willcruiseanythyme

Maybe it depends on time of year...spring break always seems to mean full ships!

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You know, what's strange about that questionnaire thing is that our replacement waiter also reminded us about this questionnaire we'd be receiving, and that their share of the daily gratuity was based upon the result. I didn't get the link to the questionnaire as expected so I called Celebrity -- mentioning to them that I did have a certain review in mind and didn't want any of the crew members to suffer as a result of me not turning one in, and Celebrity insisted that the questionnaire had nothing to do with how the crew got paid. So I wonder what's going on there?? One party is telling the truth and one party is clearly not but it's difficult to know which is which.

I think the questionnaire is more for advancement. I've been told that when the crew gets kudos from passengers (by name) they earn extra days off and other rewards. I've never heard of a different break down in the tips. We have never pulled our tips for bad service but we do tip extra for good service. Like our room attendant...he was so good that he got extra $$ at the end of the cruise and a couple days in we recognized him on the form you get from guest services for great work/attitude. He came up to us the very next day and thanked us profusely! So word definitely gets back to them when guests do this.

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We had a problem in the solarium. It was always crowded. Had to get there very early....

So now I'll talk about the ports...

First one was San Juan. We arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was overcast and we got rained on. Obviously the ship can't be blamed for the weather but I wonder why we even made this stop. No one I spoke with did anything but get off the ship and shop a little. It would have been nice to have two days instead in one of the other ports. In fact, we weren't scheduled to leave until 10:30 but we sat out on our balcony and at 9:30 we were leaving port. Just a useless stop in my opinion.

Second day was St. Martin. Loved this port. It wasn't my first time here. We decided before we left that we just wanted a beach day and shopping so we did it through an outside company. They shuttled us over to Great Bay Beach and offered us two different drinks with the package, 2 loungers and an umbrella. There was food for purchase as well - very expensive though. We also had the use of a fresh water shower as well as clean restrooms. The water was clear blue, very gentle and we enjoyed ourselves. After we had enough sun, we walked to shopping which was a block away. Great shops and my husband found some great t-shirts!! A fun day!

The third stop was in St. Kitts. We opted for a resort day. We had called The Marriott before leaving home and paid $35 pp to enjoy their beach, the pool, loungers and shade at both. Would recommend this resort. Our food was good and the pool area was beautiful. The ocean is on the Pacific side so it was quite windy and choppy the day we were there. But, the palapas were nice to sit under. Just a very relaxing day.

So, we were on the Reflection last month and had table #114 in Opus and Ali was our waiter then too. We only had him 2 nights and then he disappeared. I found him not terribly gregarious but whatever. Come to find out he disembarked in Grand Cayman because of a family emergency back home (Turkey, I think?). He did not return while we were cruising. Fortunately his replacement was the EXTREMELY lovely Nicole, who was a pleasure to see every night.

 

If I had to guess he probably has something weighing heavily on his mind. It doesn't excuse your bad experience in the dining room but perhaps explains his un-waiterly behavior.

I'd love to think that was true but he was just plain weird! He would get these crazy eyes at times. Like Nicholas Cage from Face Off!!!!! And on Thursday night he had the nerve to come up to us and tell us to give him a wonderful review. Telling us what to put on our questionairre. Sorry. He didn't have to do much for us but be friendly, talk, introduce himself, etc. Most nights he only had us and one other table. Not good.

Dailies?

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So RickT mentioned the entertainment on board so I'll pick it up there. Our cruise director was Maartin. A Dutch fellow who I thought did quite a good job! Always saw him around and he seemed pretty accessible to everyone. One of the ships bands was Blind Vinyl. They were seen often in a couple different venues on board and we thought they were really good. There was almost always someone dancing to their music. The other band, their name escapes me was just so-so in my opinion.

The nightly theater shows consisted of comedians, the Reflection singers and dancers, Tenors of Rock, and a ventriloquist. Both comedians did their job...they cracked me up!!😂

The Tenors of Rock was awesome! A "not to be missed" show.

The ventriloquist was maybe my favorite of the week!!

The Reflection singers and dancers were good but we really had trouble following the story line of their production shows.

We also witnessed aquacize by the pool each sea day (except when we had bad weather) and again the silent disco was too fun! The ship DJ was pretty good too and he was by the pool a couple of times.

All in all I thought it was a good mixture of nightly shows.

Be back later....

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We were on the same sailing.... some similarities and some differences. We lucked out with dinner/table/waiters ;p

 

We also saw lots of chair hogs and almost got in a fight with a couple who put towels/books on one and didn't return for over an hour..... Pool butler gave away their chairs so Karma is OK.

