Celebrity Suite - Special Dining Room?

[niborHS]

Sorry if this has been asked before, Cruisecritic seems to have eliminated the option of searching a particular message board category. We will be sailing on the Eclipse in June. We are in a Celebrity Suite. My husband booked this through Mollydooker Wines, it's a special cruise group they are running, so I have no travel agent to call. He claims that now Celebrity has special dining rooms that are only for guests in Suites. If so, is this true, and what dining room is it? I have searched their site and don't see anything about this. We are also trying to decide about whether to take a 3 Specialty Restaurant package. This is an Alaskan cruise, and there are 3 nights that are inside passage cruising, plus the first night, so the 3 night pre-booked restaurants could work. Any suggestions on this would be great too. 

[tbugstwo]

Yes, there is a separate dining room for people traveling in suites on Celebrity.  Suite restaurant is Luminae.  On a short Alaska cruise, I would skip the specialty restaurants and enjoy the food and service in Luminae.  You will not be disappointed.

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Luminae is the suits only restaurant.  The Retreat Lounge, aka Michael's Club, is a club for suite guests.  Ships will also be getting a Retreat Deck as the ship is revolutionized.

[chemmo]

44 minutes ago, Robinsilver said:

Sorry if this has been asked before, Cruisecritic seems to have eliminated the option of searching a particular message board category. We will be sailing on the Eclipse in June. We are in a Celebrity Suite. My husband booked this through Mollydooker Wines, it's a special cruise group they are running, so I have no travel agent to call. He claims that now Celebrity has special dining rooms that are only for guests in Suites. If so, is this true, and what dining room is it? I have searched their site and don't see anything about this. We are also trying to decide about whether to take a 3 Specialty Restaurant package. This is an Alaskan cruise, and there are 3 nights that are inside passage cruising, plus the first night, so the 3 night pre-booked restaurants could work. Any suggestions on this would be great too. 

 

Tuscan Grill, one of the speciality restaurants is at the back of the ship with fantastic wake views...A great place to dine and watch the scenery at the same time. We tend to book on nights we are leaving port at a similar time to the restaurant opening.

[niborHS]

1 hour ago, tbugstwo said:

Yes, there is a separate dining room for people traveling in suites on Celebrity.  Suite restaurant is Luminae.  On a short Alaska cruise, I would skip the specialty restaurants and enjoy the food and service in Luminae.  You will not be disappointed.

Thanks for letting me know. I finally found it on something when I logged into Celebrity. It sounds like we could be getting very good meals in Luminae, which you have confirmed. 

[XtaSea]

I agree with TBugs. We think Luminae is easily equal to, if not better than, any specialty restaurant Celebrity offers. We're spoiled now so only do suites on Celebrity and no longer even consider dining elsewhere. ChezMary mentioned Michael's Club, the private suites-only bar that's a great little venue for a quiet drink before dinner or after a show. There's also premium beverage packages, wife, and other perks. We love the Celebrity Suite specifically because it has a separate living area and bedroom, and at that suite level you'll get a call from the Shoreside Concierge a couple of weeks before your cruise to inquire about any special needs or requests you might have. Our last cruise we even had a private escort from the check-in counter to Michael's Club, which made for a very fast and pleasant boarding experience. The Eclipse won't go through the Revolution dry dock until April 2020 so it won't have the suites-only Retreat Deck for your cruise. But don't worry about that...you're gonna get spoiled big time. Enjoy.

[Gordoncruickshank]

Sometimes the menu in Luminae does not suit, but you can either ask for something from the main dining room menu or use one of the specialty restaurants. We will usually do 2 or 3 nights elsewhere rather than eat all the time in the same place. 

[Gordoncruickshank]

26 minutes ago, XtaSea said:

I agree with TBugs. We think Luminae is easily equal to, if not better than, any specialty restaurant Celebrity offers. We're spoiled now so only do suites on Celebrity and no longer even consider dining elsewhere. ChezMary mentioned Michael's Club, the private suites-only bar that's a great little venue for a quiet drink before dinner or after a show. There's also premium beverage packages, wife, and other perks. We love the Celebrity Suite specifically because it has a separate living area and bedroom, and at that suite level you'll get a call from the Shoreside Concierge a couple of weeks before your cruise to inquire about any special needs or requests you might have. Our last cruise we even had a private escort from the check-in counter to Michael's Club, which made for a very fast and pleasant boarding experience. The Eclipse won't go through the Revolution dry dock until April 2020 so it won't have the suites-only Retreat Deck for your cruise. But don't worry about that...you're gonna get spoiled big time. Enjoy.

I think you may have meant Wi-fi.

[Gracie115]

I'm with others, we don't generally go to specialty restaurants since Luminae started.  It's a wonderful venue, where food and especially service is just outstanding.

[niborHS]

A question about Luminae, now that you all made it sound so appealing, are there seatings, or is it open seating? If open, is there much of a wait? We also almost always book suites. Regular rooms to me are like those little number puzzles, not to be politically incorrect or anything, but chinese puzzles if you don't know what I mean, "I'll stand by the door so you can get into the bathroom". I say that the only people who say the cabin you have doesn't make a difference because you aren't in it much anyway, are the ones who have never stayed in a suite. 

