Select dining pros/cons

[letsgocrusing]

We're sailing on Solstice, Auckland to Sydney, and we're curious if Select Dining works well, or is it hard to get seated at certain times?

 

 

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[bigbenboys]

We have done Select Dining a number of times. We made reservations for every night before boarding, same table every night at 6:30pm.

[jelayne]

We prefer select dining. we make a reservation for the first night only then as we are leaving we tell the hostess if we will be there the next night & if so, what time we plan to dine. For us the best thing about Select is not being tied to a set time to be at dinner.

 

The negative is at fixed dining we have met & made friends with those at our table every night which doesn't occur at Select. On the other hand we have often seen a couple at fixed dining at a table for 6-8 and no one ever shows up:o. That happen to us once, very uncomfortable being 2 at a table for 8 every evening.

[dutchclogs]

One hazard of select dining is that you may have to wait at popular 'rush hour' times. On our recent British Isles cruise we received a letter advising dining first night between 7.00 to 800 pm was very heavily booked and suggesting dining at 5.45 pm which was way too early for us. However we had a good experience overall, only having one wait when we were given a buzzer.

[The Solo Dancer]

We love select as we never know what time we will eat. Usually after the first show and then get a pager, get a drink and take a drink into dinner. We have met loads of new friends, every night we meet different people and only had one bad experience when a foursome joined us, had a main course and left. It was funny looking back.

 

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[eandj]

We like traditional seating. Having the same staff serve us, knowing our likes and dislikes in 3 days personalizes the service. Our favorites are in the bread basket, our drinks are served quickly and getting to know our servers thru conversation is interesting. We choose a two top.

[Barwick Cruiser]

We like traditional seating. Having the same staff serve us, knowing our likes and dislikes in 3 days personalizes the service. Our favorites are in the bread basket, our drinks are served quickly and getting to know our servers thru conversation is interesting. We choose a two top.

 

I agree with your reasons for choosing traditional, however for us we find the fixed times either too early or too late. Wish they had a fixed dining time of 7 or 7:30...we'd definitely sign up for that! I have pre-booked our Select dining times for our upcoming Equinox cruise and have found that most nights when we show up at our reserved time we have either no wait or a very short wait when asking for a favourite waiter. Hopefully that continues on our next cruise.

[suec12]

We have had very bad experiences with select dining but we were part of a party of 6. We made reservations months ahead of time but in the end, those reservations meant nothing. We complained and it made no difference (and just to sound a tad entitled, we are all elite plus). Couples were having the same problem - being given a buzzer and WAITING. This was on the Silhouette, a Med. sail. but we also had the same problem on two other cruises - it got progressively worse. If they are not going to honor reservations, why let people make them. In the end, my frustration with this issue has resulted in us "jumping ship" for now and going back to land trips. But I agree with the poster that said, early is too early, late too late, but they have had select for years now and the logistics su*k.

[CRZR58]

We always choose select dining and pre-book all of our dinners online prior to the cruise. It works great most of the time, except on Equinox where they don't have 2 lines, with reservations and without reservations, which caused us to wait for our table for the first couple of nights.

[donnaab]

Iam booked on my first celebrity cruise in April. I have two questions:

1- When do they open up the reservations for specific select dining times?

2-when I make reservation can I request a table for my party only (4)?

Thanks in advance for any advise!

 

 

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[ECCruise]

Iam booked on my first celebrity cruise in April. I have two questions:

1- When do they open up the reservations for specific select dining times? A year or less in advance.

2-when I make reservation can I request a table for my party only (4)? Yes.

Thanks in advance for any advise!

Answered in highlights.

[Kartgv]

We like traditional seating. Having the same staff serve us, knowing our likes and dislikes in 3 days personalizes the service. Our favorites are in the bread basket, our drinks are served quickly and getting to know our servers thru conversation is interesting. We choose a two top.

 

We've had 'select' or 'my time' dining on every cruise in the last 10 years. We've found that the majority of the time, on all 3 of the cruise lines we frequent, it's usually easy to be assigned to the same wait staff each night. It gives us the best of both worlds - getting to know the wait staff/their knowing what we want, plus the ability to eat when we want (NOT at 5:30-6:00 or 8:30), at a table for 2 or a larger table depending on our mood. There have been a very few occasions where there would be a substantial wait for a table in our preferred section, but not many.

 

Maybe we've been successful in getting seated in our preferred section because we recognize that the select dining room host has one of the more difficult jobs onboard - trying to accommodate the choices of hundreds of hungry passengers in a very short period is not easy. We've seen passengers screaming at them, threatening to report them, generally behaving like spoiled children, etc., when they're just trying to their jobs. We make a point to smile, say please & thank you, ask their names, greet them when coming & going - and somehow they always seem to be able to seat us pretty much where & when we choose. We also remember to reward them the last night of the cruise and they often seem to be quite surprised.

[Mr. Click]

We have found Select Dining to be better for us because the traditional times are either too early or too late. We simply make our dinner reservations about a year in advance and then follow up with a quick visit with the maitre 'd when we board the ship. A few times it has been a bit complicated because we were traveling with cousins from the UK and Celebrity's wonderful web site would not let us book our times together so the Captains Club rep did a work around for us. We generally end up with the same staff, not sure why but it just seems to happen.

 

Someone asked about getting seating for a party of 4, it is easy if you can link your cruise reservations. Then one of you can book all four slots, unless you are from different countries with different currencies. Even though it is a free event they still cannot manage to get US and UK reservations linked for dining.

[donnaab]

Answered in highlights.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info! Right now my only options are anytime, 6pm and 9pm. I picked anytime but cannot select a specific time for each day like I can on royal Caribbean. I will give celebrity a call. I am wondering if I have to pay in full first. Thanks again!

 

 

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[ECCruise]

Thanks for the info! Right now my only options are anytime, 6pm and 9pm. I picked anytime but cannot select a specific time for each day like I can on royal Caribbean. I will give celebrity a call. I am wondering if I have to pay in full first. Thanks again!

 

 

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You definitely can make reservations every night online. They cannot do it by phone. Final payment not needed. Go to your personalizer, where you are able to purchase booze packages and shore excursions and specialty dining. Go to dining reservations like you were going to make specialty dining reservations and there will be an option for each day for Select Dining. It is a typical Celebrity boneheaded website process but can be done. I've done it hundreds of times.

 

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[mbger1]

Thanks for the great tip!:)

[donnaab]

You definitely can make reservations every night online. They cannot do it by phone. Final payment not needed. Go to your personalizer, where you are able to purchase booze packages and shore excursions and specialty dining. Go to dining reservations like you were going to make specialty dining reservations and there will be an option for each day for Select Dining. It is a typical Celebrity boneheaded website process but can be done. I've done it hundreds of times.

 

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Thanks! I figured it out! It is a bit non obvious how to get there but I found it!

 

 

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