jan-n-john

After all the talk here about getting the cash back that way, I think it is/was only a matter of time until the loophole got closed. There is a reason for refundable vs. non-refundable OBC, and Celebrity doesn't want to give cash back at a cost to them of .95 on the dollar when their intention of giving it out as a promotion in the first place was that the real cost to them when it was used would be perhaps half that and whatever was abandoned would have no cost at all. As long as it was a small leakage they could put up with it, but the leakage appears to be growing.

Is there any downside to booking early anyway with the minimum deposit? That way you have dibs on the cabin you want. Until 90 days out, can't you always cancel? If the price drops (almost a certainty) you call and they adjust. If the price doesn't drop to what you want to pay, cancel. I don't see the big deal -- what am I missing here? Yes you will have your deposit funds tied up, but most folks who cruise have enough liquid assets that that really shouldn't matter too much.

We are just about to do our third Celebrity cruise. At the end we will be Elite.

 

That's 12 days in a CC cabin, 12 days in a CS cabin and 15 days in a RS cabin. So it is possible to become Elite in less than 4 cruises.

Those are long trips and two were in suites. I said it was possible but unusual, and I'd classify those trips as unusual, certainly from the perspective of lesser folks like us.

Not the original poster but also on that sailing... The infinity had 2 sides to thier buffet. On RCCL when there are 2 distinct sides they have 2 nearly identical buffets...

I too found it strange but got used to doing the loop...

 

I agree with the original poster I would not sail on this vessel again.. was planning on booking 2 more cruises but just felt meh about the ship.. I sail on the Eclipse in a few weeks hopefully she is in better shape and it will restore my faith in Celebrity.

Well. I've sailed on Connie and three of the S class ships, and never yet seen a bi-laterally symmetric buffet (same items on both sides). The OP said she'd sailed four times previously on X. So I'm not clear what was expected.

I also was struck that the OP said in the review that they were partaking of the elite happy hour. I'm sure it's possible to become elite in only four sailings, but it does seem a bit unusual.

This is a subjective assessment. I'd be disappointed if the buffet had the same food all the way around. And the defining essence of the buffet concept is having to walk for your food.

Strange review. I've never heard of a buffet where you didn't have to walk around to see what the food items were -- isn't that the whole point of a buffet?

We prefer Celebrity but HALs itineraries are so much better.

 

 

They should consider the Amazon River, Sea of Cortez, Tahiti (not a repo to/from Sydney), Seychelle Islands, South Africa around Capetown to name a few.

Celebrity's ships are very big to make trips like those agreeable or even possible. For example, I doubt they could go up the Amazon at all; the largest ships going up to Manaus now are barely over 700 feet (including HAL), while the M class are 965. In other cases, most of the ports would have to be tender ports, which would raise another host of complaints. Generally speaking, the bigger the ship, the more likely it will be necessary to stick to the usual ports. Big ships and "interesting" itineraries are somewhat mutually exclusive.

Given the amount of electric power in that area, I'd bet on something on the food side, not another bar...especially since there is already a bar quite close on that deck. The one thing you can count on though...the decision will be made based on $'s of profit per square foot and there is far more profit on drinks than food...ask any restaurant owner.

Celebrity's calculation would not be the same as the restaurant owner's. Question for X is how much another bar would increase cash (non-package) sales of drinks, since it's not likely to affect the sales of drink packages. Of course one can ask the same question about another food service space, which would depend on the sort of restaurant it would be.

Some posters have said that $45 pp is too high. Usually on the first night, you can get a special deal of 2 for 1 at the speciality restaurants. Other nights, go to the speciality restaurant early in the day and you can usually get anywhere from 25-40 percent off depending on their reservations for the day. It doesn't cost anything to ask!

 

On my last cruise (Infinity in Sept.) my wife and I were at the Martini Bar at 5pm when a waiter from the SS United States restaurant came by and was offering 50 percent off dinner that night just to fill up the restaurant.

Whether you can expect discounts in the specialty restaurants depends a lot on the type of trip. We did a transpac last spring (Solstice) and had no trouble getting discounts; same for Caribbean on other trips. But in Europe this fall (Silhouette) it was next to impossible.

Regarding Qsine and the type of dining it is, IMO the terms Tapas and small plates really doesn't capture it, nor explain why some just don't like it. To me the main difference is that, in most restaurants, the courses follow a common pattern; first the appetizer and/or soup and/or salad, then a main course of protein with one or two sides of starch and vegetables, then desert. Qsine is not like that at all. There are several choices, many of which have multiple preparations within the same item (e.g. several curries each with one or two bites). Some are very unusual, some less so. But you order and consume them in any sequence at all. There is no appetizer, main course, salad, etc. It's all mixed up and in whatever sequence you choose. Personally I believe that many folks find this too wacky to get their heads around, have a negative reaction, and won't go back. But the food tastes good -- you just have to throw caution to the wind a little bit, and go with the flow.

