NanaChar

I have so many bad feelings about this. First, letting go the butlers mid-contract. That does not help morale at all. Celebrity seemed to have better employee satisfaction rating than most mass-market lines. Every butler we has was great. Some were almost miraculous in anticipating our needs. I hope they have good compensation and find new positions quickly. Second, when we purchased the cruise, it was advertised and a personal butler. I know they can change, but shouldn't we be compensated for the change. Third, still paying the tip for a full-butler service. (We really shouldn't have been paying for the same in the past when our butlers were assigned many more cabins than the higher suites.) Now, we don't have that intuitive butler who knows our needs before we even know what we want. Please take the time to send e-mails and post on Celebrity's Facebook page. Make sure they hear our voices.

My gripe is that we paid dearly for The Retreat experience. If they take away the butlers, we were not getting what we paid for. I real doubt they would take away the Retreat and Luminae because they were built to accommodate the suite passengers. Those venues would be practically empty. But, I also didn’t think they would take away the butlers. The Retreat was a good value. Now, I’m not sure.

The price of our ‘24 cruise has more than doubled what we paid. The prices have soared. So we compared our ‘25 cruise to Silver Seas. It came out less and it came with free excursions and a door to door rate. We have jumped ship.

I just booked an excursion after you posted this. Since the ship is completely full, could the excursions you picked be full?

Since I think you might enjoy a glass or two of wine, what is your opinion of the included wine selection on SilverSeas. Is it a cut above Celebrity. Although Celebrity has nice wines, I'm getting a little bored with them.

Thank you. This is very helpful. I wonder how the Edge Class would stack up. Since, I think that you might have a say on the included wine selection, is Silver Seas a step up from Celebrity.

Celebrity does not have a separate spa or gym. It is the same for everyone. For Embarkment, at least in Ft Lauderdale has a separate entrance and a lounge you can wait at before going on-board. I'm not sure how I would feel about waiting in line with thousands of people trying to get on-board.

We have been Celebrity fans for years. We book The Retreat, which gives us the small ship feel since we have a dedicated lounge, restaurant and retreat area. The staff knows us by name when we walk in and within a few days, knows the drinks we want. But, with the Edge Class ships, the Retreat prices are comparable (maybe even more costly) than Silver Seas. Since we have never been on a smaller ship, are there drawbacks? The things I'm thinking that might be negatives is the entertainment and more sea movement.

I did the last Alaskan cruise a couple of years back. i saw no difference in the service. I only saw positives. The ports were less crowded. Items were more likely on sale or the salespeople were more eager to bargain. And there was much better chance of seeing the northern lights since daylight was only about 12 hours.