on board with the reduced seating in Select Dining after the area for Luminae (suite dining) was carved out.

 

Initial posts from the Reflection would indicate select dining seating is now a disaster...but that might be only one person's experience. I'd like to know what folks are experiencing on each of the ships.

 

While I know it won't help....please try to keep "oh that's terrible" or "that's great news" or "if that happens to me, I'll do xxxx" to some other thread. Let's just accumulate actual experiences in this thread.

 

Just curious but isn't Luminae on the lower level on Reflection and therefore have no effect on Select Dining since its upper level.

[Yorkshire-Pudding]

Hopefully, this will be a thread of experiences on board with the reduced seating in Select Dining after the area for Luminae (suite dining) was carved out.

 

Initial posts from the Reflection would indicate select dining seating is now a disaster...but that might be only one person's experience. I'd like to know what folks are experiencing on each of the ships.

 

While I know it won't help....please try to keep "oh that's terrible" or "that's great news" or "if that happens to me, I'll do xxxx" to some other thread. Let's just accumulate actual experiences in this thread.

 

Maybe I have misunderstood but on Solistice class ships Select dining and Luminae are on different decks therefore unclear what impact if any the creation of Luminae would have.

[bluwes]

Just got back from the Equinox sailing 27thMarch.

As mentioned above Luminae is on the lower level and as a result had no impact on Select dining which is on the upper level

[Iamthesea]

Luminae is suppose to alleviate the crowding in the MDR, so it should have an positive impact on both levels of the dining room. ;)

 

Our experience:

 

For us, being in a Sky Suite and not wanting to eat in Luminae, we tried Select the 1st night of our cruise. Terrible experience!

 

We arrived at 8:45 on the first formal night and were told there were no tables available. We were given a buzzer/lighted thingy and told to go wait in the bar. Felt like a restaurant at home.:rolleyes: After 30+ minutes, we were about to give up and go eat in a Specialty Restaurant when we were summoned. We went to the door and were standing with buzzer in hand. Shortly after, another party came up behind us and stood slightly to the side. After waiting there for about 3 more minutes, a host came up, walked right past us, and took the other party to a table.:eek: When the host returned, she looked at us like we were from outer space and said "you have to go wait in the bar until your buzzer goes off." We explained that it did and then she asked for our stateroom number. We were finally led to a table ...a very nice table for 6, overlooking the dining room below.

 

Then all went down further. We waited like what seemed forever for a server to come over. To make the rest of the story short, neither of the servers, or the sommelier were friendly. We were rushed through the meal, and then during dessert, we were never served our coffee. We waited to eat our dessert and then when we realized that we were probably not getting the coffee, we went ahead and finished our meal. Tables were being reset all around us and the staff acted like no one else was in the dining room. They were chatting and laughing among themselves completely ignoring those who were still finishing up their meals. Then, we had to wait for the sommelier to bring us a bill.

 

I was embarrassed because being a Celebrity cheerleader, I wanted to impress our relatives who had only cruised Disney and were big Disney advocates. Even my own young adult children, that had always loved Celebrity, were talking about how our experience was not a typical Celebrity cruise. They were saying that Celebrity needs to take the "luxury" out of their "modern luxury" slogan. :rolleyes:

 

Although we had a great time on the cruise, the rest of the week was more or less the same with the service except for our wonderful Butlers and stateroom attendants, MDR staff (we were finally able to get a table for 8:30 seating), and a couple of bar servers.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Iamthesea

[ClaudiaB]

So you never once tried Luminae? May I ask why, since you were in a suite and it's new and it's your regular MDR?

[WpgCruise]

Luminae is suppose to alleviate the crowding in the MDR, so it should have an positive impact on both levels of the dining room. ;)

 

Our experience:

 

For us, being in a Sky Suite and not wanting to eat in Luminae, we tried Select the 1st night of our cruise. Terrible experience!

 

I'm not sure I understand how Suite guests assigned to Luminae, and then eating in Select will alleviate the crowding in Select Dining, or the MDR if they choose to dine there.

