New to Celebrity - lots of questions.

[CruiseBaby2012]

4 hours ago, cangelmd said:

Discounts on dining are a bit of a crap shoot on Celebrity because it really depends on the passenger load on the restaurants, which can be related to occupancy, amount of onboard credit floating around and how much people want to do specialty dining. Changes a lot cruise to cruise.

The absolute lowest rate we ever got was first night discount (2 for 1, after we walked away from first offer and we were in Aqua class) on La Petite Chef on a TA. First night discounts in general are the biggest reductions, because specialties struggle fill first night.

Packages bought ahead are a good compromise money wise - I think the 30-35% discount is pretty close to what you will get onboard, and you can make at least some reservations up front. Downside is that the times, especially those offered online before sailing, are not the best. If you wait to buy onboard, you may not get the absolute lowest discount than following the sales, but you have made a friend for life from the crew that sold it to you, they get a little cut. When we’ve bought a package, we plan ahead where we want to eat which night, then once we board first stop, after picking up our champagne glass, is to go to Murano or Tuscan and make all our reservations. We aren’t picky about times, so it works for us.

The main time we deviated from this plan was on an Edge Valentines cruise. We wanted an early Fine Cut dinner for Valentine’s Day, and knew we wanted dinner in Eden also AND hit all the MDRs. We factored in no discounts on Valentine’s Day, so just made all single reservations months before sailing.

Hope this helps.

 

I like your plan!  I think we’ll do the same.  And we are sailing on Valentine’s Day, so will book the Tuscan Grill (which is offered at a discount) for that night.  Thank you for your excellent advice!