Celebrity Announces Open Dining Starting September

According to Gene Sloan, USA Today Cruise Editor, who is aboard the Celebrity Equinox in a special writers' preview, Celebrity has announced they will roll out open dining to the fleet beginning in September. This option is in addition to the traditional, set time dining to which Celebrity cruisers are accustomed.

There's been much discussion of the possibility on various cruise boards, and if you follow the industry and Celebrity in particular, this probably isn't a surprise, but Celebrity was the last hold out of the mainstream brands to go this direction. But it appears that Celebrity has learned from its competitors, and listened to its customers, and will do it a bit differently. Passengers will be able to make reservations for different times on different nights, avoiding the lines and waits at popular dining times. Reservations would be able to be made either before the cruise or upon boarding.

Mr Sloan reports:

"The dining experience is paramount to the Celebrity experience, (and) we felt a large percentage of our guests would say (they) would like open seating, but (they) would like to choose (their) time," Lutoff-Perlo explained during a press conference on the new Equinox.

Lutoff-Perlo says the reservation system would solve one of the biggest problems with open seating encountered by other lines: The tendency for passengers on open seating to arrive in unmanageable clumps -- forcing some to wait for a table. Lutoff-Perlo says the line wants to
avoid situations where passengers "have to wait for a half hour for a table because (they) came when everyone else did."

The reservation system, she says, allows passengers on the open-seating plan to vary the time they eat dinner from night to night but still know they have a table waiting for them when they head to dinner. Lutoff-Perlo says surveys of Celebrity passengers fleetwide showed that about 50% wanted the open-seating option. Notably, though, the percentage was lower among passengers sailing on the line's newest ship, the seven-month-old Solstice. Lutoff-Perlo says that's
likely because the 2,850-passenger Solstice already has a lot of dining flexibility thanks to its
many alternative restaurants.

One potential downside to the open seating plan: The line says it can't guarantee that passengers on the plan who make reservations for specific times in the dining room will eat alone. Two sets of
couples with the same reservation time, for instance, could be paired together at a table for four if all the tables for two already are taken.

"There are limited tables for two, so (guaranteed tables for two on open seating) is not something that were going to be able to accommodate," Celebrity CEO Dan Hanrahan noted.

I'm optimistic about this plan. It's clearly the direction cruising is going, and the complaint I hear about open dining options on other ships (and have noted myself) is the inconsistency of being able to make a reservation at differing times. If Celebrity has this all worked out, my hat is off to them! However, expect a few kinks if you're sailing in September and October - no matter the planning, changes like this do cause confusion.

You can read the full article at: CruiseLog - Celebrity Announces Open Dining.