 

To my way of thinking the Suite guest who does this is taking 2 dining spots, and the resources allocated to those spots, one in Luminae and one in Select Dining. I can understand how service would be "off" as the resources for the Suite guest are in the Suite dining room. Plus, of course it throws off the service for the assigned Select diners.

 

It will be interesting to see if Celebrity enforces the Dining Room assignment, or if they let Suite guests choose where they want to dine. If that's the case and guests can choose which venue to dine in each evening, I can understand service problems as resources will not be allocated accordingly.

Edited April 14, 2015 by WpgCruise

[Iamcruzin]

My guess is if a suite guest is traveling with non suite guests they may opt to eat in the MDR (select) with the non suite passengers that they are traveling with.

[Oxo]

Some people seem to post without knowing what is true. If you are not sure, please find out before you post.

Why is X allowing suite passengers to use any dining room other than their new site dining room? That will create a problem for others who cannot use the suite dining room. Can you imagine if we tried to use SDR?

Use your SDR to eliminate the problem or change with us who cannot use the SDR. Lol

[Jim_Iain]

This is my point of view and may be different from others. We always travel in suites and prior to Luminae always ate in MDR with the exception of two cruises where we ate in Murono's every night and one cruise which we used Select Dining.

 

Our experience with Select Dining was not very positive. The first night one of our party was accused of lying about having Select Dining even though they had their confirmation from Celebrity. Table service was less consistent than MDR and varied according to server. We enjoy getting to know our server.

 

On reading this thread, I fail to understand why it is assumed that Suite would want to eat in Select and "take your space away".

[offnoncruiser]

Just curious but isn't Luminae on the lower level on Reflection and therefore have no effect on Select Dining since its upper level.

 

Let's see. I haven't seen or heard exactly how many seats were taken from the lower level dining room to make room for Luminae, but my guess is at least 20-25%.

 

So now, once this reduced number of fixed early and late seatings are filled during bookings, and I'm sure most have seen how fast they do fill up (especially early seating), everything else is defaulted over to Select.

 

So not only is it decreasing the available fixed time seatings by that 20-25%, it's therefore increasing the demand on Select.

 

And don't believe for a second that the number of suite guests that are now supposed to dine in Luminae will "equal" out the number of seats taken away from MDR. I'm sure there's plenty of excess seating built in to Luminae.

 

Thx.

[Orator]

I believe that about 96 seats were taken from the MDR on S Class ships.. I was on SIL about 10 days ago and there was no Captain's Table during the first formal night.I asked the RM about this and he told me that first seating has become crowded since space was taken away for the new restaurant so on some cruises they need to use the Captain's Table for early seating. There was a Captain's Table during second seating on the second Formal night. RM told me that other S Class ships may also reduce or even eliminate Captain's Tables if space is required. I've heard reports from frequent cruiers that on some ships either the Captain or other Senior officers now take certain passengers to a Specialty Restaurant. I personally noticed that on a recent Connie cruise Captain Tasos took a few passengers to Ocean Liners. On SIL I noticed that the Captain meet the two couples and their children in Michael'sClub and took them to Tuscan Grille for dinner. I'd prefer that any day in the week to aCaptain's Table.

[Wine-O]

I'm suppose the suite Pax above who had problems with Select dining and did not eat in the SDR because they were with friends who were not in a suite and wanted to dine with them.

 

They should have done traditional dining, then they wouldn't have had their problems. I've never done Select dining because I like my own waiter/asst every night after they have been informed of our desires, i.e. escargot or shrimp cocktail every night without having to ask. ;)

 

We will be in AQ this Fall and normally eat around 8pm. If we ever go to Blu and told that we have to wait for a table, the first thing I'm going to ask is "How many Suite Pax are eating in here?" -- If there are a lot, "you need to send them to their own dining room. Blu is space available only for suite pax."

[sginva]

Hopefully, this will be a thread of experiences on board with the reduced seating in Select Dining after the area for Luminae (suite dining) was carved out.

 

Initial posts from the Reflection would indicate select dining seating is now a disaster...but that might be only one person's experience. I'd like to know what folks are experiencing on each of the ships.

