phoenix_dream

5 hours ago, Moonarino said:

The basic answer to your question is no, it's (still) not likely that X will be a prime target for spring breakers. They might be trying to court younger cruisers as phoenix said, but it could take a good while for them to catch up (if they ever will). Reputation is what it is, and Celebrity is not that. Possibly over-optimistic, but I'd be willing to bet money on it.

 

Two Novembers ago we thoroughly enjoyed the quiet, relaxing atmosphere on our 10-day Silhouette cruise. Of course as others have mentioned, the longer the cruise, the better the odds for avoiding spring break insanity.

 

After 16 years of cruising, Celebrity is our first choice for an almost-guaranteed pleasant and relaxing cruise. I'm here in the X forums today because after our most recent cruise on Carnival, I'm seriously thinking of changing our next Carnival booking to Celebrity, even it if costs me.

 

Edit to add: Thinking back on all the ways we enjoyed Silhouette a year and a half ago, I'm even more adament about recommending Celebrity over the others you mentioned. Just getting a cup of (very good) coffee was entirely effortless and thoroughly stress-free.

 

I guess a lot depends on how you would quantify a lot of spring breakers.  As I mentioned, my two cruises had around 500 kids of various ages each.  Definitely less than on lines like Disney or Royal, but to me it was a lot.  We will specifically be avoiding any March cruises next year unless we could find one with more than 7 or 8 nights.  Wondering if you have sailed Celebrity recently, particularly on E class?  I am finding the age demographic even on non-spring break cruises is definitely not like the Celebrity I have come to know and love for 30+ years and 80+ cruises.  I am honestly not trying to be argumentative.  Just talking about how different things are than just a few short years ago.  So I think there is already a lot of "catching up" sad to say.

I did a quick check for spring break for colleges in 2025.  Your timeline fits right into their schedules, and it includes lots of Florida colleges.  

To those who say it's not an issue on Celebrity, I say you may be speaking of the Celebrity of a few years ago.  These days Celebrity is deliberately going after a younger crowd and that is evident on my recent sailings.  I sailed two Celebrity cruises this March (one 6 and one 7 nights), beginning March 3, on two different ships.  There were around 500 young people onboard each cruise, primarily teens and young college age adults.  They were generally well-behaved and often traveling as groups with their families.

Years ago I sailed a 5 night during a college spring break and it became infamous for the outrageous behavior.  There were 700 college kids from 2 different Florida colleges on the Connie.  They were loud and drunk and causing chaos everywhere such that the Captain held a meeting with the senior officers to "take back the ship".  I am not exaggerating.

So I would say overall yes, you will have some college age kids in particular on an early March cruise.  How many depends on many things, including the number of days.  Shorter cruises always equal more kids during March.  Will there be as many as other lines like Carnival or Royal?  No.  Will they be well-behaved like those on my recent ones, or drunken morons like those on my 5 night sailing?  No one can say for sure.

4 hours ago, justcrusn said:

This is SO TRUE….

If a smoker gets on an elevator everyone that’s not a smoker, immediately knows.

And the smoker is oblivious that they stink to everyone else because they don’t smell it.

100% agree!  Sometimes at public places like stores or the like someone will walk by me and it literally chokes me because they smell so bad.  So as not to direct this exclusively at smokers, the same thing can happen when some people (usually but not exclusively older ladies, and I am one so I can say it without prejudice🙂) seem to take a bath in perfume and just REEK of it!  Our relatives (may they rest in peace) were lovely ladies but loved their perfume.  I distinctly remember walking down the hallway one day towards their cabin and I could literally smell their perfume at least six doorways away.  They used it so much they were immune to the intensity of it.

On 4/15/2024 at 10:38 AM, twins_to_alaska said:

I was able to use the same password I already had when I 'changed' it.

I did as well.  Another example of their fine IT service.  Thank goodness the onboard experience is nothing like their other automation!

Another option is to bring a small plastic soap holder - the kind that drains the liquid so the bar soaps don't get all "ooey and gooey"

7 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

Not true!  I witnessed a helicopter landing on the bow.  Only once but it does happen on Celebrity.

Agree.  Have seen it a couple times on my cruises.

3 minutes ago, hcat said:

on E CLASS ships..there were very limited offerings ..

