Rustyman

I’ve found that the best value is to book in the first few days of the cruise being made available. We almost always do this and find that the price increases by a good 5%+ as the sail date approaches. Other “value” can be found on the older ships especially on transatlantic crossings. Again though early booking is advisable. An example of this is that October 2025 Eclipse transatlantic sold out all sky suites within a few days of coming on sale, their cost was way less than Ascent suite prices, over £2200/person cheaper. Other value tips are: 1. Buy your drinks package as AI at booking. 2. Wait for a Black Friday sale to upgrade the drinks package to Premium. 3. Wait for Black Friday sale to buy Speciality dining/dining packages. 4. Sometimes there are pre cruise offers to purchase casino credit at a 10% discount to value. 5. Often have decent discount on Speciality restaurants for 1st night of a cruise. This is usually well worth it as you avoid the 1st night bunfight and queuing at the MDR. There must be lots of tips to save a few dollars out there.

I can’t remember the exact wine other than it was red and if bought by the glass was $16 a glass. I looked at the lower priced bottles on the menu in Murano and chose this as it seemed the best value compared with its “by the glass” price. I think it was the Berlinger Cabernet Sauvignon but not 100% sure.

It was actually quite good fun working the system to get the most of the Elite drinks but you have to organise your day around it😀. Wines to the room from bars is the bonus, a couple of times our waitress commented on how full our wine glasses were at dinner😂. Best of luck if you go this way and enjoy it, it was the first cruise where I felt like I was winning! Having said all that all of our cruises booked for the future have drinks packages included, purely for the comfort and flexibility that allows.

Perfect, thanks.

A question re the response time of Celebrity in upgrading status. We are going on a transatlantic as Elite but become Elite+ during the cruise. If we take a back to back following the transatlantic will our cruise card show us as Elite+? I’m asking as I really don’t want any arguments on board as we will go cruise only and take the free alcohol from 5-7 and all day cappuccinos etc. I’ve found that the true answers to questions are more reliable on this forum than those received from Celebrity reps.

We also drank way more wine than the 2 hour window allows. Red wines last well in the room covered with a beer mat and if your room is close to a bar then result!

There is an Elite drinks menu available if you search for it, you are restricted to this menu and your status as printed on our card means the bar tenders are aware of your eligibility. Re waters, we took 16 bottles on board with us at embarkation, on the Elite package there was no restriction on the number we ordered between 5 and 7pm.

We’ve always had the Premium package but booked an “extra holiday in August last year on the Silhouette, are Elite and soon to be Elite + so decided to try the free drinks with no package. On day one we had booked Murano so bought a bottle of wine with dinner, $40 after Elite discount. Every other night we hit the bars from 5-7 and drank beers, G and T’s and cocktails, me Manhattans and my wife Cosmopolitans. Just before 7 ordered glasses of Merlot for dinner, they were palatable. By the way we also took 2 bottles of wine each on board at embarkation in our carry on luggage with no problem, these were available as extra drinks when we fancied. we left the ship after a 13 night cruise with a $40 bill. Now that sounds as if we were skimping but we really didn’t, what the front loading does though is send you to bed earlier than May be the case. A wee tip for anyone taking full advantage of the Elite drinks is to remember you can order drinks in the 2 hour window and take them to your room for later consumption. We have upcoming cruises booked and have Premium Packages booked for them as of course there are no time restrictions but if you don’t want to splash the cash then Elite drinking is perfectly doable and to be honest was quite good fun.

That’s 2 people who say that they’ve witnessed this. In the UK this is an offence under Food Safety legislation as it is a offence “to sell food(includes drink) which is not of the nature, substance or quality demanded by the purchaser”. I would hope that anyone witnessing this on board would call it out and report it to the Hotel Manager. What is the point in buying anything on board if it has been subject to adulteration or switching. I really hope that the allegations of pouring cheaper spirits into more expensive bottles are mistaken.

I bet it’ll be the poor sommeliers and bar staff who suffer the abuse for this upcharging whilst the brave managers hide behind their desks and accept the backslaps for making a few dollars more for the company.

In August on Silhouette we got Elite hour drinks at all bars other than WCB. Most evenings we had them at Martini bar and Craft Social.

It was replaced with Brugal 1888 on our August cruise, I too am a Zacapa fan so gave this a swerve although I’m sure the Old Fashioned will still be very good.

They are on my internet😉. A lot of suites sold out already! Search through a travel agency website if they’re not showing on X.

All westbound were out last week.

I’m guessing a lot of people still like the suites on Eclipse, the October 2025 transatlantic sold out of all entry level suites within a few days of going on sale. With the absence of the retreat deck the prices were considerably lower than other ships in the fleet.

Credit where credit’s due, on the face of it it looks like they have listened, or been forced to listen, to the many of us who have been very critical of the MDR offerings. Now waiting to see the reality of the changes and if all is positive we shall keep our 3 sailings next year, so fingers crossed.

Checked the price again today and daily upgrade cost down to £6.96 so cancelled the £9.87 and rebooked at the lower price. How low can we go?

We’ll this is good news from Celebrity and whatever the reason they are to be applauded for bringing the upgrade to an affordable price. we have just upgraded 2 of 3 B2 B2 B cruises as the upgrade is £9.87/day. This was double that price only a few days ago. For some reason our middle sailing is still >£14/day so we’ve left that at Classic. A big thanks to the OP for highlighting the price drop. Now if food improves we’ll be on these cruises.

Watching the video it appears that she is laughing at customers and dismissing all criticism as if it doesn’t exist. Well if significant improvements aren’t made she will soon discover where her dismissive attitude leads.

Oh the spin and porky pies by Celebrity are coming home to roost. They must think we are buttoned up the back to believe it all when we’ve experienced the significant downturn. Here’s hoping that those at the top listen to customers rather than middle managers who appear not to be feeding criticism upwards. I’ve 3 cruises booked for next year, booked before the crashing of food standards, and am so hoping that reports back from customers show a reversal of what has been done or we will be joining those cancelling.

The Elite breakfast is one of the lovely things about a Celebrity cruise. As mentioned above it is a nice quiet place with good food and excellent service. For those worried about healthy options, they are available but remember you’re on a cruise and in the famous words of Oscar Wilde: “everything in moderation, including moderation”.

Methinks someone high up in Celebrity is trying to kill off their reputation and screw the company. There is no way that the changes made can do anything but be ruinous and drive customers to other cruise lines or to land based holidays. please someone at Celebrity listen to the constant criticism and act on it before it’s too late.

Well done Hankandteri for putting numbers to what we found on our August cruise. Always loved Celebrity until then and we were shocked at the downturn in quality caused by management decisions and not staff. Like others above we aren’t overly concerned about scores for other lines other than as comparators to the downward spiral of Celebrity. Celebrity HQ must read these boards and surely can’t keep blocking their ears whilst shouting lalalala’s to all of their concerned cruisers. let’s hope common sense prevails and we see the review scores make a sudden bolt upwards.

Savvy is knowledgeable or street smart. A full glass of wine taken to dinner saves about $30 so not to be sniffed at😉. So one glass of wine hardly gets you through the dining room doors? That’s why you’ve got 2 hands, one glass for each!

We took 2 bottles each last month after the change to one each, no problem at check in. To avoid corkage if you’re taking wine to dinner just fill up your wine glass in the cabin and take it through, they hold nearly 1/2 a bottle each! Also you can then order wine 5-7pm and take that to dinner when your bottles have run dry. Being savvy when using the Elite 2 hours of free drinks, other than embarkation day, you can leave the ship with a nil drinks account😉.