Luminae: Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner Menus, Photos and Thoughts

[tjunmin]

Menus

Photos of the breakfast menu, six lunch menus and twelve dinner menus: [link]

My apologies, I missed a few of the dinner menus.

 

Photos

In case you are interested in what the food actually looked like: [link]

These photos were taken in January 2018 on board Celebrity Millennium in Asia. Please disregard the dishes that were not served on board.

 

Thoughts

1. IMHO, Luminae is hands down the best restaurant on board of a Celebrity cruise, compared to the MDR and Blu

2. Having said that, the quality at Luminae has dropped since it was launched. Here are just a few examples (not a complete or extensive list): (1) the "Luminae" Signature Burger in this cruise did not taste nowhere nearly as good as in previous sailings; (2) the Maine Lobster Salad was a shocking downgrade from previous experiences in terms of presentation, texture and taste; (3) the Grilled Filet Cobb was a shadow of the great tasty dish it used to be; (4) no more palate cleanser served between the main course and dessert; (5) pre-dessert cart on formal nights was assembled and displayed, but only in the last formal night we were actually served pre-dessert from the cart; and more.

3. The chef was absolutely superb in terms of accommodating my spouse's vegan diet requirements. The vegan dishes created by the chef were tasty and most importantly, nutritionally balanced. When we do not cruise in a suite, the chef(s) at Blu are incapable of serving decent vegan meals; I don't know what are the constraints the chef(s) face at Blue, but the consistent outcome at Blu is very poor vegan meals.

4. Our Luminae maitre d' Li Na was efficient in addressing issues we were experiencing in terms of service at Luminae. Kudos to Li Na.

5. Our server Daniel from Croatia offered outstanding service at Luminae, upholding the Luminae standard service level. Jay and Alfredo were also gracious when serving us.

 

I hope the negatives were just a temporary glitch in this cruise and that the positives will continue making Luminae shine.

[TFree]

Thomas:

 

I just wanted to let you know that the links are to a social media page, I assume yours. But due to your privacy settings, noone who is not your friend can see the pictures. I wonder if you would consider posting the pictures here on this thread?

 

Tom & Judy

[dcyonce]

Well have also noticed the slow deterioration of service and quality in Luminae. It may be simply because they now allow all the suites to dine in Luminae. A few years ago when it was Penthouse and Royal only, there were much fewer guests and service and quality were much better.

 

Luminae is still quite good, but I think the larger crowd in Luminae has inevitably created some issues.

 

— Don

 

 

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[PSU]

Well have also noticed the slow deterioration of service and quality in Luminae. It may be simply because they now allow all the suites to dine in Luminae. A few years ago when it was Penthouse and Royal only, there were much fewer guests and service and quality were much better.

 

Luminae is still quite good, but I think the larger crowd in Luminae has inevitably created some issues.

 

— Don

 

 

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I think you are confusing sky suites being admitted to Michael’s Club with Luminae. We were in a sky suite and a Celebrity Suite at the beginning and we went to Luminae, but not to Michael’s Club in a sky suite.

 

 

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[tjunmin]

I just wanted to let you know that the links are to a social media page, I assume yours. But due to your privacy settings, noone who is not your friend can see the pictures. I wonder if you would consider posting the pictures here on this thread?

 

The links in the post are open to anyone. There is no need to have a facebook account or be one of my friends to see the photos.

 

When facebook asks you to login, click the "Not now" link (in small print), and the pop-up for login will go away. Then you will be able to click on the photos to view them. I tested and it worked fine. Hope this helps.

Edited February 20, 2018 by tjunmin

[WonderMan3]

I think the quality really depends on who the chef is in the kitchen. We had fantastic experiences in Luminae on Eclipse in 2016 and 2017. A few months later in 2017 on Constellation it was very mediocre. Much of it was in the preparation. Dishes that we had just had a couple months prior on Eclipse looked and tasted totally different on Constellation. Now, we were just on Silhouette a couple weeks ago and things were almost back to our experiences on Eclipse; the food was just slightly below that.

 

Yes, now that you mention it the palate cleansers have vanished (they were there Jan 2017) and we did notice a decline in the burger quality (again it was amazing Jan 2017). That dessert cart I remember from our first visit to Luminae in Jan 2016 where they would let you go over to the cart and pick out what you’d like rather than just bringing you a sample grouping.

 

I was told by staff on my recent cruise that they are expecting a menu update for Luminae with the launch of Edge that will roll out to the rest of the fleet soon afterward. Perhaps there will be some info on that in the Edge culinary reveal next week.

 

 

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[islandchick]

I too cant see the menus or photos. It asks me if I want to send a friend request. I would love to see your photos so maybe you could post them on here?

[Ayton lady]

I would agree that it is not a general decline but very much depends on the chef on board at the time. We have only eaten in Luminae on Silhouette, Solstice and Constellation but the middle sailing on Solstice was no where near as good as the other 2. By coincidence my vegan niece was with us on the Solstice sailing as well and the vegan offerings were very poor. Last September on Connie we were delighted that Luminae was equally as good as our first sailing a couple of years ago.

[justcrusn]

The link to the menu photos worked fine for me, thank you,

No Facebook login needed.

[Ehg]

I think you are confusing sky suites being admitted to Michael’s Club with Luminae. We were in a sky suite and a Celebrity Suite at the beginning and we went to Luminae, but not to Michael’s Club in a sky suite.

 

 

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Correct.

 

 

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[Gracie115]

5. Our server Daniel from Croatia offered outstanding service at Luminae, upholding the Luminae standard service level. .

 

 

We have had the pleasure of dining in Luminae on two different occasion when Daniel was a waiter there. I knew he was now on Constellation, how lucky you were to have him as a waiter. He was by far the best we have ever had.

 

I do think as others have said that Luminae quality varies ship to ship. We found it outstanding on Eclipse and Reflection, not so much on Equinox in 2016.

[Gracie115]

Well have also noticed the slow deterioration of service and quality in Luminae. It may be simply because they now allow all the suites to dine in Luminae. A few years ago when it was Penthouse and Royal only, there were much fewer guests and service and quality were much better.

 

Luminae is still quite good, but I think the larger crowd in Luminae has inevitably created some issues.

 

— Don

 

 

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Luminae has been open to ALL suites from it's inception.