gotcha3

I used to transfer my reservation to my big box retailer religiously. My Celebrity travel planner, however, matches whatever the big box offers as OBC, even if the big box only offers a gift card......even AFTER the 60 day window to transfer. It takes a bit of trust as the additional OBC does not show up until onboard. He's given an additional $275 and $475 OBC numerous times on top of the $300 GO BEST OBC....as long as he can see the TA offer online. Needless to say, we don't transfer anymore. BTW, we book Aqua class.

Had friends in cabin 6001 on an Alaska cruise. Noise was awful. We can confirm the crew disco below this area. We told our friends who weren't regular Celebrity cruisers to politely complain about the noise. The purser's desk relocated them to an A-1 cabin for the remainder of the cruise. We can also confirm that cabins 6001 and 6000 are much larger than the surrounding cabins.

I think the basic "foot print" remains the same......including the same size balconies on the rear of deck 11. I just hope they replace the awning with the same size these cabins used to have, love the sun/shade mix. Looks like the awnings on all the aft cabins has been removed for rehab. I doubt the deck 11 aft cabins would change the balcony footprint as this would involve some structural changes to the bar below. Just my opinion.......everyone has one.

43 minutes ago, PINEY10 said:

Jelayne

 

are you in a suite?  Or does no charge applicable to all types of rooms?  On RCCL allure. They don’t charge for continental breakfast but charge for everything else.  Movies $12, popcorn $2.50, etc.  it’s becoming the Spirit Airlines of cruise lines.  Will never do RCCL again. We were last in about 12 years ago.  Quality deteriorated significantly, ship is filthy, way too many people.  Like Celebrity but if they start nickel and diming, not sure we’ll return.  

I agree completely.

We sailed Divina Yacht Club as well. Pretty much the same conclusions. We though that with an Italian company, food and wine would be over the top....not so. Wine was mediocre at best, generally food left alot to be desired. People rave about the pizza, but not us, maybe because we're from Chicago and pizza is an artform. Can't stand "limp" crust. Yacht club is the only way to go with them as the rest of the ship is a cattle car. Nice vibe in the Yacht Club, and the private pool area is outstanding. If they match you to Black, you get a dinner for 2 in Eataly which was the exception to the food complaints. The portions there were huge and the real lobster was a sight to see. Again, wine choices were uninspired and generally inexpensive (I'd call them cheap). They do offer a military discount of 10% which was nice, though it cannot be added to any other discounts. Yacht club cabins were about the same size as Aqua on Celebrity, though laid out nicer with a true walk in closet. Drinks in the Yacht Club are included even in other venues on the ship. Outside of the Yacht Club, the ship always seemed crowded. The smoking lounge with full bar was a nice touch.

If the cruise is paid in advance (90 days out?) why are they putting a daily hold on any card?

Relais al Senato

If you had been onboard, you & your son still could've eaten all the meat you wanted... the fact that there are vegans onboard on a HHatS sailing (one per year) does not stop meat & other animal products getting served. A section in the buffet is marked vegan and the MDRs have a set vegan dining time, but rest of the ship dining operates as normal. If you want to avoid their one annual cruise, keep note of the dates on their website and don't book that ship.

 

I can understand why some folk wouldn't want to book this sailing if venues were out of use/reserved for groups but that does happen pretty much every sailing I have ever been on... whether it is family groups, weddings or other hobby/interest groups. This happens to be a big group, though, as plant-based eating and all that holistic stuff is getting more popular each year.

The ship does NOT operate as normal. Just search the MSC board for threads concerning this year's HHatS cruise and you'll see why. Those people were obnoxious, rude and felt as though they owned the ship.

Try sending your email to the us based executives of MSC USA. I had been given the same treatment, then decided that enough was enough. I sent the complaint to all of these people;

jherzfeld@msccruisesusa.com

Roberto.Fusaro@msccruisesusa.com

Richard.sasso@msccruisesusa.com

I got a response within the hour!

We chose this cruise for the Yacht Club AND because it is an Italian cruise line. The Yacht Club was very nice, but the food in the dedicated restaurant was bland and uninspired. It was cooked to order but there was little imagination evident in the menu. We never saw a "classics" or "available every day" menu the entire cruise. The wines were flat and showed no depth at all. We expected nice Italian reds, but were disappointed. We only saw 1 inexpensive Italian red and it was mediocre at best. The bulk of the wine's offered were cheap (excuse me, inexpensive) California reds. They only opened @ 2 reds and 2 whites per night. To get them to open something you'd had the night before was like pulling teeth. The white zinfandel was, however, open every night. The second night, the assistant waiter started to top off my cabernet with a pinot noir before I stopped him. We didn't see the ship's sommilier until the third night. He explained that he was busy the first two nights giving recommendations to the vegan group in the main dining rooms which had been closed off for the early seatings to all but the vegans. Which leads me to the next problem with this cruise....'the vegans.'