And yet on E class ships they have the most offerings!  So you can just imagine how poor the offerings are on other classes.  On our Connie cruise, there were no movies at all, other than those that occasionally happened to be playing on one of their very limited channels.

To the OP - surprised the people haven't come out yet to chastise you for wanting to watch tv in your cabin as they usually do - you get lectured about why go on a cruise to just spend time in your room.  But I'm on your side - I cruise a lot, often long sailings due to b2b, and at the end of the night I often just want to lay in bed and catch a little tv.  Sadly, it's been one of my complaints for years that Celebrity tv choices are severely limited, primarily to news, more news, soccer, maybe a tennis match, and a few cartoons.  

I've sailed to Jamaica many times including several stops in Falmouth.  Inside the gates is nice.  I would never, ever go outside without a tour.  One trip we were in Jamaica at the Ocho Rios port with our teenage son.  People swam up to us in the ocean trying to get us to buy drugs.  On the street walking back to the ship, people approached our son and kept following us trying to sell him drugs while he was walking with us!  

Not to say all Jamaicans are criminal as they are certainly not.  Did my first ever snorkeling trip on an excursion in Jamaica at the age of 60.  I was pretty scared.  The Jamaicans onboard that boat couldn't have been nicer to me - patient and kind.  It's a shame there is so much crime on that island that you can't be safe just walking around.  I know many other places in the world have the same issues (hey, I live outside of Chicago!) but there is really nowhere on the island I would wander alone.

20 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

The other dynamic with it not being profitable was it seemed that over half the guests were in a free room thanks to the casino.  Only way for Celebrity to become profitable from a comped casino room is for the guest to lose more in gambling than their cruise fare

Exactly.  And why did Celebrity pick that cruise for the Blue Chip free ones?  Because they weren't selling well otherwise.  Very, very disappointing as those have been some of my favorite cruises over the years.

7 hours ago, CruisinShips said:

Were you on the early October Eclipse sailing?  We were on that one (San Pedro, Santa Barbara, SF, Catalina, Ensenada, San Diego).  Enjoyed that itinerary very much.  As I recall, there was an impact to the amount of time in SF, which was OK with us as we have been there several times.

I don't remember the exact dates, but we were definitely on in October, doing a B2B.

9 hours ago, Liao said:

Apparently many want to do short cruises, the 4 day ones from FL are extremely popular 

It will be interesting to see if that lasts.  They are deliberately attracting a younger crowd, but that also puts them in direct competition with their own company Royal Caribbean, who is also adding more shorter cruises to the same port.  This younger crowd also has much less free/vacation time available compared to their older, loyal cruisers so it will be interesting to see if the popularity continues.  There is only so much vacation time in a year, compared to those of us who are retired or who are in our later working years with many weeks of vacation.  I guess time will tell.

5 hours ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

As an Arizona resident I love cruising the West Coast.  The choices today are pretty much short 4 day cruises out of LA or week long to Seattle/Vancouver. 

Mexico with level 4 violence ratings is not possible except for Ensenada.  Santa Barbara has limited port calls.  Monterrey eliminated large ships.  SFO made it too expensive on port costs to do an overnight.  Ships are required to cruise slower to help whales.  Astoria has limited docking.

Bottom line is the short get away cruises marketed toward a younger crowd don't match Celebrity demographic.   Fewer ports and no variations.  Until or unless Mexico comes back things will be quiet.

I did Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, and Ensenada last year on Celebrity, as well as Santa Barbara, San Francisco, San Diego and Catalina Island.  We did have some unfortunate port time changes as well as itinerary changes due to the whale concern on our 4 west coast cruises (2 to Mexico and 2 up the coast plus Ensenada)

They owe the entire amount back, just like they did when they cancelled all the cruises during Covid (in addition to offering FCC)

And on S class Blu is right next to Murano - so I guess I should be asking if I can order Dover Sole in Blu.  Geez.  Come on now.  There's reasonable requests and then...........well, things like this.

20 hours ago, 4shines said:

We sailed on the silhoutte in Dec. My husband and I both got very sick. Horrible body aches and respiratory symptoms shortness of breath and coughing.  Came on very fast. I was tested and flu and Covid both negative. I ended up with bacterial pneumonia. I was thinking some new virus. Never had body pain that bad before. 

