Let's take a break from what's on our plates to see what's under the sea

We did only one scheduled tour on this sailing, the Atlantis Submarine Tour in Aruba. We booked it through the ship using onboard credit during a pre-cruise sale. It can also be booked independently through the same company, De Palm Tours here. This was our second visit to Aruba. On the first visit, we booked independently with Trikes Aruba for a unique way to see some of the same sites across the island as the big bus ship tours. 

The Atlantis Submarine Tour only has a minimum age of four and the only issue with physical limitations is that you have to climb down and back up about 10-15 steps. On our tour, I was a little surprised to see older cruisers with assistive devices and even some with casts and walking boots show up for this excursion. However, everyone seemed to manage the transfers and steps fine.

Our tour met like most of them this day, on the steps outside the little mall of shops that you are forced to walk through when getting off and back on the ship. I'm not sure if something changed or if there ever was meant to be some sort of transportation from those steps to our waiting ferry boat. We were all made to briskly walk about 200 yards to keep up with our excursion rep before being handed over to our guide from De Palm Tours. Our guide kept us entertained with information about the island, the Atlantis business model, and as always the safety rules. The guide gave us a heads up warning so we could be ready for pictures as we arrived at the dive site before the submarine resurfaced with its current group. 

Photo courtesy of Dad

The tour sessions run right after the other so once we got to the location of the submarine vessel itself, the Captain from the company kept the ferry sidled up to the surfaced submarine. All of us on the ferry boat stood to form a line along the perimeter while those exiting the submarine transferred into the ferry boat and took the seats we'd just vacated. Once they were fully on the ferry, we took the same small bridge path and lined up on the top of the submarine waiting for each person ahead to slowly descend the ladder staircase. There are railings to hold onto around the staircase but you need to make sure you watch your head as you climb both ways. 

Once inside, there is basically carved out bucket seat style divots - half facing one side of the submarine, half facing the other side. You will be sitting directly next to someone guaranteed. Unfortunately, the gentleman next to Dad chose to take 1 and 1/2 spots and the woman on my other side chose to leave one seat between us resulting in at least 1-2 people at the end of the boarding process without a real seat. Please don't be those people who cause others to have a less than enjoyable experience because you took more than your expected share. In the end, by moving away, the woman next to me did not get to sit directly in front of a viewing porthole. I've done a glass bottomed boat excursion before that was similar except it was as if they had substituted the last row of panels with glass. This was more of a visual through spaced out porthole windows so not every seat had a straight on view. The other main difference is that with the glass bottomed boat excursion, they had someone dive down to feed the fish in order to entice them to swim by our windows. Even though we are sitting shoulder to shoulder and I couldn't sit back this time due to a gentleman on the other side who thought he was in an airplane seat reclining, I did not find it claustrophobic. 

Our De Palm tour guide went down the staircase first to make sure everyone from before was out and to assist anyone coming down the stairs. He then stayed with us during the entire submarine portion as well telling us what we were seeing and cracking jokes. I appreciated how he worked it into his narration an explanation for those on one side who got to see a space first and then recapped it when the submarine captain turned the vessel around so the other side could see. 

When we reached our lowest depth, the submarine captain briefly landed the submarine on the ocean floor:

The submarine portion was only about 45 minutes long but it did not feel rushed in the least. We saw lots of fish, coral, and multiple sunken ships that Atlantis happily accepts if you're looking to sell or donate. They sink them intentionally not only for viewing tours like this one but also to create new artificial reefs to keep all the wonderful colorful tropical fish populations thriving in Aruba's waters. If you've always wanted to view what swims below without getting wet, then this tour is a great option for you!

This little guy is waiting to say hello:

Finishing out our Luminae experience on a sour note

Day 4 Luminae Breakfast - 

Scrambled eggs can be quite polarizing among cruisers. Especially when trying them in the buffet. You might hear an experienced cruiser refer to the use of powdered eggs which can result in a separation when reconstituted.Turned down the scrambled eggs in the buffet a couple times later in the cruise because they looked like floating clumps of scramble in an egg soup. Thankfully, MDR and Luminae scrambled eggs looked much better. They had a creamy texture which resulted in a little bit of runniness but still tasted good.

The edible decor appeared on my plate again this morning. I'm not sure though whether these fingerling potatoes are more aptly named because they always came out looking like fingers smashed in a car door. 

