Tuscan Grille on Summit- the end of the line for M class?

[Blazerboy]

Just on last month, and enjoyed the ship. Tuscan Grille is not my favorite specialty restaurant, but I was on vacation, so it did in a pinch.  Food was good, evening was delightful, service attentive, and the wine flowed.  Ate too much, but, all in all, not so enthralled to make a second reservation.

 

But here's the odd thing: They took out the Normandie/Ocean Liners/Whatever this one was called that had the Murano Style service and the separate wine room that you could reserve for 8 people.  They also chopped the restaurant in half, creating more cabins near the former entrance, and changing the entrance to the aft staircase. 

 

O.k., so I liked the QE2 and it's odd passageways and got-to-go-up-to-go-down layout, odd cabin differences and other quirks, so I am fine with the odd choice of entrances.  But when you walk towards the lovely wall with the restaurant's logo, you turn right in the vestibule to enter the restaurant.  All fine. 

 

But if you look to the left, it's sort of shabby, and very back-of-the-house.  They put up a fabric curtain, but it didn't hide the mess.  I felt as though I'd entered from the kitchen (which I did do later in the cruise on a kitchen tour).  I actually thought "there must be another way to enter, but no.

 

Honestly, this was not an earth shattering moment, nor did it affect my cruise enjoyment, but I noticed it. 

 

And that leads me to believe that the M Class is not long for the Celebrity World.  I don't WANT them to go, mind you, but I think with enough Edge class ships in their future, Celebrity will unload a few of these to become Mein Schiff 8 or whatever.  The M ships post-renovation seem overly done up with the latest gadgets, decor, etc, but shoe-horned in to the very elegant old spaces, like the effect of too much plastic surgery.  If you've ever seen the episode of "The Simpsons," where Marge gets a Chanel suit, redesigning it over and over so that noone  notices that she only has the one suit, you get the effect of these renovations.

 

I can and will still happily sail on Summit again, but my feeling is that this is the last re-cut of that suit, and it'll move on in a few years.  I actually prefer ships to age a little, getting a little shabby like an old house at the beach, a la QE2.  But let's not pretend here.

 

Thoughts?

[cruisestitch]

It’s going to take quite a while to achieve return on the investment it took to “revolutionize” the ship.  What was it, $65 million USD?

[jcpc]

So.....since they added those new cabins you are saying that you now enter Tuscan at the "back" of the restaurant near the aft elevators and the Tuscan kitchen???  I know exactly what the fabric curtain looks like - it's been there forever.  And I always thought that it was terrible looking but you only saw it if you used the Aft elevators on Deck 3 (I was always tempted to walk behind the curtain to see if the Wizard of Oz was there!!!).  Pretty tack that this is now the entrance way to their Specialty Restaurant!!!

 

I'm glad I read this post or else I would have been taking the glass elevators mid-ship and be looking for the entrance to Tuscan.  Now I'll know to take the aft elevators 😂

Edited June 2, 2019 by jcpc

[hcat]

I better take a look at the deck plans...seems awkward.

Is there a seating area before you enter?

 

Does anyone have photos?

[Dr. Cocktail]

2 hours ago, Blazerboy said:

 

 

 

 

I can and will still happily sail on Summit again, but my feeling is that this is the last re-cut of that suit, and it'll move on in a few years.  I actually prefer ships to age a little, getting a little shabby like an old house at the beach, a la QE2.  But let's not pretend here.

 

Thoughts?

Thoughts? While being 100% self serving, read my review from last week....

 

Better yet, read Alsmez's review - I still laugh out loud while reading it!

 

That ship has sailed ......

 

ps - always love your posts!

 

B

Edited June 2, 2019 by Dr. Cocktail

[MightyMike]

I can't imagine Celebrity putting that much money in these ships for their revolution and then turning around and selling them. 

 

New owners would prefer a cheaper ship that they could renovate to their own specifications.

 

Yes, the future is Edge-class. And the M-class ships will eventually be retired. But Celebrity needs to recover their investment first.

[DENIE]

Sailing the Constellation this fall, after sailing the Infinity in 2017.  We thought the Infinity was quite nice, and had no complaints at all.  They (M-Class) are a very nice option, and cheaper to sail than Edge-class for sure!

