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My experience is as recent as cruises within the past year (a sky suite last November and a penthouse last month). Although, to be honest we did not have very good butlers either time (the sky suite butler was pretty average and the penthouse butler was pretty bad) so my experience could be just bad butler experiences or this could be a change in policy. I wonder how long that verbiage has been on the website.

Morning specialty coffees is an amenity clearly spelled out on the website for all suites and so I have also had butlers do that without issue. In my experience, that did NOT extend to cocktails throughout the day, even when we recently stayed in the penthouse.

I don't think they will be upgraded, it's very likely the package will be cancelled and the paid amount applied as on board credit. I don't see how they can cancel a beverage package that is part of an AI fare. Whether they will upgrade to the zero proof though, I don't know.

You get an extra day's worth of loyalty points (based on whatever cabin type you book).

They are trying to deal with rising prices and recover from 1.5 of no revenue during the pandemic. Every cruise line right now is raising prices and/or changing offerings for extras like beverage packages. I agree it is disappointing though. Celebrity (and other lines I sail) has priced me out of drink packages so I will be back to paying by the drink for a lot of my future cruises (which honestly is what has often made the most sense in the more distant past for me before some of the great AI deals I've gotten in the recent past).

I also see those experiences in my cruise planner but what is noticeably missing (at least for my cruise) is the actual wine packages such as one where you could buy 3 bottles of wine. Do you see any like that in yours?

All of the non-alcohol packages appear to have been consolidated into one option - the Zero Proof package (the premium non-alcohol package with a new name). This was part of the increase in prices and policy changes regarding drink packages that happened last week. The wine packages disappeared from my cruise planner for our upcoming cruise around the same time so those may have disappeared as well.

Although, I've been on ship sponsored excursions that were late (including one in Cozumel where a huge ferry full of excursion passengers was late) and the ship waited, I have never seen a Captain wait more than a few minutes for people touring on their own. On another line this year, there were three passengers late at Cozumel (by just 10 minutes or so) and the Captain was blowing his horn at them as they strolled down the pier so I do not think he was happy. There are costs associated with staying longer along with potential issues rescheduling the local pilot and getting to the next port on time. I'm surprised the ship waited an hour and a half for private excursion passengers!

It definitely did not go through dry dock in April of 2020 (no ships were in dry dock in the spring of 2020) so I don't think this is accurate. I agree with others that I would not except it to be revolutionized anytime soon so the next dry dock will likely just be maintenance.

When I purchased a wifi package a couple of weeks ago by phone, the price quoted seemed to roughly be the elite discount on top of the cruise planner discount. I have heard others say the same about the rink package so I believe you do get your loyalty discount on top of the pre-cruise discount. I believe the elite discount for beverage packages used to be 10% but they increased those percentages earlier this year so it is now 15% off.

I don't know about the Beyond specifically but I enjoyed Cattier by the glass (covered by the premium package) on the Constellation over the last year. It was available in the dining rooms as well as at least one bar (Cellar Masters which I don't think the Beyond has is where I recall finding it). That is the only French champagne I found by the glass. I believe there were other options available by the bottle.

We book inside cabins on cruises where we are trying to save some money. To me, the natural light isn't all that important so we tend to not even look at ocean view cabins. For other people that little bit of natural light makes a huge difference. One thing I always pay attention to though is what is above, below, and next to a cabin I am considering. Having public space above (and even below or next to) you can sometimes create noise (music, chairs scraping, carts rolling, etc.). Have you looked at the spreadsheet in the stickied S Class cabins thread? You may find someone on the Equinox or a sister ship has reported on that room or one near it that can give you some insight into whether that is a good area of the ship. Being that low, you definitely won't feel a lot of movement which can be a plus for anyone who gets motion sick easy.

I recently realized that both Celebrity and Royal Caribbean use the same Special Needs Department. I found it really convenient because I have bookings on both lines and wanted to let them know about my food allergy. One e-mail took care of all the bookings. Honestly, it makes financial sense to have some overlap and not duplicate departments in cases where one can handle both lines. Their IT seems to have a lot of overlap as well.

This is what I do on every line I sail where there isn't an AI fare that makes financial sense. My husband doesn't drink. He also rarely drinks anything that isn't already included (he is very happy with tap water). When I consider cruise fares and/or beverage package prices, I always have to think about whether I will drink enough for two. So buying a drink package when we both have to have it has never made financial sense. Buying AI often has made sense in the past since we want the wifi and will pay the gratuities but that gap between cruise only and AI is growing on Celebrity (and other lines) such that it won't always make sense anymore, especially now that we just got to elite and will have some loyalty drink benefits.

