Advice please aqua class on silouette

[Pippafee]

Hoping to book ultimate Caribbean 2018 - thinking about an aqua class stateroom - if so can guests choose to dine in the main dining room and the speciality restaurants as well? Has anyone done both normal balcony cabin and Aqua class - which would you recommend. Any tips appreciated:)

Many thanks

[WestLakeGirl]

You can ask to dine in Main Dining room and they will accommodate you if there is space, but Blu is your assigned dining room space. You can pay to eat in a specialty if you wish

[jelayne]

We have sailed both a regular veranda & Aqua. The biggest reason we book Aqua is to dine in Blu. Aqua also gives access to the Persian Garden.

Edited April 24, 2016 by jelayne

[jabrown40]

We were on the Silhouette in March, and booked an Aqua cabin (I believe it was 1626.) This was our first time with Celebrity, and we absolutely loved Blu. I had planned to try the MDR one of the nights, but never made it there. We absolutely loved Blu, the service was excellent, and we really enjoyed the cuisine. Our filets the first night were delicious, and perfectly cooked. We also enjoyed the lobster, however I did have to ask for drawn butter, because they do serve foods prepared in a lighter method. We also asked for the escargot from the MDR a couple of nights, it was delicious. Tried Murano, Qsine, and Tuscan. Loved Murano and Qsine, but had a very poor meal on the last night at Tuscan Grill. We have booked two more cruises with Celebrity in the future, both in Aqua cabins.

[keesar]

Hoping to book ultimate Caribbean 2018 - thinking about an aqua class stateroom - if so can guests choose to dine in the main dining room and the speciality restaurants as well? Has anyone done both normal balcony cabin and Aqua class - which would you recommend. Any tips appreciated:)

Many thanks

 

The main reason most people book Aqua is the opportunity to dine in Blu. That is your assigned dining room. If you are considering dining mainly in the MDR and the Specialty Restaurants, I would probably save some money and book a regular veranda. Be advised that Blu is not a specialty restaurant but a nice,smaller dining experience.

[roxievegas]

we just did a 13 night transatlantic on Silhouette in aqua in middle of ship. The balcony was covered, so no direct sunlight. At the end, the cost of Veranda was down to 799 pp and the Aqua was sold out, but we had purchased for 1059 pp - for the difference in the price we could have taken the veranda, and then eaten in the specialty restaurants every night. Blu has nice atmosphere, great service, but food is so so in my opinion. The shower is wonderful with all the sprays. If cost is a factor take the veranda, if not try the aqua.

[morbihan]

Some people love the food in Blu and dining there makes their cruise. We were aqua on Connie and really, the food was the only 'benefit' . Persian Garden was a dark hole so not used at all. The booking was a big mistake but my husband fancied a certain cabin. . . so all his fault:D it was not a nice cabin either. Well, it was the balcony which was too small. Deck 11.

 

As always, food is subjective.

 

I would not sail aqua again as I found the food poor. The food that we ate in the MDR on a previous cruise was better.

 

We have gone back to our favourite SV and MDR for this next trip.

[Wineart]

We've sailed in Aqua several times, but were not as happy with the food in Blu the past 2 trips. We've decided if we sail Celebrity again, we would do a veranda and eat in the specialty restaurants.

[ISABELLA]

We were on the Silhouette in March, and booked an Aqua cabin (I believe it was 1626.) This was our first time with Celebrity, and we absolutely loved Blu. I had planned to try the MDR one of the nights, but never made it there. We absolutely loved Blu, the service was excellent, and we really enjoyed the cuisine. Our filets the first night were delicious, and perfectly cooked. We also enjoyed the lobster, however I did have to ask for drawn butter, because they do serve foods prepared in a lighter method. We also asked for the escargot from the MDR a couple of nights, it was delicious. Tried Murano, Qsine, and Tuscan. Loved Murano and Qsine, but had a very poor meal on the last night at Tuscan Grill. We have booked two more cruises with Celebrity in the future, both in Aqua cabins.

 

We were on Silhouette last TA and we had escargot in BLU on the left side of the menu every night...I like them better than from MDR.

[Pippafee]

Many thanks for all the replies like the idea of the small intimate experience of Blu - but concerned may be too healthy?

Sounds like MDR and speciality restaurants may be better choice for us. Spend most of year watching what i eat so do like to indulge whilst away😉.

Now to decide which cabin - OH thinks one near stairs/elevator might be noisy- thankfully mobility for us is not an issue! I would just like decent size balcony.

Very much looking forward to trying celebrity- enjoyed NCL Gem, also sailed on Thomson Dream - but not for us!

[ClaudiaB]

We have eaten in Blu on 5 cruises and have never once eaten in the main dining room since, except twice when we were asked to the captain's table.

 

We love it. It's not health food. Somewhere along the line it got the rap that it *is*. It's healthy-ER, but there are sauces and rich desserts along with other things. Often the descriptions of the dishes are a bit confusing but in reality what comes is delicious. I love their starters. Their everyday chocolate cake is my favorite dessert on the entire ship - and it's rich and probably has 2000 calories a slice.

