Despite all that we had read about Qsine, Celebrity’s newest dining experience, we weren’t prepared. We’d read about Disco Shrimp served in a dish with disco lights, strawberries served on actual grass — Strawberry Fields Forever — and dessert menus on Rubik’s cubes. Orders were created on iPads. Frankly, it all sounded rather gimmicky.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Often dinner is influenced by the waiter. Ours was Oscar Reyes, a happy Honduran with a smile as wide as the Atlantic. He has been on the Celebrity Eclipse since its launch last 
year, and with Celebrity for a decade. As waiters go, Oscar was as good as the food, and the food was spectacular.
Everything is tapas-like. Small bites. Many dishes from around the world, although the different-country theme is less impressive (to us) than the type of food. The idea is everybody at your table — everybody being the two of us — chooses his or her favorite dishes, and then Oscar mediates.
How many?
Oscar recommended five or six of the 20 on the menu so, naturally, we each chose seven. Oscar was right. We each had five choices that were identical, which is one of the things that happens when you’ve been married forever, and he picked two more from the male side of the table…hey, guys stick together, right?
The selections are made on individual iPads. The same goes for cocktails and wine (you can even email cocktail recipes to yourself from the table), and you create a list of favorites. You scroll through the list, with descriptions of course, and click on “add to favorites” as you wish.
This was not only our first ordering-dinner-on-an-iPad experience…it was our first iPad experience, period. It was lots of fun and if everybody doesn’t make dinner menus on iPads — or reasonable facsimiles, they’re missing the boat, and we don’t mean the Eclipse. These are the menus of the future.
And so the meal began…
Disco Shrimp (lights and all), Lava (Alaskan king) Crab, Treseviche (on the right — three types of seafood in unusual sauces), Popcorn Fish ‘N Chips 
(in a popcorn box), Lobster Escargot, Meatball Trilogy and Painter’s Mignon. Oscar’s favorite is the lobster escargot and, of course, he was right again. Un-cubing Rubik provided dessert selections, one of which is just called “a surprise” that turned into an apple bread pudding with vanilla sauce and ice cream. After seven dishes, you hurt for dessert…or maybe that should be “from” dessert.
All of this comes with a price. For us the impetus to sign up for the $70 tab to visit Qsine came at a wine tasting earlier, when we were offered a 20% discount for going that night. Even though there is ample “free food” on cruise ships, if you view specialty restaurants as a night out for a nice dinner, swallowing the cost is easier.
Lest anybody think Qsine is not working, the restaurant was full and, since introducing it on the Eclipse’s maiden voyage in November, the price has jumped from $30 to $35. And it’s not the kind of thing you can do often, unless you’re Oscar, who says: “I have it every second day — that’s why I’m getting bigger!”
That’s the “other” price — 256 calories. Honest. Oscar said so, and he’s always right.