What night is best for Chef's Table? 7 night Celebration

[the2006Junket]

Hi all, we're interested in trying a Chef's Table experience for the first time on our 3/26/23 sailing on the Celebration to Amber Cove, SJU and STT.  There are two sea days and two Elegant nights.  When do you enjoy having your Chef's Table experience?

 

Any other feedback or thoughts on the Chef's Table experience on the Celebration would be welcome!    

 

Lynne

[hapytobehr]

I haven't done the chef's table on the Celebration but I have on other ships.

 

It's entirely up to you what night you prefer.  If you dress for elegant night, you might not want to do it then because you tour the the galley so you want to be comfortable.

 

It's a wonderful experience that everyone should try once! There are many courses (small portions) but you will be stuffed by the end!

 

We happen to be going on this cruise as well.

 

The ship is awesome!

 

Enjoy!

[sgttami]

The last time I did Chef's Table, you didn't have a choice since it was only one night on a 7 day cruise.

 

This was on Pride in 2019 and I think it was a casual night on Tuesday, the 3rd day of the cruise and a sea day.

[Mic101680]

If you have a choice, I would recommend trying to find some recent Fun Times schedules and choose a night with evening activities you won't mind missing since the Chef's Table takes about 3 hours. Also think about port days - what time would you need to be back on the ship? What kind of excursions do you have planned (if any?) You may not want to have a long drawn out dinner after being in the sun on the beach all day. (But then again, you might be fine with that, but either way, something to think about).

[tschwa2]

I doubt you will have a choice.  I think for a 7 night cruise they look at how many have signed up by embarkation day and then only have 1 or 2 per cruise and they tell you when.  It the day doesn't work for you, you can cancel up to 24 hrs without a fee or with a fee within 24 hours.  I sailed on one that was scheduled on a day that ended up being very rough and about a 1/4 cancelled because of sea sickness and they didn't charge for that.  I almost cancelled but was glad I did not.  

[DPTexas]

We try to schedule the CT with each cruise because it is a wonderful dining experience!   We usually aren't offered a choice of nights and most times it seems we are booked on the first elegant night (the 2nd night) - which is fine with us because we like to dress up for the CT.   We've never done it on the Celebration, but recently experienced it on the Panorama in January.   There are anywhere from 10-14 people per session.  The booking is confirmed by a letter and forms to fill out delivered to your cabin and then a follow-up reconfirmation the day before by a phone call to your cabin.  The appetizers and tour in the kitchen are always a great start to the dinner.  Including the appetizers, you will be served 7-8 courses, so pace yourselves b/c it is a lot of delicious food.  The Chef explains each course which adds to the experience and usually has a "Q&A" session, too.  The questions mainly centered on provisions like "how many eggs does the ship go through during a cruise?", and his culinary background and experience.  There is an intermission with a magic act in the dining room and then a demonstration in the kitchen on how they make the melting chocolate cake.  You will each receive a personal menu to keep, a photograph of the group and a recipe for the melting chocolate cake. There may be up to 6-7 servers who help during the dinner, although on another cruise there were only 4-5.  This info is helpful (to us) because we usually leave an extra tip for each server after the dinner.   In our opinion, it is well-worth the expense and 2.5 to 3 hours of very fine dining.

Hope you enjoy it!