Select Dining for party of 12??

[Mlascheid]

Has anyone had experience doing select dining with a large party? We are an extended family of 12 who want to eat together, but would rather not be tied to the 8:30 dining time that we currently have. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!!

[neverbeenhere]

Talk to the maitre d' at the very first moment on the ship. They want to help the best they can. the one time we had a large group(11), we did have to have 2 tables.

[Mlascheid]

We don't mind having 2 tables as long as they are next to one another. Our biggest concern is whether they will be able to accommodate us without a very long wait every night. We would all prefer to eat sometime between 7-8PM, instead of the 830 time we currently have booked. When is the earliest we would be able to see the maitre d'? We will likely be on board early, as we will be coming from a local hotel that morning.

[neverbeenhere]

you can usually track them down as soon as you are on board. they have an official posted meeting time in the MDR or other location, but you need to go before that time. The "suits" have a lot to do on embarkation but... If all else fails, have them track you down the right person, as 12 passengers have a stake in the matter. Courteous but Conviction. :)

[AkSusan]

Has anyone had experience doing select dining with a large party? We are an extended family of 12 who want to eat together, but would rather not be tied to the 8:30 dining time that we currently have. Any thoughts or suggestions? Thanks!!

We had a party of 12 for Select and one of the first things we did was go to the Select Dining Maitre D (of course, during the posted hours) and asked if we could get a table of 12 at 6:30. They first told us it looked like we would have two tables side by side (which we thought was fine as we could rotate) because the table for 12 was for 6 p.m. and they took all our cabin numbers.

 

When we arrived at 6:30, we found that we were at one table for all 12 of us. That being said, I think there is a limited amount of big tables, so, I'd check with them early to see if they can accommodate you as one, or two tables next to each other.

 

Now having said that, we did set our dining time for the same night every night, so, we had the 12 topper every night, even if all of us weren't there, we just made sure we told our other table mates and they would let the servers know.

 

Susan :)

[Mlascheid]

Thank you for all of your suggestions! I will track down the "right" person as soon as I board! We are currently listed as having the late(8:30) seating... do I have my travel agent call Celebrity to request a change to Select Dining or can I do that myself?

[AkSusan]

Thank you for all of your suggestions! I will track down the "right" person as soon as I board! We are currently listed as having the late(8:30) seating... do I have my travel agent call Celebrity to request a change to Select Dining or can I do that myself?

Since you're booked with a travel agent, I'm pretty sure they will have to do it.

 

Also, remember if someone hasn't prepaid their gratuities then they'll have to do that before you can have them switched to Select.

 

And the other thing, is assuming that Select is not full! Which, then you can always waitlist for that, if they say they are full.

 

Susan :)

[kyriecat]

Even if Select is full now, you might be able to switch once onboard. My husband and I originally signed up for late fixed seating on Silhouette. After thinking about how many late port stops we had, we decided that Select dining would be better for us. I tried to get us switched about 4 months before the cruise but was told it was full. We were on the waitlist but didn't get switched before our sail date. Once we were onboard, we stopped by the desk outside the dining room and were able to move to Select dining.

 

I don't know if it would be that easy for a party of 12 vs. party of 2, but it's possible that you could switch to Select dining once onboard.