 

What's nice about Blu is it's a smaller dining room than the main dining room, serving less people. So --- they can customize easier. If you each want a certain entree but a third one looks appealing, then they can bring you a small portion of that to share. Or if you like a good serving of steamed broccoli, or a bowl of fresh berries -- it's no problem. It's nearly impossible to get special requests like that as easily in the main dining room.

 

Blu also has fabulous breakfasts.

 

We usually sail in sky suites - as a matter of fact, 4 of the 5 cruises we ate in Blu we were in sky suites and they were able to accommodate us space available. We never would have gone if we thought we were taking an Aqua pax spot, but there were always plenty of seats available when we arrived. We like to eat when we feel like it, so Blu is great about that. Sometimes we're there at 6:45 and sometimes we're there at 8:45 - whatever floats our boat that particular day!!

 

Although we love our new suite dining room, we still often go to Blu for breakfast.

We prefer aft cabins (and that's what we book normally) but the Aqua Class cabin we had was in a great location forward on the angle of the hump. Big balcony. It was 1547 or something like that and had a great view.

 

As far as the cabin itself, it's the same size as the regular balcony cabins, but with a better shower and few negligible perks. You do get more loyalty points so if you're wanting those, you get them faster in AQ than you do regular balcony. We're elite + now and there will be no way we ever get to zenith so we just sail for the cabin we like to have our 14 days in.

[ClaudiaB]

If money isn't a huge concern, check out the S1 and S2 sky suites. You get a dedicated suite lounge (with free drinks and all kinds of perks and special custom tours in the ship, private concerts, teas, etc.) and your own suite restaurant which we personally feel is the best food on the ship. Certainly has the best service.

The S1s have big balcony on the aft corner so wrap-around. The cabin is half again as big, and the extra space is really nice for people like us who actually *do* spend time in the cabin. The S2 suites are the same size and everything, just not on the corner. Large balcony, just not wrap around. There are a few on the very back of the ship and they go fast because they're a bit less $$ than the S1s with the exact same perks. There are more on the sides of the ship and we've stayed in those before too.

 

Actually, the first time we tried a sky suite we had booked aqua class. As we typically do, we checked periodically for price drops/changes before the final payment. We noticed the sky suites had dropped one time to about $100 more than the aqua class room. A real no-brainer -- so we booked it. It was about a week prior to final payment - and the next day they went back up.

 

Of course now we always want to book them again! Hard to go back. ;)

[clk cabriolet]

i was just on my first celebrity cruise, equinox, and loved it. i was in aqua and ate in blu for dinner and breakfast. yes, some of their food is healthy but like someone said above, they do have sauces and wonderful desserts. by the way, if you look at the mdr menu and see something that you like, they will bring it to you while you're dining in blu. i would look at the mdr menu every night just to see what i might want to have in blu but the atmosphere in blu is not as noisy as the mdr.

[keesar]

Many thanks for all the replies like the idea of the small intimate experience of Blu - but concerned may be too healthy?

Sounds like MDR and speciality restaurants may be better choice for us. Spend most of year watching what i eat so do like to indulge whilst away😉.

Now to decide which cabin - OH thinks one near stairs/elevator might be noisy- thankfully mobility for us is not an issue! I would just like decent size balcony.

Very much looking forward to trying celebrity- enjoyed NCL Gem, also sailed on Thomson Dream - but not for us!

 

I would not consider Blu as offering a small intimate experience. The tables are really close together and the noise level can be quite loud.

 

Don't worry about being near an elevator or the stairs. There is a buffer zone and we have never heard anything from those areas in our room. Those locations are quite convenient.

[JMG]

We were on Silhouette in January Aqua Class and loved it! We were towards the bow under the Persian Gardens so we had little noise above us. We ate at the MDR and also at Marano and Tuscan Grill. We preferred Tuscan Grill to Murano. At Murano we were seated by the interior wall and on the other side of that wall was a small band. We could hear their loud music the entire meal and we ended up canceling a reservation for later that week. Tuscan Grill we were seated by the window overlooking the stern of the ship and the view was fabulous. We enjoyed the food and service much better than Murano. When making a reservation ALWAYS ask if there are any discounts. The first night there are usually specials...it all depends on how many reservations they have for the night.

 

We had breakfast at Blu....as previously noted, the tables are very close together.

Edited April 26, 2016 by JMG

[DancerOT]

Someone had posted that they only let the first two passengers of a room dine in Blu. So if you have 3 people staying in a room (I often travel with my parents), would I not be able to dine in Blu with them?

[Pippafee]

Thank you for all the detailed replies - just cannot make my mind up now! Everyone's comments much appreciated though:)

[dkjretired]

Someone had posted that they only let the first two passengers ofw a room dine in Blu. So if you have 3 people staying in a room (I often travel with my parents), would I not be able to dine in Blu with them?[/

 

Aqua class cabins only allow 1 or 2 people in a cabin so you could not be booked in a cabin with them. This is fleetwide and they don't make exceptions.