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Celebrity does potentially qualify. As I mentioned earlier, certain promotions may not qualify, such as exciting deals.

I believe it only applies to American Express Platinum card holders. Basically, if you book cruises through an Amex Qualified Travel Agent, you may receive some perks when you use your Amex. Platinum card. Many travel agents have this qualification, but not all, so for those looking for the perks, it's important to ask. Right now, I have 2 bookings with 2 unrelated TAs and both have that qualification. You do have to make the request, as it doesn't happen automatically. Direct bookings don't qualify, so again, to get the perks, one must use a Amex qualified TA to do the booking, and the entire balance must be paid w/the Amex Platinum card. There are also some nice trip interruption/ medical evacuation benefits backed into the card's benefits. It's pricey, but I get a lot out of it. What the perks are depends on the cruise line, number of days in the sailing, and category of cabin booked. For example, we have an Oceania cruise upcoming and I think for pretty much any category booked, I receive $300 in OBC, a bottle of wine of my choice from their tastings menu, and an invite to a wine tasting. Usually, I get $200-$300 OBC on my Celebrity bookings, but it depends. This is in addition to any OBC that your travel agent may provide in their normal course of business. Often, they include an extra amenity, which could include specialty dining, or similar. Here's a link that may be helpful.https://www.americanexpress.com/icc/cards/benefits/travel/cruise-privileges-and-discounts.html

We will be doing Ascent this summer out of “Rome”, so we are both looking forward to that one. She had a limited amount of time available later in the year due to her work schedule, so I saw a seven day Caribbean that fit our needs on Oceania, and booked it.

Some of them are legit sales. The short cruise out of L.A. was pretty much Carnival cheap even on Concierge Class.

I'm taking the GF on Oceania Sirena for a milestone birthday. I'm really concerned that it might be too boring for us, and especially for her. Frequent Oceania cruisers mentioned entertainment which included shuffleboard, lectures, hanging out in the library and "curling up with a Kindle." In other words, the sort of things I want to avoid on a cruise. I also hear that their food is going downhill. I'll probably try it anyway, but it's not a cheap birthday gift (I'm covering the cruise, hotel and cross-country air), but I have been second-guessing my decision to try them.

It’s been my understanding that the pricing offered under Celebrity’s exciting deals promotion is about as good as it gets. In fact, I grabbed a discounted cruise out of Los Angeles last year, and they refused to honor my usual American Express cruise privilege benefit on that sailing because exciting deals are supposedly their rock-bottom prices, and don’t qualify for perks like that. I got their most recent exciting deals today, and they don’t seem exciting at all. They seem to be about what I would usually expect for a regular sailing that wasn’t part of a promotion. So is it just my imagination, or are the exciting deals a lot less exciting?

I don’t know if they will ever be able to return, but it is looking more and more doubtful at this point. As previously discussed, there was an effort to transfer two older Celebrity ships to Pullmantur. Celebrity initially denied this, but it wasn’t announced for no reason. And I had heard from some of their former employees that they had been contacted by the company about a potential restart. But that ended up not happening, and the company was fully dissolved, and even the name sold for next to nothing. In fact, I’m not even sure if it sold and I think the starting bid was something like €177,000. At this point, my best guess is that they’re gone forever, but you never know. Many companies were able to survive the Covid lockdown, but obviously that was a huge financial drain. But unfortunately, this company was not a survivor, it was just too much to overcome.

We like the shows on probably a bigger scale than seems to be offered on Oceania, different bars/clubs, the GF likes to dance but I really don't, I suppose a broader array of venues. We like some of the MSC ships that have a Sky Lounge up high, overlooking the pool, with a band playing jazz or popular hits while we sip Grand Marnier in a snifter or a good red wine. I've always preferred the mid-sized ships, maybe 2,500ish in capacity. I think the GF likes some of the Monster of the Seas type vessels, since they have so many varied types of entertainment. That said, I'll probably still give it a shot. We have zero sea days, so between visiting the ports, getting back to the room, relaxing a bit, cleaning up for dinner and actually doing dinner, I'm not sure there will be a ton of down time anyway. As I mentioned earlier, if she gripes she gripes. At least I'll be providing the cruise, air and hotel.

You might be right. I had wanted to try something different, but in a good way. The reservations are fully refundable until August, so it’s something I will have to think about.

I have to be honest. While we love good food and good service, you guys are scaring the heck out of me with comments about hanging out in the library or hunkering down with a Kindle. Some of the "activities" mentioned sound tremendously boring to me. Will still probably do this, but the GF has been concerned that she'd be bored, and I hate to drop a chunk of cash on a milestone birthday cruise for her, and then have to listen to complaints during and afterwards.

