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Specialty restaurants with a 3 year old


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I would say that for every child who is an angel and quiet during their meal, there is usually one who struggles with the expectations put upon them. I do not fault the child in this, I do however fault the adult who puts the child in a situation they may not be able to handle. I spent many nights with my 3 year old sitting in a car waiting for my husband to finish his dinner. While I personally would not force others to have their dining experience diminished, my experience is that, at times. parents feel it is their right to bring small children into dining experiences that they (children) are not capable of dealing with, and feeling it is perfectly ok for the children to be "boisterous" or "precocious".

 

What I am trying to convey is that not all parents parent at the same level, and if I am paying for a quiet and relaxing dinner, I hope that is the experience that I have.

 

 

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I would say that for every child who is an angel and quiet during their meal, there is usually one who struggles with the expectations put upon them. I do not fault the child in this, I do however fault the adult who puts the child in a situation they may not be able to handle. I spent many nights with my 3 year old sitting in a car waiting for my husband to finish his dinner. While I personally would not force others to have their dining experience diminished, my experience is that, at times. parents feel it is their right to bring small children into dining experiences that they (children) are not capable of dealing with, and feeling it is perfectly ok for the children to be "boisterous" or "precocious".

 

What I am trying to convey is that not all parents parent at the same level, and if I am paying for a quiet and relaxing dinner, I hope that is the experience that I have.

 

 

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If everyone of us who were paying for the specialty restaurant experience got up and walked out w/o paying when the well behaved young child started behaving like a normal child (all children misbehave at times), the cruise companies might get the idea that many of us don't want young children in the specialty restaurants. Walkouts and the loss of revenue caused by a failure to pay for the meal talks louder than complaining.

 

DON

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I think that parents revel in the joy of their child totally but it is unwise to expect that everyone else shares the joy of someone else's child.

 

I do sort of agree.

When we vacation withOUT our children (who are 2 and 5), the last thing I really want to experience is someone ELSE's child behaving poorly. Frankly, if we are at a shared table in an MDR, I would prefer to be seated with other adults. I like kids, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to leave my own at home just to have a 2 hour dinner with someone else's.

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Just as I would not see a toddler at an upscale restaurant in the evening in the city, no matter how well behaved, I dont want to see them in the specialty restaurant for which I am paying a premium.

So, it's actually nothing to do with children's behaviour that bothers you, it's simply the sight of them that you object to. How very sad...

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I would say that for every child who is an angel and quiet during their meal, there is usually one who struggles with the expectations put upon them. I do not fault the child in this, I do however fault the adult who puts the child in a situation they may not be able to handle. I spent many nights with my 3 year old sitting in a car waiting for my husband to finish his dinner. While I personally would not force others to have their dining experience diminished, my experience is that, at times. parents feel it is their right to bring small children into dining experiences that they (children) are not capable of dealing with, and feeling it is perfectly ok for the children to be "boisterous" or "precocious".

 

What I am trying to convey is that not all parents parent at the same level, and if I am paying for a quiet and relaxing dinner, I hope that is the experience that I have.

 

 

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Very well said. It is never the child's fault. Parents need to have reasonable expectations and not place onerous burdens on children that they are not equipped to handle.

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Who are any of us to say that this particular parent is placing onerous burdens on her child or whether or not this particular child is equipped to handle the situation? Wow - this woman wants to take her daughter on a Baltic cruise. What an experience for a child! Will she remember most of it? Probably not specifics, but she will remember the love, attention and experiences her mother gave her, and by the fact that her mother is interested in taking her places and introducing her to different cultures, she'll be exposed to a whole lot more than chicken nuggets and video games.