We did mention it to our server when we ordered the potatoes as a side but got the customary "sorry, want something else?" reply. Perhaps more of a chef based issue as the same potatoes we had in another venue were like night and day.

Day 7 Luminae Breakfast - 

I went down for breakfast alone this day with the expectation that Dad would join me after he was done with a check in at the medical center. He wasn't able to join me but our butler Mary was kind enough to arrange a delivery of fruit and bagel with lox to the cabin for him. I rarely get good pancakes at home so I always try them on cruises. Today's order was banana pancakes. I like putting banana slices through the leftover maple syrup so I cut out the middle step. I was a little surprised when the server asked if it was okay to put the bananas in the pancakes. I said yes but ended up with a plate both ways. 

Not sure if that was a thin caramel, honey, or diluted orange marmalade that was drizzled over the banana on the side but it was super sweet. The pancakes were quite tasty and fluffy in texture. I found that having the bananas in the pancakes made for a burst of extra sweetness which I didn't care for. If you have a major sweet tooth then this might have been your perfect breakfast. In the future I will go for plain pancakes and fruit on the side. 

Day 9 - Snack at Cafe al Bacio

Hot chocolate and a slice of vanilla pound cake. Unlike the International Cafe (IC) on Princess, Cafe al Bacio's food offerings are more for the dessert or pastry variety. Fancy a muffin with your morning coffee? This is the place to visit as just like the IC, the food is always free! Any drinks however both iced and hot coffee varieties do cost extra. These drinks are included if you have a drink package as we did for being in The Retreat categories of cabins.

Day 12 - Dinner in Luminae

This was not only our last night of the cruise but our first chance to return to Luminae for dinnertime. Time to amuse our bouches. I think this was some sort of artichoke or perhaps a tiny gecko being strangled by carrot shavings?

Due to Dad's injury and subsequent repeated treatments, we had yet to return to Luminae during lunch hours to get the famous Luminae burger. Mary did offer to bring us lunch from Luminae to the cabin one day but we would have had to wait until lunchtime hours. We had missed breakfast that morning and were too hungry to wait. At tonight's dinner Dad asked if he could put in a special order to have the burger now. The server took a moment to double check but it was deemed okay. In our exhaustion, I had mistakenly mixed up MDR menu days in the app and ordered an appetizer from a previous evening. After being gone for a while, our server came back to the table to apologize as they couldn't find what I'd ordered on the menu. I pulled it up to show him and realized that I had accidentally tapped another numbered night at the bottom of the app. The server offered to have me choose from tonight's menu but I didn't care for any of the choices. He apologized again and I apologized insisting that this was completely my mistake.

Service this night slowed to a crawl and it became very frustrating. Yes, we'd just been through an extra stressful week so our patience was thin. However, this was like our table had been forgotten. Watched the servers, sommelier, manager, and hostess fawn over other tables chatting with passengers. I get that this was typical for the final night as we've had many cruises where we'd love the chance to thank and lament the need to say goodbye to our servers. But to do so at the expense of other passengers to the point that we weren't even getting water refills is too much. 

Unfortunately, as is the case in most restaurants, they were holding my order until both were ready. We weren't getting checked on at all by our server so I couldn't even attempt to ask for my entree much less order something else I'd spotted after finding the right evening menu. I tried calling the manager over but the sommelier came rushing over thinking we wanted to order wine. We explained that we were wanting to talk to the manager and the sommelier directed him to our table. Without a chance to utter a word from us, the manager went right over to Dad and declared that because of his special order it was being made from scratch and he will just have to understand that it would take longer. I literally sat there with my mouth hanging open because I had started to explain before being cut off while the manager turned his back on me to lecture Dad. Since Dad had the manager's attention, he explained for me and our server was quickly sent to get my dish. Another crew member was sent over to refill our water glasses in the meantime. 

From the Luminae entree menu - Fresh Homemade Fettucine with baby calamari, shrimp, roasted red pepper, and extra virgin olive oil. After all that wait, my first bites of this dish were rubbery and tough. I was able to get our server's attention this time and ordered the Gnocchi from the MDR menu as a replacement. Our server quickly whisked this dish away and I noticed the manager stop him to question why it was being sent back. The server told him that I'd asked for gnocchi instead and rushed back to the kitchen. 