I'm sorry that happened to you, but not sure what that has to do with a legionnaire's warning on Ascent?  With 3,000+ passengers plus crew there are bound to be any number of illnesses onboard at any particular time, especially in the winter. And just as information, if it was bacterial pneumonia then it was caused by bacteria, not by a virus.   

1 hour ago, Tyler414 said:

The Caribbean has a long, long, long history of violence, probably safer today than any point in history.

The Caribbean in general, yes.  Haiti in particular, probably the worst in our lifetime

The bottom line is that they don't have success filling them.  End of story.  For example, I sailed a B2B out of San Diego to Cabo last March, and then a B2B out of San Pedro/LA in October.  Those were the only cruises of the 13 Celebrity cruises I've sailed since Jan '23 that were not 100% full.  There were tons of Blue Chip free cruisers onboard.  There were tons of last minute price drops.

It's not because of a lack of port options.  In the past we've sailed the coast including Ensenada, Cabo, San Diego, LA, Santa Barbara, Catalina Island, San Francisco, Seattle and Astoria (not all on the same cruise).  Used to include Monterey but no more.

So the real question is why do they have trouble filling them, especially when other lines seem to be successful?  Here's my two cents:

• People on the west coast and nearby are already married to other cruise lines that have a lot more options and have more history in the area
• Celebrity does not want to offer longer cruises as they don't attract their now target crowd of 30-40 year olds.  In order to get a good coastal cruise you need more than 7 nights.
• Coastal cruises are not beach cruises per se, so that crowd isn't interested. 
• I believe many people feel that it is a very valid option to drive up and down the coast to see the various cities rather than cruising.  You can't drive Caribbean island to Caribbean island

These are obviously just my opinions but I think they are very logical.

On 3/23/2024 at 3:22 PM, Arizona Wildcat said:

OK.  I love to cruise the US West Coast, but cruise to where?

Mexico, always love a port where the local police carry machine guns and the US travel warning means I have no insurance coverage 

California, San Diego great as a port.  Catalina Island is OK.  SFO great.  But Monterrey and Santa Barbara are shut.  Whales require slow cruising speeds so the 14 day RT to Alaska doesn't work any more.

And the short 4 day cruises are not our style.

Since when is Santa Barbara "shut"?  Was there twice on B2B Celebrity cruises last October

It's interesting (and concerning) that they are still advising people of this.  My understanding is that the people in question sailed in January.  We sailed Ascent in early March and never got an email warning.  You would think by now they would have figured out if it was actually the ship.  If there were no further cases reported I would think it was caused by something else.  FWIW we did not get sick on our cruise.

20 hours ago, keesar said:

1.  On the Ascent, we received a nice zipper  bag and there was a smaller bag inside.  Nice quality. No lip balm but got the cardholder.  We did get an exercise mat and some weights.  Also, we had a choice of pillows.

2.  The Elite minutes are Premium Minutes.  Good enough for FaceTime, sending photos attached to emails, etc.  

Interesting, I was just in Ascent in a Celebrity Suite and while I got a nicer bag than I am used to, it was certainly not zippered.

4 hours ago, jwlane said:

The good thing then is one can use the local cellular service.

Yes, when in port that's true, although that service is also not very good in some of their ports.

Wow that sounds awful!  So sorry you have to go through this and unfortunate that the communication has been lacking.  If the Captain is super busy trying to take care of everything one of his officers could be charged with conveying info.  Fingers crossed for you and everyone onboard that things are on the upswing now.

One thing to be aware - I have found in my many Alaska cruises that it is often the case that the Wi-Fi reception is very poor, and at times non-existent.  You will be in some very remote locations without good satellite feed.   You would think docked in towns it would be better, and yet I have found it is sometimes worse.  Just want you to realize this in case you are counting on needing the Wi-Fi for work or other important calls or other uses.  It improved once they went to Starlink, but it can still be an issue.

All I can say is congratulations and enjoy it.  It definitely will never happen again unless for some reason they need your cabin at the last minute which is extremely rare.  That could have been the case here, or it might be because you are a first time cruiser and they are trying to entice you into better cabins.  They used to do that years ago to first timers.  But enough of the negative side - you will love Celebrity!

It is unlikely you would get the same cabin.  That said, once assigned you can change your cabin if the other one is available.