Tigerfnan23

Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong locations but the VV cruises I've priced for a standard balcony are a good deal more expensive than the Celebrity equivalent. I do realize you get better food with that price but even adding in specialty dining several nights on Celebrity it's still more on VV and thats with a premium drink package included in the Celebrity price. Until that gap narrows I'm afraid we'll stick with Celebrity although I'll admit the VV experience is quite intriguing. I've only priced VV on their website however so maybe there are deals to be had elsewhere out there.

We've ended up in concierge on E class ships on a couple of move up offers and the only thing we've really enjoyed was having access to the upgraded pillow options. Most of the rest of it was of little or no value to us but ymmv.

We liked them but only when we could get them via move up over an OV for a couple hundred dollars. No way we liked them enough to pay full price, which seems to be the concensus and why we can get them dirt cheap via move up.

My wife is mid 50s and didn't really enjoy cruising based on her experience with other cruise lines. I had done a few Celebrity cruises before and convinced her to give them a try and she loved the E class ships. Did Apex and Edge and are trying out Beyond later this year. She isn't a foodie so any food issues aren't really a issue for her but she really enjoys the decor and ambiance of the ships, along with the entertainment options. I've enjoyed some of the pre Edge class ships in the past but I'm not sure she would be as impressed with those. So while we may not be the intended demographic we've definitely become Celebrity cruisers based on these new ships.

We always do it because it makes sense financially based on our drinking habits and it's also nice not to have to bother with receipts, room charges, etc that invariably come with the classic package if you're drinking many drinks a day.

Drink package has become a bit of a rip off anyway so no way you should be paying for two of them for one drinker. Just go a la cart.

My guess is that the test had little, or no, impact on casino revenue so it was discontinued. Celebrity has had no issue ignoring complaints that are near universal in the past so don't pat yourself too hard on the back for thinking your complaining suddenly changed their mind about something they were going to roll out otherwise.

We walked off with our luggage at around 8am, grabbed a shared cab and arrived at the airport a little after 9.

We spend maybe 3-4 hours per cruise in the casino. We don't smoke or vape but I doubt a few people vaping would make us not enter the casino and it certainly wouldn't make us cancel a cruise since the casino is only a tiny fraction of the cruise ship. Now if we gambled several hours a day and had health issues then maybe that's different but the casinos were pretty empty our last couple of Celebrity cruises so not sure how many people fall into that category. Perhaps it's those same underutilized casinos that are causing Celebrity to look at things that might generate more revenue there.

We enjoyed our two Celebrity cruises over the last year. Unfortunately due to price increases we are booking land based travel for our vacations next year. The days of Celebrity cruises being any real value, relative to other options, appear to have passed. We hate to take a break from cruising, but there are many other ways to spend a week in an exotic locale for a good deal less. Having said that, we experienced nothing on our cruises we would even remotely consider leaving a bad review over. Loved them both.

We recently did both and wore the same things to dinner at Each.

We definitely like them better than ocean view but we would never pay full retail for one. Just isn't worth it.

When we sailed it was around 85% but the ship never really felt crowded. Maybe tough to get a chair by the pool on sea days but that was about it.

We try to just power through our first day. At most we may take a one hour nap. Then we head to bed around 9 and then are pretty much ready to go by day 2.

The biggest benefit we've gotten from the concierge class is their enhanced pillow offerings. Definitely recommend.