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One option StarVista gave us was the choice between early concerts (6:30 PM) and late dining in the MDR (8:30 PM), and late concerts (9:00 PM) with early dining (6:00 PM). I thought that with the way I liked to live my life, the former option was the better way to go. I would have more time to digest the concert goodness and have less time to obsess over what would happen there. And I figured the available dining options would better suit me.
As it turned out, I’m sure I made the right call. The concerts were the highlight of every day for me. The food I mostly filled in as I had time and inclination to eat.
Breakfast was around 8 each day for me in the buffet. It was not very busy at that time, but the longer I stuck around each morning, the busier it got. One day I saw a group of red shirt StarVista employees dining together. I didn’t linger long enough to figure out what they were plotting. I just found it curious that they were either having a planning meeting in the open, or they were chummy enough to break bread together. I saw StarVista employees dining alone or in pairs at other times also.
The food, by the way, was very good, though I never had anything fancy. It was of similar quality to other breakfasts I’ve had on the Celebrity Summit on previous cruises.
I had one lunch on embarkation day in the buffet. It was busy, but not outrageously so. Good food as always. It was fun hearing stories about past and future themed cruises.
Every day except one I had dinner in the buffet. The food was great and varied by my limited palate. There was never much of a crowd (I think I beat most people there after the concerts, and probably most of them were happier in the MDR). In addition to the odd StarVista employee, I saw some crew having dinner here.
One afternoon I ordered a burger and cake from room service. Unlike Princess, I did it the old fashioned way – by phone. Also unlike Princess, where I consistently got food within 15 minutes, the time from order to knock was a more leisurely 20 minutes. That’s still not bad, all things considered.
A couple of times I got some drinks from the buffet to cool off and rest after the show by the pool. The buffet was officially closed both times, but the self-service drink station was available. As you’d expect, there were few others here at this time of day.
I didn’t ever dine in the main dining room (MDR) or any of the specialty outlets.
The one bad thing about the buffet was that it was 8 decks up from my cabin on deck 2. It was always a hike to get there by stairs and my body didn’t appreciate it, at least in the short term. Perhaps next year when this pandemic is truly in the rear view I’ll take the elevator.
