oatbagg1

On 4/12/2024 at 7:46 AM, VermontsFinest said:

On Summit now, April 12. We just lost power in Key West. Unable to disembark currently. 

wow.  There's something that needs to be fixed. NOW. We were on her a week ago.  That was our last Celebrity cruise.

On 4/8/2024 at 1:40 PM, Oxo said:

Shouldn't there be a set of towels for each guest? I would assume so, since you pay the same price.

yes there should . Always has been. We never got robes either after asking our attendent twice. See my review of our Summit cruise last week. posted under reviews.

On 4/8/2024 at 9:22 AM, llawrence said:

We are currently on the Summit for a short get away….After 20 + years cruising with Celebrity, we are wondering what is going on.  We normally do suites but when they aren’t available we go with Aqua class. No cruise is ever totally bad, but this is getting close…

We are in an aqua class mid ship….our Room attendant did not greet us for 10 hours and them only after I found out that we only had one towel, washcloth, hand towel, robe, and slippers for my husband and myself.  Our mini bar was missing a number of the expensive items.  Could be charged to our sea pass if not reported…The floor was not clean and the tables were not cleaned after the last guests.I really do not like going to guest services but after he cleaned the room and left all the used glassware and did not leave clean glasses, and our wine cooler was left on a table with out a tray and the water from the ice melting leaked on the table, floor, and some items I had purchased.  I felt I had to say something…the assistant supervisor for housekeeping came up…said he would take care of it. No problem.   This morning when I returned from breakfast…again we have one washcloth….four towels…no hand towels..for two people.. Its hard for us to look at leaving the Celebrity Brand…..New ships or the older ships we have always received excellent service. It looks like the brand is changing.

Blu is excellent

Casino is so crowded with large slot machines, game tables, and very large chairs…you are literally touching the person in back of you and next to you.

Entertainment (first two shows) were just ok…

 

 

we were on the week before. Total disaster. I thought we had bad service on deck 2. No washcloths or handtowels or kleenex until day 2. The last night steward took away the handwowels and washcloths leaving only 2 used towels for us at 8pm.  We're off Celebrity for life. And this was our 21 cruise.

17 hours ago, lexmiller said:

The loss of power and the broken water line were not caused by the weather. There is an active thread about this on another social media platform with many, specific details.

What other platforms????

On 4/4/2024 at 6:27 PM, JKJG3 said:

Anyone have any experience on how this sort of thing could play out for the Summit’s next voyage? We are supposed to be boarding her in Miami on Saturday and presently aren’t feeling very good about our trip going as planned.

No problems since yesterday. So hopefully your trip will be a good one. !

4 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

It would illegal for you to get international charges while docked in Miami. Someone must have forgot to turn the phone to airplane mode before the ship reached 12 miles out of Miami. 

We always put on airplane mode when we start moving.  We got a text from AT&T. Although a passenger cautioned we may have been hacked via unsecured Celebrity WiFI

4 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Is this a new thing?  DH has AT&T and I have Verizon.  Neither of us have even been charged while on the ship in a US port.

Last on Celebrity in Dec. No international charges ever before this cruise.

4 hours ago, PTC DAWG said:

I've never had issues in any US port with my AT&T...this is on various lines, including many on Celebrity...something went wrong for sure..sounds like a one off to me.  Surprised AT&T wouldn't help solve this billing issue...

They were impossible to reach. Not until the 2nd day did a rep contact us. 

We got hit with $200 international charges thru AT&T even though we were in port docked in Miami.  Then they cut off our phones. Apparently T-mobile & What’s App are ok….. we finally got the WIFi package to communicate with family at home but it’s just another money grab. 20 cruises we never experienced not texting or calling in a Us port.  Never. 

11 hours ago, oatbagg1 said:

The smell outside on deck 4 is sewage. We’re on deck 2. I’m totally pissed at the Captain who has gone AWOL , just a random voice saying ‘we’re working on it; see you around the ship’.  My last sailing ever . Cruising is too different these days. 

And someone Please turn off the nasty musak in the stateroom halls. Totally unnecessary and intrusive. 

I highly doubt that. It’s the engines.

3 hours ago, kd1224 said:

Currently sailing on the Summit 5 day from MIA that left Monday April 1.  We are a family of 11 sailing in 4 separate cabins on deck 7.  
 