The gnocchi was the dish I was going to ask be brought in lieu of an appetizer. While the manager hung back watching our table from across the room, service did pick up briefly with my replacement entree coming quickly. Dad's burger soon arrived after that and we ended up having our entrees at the same time anyway. The gnocchi had good texture, was properly warm, and had a great taste. Dad loved his burger and I'm glad one of us finally got the chance to try it this cruise. 

Once we were "appeased" with our entree delivery, service became non existent again. We decided rather than go another round with the manager that we would skip dessert. For how long we were ignored, it's amazing how fast our server made it to our table when he saw us gathering our things to leave. He acted concerned about our dessert refusal and we chalked it up to being tired. His response to this that really left a bad taste on our final night of such bad service was to launch into an extended plea to have us give the Luminae wait staff all 10 scores on the post cruise survey. I'm pretty sure he repeated his plea a couple times over as if he was trying to keep us from walking out and being questioned by the manager again. We've been on many cruises and have heard from many crew members who have gotten good reviews and commendations from us in post cruise surveys that tell us how it helped them get promoted, get a bonus, or get extra time off. This moment however was poorly timed and gave a horrible final impression to our time in Luminae. 

How is Luminae on a formal night?

Day three of our cruise was the first formal night or as Celebrity refers to it, Evening Chic night. I mixed and matched from the Luminae menu and the MDR menu for dinner tonight.

A little amuse-bouche again to start things off:

Shrimp Cocktail from the MDR's Timeless Starters section. You may see the same section of standard appetizers called "Classics" or "Always Available" on other cruise lines. Points for presentation and the taste was good. I do wish however that there was a little bowl or dish for the cocktail sauce versus just a spoonful doled out onto the plate.

From the Luminae appetizer list - Chilled Lobster Salad with hearts of palm, cilantro, pineapple, and vanilla dressing. Sounds like an odd combination doesn't it? It was more tasty than I would have expected given the flavors listed. The pineapple cuts were small so you didn't get overwhelmed with the flavor but it provided the tart citrus taste you would get if you like to squeeze a lemon over your seafood. Hearts of palm and the small lobster cuts were tender and bite size. One of those dishes you never expected to like but then find yourself sad when it's finished.

Dad's main entree from the Luminae menu - Fennel Crusted Grilled Lamb Loin with carrot puree, haricot verts, and natural jus. At first glance I thought this dish looked like someone spilled mustard  and it ran all over the plate with the meat juices.  However, Dad enjoyed the taste of the entire dish. Even tried a few of the haricot verts once I explained that they're just fancy green beans.

My main entree came from the MDR menu. Are you sensing a theme to my dinner choices tonight?

Shrimp Scampi - White wine-garlic sauce, cherry tomatoes, parsley; served over linguine. Nice sized shrimp that were tender and cooked well. The pasta had a good bite to it. I just wish there was more of it. I would have liked more of an obvious garlic taste than there was but I understand how tough it can be to have to cook in large quantities for a variety of palates. 

While we waited for the dessert course, one of the little extras for evening chic night is a plate for the table of a treat sampler. A mix of macarons, a linzer style cookie, and a variety of flavored chocolate truffles. 

I didn't note what Dad's dessert was called but it was a sort of chocolate hazelnut mousse cake that he requested to be served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Hmm, I wonder if you could ask for the vanilla ice cream and peanut butter on the side trick for this dish like people do with Carnival's Chocolate Melting Cake? Mmm, take notes Celebrity Cruise Line! Would love to see such an option on our next Celebrity cruise. 

A nice table by the window watching the waves until it got dark. The lights dimmed to create a more formal or fancier (perhaps leaning toward romantic?) atmosphere. Our service was fairly good tonight despite being a popular time for Luminae diners. While most cruise lines will offer a menu with more upscale dishes on a formal night, the trend has been lately that the most popular lobster tail won't be on the menu until the second formal night of the cruise. With the use of an app that many cruise lines have adopted these days, it's easy to see a week's menu at a glance allowing you to decide whether to participate in formal nights or keep it casual.

Is this food Luminae-zing or not?

 Dinner Night One: 

Amuse-Bouche - I think this was baby shrimp in a panko crusted ball

I chose the escargot from the MDR menu - one of their "classics" or "always available" options. Celebrity makes some of the best escargot!

