Aqua passengers - Is Blu less crowded now that Luminae is open?

There has been lots of discussion about Luminae - quality of meals, frequency of meals, hours of meals, etc. but , since we cruise in Aqua, the one thing I was most interested in has never come up.

Is Blu less crowded now that suite passengers have their own dining room.

Please, please, please limit this discussion to that. I know there are lots of things to discuss and disagree on relative to Blu and Luminae but that is for other threads.

Thanks in advance. :)

Thanks for posting this limited inquiry...We are also AQ class cruisers. We will be on Equinox and Infinity in 2016, and would like this feedback.

Seems Blu is still offered as a suite guest option for breakfast, and dinner if space is available but hoping more will be going to Luminae.

Just off AQ on our TA on Silhouette. We were a party of 4, and sometimes 6, and dined around 8pm. We always had to wait to get a table -- sometimes 10-15 minutes. At times I would ask the Maitre'D how many Suite pax were in there, and there were always a few.

When we sailed in suites prior to the introduction of Luminae we would often go to Blu for dinner, on one 14 day cruise we only used the MDR once. It was never crowded when we went, usually around 8:00-8:30.

Our last cruise on Summit we did not go to Blu once because of Luminae. If this is a trend then Blu should be less crowded.

We were AQ on Eclipse in October. Had to wait several times when we went at 8.15 - 8.30 but never too long - about 10 minutes was the longest time.

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Just off AQ on our TA on Silhouette. We were a party of 4, and sometimes 6, and dined around 8pm. We always had to wait to get a table -- sometimes 10-15 minutes. At times I would ask the Maitre'D how many Suite pax were in there, and there were always a few.

We were AQ on Eclipse in October. Had to wait several times when we went at 8.15 - 8.30 but never too long - about 10 minutes was the longest time.

 

 

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Thanks for your responses.

How did the dining room "feel" once you were seated?

Was the staff rushing around trying to keep up or were they able to serve you comfortably?

I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this correctly.

We've had a couple (and just a couple - definitely not all) of cruises where the dining room seemed packed and the staff overwhelmed.

I don't mind waiting to be seated but once seated we like to have a relaxed meal - it was that overwhelmed staff feeling I was hoping would be resolved with the suite passengers now eating in Luminae.

Thanks for your responses.

How did the dining room "feel" once you were seated?

Was the staff rushing around trying to keep up or were they able to serve you comfortably?

I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this correctly.

We've had a couple (and just a couple - definitely not all) of cruises where the dining room seemed packed and the staff overwhelmed.

I don't mind waiting to be seated but once seated we like to have a relaxed meal - it was that overwhelmed staff feeling I was hoping would be resolved with the suite passengers now eating in Luminae.

There were about 5-6 servers in Blu, and after the first few nights, we knew which ones to avoid. One of them was slower than dirt. We just avoided that section and asked to be seated elsewhere. That may have contributed on a couple of nights for the wait. Other than that, service was excellent.

We love Blu, and have AQ booked on our next 4 cruises.

There has been lots of discussion about Luminae - quality of meals, frequency of meals, hours of meals, etc. but , since we cruise in Aqua, the one thing I was most interested in has never come up.

Is Blu less crowded now that suite passengers have their own dining room.

 

Please, please, please limit this discussion to that. I know there are lots of things to discuss and disagree on relative to Blu and Luminae but that is for other threads.

 

Thanks in advance. :)

Just a month from Summit. It was not crowded till 7:30 and it gets crowded after 7 :30 - 8 pm

On the Summit in September/October we found Blu very busy at different times. We also spoke to a lot of suite guests who were still dinning in Blu. When we discussed this with the Blu manager, he pointed out that Luminae was still going through growing pains like Blu did when it first opened and that over time more and more suite guests would be happy there an not in Blu.

Thanks for your responses.

How did the dining room "feel" once you were seated?

Was the staff rushing around trying to keep up or were they able to serve you comfortably?

I'm not sure if I'm phrasing this correctly.

We've had a couple (and just a couple - definitely not all) of cruises where the dining room seemed packed and the staff overwhelmed.

I don't mind waiting to be seated but once seated we like to have a relaxed meal - it was that overwhelmed staff feeling I was hoping would be resolved with the suite passengers now eating in Luminae.

I share your concern...esp now that there will be pullback of free specialty dining for suite guests on future bookings and suite gets will likely come to BLU for a change of pace. Now that Luminae is opened, it should be the the assigned dining room for suites, with BLU reserved for AQ class guests. Doubt this would go over well with suite pax, but it makes sense to me.

In the weeks preceding our Reflection cruise (before Luminae opened) there were complaints that the Michaels Club Concierge, lined up suite pax and brought them into BLU, ahead of the line. On our cruise, BLU managers were aware of the complaints and seemed to carefuly adhere to the "space available" rule. Hope this is followed.

..we cruise early in Jan on EQ and will report back...

Sailed Silhouette in April of this year, with two other couples in Aqua Class. We were always a party of 6. Never had to wait for our table in Blu. Each night there were open tables.

It think a lot of this depends on how full the ship is.

It might be worth pointing out that suite pax can eat breakfast in Blu whenever they want. However when it comes to dinner specifically, suite pax can only dine in Blu subject to availability.

I think it's only reasonable to expect some suite pax trying Blu if for nothing more than a change of scenery.

