Luminae Questions

[sptrout]

kwotpot, your picture reminded me or our experience during our 10 day cruise ending just last Saturday. Nearly every evening we (DW & me) were order 2 appetizers, two entrées, and two desserts. And I would guess that at least 7 out of the 10 evenings the waiter would bring us what we ordered plus a third surprise appetizer, entrée, and dessert for us to share. Being polite we HAD to eat all three of everything. We were so stuffed each night that we were miserable for hours. We never even hinted at wanting to try extra of anything. The most I ever said was that I had trouble deciding which dessert to order. So they brought all of them.

[Guppy99]

2 hours ago, canderson said:

Have you sailed lately?  Guessing not.  Let me provide you with a couple of recent experiences that might change your might (though not likely) change your mind about how service has been lately, and why even a mention of something, not even a request, brings amazing results.

 

On a recent cruise, a friend at Luminae at breakfast was asked which pastry he wanted, and he kidded them by asking for a couple of napoleans, knowing full well that they weren't available, and definitely not expecting them.  Word evidently got back to the pastry chef, and that evening, he was unexpectedly presented with napoleans for his dessert. 

 

On our recent cruise, one evening we were discussing with the maitre d' the old specialty restaurants on M class ships.  In particular, we mentioned how much we used to enjoy the goat cheese souffle dish that they used to prepare in the specialty restaurant, and how you won't find that in Le Petit, which has taken over that space.  The next evening, we were unexpectedly presented with goat cheese souffle (not served anywhere on an M Class ship at present) as part of our dinner.

 

Neither my friend nor I even made the hint of a request for these items, just brought them up in passing conversation, but were both very pleased that the Luminae staff followed up on them of their own accord. 

 

That, Grumpy99, is the level of service we received without making any additional requests, and we certainly didn't approach with an 'entitled' view of anything.  Our experience was that these folks were looking for unique ways to please their guests, and rather than looking at it from your perspective as creating "additional work", they were looking for creative ways in these low capacity times to make everyone's experience extra special.  It was, by our accounts, the best cruise we have ever taken with X for this and several other reasons that we won't get into here.

 

Under such circumstances, I wouldn't hesitate to ask what is possible if the request (though we didn't make any ourselves) were not unreasonable.  On M and S class ships, there is zero brain damage for either the Luminae staff or the galley in preparing meals from either the Luminae or MDR menus.  The logistics behind the scenes actually lend themselves to this, and is why both menus are often offered, and are otherwise provided on request, on those two classes of ships.

 

 

 

Yes, I have sailed recently, twice in the past 6 months. I would never presume to be so self-entitled that I would ask for anything special that would cause over worked kitchen and serving staff to work harder or go out of their way when time is short. I do expect the menu items to be properly prepared and served at the right temp. Also, your "special requests" probably means that some is getting their food after it has been sitting around because your server/chef is tending to your special request.

So your logistics are selective and flawed.

[kwokpot]

15 minutes ago, Guppy99 said:

You got it that way because everything is pre-plated. It's not easy to accommodate special orders. Just because you can special order, does not mean you should. In all likelihood no one will say no, but that doesn't mean anyone is happy to do it or that it's not a problem.  (that plate of yellow stuff looks gross...I'm sure it probably tasted good to you though)

I understand that. But here you have a thread about Luminae and everyone having their special requests honored,special meals not on the menu made,and entrees being brought from different parts of the ship. And my experience belies even a simple request of replating food that's in the Luminae kitchen. I'm just trying to support the fact that no, not all Celebrity ships have Luminae Restaurants that are accommodating. 

[DiamondSuiteCruiser]

23 hours ago, WonderMan3 said:

Just speaking from my own experiences having dined in Luminae while staying in Sky Suite (3 times), Royal Suite (twice) and Penthouse (twice). Had much better service and catering to specific needs and offering to get things off menu without even asking in the higher level suites. 

