Stockjock

I did Summit NYE 2022 with the then CEO aboard, and her sister Infinity this past summer. I thought Summit was in outstanding shape, particularly given her age. Infinity needed some help. They need to either Revolutionize Infinity or dump the ship, imo. It wasn't terrible, but not up to Celebrity's standards, imo. But I felt Summit was up to standard.

I also thought Butcher's Cut was very good. I'd improve the plating presentation, skip the bands, and possibly elevate the decor a touch, if it was up to me. The food quality is pretty solid, imo. Service was also pretty decent. In terms of plating, it seems as if many of the entrees are served without much attention to aesthetic presentation, and the items served often look pretty lonely, alone, or nearly so, on a huge plate. I've attached a couple of photos as examples.

Not sure who the musicians are. Not sure if it was a trial gig. It was a Med cruise. Not sure if they got off or not. But a buddy and I did a couple of specialty restaurants on Celebrity last year, and the service and atmosphere was First Class, particularly in Murano Restaurant, which was so impressive. Pretty good service in Butcher's Cut, but not in the same league, and really, I didn't need to have a band marching through the restaurant during dinner. Others obviously might feel differently.

That's why I wrote "quasi." As a side note, I was the announcer for a marching band, back when.

A small, quasi-marching band visits your restaurant during dinner. How would you feel about it? A. Hey, why not? It's kind of fun! B. Um, this is supposed to be an upscale specialty restaurant & we're trying to have a relaxing dinner. Not exactly the place for a quasi-marching band. C. Something else (explain,)

I see some opposed to this, but how is getting CC points for spending any worse than getting CC points for watching online videos that many probably don't watch anyway? The spend would give points to the branded credit card users, and this would benefit Celebrity/RCCL directly in several ways. I'm trying to view this from 2 perspectives. From a corporate perspective, i.e. more revenue. And from a customer perspective, i.e. more perks/benefits.

To clarify, it's a poll in the way that I had intended. I find the comments to be more meaningful than a simple click to vote tabulation format.

If you're priced out of Retreat, let me know if you try MSC Yacht Club, which I've heard good things about, and the pricing seems to be much better. I've sailed on MSC quite a few times, but not in YC. We did an Aurea Grand Suite for NYE, but that's not YC.

This is the poll. Do you prefer a spreadsheet?

Ok then, 100 points?

As you may know, Celebrity has a house-branded credit card, and typically they offer something like $200 or $300 in OBC if you sign up for it. But let's say they sweetened the pot, and in addition to the OBC bonus, they offered some Captain's Club loyalty points, let's say 50, and perhaps they could tie that to an initial spend challenge, perhaps spending $2,500 in the first 3 months or so. Would that make you more likely to sign up for their card? It seems to me as if they'd get a lot of new credit card business if they tried this. I know that the airlines make big money on their house-branded credit cards. What do you think?

While I've had some maddening shore-side customer service experiences, in terms of the onboard experience, MSC generally offers good value for the money. I'd take them in a heartbeat over Carnival. Likely over RCCL and NCL too.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, as last year we did a Celebrity cruise from "Venice" that actually departed from Ravenna. In our case, we paid for a private water taxi to take us from our hotel (3 nights pre-cruise) to that Maritime Transit Center (or whatever it's called). There were people movers and other ways to get there, but the water taxi dropped us off on the docks, very close to where the bus departed from. Not sure what MSC offers, but we paid for Celebrity's sponsored transportation to the port and it worked out very well. When we flew into Venice airport (VCE), we booked a water taxi from the airport to our hotel's private dock. This is a bit more expensive, but really nice and scenic. However, during high tide, water taxis cannot get under some of the bridges in Venice, and so they had to drop us off at the closest public station and we lugged our bags to the hotel, which wasn't a piece of cake due to bridges/stairs/cobblestones and the fact that we don't travel light, but that's what we dealt with. Again, this may or may not be helpful, since we were departing from "Venice", and on another cruise line, but if it doesn't help you, perhaps it will help someone else.

Good to read some positive comments. We have a cruise booked later this year on Sirena, which will be our first on Oceania. I've read so many poor reviews, I've considered cancelling, plus, we're concerned that it might be boring. But at this stage, I figure that the best way to know is to try it for ourselves.

I feel obligated to inform everyone that, yes, I too have received my 3 points for watching that fascinating webinar last month. Woo hoo.