Eating in BLU everyday?!

We are thinking of booking AQ on next cruise vs CC. What do you think of BLU as compared to Speciality Restaurants and would you eat in BLU every evening on a 14 day cruise?

Have you ever eaten in Blu before? I only ask because we had not - but had thought about trying Aqua. When we had a suite we gave it a try and found that it was not for us. Breakfast was an A experience - dinner was a C+ - while on the same cruise the select dining room was a solid B. I'd hesitate to commit to 14 days without trying Blu first as you may, as we did, find it wasn't for you.

We are thinking of booking AQ on next cruise vs CC. What do you think of BLU as compared to Speciality Restaurants and would you eat in BLU every evening on a 14 day cruise?

We did it on a 15-day TA. We considered Blu our own specialty restaurant.

We enjoy Blu for its smaller venue, elegant ambiance and decor, and attentive service. Honestly, we sometimes struggle to find something we want on the dinner menu, but that is true of the MDR also. If you are in AQ, Blu is your assigned dining room. It may be possible to request to eat in the MDR on occasion, but this is arranged by the maitre d'. Some posters have reported an issue with this, others have not, it likely depends on how full the different MDR options are. I would probably schedule a couple of nights in a specialty restaurant on a long cruise, maybe even the buffet on occasion, rather than eat 14 nights straight in Blu. Others I am sure will disagree, Blu does have its devoted fans.

Have you ever eaten in Blu before? I only ask because we had not - but had thought about trying Aqua. When we had a suite we gave it a try and found that it was not for us. Breakfast was an A experience - dinner was a C+ - while on the same cruise the select dining room was a solid B. I'd hesitate to commit to 14 days without trying Blu first as you may, as we did, find it wasn't for you.

No we have never eaten in BLU as we are considering moving up the cabin food chain. Most of our cruises have been in CC.

Blu is a wonderful venue yet I know for myself I could not have dinner in the same dining venue for 14 nights straight. We enjoy a change from time to time with specialty or just some bites from the buffet.

We are sure we would also not want to eat in BLU everyday and if that is the sole benefit of the AQ class that we base our decision on, it would seem we are paying an upgrade cost that would cover a Speciality Restaurant each night.

If you were in CC, would you feel you missed something if as way of example, counted BLU as a speciality restaurant and did not eat there, but did eat at the other specialty restaurants most nights with 1-2 in MDR and 1-2 in Buffett area.

No we have never eaten in BLU as we are considering moving up the cabin food chain. Most of our cruises have been in CC.

We usually travel in CC - and the one suite that we tried and of course loved. 14 days might be a long cruise if you find Blu not to your liking. I'll admit we only ate there for 1 dinner but the service was very slow and the food was bland although the breakfasts were wonderful - we went 2 or 3 times. You'll get the Blue lovers but I just want to point out that not everyone likes Blu. I'd be trying it on a shorter cruise - just my humble opinion.

Eating in specialty restaurants every night would be somewhat akin to booking Aqua but you wouldn't get the wonderful breakfast.

We are fans of AQ and Blu. Up next we are cruising 7, 5 and 9 nights

We eat breakfast in BLU most days (everything hot, fresh, made to order) unless we want a change of pace like waffles, available at the buffet,need to get off the ship super early or want to visit to MDR ...which is usually slower b/c they wait to fill up a table before taking orders. Some days we eat in BLU for breakfast but also stop in to the Elite coffee for a special ciffee and nice aft view if held in Tuscan

For dinners, we also switch out from BLU for one or two specialty rest nights, and one night off at the buffet or rm svc, Bistro on 5.....some nights the menus are more appealing than others. We like the service, food selection and prep, ambiance and flexibility of BLU dining and feel it is a specialty restaurant in its own right..,,

Specialty restaurants are all diff...fun and great beef at Lawn Club Grill, more upscale at Muranos, love the wake view at Tuscan, etc.

OPs 14 days is a long cruise so every night in BLU might get a bit stale for us..for our 5 day we'll do every night in Blu..on the others we'll switch out ,great to have choices!

We are fans of AQ and Blu. Up next we are cruising 7, 5 and 9 nights

 

We eat breakfast in BLU most days (everything hot, fresh, made to order) unless we want a change of pace like waffles, available at the buffet,need to get off the ship super early or want to visit to MDR ...which is usually slower b/c they wait to fill up a table before taking orders. Some days we eat in BLU for breakfast but also stop in to the Elite coffee for a special ciffee and nice aft view if held in Tuscan

 

For dinners, we also switch out from BLU for one or two specialty rest nights, and one night off at the buffet or rm svc, Bistro on 5.....some nights the menus are more appealing than others. We like the service, food selection and prep, ambiance and flexibility of BLU dining and feel it is a specialty restaurant in its own right..,,

 

Specialty restaurants are all diff...fun and great beef at Lawn Club Grill, more upscale at Muranos, love the wake view at Tuscan, etc.

 

OPs 14 days is a long cruise so every night in BLU might get a bit stale for us..,great to have choices!

Good point on the length of cruise to book AQ for first time. Everything else you mentioned, I think, could be done from a std veranda or CC. We are Elite level in Captain's Club.

We too like variety and that may be our reference point. On a short cruise, try AQ, on longer cruises, not pay for any upgrade that we will not use as much as we are paying for it to create a positive value proposition.