We booked our cruise more than a year out. We learned, through the Cruise Critic roll call that our ship (capacity @3500) had been chartered out to the "Holistic Holidays at Sea" organization. They had 2200+ people on board. We were eventually notified in December by MSC that this had been done, but were told that, "our experience would not be affected." They went on to say that ALL early seatings in the main dining rooms had been assigned to this group (how is this NOT affecting their customers?) I think the late seating was like 8:00 or 8:30 and there were some older folks who ate in the buffet instead as they couldn't eat that late. Large parts of the buffet seating areas were roped-off and reserved for the vegans as well. LeMuse (the Yacht Club dedicated restaurant) was largely unaffected by this group save for the loss of our sommilier. ALL of the staff in the Yacht Club restaurant seemed new at their jobs, I'd guess that this is where MSC got the bulk of the staff for the new Seaside and our Divina LeMuse staff was indeed new at their jobs. We skipped dinner in LeMuse the last 2 nights and ate elsewhere.

The ship is beautiful, no doubt about that. Yacht Club staff and facilities were very nice, though they could use some shade in the one pool lounger area. The ship was sold out due to this vegan group and several public areas were to be avoided as this group conducted all manner of sales in/near these areas. They sold pots and pans, books, lectures on tape, t-shirts etc, etc. They had tables for PETA, palm readers, tables to book lectures and on and on. Very congested. The Yacht Club was largely unaffected by this group although we saw on several evenings, large groups (10 -12) of vegans being escorted to LeMuse and the Top Sail Lounge in the Yacht Club. You could identify the vegan folks by these goofy lanyards they wore around their neck with the Holistic Holidays logo visible in a clear pouch. There were vegan people staying in the Yacht Club, but we got to recognize the faces and some of the people in these groups were new to us. I'm not sure what was going on as the Yacht Club is supposed to be exclusive to members. There are some crazy stories about this group on threads throughout the MSC section of Cruise Critic....I believe every one of them as I was there.

The cruise itinerary had been changed due to the effects of last Fall's hurricanes. St Maarten and Tortola had been removed. Two stops that were new to us were Guadeloupe and Martinique, both turned out to be "one and done stops." We don't plan to go back. Another thing that we noticed even though we'd done it before were the 2 sea days out of and back into Miami. We cruise a lot out of San Juan because we enjoy the Carib and its weather. In January and February, San Juan is warm, Miami and south Florida....maybe not so much. The 2 days droning along just to get to and from the bulk of the cruise is boring. For whatever reason, this was our overall roughest cruise we've done. We've cruised 25+ times so that's saying something. It rained every day. I know, 'it's the Carib, etc,' but it DID rain EVERY day...not all day, maybe not for long, but it rained during the daylight hours every day. I also understand MSC has no control over any of this, just sayin'.

The Yacht Club cabin was nothing special. The darker colors initially put us off in the "average sized" cabin, but we grew to enjoy this as it's different from other lines. We missed the larger sized balcony we get on another line. The walk in closet is nice. The room had plenty of storage. The service was impeccable and timely. Room service was good.

We really wanted this cruise to work. We like the whole idea of the Yacht Club, and although its not inexpensive, we saw it as our cruise line of the future. I don't think that's going to happen after this cruise. The poor food and wine choices were a deal breaker right there. The other problems were minor in comparison. The whole vegan thing, well, that was MY fault as I should have rescheduled. NEVER AGAIN WITH THIS GROUP. We did rebook another Yacht Club cruise with them for next year as we got a fantastic on board deal, but I believe we'll cancel that, too many negatives. BTW we were status matched at Black level.

To be fair to MSC I know of no cruise line that informs guests of any group being on board.

Why should any of us be fair to MSC? I certainly don't think there were fair to me!

Sure, go ahead and quote me.....I stand by everything I said. BTW, as was reported many times elsewhere in these boards, MSC does take the cruise critic on board meeting seriously. We went (our first ever) and many staff officers were there. The Captain made sure to stop and chat with everyone at the meeting, asking about problems, concerns and so on.

For all who are interested in MSC and the 'Holistic Cruise charters'.....my wife and I were on this year's cruise 15-25 Feb. We are not vegans. We will never knowingly travel with this group again. We were in the Yacht Club. No big changes in there that we could see, but there were a lot of vegans staying in the yacht club, as the ship was sold out.

In Le Muse, we didn't even see the sommelier for the first 2 nights, he explained that he spent both evenings with the vegans in the main dining rooms, making wine recommendations. (? what wine goes with a pureed kale?) Yum. FYI the main dining rooms were closed for the early seatings for all but the vegans. We also noticed groups of about 8 or 10 people hosted by Yacht Club members having dinner in Le Muse or socializing after dinner in the Top Sail lounge....not exactly sure how THAT works!