Turkey Escarole Soup with Ditalini Pasta, Leeks, and Gruyere Croutons - Dad's appetizer from the Luminae menu. He enjoyed it.

Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli from the MDR entree menu. It was okay though I wish it had more to it than just four ravioli, sauce, and cheese. 

Grilled NY Strip Steak with Truffle Potato Puree, Bordelaise Sauce, Carrots, and Beet Port Reduction - Dad's entree from the Luminae menu. He definitely won tonight's entree round!

Every Luminae dessert choice had a nut component. Unfortunately, all of the straight ice cream options seemed to be icy tasting with actual surprise ice chunks. One of the MDR dessert choices was a fruit topped or fruit sauced cheesecake and Luminae was kind enough to bring me a slice without any of the fruit.

Day Two Breakfast:

Kudos to the larger glasses of orange juice without pulp. However we both agreed that it didn't taste like orange juice to us. Could have been a brand issue or the fact that I'm so used to Vitamin Water that regular orange juice seems too different now. I was glad to see the option of having my Vitamin Water. Especially since they'd bring me a cold bottle that I could easily drink from at breakfast and carry away with me.

Dad's favorite thing about Princess' breakfast is their bagel with lox plate. Here is what Celebrity refers to as Smoked Salmon - Capers, tomato, red onions, and egg. And yes, I've asked about how he won't eat salmon but will start every day of a cruise with "lox." It usually ends with "But lox is smoked salmon!" "Yeah, so?"

And of course I had to try Celebrity's Eggs Benedict. The menu lists three versions - classic, florentine, and Scottish Smoked Salmon. Not sure what makes it Scottish unless it had a deep accent that sounded like bagpipes while being smoked? I opted for the classic version. Bit of a disappointment compared to the taste and quality I remembered on our last Equinox sailing. English Muffins were too overly toasted and hard to cut. The pork sausage was my choice for a side. Other versions of sausage were chicken apple and kielbasa. 

Day 3 Breakfast:

After being delivered someone else's fruit plate and parfait by mistake earlier, we chose to order the fruit plate today. I wish I had gotten a picture before we reported the mistake because there was a noticeable difference in the quality between then and now. I'm guessing that we had a strawberry shortage because I've never seen a fruit plate with one strawberry diced up into cubes to make it look like more. The melon was pretty tough but I rarely seem to get melon that isn't when on a cruise.

Dad's entree choice of a cheese omelette with Applewood Smoked Bacon (English Back Bacon was the other option). The two types of potatoes offered are the Sauteed Fingerling he got upon suggestion from our server and Hash Browns. The potatoes came looking like they'd been prepared under a steamroller. He enjoyed the omelet and thought the bacon was okay.

My entree choice was two fried eggs over medium. Turns out over medium means different things to different chefs. Learned that there's also an "over hard" option on Celebrity that I'm guessing would have been the solid versus runny yolks. I too got the unrequested mushroom, tomato, asparagus mix on the side. The difference between us is that I actually ate some of it. I know I'm particular about only liking my breads barely toasted but this was one step back from being mistaken for a hockey puck. 

Why is there a clump of grey oatmeal on your plate you ask? Unfortunately, that's not oatmeal but instead the side of Hash Browns I ordered! I know there's two ways of making hash browns - shredded versus patties - but this seemed to only get the Hash part of the message. It was dryer lint grey, looked like it had been put in a panini press and I was unable to get a knife through it to even attempt to taste. I did mention the odd hash brown to our server but he just said yeah with a sigh like he gets daily complaints about it. I turned down his standard offer to bring something else.

Is Luminae still the ideal dining experience?

When my family discusses whether or not to book a specific cruise, one of the first questions out of Dad's mouth is "Is this a ship with a dining room like Luminae?" Or technically he says "a dining room like Luminare" because he can never remember what it's called. Luminae is a separate main dining room (MDR) with its own menu that is exclusive to passengers booked in suite cabins. It's a smaller venue with a concept of more upscale food and better service. It also means that you won't have to make a reservation or sit and wait for a table to be available. We loved our first experience with this venue on Celebrity Equinox. I often tell the story of how one morning I joked with a waiter that if I accepted his offer to bring me anything else, he'd have to roll me out of the room. Without missing a beat, he replied "We can do that!" I replied "You really are full service here then!" He said "Yep!" and both the waiter and I fell into a fit of giggles. 