Hi

We've just come off Equinox after 13 nights in Aqua class. We ate in Blu most nights, except for a visit to Murano and another to the Oceanview buffet as we fancied a change. The Blu menu changes daily so there is no feeling of "sameness" if you eat there every night. It is a lovely venue and the staff are great. Blu also does a good breakfast if you don't fancy the milling throng upstairs.

OD

DW and I have eaten totally in Blue for breakfast and dinner for our past three X cruises and have enjoyed the experience. We look forward to Blu this upcoming January.

Since many people regard the benefits of CC as essentialy meaningless, a good compromise might be to book a standard veranda and use the savings to buy the ultimate dining package or one of the specialty restaurant packages

There are other amenities in AQ. On S-Class Persian Gardens is a wonderful place to take 5 and we enjoy this. We also enjoy the bottled water in the cabin and the flavored teas.

Along with the Breakfasts in Blu.

Since many people regard the benefits of CC as essentialy meaningless, a good compromise might be to book a standard veranda and use the savings to buy the ultimate dining package or one of the specialty restaurant packages

I won't argue that many of the benefits of CC are meaningless but many of us book it to get those aft cabins :D - which for us is worth the cost!

Since many people regard the benefits of CC as essentialy meaningless, a good compromise might be to book a standard veranda and use the savings to buy the ultimate dining package or one of the specialty restaurant packages

Sometimes the price difference between basic veranda and AQ is almost negligible. We are paying only $100 per person for AQ over a basic veranda for a 11 night cruise. The ultimate dining package would cost more than the $100.

I would do AQ for the 14 nighter and go to other venues a couple of nights.

We loved Blu and are there every night except the first night on our last cruise.

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We are big fans of Blu. On our last few cruises aboard X we have been in either Aqua Class or the Penthouse and have really enjoyed our dinners and breakfasts in Blu. We loved the waiters, the service was excellent, and the food variety, in our opinion was fine. We ate every night in Blu on 14, 10, and 12 night cruises and really enjoyed it.

DW and I have eaten totally in Blue for breakfast and dinner for our past three X cruises and have enjoyed the experience. We look forward to Blu this upcoming January.

I think one of the most unrecognized benefits of Blu is the breakfast...where you have a very wide number of choices and the food arrives together and hot.....vs the buffet or other venues.

Since we have been booking Aqua, we don't have the urge to eat in the specialty restaurants except as a change of pace. We actually find the meals in Tuscan and Murano too rich (and fattening). On a couple of cruises, we decided to try the MDR just to reaffirm that Blu was worth it...and we found that we both really disliked the noise level, the constant rush of waiters/busboys/etc past our table (which somehow doesn't happen in blu) and the highly variable service between courses.

The only disadvantage we've found is that Blu, like your local restaurant has a fixed set of menus that they rotate....so if you eat in blu for a number of cruises, you can get tired of some of the menus. After 6 or 7 cruises in Blu, we've memorized some of the menus :)

I won't argue that many of the benefits of CC are meaningless but many of us book it to get those aft cabins :D - which for us is worth the cost!

We too have enjoyed aft cabins on M class for 14/15 day caribbean cruises where we had a good number of sea days. Have not booked aft/stern cabins on S class.

We strayed from AQ or suite to SV once. The saddest thing was watching my husband stand outside Blu in the mornings asking me why we couldn't go in there.

The menu is fine for breakfast, but what we really like is the restaurant. Cozy, not overwhelming and we perceive the service to be faster than MDR for breakfast and there isn't the crazy find a seat confusion of Oceanview. We would like oceanview more often if there was not such a table issue.

We have eaten in Blu for dinner enough to not be excited by the menu except for a few items. It's completely irrational, but I find the appearance of duck so frequent on the menu to annoy me. There are service cuts now too, so dinner is B minus for us.

Blu is great. Normally go to Murano on the first night if the 50% discount

Is offered on board. All other nights and breakfast in Blu.

We are thinking of booking AQ on next cruise vs CC. What do you think of BLU as compared to Speciality Restaurants and would you eat in BLU every evening on a 14 day cruise?

We tried BLU on a 7 night cruise. We usually book a CC cabin. To be honest even though we are elite on X, we have not been that pleased with the MDR on the newest ships for sure, Eclipse, Equinox. We have never thought X does a good job handling requests for off menu items in the MDR. (By comparison Princess, HAL and Cunard are much better with off menu requests.)

We book cruises for the itinerary vs food, so we are on the Silhouette next month.

X did better in BLU but not outstanding. Given the difference in costs, we elected to simply book a balcony cabin on our 14 night cruise on the Silhouette in the eastern Mediterranean. We plan to eat in the buffet the entire cruise, we prefer that to the MDR or BLU on X.

I did look at menus on line for BLU and the SR venues ... did not feel the offering fit our tastes.

Hope OP does not judge by just reading the menus....many items are much better than their descriptions..and less salty, fried and fatty than general MDR menu.. wish I could post photos from my tablet!

next time we book a shorter cruise we might consider Concierge Class with specialty rest package....but have to weigh loss of other AQ perks too! Hard to forego for us...

We are new to Celebrity and will do 3 cruises Jan-March, 2016. On other ships, we could go to MDR for breakfast and order our food, as opposed going to the buffet upstairs. The only buffets we ever enjoyed were on Azamara and Oceania and the ships only held 670+- passengers, so it was still very nice and not overwhelming. Appreciate an answer to. Thank you.