 

While I know it won't help....please try to keep "oh that's terrible" or "that's great news" or "if that happens to me, I'll do xxxx" to some other thread. Let's just accumulate actual experiences in this thread.

 

We were in Select on Equinox

Our wait times were acceptable, food and service excellent but it seemed very crowded, noisy and dark and on formal night it was more so.

The tables were very close together. They had an amazing number of waiters and wait staff so the service was excellent but quite impersonal. They have no time or space for chit chat which we would not expect. The staff at the front desk at Select was very efficient and pleasant and we did go sit in the pub a couple of night with the beeper but the wait was not long.

We have no real complaints but if you are looking for a fine dining experience this is not the place. The main dining room below had empty chairs and tables at second seating. We are thiniking that second seating might be better for us.

Thanks.

[kenevenpar]

This is my point of view and may be different from others. We always travel in suites and prior to Luminae always ate in MDR with the exception of two cruises where we ate in Murono's every night and one cruise which we used Select Dining.

 

Our experience with Select Dining was not very positive. The first night one of our party was accused of lying about having Select Dining even though they had their confirmation from Celebrity. Table service was less consistent than MDR and varied according to server. We enjoy getting to know our server.

 

On reading this thread, I fail to understand why it is assumed that Suite would want to eat in Select and "take your space away".

 

You do realize that Select dining is in the MDR?:confused:

[PSU]

From my experience, I never eat in the dining room the first night. We eat in a specialty restaurant because it seems to be crazy in the dining room the first night. That is why Celebrity gives discounts for the 1st night for specialty restaurants.

 

Suite guests should be able to eat in whatever venue they want.

 

We are traveling with our children and grandchildren in August. We are in a suite but the rest of our family is not so we will be eating in the dining room. I made dinner reservations for every night that we are eating in the dining room because there are 9 of us.

[Iamthesea]

So you never once tried Luminae? May I ask why, since you were in a suite and it's new and it's your regular MDR?

 

My guess is if a suite guest is traveling with non suite guests they may opt to eat in the MDR (select) with the non suite passengers that they are traveling with.

 

 

Yes, we were traveling with someone who was not in a Suite (as mentioned a few times on other threads ;).) Since we were cruising the first full week that Luminae was opened, and the new menu was not available, we chose to eat in in the MDR with our relatives and have the same menu that Luminae had. The 8:30 MDR was our assigned seating when we booked the cruise, and we still had a table there, but since our relatives joined us, the table was too small for all 5 of us. We were told that a table would be available the 2nd night for all of us in the MDR, but it was not, so we decided to eat in Select. We didned at the Lawn Club Grill the first night. :)

 

Telling my story was to answer the OP's question on the Select experience now that Luminae has opened. ;) The entire dining room (upper and lower) was very crowded each and every night that we dined there! Luminae was rarely crowded. Perhaps this had to do with Luminae not yet having the new menu. We did eat breakfast there a few mornings and were probably one of 3 tables taken up each time. We also ate in Blu for breakfast. Our relatives had room service every morning.

 

PS - Aqua Class is assigned to Blu, but one can eat in the MDR-Select if they chose. Suite passengers do not HAVE TO dine in Luminae, either.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Iamthesea

[CathyCruises]

Our friend who made the comments above is currently on the reflection TA. She said that she and her friends had to wait two hours to get a table the first night in select. She advised those of us going on the silhouette TA this week to call and get an assigned dining time every night in select, which of course negates the whole benefit of select. So one of our friends called and was able to secure a spot at 6:45 but other than that only 530 and 9 o'clock were available.

 

Personally, we never do select because we enjoy meeting new friends and having a large table, but if this indeed is going to be an ongoing problem, I see a lot of trouble with those who have chosen select in order to be able to dine at any time. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out on our upcoming cruise.