 

I'm sure we've all been in situations where we've seen a child misbehaving - or simply acting like a child. The burden there is on the parent to recognize and deal with the situation. I know I've seen both - where the parent deals with it appropriately or acts obliviously to it. Many here seem to be assuming that any parent will simply be oblivious to the behavior and allow it to continue and that every child in this situation will be a problem. Not so! There are children who can handle such situations and there are adults who cannot. By the fact the OP is asking the question to find out the policies, it seems to me like she is cognizant of the fact that there may be some venues that may or may not be appropriate for a young child, and she's doing her homework to be sure of what's allowed and what's not. She's also specifically asked about the one of least intimate/formal and most interactive of the dining venues available, which implies to me (IMO) that she is being considerate of others by understanding that perhaps some of the other dining venues might not be the best choice in this situation. Kudos to her for wanting to give her child such experiences!!

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I do sort of agree.

When we vacation withOUT our children (who are 2 and 5), the last thing I really want to experience is someone ELSE's child behaving poorly. Frankly, if we are at a shared table in an MDR, I would prefer to be seated with other adults. I like kids, don't get me wrong, but I don't want to leave my own at home just to have a 2 hour dinner with someone else's.

 

Yes. Exactly this. And for us going to the Specialty Restaurant is not the time to be 'entertained' by kids. I also practse what I preach. My kids because of their umm, active behaviour, were not taken to restaurants until they had been at school for a few years, so around 10. I think its normal for kids to be noisy and active, and not for them to be quiet. I just dont need to see 'normal' at a restaurant.

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I like kids, but I don't like them at late dinners on cruise ships in a pay venue OR the MDR, for that matter, if they are cranky and disruptive.

On our cruise in October, everyone was enjoying an adult experience at the late seating on formal night. Well, in walked an extended family with their two very young children, who we knew had arrived via their piercing call of the Wild announcement.

 

They were so disruptive, that everyone in our section of at least fifty to sixty people were constantly entertained with nonstop screaming, crying or loud talking. Parents did nothing to quell the disruptive behavior. I really do have a problem with this, that one party of eight could ruin the entire ambience of what should have been an adult experience. Had they arrived for the 5:30 seating it might have worked out better since the kids wouldn't have been so tired. Maybe cruiselines could set a limit for family dining with little ones, i.e. No "very" small children at late seating, otherwise family must eat at the buffet. We've seen very well behaved children on cruises, too, but that night in the formal dining room setting that we experienced was just over the top and I never hope to experience that again .

 

 

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So, it's actually nothing to do with children's behaviour that bothers you, it's simply the sight of them that you object to. How very sad...

 

You are correct. I do not want to see any children in an adult environment and to place them there with expectations is just bad parenting.

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If everyone of us who were paying for the specialty restaurant experience got up and walked out w/o paying when the well behaved young child started behaving like a normal child (all children misbehave at times), the cruise companies might get the idea that many of us don't want young children in the specialty restaurants. Walkouts and the loss of revenue caused by a failure to pay for the meal talks louder than complaining.

 

DON

 

Don, this is the best post here.

 

Others have said that they struggled through dinners, expecting to have a fine dining experience and instead got family night out at Macdonalds and the staff would do nothing about it.

 

Walk out! Excellent idea.

 

I will now be suggesting it wherever I can. Celebrity must change rules that families only up to a certain time. Later dining reserved for adults only. I think that is a very reasonable compromise.

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I will be travelling on Eclipse in August with my two young children (5 and 9), they eat out with us regularly and we will be taking them to Q-Sine and maybe Tuscan grill. We will also be eating in Luminae every night other than specialty nights, we will go prepared with small distractions for them, although these days we never seem to need them, they both love their food and eat pretty much whatever we eat.

 

We are as considerate as we can be, we would not take them to dinner late, generally 5.30-6pm because frankly I don't want to deal with 2 cranky tired children the next morning, if they misbehave then we will deal with it, we are aware of the fact that not everyone loves our children the way we do.