 

Loved the cruise especially the entertainment.

Yes, we thought the entertainment was good too!

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The pollution concern reported was sewage overrun after a significant rainfall. The problem was never reported that it was so bad that "everyone" would get sick if they ever swam there.

Did I miss something? All of your posts are pretty negative about the beach so if it was or is so bad then people would have been getting sick? NO? This beach had many people there. Swimming in the water even. Amazing.

Glad that you had a great day on Great Bay willcruise...

 

Tour operators booking an excursion to Great Bay would certainly be the first to inform everyone if there were any possibility of water problems there. :)

 

gary

 

 

p.s. Wilson, would love to have that contact information.

REALLY? Well, they would sure lose a heck of a lot of business if they sent guests to an unsafe area or beach and people started getting sick. Do you really think that people would keep booking with them? Wow. But hey, if you don't want to go there, once again, don't.

My wife and I are new to Celebrity, and so are the other four couples that are going on the same cruise with us. (None of us are new to cruising however.) We will be on the Equinox in August this year.

 

There seems to be more talk about CHAIR HOGS on the Celebrity forum than other cruise lines that I've looked into.

 

On a sea day, are there lounge chairs available on the pool deck? We don't need to be right up by the pool, even 4-5 rows deep is fine. :) We just need a spot to put our stuff and lounge when we aren't in the pool. We are a group all in our late 30's to mid 40's, and we'll be near or in the pool a decent amount on sea days. How bad is it?

 

Thanks,

Dan

We are just off the Reflection. It was awful. I was up at 7:45 and it took me 10 minutes to find two chairs together and that was a few rows back from the pool. All the saving was ridiculous. I watched and most took 2-3 hours to ever show up. One family that reserved 7 chairs rolled in 3 hours after me one at a time over the next hour and a half. So rude! I did witness several complaining to pool butlers. One of them, in the solarium, got out her tablet and started giving the "30 minute" warning to all the saved chairs in the area. Needless to say, no one returned in that 30 minutes so their stuff was removed. This should happen everywhere on board. I don't have a problem with someone going to get breakfast for 30-45 minutes or lunch either but this 2 to 3 hour nonsense is very rude. Every cruise line should stop this hogging practice. If they would enforce the 30 minute rule, I think the problem might subside because everyone with a hangover won't be able to go back to bed for a couple hours. Just my opinion. Good luck!!

So we had the early dining at 6:00 in Opus. When we first booked this cruise we asked for a table for 2. Not because we are anti social but we don't want dinner to last so long. So we went straight to the Maitre d' after boarding. He told us to go to our already assigned table for that night and he would try and get us a table for 2 from then on. We were with a table for 8. The other people were very nice and the waiter was good. He introduced himself and quickly took our order. Only problem was 4 of the others didn't show up until 6:45-ish. They had been told the wrong time. So after already starting our dinner, we ended up waiting for the other four to catch up to us. Wasn't an issue until we walked out 2 hours and 20 minutes later. Reason for wanting a table for 2. The next day we got a notice to find a new table. #115. That night we were happily seated at a table for 2. Unfortunately though, the happiness ended there. Over the next several days our waiter never introduced himself to us. He never learned our drink preferences. He never spoke unless spoken to. Weirdest thing we've ever experienced on the past 10 cruises. One night they were serving "steak and fries" which sounded good but we asked him what kind of steak it was. He immediately tried to talk us out of it saying it was very very tough. Not good. Way too tough. I asked again, what kind of cut is it? He finally said Filet Mignon. HUH? That should be a very tender cut in my experience. We ended up ordering it anyway. Mine was very good, and very tender. My husband ordered his medium. He could only eat the outer edges as the middle was moo-ing so loud he just couldn't eat it. Our waiter (Ali) never once asked him how it was. Instead he picked up the plates when he assumed we were finished and later just brought dessert. Just so weird. We asked him what the different kind of butters were on the table too. He said he didn't know and yelled to his assistant waiter, Ryan, and asked him. Ryan told us. Every night was the same thing. This guy was sub-par! We wanted to complain but having already been switched once we didn't want to seem like problem guests. Plus, if we complained and there was no where to move to, we would have had to deal with this waiter after he knew we complained about him. Sorry but we didn't want to risk anything happening to our food behind the scenes. We DID however write a review about him on our post cruise questionairre.

