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Last night dinner warning


sofietucker
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Didn't post about this at the time, so it may have become moot, but: last time were were on the Summit, eating most nights in Luminae, the daily for the final night of the cruise showed that ALL the restaurants served until 930pm, not 9 as usual. Cool--more time to pack! So we showed up at 915. Maitre d' seemed reluctant to seat us. A few folks just finishing dinner. 

"Sir, we stopped serving at 9. The food has all been thrown away." [?? Who knew?] 

 

We went round about this, they denied any of the restaurants stayed open late! We ran back to stateroom and brought them the daily... They acted puzzled.

 

Went to buffet, all shut down (no pizza or any late night food; don't know how the staff was fed). We were able to grab some nuts in Michael's. Staff at front desk were swamped with folks arguing their bills, so we let it go.

 

The last time on the Reflection, sailed with friends and did not have a suite. Forgot to notice final night dinner schedule... Just a heads up.

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Interesting.  I took a quick look at the ship dailies I scanned from our last cruise (12 nt New Zealand on the Dec 23 2019 Solstice) and I did not see extended hours for the restaurants during our last night.

 

David

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We normally eat between 8 and 8:30 in Luminae, we were on a great music charter and one of the main performers were the group America, one of the main members came and tried to get dinner about 9:30 and they were told to go to buffet that chefs had left, he didn’t create any fuss. 

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1 hour ago, sofietucker said:

 

Went to buffet, all shut down (no pizza or any late night food; don't know how the staff was fed). We were able to grab some nuts in Michael's. Staff at front desk were swamped with folks arguing their bills, so we let it go.

 

The last time on the Reflection, sailed with friends and did not have a suite. Forgot to notice final night dinner schedule... Just a heads up.

The crew have their own dining area and staff to cook/serve.  Only a small portion of the crew can eat in the Oceanview.

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3 hours ago, jelayne said:

The crew have their own dining area and staff to cook/serve.  Only a small portion of the crew can eat in the Oceanview.

On pretty much all the cruises we've ever been on, we've seen dancers, musicians, CD staff and officers eating in the Lido/buffet area later in the evening. We've also eaten with the captain and other officers any number of times in the MDR, but that is not what I mean. (I also don't mean that engineering, housekeeping, kitchen crew, etc. eat in the buffet.)

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2 minutes ago, Redtravel said:

That’s when you ask to speak to the hotel director.

Correct. And 99% of the time, that would have been our path. But it was simply not worth it to stand in line for an hour with everyone else while they put out all the fires. My husband pointed out that if it hadn't been the last night, we would have been treated reeaaalllly well for the rest of the cruise...

 

I'm posting the episode here to warn folks to simply pay attention to scheduled times that final night, because the Luminae folks acted like "this is the first we've heard of this; but oh well, we have no food to serve you anyway." Kinda funny that the whole entire ship's restaurants would advertise staying open late BUT then shut down earlier.

This was on the Summit in Jan. 2019, BTW. Antigua, Barbados, etc.

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3 hours ago, ORV said:

Is room service not available on the last night?

Nope. And on most lines, it's standard that it's not available the last night.Ditto room service breakfast the next day. I guess it's too much hassle with cleanup when they are trying to turn over the ship.

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5 hours ago, George C said:

We normally eat between 8 and 8:30 in Luminae, we were on a great music charter and one of the main performers were the group America, one of the main members came and tried to get dinner about 9:30 and they were told to go to buffet that chefs had left, he didn’t create any fuss. 

Right; and since they usually stop serving at nine, that's absolutely justified.  But the maitre d' informed us that although the daily showed that they were open ESPECIALLY LATE, not only did they not have any food to serve at 9:15, but that neither did the buffet! And he was correct. 😞

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5 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Interesting.  I took a quick look at the ship dailies I scanned from our last cruise (12 nt New Zealand on the Dec 23 2019 Solstice) and I did not see extended hours for the restaurants during our last night.

 

David

We'd never seen it before either! On over 30 cruises. That's what made it so frustrating--we believed them and made plans accordingly. (Summit, 12 nights Caribbean, Jan 2019)

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8 minutes ago, sofietucker said:

Believe you me, that's been our MO ever since! And usually are packed way ahead of time--this was the one time we felt we had the luxury to lollygag, lol.

Lesson learned. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

 

Maybe the same team that publishes the Celebrity Today also manages Celebrity's website. 🤣

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11 hours ago, sofietucker said:

Nope. And on most lines, it's standard that it's not available the last night.Ditto room service breakfast the next day. I guess it's too much hassle with cleanup when they are trying to turn over the ship.

With all due respect, in our experience last night dining as well as full room service breakfast the next day have always been offered us on at least Silversea, Regent, Seabourn and perhaps more.

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Lack of late night food is one of the oddest, biggest failings of Celebrity that I still can't figure out. 

