First Time on Celebrity - Tips?

My wife and I will be going on our first Celebrity cruise this year (Edge class) with our baby boy, who will be just shy of 1 when we go. First off, please no abuse towards us for choosing this cruise - I'll give our reasons at the bottom - but I have a few questions for regular Celebrity cruisers, and anyone who can answer these for us that's much appreciated!

One thing that was very appealing to us about Celebrity was the 4-restaraunt main dining setup. We have early dining - I'm curious, do we need reservations for a specific restaurant per night, or is it assigned, like Disney's rotational dining? Or just walk up?

Similarly, we're excited about the entertainment on board - for shows, are reservations needed? On our first cruise, they weren't strictly required, but essentially needed to get good seats, as walk-ups generated massive lines. Is this something that's available?

Lastly, just curious in general - around what time do shows/etc. typically run on Celebrity? Do the main shows run on multiple days (we are on a 7-night cruise)?

Thank you to anyone who can provide insight!

For anyone wondering why we would choose Celebrity with our boy, some background - we went on our first cruise last year, on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas, and had an amazing time. We were looking at many different lines, including Celebrity and Virgin, and ultimately decided on Royal, thinking the expansive entertainment options would be better for my pregnant wife, who obviously could not drink. We had an absolutely wonderful time, and knew we would book another cruise. However, when looking into our options, Royal didn't really have what we wanted - for the timeframe and price, Royal offered shorter sailings on Utopia, which we've heard has a "party" vibe, not to our tastes - and longer sailings either were routed to Haiti, which we are not comfortable with, or were on the prohibitively expensive Icon or Star of the Seas.

So looking into alternatives, we wound up narrowing it down to Disney, Carnival, or Celebrity. Disney seemed like the best fit on paper, due to the line's reputation, and having amenities like a nursery. But upon looking closer, things like the nursery are first-come-first-serve reservations, and we are on the bottom rung for booking anything - and because of their policy disallowing children in the adult district, we may not even be able to see any of the more laid back, relaxing areas and just be part of the hustle and bustle. It also cost more for 5 nights versus 7 on Carnival or Celebrity.

Then between Carnival and Celebrity, we just weighed what we valued in our cruise experience - we don't want a massive ship, potentially with loud, drunk, vulgar patrons with a baby. We have also seen footage of major fights aboard Carnival ships, and just had concerns there, though the ship did look very nice.

After talking with a Celebrity rep, who said we can bring our boy to any venue on the ship, including specialty restaurants, we just decided it was the best fit. We loved Royal, but the things we loved were the relaxing bars with live piano, the Central Park area with its chilled out vibe, the specialty dining restaurants we chose to indulge in. Our typical day was, I'd wake up earlier than my wife, get a coffee, go to the gym for an hour, we'd get a nice early-ish lunch together, spend some time either on our balcony or on the pool deck (though this was often difficult due to crowds), then enjoy entertainment, food, and each other in the evenings. We thought Celebrity would be perfect for this, and with our son being young enough that the lack of more thrilling activities won't matter, we're just prepared to be flexible based on his needs. He's not very fussy, is used to going out to dinner with us (he's usually not loud or disruptive, and if he is, we just trade off exiting the restaurant and calming him). We also figure the perceived more calm atmosphere of Celebrity is a better fit for us as a family, and if he ever gets overwhelmed, we can just retreat to the cabin for a little bit.

Sorry for being long-winded, I've just seen some discourse on the above, and wanted to give my reasons for choosing Celebrity given our situation as parents. 🙂