Overall the food in the MDR was really good the first couple of nights. After that we felt it went downhill a bit. Not sure why. I did enjoy the fact that creme brulee was available every night. Yes, I imbibed. Every night.

Finally by the last night, we were so fed up by our waiter and his demeanor we opted for Tuscan Grille. More on that later. Unfortunately we had a bad experience there too.

The Oceanview Cafe was pretty good. The last sea day was the best for lunch. Lots of choices and tasty. Pizza was offered daily which was pretty good as well as a pasta bar and homemade ice cream.

The Mast Grill on deck 15 was open every afternoon for lunch till 6:00 pm. The burgers were very tasty!

The first sea day we awoke later than hoped for. Still trying to resolve the red-eye tire. I quickly got up and went up to deck 14 to hopefully find a lounge chair near the pool. Nothing. Had to search hi and low and couldn't find two together. There were however, many being saved with a myriad of "stuff" strewn about. We finally found two after searching for 30 minutes near the solarium. We were pretty lazy the rest of the day. This was what we encountered every single day. I ended up getting up by 7:45 on the morning of San Juan to find a chair. It still took me 10 minutes to find 2 together. Once I did, I settled in and proceeded to watch other chairs sit vacant for hours yet were being "claimed" by a bag here, a book there. One family took up 7 chairs and didn't show up until 10:30 and they showed up one at a time. You Tennessee fans know who I'm talking about! Quite rude but I know it happens on all cruises.

On the 2nd sea day we arrived at the solarium to finally find 2 chairs together but felt badly for a woman who had been waiting over an hour to find three together. She complained to the pool butler and the gal started writing "tickets" with a 30 minute notice on them. Of course the 30 minutes were up and she got her chairs! This should be done all the time! So, if you complain to the pool butlers they will start marking the chairs.

Our last 2 sea days consisted of bad weather. 9 foot waves with many swells. You didn't have to be drunk to walk like a drunk. Many were quite sea sick. We had rain showers off and on too. Finally cleared up a bit in the afternoon of the final sea day. We were able to take part in the Silent Disco. That was way too much fun! It was offered 3 different times but the other times were late at night and we were always too tired to go. Glad they offered a day time version. Recommend! More later....

Yes, we have a couple of the dailies so I will take a picture and upload for you. Are you looking for anything special in them?

Thanks. The beach in front of marriott was that a day pass beach?

 

 

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Yes. I didn't get the feeling they worked for the resort though. They didn't have uniforms like their spa people did.

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So, I thought I'd post my opinions of our first Celebrity cruise which was with the Reflection. It was my 11th cruise overall. Darn. I shouldn't have started my cruising experience with Disney....Anyway, remember, these are our experiences and we realize others may have had a different experience but hopefully we can provide some tips, answers, and insight to anyone who cares. We arrived at Miami airport early...about 7:00 AM after taking a red eye out of Phoenix. We finally found the Celebrity check in desk which was right near the baggage claim area. Once checked in, we had to wait for the first bus to take us to the pier which wasn't leaving until around 10:30 or so. We had opted to buy the transfers through Celebrity as it seemed easiest. We arrived at the ship pier quickly...a few minutes prior to 11:00 and quickly was checked in and they had just started letting people board. We were on by 11:10 and headed up to the dining room for lunch. We were in a C2 cabin so apparently that is where we could dine. Lunch was ok, nothing spectacular. Then we decided to check out the ship a bit, couldn't get into our cabin until 1:00.

Once in our cabin which was 9310, we fell asleep for an hour or so. Darn that red eye! We went to our muster drill at 3:30 and then back to our room for sail away as we like to enjoy our balcony. We met our room steward named Darkum though on the way in and he proceeded to tell us everything about the cabin as we started sail away. He was an awesome steward and have only good things to say about him! We only asked for extra towels and ice all the time and he happily obliged. He always had a smile on his face and asked us how we were doing throughout the cruise! He quickly was earning his extra tip at the end of the cruise from us! I actually felt a couple of times that he might be devastated if we ever had any kind of a complaint about the room. This was serious business to him! (Wish our dining waiter had taken some lessons from him but more on that later!)

I'm going to pace myself and write more later. If you have specific questions, ask away and I will attempt to answer....to..be..continued..

