Joker54

When I first heard about the cvp layoffs I emailed mine and received 2 replies. First said there was no one with that email address in outlook. Then a few minutes later I received an email from Celebrity outreach department letting me know that our cvp was no longer with Celebrity effective 3 October and that we would be contacted by our new cvp shortly. That was 3 weeks ago and nothing. Now I just call the retreat desk as they can manage any existing suite bookings and plan on finding a good TA for the future. I would assume non suite guests could just call the general number as has been mentioned already and who ever answers hopefully can help.

Well we give them a cash tip as well. The point is to give them something in addition to cash

Very nice touch Jim! We also like to do something in addition to cash. After a few days on board the DW have a discussion about those who go above and beyond. We will pick 1 or 2 crew members, try to find out which restaurant is their favorite. Then we approach the manger and see if we can arrange an evening where they can have some time off and we take them to dinner. It’s nice that you get some quiet time with them and learn about their home country etc. we have never been turned down. One cruise we were fortunate to have our favorite butler assigned to our suite and we took him to Murano. The 3 of us had a great time. There was one retreat host who went out of her way to make our holiday the best so we bought her a gift certificate for the ship’s spa. The necklace might be the better gift as they have it forever and it sounds like you both really made her day great and that is awesome! We assume (and hope we have it right) that most put the tip money away for something at home like buying a factory (mentioned elsewhere in this thread) and rarely spend it on something fun for themselves. Which is why we enjoy doing something outside of cash if that makes any sense. We may change our tipping habits in the future, but will always do something special for a couple of crew members. Cheers

Great info Jim. Exactly what we were looking for. We also appreciate you and the others who have posted for taking the time to share their thoughts. We knew tips on the sea pass went to the pool and I have complained about that non-stop. I am certain there are many who think it goes to the waiter. When we tip a waiter we have always done so in cash. Now that we know that cash may end up in the pool we will change to using the envelope with the associates name along with a thank you card. Cheers

Greetings all Sorry for starting another thread on tipping. From things we have found on the last few cruises I feel that the DW and myself have been over tipping. We are from the states and my DW was a waitress in our younger years so tipping is something that we care about. From what I have read we are not supposed to tip officers - which means that when we tipped the Retreat Concierge it was probably a tip that could have been saved or given to another crew member Our friends from Down Under don't normally tip and when we visit our friends kindly remind us not to tip as they don't want it to get started:) Also learned that the crew in Luminae pool their tips - we now take that into consideration. We now ask the Maitre D' of the specialty restaurants if they pool tips or not. Our curiosity is not how much anyone tips as that is a personal decision. We are curious how folks feel about tipping and who they tip where service has been appreciated. It will be interesting to see the tipping thoughts from those not from the US. We typically cruise in Suites, but not always. When we can afford it we book into the Iconic or PH. We feel like we should tip more just because of the size of the room and the level of effort needed to keep those clean and service the various amenities. Again, not asking for how much someone tips but whether they consider the level of effort when determining whether to tip more than when in rooms requiring less work. Now that Celebrity has once again raised the daily tipping fee - X is basically giving those crew members who receive a portion a raise. With inflation that may not be a bad thing, but we are being forced to subsidize the pay where X is lacking in that department. The flip side is if we don't tip then the crew is punished for policies they have no control over. Our next cruise is this Sunday and we are going to ask Customer Service for the breakdown of how the daily tips are distributed. Cheers to All Steve and Andrea

We were on the Equinox last November and had a great time. We are boarding this Sunday for a b2b. Do yo know if Aurelian is still the Matire'D in Luminae? Cheers

Sorry to hear that, I know we were very lucky to have found the CVP that we had. We are both concerned about them being let go, she was very nice as well and I'm sure she made a lot of bookings for X with her dedication. We will wait and see what happens and what the new CVP is like. We are also going to start looking at TA's. We have started looking at other cruise lines anyway -

Exactly As one who has lost most of his hearing due a 20 year military career I can confirm that my hearing aids and accents do not get along well at all. It's not the agents fault, but if I cant understand them and am forced to hand the DW the phone - well that is a real pain. I always apologize for listening with an accent and let them know its not their fault that I cannot understand them and I then asked to be transferred to a US based agent to which the reply is always "we cant do that you will have to call back and hope the call routes to the US" Pinboy - if you don't care for the topic or the comments contained in them, why are you reading these threads?

Another vote for the Flora, we just returned from an outer loop cruise and it was amazing. We used Celebrity Air so all transfers were included. It couldn't have been any smoother. Cheers

After seeing this thread I tried to contact my CVP, her extension was answered by someone else and she told me my CVP was gone. Then she transferred me to someone else and I asked that person and she said the CVP was just off today. Seemed add as it should have gone to voicemail if she was out. So I sent her an email, which bounced as undeliverable and that was followed shortly with an automated response advising that my CVP was no longer with the company and to be patient while they assign me a new CVP......... This will really bite if it's true my CVP was awesome!!! I have 8 cruises on the books through Oct of next year as well. Cheers

