Holiday Menu (12/24) or New Year's Eve Specialty Dining options?

[njguy_south]

Has anyone experienced either of these of Celebrity?  Are they worth the $122.99 upcharge (each)? What are they like?

[go.without.you]

I asked this same question the other day and no one had the actual menu.

[Kilroyshere]

On 9/30/2022 at 3:23 PM, njguy_south said:

Has anyone experienced either of these of Celebrity?  Are they worth the $122.99 upcharge (each)? What are they like?

Good question we want to know the answer to as we too are sailing on a Celebrity Xmas & NYE cruise.

 

This is the first time we're trying X and a Retreat class suite.

 

The reserved Luminae dining venue is listed on our cruise app as not available the last 2 days of our holiday cruise. If that's so, what and why am are we paying a premium for this reserved class of service?

 

We're not used to paying upcharges for specialty dining venues being regular Seabourn and Regent cruisers. I too saw the $123 upcharge for Xmas and New Year without any menu shown and we're not enthused about this.

 

There's an Old salesman's saying: 'Ya can't sell secrets." Celebrity seems to have different marketing ideas.

 

I can't imagine a holiday schedule cruise ship will not have holiday Xmas and NYE menus only in the upcharge venues. MDR,  Luminae, and Blue ought put on something special too...

 

...or have we over-estimated our X expectations???

[njguy_south]

The two menus are listed on my Dec. 22, 2022, Edge.  They seem to be similar to Steakhouse, but when you read through, the Dec. 24th identifies "Holiday Specials"

https://www.celebritycruises.com/media-assets/pmc/content/dam/menus/en/fcutxmseve/FCUTXMSEVE.pdf 

 

and Jan. 31st lists "Holiday Specials"

https://www.celebritycruises.com/media-assets/pmc/content/dam/menus/en/fcutnewyrs/FCUTNEWYRS.pdf

 

Not sure if they are worth the $122.  And has anyone experienced these meals? What makes it a "joyous" atmosphere? 

[rabunangel67]

25 minutes ago, njguy_south said:

Not sure if they are worth the $122.  And has anyone experienced these meals? What makes it a "joyous" atmosphere? 

The upcharge might translate into smaller crowd=more joy. I’ll be going on my first cruise (Celebrity Equinox in January), and the crowds are my biggest fear. (It’s not a COVID thing…more about swarms of people, long lines, having to be at the pool @ 6 am to snag a chair, etc.) 

[go.without.you]

2 hours ago, njguy_south said:

The two menus are listed on my Dec. 22, 2022, Edge.  They seem to be similar to Steakhouse, but when you read through, the Dec. 24th identifies "Holiday Specials"

https://www.celebritycruises.com/media-assets/pmc/content/dam/menus/en/fcutxmseve/FCUTXMSEVE.pdf 

 

and Jan. 31st lists "Holiday Specials"

https://www.celebritycruises.com/media-assets/pmc/content/dam/menus/en/fcutnewyrs/FCUTNEWYRS.pdf

 

Not sure if they are worth the $122.  And has anyone experienced these meals? What makes it a "joyous" atmosphere? 

Someone posted these same menus on the forum I started asking the same question. These are not the special holiday meals for $122, these are the regular menus from the Fine Cut restaurant.

[njguy_south]

38 minutes ago, go.without.you said:

Someone posted these same menus on the forum I started asking the same question. These are not the special holiday meals for $122, these are the regular menus from the Fine Cut restaurant.

Then why do the reference “Holiday Specials” on the menu with a tree for Dec 24 and a champagne glass for NYE? Can you explain that?

[Mark_T]

On 10/3/2022 at 2:48 PM, Kilroyshere said:

The reserved Luminae dining venue is listed on our cruise app as not available the last 2 days of our holiday cruise. If that's so, what and why am are we paying a premium for this reserved class of service?

 

This far out it is quite normal to only have the same number of days showing in the app as the current cruise for that ship, so it leads to things like days at the end showing as 'unavailable', or lunch being available on port days for your itinerary instead of just sea days...

[jelayne]

The days showing Luminae unavailable is because they only  load the number of menus for the current cruise. Our next cruise is 12N and for a long time any day past 7 showed Luminae unavailable.  Now we have 9 nights menus posted.  Luminae will be open and available to suite guests every night.

[go.without.you]

15 hours ago, njguy_south said:

Then why do the reference “Holiday Specials” on the menu with a tree for Dec 24 and a champagne glass for NYE? Can you explain that?

This may be a holiday menu for Fine Cut but it's not a holiday menu for Murano. Someone in their IT department made a mistake.

Spoiler alert: their IT dept makes a lot of mistakes.

[njguy_south]

I will be on the Edge, which does not have Murano. (My original post, above, did not say, but I also did not specify Murano.)  These are the menus listed on the Edge's cruise from Dec. 22 through Jan. 2, 2022. When in "Plan My Cruise" and linking to "Dining" and "View All Dining," one sees listed (among other things) "Holiday Menu on 12/24" and "New Year's Eve Menu."  When you link to those, it states "Cuisine, Steakhouse," and those are the menus listed. So unless I am missing something, that is what they are for the Celebrity Edge on that sailing -- a ship without Murano.

 

My Original Questions Remains: Has anyone experienced either of these of Celebrity?  Are they worth the $122.99 upcharge (each) -- Now $130.? What are they like?

[CHEZMARYLOU]

10 minutes ago, njguy_south said:

I will be on the Edge, which does not have Murano. (My original post, above, did not say, but I also did not specify Murano.)  These are the menus listed on the Edge's cruise from Dec. 22 through Jan. 2, 2022. When in "Plan My Cruise" and linking to "Dining" and "View All Dining," one sees listed (among other things) "Holiday Menu on 12/24" and "New Year's Eve Menu."  When you link to those, it states "Cuisine, Steakhouse," and those are the menus listed. So unless I am missing something, that is what they are for the Celebrity Edge on that sailing -- a ship without Murano.

 

My Original Questions Remains: Has anyone experienced either of these of Celebrity?  Are they worth the $122.99 upcharge (each) -- Now $130.? What are they like?

We have not experienced either of these menu's.  They appear to be a hybrid of Fine Cut Steak house and some specials for Christmas and New Year's as indicated by the holly and champagne glass in front of some items. We ate at Fine Cut last October and had the bone in fillet, fillet (liked it better than the bone in) and prime rib, my husband still raves about it. I had the arugula salad both nights and my husband had the crab cake.  There was so much food the only thing we wanted for dessert was a scoop of ice cream.  If we were going to be on an Edge class ship for either of these cruises we would certainly book FC for one of these days.  Even though we get free specialty dining with our suite we would pay the fee for dinner that night.

 

[IslaSarah]

I was on Reflection over New Years last year and can't remember what exactly was on the NYE specialty restaurant menu (in both Tuscan and Murano that night), just that I didn't think it was worth paying more than double the standard specialty restaurant fee. 

Elsewhere someone shared this PDF flyer about 2022 holiday cruise events, that does advertise "Christmas Eve Culinary specials in Main Dining Room, Blu and Luminae," "Christmas themed buffets," and "NYE and New Year’s Day OceanViewCafe culinary enhancements."

3_28_22_CEL_Holiday_Onboard_Experience_Flyer.pdf

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Celebrity has Murano's NYE menu posted on line and available to book.  $130 PP + gratuity. This is for Reflection.  Some of the standard items, a few specials.

 

MURANOS NYE MENU.pdf