J18ktleo

When are you cruising in January? We are sailing Jan 27th...can't wait,

How big is your group? Maybe smaller numbers could get together for individual dining.. We cruise by ourselves so it's easy to make plans.

We're the week before you, I have 24 in my group, all ladies ( all friends from all over the country!), 14 of us are on our 'Third Annual Girls Cruise'! One of the girls husband and his sister are flying down to do your cruise, they have two of the S1's :cool:

When my girlfriend and I travel together I usually can 'hook up' with others from cc boards to dine, one of the girls in our group I met on our Eclipse sailing last summer, another we met on Equinox the year before...and that's why cruise critic is so wonderful!!!

Discount? Lol!!! I am from Arcadia, CA. Born and raised! I love SOCal! My parents lived for a time in Vegas and I recall a lot of people being from SoCal. What part of SoCal are you from?

My mom worked for many years at Buffums (sp?) in Arcadia! Grew up in West Covina, then lived in Anaheim before moving to Vegas! (used to say I moved from one playground to another!)

Hoping to be able to check out a couple of the venues for lunch on Dec cruise...Jan my group will be toooooo big and busy to try to organize!!!

Bahamas? when is edge in bahamas?

The 3 day preview cruise goes to Nassau :cool:

Maybe we can head there after our cabin crawl for cocktails and towers. ;)

Sounds like a plan! I know we're not getting off in Bahamas...it'll be our time to enjoy the ship without the masses!

You are welcomed to join us in December! I know my husband will be a permanent fixture in Raw. He loved Sushi on the 5 and I think we at least had a snack, if not a full meal there almost every day of our last two cruises. I am excited for the specialty cocktails! :)

Wonder if they'll do a group discount on multiple towers!!!:')

Where are you from, Mary? I'm a true SoCal girl, just moved 5 years ago but then, so many here in Vegas are from So Cal, permanently and every single weekend/holiday!

oh, my, YES PLEASE!!! :')

We will go to Raw on 5 and probably have the Seafood Tower. My DH can have the oysters and I'll have lobster, shrimp and crab (well, I guess we will share those). :D

I might have to join you!!! Sounds wonderful...I'm not sure how many of my group are in for that...we'll probably try it in Dec...I can picture it now!!!!! ;p

Thanks! I will make a reservation now. It should be fun! :D

VT cruising, email me so we can chat a little more;)

J 18ktleo at Gmail dot com

Sounds like this would be fun with a group! :D

Join us...we're doing second nite, Dec 7, at 6.

Back in the day ;) they would only allow so many reservations to be made online reserving about 1/3 for those who board and don't use the internet. The last time we were on, as soon as we boarded, I went to dining to request times, as usual. The Maitre D' said they were all booked up except for 6 and 8 or later...for every single nite!

That was a challenge so this time I made sure to book everything for every single nite...and with 24 in my group that was quite the challenge! ( at least for the Select dining...)

That being said...for a couple...there might be changes once we're onboard to 'slip' into a slot somewhere.

I remember when Qsine was first introduced it was really tough to get a reservation, but our last sailing they were begging people to come to the restaurant!!!

Hi, J...

 

I've otherwise reported here on Cruise Critic that Le Petit Chef fully replaced Qsine on Infinity as of 17 May [the day I boarded in San Diego for my 17 night back-to-back]…

 

I didn't do it--you know how I am about avoiding all finfish and most seafood including lobster [instead went to Tuscan Grille four times!]--but I will say that it quickly became wildly popular with very high marks for both the food and the entertainment/animation [which, for now--I understand it might eventually become customizable to the guest's menu preferences--is geared to the standard menu]…

 

I'll be eager to get your personal assessment! Have fun!

 

BH...

--M

Hey, you're back? You'll have mail momentarily!!!

Thanks for the info

bh

j

That's great that you were able to get your group booked in all of the MDRs. If you want to sneak away from your group on the 21st at 8:00, you can join us at Le Petit Chef. :D

oh my goodness, that would be so wonderful but since there's 9 of us who are on our 4th 'annual girls cruise' I 'don't think 'sneaking' is an option!!!

My notes say there's already 16 who want to do this on the Edge...trying to figure out how to make it work. But if you can get it on the 12/6 sailing the four of us are booked into Le Grand Bistro on the 7th so let's do it!!!

I didn't see it on either preview cruise, but it is now on my 7 day cruises. Maybe they will offer it onboard the preview cruises. I'll keep watching to see if they add it our 12/6 cruise.

Thank you. I'm really hoping we can do this on the 12/6 cruise, have Le Grand Bistro booked for one nite. Can't do it on our 1/20 cruise because I have a group of 24 and even though many want to do it, there's no nite where the restaurant can accommodate that many of us so I can't even book the restaurant! Been working with my rep but I'm lucky I even go our dining booked for the whole group for all 7 nites in all 4 restaurants!!!! :o

unfortunately, they won't allow it to be booked on the Preview cruises for 3 nites…:')

I don remember seeing Qsine on the Edge...guess I missed it? ;)

vt cruising, thanks for the info...we are booked into Le Grand Bistro on Dec 7 so hopefully we can experience it then.