Our last transatlantic on the Apex was not as impressive as many of our previous cruises. We have cancelled one cruise so far. X cancelled our 2025 Antarctic cruise to move Equinox to a more “family friendly” location and itineraries. We chose X as it wasn’t a family cruise line, nothing against family cruises but it’s a deal breaker for us. We are down to 8 cruises booked with X some may get cancelled some we will keep because of the itineraries. For us it has nothing to do with the grass being greener elsewhere. X is making business decisions that it feels is better for the business. We make our holiday spend plans on our interests. If X’s product doesn’t fit our interests we will look elsewhere, whether that be another cruise line, or go back to getting 1st or biz class tickets and flying to a destination and spending 5 or 6 weeks in that part of the world. Which is what we did for many years. If we don’t find a product that fits our interests then it may be time for us to enjoy our home, and me to enjoy the company of my DW of 47 years and reminisce about days gone by. We try and live everyday like it’s our last. No one gets out alive! Whatever we choose it’s going to be something that makes us happy. Everyone should choose those things that make them happy. X up until recently made us happy and we don’t see why it’s wrong for us to comment on changes that are pushing us out the door. Cheers

Love hearing about your cruise and am sorry to hear about all the service issues. You have been very gracious in your posts. Not sure if this would help or cause more issues but am thinking you might consider emailing a link to this thread to the executive office. 3 days of consecutive dinning issues is something I think the hotel director should be made aware of. We hope the rest of your cruise becomes the amazing cruise that you should be enjoying.

This is a tough decision - if we see 8 crew members over the course of a cruise and if the service warranted a tip, we would give one, but it would be a much smaller tip. Let’s say that if we felt $100.00 was a good tip for the overall service received for that cruise. Then each of those 8 crew members would receive $12.50. If I could find them towards the end of a cruise. it’s possible that we might feel that the daily pp gratuities that are added to the bill would be all that they would receive.

We started cruising X in 2016 and cruise a lot. We will be Zenith in Jan 24. All have been amazing cruises and we have made many friends passenger and associate alike. There were issues here and there but nothing that impacted our holiday. We were on the Equinox Nov 22 for a 9 night Caribbean cruise. We were surprised at the super awesome treatment we were receiving. The Matre'd in Luminae reserved a window table in the back of the restaurant. He put a bottle of wine on it so no one would be seated there. We never asked for special seating it just happened. We also had the same wait staff for every meal we enjoyed there. We asked about the Chocolate Bomb and the waiter mentioned it was only available on cruises of 11 nights or more, wasn't a big deal to us and we figured we would wait until our next longer cruise. A few minutes later the Matre'd stopped by to ask what night we wanted the Chocolate bombs. We were booked in specialty restaurants for the remainder of the cruise so he asked us to pick a night and said just stop by Liminae for desert - which we did and the Chocolate Bombs are amazing! Every venue we went to on the ship a glass of both my and the DW favorite adult beverages would appear without us asking. Which is really great except if you were interested in a tea, but you cant refuse a drink that arrives without asking:) We finally noticed a sheet of paper near a register with our boarding photos and the drinks that we enjoyed. Amazing We sent a letter to LLP while on the ship with the names of everyone who was making our cruise magical. The hotel director stopped by to let us know that LLP called the ship and had a conference call thanking those crew members for the service that went well above anyone's expectations. That was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and would never expect that level of service or attention going forward.

Thanks Jim.

Doing a bit of searching the internet on this topic I found this site that is supposedly from the ministry of tourism https://www.indonesia.travel/cruise/en/laws-and-regulations On that page they show this paragraph related to visa free entry. Unfortunately the web page inst dated I have no idea of this is true or not but worth looking into a little more Passport Passports must be valid for more than 6 (six) months since the date of entry. 1. Visa Free (up to 30 days) Nationals of 169 countries *) are eligible for a visa-free visit of up to 30 days, with condition as follows: it is not extendable, you must leave after 30 days is up. it is not granted for the journalist/media to do coverage in Indonesia. no working or study is allowed Cheers

There is a difference in how a minibar is stocked. If you are in an all inclusive suite (signature suite or above) only contains the items you request such as vitamin water, beers, etc. those suites are also stocked with 2 full sized bottles of liquor that you select pre cruise. We have sailed in every suite class other than a CS. When in a high end suite our minibar has never had snacks. The butler brings those upon request. I admit that when we have been in an SS we didn’t look in the minibar as we knew it was not included and had no plans to use any of the contents, and never asked our butler to do anything special related to the SS mini bar, so those may have had snacks and mini liquors.

Just took this screen shot of the amenities for a royal suite. Beer water and soda stocked daily. That’s the minibar so it’s still included

The rule we live by is that no one can say yes if you don’t ask, and if the answer happens to be no it’s not the end of the world and the word no isn’t painful cheers

Unless there has been a recent change, signature suites and above have the free mini-bar

Just to be clear, you read 8 pages of boring posts????

I hope it works out well for you and your family. I noticed you are looking to X to have cruises with less children. X of course has recently shortened a few cruises and has more cruises at 7 days or less for the future. X says those changes were made to accommodate more families. Which may mean more children cheers

They are and it's evident that they went with designers that haven't a clue about ships. I could add a lot more but this is off topic and I don't want to hijack the thread any more than I have

I'm not sure you could check in with a name of TBD, I know they want the passengers name to match their passports. My question is why wouldnt you want the correct name of that passenger on the booking?

We did the TA this past April on an EV on the Apex. The perks were typical of the high end suites and we had no complaints - service was excellent - except for 2 things there is a sliding shelf in the bathroom the slides left or right allowing an opening to see out from the bathroom, nice touch, however there isnt anyway to "lock it in place" so if you get in any weather it will slide in both directions with a rather loud noise when it hits the end of the track. We just shoved wash clothes into the grove to hold it in place. Also the glass door to the bathroom, is very heavy and held in place by magnets. The magnets are not strong enough to hold it in place - bad design. Since the EV is forward and high any ship motion is amplified. If the she heads into a sea then that door will open and close, in our experience on the TA it did so rather violently until it jambed in the open position. That said we would book that suite again just not on a TA