I totally agree with with you, it has been our experience as well. When staying in the PH they seem to bend over backwards to please, if in a Sky suite or CC some times they seem not as accommodating. Still great service though. 

[LGW59]

16 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

I understand that. But here you have a thread about Luminae and everyone having their special requests honored,special meals not on the menu made,and entrees being brought from different parts of the ship. And my experience belies even a simple request of replating food that's in the Luminae kitchen. I'm just trying to support the fact that no, not all Celebrity ships have Luminae Restaurants that are accommodating. 

Seems that this is standard on M & S class, with shared kitchens.  On E seems to be a bit more of a challenge, though many have said it can be done.  I'm totally not judging, but I easily find something that appeals to me on every menu for the specific restaurant I am dining in, on any ship I have cruised.  

[Beachlover1989]

We adore sharing an order of escargot for dinner every night.  If we're in Blu or Luminae, we have just told our server on one of the first nights and they always have it for us after that.

[morpheusofthesea]

17 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

Seems that this is standard on M & S class, with shared kitchens.  On E seems to be a bit more of a challenge, though many have said it can be done.  I'm totally not judging, but I easily find something that appeals to me on every menu for the specific restaurant I am dining in, on any ship I have cruised.  

Totally agree. A grilled chicken breast for DW and grilled piece of salmon for me and we are fine on any ship. It is just the 'way' of the waiters and the maitre d's on board Celebrity that make one feel 'special' in the Retreat Luminae. Specially on E class ships, where it is a known that MDR menus are not bandied about in the Luminae, yet they are willing to offer one the unofferable as a special treat, makes one feel special, unique, VIP, whether one avails themselves or not. It is a nice boost to the ego and a great marketing ploy. Recall the same thing happened in the Haven when a 'repeater' was brought an asian rice bowl dish from the specialty restaurant on board to the Haven restaurant. We were  more perturbed with the two hour wait for our Haven meals every night, than not having been offered the same.

[canderson]

1 hour ago, Guppy99 said:

Yes, I have sailed recently, twice in the past 6 months. I would never presume to be so self-entitled that I would ask for anything special that would cause over worked kitchen and serving staff to work harder or go out of their way when time is short. I do expect the menu items to be properly prepared and served at the right temp. Also, your "special requests" probably means that some is getting their food after it has been sitting around because your server/chef is tending to your special request.

So your logistics are selective and flawed.

Perhaps you missed the carefully spelled out point that we made no requests?

 

The MDR menu was offered along side the Luminae menu without request on day 1.

 

I mentioned a couple of unusual dining events regarding special treats that the crew decided to undertake entirely on their own initiative.  Who would have thought it possible that goat cheese souffle would magically appear on a ship that doesn't even serve it? (M class have no Murano restaurants).  The Luminae staff was tipped handsomely for their special attention during our 15 nts with them. 

 

The crew:pax ratio on our cruise was about 1.1:1.  No one waited for their dinner.  I'll provide another dining example:  A botched invitation to the Veuve Clicquot dinner resulted in our missing it, but ... a special Veuve Clicquot dinner was arranged for just the two of us on the last night of the cruise.  We certainly would never have requested that, and yet, the crew took it upon themselves to make it possible for us to enjoy that event.

 

This kind of treatment wasn't just isolated to the dining rooms, either.  We found that it was occurring ship-wide.

 

Please - again - exactly what is flawed - my 'logistics', or your appreciation of who it was that was initiating all of the special service that we received?  I thought I had tried very hard to be clear about that in the original post.

 

If your recent time aboard hasn't been as grand as ours, I'm sorry, and honestly wish you could have been on our cruises to share in the experience.  Again, we found our 15 nts in November to be the best we have ever spent with Celebrity, and not because we requested any of this, much less felt entitled to it.  I find the flaw to be in your assumption that we did.

 

 

[LGW59]

11 minutes ago, canderson said:

Perhaps you missed the carefully spelled out point that we made no requests?

