kremepuff

On 12/24/2022 at 10:40 AM, CaroleSS said:

But I don't suppose one acid is worse than the other., the stomach is designed to withstand very strong acids......so the comment about Coke doing damage to your stomach just because it removed corrosion from a penny doesn't ring true.

https://www.gcaustralasia.com/Upload/product/pdf/96/Acidity-pH-chart.pdf

Plus we should avoid swallowing pennies.

That you may well be right about the cause for your itinerary change and that the substitution of one Japanese port for another is merely a consequence of pier availability to accommodate that mandated itinerary change...

From the letter:

I am sorry to let you know that we have had to change the itinerary for your sailing as above. We only take this action when it is necessary. On this occasion, we have had to alter the ship's itinerary to be in compliance with Chinese Law.

While they aren't specific to the reasons, it appears not to be port availability. I am not upset or frustrated. I am sure it is more of a pain for Celebrity having to re-figure a whole bunch of stuff out. The Cruise Planning Website is all messed up at the moment too, with allegedly being able to book shore excursions on Sea Days and no excursions yet visible on the day in Okinawa yet.

I woke up to a notification e-mail this morning that our Celebrity Millennium cruise in October has had its itinerary changed in order to "comply with Chinese" law.

Instead of going to Kagoshima we are now going to Okinawa and the order has been moved around.

My guess is the Chinese are getting grumpy about going from China to Taiwan directly and we are now having to stop off in Okinawa.

We get an extra hour in port in Shanghai and Nagasaki and one less hour in port in Okinawa then we would have gotten in Kagoshima. We then have to cruise from Okinawa back to Taiwan and even though Taiwan is an overnight, we now don't arrive into port until 1PM (previously 7AM).

I am from the US but have been living in the UK for quite a while now. If I were apoplectic every-time I got bad service in the UK, I would simply have offed myself years ago.

We are taking a Celebrity cruise in October for the first time, so I can't directly comment on Celebrity, but we have been on two other cruises now and I can say that while on occasion some of the service was punching a clock, I can remember stand out service in almost every situation. Having been worn down in the UK, good service totally delights and is generally unexpected.

I am lucky that I haven't seen over-entitled people behaving badly on a cruise, but I have seen them other places and I often react very badly to that, much to my partner's angst. We were checking into a flight and the guy in front of us was yelling at the check in agent because she wouldn't allow him to put his significantly overweight baggage on the checkin belt and was telling him he needed to take it to the overweight area. He insisted that she should leave her post and drag his bag for him. I inserted myself in the conversation and calmly but firmly told him he was being rude and that he would take his bags and move them himself as the lady had instructed him. That wasn't the first time or the last time I suspect I will address someone's unacceptable behaviour.

Now, clearly with some of the issues that I have seen people complain about here, they fall short of perfect. On the other hand, I feel bad that people might have allowed something like that to ruin what should have been an enjoyable time away (or at least that seems to be what they are reflecting in their reviews).

Admittedly I have had situations on cruises where something went wrong and there was a huge opportunity for a small gesture that would have totally increased our loyalty, and the missed opportunities far outweigh the few instances where we were totally taken aback by the level of service, but it seems like a lot of folks expect a minor miracle of customer service every-time something goes a little wrong.

We also self edit. We almost certainly remember the good times over the bad. So I think almost everyone has fond memories of the past that outweigh the bad memories of the past. Maybe it is just that time heals all wounds!

I run technology for a fairly visible company in the UK. You have no idea how difficult it can be watching social media. You and your teams put in hard work every day and it is challenging to see people boil your hard work down into a tweet of "you guys are complete idiots" from someone.

On the other hand, most companies ignore social media at their peril, though sometimes it is really challenging to ferret out your real issues and challenges from all the dross that are there.

Also, responding directly can cause a whole load of issues and mis-set customer's expectations. While there are millions of Celebrity passengers here, there are actually only a handful of us "vocal" ones. Addressing peoples individual issues in public is a challenge, trying to get the right message across in an official capacity is even harder. Because we are a hard and tough and critical lot (as any vocal group of customers are).

Any complex business operation won't ever be able to get it right 100% of the time. I know in my job, I probably take it too personally. What I try to do though is take the spirit of the vitriolic rants people embark on as well as the genuine suggestions and see what we can do better. I can only assume that there are lots of folks at Celebrity (and RCL) that sit there, spending day in and day out how they can make things better.

Of course commercial companies are driven by profits and the challenge is that you can't please everyone all the time, but all companies know new business and repeat business are critical to their success. To boil down issues to "Celebrity clearly doesn't give a toss" is likely way over simplifying trying balance very demanding customers with varied expectations, while keeping staff motivated and all at a price people are willing to pay while having enough left over to make the shareholders happy.

My opinion is when you hang your banner out as "Modern Luxury Cruising" my goodness that is a high mark to set yourself.

Just got off the phone with CC. Although not mandatory, they prefer that you get lost in Formal Wear.

I just called too, and they gave me the totally opposite information, that while getting lost, the prefer casual, because there is nothing more sad than a lost penguin. It really pulls at the heart strings.

Well, obviously these forums collect those of us towards the "obsessive" end of the spectrum. On the other hand I am not sure that we would have gotten as much enjoyment out of our cruises if we hadn't done a level of research and that has been half the fun for us.

I do agree sometimes we can over do it. I remember when I was going in for a surgery once and the nurse was sort of surprised on the day that I didn't have a load of questions. I said what came to my mind which was "well, I figure you folks know what you are doing and you do this a lot and don't kill too many people, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. Therefore I am not going to suddenly think of something that you hadn't considered that I need to ask to go 'Oh, yeah, I guess we hadn't thought of that.'" The nurse laughed at me.

So, my standpoint with cruises is they must be doing something right, because lots of people go again and again, so relax and go with the flow!