High on the Seas

This is a good resource but appears to be for the entire cruise and would not apply for a situation like we encountered where a large group of travel agents or medical professionals were onboard and reserved many of the venues.

Sorry if I misspoke. We didn’t see any information on free classes.

At least on Celebrity, you can’t, and therein lies the issue. When we returned I called my travel agent and she told me that Celebrity refuses to divulge information regarding the makeup of customers on any of their sailings.

The day after I emailed, an invitation to a sail away on the bridge showed up in our room with a call from guest relations asking if we still had concerns. Felt like getting thrown a bone to make the complaint go away. We didn’t attend. I sent a follow-up to corporate (LHB) but didn’t hear back on either note. Never received anything from Celebrity that vaguely resembled an apology.

After 25+ cruises with Celebrity we now feel we have no choice but to move on. We already have a land tour in Spain and Portugal scheduled and are looking at a Viking cruise to Norway and Iceland.

We did not request. The quality is usually not great for a free bottle and since we had the premium drink package you can get better quality that way. No exercise classes included. They come at a cost. You cannot reserve a dinner time in Blu. They open at 5:15 and up until about 6:00 you can usually be seated immediately. By 7:00 or 7:30 there is usually a line and a short wait.

You can load the app anytime. Viewing any current cruise will give you the dining times.

Leg 1 - The Good - After getting to the pier, check in was quick and the safety briefing only took minutes. We picked up keys from the room and headed to the cafe for a coffee. Service at bars was normally quick and staff everywhere pleasant. The bad - Our preferred dinner time had to be adjusted to very early in the evening. If you waited until 7 or 7:30 Blu was backed up and there was a wait for tables. Once you got in, service was slow and it took between 2 and 2 1/2 hours to complete the meal service. As with previous years, they seem short of workers and although they are doing the best they can, they seem a bit stressed trying to keep up. Only 2 sommelier's for the entire restaurant and they also have to run back and forth to the bar for drinks so we had little time to discuss wine selections with them. Way too much lamb and duck selections on their menu for our tastes and we found ourselves having to order from the main dining room numerous times if we wanted variety over the 14 days. The buffet was busy during the breakfast and lunch hours. Food was average but any kind of bar service almost non-existent. Once you found a place to sit (not easy at times) you had to go to the bar and ask for a drink or specialty coffee on your own. Another case where it appears staffing has been cut way back. Leg 2 - The good - Met at Tuscan at 9:45 to leave ship and go through customs. Very smooth and had new sea pass cards in no time. Went through safety drill again and were ready to enjoy the last six days of our cruise The bad - Same as first leg of cruise The Ugly - Things went downhill fast when we began to notice that many passengers seemed to be part of large groups, some numbering in the hundreds. One large group that was a travel agency conference on board we were told had between 400 and 800 attendees. Celebrity closed venues all over the ship including the Sky Lounge, Celebrity Central, and Cellar Masters for private events over the 6 days. The Sky lounge was closed for over 11 hours the first two days of the cruise for private events. I went to Guest Relations to complain that other paying customers should not be locked out of so many venues and was told by the manager there that they had the right to close any portion of the ship as they deemed fit for a special event at any time. She told me I would just have to find somewhere else to go. She was quite rude, unapologetic and couldn't have been less concerned about my complaints. Because these large groups kept together there were many times that you could not get near some of the bars and casino for periods of the cruise and the noise levels were exceptionally loud. I can see a bit of a party atmosphere in some areas but this spilled over to the restaurants and at times you couldn't have a conversation because of how loud people were. The number of intoxicated people was higher than on any other Celebrity cruises I have been on and no one at Celebrity ever stepped in to cut them off. People were vaping at the outdoor pool and in the casino and again, no one would stop them. I guess when you are catering to special interest groups that can help with your business you simply look the other way. Even some of the employees were complaining about the behavior of some of the guests. I am sure that were people on this cruise may not have seen some of this behavior but my wife and I usually never leave the ship so we frequent many of the places that were closed on an ongoing basis and had more time to have been exposed to the behaviors of the some of the guests. We have been cruising Celebrity since 2002 and remember the way people used to behave and the levels of service we used to get. Sorry about the long diatribe, but there doesn't appear a way to find out ahead of time if large groups will be on your cruise as Celebrity refuses to divulge this data so there is always a risk this could happen to you in the future. I think having access to that information ahead of time may have saved us a lot of hard feelings and it would be the right thing to do on Celebrity's part (imho).

Hours for all restaurants can be found on the Celebrity app.

We were but did not attend. We did have friends on the same B2B and they did go and enjoyed it. They also had a wine raffle during the B2B meeting and gave away 4 bottles of wine.

The chair hog issue I was referring to happens a majority of the time on the pool deck, however it also occurs during peak times in the spa on the hot ceramic loungers. In the spa it isn’t an issue of leaving their belongings and walking off, people go there and fall asleep or read or work on their laptops and don’t leave for long periods of time. The spa loungers are more available on port days than sea days. Remember the spa is accessible for both Aqua suites and regular Aqua rooms. It can also be purchased via a pass for any other room. The spa may offer some discounts on port days. One final note, the Reflection has not been revolutionized so although you have access to the spa and the Retreat lounge there is no Retreat deck for suite customers.

If you are in Aqua class Blu is open for breakfast and there is a continental breakfast in Tuscan if your loyalty level is Elite Plus. Cafe Al Bacio also has complimentary breakfast items like donuts and muffins.

Lhodgesbethge@celebrity.com

We are off to Spain and Portugal (15 day land tour) in less than 3 weeks so this one goes in the lessons learned category. And I agree 100 percent with you on tour loyalty comments. Take care and happy vacationing wherever your travels take you.

My wife and I are heading in the same direction.