While there are many dining options onboard the Celebrity Solstice, we chose to stick to the included options. Overall the food here was pretty decent, but expect huge crowds at the buffet.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Cruising the Last Frontier
• Review: WestJet 737-800MAX Economy Class LAX-YVR
• Superb Service and Surprisingly Good Food: The Hyatt Regency Vancouver
• Vancouver with Kids: Fun in the Great Outdoors
• Family Dining in Vancouver: The Best of What We Ate
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 1 – Booking and Room
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 2 – Dining (this post)
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 3 – Onboard Entertainment
• Review: Celebrity Solstice Alaska Cruise – Part 4 – Ship Features
• Disappointing Wi-Fi on Celebrity Solstice
• PSA: Do Not Waste Money on Celebrity Cruises Drink Packages
• Pro Tip: Celebrity Cruises Gives Free Parking at MGM Resorts
• Icy Strait Point: A Simple Alaskan Port Town
• Skagway: A Small But Enjoyable Port
• A Brief Encounter at Dawes Glacier
• Juneau: Full of Outdoors Experiences
• Ketchikan: Home to Salmon and Lumberjacks
• Review: Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge YVR (Transborder / US Flights)
• Review: Air Canada 737-800MAX Business Class YVR-LAX

Main Dining (Grand Epernay) – Dinner

The main dining room onboard the Celebrity Solstice is the Grand Epernay Dining Room. The space is divided up into two floors (the top floor is used for lunch as well as dinner guests in Concierge Class or higher, the bottom floor is used for breakfast and all other guests during dinner service). There was a lengthy line to get into the dining room the first two nights as staff escorts each party to their assigned table while later in the cruise, everyone could just seat themselves.

On our seven night cruise, we dined here four times for dinner (some nights there was a conflict with activities out in port). Dining times are spilt into early (6:00PM) and late (8:30PM) and we chose the early option to better accommodate our children. Just be sure to check your assigned time when you get onboard as for some reason we got bumped to late dining despite being confirmed for early dining when we booked. If you need to change your time on the day of departure after first getting onboard the ship, you can do so at the Grand Epernay (not at the customer service desk).

Our assigned dinner table was 247, with Peter and Grace as our wait staff. They did an excellent job of getting to know us and made us feel at home.

There is decent variety here at dinner each night, with some options remaining the same while others were on rotation. The starters listed in the first column changed each night while the starters in the second column (such as the excellent French onion soup) could be ordered every night. Similarly, the entrees in the first column changed nightly and the classics in the second column remained through each menu.

I’ll talk a bit more about the alcohol (as well as the non-alcoholic drink options) in a later post, but I found the cocktails here a bit bland. It would have been nice if they had a little more variety in the cocktails in general on the ship.

The kids menu remained the same each day. Of course, your children are not bound to it and could certainly order an appetizer from the kids menu and an entree from the adult menu (as eight-year-old Alex did). Or you could order two entrees from the kids menu if you want to go that route (as four-year-old Char did).

Dinner starts with a variety of breads that are brought to the table. The bread could have been a bit warmer, but it was still well-received.

While we did try many of the starters, overall we felt the French onion soup was the best overall. It has that delicious combination of cheese, broth, sherry, and onions. Can’t go wrong here (unless of course you can’t eat cheese).

The dinner entrees were overall pretty good. The adult pastas had a good amount of flavor (expect less flavor for the kids versions) and the portion sizes were more than enough. Arrive here later in the cruise, and you’ll find nights with prime rib or lobster tails. The lobster tails in particular are limited to one per person, but if you get to know your waiter well enough, he might bring out some lobster tails for the kids in addition to their regular entrees. In terms of quality of the food, I’d say it’s in line with what you would expect from an above average restaurant.

The desserts also had some variation in them (the “classic” desserts were offered every day). Additionally, there were a few extra options for the younger ones on the kids menu. Personally, what I was hoping for the most was a baked Alaska (because it’s not a real Alaskan cruise without one) and that was available on the last night. Overall, this was a pretty satisfying experience and I didn’t think it was necessary to go with specialty restaurants.

Main Dining (Grand Epernay) – Breakfast

The main dining room is open for breakfast in the morning, typically between 7:30AM and 9:00AM. The big benefit here is being able to avoid the crowds at the buffet breakfast; if you choose to dine here, expect light crowds and plenty of available seating. Pastries are available from the staff walking around the room while a waiter takes your order for the other items.

We did dine here a few of the mornings, and found the food somewhat comparable to the buffet upstairs. There is a smaller selection here than at the buffet and the choices never varied by day, so if that matters to you, choose the buffet.