[hvsteve1]

It was my understanding on my recent cruise in Aqua Class that we were set to eat in BLU but COULD eat in the MDR on occasion but only after getting it set up and jumping through some hoops. This is what I got from numerous postings on this forum. I would assume Luminaire is similar... you are expected to eat in Luminaire (and BLU on a space-available basis) but would have to make special arrangements to be able to wander into the MDR. Am I misinformed?

[hcat]

On Connie pre Luminae, we were in BLU...we ate early with no long wait or crowding issues. But we did notice long lines backed out from the MDR on both dining levels,...not sure where they had select or tradional....but thought the lines were unusual....

 

If they have now taken more space away from MDR on M Classm traditional or select will have less space..

 

Will be interesting to hear how all the dining rooms and plans will fare......

Edited April 14, 2015 by hcat

[Iamthesea]

It was my understanding on my recent cruise in Aqua Class that we were set to eat in BLU but COULD eat in the MDR on occasion but only after getting it set up and jumping through some hoops. This is what I got from numerous postings on this forum. I would assume Luminaire is similar... you are expected to eat in Luminaire (and BLU on a space-available basis) but would have to make special arrangements to be able to wander into the MDR. Am I misinformed?

 

You are correct. You should ask the Maitre'd in Blu to set it up for you.

 

On Connie pre Luminae, we were in BLU...we ate early with no long wait or crowding issues. But we did notice long lines backed out from the MDR on both dining levels,...not sure where they had select or tradional....but thought the lines were unusual....

 

If they have now taken more space away from MDR on M Classm traditional or select will have less space..

 

Will be interesting to hear how all the dining rooms and plans will fare......

 

What you saw could have been the cattle call (lining up for the dining room to open it's doors) for the 6:30 or 8:30 traditional times. ;)

[judyfssw]

We were in a SS on our b2b in January. We ate in Select and loved it. We met new people every night and the one night that we did not have much in common with the other people at the table, it was okay because we were seated with a different group of people the next night.

Next time we cruise, we, again, will be in a SS. Will they seat you with others or do you have to just have a table by yourself? I do prefer meeting new people

[rua642]

We had early seating, MDR on Reflection. Our table was in the back on the left side, behind Luminae. We could only enter the MDR through the right door. Getting to and from our table involved a very long walk through the DR, squeezing between tables that seemed crowded and close together. We also had to dodge waiters carrying heavy trays who also had less room to walk through. As a non-suite passenger I felt very inconvenienced by Luminae and would consider select dining on my next cruise, although after reading this thread I'm having second thoughts about that.

[varoo]

......To my way of thinking the Suite guest who does this is taking 2 dining spots, and the resources allocated to those spots, one in Luminae and one in Select Dining. I can understand how service would be "off" as the resources for the Suite guest are in the Suite dining room. Plus, of course it throws off the service for the assigned Select diners.

You are absolutely correct.

When they do this, they are taking up seats in Select Dining that would otherwise go to regular Select diners.

The result is more congestion and longer waits for Select dining.

 

The same thing happens when passengers assigned to Blu choose to dine in Select dining instead of Blu.

 

 

They could balance out the load quite easily if they would allow 2 passengers from the Select line the option of dining in Luminae or Blu for every 2 passengers from Luminae or Blu whom they seat in Select.

 

It need not be complicated at all.

The people who staff the podium at the entrance to Select could have passes for Luminae and Blue right there.

Whenever they seat passengers from Luminae or Blue in Select, they would then offer the appropriate number of passes for either Luminae or Blu to the next Select passengers who come along.

 

If they don't want it, the offer then goes to the next people in line.

 

Besides alleviating the overcrowding in Select, an additional benefit could be that having the opportunity to experience Luminae or Blu might give some Select passengers an incentive to book Aqua or Suite accommodations on a future cruise.

 

So it could be a win-win arrangement all the way around without unbalancing the passenger load in any of the dining venues involved.

 

[julia]

 

So it could be a win-win arrangement all the way around without unbalancing the passenger load in any of the dining venues involved.

 

 

I really like this idea.... it is a well thought-out concept! :)

Unfortunately, you may encounter those who are not HAPPY that "others' (as in non-suite and non-aqua) may be in "their" restaurants..... Sigh.