zip01002

Please refer to my comments in posting #276. Thanks.

I tried to attach the relevant image that was posted on Facebook on August 29. If you can see it here, it's exactly what I and others on this topic have been noting. You can also reference this article on Cruisecritic.com explaining this and other recent changes at Celebrity at this link: Upcoming Changes in Celebrity Cruises Spark Debate (cruisecritic.com) Maybe Celebrity's new management team hasn't added this impending change to their website to more clearly announce it as they may not be particularly eager to stir the pot any more than they already have. It may also be yet another IT shortcoming which would not exactly be very surprising to many of us. Unless they reverse this ill-conceived plan, it appears that it will be in effect for new bookings made after October 3. That would probably be w/o any further details from them about how it will impact the reduced "All Included" package w/o the gratuities and/or how they will be handled for people booking new cruises after October 3.

It's the change announced by Celebrity for new bookings after October 3. Have you somehow missed this? It's been all over Cruisecritic, Facebook, and most "cruise news" websites.

My wife and I have been Elite Plus for quite a while after doing 68 cruises with Celebrity and we have 14 more booked before the end of 2024. We are definitely concerned about where the new management team appears to be heading so we'll be looking very closely at what's next. The change to drop the gratuities from the "All Included" rate makes no sense as Celebrity spent years convincing everyone that many workers behind the scenes would benefit. Guests paying for gratuities in that package were much less likely to have GR remove those charges as they were embedded in the "AI" rate. If they are charged separately, some will ask to opt out and give their money directly to the crew that they see. If they add the gratuities to the cruise rate, that's not a great idea either. In either case, it seems likely that they figured that they could squeeze a little more out of all of us. We hope that they'll reconsider some of these moves before more of their loyal cruisers (and possibly us) find other options.

FYI: I was trying to book our excursions on the Celebrity.com website on my laptop. That what I've done in the past for dozens of cruises. My wife was just able to do that on the Celebrity app on her phone by going into our future cruises and doing it there. So, you may be able to do that in a pinch while they figure out how to fix their website.

Glad that this is working for some people, but we're having the same issue. I just sent the Celebrity Engagement Center an email at cec@celebrity.com to see if they can fix this problem. I'll post the results here if/when they respond. Yet another example of their abysmal IT department!