Main Dining (Grand Epernay) – Lunch

We tried lunch in the main dining room one time during the cruise. This was offered between 11:45AM and 1:15PM. I felt like this was the weakest options of the meal services in the Grand Epernay. The choices didn’t feel all that interesting either to us or to the children (there is no kids menu for lunch). The broccoli and cheddar cheese soup was fine and the hot dog was serviceable (not sure why they gave lettuce and tomato for the hot dog?), but the mussel pasta could have used more mussels.

In particular, I had beef (pun intended) with the “smothered burger”. This most definitely did not meet anyone’s definition of “smothered” with a pathetic amount of mushrooms and onions on the burger. I wouldn’t have been surprised by a sauce that covers the burger (perhaps smothering it), but instead it was dry. Lastly, the number of french fries given on the plate made it seem humorously bare. It would have been better if they just served this on a smaller plate because all the empty space just made it seem like something was missing.

Don’t bother eating at the main dining room for lunch. Most of the time, you’ll be off the ship and in port anyways during this time. But if you happen to be on the ship, just go to the buffet. Trust me when I say you’ll enjoy it more there.

Buffet (Oceanview Cafe)

I have way too many pictures of the buffet that would cause this post to become a bit overwhelming. So let me start by describing the situation here and then talking through a few of my observations. Breakfast is typically between 6:00AM and 11:00AM, lunch is typically between 12:00 and 2:30PM, and dinner is typically between 6:00PM and 9:30PM. It seems like most people love to eat here for breakfast and lunch, but then it’s quite dead at dinner. I can’t argue with that logic since dinner in the main dining room is quite good, but lunch leaves something to be desired. The earlier you eat breakfast, the better off you’ll be with grabbing a seat and encountering few lines.

At lunch, there are certain days where they have a special event (for example, there was what they called an Alaskan Fisherman Buffet on the last full day) and you’ll serve yourself well if you show up just before it opens for lunch to grab yourself a table. Otherwise, the crowds can be intense.

How intense? Well, they seem to put all the items that have high interest at and around the carvery station. The line in the picture below is quite typical of what we saw, where it would wrap all the way around the station and then lead off to the middle of the floor.

No one managed the line and it seemed to take on its own life. I’ve seen some people quite disgruntled at how massive the line would get (it moves slowly as it seems everyone wants to take a piece or five of everything on offer at this table), and would try to sneak in to grab one thing off a steam tray. People in the line would then block off anyone trying to jump the line (after all, they suffered and want others to suffer the same fate), leading to frustration all around.

You don’t want to stand in this line and yet it seems everyone ends up doing it. I wish they would have spread out the higher-interest items to other areas of the buffet, but they didn’t.

During breakfast and lunch, there are small cards left at the table asking you to leave the table when you are done eating. As best as I could tell, the policy wasn’t enforced. I saw someone sitting alone at a large table, using the opportunity to read a book by herself. Someone else decided to use an empty table to store their backpacks and bags while they ate at a different table. This contributed somewhat to the overcrowding, but it wasn’t the main driver. I just think they need more seating here, or perhaps at one of the nearby decks outside. So do yourself a favor and come when it’s less crowded.

As for the food itself, we enjoyed it. I think it’s an above-average buffet offering. Most of what’s on offer wasn’t dried out and tasted like you hoped it would. There is a lot of variety here. The kids loved the freshly-made pizzas and pastas, while I ended up going mostly to the Indian section.

There is some good ice cream here as well during lunch and dinner service. This was a nice refresher after each meal. Of course, if ice cream isn’t your thing, you could choose from many different desserts.

On the last day, they also brought out the chocolate fountain and had so many cakes.

For breakfast, you’ll find all the options in the main dining area plus some extra things (like congee in the Asian breakfast section). I generally found myself at the English breakfast station, but it was easy to bounce around. As with the lunch/dinner service, the food here was fresh and tasty.

Mast Grill

Above the pool deck is the Mast Grill, which tends to be open around lunch (and in some cases might be the only thing open). You’ll find typical grilled items here (hot dogs and hamburgers) and nothing else, making variety severely limited. This was probably one of the more disappointing food options as it seems no effort was made into making it unique.

They have a Celebrity burger and a regular beef burger. What’s the difference between the two? Seemingly nothing. Staff said that the Celebrity burger comes with everything on it while the regular beef burger has nothing on it by default, but with both burgers you can just customize what you want on it anyways. There are no special sauces or unique, quirky items here for your burgers. But I guess the good news is the burgers here are better than what’s served in the main dining room?

Ultimately, this is one option I would say you’d be fine missing.

Other Dining Options

As I mentioned at the start of the post, we stuck to the included options and overall I think it worked out for us. They do have a number of paid specialty dining options available, but I didn’t think they were necessary especially in retrospect. However, expect to be asked several times if you would want to join them for these meals once you are onboard, especially over in the buffet area.

Stay tuned for the next post where we will take a dive into the entertainment onboard the ship