Confused about select dining reservations on E class

[dleahy4444]

The last time I was on the Beyond I had a traditional seating time but once onboard I was told that it wouldn’t be honored and  dining was basically first come first served. Everyone waited on the same long line. . Now I’m scheduled to board Ascent in a few weeks. I was assigned Select Dining and was able to make a few reservations via the app. Will they be honored? Is there a separate line at the dining room for people with reservations? Thanks 

[Cruising Is Bliss]

6 minutes ago, dleahy4444 said:

The last time I was on the Beyond I had a traditional seating time but once onboard I was told that it wouldn’t be honored and  dining was basically first come first served. Everyone waited on the same long line. . Now I’m scheduled to board Ascent in a few weeks. I was assigned Select Dining and was able to make a few reservations via the app. Will they be honored? Is there a separate line at the dining room for people with reservations? Thanks 

 

No and no. There is no traditional 1st and 2nd fixed seating on Edge class ships. That they can be booked prior to boarding is a still-unfixed bug in the software.

[dleahy4444]

7 minutes ago, Cruising Is Bliss said:

 

No and no. There is no traditional 1st and 2nd fixed seating on Edge class ships. That they can be booked prior to boarding is a still-unfixed bug in the software.

Thanks for your reply. I know about not being able to have the traditional fixed seating. But the app did allow me to make several AnyTime dining reservations at a variety of times on different dates. Will these be honored? 

[cruisestitch]

No they will not be honored.  It is annoying and confusing, but on the e class ships no matter even if it looks like you have made pre-cruise dining reservations, you really haven’t.

[Alakegirl]

Why Celebrity has not ever been able to fix this known problem is a mystery to me. It waste passengers time while they are making the phantom Reservations, it is annoying when they get on ship and find out that their reservations are merely ephemera, and it is a time waster for staff who had to continually explain the shortcoming.

[snohorules]

Well this thread just saved me a ton of confusion and disappointment on my first ever Celebrity cruise this summer. I'd made four ressies in the app already 😅

[dleahy4444]

33 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

No they will not be honored.  It is annoying and confusing, but on the e class ships no matter even if it looks like you have made pre-cruise dining reservations, you really haven’t.

Thanks. Ugh I was hoping for a different answer 

[dleahy4444]

28 minutes ago, Alakegirl said:

Why Celebrity has not ever been able to fix this known problem is a mystery to me. It waste passengers time while they are making the phantom Reservations, it is annoying when they get on ship and find out that their reservations are merely ephemera, and it is a time waster for staff who had to continually explain the shortcoming.

I completely agree with you. I’ve been checking the app morning noon and night trying to make these reservations. I finally made 5 of them just to find out I wasted my time. When I was on the Beyond the wait on line was 45 minutes. People were not happy and the poor staff bore the brunt of it

[1960Travel]

We sailed beyond last april, and my daughter in the med in the summer.  All of our pre reserved dining times were honored.  We go there at least 5 minuties early sometimes 10 and they asked for cabin no and directed us to a table, we never had an issue. Going on Ascent in April and have reserved some of the times again so we will see

 

[cruisestitch]

I think what actually happened is that you showed up at the time that you had picked on the app and there didn’t happen to be a line so you were seated immediately. Have there been a line of people waiting, I don’t think you would have found that your reservation did you any good.

[dleahy4444]

27 minutes ago, 1960Travel said:

We sailed beyond last april, and my daughter in the med in the summer.  All of our pre reserved dining times were honored.  We go there at least 5 minuties early sometimes 10 and they asked for cabin no and directed us to a table, we never had an issue. Going on Ascent in April and have reserved some of the times again so we will see

 

When you were seated, had there been a line of people waiting that didn’t have reservations?

[Pinboy]

43 minutes ago, 1960Travel said:

All of our pre reserved dining times were honored.

We had the same on our cruises last winter (7:45 ).

On occasion we changed dining rooms— no problem.

While there were a few people in line, as soon as we got to the Hostess we were seated .

LOL— The Beef Tenderloin was “ to die for “ as some people have said.
I say its “ damn good “ , the second serving is as good as the first— but “ to die for “ ( literally speaking )— no thanks.

[LA24]

2 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

The last time I was on the Beyond I had a traditional seating time but once onboard I was told that it wouldn’t be honored and  dining was basically first come first served. Everyone waited on the same long line. . Now I’m scheduled to board Ascent in a few weeks. I was assigned Select Dining and was able to make a few reservations via the app. Will they be honored? Is there a separate line at the dining room for people with reservations? Thanks 

Im on the Ascent in March. I’d like to hear from people who were on it in last month. As I would like to know if things have changed from the past. As App and emails from Celebrity say pick ur time and also u will be assigned one of the 4 main dining rooms to eat. Though u will be able to move to other main rooms if available once on ship. 

