On our last two Celebrity cruises, Millennium (above) and Eclipse, the food was exceptional. Evidently, a lot of people feel the same way.
Why evidently?
Because Celebrity — according to cruise writer Fran Golden, while subbing for Gene Sloan at USA Today — is increasing prices for some of its specialty restaurants. In this economy, that’s either a huge risk or the utmost in confidence, because these bumps are not just nickels and dimes.
In Murano and The Olympic, it’s just five dollars (15%). In The Lawn Club Grill, it’s going from $30 to $40…that’s a whopping 33%, and for a restaurant that just arrived on the newest Solstice Class ship, the Silhouette.
It’s also 33% for QSine, the most unique restaurant on the seas and — for now — on Eclipse and Silhouette and “coming soon” on the ships that are being Solstic-ized.
As it happens, we’ve eaten in three of the four restaurants. The Olympic (on the Millennium) delivered one of the finest meals we’ve ever had, in no small part because our waiter-cum-maitre d’ Okan Belir (right) provided gold-medal service and expertise. He also invited us to visit him in Turkey.
Murano, a French restaurant where we dined on the Eclipse, was also a four-star meal…which is kind of what you should expect at specialty restaurants. The service was also four-star (not quite Okan-like) and when we couldn’t eat the delicate chocolates that followed the meal, they were delivered to our stateroom.
And QSine, at least one time, is probably worth whatever Celebrity wants to charge. It’s 
all-you-can-eat with class, and fun at the same time. The ordering process (on iPads), the unique dishes that in many cases you will never eat anywhere else and just the experience of it all is impressive.
As for the Lawn Club Grill, where you can cook your own meal, it must be a hit already for Celebrity to slap a $10 increase on before the ship is even two months old!
Yet the jury will be out, won’t it? If Celebrity cruisers think the extra tab is worthwhile, the restaurants will continue to be full. And if they don’t, the cruise line will be eating…a little crow.