I won’t bore you with the minor, but numerous issues encountered Monday and Tuesday, but yesterday there were 2 blackouts for over an hour each time.  The first occurred at around 4:30.  We were in our cabin and lost lights, TV, AC and internet.  The captain made an announcement and told us “don’t worry I am here with you”. ?did he think we assumed he had abandoned ship?

 

Power was restored in a little less than a hour, but the second blackout happened at 6 PM when we were in the martini bar.  Lots of commotion everywhere and soon they had to stop serving drinks because there was no clean water to wash glasses. If you had a glass and were willing to use the same dirty glass, you could get refills, but nothing that needed a shaker or any utensils in the preparation.  Again, only aux lights, no AC,etc.   However, it was interesting that the registers still worked to swipe cards for refillls.  Power restored around 7 I think.

Suffice it to say that there were a lot of very agitated people making their thoughts known.

 

Now, this evening sometime before 5 PM on Chic night, there’s a main water line issue so there’s no running water anywhere except decks 2 and 3.  
 

Our cabin steward reported “it’s an environmental issue”.  The front desk has zero information except to say they are aware and working on it. Almost an hour later have yet to hear from the captain. Hopefully he didn’t abandon ship this time…..🙄

The smell outside on deck 4 is sewage. We’re on deck 2. I’m totally pissed at the Captain who has gone AWOL , just a random voice saying ‘we’re working on it; see you around the ship’.  My last sailing ever . Cruising is too different these days. 

2 hours ago, wintrystew said:

I’m so sorry about what you and many others are going through. You have a great attitude and I know you will make the best of it. I’m sure Celebrity will make it up to you in some way. 
who is your captain?

Celebrity will and is doing nothing so far to compensate. The Summit will just get nasty reviews. Good luck future cruisers on this ship.  Wouldn’t trust it. 

We’re on summit as well. If this was my 1st cruise, I’d be off cruising forever. It’s our 21st. First skipped port, first power outage, first water problems. Captain has been mum about any communication. Highly disappointed in him. He is the voice of the ship & he gets a ‘no confidence’ from me. He should retrain with Captain Kirk of the Silhouette. He is an amazing Captain. Fully competent. 

yes, we paid in full . And yes, they have told us the same thing--you've paid the price you've paid.  

It's lousy paying early but paying more.  thanks all.

21 minutes ago, WonderMan3 said:

Okay. In 2023, that was 4.5 million people. Now factor in all the tourists visiting Chicago yearly which was around 49 million people in 2022.

 

Moving on…

 

Can we stay on topic and not involve US cities where guns are omnipotent.

Booked on a Celebrity cruise, paid in full. Today I see the price has dropped $700 for same cabin category. 

Called Celebrity and she messed with our reservation wanting to charge us $1900+ then acted like she did us a big favor by getting us back to our paid cost.  No explaination given or courtesy.  I'm sort of mad about this.

23 hours ago, markeb said:

 

 

Not good numbers, obviously, but the population of Chicago is over 2.5 million and the population of Philly is over 1.5 million.

 

The population of Nassau is somewhere around 260,000. So roughly that's roughly 10X the rate of Chicago...

 

Not a fan of Nassau as a port stop either. It never felt like a great place to walk around. Last time we stayed onboard for a nice, relaxing day.

exactly.  I'm familiar w/Chicago. I live there.

The U.S. State Department on Friday increased its advisory level for would-be travelers to the Bahamas, urging "increased caution," as the nation's capital has recorded 18 murders this year.

The elevation to Level 2 follows a security alert posted Wednesday by the U.S. Embassy in Nassau, which expressed concern that Americans might be victimized by gang violence in the capital.

"Murders have occurred at all hours including in broad daylight on the streets," the embassy said in its alert. "Retaliatory gang violence has been the primary motive in 2024 murders."

U.S. travelers were advised to be especially cautious in Nassau, use caution when out at night anywhere in the Bahamas, "keep a low profile," be aware of the surroundings, don't resist if confronted by robbers, and have and review security plans.

The State Department added that short-term vacation rentals have the added concern of often lacking the kind of private security present at hotels. It said Nassau's gang crime is not fenced out of areas frequented by tourists.

"Violent crime, such as burglaries, armed robberies, and sexual assaults, occur in both tourist and non-tourist areas," it said in its travel advisory.