[cruisestitch]

It is a terrible oversight on Celebrity’s part that they have never brought the instructions into alignment.  All of the e class dining rooms are open seating. 
 

on the M and S class ships the Select dining works differently and you can book your dining times on the app..

 

on the E class it appears the same but when you show up you will find that it’s all open seating.  I wish we could tell you that it was different, because it’s annoying and confusing and doesn’t make you feel like Celebrity knows what it’s doing and honestly sometimes I get that feeling too.

[LA24]

https://youtu.be/Czr7kJU8JGU?si=LQKuOgT5IRNBGne_

 

saw this this afternoon ……”tony sundays” utube channel talking about the select dinner issues on the ascent.

[cruisestitch]

Well, that is a different issue because he is talking about specialty restaurant. Reservations while this thread is about main dining room.. But still, it shows that there are problems in the Celebrity booking system which have never been addressed.

[LA24]

23 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Well, that is a different issue because he is talking about specialty restaurant. Reservations while this thread is about main dining room.. But still, it shows that there are problems in the Celebrity booking system which have never been addressed.

Yes i know as i wrote “select”. 😉

[bEwAbG]

55 minutes ago, LA24 said:

Yes i know as i wrote “select”. 😉

 

Except Celebrity Select Dining is a specific reference to dining in the main dining room in Celebrity-speak, so not exactly clear what you meant when being read by regular Celebrity cruisers, especially when you reference "select dining" but post a video about specialty dining.

 

And the topic of that video is also another long-standing issue, so it's nothing new or specific to Ascent.

Edited January 7 by bEwAbG

[Oceansaway17]

6 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

No they will not be honored.  It is annoying and confusing, but on the e class ships no matter even if it looks like you have made pre-cruise dining reservations, you really haven’t.

well that certainly is not a good selling point.  Why does E class do things differently.?

[RichYak]

5 hours ago, Pinboy said:

We had the same on our cruises last winter (7:45 ).

On occasion we changed dining rooms— no problem.

While there were a few people in line, as soon as we got to the Hostess we were seated .

Still not clear to me if your reservations were honored or there was simply no wait. Were others, like those on line in front of you, forced to wait longer because they didn’t have a reservation?

[keesar]

I had spent a good deal of time making reservations for different MDRs.  When we got there, we were told there were no reservations and it was Anytime.  If we got there early, there was no wait.  However, it got busy around 6:30ish and we had to wait, return or try a different venue.  

[Tina99]

I’m on Apex right now. During pre-planning this cruise, although I had Anytime Dining, I had “reserved” dinner the first night in one of the MDRs. After reading these boards, I understood it would truly be anytime dining and to ignore the reservation. Then, when I first got to my cabin, there was a reservation reminder card waiting for me, so I’m back to square one. So then I went to one of the MDRs and confirmed to ignore the card and choose any MDR at any time.  Celebrity needs to unconfuse this issue so the right and left hands are on the same page. 

[hrhdhd]

2 hours ago, Oceansaway17 said:

well that certainly is not a good selling point.  Why does E class do things differently.?

Because those ships have four differently themed dining rooms, presumably so people can move among them during the cruise. The other classes have two DRs with similar decor, etc., so one can be designated as fixed and the other as anytime.

[Pinboy]

1 hour ago, RichYak said:

Still not clear to me if your reservations were honored or there was simply no wait. Were others, like those on line in front of you, forced to wait longer because they didn’t have a reservation?

Our reservations (7:45) were honored within 2-3 minutes.

We did notice people waiting with a beeper. 

Even if we changed dining rooms from where we reserved they still seated us very quickly. 

This was last February/March, so it appears that the reservation system (?) has been discontinued.

Not a good idea!!

 

 

 

 

[Torfamm]

13 hours ago, dleahy4444 said:

The last time I was on the Beyond I had a traditional seating time but once onboard I was told that it wouldn’t be honored and  dining was basically first come first served. Everyone waited on the same long line. . Now I’m scheduled to board Ascent in a few weeks. I was assigned Select Dining and was able to make a few reservations via the app. Will they be honored? Is there a separate line at the dining room for people with reservations? Thanks 

I can’t say what will happen on the Ascent, but our reservations for Select Dining were honored on the Apex earlier this year