 

The MDR menu was offered along side the Luminae menu without request on day 1.

 

I mentioned a couple of unusual dining events regarding special treats that the crew decided to undertake entirely on their own initiative.  Who would have thought it possible that goat cheese souffle would magically appear on a ship that doesn't even serve it? (M class have no Murano restaurants).  The Luminae staff was tipped handsomely for their special attention during our 15 nts with them. 

 

The crew:pax ratio on our cruise was about 1.1:1.  No one waited for their dinner.  I'll provide another dining example:  A botched invitation to the Veuve Clicquot dinner resulted in our missing it, but ... a special Veuve Clicquot dinner was arranged for just the two of us on the last night of the cruise.  We certainly would never have requested that, and yet, the crew took it upon themselves to make it possible for us to enjoy that event.

 

This kind of treatment wasn't just isolated to the dining rooms, either.  We found that it was occurring ship-wide.

 

Please - again - exactly what is flawed - my 'logistics', or your appreciation of who it was that was initiating all of the special service that we received?  I thought I had tried very hard to be clear about that in the original post.

 

If your recent time aboard hasn't been as grand as ours, I'm sorry, and honestly wish you could have been on our cruises to share in the experience.  Again, we found our 15 nts in November to be the best we have ever spent with Celebrity, and not because we requested any of this, much less felt entitled to it.  I find the flaw to be in your assumption that we did.

 

 

I love soufflé and goat cheese soufflé sounds amazing!  Next cruise, I am asking!  Thanks for the suggestion.

[LGW59]

1 hour ago, Guppy99 said:

Yes, I have sailed recently, twice in the past 6 months. I would never presume to be so self-entitled that I would ask for anything special that would cause over worked kitchen and serving staff to work harder or go out of their way when time is short. I do expect the menu items to be properly prepared and served at the right temp. Also, your "special requests" probably means that some is getting their food after it has been sitting around because your server/chef is tending to your special request.

So your logistics are selective and flawed.

Why do you always want to argue or challenge a cruiser whose experience was different than yours?  Why is it self entitled to ask for something that is being offered?  I would say that your expectations and logistics are flawed.  You do what works for you, the rest of us will do the same.  

[canderson]

19 minutes ago, LGW59 said:

I love soufflé and goat cheese soufflé sounds amazing!  Next cruise, I am asking!  Thanks for the suggestion.

It used to be a regularly appearing item on the menu of the M class specialty restaurant aboard each ship (e.g., Ocean Liners, SS United States, etc.) until those restaurants were set aside for Qsine/Le Petit & etc. in the new design.  I believe that on all S class ships, the Murano restaurants currently serve it regularly.  Not sure about E class.

 

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by canderson

[Jim_Iain]

On 2/4/2022 at 11:04 AM, PTC DAWG said:

If you want MDR food, why not just go the MDR?  Do folks walk into a specialty restaurant and ask for MDR food?  Seems to defeat the purpose, IMHO YMMV. 

From our perspective, we often do B2B's and B2B2B's  and eating the same 'ol menu can get rather boring so we mix it up and order some from the Luminae menu and choose something that appeals to us from the MDR or Children's menu.   It might be different if they mixed up the menus but usually just repeat them from Menu 1 regardless of cruise length.     It might also be different if they changed the menu in Luminae as it's been the same menu for about 10+ years.

 

We dine in Lumina because we paid for it and enjoy the service.    Also when ordering from the MDR menu the Luminae Chef may grab the protein  prepare it fresh and plate it on Luminae china and garnish.   I will have to say it is better than the same dish we have had served in the MDR. 

 

We often also eat in Blu and also enjoy mixing and matching from MDR.

 

We have never been refused and often the maître d' asks what the chef can make for us special since we are on a longer set of cruises.   We often say let the Chef surprise us and never been disappointed.

