Just disembarked Millennium from the 8/25/23 7-day Southbound Alaska cruise in a Sky Suite. We’ve sailed numerous times with Celebrity and have long loved their product. Here’s the feedback I provided on Celebrity’s Feedback Form (specific minutia as requested by the Retreat Host):
Froilan (Luminae), Jewel (Luminae) & Fernando (Luminae) provided fabulous personalized service and are an asset to Millennium. Overall, the cruise was good, but the experience was noticeably inferior to our past experiences on Millennium, Summit, Reflection, Solstice and Eclipse despite significantly higher prices.
The unannounced removal of butlers from Sky Suites is a strong disincentive to rebook Suite-level cabins and felt misleading as it was unannounced between our time of booking/payment and departure. We are used to daily canapés, non-alcoholic mini-bar service and over-the-top pleasant surprises from our butler. New policy eliminated all of this. Retreat staff admirably tried to compensate for service reduction policies, but corporate policy ultimately rules and we can’t rely on expected service-levels for future cruises.
On an unexpected sunny, warm day in Alaska, we spent 45-60 minutes in the Retreat sundeck jacuzzi which was unstaffed from 5p-6p so drinks were unavailable.
Loss of self-service wine in the Retreat Lounge was noticed as was the unavailability of premium water selections.
In the past, we regularly ordered & received premium Orange Juice at breakfast in Oceanview Cafe, but it seemed that our Premium OJ orders were filled with the standard unappealing OJ from the self-serve stations.
We missed the blintzes we usually enjoy in Oceanview for breakfast, but didn’t see them at all this trip.
The “premium” wi-fi frequently froze and provided extremely limited bandwidth (suggesting ”premium” is suitable for streaming is beyond laughable as it barely worked at times for basic web browsing). The selection of TV channels has been reduced and those frequently stuttered or had “no-signal”.
Years of Celebrity cruises set our expectations high and we’ve frequently raved about Celebrity being a step above, but we now have to be open to exploring alternative higher-end cruise providers to regain what Celebrity has voluntarily given up. With an expected increase in our travel frequency due to near-term retirement, we’ll miss being able to rely on Celebrity for consistent service and unforgettable experiences.
We hope that Celebrity returns to its prior level and convinces us to try again.