 

Every other mass-market line has some sort of 24/7 food option, that is not room service, with the exception of Holland America. Carnival has pizza, NCL has O'Shehan's bar food, Royal has pizza and sandwiches, and even Princess has the International Cafe. Meanwhile, if you're ever out dancing or drinking or gambling on a Celebrity ship past midnight, there's always this sort of frantic dash to the buffet to grab whatever cold cuts and cheese are left before they shut everything down for the night. 

It's understandable on Holland America as those ships tend to wrap up their evenings much earlier. With Celebrity's positioning as modern luxury and attempts to get a younger, more diverse passenger base, it just seems very out of step.

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Sounds like a typo.  With all the extra work everyone on the crew must do that last night and the next morning I can’t imagine having late dining.    I have seen waiters and kitchen staff handling baggage.   They must also completely clean out the kitchen and bar stores.    This will be more of a logistical nightmare post COVID.    We just had a salad and shared a pizza at the Lawn Grill, not really hungry after 13 days of eating Cruise food.

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On 4/14/2021 at 6:26 PM, Covepointcruiser said:

They must also completely clean out the kitchen and bar stores.

Why? They have a whole new group of customers the next day. It's not like the ship is closing. Not understanding what you're saying here. 

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On 4/14/2021 at 11:43 AM, AstoriaPreppy said:

Lack of late night food is one of the oddest, biggest failings of Celebrity that I still can't figure out. 

 

Every other mass-market line has some sort of 24/7 food option, that is not room service, with the exception of Holland America. Carnival has pizza, NCL has O'Shehan's bar food, Royal has pizza and sandwiches, and even Princess has the International Cafe. Meanwhile, if you're ever out dancing or drinking or gambling on a Celebrity ship past midnight, there's always this sort of frantic dash to the buffet to grab whatever cold cuts and cheese are left before they shut everything down for the night. 

It's understandable on Holland America as those ships tend to wrap up their evenings much earlier. With Celebrity's positioning as modern luxury and attempts to get a younger, more diverse passenger base, it just seems very out of step.


simple, supply and demand..

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49 minutes ago, dkjretired said:


simple, supply and demand..


I'd disagree. I think Celebrity realizes this is an issue, but hasn't been able to implement a good solution. Anecdotally, I've been the only person at a Princess international cafe in the early morning. I've never been the only person at the late night snacks at a Celebrity buffet.


Edge was built with a cafe, which they inexplicably placed in a hidden corner of the Martini Bar. For a short time, it operated as a Princess-style light-bite option, but by the time we sailed, it had already been shuttered. 

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16 minutes ago, AstoriaPreppy said:


I'd disagree. I think Celebrity realizes this is an issue, but hasn't been able to implement a good solution. Anecdotally, I've been the only person at a Princess international cafe in the early morning. I've never been the only person at the late night snacks at a Celebrity buffet.


Edge was built with a cafe, which they inexplicably placed in a hidden corner of the Martini Bar. For a short time, it operated as a Princess-style light-bite option, but by the time we sailed, it had already been shuttered. 


celebrity used to have midnight buffets and late night bites where waiters went around the public areas with food. Lots of wasted food, especially at the buffet. Celebrity has always had an older clientele therefore people going to bed early. Just about everything is supply and demand.

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16 minutes ago, dkjretired said:


celebrity used to have midnight buffets and late night bites where waiters went around the public areas with food. Lots of wasted food, especially at the buffet. Celebrity has always had an older clientele therefore people going to bed early. Just about everything is supply and demand.


The traditional midnight buffet is a huge waste of food, which is why nearly lines discontinued them and transitioned to a prepared-food situation. A cafe with sandwiches served as you order, or pizza put in the oven as needed is completely different from mountains of carved fruit, weird desserts, and all-butter models of cruise ships that were just tossed out.

I think you might be surprised at current Celebrity demographics, which have shifted pretty dramatically over the past five years. It's been discussed ad-nausaum on this forum, but the line's current target passenger is Gen X (sliding down to millennials with the Edge). 

 

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8 minutes ago, dkjretired said:


celebrity used to have midnight buffets and late night bites where waiters went around the public areas with food. Lots of wasted food, especially at the buffet. Celebrity has always had an older clientele therefore people going to bed early. Just about everything is supply and demand.

Agreed for the most part--OMG, the old midnight chocolate parades! But on our "one and done" Carnival cruise, everyday (except embarkation) between 3pm and 5, there was not a scrap of food to be found anyhere on board: not the buffet, the grill, the burrito bar--nuffin. (Kind of like the pubs closing in England from 3-5, lol.)

It would have been fine, except my diabetic mother on day 2 had skipped lunch and was getting hypoglycemic, literally shaking. We finally grabbed a $$$$ packet of crackers from the minibar (and then we came to our senses and fed her a pina colada, lol). Just shocking, especially given the stereotype of cruising of food available at all times. That's the only cruise we ever saw that had NO food during waking hours, except of course that Summit anomaly.

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