The_Big_M

You say you would spend all day in a car looking at the same scenery... you'd spend multiple days on a ship looking at the same scenery before getting to the next major stop for Australia. A week on a ship, you've been to all the major cities in NZ, typically with 5 or even 6 stops. A week on a ship and you've only hit about 3 major cities in Australia, with fewer stops. Hence, as said, why there are fewer multi-stop AU cruises, and all these AU/NZ cruises, including the ones in this thread have more stops in NZ than AU.

While NZ is well suited to cruises, having interesting places at sea ports, close to each other, Australia is less so with larger spreads between major ports, which is why the cruises don't visit many Aust ports so much, and are longer if they do. In that light, and considering attractions at that time of year, I have an alternative suggestion. One of the highlights at that time of year in Sydney is New years fireworks so if the timing suits, you might consider visiting Sydney just before New years eve, and being here for the fireworks. There is then a Princess cruise on Jan 3 which covers I'd suggest the main destination ports in NZ. Although it is a round trip so you have extra sea days, Australia is best suited to land trips, so I'd look at flying on to a preferred place to visit after the cruise returns to Sydney e.g. Melbourne, Ayers Rock, Cairns or wherever, and getting an open jaw for the international flights and returning from there instead of Sydney. Just a suggestion but that's probably what I'd be looking at in this scenario.

You'd presumably already have your ETA for NZ, since the cruise is visiting there already, That said, you'd need to inform the cruise ASAP - before departure - that you were delayed, and then get agreement with them for the alternative plan. If you didn't they may upgrade/assign someone else to your cabin as a no show. Given a verifiable situation (i.e. the cancelled flight) and advance notice, and that the alternative NZ port allows immigration processing (which is likely but depends on the port), then I expect the cruise would allow it and hold your cabin. If you didn't do that though and just showed up in NZ without agreement I expect not. You'd also obviously lose 3 nights cruise at a minimum, which is a substantial hit.

Our last suite attendant decided ours would only be made once a day. Had an argument about it with her and didn't get anywhere, then had to escalate to head of housekeeping, who ultimately just semi apologized for the 'misunderstanding and miscommunication', and resolved for the future. Yep, great suite experience...

Doesn't seem to be running any more on Ovation either.

That's actually the way to go. Because obviously if they don't, then people just ignore the rules and do what they want as they think they're above the rules.

I was wondering the same thing. Where is the wardrobe?

Unfortunately those are all the appetiser options at lunch. Agreed, the Luminae menu is quite restricted. It'd be an easyish fix to go back to more like the older MDR menus, which would give more options overall then, but it's not something they've done. The other odd thing is that overall Blu, despite being a 'lower' restaurant, has more choices.

It's a 'problem' with the multiple smaller restaurants. Unlike larger ships where main dining is designed to cater for all the passengers, individual smaller restaurants won't handle anywhere near the number. So if they just served on arrival, invariably there'd be the popular restaurants where people waited 2 hours to get in (which then makes queuing an issue as well), and other restaurants which were unexpectedly quieter. And you'd also have guests with no idea that if they'd come just a bit earlier there'd have been free seats, but then even longer delays at peak times. So reservations become essential whenever you have smaller restaurants at no cost. I'm not a fan either, but it's just a consequence of the decision to have multiple smaller restaurants that guests can choose, at any time, on a much larger ship than the capacity of each restaurant.

Agreed. Last cruise I was on, which were back to back, I and a few others weren't trying for immediate benefits, but just the next cruise as it doesn't credit immediately - and even that was 'problematic' for the CC host. They were definitely not offering any benefits in advance of their terms. But I guess some people somewhere may be lucky.

Very limited selection of drinks on Celebrity; mostly 'old school'.

Unfortunately that seems to be a common feeling in many ways booking Celebrity at the moment - also why I have no bookings or plans for bookings with them at present. Also on my last cruise I found myself dining in Blu more than Luminae; just a better selection in Blu, both a larger menu to select from and even, oddly a greater range of breads and even butter/spreads every night. I found it strange that Luminae has more limited selection than Blu. Service was comparably good, as was quality imo.

Or as we discovered on our last cruise, no evening turndown service/cleanup or anything else either. Questioned our room attendant and she said it's because we signed up to "Go Green" Had to speak to the Head attendant and he then 'apologised for the miscommunication.'

Why would those in Sky suites not be the same way regarding the butler? My impression of who is more demanding and in which grade of suite they travel in is the most demanding ones are in the top suites - but of course just as with other grades it doesn't mean everyone in that grade is the same.

That isn't correct - except it was as marketed that way by Celebrity spin so they avoided having people cancel. There is no new "team" that has replaced the butler that was listed as part of the booking. The only replacement for the removed butler is a "head butler" who obviously is shared across tens of rooms, and already had other responsibilities so does not deliver anything that butlers did before to an individual suite. You will be unlikely to see him any more than once if at all, and he will have no involvement in the day to day operation of your suite. All the other people involved in your service delivery are the same people who were involved when a butler existed, i.e. it is a loss or degradation of service that has not been replaced.

Just changed suites on a B2B and the Retreat Team were explicit to all the Suite B2Bers that they had to repack and unpack everything, including the coathanger items, themselves.

I suspect it's unlikely Noordam will provide a complimentary shuttle, although if you're staying overnight they may offer a transfer as a 'tour'. If that's not available, taxis will be at the terminal, but there may be a wait at peak // busy times. Alternatively uber can also be organised as normal.

You're right, it has. This is how modern buzzwords like 'pivot' and especially "fail fast" relate to. There's a whole business mindset that cares not about good service at all now, but just finding the 'minimum viable product" to extract cash from you as quickly as possible.

She's just finished sailing on the first Edge cruise from Sydney to NZ and return.

The Edge cruises I just came off had prices for drinks on the menu there and in Luminae. Which I thought weird as most would have premium drinks packages. But I figured it's probably to cater for MoveUp upgrades.

But then they don't get drinks in all the other venues on the ship, which is quite inconvenient, so hard to think they'd get the same value as the drinks package alcohol wise. And it also neglects all the people who paid outright for a suite.

They didn't use the resources elsewhere. They just cut the costs to make more profit - but not for all suites. Hence there's still a need, but sky suites are now just having to make do... or not as the case may be.

If it meant a shared butler, I doubt most would have an issue. Right now it is no butler at all. They just [officially] kept availability of the head butler so they didn't raise a PR problem and risk of cancellations, but the head butler will not be visible to you. And if you call him, he will just pass the message on to your room attendant, room service or the retreat team. So you soon learn there is little point to call. (And even when I called to try escalating service issues on two occasions, he didn't even answer on one, so you realise there's little benefit to bother calling.)

They didn't seem plentiful to us. Seemed to be only one station that had them, and although it was kept stocked if you went to any other plate stack it was just mediums.

Sure they could. But I didn't view it as a deal breaker, as I didn't use them much. However, in practice what I experienced was multiple deficiencies, and in some respects worse service than non-suite passengers. This is because non-suite have a standard process of communication long in place, which works. Whereas suite passengers rely on butlers for a lot of 'personalised' information. However, with them gone, the retreat team is stretched and doesn't personalise, and was later with what they produced, and take a more reactive approach (and work limited hours), and the room attendant doesn't do that and is barely seen, given he's covering for two now, and the (head) butler doesn't get involved and... there's no-one else. It's a lovely feeling to find out critical information from non-suite passengers. Then raise it with the concierge who tells you to come to them with any question. But I can't ask what I don't know about!