We love taking our children out to eat, they love it too, we don't want to put them in with babysitters all the time either, we want them to experience good food and nice atmosphere, more importantly we want to spend time with our children and holiday meals are a great time for us to bond and chat about whatever they want, frequently we are at the table for 2 plus hours, will they laugh loudly at times, maybe, hopefully, if they get too loud we will tell them again about inside voices, if only many adults would do the same, however as long as Celebrity allow us to do this, then we will, if the rules change we would respect that and obey those new rules, the same way I would expect anyone who doesn't want my children around would also respect that right now they are allowed, and direct their anger or disapproval at the rule makers, not at us.

 

Having said all that I do believe there should be a compromise somewhere along the way, no children after 8.30 or an adults only night is not unreasonable.

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I am going to be on a Baltic Cruise in June with my three year old daughter. I'm wondering if I can take her to the specialty restaurants. She is a very well behaved child who is used to dining in restaurants. She also has a very good palette and will eat almost anything. Just wondering if we would be comfortable at Qsine, etc. We will be on Silhouette.

I can't find Celebrities policy and they seem like they charge full price for children. Not a problem, just curious if anyone knows or has taken small children to these restaurants.

 

littlebella777,

 

We are on this same June Silhouette Stockholm cruise. My children will be with us. They have cruised Celebrity for years with us and dined at all the specialty restaurants since a young age. Your question of would you be comfortable at the specialty restaurants, is pretty straight forward. Your fully capable of traveling to Europe with your daughter on your own,

and probably will know if the time and place of specialty dining is not insync with your daughters demeanor at the time you have booked.

 

In the rare possibility my children, ever were ever not "at their best." We had pre-planned to discretely remove them from the venue. We did that out of respect for those around us who didn't have their children with them. Fortunately, that has never occurred.

 

It seems that the vast majority of posters who have a concern are focused on disruptive behavior of a child in the specialty dining environs. If the children are well mannered and relatively quiet that would be no disruption of anyone's dining

experience. With a contingency plan, you will do just fine.

 

We look forward to seeing you onboard.

 

Here is the roll call for this cruise: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2305990

 

Mirage

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You are correct. I do not want to see any children in an adult environment and to place them there with expectations is just bad parenting.

Who gets to decide what is an adults only environment aboard ship? Celebrity has decided that the restaurants are not, so if you have a problem, take it up with Celebrity.

 

I've nothing against adult only environments, and seeing children and their parents being asked to leave the Solarium is a non-issue coz them's the rules, but until Celebrity designates one or more of the dining rooms as adult only, railing against the OP is senseless.

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Who gets to decide what is an adults only environment aboard ship? Celebrity has decided that the restaurants are not, so if you have a problem, take it up with Celebrity.

 

I've nothing against adult only environments, and seeing children and their parents being asked to leave the Solarium is a non-issue coz them's the rules, but until Celebrity designates one or more of the dining rooms as adult only, railing against the OP is senseless.

 

Well, the specialty restaurants were an adults-only experience until recently. That is a legitimate gripe.

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Well, the specialty restaurants were an adults-only experience until recently. That is a legitimate gripe.

I completely agree, but the gripe is with Celebrity and its changed policy, not with the OP.

 

This is all too reminiscent of dress threads and people bitching about the lack of formal wear being worn by some passengers, but hey folks, that too was Celebrity's policy change and no one should have complained about fellow passengers who followed the new policy.

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If she is quiet and polite, then I personally have no issues whatsoever. If she makes a scene, I would be very upset to pay for a specialty restaurant to have our special evening tarnished by someone else.

 

You know your daughter best, so obviously you'll just have to use your best judgment.

 

Dan

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If she is quiet and polite, then I personally have no issues whatsoever. If she makes a scene, I would be very upset to pay for a specialty restaurant to have our special evening tarnished by someone else.

 

You know your daughter best, so obviously you'll just have to use your best judgment.

 

Dan

Hopefully you will be just as upset if those adults at the table next to you are laughing loudly or the ladies at the next table who are not quiet and polite, etc. And hopefully those who want to get up and walk out if a child acts up will do the same if an adult acts up.
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It simply isn't true that the speciality restaurants were adult only until recently. Only Murano had an age restriction which was 12 plus. This changed 2 years ago when a children's menu was introduced in Murano. All of the others have been family friendly for the six years we have been cruising with Celebrity.

