Seafood Extravaganza question on Ascent

[Ensign Pulver]

Can anyone confirm if there’s a seafood extravaganza on any day on a seven day cruise?

im seeing it on some YouTube reviews but not sure if it was only on the inaugural cruise. 
Thanks!

[Galaxy2004]

We had one the last day of 7-day 12/10/23 Ascent cruise. We're headed back on 2/4 so will be interesting to see whether they still do it. It was really kind of mad house that day!

[Ensign Pulver]

41 minutes ago, Galaxy2004 said:

We had one the last day of 7-day 12/10/23 Ascent cruise. We're headed back on 2/4 so will be interesting to see whether they still do it. It was really kind of mad house that day!

Thanks for responding, Galaxy, yes, from what I’ve heard, it’s like a Black Friday sale!

I’m on the 2/11 cruise, our 4th Celebrity cruise on 4 different ships. 
Bon Voyage!

[Pushkin]

We were on the Jan 14 - 21 cruise on the Ascent.  On the last sea day, there was a seafood buffet.  They had heaps of boiled shrimp, crawfish and ceviche in coconut "cups".  I did not see any other seafood, but I did not look through all of the offerings.  It was supposed to open at noon, but the ropes were pulled around 11:45 am.  

[hcat]

we will give it a try..hope not a stampede!

[mikeysed]

I have my lobster bib packed and my swim trunks lined with ziplock baggies for road urchins

[kwokpot]

1 hour ago, Pushkin said:

We were on the Jan 14 - 21 cruise on the Ascent.  On the last sea day, there was a seafood buffet.  They had heaps of boiled shrimp, crawfish and ceviche in coconut "cups".  I did not see any other seafood, but I did not look through all of the offerings.  It was supposed to open at noon, but the ropes were pulled around 11:45 am.  

There was other types of seafood such as salmon prepared several different ways and other shellfish such as mussels. But the predominant seafood was crayfish and boiled & peeled shrimp. The shrimp was in multiple places and TBH a bit over the top. More than any Vegas buffet in its heyday. My reaction as I walked around the buffet on that last afternoon was the amount of food waste that's going on here. EVERYTHING that wasn't eaten will be thrown out in the garbage;EVERYTHING. 

[hcat]

Can't some be used for next cruise welcome aboard lunch?

[kwokpot]

Just now, hcat said:

Can't some be used for next cruise welcome aboard lunch?

ANY food that has been put out and not consumed must be thrown out since there's a potential for contamination. Food in the kitchen that hasn't been put out can be reused. We were recently on Royal for a Christmas cruise and we were in the Diamond Loyalty lounge where late morning we saw an employee literally dump all the food into a large trash can. Seems like he didn't want to take the extra step to take the food away into the back and then dump it, so he did it right out in the lounge. 

[Galaxy2004]

Waste is definitely a thing whenever any restaurant is trying to figure out what people want, how much they want, and when they want it. Have to say I didn't see any waste on the seafood buffet on our Dec 10 Ascent cruise - lobster gone, shrimp gone, crawfish gone. Maybe some mussels left. Lines 20 people deep. We saw more than one person with plates stacked with 6-8 small lobster tails. We usually do lunch at the buffet for the variety but we skipped until the madness finally stopped. Been cruising since 2004 (16 on Celebrity) and even with all the midnight buffets I don't recall seeing food attacked the way it was that day🙂.

[jadl22]

Are they doing this buffet on any of the other E ships?

[Oxo]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

ANY food that has been put out and not consumed must be thrown out since there's a potential for contamination. Food in the kitchen that hasn't been put out can be reused. We were recently on Royal for a Christmas cruise and we were in the Diamond Loyalty lounge where late morning we saw an employee literally dump all the food into a large trash can. Seems like he didn't want to take the extra step to take the food away into the back and then dump it, so he did it right out in the lounge. 

They cannot take it back to the kitchen due to contamination. They can take it for themselves to eat later.

[kwokpot]

33 minutes ago, Oxo said:

They cannot take it back to the kitchen due to contamination. They can take it for themselves to eat later.

At least with this particular loyalty lounge when food was taken away it was put on a cart and taken to the back kitchen presumably to be thrown away. It was this particular instance where we noticed an employee dump the food right in the buffet area. Taking this back to Celebrity, how does the Oceanview Cafe do this at turnover? TBH I never took notice except to see them roping off the areas. Do they bring out huge garbage cans right up to the food stations and dump the uneaten food? I can honestly say I've never witnessed that in any ship's buffet. From what I can remember the food is put on carts and/or carried away by hand to the back. 

[Galaxy2004]

@kwokpot I've always seen them take it back on carts, never throw it directly in garbage can. 

[kwokpot]

2 minutes ago, Galaxy2004 said:

@kwokpot I've always seen them take it back on carts, never throw it directly in garbage can. 

That's how I remember things being done, which is why this particular incident was so disconcerting. Whatsmore, on this Christmas cruise we would go to the Royal Loyalty lounge after sitdown breakfast for the fancy coffee from the espresso machine so it was always about the time they would be taking away the continental breakfast spread. Our group remarked that they were consistently putting out too much food which obviously was going to be thrown away. All the cut fruit, pastries, Lox,etc.  

[lv2cruisgrl]

1 hour ago, jadl22 said:

Are they doing this buffet on any of the other E ships?

On our beyond November cruise they did it.