We are sailing from Miami to Bahamas April1-6.  Government is saying there have been 18 murders since the 1st of the year and are warning travelers to Nassau to be aware. and also to be aware of unregulated water excursion risks.    Is anyone else concerned?

we were also on this cruise. Booked a cabin on 3. we had the same one on Soltice in January and it was blissfully quiet. Not this cruise. Loud DJ in foyer and dance nights .  I love having a window in the cabin which on one particular morning, the waves were hitting our deck. Scary but fascinating. 

We got stuck with anytime dining which was laughable, Vincent (a matire de) would not give us the same table for 2 at 5:15 for more then 2 days. After that we were still seated in the same section with Kristofer as our waiter. Food was good, beef being the way to go, Prime rib the 1st night was terrific. One night we ate at Sushi on 5 (very affordable) and the Lawn Grill. Cafeteria was jammed the last two seadays making me want to avoid people at all costs after that. Captain Kirk was very visable on this cruise.  The $18 per day gratuities and the addition 20% added on each drink was enough for us not to tip on top. Disembarkation was a mess at the pier 29.  Horrible. But Ft Lauderdale airport was even worse.......it was a refuge camp especially at Delta.  All in all a good cruise but probably our last on Celebrity,  This made #20 and things have definaltely changed for the worse.

my husband is a teacher, he will need to be grading papers in Dec. aboard the QM2 transAtlantic.

purchase day by day or a weekly platinum?

On 7/1/2022 at 9:40 AM, bluemarble said:

Thank you, @SeaWatch12. The key word I was looking for here is the offer to "cancel". That tells me this mask mandate is most likely coming from the US CDC. As discussed before, a mask mandate and an offer to cancel are among the steps the CDC requests to mitigate moving a ship from "orange" to "red" status.

 

Edit to add: I notice the word "refund" does not appear in that notification. If the offer is to cancel for FCC instead of a full refund, that would shed new light on the situation.

We had to cancel because of positive pre board test. We had the trailers insurance so got a full refund. 

On 6/5/2022 at 8:26 PM, bluemarble said:

 

No, the requirement has been for the test to be taken two days prior to embarkation at US ports for quite a while now. At least since October 2021 when I first learned about that more stringent testing requirement from the US CDC.

 

I think part of the confusion may come from the CDC regulations that state if you are "up to date" with your COVID-19 vaccinations, you must test no more than 3 days before boarding your cruise ship. Then they go on to say if you are "fully vaccinated", you must test no more than 2 days before boarding your cruise ship.

 

As I understand it, "fully vaccinated" means you have completed your initial doses of an approved vaccine. Booster shots don't figure into being "fully vaccinated".

 

On the other hand, being "up to date" with you vaccinations means "you have received all doses in the primary series and all boosters recommended for you, when eligible." Note this wording is different from Cunard's criteria only requiring a booster if more than 270 days have elapsed since your initial vaccine doses. And Cunard's criteria does not require a second booster at this time.

 

For those reasons, I don't think Cunard is in the position to allow the "up to date" (3 day) testing window and instead must require the more stringent "fully vaccinated" (2 day) testing window.

 

Along those lines, those of us who study the CDC Cruise Ship Status Dashboard will note only 2 of the 92 ships currently operating under the CDC guidelines qualify as "Vaccination Status of Excellence Ships" meaning they can certify at least 90% of their passengers are "up to date" with their COVID-19 vaccines. The other 90 ships (including the two Cunard ships under CDC guidelines, QM2 an QE) qualify as "Highly Vaccinated Ships" meaning they can certify at least 90% of their passengers are "fully vaccinated".

 

Whew! I hope I got that right and it wasn't too much CDC terminology overload.

well thanks. still confusing. We're in Iowa too.  Happy Sailing.

On 6/6/2022 at 4:07 PM, Host Hattie said:

When are you sailing ? If it's soon it might be best to print out your upgrade notifications while the website is playing up.

On 6/7/2022 at 11:19 AM, TheOldBear said:

For my own amusement I was going to check the VP and see if my 'BV' guarantee has changed to a room assignment [Final payment date is this coming Monday].

Looks like spinning cursor time - I'll try it again later.

Call Cunard--they will email you your booking itinerary including dining time. Such a hassle. Cunard also needs a phone app...