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Hopefully you will be just as upset if those adults at the table next to you are laughing loudly or the ladies at the next table who are not quiet and polite, etc. And hopefully those who want to get up and walk out if a child acts up will do the same if an adult acts up.

 

Very good point; what's good for the goose.......

 

We were on a ship several years ago and the table next to us in the MDR was quite loud. It was a large group so you expect/understand the noise. However, they started making sounds with/on their beverage glasses - wetting the rims and running their fingers around the rim to makes sounds. When we looked their way, they just did it more and louder. These were mainly adults doing this, and a few older teenagers. It was obnoxious and no one did anything about it. I'll take the well behaved three-year old!

 

Another time, I confess, we were the loud ones. My kids were 17 and 20 at the time and there were ten of us. We were in a specialty restaurant on Princess, thankfully in a little alcove. Someone at our table told an very funny joke - the kind where you laugh until you cry and can't stop laughing. Across the restaurant a very well behaved little girl, maybe around seven, shot us a look. She was right; we were too loud and calmed down.

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Where is the like button?

I completely agree, but the gripe is with Celebrity and its changed policy, not with the OP.

 

This is all too reminiscent of dress threads and people bitching about the lack of formal wear being worn by some passengers, but hey folks, that too was Celebrity's policy change and no one should have complained about fellow passengers who followed the new policy.

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Hopefully you will be just as upset if those adults at the table next to you are laughing loudly or the ladies at the next table who are not quiet and polite, etc. And hopefully those who want to get up and walk out if a child acts up will do the same if an adult acts up.

 

 

Yes, I was thinking about that when I typed my response. I would be just as upset with adults if they were acting like idiots. There are all sorts of scenarios with varying degrees of manners, so I don't want to generalize my answer.

 

 

Please believe me, I'm no prude. :) I can put up with a lot. I can't imagine ever walking out because of these issues, in either case.

 

Dan

 

 

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Very good point; what's good for the goose.......

 

Another time, I confess, we were the loud ones. My kids were 17 and 20 at the time and there were ten of us. We were in a specialty restaurant on Princess, thankfully in a little alcove. Someone at our table told an very funny joke - the kind where you laugh until you cry and can't stop laughing.

 

There are few things in life as precious as moments like this.

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If everyone of us who were paying for the specialty restaurant experience got up and walked out w/o paying when the well behaved young child started behaving like a normal child (all children misbehave at times), the cruise companies might get the idea that many of us don't want young children in the specialty restaurants. Walkouts and the loss of revenue caused by a failure to pay for the meal talks louder than complaining.

 

DON

 

Question - if you walk out in the middle of your dining experience wouldn't you be charged anyway?

Its not like a regular restaurant where you have to pay at the end of the meal - not that they wouldn't stop you for payment if you tried to walk out of a restaurant mid-meal..

This seems more like what you would Want to do effectively, not something that would work in reality.

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I am going to be on a Baltic Cruise in June with my three year old daughter. I'm wondering if I can take her to the specialty restaurants. She is a very well behaved child who is used to dining in restaurants. She also has a very good palette and will eat almost anything. Just wondering if we would be comfortable at Qsine, etc. We will be on Silhouette.

I can't find Celebrities policy and they seem like they charge full price for children. Not a problem, just curious if anyone knows or has taken small children to these restaurants.

 

As of November 2015, we have implemented children's pricing in all of our specialty restaurants. Kids 5 and under dine for free. Kids ages 6 - 12 may dine for lunch and dinner at any of our specialty restaurants for $10 per child.

 

A children's menu has been created for Tuscan Grille. For the same price, children will be able to choose from the children's menu or from the standard dinner menu.

Please note children pricing not available for premium experiences including Chef’s Table, Connoisseur dinners,Food and Wine pairing dinners, Top Chef Dinner etc.

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