PLEASE note that I personally traveled on Summit in August 2013 and in November 2013, i.e., immediat

Cruise lines ( cruisers) seem to be in love with specialty dining. While I still prefer to eat my nightly meals in the main dining room, sometimes a specialty restaurant is a nice bonus treat. On the Celebrity Summit, there are three specialty restaurants: Bistro on Five (an  amazing crepe restaurant, which we fell in love with on the Equinox), The Normandie (the most formal specialty dining experience) Qsine (a funky, small plate style restaurant). We dined at both Qsine The Normandie, courtesy of Celebrity, had two extremely different experiences.
We knew dinner at Qsine would be fun the minute our waiter, Henry ( Henry from Honduras! apartment rentals oahu ) came bounding over to our table. Welcome to Qsine, where sharing apartment rentals oahu is caring!! Order everything! Share everything!
The entire Qsine menu is on an iPad, baffling apartment rentals oahu the older generations around us ( You swipe your finger? ), but delighting us who are more tech savvy. Each page on the iPad is a different, interesting twist on a traditional menu item.
As if this wasn t enough food ( , lets be honest, it was  more than enough food), we had to have dessert. Right? I mean, it s a cruise. apartment rentals oahu If you can t have dessert after eating too much dinner on a cruise, when can you? The dessert menu came in the cutest form: a rubik cube! Blissfully unaware of how enormous it actually was, we finally settled on the chocolate tombstone. Wowsers. As if that wasn t enough, apartment rentals oahu Henry came zipping over with a huge tray of chocolate dipped fruit on a stick. Good thing I was wearing my stretchy dress!
Dinner at Qsine was fantastic, was really the point on our cruise when things started to turn around for the better. Even though our dinner was comp d, I absolutely, without a doubt, dine there pay the $40 per person cover charge. While it s one of the highest cover charges at sea it is absolutely worth every penny!
Like many things apartment rentals oahu on this cruise, we really wanted to like dinner in  The Normandie . We actually hadn t even planned on eating there, having eaten twice at its sister restaurant Murano while we were on Equinox last year. But the Hotel Director raved about Normandie so much, that we took him up on his offer for a complimentary apartment rentals oahu meal.
Normandie is modeled after a classic liner dining room in this case, from the SS Normandie, a luxury French ocean liner which cruised in the 30 s 40 s. We were seated in the middle of the dining room for our 8:30pm reservation, well after the dinner rush, a perfect place for people watching attentive service (so we had hoped). Things started off well enough, with attentive service a lovely wine selection from the sommelier. Our appetizers were brought out following an amuse bouche of BBQ chicken (a little strange!). Unfortunately, my scallop wellington was overcooked nearly tasteless.
By now service had really slowed down, with our original waiter disappearing, only to reappear to serve the large table of the ship s crew that was seated apartment rentals oahu next to us. The second apartment rentals oahu course was the highlight of the entire meal for both of us. A creamy lobster bisque, served with a side of creme poured table side, was perfectly spiced balanced.
We both ordered the lobster apartment rentals oahu entree, prepared table side. We knew, from our meal at Murano, that this should be a highlight of the meal. Unfortunately, after a 30 minute delay after we finished our soup, both the lobster the show-y preparation were disappointing. Never has freshly sautéed lobster in a dijon cream sauce been so disappointing, so bland tasteless. The accompaniments to the lobster were an absolute joke: made from a mix mashed apartment rentals oahu potatoes frozen vegetables consisting mostly of peas.
By now it was pushing 10:30pm we had to flag someone down to ask for our cheese course. The giant cheese cart was rolled over unenthusiastically presented to us. By the time we finished the cheese course it was after 11:00pm we didn t really even want dessert we just wanted the dining experience to end. A new waiter, Roberto, came over to see if he could offer us anything , sensing our unhappiness, insisted that we try dessert. My gelato berries dish was good, B s chocolate mousse was unremarkable.