We just finished the five night sailing that ended on Friday. I can't compare the Prima to to other NCL ships because my last NCL cruise was in 2009 on the Star so it has been quite a while. We don't have children. We are both around 40 and cruise a lot on many different cruise lines. We generally are the type that look for the quieter places on the ship, are morning people (so not up late), and avoid the parties and high energy events. I share all this because I think it is really important to understand where people's perspectives are coming from as we all look for something different in a vacation. For us, this was an amazing cruise and fit what we were looking for. We really thought the ship was beautiful inside and out - the art along the ocean walk, the Penrose Atrium, Hudson's, the paint on the hull, etc. And although we didn't do any specialty dining, we had so many amazing meals in Hudson's, Indulge, the buffet, and the Local. Indulge often felt crowded during meals and it really wasn't open for long enough but we just go there before they opened to find a table. We never did try to get into Syd Norman's so I can't speak to that. But otherwise I never felt the ship was crowded. There was live music in the atrium (although not really to our taste so we didn't spend a lot of time there) and although the deck 6 area doesn't have tons of seating, you can still enjoy the music from decks 7 and 8 where there is tons of seating. We boarded about 11:15 a.m. in boarding group 3 so quite early on and I was really surprised at how much was already booked out. There were already no reservations available for Donna Summers or Comedy at Improv and only one show of Noise Boys and one show of Price is Right had availability. The Noise Boys performance and the Price is Right show we attended appeared full. We heard at least one couple on standby get into Noise Boys so I don't know how many other people were able to get in on standby. We didn't even try to get into Donna Summers or Comedy (there were enough other things we wanted to do on the ship and it was a short cruise). My husband was able to get plenty of reservations to the Speedway (even a day or two into the cruise).

Ship - NCL Prima Deck - 11 Stateroom # - 11706 Stateroom Category – M2 - Forward-facing Club Suite Balcony with Large Balcony Starboard or Port Side - Starboard Quiet Stateroom? (With comments on problems) – Yes, very quiet Was stateroom a connecting stateroom? -No Balcony View - Give comments on view, noting if location of any obstructions was an issue. – Great views of both forward and side. Forward views look down on the bow. Side views mostly look straight down. Balcony Size? Normal or oversized for class? - Huge Was wind a problem? - On windy days while at sea, the balcony is very windy and not very usable but we had plenty of calmer days at sea where wind wasn't an issue. If an aft cabin, was soot a problem? - N/A Any specific problems with this cabin? - There is a little whistling wind noise when it is windy out, even with the balcony doors locked. Bathroom door can't be easily propped open and slams shut if not careful but I think that is a ship wide problem. Any other comments? - Tons of power options (USB-A, USB-C, USA, European - by the desk and by the bed), lots of open floor space. YouTube video of the cabin:

As soon as they start showing up in the app and cruise planner. Especially with shore excursions, this can be an ongoing process as they make more contracts with your operators. Over the last six months, they have been adding excursions for my May 2023 cruise.

Princess’s crew appreciation is increasing for bookings starting mid-next week so they have given even less notice than NCL.

Interesting. That was not our experience in May of 2019 or September of this year. We only got service once a day (and we requested morning service for both those cruises). And going back even further to 2017, I remember the room steward trying to convince us to only have once a day service (it wasn't official policy then I don't believe).

I really don't need full service in the evening but it really is nice to have the steward check in on whether I need new towels, take away any glasses or dishes, and make sure I don't need anything else. I really missed not having service twice a day on our last Carnival cruise (and it didn't help that our steward didn't remember our preference for morning vs evening so we never knew when he would come).

Yes, flowers are not standard on Celebrity but I'm pretty sure it is a loyalty benefit, I believe usually provided on formal night (our first cruise as elite won't be until our next one).

Celebrity's Go Green program doesn't eliminate the second service though. It just minimizes the amount of cleaning (like vacuuming and wiping down surfaces) done at that second service. They still come in and replace any towels on the floor, tidy up a bit, and leave chocolates on the pillows. I have noticed absolutely no difference on the cruises where I sign up for Go Green.

I've seen a classic and premium bar setup available for purchase in the cruise planner (under drinks) which I believe is a variety of small bottles plus mixers.

I have a May 2023 cruise that over the last 6 months has been slowly adding excursions. I get the impression they are added as the contracts with the excursion companies get put in place which doesn't happen all at once.

Bringing non-elite travel companions to the breakfast only applies to those sharing a cabin with you correct? My husband and I are elite and next cruise we are traveling with my mother-in-law who is not elite and will be in a separate cabin. I thought we would not be able to bring her.