Oh, Curt, we pay, and dearly at that...freeloader, not so much.

 

As far as the up-charge for the steaks, if their true, USDA Prime dry age steaks they would justify the price, big difference between that and what was previously being served.

 

Happy sailing,

Jenna

I suspect that those who are complaining about the upcharge in Tuscan either didn't notice or don't grasp the significance of the fact those are USDA Prime steaks. "Prime" is not marketing hype -- it is a specific and legally-defined term. USDA Prime beef will cost significantly more than the normal beef on the rest of the menu, which is Australian and which would grade at the equivalent of USDA Choice at best. Nothing wrong with that, but the better stuff just costs more and that's how life is.

I would add that 18oz. is way to big for me, but maybe my sweetie and I could share one on our up-coming trip on Infinity, and maybe that's what X thought a lot of folks were likely to do, which satisfies them while preserving the chance to pull a little extra revenue from the big eaters.

Fundamentally, they're doing this because that's where the rest of the world is going.

Remember when people got dressed up to ride in an airplane? Remember when people wore suits and ties to eat in a nice restaurant? Remember when everybody wore a suit to work? All of those things have gone downhill or totally crashed. Hardly anyone dresses up like that anymore, and those are the same people who take cruises.

Sure there are holdouts -- many have posted in these threads. But the companies who are selling services to people in general have to make a decision that applies to all, and move to where the majority of their customer base, especially the long-term-future customer base, has moved. Formality in dress is firmly on the way out everywhere. Some individuals may not like it, but it's a fact. Dress standards do and always have reflected societal preferences at any particular time, and society has clearly shown that it prefers lessened formality of dress, especially while partaking of leisure. That's just how it is.

With regard to currency fluctuations, that is of course a two-way street. It could help you or it could hurt you, though most people seem to focus on the hurt.

I imagine if you want to hedge the risk there must be some way to do it. Not being in the UK (or Oz etc.) I don't know what might be available or what the cost would be, but there must be some way to buy a US dollar denominated instrument that can be liquidated later, thus neutralizing any currency movement that occurs during that period.

In the end, probably the best solution is just to go naked (financially speaking) and keep your fingers crossed.

deleted sorry

I was on Equinox last year and they had wonderful gf pizza. Sailed on Summit in January and again in May and the gf pizza crust was horrible, the crust just crumbled! I was on Equinox again in September and was looking forward to the gf pizza again, but I'm guessing the chef from the Summit is now on Equinox as the gf pizza was just like Summits........horrible.

 

Our experience mirrored yours. Solstice in April/May (out of Australia) and the GF pizza crust was inedible. Silhouette in Sept. (out of Amsterdam) and the crust was actually not bad. Maybe it's the luck of the draw.

I doubt the chef has much to do with pizza crust. It probably comes aboard pre-mix, and likely it's the particular supplier in each case whoever that is, but if anyone has better info on that I'd be interested.

It is a bad idea on some ships wired a certain way. The Coast Guard does not say do not to bring surge protectectors. It recommends that ship operators determine if it applies to their vessels. The circumstances are a certain kind of wiring, when there is a fault in that type wiring.

If I understand it correctly, it's not a "fault in that type of wiring", it's the technical nature of that type of wiring. And it's still a bad idea for you the passenger to do it unless you are knowledgable about the technical details of the wiring on the particular ship that you are bringing the device aboard, which is not likely unless you are an electrical engineer who has specific knowledge of that vessel.

BTW, the Celebrity prohibition on extension cords would still cover power strips because they too are extension cords, though I would agree it would be better to make that explicit.

Read this:

http://www.uscg.mil/tvncoe/Documents/safetyalerts/SurgeProtectiveDevices.pdf

Problem as I understand it is that ship wiring systems are not the same as shoreside wiring systems. Under certain circumstances, incompatibilities of residential type surge protectors with shipboard electrical systems can result in a fire.

In short, it is a very bad idea to bring a surge protector extension cord (power strip) designed for use on land aboard a ship.

I tell ya, Celebrity will take excellent care of you. On our last cruise on the Celebrity Equinox, I mentioned to our waiter that I'm allergic to mushrooms, and would it be possible to have a certain dish without them. No only did they make the dish without the mushrooms, but dig this, after our (main dinning room) meal, the head waiter came over to our table with the menu for the next evening's dinner. He said for me to select any meal that has anything that I'm allergic to, and the chef would make it without any ingredient that I may be allergic to. They did this for every meal for the rest of our cruise. That's service above and beyond, GREAT JOB Celebrity.