When I checked for my group in Jan, they said they only had one night with availability for 8 people (my group is 20) at Le Grand Bistro, might have to wait til we board to try to do that one! ;p

I will be doing both! Actually, I will probably be partying more than shopping for Edge trinkets. I will keep an eye out for your group - shouldn't be hard to miss. ;) What fun you will have!

We'll have to meet on the Preview cruise...yes, our groups have been known to attract some attention! ;p

vtcruising,

I just noticed you're on our Jan 20 sailing too!

I'm so excited, although don't think I'll be doing the shopping you have in mind!!!

Have a group of 24 ladies on this cruise so we'll be the partiers!!!!! :cool:

VT cruising....

Thanks for the update.

Now you'll be on my sailing!

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Glad you are having a wonderful cruise! We love the Reflection and have enjoyed amazing cruises in Celebrity and Sky suites on that ship. Thanks for taking the time to write a live review!

 

We are on the 1st two Edge preview cruises and are hoping to do Le Petit Chef at Le Grand Bistro restaurant, if they have it on one of those cruises. Could you please give me an idea of the menu that you experienced?

 

Thanks!

I will be doing a preview cruise as well and then have 24 going on Edge in January, 16 have already said they want to try this so trying to collect as much detail/info as I can! ;)

vtcruising,

Thank you so much!

I watched the 'lobster' video and realized everyone was eating the same meal...so now the question is:

1) is it only on specific nights and 2) how do we find out what's on the menu?

Interesting that they would do it in Qsine, with such a varied menu there it seems like it would restrict the choices, so you'd need to go again!!! I organized a large cc group on Eclipse in June at Qsine, I was the only one who had

done it before (on 5 different ships) and it was such a disappointment! Service was terrible! From start to finish...which I had never experienced before. And when I left a review, there was no response (on Equinox, when we made any type of comment it was addressed immediately!).

Anxious to get info of any kind on how this works and how to go about planning for it! ;)

so, does that mean that they only offer it once and everyone gets the same meal?

I've written Ivana and she was very limited on info...I have 16 that want to do this, was thinking of booking

2 tables of 8...but now looking at the video of the lobster it looks like a cute aspect to the meal but not sure it's

worth $30 plus if everyone has to get the same dish?

Challenge is that we all jump on this stuff right away and they're still figuring it out???:confused:

Sounds like a lot of fun! I hope your dining issues are easily sorted. They will definitely owe you a few frosty drinks lol:D

Haha, and since everyone booked with the drink package that'll be a 'For Sure'!:')

Cruise Arizona, fingers crossed!

Silkroad, this has been an interesting progression. It's actually an annual girls cruise that started out 3 years ago. The last 2 years there was 12 to 14 of us on Windstar and it was incredible! This year, because it's the Edge and everybody that has never cruised before is intrested because of the size of the ship, it just kept growing.

This planning is a challenge and I think that from here on I will restrict it to 12 which is an easier number to manage😎

Wow, that's a big group! Did you see the previous discussion about Ivana at Celebrity? Apparently she deals with Edge dining, so maybe she could help with your large group? It wouldn't hurt to ask her how to best organize your group's dining. Here email is: Ivrhovec@rccl.com

 

No, they won't sell all of the reservations online pre-cruise, if they continue their present practice. It seems like they have a certain percentage of reservations on sale online of each time slot in each restaurant because we have gotten the time we wanted after boarding (and they were sold out for that time online).

 

Good luck!

Thank you for all the information!

I will be doing the Preview cruise on Dec 6th so hopefully will have a little better idea...you're doing Nov 21 so we'll be looking for your update!

Actually, I DID email Ivana last nite and she replied this morning although all she said was I could pre-book the specialty...wasn't what I had actually asked so I wrote her back...she did not offer to assist with my group as I'm trying to figure out how to book 12-14 for specialty with everyone having to pay in advance! ;)

I am thinking, like you, that dining will loosen up on the longer cruises as they did on Quantum. I do like them having all the choices, one nice thing is that the smaller dining rooms are more intimate.

However, although we have done anytime dining for many years, we always find a table and waitstaff we like then do the entire cruise with them...in this case that won't be possible and with 3 tables of 8 that means we'll be meeting new waitstaff each nite...may not be ideal but...oh, well!!!

Thank you all for the info, especially the detailed dining info listed!

So, I was on Quantum OTS a couple years ago and they also have 4 MDR's...we stressed and stressed about getting all our reservations for the two week cruise in advance (plus they require certain 'windows of time' for entertainment too) and when we go onboard, after the first nite, we just walked into any restaurant we wanted, with 6-8 people and never had a challenge with seating.

Also, and not sure if this is just RCCL and not Celebrity, but do they actually allow us to take up all the reservations online in advance? That would seem unfair to all those who don't do online scheduling and will arrive onboard with no reservations for their regular dining?

I have a group of 24 so hoping to get some organization for at least one nite in a specialty...fingers crossed!!!