Apex Dining

[Trixie21]

First time on Celebrity next year - we have the Apex booked (couldn't decide between Sky Princess and Celebrity Apex so booked both lol)

I have read a bit on various threads about dining on Edge class. 4 main dining rooms- part of the menu the same in each , part unique to that dining room (correct me if I am wrong about anything please).

Does anyone have a link to the menus in the 4 main dining rooms?.

And I have read that you can actually get items off any of the menus in any of the dining rooms - is that correct and if so how does that work? Do you have to ask for the menus for the other dining rooms ?

I have read conflicting information about seating - my booking showed an option for select , early or late. Does that actually exist? We chose early 6pm as that is our preferred time for dinner , but someone said on the beyond that there is only select dining - are the 2 ships different?

[Miaminice]

You are correct:
Same rotating menu in all four dining rooms PLUS the regular daily classics PLUS singature items based on the theme of the restaurant. Menus can be found on the website or the app.

Usually you can have dishes of one restaurant in the other. However, during peak times I heard them kindly refusing to do it. The are still dealing with a lack of staff.

Early/late dining doesn´t exist on E-class anymore. They gave up on it after a while. It´s still in the IT system but not practised on the ships. You go any time you want. On all the E-class ships.

BTW: the four dining rooms IMHO are a huge improvement over the big MDR on other ships and one of the great features of E-class. Love Apex - sailed on her 4 times - so enjoy!

Edited August 6, 2023 by Miaminice

[jelayne]

You can make dining reservation in the app or online before sailing.  They do not do reservations to capacity, so if the time you want is not available that doesn’t mean the dining room is full. They keep a lot of tables unreserved for walk up guests.

[kwokpot]

4 hours ago, Miaminice said:

Early/late dining doesn´t exist on E-class anymore. They gave up on it after a while. It´s still in the IT system but not practised on the ships. You go any time you want. On all the E-class ships

To add to this confusion it is no longer the case on the Apex. They did indeed have fixed early and late dining. Attached is a photo of the daily planner from last months Apex Iceland sailing.

[Trixie21]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

To add to this confusion it is no longer the case on the Apex. They did indeed have fixed early and late dining. Attached is a photo of the daily planner from last months Apex Iceland sailing.

That makes sense because I had the option of choosing between early , late or anytime when booking.

[keesar]

3 hours ago, Trixie21 said:

That makes sense because I had the option of choosing between early , late or anytime when booking.

We had that option precruise on the Beyond-- but once on board, it was Anytime Dining in the 4 MDRs on. our cruise.

[Miaminice]

11 hours ago, Trixie21 said:

That makes sense because I had the option of choosing between early , late or anytime when booking.

You also have that option when you book Aqua - and Blu doesn’t have seatings.

it just shows the inaccuracies in their IT system. 
 

Celebrity stopped seatings on E-class because people were assigned a specific dining room when booking early or late. And of course that created a lot of work because guests wanted to change and also enjoy the variety.

 

Anyway… if you prefer 6pm then choose 6 pm and/or just go at 6 pm if it’s anytime dining. No problem.

Edited August 7, 2023 by Miaminice

[Miaminice]

12 hours ago, kwokpot said:

To add to this confusion it is no longer the case on the Apex. They did indeed have fixed early and late dining. Attached is a photo of the daily planner from last months Apex Iceland sailing.

 

When we sailed on Apex last time in October 2022 this was printed in the daily program. But there were no seatings. People who wanted to change early to late or late to early on the first day where told not to worry as there are no more seatings.

 

it seems the times in the program are just as inaccurate as their IT system.

[kwokpot]

9 hours ago, Miaminice said:

 

When we sailed on Apex last time in October 2022 this was printed in the daily program. But there were no seatings. People who wanted to change early to late or late to early on the first day where told not to worry as there are no more seatings.

 

it seems the times in the program are just as inaccurate as their IT system.

I had made precruise reservations and didn't inquiry about further about the fixed early and late seatings so I honestly can't confirm whether it's actually the case. I only saw it posted every day in the planner, which WASN'T the case last October on the Beyond when there definitely wasn't fixed early and late dinner seatings either printed or in practice. . 

[terrydtx]

23 hours ago, kwokpot said:

To add to this confusion it is no longer the case on the Apex. They did indeed have fixed early and late dining. Attached is a photo of the daily planner from last months Apex Iceland sailing.

The Dailey shows Main Restaurants. #3 & 4 what happened to 1 & 2?

[kwokpot]

1 minute ago, terrydtx said:

The Dailey shows Main Restaurants. #3 & 4 what happened to 1 & 2?

That's referring to DECKS 3 & 4, not the particular MDR.

[Skvega]

On 8/6/2023 at 6:47 AM, Miaminice said:

 

BTW: the four dining rooms IMHO are a huge improvement over the big MDR on other ships and one of the great features of E-class. Love Apex - sailed on her 4 times - so enjoy!

Question -  I have been told when you have early/late seating you are assigned to a dining room. What if I don’t want to be in the French dining room every night. What if I want to go to the Italian one and then try another one?  Will they let me?

[Miaminice]

3 hours ago, Skvega said:

Question -  I have been told when you have early/late seating you are assigned to a dining room. What if I don’t want to be in the French dining room every night. What if I want to go to the Italian one and then try another one?  Will they let me?

This is the way it used to be. I think it’s one of the reasons why they stopped doing the early – late seatings on E class.

 

of course you were able to change. However, it wasn’t as easy as select dining.

[Esmerelda]

We are booked on the Apex in the spring of 2024, we were only given the 'anytime' option.  There wasn't an early or late option.  This works well for us, we would rather go when we want too. 

[doghog]

We were on the Apex in March 2023. Reserved Select Dining for 6:00 PM each evening prior to the cruise. Once onboard we were advised no TD and no reservations for SD. But the Maitre D put us in the system for 6:PM as we also requested the same (location) two top each evening in the same MDR. We weren't interested in switching MDRs as all menus are available at all four MDRs. Personal preference.