DINING ADVICE FOR CELEBRITY ECLIPSE

[aussietwo]

Trying to get my head around DINING on CELEBRITY ECLIPSE.  Our family have booked three cabins which have all been linked.  I am not sure whether that means we all eat together? OR do we get to choose from day to day where we eat and whether we all eat together or not?   Is it  good idea to make reservations before boarding?   What are meals like in the Main Dining restaurant?  

Thanks in advance for your responses and comments. Ros🙂

[cruisestitch]

Do you have Select Dining or Early or Late Fixed dining?

[aidanht]

And are you in a suite or in Aqua class or neither, as that will change the answer as well.

[NutsAboutGolf]

Also, since sometimes people bring kids, how many people total including yourself in your party are there?

[Redtravel]

Call customer service.  Usually when I cruise with family or friends, we request a set time for a table that we can share.  

[aussietwo]

Thanks for your replies.  I am assuming we have Select Dining.  We are all booked into regular verandah cabins on floor 6.  We are a family group.  We the grandparents, our daughter son-in-law and their 3 children aged 16, 14 and 10.  While we will want to eat together sometimes, we will want to eat separately other times.  Does Select Dining allow us to do that?  What is the purpose of linking cabins?  
 

I would like some comments on eating in the Main Dining restaurant. How good is the food.   How slow will the service be for a table of 7.  Cheers Ros🙂

[upwarduk]

1 hour ago, aussietwo said:

How slow will the service be for a table of 7.

 Depends on the number of waiters who are employed.

In normal times there was a waiter and assistant for your table, but some ships are having staffing problems, so only a waiter is assigned to the table.

[prmssk]

2 hours ago, aussietwo said:

Thanks for your replies.  I am assuming we have Select Dining.  We are all booked into regular verandah cabins on floor 6.  We are a family group.  We the grandparents, our daughter son-in-law and their 3 children aged 16, 14 and 10.  While we will want to eat together sometimes, we will want to eat separately other times.  Does Select Dining allow us to do that?  What is the purpose of linking cabins?  
 

I would like some comments on eating in the Main Dining restaurant. How good is the food.   How slow will the service be for a table of 7.  Cheers Ros🙂

Link your bookings through the app or website (you will need reservation numbers for each cabin) and then you will be able to make select dining reservations for everyone on the days you want to all eat together (and can make dining reservations for a smaller group if needed).  You can also just show up to dining and wait for an open table but with a group that size, it probably would be better to have a reservation.

 

We personally really enjoy the main dining room and find the food to be generally quite good.  It is a multi-course meal so it is never super fast.  If you all arrive on time, I have not found a table of 8 to be all that much slower than a table for 2.  The bigger factor is how overwhelmed the wait staff is.

[aussietwo]

7 hours ago, prmssk said:

Link your bookings through the app or website (you will need reservation numbers for each cabin) and then you will be able to make select dining reservations for everyone on the days you want to all eat together (and can make dining reservations for a smaller group if needed).  You can also just show up to dining and wait for an open table but with a group that size, it probably would be better to have a reservation.

 

We personally really enjoy the main dining room and find the food to be generally quite good.  It is a multi-course meal so it is never super fast.  If you all arrive on time, I have not found a table of 8 to be all that much slower than a table for 2.  The bigger factor is how overwhelmed the wait staff is.

Thank you your response is most helpful.  What is Celebrity’s policy for bringing wine onboard.  What is the corkage fee?  Are there any clubs for 10 to 16 years age group?

Cheers Ros🙂

 

[cruisestitch]

Two bottles per person (adult person that is) can be brought aboard at embarkation.  If enjoyed in the stateroom there is no corkage.  If taken unopened to the dining room tgere may or may not be corkage charged depending on if you have a drinks package or not.

 

main dining room dinners usually last one and a half or two hours.

 

check your booking reservation form to see if you have Select, Early or Late dining.  Or consult your travel agent.

[aussietwo]

13 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

Two bottles per person (adult person that is) can be brought aboard at embarkation.  If enjoyed in the stateroom there is no corkage.  If taken unopened to the dining room tgere may or may not be corkage charged depending on if you have a drinks package or not.

 

main dining room dinners usually last one and a half or two hours.

 

check your booking reservation form to see if you have Select, Early or Late dining.  Or consult your travel agent.

Thx.  We have Select which seems perfect for what we would like.  I have a good offer to upgrade to Concierge level.  I am interested on thoughts about the bedding - is it more comfortable in Concierge.  I have arthritis.  Thoughts please?  Cheers Ros?

[Northern Aurora]

After reading this thread Select (which is Celebrity's term for anytime dining) should work well for you.  

 

While our OP is changing the topic when asking about Concierge Class staterooms the bedding is not either more or less comfortable.  If you don't find the bed comfortable then tell the stateroom attendant.  The stateroom attendants have all sorts of "tricks of the trade" to make beds more suitable for their passengers such as egg crate mattress pads and so forth.  The ship is stocked with a variety of pillow types and anyone can ask for different pillows than what they find on the beds when first boarding.   

[aussietwo]

5 hours ago, Northern Aurora said:

 

Thanks - back to my Dining Issues.  Just tried to make a restaurant booking and was unable to do so because two of our cabins were booked from the USA and the other one from Australia.   I got a message that it was due to booking in different currency.  Has anyone encountered this problem before and if so were you able to get around it.  
 

May have to see the Maître d’ when we board.  Where will we locate the Maître d’ 

Cheers Ros🙂

[Wombat706]

20 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

Two bottles per person (adult person that is) can be brought aboard at embarkation.  If enjoyed in the stateroom there is no corkage.  If taken unopened to the dining room tgere may or may not be corkage charged depending on if you have a drinks package or not.