Just got back from our cruise and we went through the Marriott directly before leaving and they took our reservation for 2 and took a cc number to hold the reservation. It was $35 per person. It was supposed to offer 10% off of food but they didn't give it to us because they didn't know how to give a discount....at least at the Pizza Shack. Weird. The ocean was way too choppy to really swim in but some tried. There were plenty of chairs and palapas on the beach as well as ladies offering massages. (Saw some taking advantage of them.) We actually spent most of our time at the pool. Beautiful grounds and a swim up bar for those who want alcohol. The food at the pool restaurant looked good but we opted for the pizza. We were told to bring our own towels from the ship when we reserved however another family was somehow able to use the resorts who were also from our ship. Apparently if there aren't too many ships in port you can just go there and ask for the day pass with no reservation but if it's a busy ship day then you have to have a reservation. At least that's what we were told. Taxi ride from the pier over was $12 for two of us even though it was a full van. But I heard someone else paid $6 for two. On the ride home we found another couple to share the taxi with and it was $12 for the 4 of us. Maybe it pays to barter but we were told right at the pier our price. Didn't seem able to negotiate at the taxi stand. Go to a different stand and maybe you can get the cheaper amount...

Just got back from St. Maarten and we spent several hours at Great Bay beach. It was awesome. Clear blue water. Not very crowded where we were which was near the farthest water taxi drop off. We had clean restrooms, fresh water showers and food/drink offered. Plus shopping was very close. Asked the tour operators about the supposed water contamination, they said that it was a factor awhile back but not any more and they have fixed the issue. Figure I will believe them otherwise everyone should be getting sick from going in the water and I haven't heard that this is happening.

We just got back from a cruise that went to St. Maarten and St. Kitts. Both beaches we were at (Great Bay and beach in front of the Marriott) offered massages. I didn't hear a price but many were taking advantage of them. Hope this helps.

With each new concept, more of the ship is closed off to the non-suite guests. I prefer a ship that accepts all guests into all venues. If I want to sail in a suite, it would be for extra space. I don't need a separate pool, dining room, or lounge. With the new Edge class ship that restricts the non-suite guests, it creates a class system. Nobody wants to feel like they are 2nd class. Not rushing to book on the Edge.

Agree!

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When we started cruising on Celebrity in 2003 ( Century) everybody was entitled to the same food, activities service etc . Now contrary to the other lines Celebrity has many classes : different dining rooms ( Luminae, Blu). I do not object to the specialty restaurant which comes for a price but are available to all.... I object to the private pool, terrace, bar on Edge for the upper classes.... I do not feel that way on any other cruise line. We have done 20 cruises with Celebrity and I think it is time to move on...Celebrity is moving to attract the rich and famous... even on the luxury ships an indoor cabin will grant you all the advantages and will not make you feel as an outcast.

I tend to agree with you. I think Norwegian is guilty as well, with The Haven. I, also tend to witness many (not all) who seem to act quite entitled because they have chosen to cruise only with the upper tier. Many act like they wouldn't be caught dead with an "insider."Just my opinion.

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We will be in St. Martin next week and only have about 2 hours in the afternoon to see the island. What would be the best way to find someone who doesn't cost a huge amount but will take us around to see some sites? We only want to stop for photo ops or possibly a quick snack or shop on the French side but also would like an air conditioned vehicle. Do taxi's have/use A/C here? What's a reasonable taxi fare for 2 people? Any help would be appreciated.

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I find it interesting that trip advisor reviewers over the last SEVERAL years ALL said how beautiful this beach is/was while they were there. Do you not think that the thousands of good reviews outweigh your one bad review? Perhaps the problem has been fixed? Hmmm? I have researched this extensively and have opted to return. Again, you don't have to if you are worried. So please...move on.

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I will refer to a post from my good Cruise Critic friend (that I have actually met :)) from some time ago, but facts are facts.

 

gary

That's fine but I never saw contaminated water! If you don't want to swim there, don't. It's quite simple. I'll still post my review though. If it's OK with you.

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Does anyone have feedback on Sonesta Great Bay Beach? They have an AI option that is appealing, but what's up with the contaminated water?

We'll be there next week. I can post an update. We've been there before and it was absolutely beautiful! Never saw any contaminated water.

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Nonsense.

First, I only dine with those that would not have an objection since I don't dine with strangers.

Second, a snap shot with a camera phone takes a second or two.

Third, once everyone is served everyone can begin eating, they don't have to wait for a picture to be taken.

And exactly how would it obstruct the waiters? Even with a flash, it bothers no one. A person sits at their seat, points their camera at their plate and snaps. How exactly does that bother you or anyone else? I'm not a picture taker.

This is complaining just for the sake of complaining and it is confrontational.

Like like like like!! Exactly! People need to really find something else to complain about! Or here's a novel idea...STOP COMPLAINING!

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