One of the extra helpful aspects of Luminae dining on an S-class ship like Equinox is that you can order either from the Luminae menu, the regular MDR menu, or any combination of both. Like the appetizer from Luminae's menu but the entree from MDR? No problem. Want an appetizer from both menus? No problem. This is allowed because the ship's design features a shared galley between the two venues. When you head down to the deck to visit Luminae, it's literally a matter of turning to one side for MDR and the other side for Luminae. This feature came in handy a lot for me since I, even as a foodie willing to try anything, had a hard time finding something I wanted on Luminae's menu. Unfortunately, the newer bigger ships in the Edge class (Edge, Beyond, Apex, Ascent), have Luminae built up on a higher deck within the Retreat Sun Deck space so it's not feasible on those ships to order something from the regular MDR while dining in Luminae. 

After spending nine days on Celebrity Equinox with Luminae access, I think the pedestal we placed Luminae on after our first sailing has started to crack a bit. As is the case everywhere post pandemic, the level of service and the level of product wasn't always at the level it once was. Some days, we'd have very attentive and fast service, other days I'd wonder whether they swam all the way back to land to retrieve our orders. At one point, we had plates put in front of us without a word and the server disappeared before I could get a word out to explain that this wasn't what we ordered. Sometimes though it's the good attitude and the reaction to the frustrations that make the difference. We had a good laugh with the apologetic maitre'd because what we received by mistake looked really tasty. We ended up ordering it at a future breakfast. 

A nice touch I enjoyed about Luminae is that they took the time to remember our preferences. I had spotted Vitamin Water as an option in the Oceanview Cafe's (buffet) drink menu and asked about having it for breakfast in Luminae. From that day on, they kept a Vitamin Water Zero Orange available for me every morning. Sadly, an injury onboard and the resulting repeated visits to the medical center throughout the rest of the cruise meant that we rarely got to visit Luminae until dinner on the last night. Immediately, the wait staff came over to "tease" about having my Vitamin Water ready only for me not to show up. Once we explained our absence, they quickly apologized and explained that they assumed we'd simply been eating in specialty dining all week. It also then turned out to be our worst service of the trip and we opted to leave without finishing the meal. Our server came rushing over when he saw us gathering our things shocked that we weren't ordering dessert. His response to our explanation of disappointment was to launch into a plea to give them a great score on the post cruise survey. Living off of room service and what I could carry back to our cabin from the breakfast and late night buffet options while spending my days pushing a wheelchair around the ship is not a diet plan I recommend. I think this might be the first cruise I returned from having dropped 10 pounds!

I shared the menus on my social media channels when we did get to dine in Luminae so I'll just share some food porn highlight photos. What follows is our first lunch onboard. More will be shared in future posts.

Kale salad with quinoa, orange supremes, and a white balsamic vinaigrette. I give it a 2 out of 5 but then, it's kale. Does anyone rate kale a 5 out of 5?

English Pea Soup with Smoked Bacon and Brown Butter Crouton - Dad's appetizer. 5 out of 5. He wished he could have ordered it again.

Grilled NY Steak Frites with Béarnaise Sauce, Sauteed Spinach, and Parmesan Wedge Potatoes - Dad's entree - 5 out of 5 but of course he is Mr. Meat and Potatoes.

Creamy Lobster Roll with a potato roll, celery, creme fraiche, and french fries. There is a bit of debate about whether this is offered on every cruise and most often only is at lunch on embarkation day. We did notice that the embarkation day lunch menu repeated on day 8. Many report that they only liked the filling and chose to order it with a salad so they could dump the roll's contents on top of the salad. I personally enjoyed the meal especially for the soft versus crusty roll.

Creamy Dark Chocolate and Dulce de Leche with a Mango Marmalade - both chose this for dessert. Chocolate on top of chocolate with a swizzle of dulce de leche across the pieces. All that was missing for Dad was a scoop of chocolate gelato on the side and the whole thing buried in whipped cream. No worries readers, Mr. Picky Eater still pushed aside those mango marmalade turned jello cubes because "I don't know what they are." How he ended up with a daughter who only likes chocolate in small doses I'll never understand. I liked the artistic aspect but I would have been just as happy with some vanilla ice cream.