Edited February 5, 2022 by Jim_Iain

[WonderMan3]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

I understand that. But here you have a thread about Luminae and everyone having their special requests honored,special meals not on the menu made,and entrees being brought from different parts of the ship. And my experience belies even a simple request of replating food that's in the Luminae kitchen. I'm just trying to support the fact that no, not all Celebrity ships have Luminae Restaurants that are accommodating. 

Sometimes it may also depend on how busy they are. We had the exact same experience as you a couple times where we asked for multiple items on one plate and they came out with separate full portions and they explained it was just easier for them to bring it out that way so it would be timely as they were very busy in the kitchen. That was perfectly fine with us. Other nights on that same cruise they were able to put on the same plate because they were less busy. Things like that I'm certainly not going to get upset about especially when I see how hard they are working to accommodate special requests on top of their regular service duties.

[Jim_Iain]

3 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

Sometimes it may also depend on how busy they are. We had the exact same experience as you a couple times where we asked for multiple items on one plate and they came out with separate full portions and they explained it was just easier for them to bring it out that way so it would be timely as they were very busy in the kitchen. That was perfectly fine with us. Other nights on that same cruise they were able to put on the same plate because they were less busy. Things like that I'm certainly not going to get upset about especially when I see how hard they are working to accommodate special requests on top of their regular service duties.

I can understand that and would have no problems.   We are very late diners and usually don't arrive until 8:45 - 9:00 PM.   The dining room is usually very lightly attended and the wait staff are less stressed as the crowds had died down.

[canderson]

4 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I can understand that and would have no problems.   We are very late diners and usually don't arrive until 8:45 - 9:00 PM.   The dining room is usually very lightly attended and the wait staff are less stressed as the crowds had died down.

It was our impression that Luminae stopped seating at 9pm. ???

[TeeRick]

16 hours ago, Guppy99 said:

Yes, I have sailed recently, twice in the past 6 months. I would never presume to be so self-entitled that I would ask for anything special that would cause over worked kitchen and serving staff to work harder or go out of their way when time is short. I do expect the menu items to be properly prepared and served at the right temp. Also, your "special requests" probably means that some is getting their food after it has been sitting around because your server/chef is tending to your special request.

So your logistics are selective and flawed.

Did you actually stay in a suite and dine in Luminae?  It is hard to understand just what objections you have as the service standards in Luminae are quite different and much above average by design. The staff is very helpful and friendly and that is a consistent comment here on CC.   Passengers pay extra for that enhanced service.  Is that what you call entitlement?  Do you dine in Specialty restaurants on the ship?  Do you have an issue with any special requests or higher level of service there as well?

[graphicguy]

I think the take from all of this, if Luminae  understands what you want, they’ll do their level best to accommodate.  Some have more challenging requests that are taxing for any restaurant short of having a private chef cooking for you.

 

Truth told, I found the meals and service IN ALL the Celebrity Restaurants, on my admittedly limited cruises with them (3X) to have been exceptional, and generally speaking, the best I’ve had on ANY cruise ship.

[paulh84]

On 2/4/2022 at 1:04 PM, PTC DAWG said:

If you want MDR food, why not just go the MDR?  Do folks walk into a specialty restaurant and ask for MDR food?  Seems to defeat the purpose, IMHO YMMV. 

 

If you don't eat seafood or fish and prefer not to eat pasta as an entree the Luminae dinner menu is very limited IMO. Having some other choices even if it's not up to the 'Luminae standard' would appreciated. 

[TFree]

20 hours ago, goldsmip115 said:

Many years ago on my first experience in Luminae when we were sailing in a PS something happened that I never forgot.  One evening I ordered 2 appetizers instead of a main course and asked that one app be brought as my main entree. Shortly after ordering the Maitre’D rushed over and asked if something was wrong. I indicated that nothing particularly appealed to me Re the main entrees but it was fine.  He asked me what I was in the mood for. I stupidly replied Veal Parmigiana.  I told him all was fine. Shortly after I finished my second appetizer he rushed over with a massive plate of Veal Parmigiana.  It was enough to feed 8 people. I was mortified. I could barely eat one small piece. I felt so horrible. I never ask for anything special in Luminae other than half portions or perhaps no cheese on my burger.  I never want that to happen again.  That’s just me but I never forgot that experience.