I did Summit NYE 2022 with the then CEO aboard, and her sister Infinity this past summer. I thought Summit was in outstanding shape, particularly given her age. Infinity needed some help. They need to either Revolutionize Infinity or dump the ship, imo. It wasn't terrible, but not up to Celebrity's standards, imo. But I felt Summit was up to standard.

I also thought Butcher's Cut was very good. I'd improve the plating presentation, skip the bands, and possibly elevate the decor a touch, if it was up to me. The food quality is pretty solid, imo. Service was also pretty decent. In terms of plating, it seems as if many of the entrees are served without much attention to aesthetic presentation, and the items served often look pretty lonely, alone, or nearly so, on a huge plate. I've attached a couple of photos as examples.

Not sure who the musicians are. Not sure if it was a trial gig. It was a Med cruise. Not sure if they got off or not. But a buddy and I did a couple of specialty restaurants on Celebrity last year, and the service and atmosphere was First Class, particularly in Murano Restaurant, which was so impressive. Pretty good service in Butcher's Cut, but not in the same league, and really, I didn't need to have a band marching through the restaurant during dinner. Others obviously might feel differently.

That's why I wrote "quasi." As a side note, I was the announcer for a marching band, back when.

A small, quasi-marching band visits your restaurant during dinner. How would you feel about it? A. Hey, why not? It's kind of fun! B. Um, this is supposed to be an upscale specialty restaurant & we're trying to have a relaxing dinner. Not exactly the place for a quasi-marching band. C. Something else (explain,)

I see some opposed to this, but how is getting CC points for spending any worse than getting CC points for watching online videos that many probably don't watch anyway? The spend would give points to the branded credit card users, and this would benefit Celebrity/RCCL directly in several ways. I'm trying to view this from 2 perspectives. From a corporate perspective, i.e. more revenue. And from a customer perspective, i.e. more perks/benefits.

To clarify, it's a poll in the way that I had intended. I find the comments to be more meaningful than a simple click to vote tabulation format.

If you're priced out of Retreat, let me know if you try MSC Yacht Club, which I've heard good things about, and the pricing seems to be much better. I've sailed on MSC quite a few times, but not in YC. We did an Aurea Grand Suite for NYE, but that's not YC.

This is the poll. Do you prefer a spreadsheet?

Ok then, 100 points?

As you may know, Celebrity has a house-branded credit card, and typically they offer something like $200 or $300 in OBC if you sign up for it. But let's say they sweetened the pot, and in addition to the OBC bonus, they offered some Captain's Club loyalty points, let's say 50, and perhaps they could tie that to an initial spend challenge, perhaps spending $2,500 in the first 3 months or so. Would that make you more likely to sign up for their card? It seems to me as if they'd get a lot of new credit card business if they tried this. I know that the airlines make big money on their house-branded credit cards. What do you think?

While I've had some maddening shore-side customer service experiences, in terms of the onboard experience, MSC generally offers good value for the money. I'd take them in a heartbeat over Carnival. Likely over RCCL and NCL too.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, as last year we did a Celebrity cruise from "Venice" that actually departed from Ravenna. In our case, we paid for a private water taxi to take us from our hotel (3 nights pre-cruise) to that Maritime Transit Center (or whatever it's called). There were people movers and other ways to get there, but the water taxi dropped us off on the docks, very close to where the bus departed from. Not sure what MSC offers, but we paid for Celebrity's sponsored transportation to the port and it worked out very well. When we flew into Venice airport (VCE), we booked a water taxi from the airport to our hotel's private dock. This is a bit more expensive, but really nice and scenic. However, during high tide, water taxis cannot get under some of the bridges in Venice, and so they had to drop us off at the closest public station and we lugged our bags to the hotel, which wasn't a piece of cake due to bridges/stairs/cobblestones and the fact that we don't travel light, but that's what we dealt with. Again, this may or may not be helpful, since we were departing from "Venice", and on another cruise line, but if it doesn't help you, perhaps it will help someone else.

Good to read some positive comments. We have a cruise booked later this year on Sirena, which will be our first on Oceania. I've read so many poor reviews, I've considered cancelling, plus, we're concerned that it might be boring. But at this stage, I figure that the best way to know is to try it for ourselves.

I feel obligated to inform everyone that, yes, I too have received my 3 points for watching that fascinating webinar last month. Woo hoo.