I think that presenting tomorrow's menu for those with dietary restrictions is a standard or at least semi-standard practice on Celebrity fleet wide. Anyway that has been our experience, primarily in Blu. My wife is a coeliac sufferer, and once we have made this known they always bring out the next day's menu before we depart dinner each night. We don't use the MDR, but correct me if I'm wrong that menu shows gluten-free items and certain other allergin-free items right on the menu. That of course doesn't reach the level of a particular ingredient like mushrooms, so in that case it makes sense that they would fall back on the policy of bringing out the tomorrow menu.

Although we didn't dislike Silk Harvest, this sums up a lot of what we felt about our disappointment in it. It was very Americanized and the dishes were basically a "best of" the Thai, Chinese, Japanese, etc restaurants that are on every few blocks on land. There was nothing innovative and no fresh takes. The sushi rolls were run of the mill and not clever. In short, nothing that would make us justify paying a surcharge for the food. If I'm going to pay for food with all the "free" options on board, I want something that's a little special - or at least that I couldn't pick up the phone on land and have delivered within 45 minutes and for less than the specialty restaurant surcharge.

 

I could understand that the novelty of Qsine would wear off for frequent cruisers and they should try to vary the menu from time to time. But I think I read on a post elsewhere on this board, something like 40% of cruises are 1st time Celebrity cruisers. So for them I'd think that a "unique" experience like Qsine would be more of a draw than Silk Harvest, which pretty much rehashes every Asian restaurant on land, ever.

 

I'm curious if the people who really like Silk Harvest eat much at Thai, Japanese, etc on land. Maybe I'm just jaded because how frequently we dine at a variety of good quality Asian restaurants on land that Silk Harvest really wasn't that impressive.

That pretty well sums it up. Silk Harvest is at most just OK for anyone who has dined regularly in up-to-date Asian restaurants on land and is familiar with the cuisines in their modern forms. Chinese, Thai, Japanese etc. are very different cuisines -- a single kitchen on land could not be expected to do such a diversity well, and the constraints of a cruise ship only compound the difficulty. That said, it's Ok for what it is -- best thing is to enjoy it and not expect too much.

I'm like you and have in fact sailed Solstice out of Sydney. I was lucky enough to be able to watch the operation from my own balcony. Failing that, there are a few spots on deck 5, where the lifeboats aren't in the way, that work. That's probably going to be your best bet.

As of last April, according to Exec. Chef Green on Solstice, Celebrity switched from US to Australian suppliers for all its beef, and some other meats as well AFAIK. Chef Green was very happy with that (he is Australian, living in the UK).

The texture and flavor of Australian beef is different from that of US beef, probably due to the different way it is finished (in the US cattle are generally finished in feedlots on a corn diet, which promotes marbling). I'm not saying it's better or worse, just different. This may explain what some have observed.

Of the two that have been mentioned, cruisetimetables is my choice. Much better interface. Pick your own trip, then click through it port by port and see what other ships will be in that port that day in each case. Be careful, since sometimes a single ship is on more than one "trip" as marketed by the cruise line so can appear twice -- check the vessel names as you go through each port day to avoid this.

We did this cruise in January this year and the muster drill was shortly before we sailed. It was a prolonged affair due to some passengers not handing in their passports so everyone had to wait whilst various names were called on the tannoy system. We were inside by the photo studio but no seating and it got quite stuffy especially after a fellow passenger passed wind in a relatively confined space [emoji3]

 

 

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Another of the many hazards of cruising!

Google is your friend. Google something like "cruise and park" or even "hotel fly park" and various websites that specialize in one night hotel stays with "free" parking will come up. Pick one, then go down their list for FLL and select and book a hotel that fits your needs. We have a 12 nite trip in Dec. and recently booked a stay in December at a hotel in FLL that offers up to 14 days free parking as part of the package. They will shuttle us to the ship (small extra charge).

What is Celebrity's limit on bringing wine and/or liquor aboard? How is it officially enforced, for each of carry-on and checked bags, and how strictly is the enforcement applied in reality?

When they are carving a fresh ham at the buffet, I always get a plate of the crispy skin, otherwise known as "cracklings." Not for everyone -- seems if I didn't ask for it it would be tossed. Bad for me, but so good. A little salt and I'm a happy man.

Also at the carving board if there is turkey, or any poultry, I always ask the server to turn the bird over and dig out the "oysters." I'm always amazed how few people seem to know about that little morsel, the best meat on any bird. I suppose those who insist on white meat wouldn't go for it, but to me that's a form of self-inflicted punishment.

Would appreciate clarification on one beverage package issue. In reading other threads I seem to recall that if you have the classic package and order something more costly than the package's limit, then you pay the full amount, but same scenario with the premium package you only pay the difference. Is that how it works, and is it the same both with wine-by-the-glass and with drinks?

I just looked at the package descriptions on the X site and couldn't find the answer.