It's not just you.  One time when we were traveling with 2 other couples on the Equinox, we all decided to have dinner at Qsine (before it was converted to Le Petit Chef at Qsine).  They kept bringing extra dishes that we hadn't ordered with big smiles on their faces.  We appreciated the thought but were basically appalled at the amount of food that was wasted.

 

Tom & Judy

[brownc424]

19 hours ago, Guppy99 said:

Yes, I have sailed recently, twice in the past 6 months. I would never presume to be so self-entitled that I would ask for anything special that would cause over worked kitchen and serving staff to work harder or go out of their way when time is short. I do expect the menu items to be properly prepared and served at the right temp. Also, your "special requests" probably means that some is getting their food after it has been sitting around because your server/chef is tending to your special request.

So your logistics are selective and flawed.

It took me a while to realize it, but I've come to the conclusion that you do not understand Celebrity's philosophy here. Celebrity wants their suite guests to feel pampered, like royalty. That's why they offer a number of special services to guests of the Retreat. The entire atmosphere of The Retreat, from Your suite, to Your Butler, to Your Maître d' is dedicated to ensuring Your vacation is successful. If you have a reasonable request, their job is to fulfill it. In return, the serving staff is paid substantially better than those who in other areas of the ship.

[phoenix_dream]

It makes you wonder, if so many people consistently prefer to order off the MDR menu (and I am one of them) you would think that Celebrity would consider adding to or changing the Luminae menu to include a couple more "basic" options.  Some of their weird concoctions seems like they're trying to impress the upscale foodies, with no regard to what the majority of people really want.  I can go the rest of my entire life without eating any part of an octopus!  

[LGW59]

29 minutes ago, phoenix_dream said:

It makes you wonder, if so many people consistently prefer to order off the MDR menu (and I am one of them) you would think that Celebrity would consider adding to or changing the Luminae menu to include a couple more "basic" options.  Some of their weird concoctions seems like they're trying to impress the upscale foodies, with no regard to what the majority of people really want.  I can go the rest of my entire life without eating any part of an octopus!  

Sail on a ship with the shared kitchen and you can do it.  Weird concoctions to you are delicious concoctions to others.  I know what I like and because I like what I do does not mean I am needing to be impressed.

[mfs2k]

Guys. You’re on vacation. You’re lucky to be in a premium class suite which you’re paying a lot of money for. That suite comes with the privilege of dining in Luminae because you’re paying more. The crew are paid to keep you happy. If you don’t like the menu at a meal then ask politely what alternates are available. The service staff and kitchen will likely bend over backwards to try to accommodate your needs. Enjoy your vacation, relax, have fun, and soak in every moment because the time on board passes quickly. 

[Jim_Iain]

On 2/5/2022 at 3:54 PM, canderson said:

It was our impression that Luminae stopped seating at 9pm. ???

They do.   We always arrive before 9:00 unless there was a crowd and the Maitr'd asked us to wait in Luminae and he would call when a table is ready for us. 

[LGW59]

23 minutes ago, mfs2k said:

Guys. You’re on vacation. You’re lucky to be in a premium class suite which you’re paying a lot of money for. That suite comes with the privilege of dining in Luminae because you’re paying more. The crew are paid to keep you happy. If you don’t like the menu at a meal then ask politely what alternates are available. The service staff and kitchen will likely bend over backwards to try to accommodate your needs. Enjoy your vacation, relax, have fun, and soak in every moment because the time on board passes quickly. 

Indeed!!!  Once you know who the Captain, CD and Chief Steward are, it's time to relax and enjoy your vacation.