We were in luminae last May and ate in AQ zero times. Loved the new dining venue! Pre Luminea and previously when we were in a Sky we ate in Blu EVRY night and Every breakfast.

I am guessing we'd be typical.

We left the Equinox on November 9th after a B2B2B series. We were in Aqua Class for the legs one and two, and then moved to a Sky Suite for the final leg.

On leg one we found Blu to be "normal," with no waits to be seated for dinner.

However, on leg two there were an amazing number of groups (something like five groups of six people, one group of seven and a group of eleven) which caused problems for Blu since several of the groups expected to be seated promptly at 7:30 PM and also spent quite a bit of time talking among themselves such that the tables didn't turn as quickly as normal. On that cruise we were issued beepers several times, with the wait up to 15 minutes. We found ourselves dining earlier than we normally do to try to arrive earlier than the bulk of the groups. The Blu maitre d' also told us that she was turning away suite passengers at dinner. The service, however, was perfectly fine and didn't feel rushed in any manner.

It think a lot of this depends on how full the ship is.

Respectfully disagree. Ships sail virtually full all the time.

I share your concern...esp now that there will be pullback of free specialty dining for suite guests on future bookings and suite gets will likely come to BLU for a change of pace. Now that Luminae is opened, it should be the the assigned dining room for suites, with BLU reserved for AQ class guests. Doubt this would go over well with suite pax, but it makes sense to me.

 

 

 

In the weeks preceding our Reflection cruise (before Luminae opened) there were complaints that the Michaels Club Concierge, lined up suite pax and brought them into BLU, ahead of the line. On our cruise, BLU managers were aware of the complaints and seemed to carefuly adhere to the "space available" rule. Hope this is followed.

 

 

 

.....

That is terrible. I would have been embarrassed to be brought to the head of a line of AQU guests waiting to get into their assigned dining room.

That is terrible. I would have been embarrassed to be brought to the head of a line of AQU guests waiting to get into their assigned dining room.

They were probably not embarrassed at all -- more like a sense of entitlement. :rolleyes:

They were probably not embarrassed at all -- more like a sense of entitlement. :rolleyes:

We would not have been "happy campers" and would have expressed our "displeasure" with the Maitre'd. Celebrity has made it clear that Blu is the assigned dining venue for Aqua Class...and the policy was that Suite Passengers could dine in Blu on a space available basis.

And we have seen the policy enforced on the Silhouette which caused some tempers to flare. A couple, who made it very clear (and loudly) that they were in the largest suite on the ship, showed-up at Blu one night and demanded to be seated. The Maitre'd told them that he had no room for any suite passengers until at least 8:30 (this was about 7:45) and they should return at a later time. The poor suite folks were not pleased and loudly ranted. The Maitre'd told them that perhaps he could accommodate them as early as 8:15 and the couple stomped off (we never did see them in Blu that night).

Hank

We were on the Summit in Oct. We noticed quite a few suite passengers coming to Blu for breakfast. I think it is because Luminae opened later than Blu. So, there was a line to get in. I don't know why the two restaurants didn't open at the same time. That should take care of the problem.

We just got off the Connie today. I asked our Maitre 'd in Blu about suite passengers last night. He said there were very few - about 6 suite passengers for breakfast and fewer for dinner.

We were on a 15 day transatlantic and there was ways a rush about 7 PM and we got a pager one night. If we went at 6:30, we got seated right away and service was pretty good, but it got slower as more passengers came in. If we went at 8 or 8:15 we sometimes got seated quickly.

I think Blu is understaffed. i think things worked better when every waiter had an assistant waiter and they took care of your table.

Do the waiters share assts or how is it different in terms of assignments?

We are just off the Eclipse after a 15 night TA and found Blu to be very busy every night. If we ate earlier, we were less likely to have to wait for a table. This cruise sailing AQ we noticed the waiting staff were much busier and service was very slow to the point that we stopped eating breakfast there. Always loved Blu but our experience this time has put us off booking AQ in future. :(

We were in luminae last May and ate in AQ zero times. Loved the new dining venue! Pre Luminea and previously when we were in a Sky we ate in Blu EVRY night and Every breakfast.

 

I am guessing we'd be typical.

We were in Luminae in Sept/Oct. The first 4 days we ate breakfast in Blu as they were only offering "brunch" in Luminae which started at 10am. After that it was breakfasts all the way in Luminae. We had unlimited specialities but only used it once, were in MDR once for a senior officers table and the rest was in Luminae, particularly once my wife discovered she could get things from the MDR menu as well.

I don't see us making too many visits to Blu in the future.

Luminaes breakfast offerings disappoint compared to Blu. Therefore based on the current menus I would expect to breakfast in Blu but that will be all. If however they improve Luminaes breakfast choice (eg table side muesli) we would not use Blu (only to free up a table, not because we do not like it)

Evenings we might use Blu once to dine with others who are in Aqus otherwise, well last cruise when there were problems getting tables in Luminae they suggested if we wanted to avoid the wait to go to Blu, but I think that was a logistical issue. It's one that has been reported here before re Luminae and something X has to sort out

Blu was delightful, never crowded. We tended to eat early, 6:30 to 7:00, also early for breakfast. Service was wonderful, never saw waiters running. Don't forget -we did - breakfast on port days is at 7:30, not 8:00.