The vegans were absolutely everywhere. As I understand it, the ship hold @3500 people and the vegans had @2200 on board. On some days, you could hardly walk in the area of the smoothie bar and future cruise consultant as this area was set up for sales of all manner of vegan paraphernalia like books and pots & pans...they even had a palm reader, the Peta people were there and a guy touting the benefits of marijuana. I didn't appreciate all of these causes, issues, whatever so "in my face" on MY vacation!

I fault MSC for not being more upfront with folks who were impacted by this group. Many on our Roll Call changed their plans when it was learned that the vegans would be on board...we should have. MSC made it seem like there would be no disruption to regular cruisers. There were areas blocked off in the buffet for vegans and many of the shore excursions featured vegan themes. This was our first cruise with MSC and we were disappointed with the experience.

I didn't think you could get away with charging a tax in this country on something that wasn't used (delivered/experienced/etc). I should think that if you operate out of Miami you are subject to our consumer protections. Just sayin'....

Just got off Summit. Cellar Masters has beer, wine and hard liquor, including some very nice single malt scotch. You can get most simple cocktails there, I don't think they had a blender setup. Can't address beer selection, but the wine selection wasn't very good. Lost of bottles opened, but nothing remarkable.The sommelier/bartender, whatever, spoke english as a second language and basically knew only red or white.

Why don't you just book with the Celebrity planner. You then have 60 days to transfer it to ANY TA who is offering a better deal (you can still keep all the Celebrity included perks). In about 2 weeks, Celebrity will finalize your booking and you'll be able to get a final invoice for the cabin. At that time, call your Celebrity planner back and then....explain that you want to transfer to your chosen TA for a better deal. I was told by my planner that as long as they can see the extra perks offered online from the agent, they will try to match it. That's what I did and my planner got Celebrity to offer an additional $425 OBC (on top of the other perks) in lieu of the gift card the TA was offering to transfer the reservation.

Pete,

I was status matched to Black. Will the $50 OBC show up on the reservation on their website? Thanks...

Who told you Italians celebrate Christmas on Jan 6th?

Has anyone ever gotten Celebrity, through your cruise planner, to match a TA offer to keep the reservation? I was speaking with my current cruise planner and mentioned transferring the reservation to a big box store who is offering a $400+ gift card. My planner said to notify them before I transfer as sometimes Celebrity will match the offer as long as it is verifiable. I had never heard of this. Thank you.

This is a bit off topic, but maybe you folks can answer a question I have. "Has anyone ever gotten Celebrity, through your cruise planner, to match a TA offer to keep the reservation?" I was speaking with my current cruise planner and mentioned transferring the reservation to a big box store who is offering a $400+ gift card. My planner said to notify them before I transfer as sometimes Celebrity will match the offer as long as it is verifiable. I had never heard of this. Thank you.

May I ask what the how the 25% coupon works? Thank you.

Is there a charge for room service in the Yacht Club?

From my understanding, the ban was lifted coming from Cuba only, doesn't mean I'm not bringing them back anyway! The ban is not clear cut as people think. Lucky guy to get two boxes!

 

 

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https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/36/kw/cuban%20cigars/session/L3RpbWUvMTUwMzY3MzM1MC9zaWQveWxBMloxcm4%3D

Hi! Sorry for the late response! Cigars. Im having now right now, actually. Love em.

The cigar lounge does not actually sell cigars, just the duty free shop. The shop is open all day, except when in port. The cigar lounge is nice, but is only staffed in the evening hours. That being said, bring a lighter. I asked the bartender for a light after I purchased a Cuban in the duty free shop. The staff did not have one and directed me to a German group smoking which seemed kind of annoyed that I asked to borrow the lighter. Ended up having to pick up a light once in port.

The duty free shop had a great selection for the space that was available. They had a big selection of Cubans, including Cohibas, Monte Cristo and Romeo y Julieta. There was a big selection of Italian smokes which I tried, as well. You are welcome to buy as many cigars as you like. At the prices, I honestly wouldn't waste space bringing them with you. At disembarkation, customs rarely cares about cigars, or even checks. They will not check your bags at the airport as you would would have already went through customs into the country. If you are talking about coming from abroad to Miami, you should be ok too. If they do catch you with them, they may or may not take them. As long as its not a box. Happy travels!

Why would they take them? They've been legal for about 9 months now. I brought back several boxes from St Marten in Feb.

Celebrity also saves a lot of money by doing an overnight. All that fuel from going to another port and dockage and port fees not spent adds up to a pretty penny I bet.

I thought we paid the port fees and taxes.