Thoroughly disappointed, feeling a little awkward (why were we basically ignored when we were sitting smack dab in the middle of the restaurant?) we actually had to go up to the host stand to get the bill for our wine. With no apologies, the maitre d handed us our bill left the restaurant. Dejected, we paid left.
How could the experience be so disappointing at what was supposed to be the best experience on the ship? It sounds apartment rentals oahu snobby to say, but if you knew someone was dining on an invitation from the Hotel Director, wouldn t you want the service to be extra special, not extra disappointing? We left scratching our heads agreeing that Normandie definitely would not be getting our recommendation or our money in the future.
WOW! I am thoroughly apartment rentals oahu amazed that you had such a poor experience at The Normandie. I have eaten there probably apartment rentals oahu a dozen times. We seem to travel a lot on Summit, although we have also traveled on a half dozen other Celebrity ships. I have always had a stellar experience at The Normandie, whether I m with a group of other forty-somethings, apartment rentals oahu or with my wife and two sets of octogenarian parents, or on a date with my seven year old daughter (yes, they will allow younger kids if they are behaved and if you ask politely, even though the listed minimum age is something more like thirteen my daughter who is now eight has eaten at least five times at The Normanie apartment rentals oahu or at Murano on Eclipse).
PLEASE note that I personally traveled on Summit in August 2013 and in November 2013, i.e., immediately before and shortly after your experience. On each cruises I dined at least twice at The Normandie. All of my experiences at The Normandie were PHENOMENAL. There is no possibility whatsoever that The Normandie apartment rentals oahu has had any type of drop in quality if anything, the food is better each time I m there. Considering how accommodating the crew is on Summit, and considering how the staff at The Normandie is amazingly accommodating, I can only suggest with the utmost respect that YOU may have been the problem, apartment rentals oahu although I can t imagine how you might have managed that. You might (if you ever go back to The Normandie) apartment rentals oahu consider apartment rentals oahu asking the waiter for a recommendation on what to order (BTW, I ve had that scallop appetizer and I agree that it sucks, but I ordered it despite the waiter s recommendation that I order the salmon and Peekytoe crab tian, which was out of this world when I ordered it the next time). Regarding apartment rentals oahu the desserts, you should have listened to the waiter who (I guarantee) suggested that you order either the chocolate or the Gran Marnier soufflé, both of which are fabulous.
In short, I would ask you to consider that your singular experience apartment rentals oahu there was perhaps an aberration, because apartment rentals oahu over the course of a dozen years of dining at The Normandie I only want to go back with greater enthusiasm than before. I would urge everyone to dine there (not because apartment rentals oahu I want more competition for tables, but because the place is usually not completely full, and I don t want Celebrity to put a bingo parlor or something idiotic like that in its place). I will be back in June 2014 and will again eat at last twice at The Normandie which is always a very high point on the trip.
Thank you for your very impassioned comment! I m glad that your experience has been different than mine and 100% agree that I d rather have The Normandie in that space than something less desirable. I m sure that we just caught Normandie on an off night (or an off-hour), apartment rentals oahu as most of the other specialty apartment rentals oahu dining experiences (really, dining experiences period) we ve had on Celebrity have been fantastic. In fact, we ve been to Murano, Normandie s sister restaurant, several times and really enjoyed apartment rentals oahu it. I love souffle and wish the waiter had suggested it that sounds like the perfect apartment rentals oahu way to end the meal!
We sailed apartment rentals oahu on the Constellation in 2012 and had a very similar experience as the author in the Ocean Liners restaurant. Poor service, slo-o-ow service, the dessert was awful and the waiter did not offer an alterative when we complained. No cheese apartment rentals oahu course was offered. Once the crew from the ship arrived we were virtually ignored. I had the much touted lobster please, in the future just give me a lobster tail with lemon and drawn butter and quit torturing the poor thing. I would only go back if offered a free meal.
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