Dining options on Connie

[gracecarmo]

Has anyone ever requested not to have a table in the main dining room for dinner, but eat their meals either in the Specialty restaurant, alternative informal restaurant on deck 10, Spa cuisine, or any of the other eating venues? We are not trying to get out of paying the waiters...we do the automatic tipping routine.

I would think that this could be much like "Anytime Dining"? For us...there is just too much food! If we did take a table in the DR, it may be taken as rude of us to not show up several times.

Comments anyone? Pro and con....

[mii]

Grace we have done that on our past Constellation cruise. Of course we had to pick a dining time so we picked late-seating. Then once on board we went to the maitre-de which is on sailaway in the Explorers Lounge. They do tell you where to go if you want to change seating. There is a little card in your cabin. Anyway we did that so that someone could have our seats. We were on a 11 nite cruise, we ate in speciality restaurants, a number of times in the casual dining, had pasts and salad a few times, pizza, and one time we had hamburgers off of the grill. It worked out great. As for tipping that time we did the automatic and it worked out great.

 

marilyn

[mii]

Grace we have done that on our past Constellation cruise. Of course we had to pick a dining time so we picked late-seating. Then once on board we went to the maitre-de which is on sailaway in the Explorers Lounge. They do tell you where to go if you want to change seating. There is a little card in your cabin. Anyway we did that so that someone could have our seats. We were on a 11 nite cruise, we ate in speciality restaurants, a number of times in the casual dining, had pasts and salad a few times, pizza, and one time we had hamburgers off of the grill. It worked out great. As for tipping that time we did the automatic and it worked out great.

 

marilyn

[mii]

oops double post. This dang site.

 

Marilyn

[catmand]

Since the boards actually seem to be moving now I thought I'd post..:D I should mention we really enjoy the main dining room, just think this is going to work better for this cruise.

Grace, AkaWanda and I will be doing this when we sail Alaska in May. We happen to be sailing with Mii and her DH as well as another couple from a past cruise. Since Marilyn and Pat have already done the "alternative" and the other couple like to sit main (which is just too early for us) we are going to "wing it." I think between the casual dining in the buffet area, sushi, pasta, the "lite" menu, the grill for burgers etc. and room service (and yes, you can order off the dining room menu) as well as the SS United States we will have plenty to choose from.

We will be letting the staff know upon boarding and also make sure tips go to the appropriate people.

We want to do this because we are doing 9 ports in 12 nights in Alaska and B.C. and don't want to waddle out of the dining room at 10:30-10:45 like we have in the past.

Now, we are sailing a Trans Atlantic in September along with many friends, that cruise we will sit late in the main dining room as it is completely different circumstances.

Chuck

[Host Kewlguy]

If I'm eating every meal in the specialty restaurant I'm not going to leave any tips to the servers in the main dining room.

[BEAV]

We sailed an 8-night Transatlantic last year on Connie. It was 7 sea days, followed by one port at the end of the cruise. Since it was a leisurely cruise without a lot of days of touring, we decided to dine exclusively in the specialty restaurant. We made no advance reservations, but rather asked upon boarding if we could dine exclusively. The waiter handling reservations in the Explorer's lounge called down to the restaurant and told the maitre'd of our request. He then sent us downstairs where the maitre'd greeted us, gave us a tour of the restaurant and told us to pick out the table we wanted.

 

Needless to say, dining on this particular sailing was a high point of the cruise.

 

On a longer, more port intensive cruise, I doubt I'd do this again. I'm sure there would be days you wouldn't feel like such a "production" at dinner after having toured in port all day. But for a unique sailing such as this, the experience was the icing on the cake.

 

I should also mention when you dine exclusively in the specialty restaurant, they start offering you off-the-menu items after about the 3rd or 4th night.

[gracecarmo]

Thanks to all that responded...I think this is the way we will go. This last cruise, (Panama Canal, 14 day) we were pretty tired of the main dining room routine, even though we ate in the Specialty, Alternative, and had the special buffet one night in Panama.

I guess we can't request this ahead of time through our TA, but once on board?

[Host Kewlguy]

Celebrity allows Captain's Club members to make one reservation to the specialty restaurant before you board the ship.

[catmand]

I hope you all don't mind if I add a couple of things here (it ain't my thread..:D )

I don't think the op was asking about dining in the specialty restaurant every night. While that would be a wonderful experience as BEAV mentioned it would be just as time consuming and calorie laden as the main dining room.

 

There is no way to opt out of the dining room prior to boarding the ship. As Marilyn said (or maybe she didn't) when they went to let them know, the staff was surprised they "bothered." I called Celebrity last year and spoke with several people about setting this up prior to boarding so as not to be taking up a spot someone else may be able to use, they had no way to do this nor did they seem to care.