 

main dining room dinners usually last one and a half or two hours.

 

check your booking reservation form to see if you have Select, Early or Late dining.  Or consult your travel agent.

 

If you have purchased your cruise in Australia, the Alcoholic Beverage Policy (section 9) in the Terms and Conditions for bringing alcohol onboard is "Guests can now take on board the ship, two bottles of wine per stateroom on the first day of embarkation only." and "Only staterooms with at least one (1) guest meeting the minimum age to consume alcohol are eligible to bring bottles of wine or champagne onboard.  If the wine is consumed in a public area, we charge a corkage fee of US$25 per bottle."

 

cheers

Wombat

[cdn_tbird]

2 hours ago, aussietwo said:

 

Thanks - back to my Dining Issues.  Just tried to make a restaurant booking and was unable to do so because two of our cabins were booked from the USA and the other one from Australia.   I got a message that it was due to booking in different currency.  Has anyone encountered this problem before and if so were you able to get around it.  
 

May have to see the Maître d’ when we board.  Where will we locate the Maître d’ 

Cheers Ros🙂

We were on the Eclipse at the end of Aug. Service in the main dining room was a little slow due to staffing issue but nothing that we would have complained about. We enjoyed our meals there and the wait staff was just as attentive as always.

 

On the first day you'll find the maitre'd located just outside the main dining room on the 3rd floor.

[aussietwo]

57 minutes ago, Wombat706 said:

 

If you have purchased your cruise in Australia, the Alcoholic Beverage Policy (section 9) in the Terms and Conditions for bringing alcohol onboard is "Guests can now take on board the ship, two bottles of wine per stateroom on the first day of embarkation only." and "Only staterooms with at least one (1) guest meeting the minimum age to consume alcohol are eligible to bring bottles of wine or champagne onboard.  If the wine is consumed in a public area, we charge a corkage fee of US$25 per bottle."

 

cheers

Wombat

Thanks Wombat.  Love Bowral have a friend there.  Can that be any type of alcohol, I assume bottle, or only wine?  When you board do you take the wine straight on with you or do they hold it and deliver to your cabin later?  Cheers Ros🙂

[Northern Aurora]

Ros:  The two bottle policy is restricted to wine.  Not two bottles of gin or some other "hard" alcohol.  But, at least for bookings in North America and Europe, Celebrity has been moving to including alcohol beverage packages (either the Classic or Premium) with bookings.  Do you have a beverage package with your booking?  We will be doing a B2B2B2B in Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific waters starting in March, and all four sailings include beverage packages.  

[aussietwo]

37 minutes ago, Northern Aurora said:

Ros:  The two bottle policy is restricted to wine.  Not two bottles of gin or some other "hard" alcohol.  But, at least for bookings in North America and Europe, Celebrity has been moving to including alcohol beverage packages (either the Classic or Premium) with bookings.  Do you have a beverage package with your booking?  We will be doing a B2B2B2B in Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific waters starting in March, and all four sailings include beverage packages.  

Those cruises look incredibly cheap.  Are you doing Australia/NZ twice BTB?  

[Mark_T]

8 hours ago, Wombat706 said:

 

If you have purchased your cruise in Australia, the Alcoholic Beverage Policy (section 9) in the Terms and Conditions for bringing alcohol onboard is "Guests can now take on board the ship, two bottles of wine per stateroom on the first day of embarkation only." and "Only staterooms with at least one (1) guest meeting the minimum age to consume alcohol are eligible to bring bottles of wine or champagne onboard.  If the wine is consumed in a public area, we charge a corkage fee of US$25 per bottle."

 

cheers

Wombat

Just to add to the confusion, the FAQ section under 'alcohol policy' (https://www.celebritycruises.com/au/faqs/all-faqs) you'll find this:

 

[Wombat706]

The only consistency in the alcohol policy is its' inconsistency.  FAQ's can be more of a 'cut and paste' from the parent pages (Mark_T - thank you for pasting the link to the AU FAQs) and obviously contradicts the Terms and Conditions, but which would be enforced by security on embarkation?

Bring the wine onboard personally with/in your carry on.

From memory, in Sydney, carry on is screened in the terminal and the staff there are not Celebrity but contractors who work with many of the cruise lines, so I'm not sure what 'policy' they work with.

[Mark_T]

Elsewhere the revised policy has been followed with a little occasional nudging based on other reports.

 

The change to remove the corkage fee for those with one of the alcohol packages should be easy to sort out onboard though if not everyone got the memo...

[aussietwo]

Boarding the Eclipse is now only 2 days away and I thank everyone for their good advice.   I noticed today that there are still 146 cabins still available mainly MIDSHIP on floors 7 & 8 and some on 9.   I wonder why this would be the case.   I am aware that Celebrity do have an upsell, but is it possible to upgrade when checking in on embarkment day.  

[TMLAalum]

@aussietwo

Sometimes cabins are blocked out for a travel agency. At this point I'd suggest just staying put in your deck 6 cabins because IMHO why add additional stress to the day you board the Eclipse especially if you need to see the Maitre'd to join your group together for dining. Not sure if the check-in agents could move you anyway and if not, you'd have to go to Guest Relations. If you stick to where you're at, you will get the "key" to your cabin and be able to drop your carryons off there while you have lunch. Otherwise, you'll be schlepping.

We've stayed in a variety of Deck 6 veranda cabins on the Eclipse and even the 2D with a big lifeboat blocking some of the view was fine.