[Gracie115]

3 minutes ago, Robinsilver said:

A question about Luminae, now that you all made it sound so appealing, are there seatings, or is it open seating? If open, is there much of a wait? We also almost always book suites. Regular rooms to me are like those little number puzzles, not to be politically incorrect or anything, but chinese puzzles if you don't know what I mean, "I'll stand by the door so you can get into the bathroom". I say that the only people who say the cabin you have doesn't make a difference because you aren't in it much anyway, are the ones who have never stayed in a suite. 

 

 

There are no seatings, just arrive and you will be seated.  We've never had to wait at all.  

[Northern Aurora]

The Eclipse is a S-class ship, so has a larger Luminae than the Luminaes on M-class ships.  We have never had issues waiting to be seated when on a S-class ship.  

 

On the Millennium in 2017 there were two large family groups (one was 12 persons, with the other one a little smaller), and on that particular sailing folks who dined early had some waits.  We are late diners, so were seated when we arrived as the two large families had already finished their meals.  The two large family groups are generally not the norm in suites.

[bob278]

1 hour ago, XtaSea said:

I agree with TBugs. We think Luminae is easily equal to, if not better than, any specialty restaurant Celebrity offers. We're spoiled now so only do suites on Celebrity and no longer even consider dining elsewhere. ChezMary mentioned Michael's Club, the private suites-only bar that's a great little venue for a quiet drink before dinner or after a show. There's also premium beverage packages, wife, and other perks. We love the Celebrity Suite specifically because it has a separate living area and bedroom, and at that suite level you'll get a call from the Shoreside Concierge a couple of weeks before your cruise to inquire about any special needs or requests you might have. Our last cruise we even had a private escort from the check-in counter to Michael's Club, which made for a very fast and pleasant boarding experience. The Eclipse won't go through the Revolution dry dock until April 2020 so it won't have the suites-only Retreat Deck for your cruise. But don't worry about that...you're gonna get spoiled big time. Enjoy.

 

1 hour ago, Gordoncruickshank said:

I think you may have meant Wi-fi.

If his wife is like mine, she is definitely considered a perk.  

[groryjm]

1 minute ago, bob278 said:

 

If his wife is like mine, she is definitely considered a perk.  

my DW is definitely a perk .......LOL 

 

Also talk to Michaels club host... There is always a chance of dinner with a senior officer at Tuscan 😎 . I don't know whether he will be back by then but Jamie Pett excellent host

[cynbar]

Do a search and you can easily find the Luminae menus. Plus, as mentioned above, you can also order anything off that day's MDR menu. Food and service and ambiance in Luminae are definitely several cuts above eating in the MDR. Another option to consider is you can have your butler serve you dinner in your suite. I believe you can only order from the MDR menu for this (someone will correct me if I'm wrong!), but it's a nice experience. Your butler will set up a table for you and bring it course by course --- very nice, especially while in port or during sail away. 

[George C]

Luminae is a nice restaurant with excellent service but limited menu , after a few nights there we booked specialty restaurant Tuscan grill a couple of times. 

[tbugstwo]

The Alaskan cruise the OP is taking is only 7 days long.  How anyone can not find enough options on Luminae dinner menus for that number of days is something I don’t understand. But, to each their own.

That said, however, I agree that Tuscan Grill is a great venue.  Since my next cruise is in Royal Suite on Reflection which has the most specialty restaurants, I will probably only dine in Luminae once or twice.  But, absent the “free” specialty restaurant meals that come with the Royal Suite, I would be very happy to dine every one of my 11 nights in Luminae.

[groryjm]

I have included the menus here and generally they run them in order ie 1 the first night , 2 the second etc. The speciality restaurants have the same menu every night and for a personal view point I have become bored with Tuscan.

 

Don't rely on the descriptions as the dishes are usually far better than they sound

 

 luminaemenus.pdf

[chemmo]

In our experience the Luminae menus are not in number order. However, if you ask the Luminae M’D on boarding he/she will print out the menu’s for the cruise for you then you can use that information to help you decide when to dine in Luminae and when to dine elsewhere.

 

Totally agree with Groryjm about the menu descriptions, when we first cruised in Luminae we needed to ask what to expect on the plate! Whilst we love the service level in Luminae we do wish they had a wider choice of entree’s. Why pay extra for a suite restaurant and then have to resort to the MDR menu to supplement?

[Gordoncruickshank]

58 minutes ago, chemmo said:

In our experience the Luminae menus are not in number order. However, if you ask the Luminae M’D on boarding he/she will print out the menu’s for the cruise for you then you can use that information to help you decide when to dine in Luminae and when to dine elsewhere.

The menus are numbered but they use which ones they want on a cruise of less than 14 days and even on a 14 day cruise you have to check about the order they are being used. We got a set printed off a number of years ago and always take them once we find which ones they are using. 

[niborHS]

I haven't checked this thread it a while, but thanks so much for posting the menus. I will have an easier time finding something I enjoy than my husband will I think, but we will hope for the best. Thanks for the tip about asking to have the menus printed out. As far as the descriptions, being a foodie from NY, it's normal for me.