[Blazerboy]

1 hour ago, DENIE said:

Sailing the Constellation this fall, after sailing the Infinity in 2017.  We thought the Infinity was quite nice, and had no complaints at all.  They (M-Class) are a very nice option, and cheaper to sail than Edge-class for sure!

Love the M class, but still feel that they are getting long in the tooth.  Perhaps just steeling myself to their eventual move.   It happened with the C Class ships...

[Alsmez]

I don't know whether they'll be putting her out to pasture anytime soon but I agree 100% that the new Tuscan entrance/layout is just weird. We went looking for it one day when we were trying to figure out the layout of the ship and noticed the curtain hiding the mess to the left immediately. However, even if you ignored what lay to the left and headed directly right, the space didn't feel especially well laid-out to me - kind of narrow and cramped (like many venues on Summit IMO). We don't love Tuscan anyway so didn't weren't planning to book, but if we had been on the fence I am fairly certain that seeing the space would have tipped us over to a no. 

[ozark74]

Did the Constellation in 2017, the same thing was done. But it is Qsine that is on 3. Very odd room behind the curtain. So sad getting rid of the wine room.

Edited June 2, 2019 by ozark74

[hcat]

19 hours ago, hcat said:

I better take a look at the deck plans...seems awkward.

Is there a seating area before you enter?

 

Does anyone have photos?

 

WOW.. I looked at the Deck plans for Deck 3...Summit ( updated March 2019).

 

They really broke up the flow of that deck, shoehorned in those  new cabins , and  did indeed push the  TUSCAN entrance near the aft elev. 

 

Good to know so we  could find our way there  but it does seem that greed motivated this change.

[hcat]

Seems blurry but  the original clearly shows  the changes...

How sad! 

 

How do you get to the  bathrooms in the other side of that deck?????

Edited June 2, 2019 by hcat

[cruise47]

I have one question why did Celebrity eliminate the two best specialty restaurants in their fleet of ships The Murano and the Ocean Liner Restaurant ?

 

They both were Five Star Restaurants.

Edited June 2, 2019 by cruise47

[bayonnejoe]

1 minute ago, cruise47 said:

I have one question why did Celebrity eliminate the two best specialty restaurants in their fleet of ships The Murano and the Ocean Liner Restaurant ?

 

They both were Five Star Restaurants.

Murano is still on all the S class ships. Ocean Liners was a Murano clone on the Constellation.  Actually,  it's the other way around. It was Normandie on the Summit. These restaurants on the M class ships are gone.

[hcat]

26 minutes ago, bayonnejoe said:

Murano is still on all the S class ships. Ocean Liners was a Murano clone on the Constellation.  Actually,  it's the other way around. It was Normandie on the Summit. These restaurants on the M class ships are gone.

 

Sad to see them gone but if Tuscan could  elevate itself  to replace them...it might work.  Not happening at the moment!

 

[Highpeaklad]

On the Constellation deckplans on the Celebrity UK site Ocean Liners is still shown. It’s now Qsine. Duh!

[Blazerboy]

2 hours ago, hcat said:

Seems blurry but  the original clearly shows  the changes...

How sad! 

 

How do you get to the  bathrooms in the other side of that deck?????

The diagram isn't quite correct.  You can cross the landing on deck 3 of the aft stairs, and it connects to the passageway on the Starboard side, along between the outside staterooms and the small theatre/business center, and you can walk to those restrooms.  A bit of a hike- I guess none of us had to seek them out during our meal.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

2 hours ago, bayonnejoe said:

Murano is still on all the S class ships. Ocean Liners was a Murano clone on the Constellation.  Actually,  it's the other way around. It was Normandie on the Summit. These restaurants on the M class ships are gone.

Actually, Ocean Liners and Normandie were around before Murano came to be.  The M class existed prior to the S class.  Celebrity made one of its dumbest decisions ever to replace them with Tuscan.  I've had better meals in the MDR than in Tuscan.

[I_r_a]

> How do you get to the  bathrooms in the other side of that deck?????

 

Don't.

 

Take the aft elevators up to 4 and use the rest rooms there.

 

Ira

[davekathy]

The only time we go in the Tuscan Grille is to grab a Bloody Mary or a Mimosa or a Bellini after eating breakfast in the MDR on sea days.