markeb

There are no “Broadway type shows”. There are two primary production shows that are a mix of music and aerobatics. There are typically comedians and other musical performers. The ship has several venues with live music. Expect a rock band (sort of), a string duet or trio, and a couple of wild cards. Sets are 45 minutes, which is kind of choppy when they’re good. There will probably be a silent disco (more fun than you might think) and a DJ. The grand foyer will go until about 11:00, then things will shift upstairs. Any given night will be different, as will any given cruise.

It's a crazy stupid price, but the pricing is undoubtedly based on the drink package. Not true on this thread (and not a form of marketing I'm really comfortable with) but I'm betting most people will buy a drink package and not pay attention. And even the upcharge wines will only be viewed as the delta, not the absolute cost. If you do have a drink package, have a couple of poolside drinks, a pre-dinner martini (or two) and an after dinner drink, you're probably at a point where a $2.40 upcharge for a "$19" glass of wine doesn't really matter. It pushes the whole sunk cost fallacy on the drink package...

I get it, but that's hardly unique to Celebrity or to cruising. It happens all the time in hotels. A few years ago, a number of hotels went to automated inventory systems (touch sensitive) for minibars. If you picked an item up to look at it, the system charged you for it, even if you set it back down.

Your bill is in the app and updates almost in real time. It's also available on the TV. I'm glad they don't stuff a hard copy statement on our door anymore. I think most of us don't want a bunch of paper to just throw away.

So, a Chicago steakhouse is lower than Celebrity (by quite a bit) but also charges about bottle retail for a glass. I’d love prices to be lower, but I’m not seeing Celebrity’s prices that out of line with the norm. I personally think Decoy cab is a $9.99/glass MAX wine, which would put it in the classic package. But @phoenix_dream example is about one glass price = one retail bottle price. It’s high (and higher than the Chicago restaurant price) but not significantly different than land prices. I’d gladly buy wine at @jelayne’s friend’s restaurant. That seems well below normal markups.

I’m seeing a mixed bag. Most decent reds are above the package limit. For EQ they’re now offering the Kiowa Red Mountain merlot for $19; in November that was only available by the bottle. Still an upcharge, but not a full bottle. The Grgich Hills cab is still an $8 upcharge, but it was worth it the time I did it. I don’t expect a truly good California Cab in the packages, but the “other reds” seem to have vanished as well. It would be interesting to run the by the glass prices by a good NYC/Chicago/Miami etc. restaurant price (if they carry the same wines). My gut says Celebrity is high, but I have no frame of reference. They’re high compared to bottle prices, but so are almost all restaurants.

Yeah. I’ve always been offered things that weren’t in the app. The printed wine list has been pretty unreliable, if it’s even offered. And looking at the App for Equinox Luminae, there are other offerings. Nothing spectacular.

To think that ships used to take world voyages without satellite communications, radar, collision avoidance systems, computer assisted navigation, etc. You’re more than welcome to return to those times. I’ll stay in the present.

Sailing from where to where? What stops? Do any of the ports of call require six months? There’s no one size fits all answer.

The OP actually asked a specific question with an actual legally defined answer. The USDA grades most beef as prime, choice, or select; there are no letter grades. There are lesser grades, but those aren’t common restaurant quality grades. If the ship is sailing from a US port it’s USDA graded. It’s probably choice, but I don’t think they advertise a grade. Select has apparently become more common on the market in general. There were significant sell offs of beef over the last couple of years largely due to droughts. Much of that was probably select. Conversely, that would make prime less common. It’s possible Celebrity is buying (more?) select but I’ve not seen anything that would confirm or deny that. I don’t know what they do if the ship is sailing from other parts of the world. I remember threads where posters stated they shipped US beef to those locations. If it’s US beef fo interstate or international sales, it would be USDA inspected and graded.

Looking at the app, apparently Chateau Souverain and Exelsior from South Africa.

I know you get taken to the cleaners on wine in Canada, but it's about $36 at Total Wine in Virginia (2021 vintage). That's pretty good pricing for a Russian River Pinot Noir.

I wonder about that. They were under contract, so the ships were probably already sunk costs long before they took delivery. The close out penalties might have been less than the final bill on the ships, but they received assets by completing construction and taking delivery and ultimately generated cash flow. It would be interesting to look at the books.

And I'll say this again: If Royal hadn't bought them, who would have? Whether you knew they were on the market or not, they clearly were. They could have simply killed the brand instead of selling. For most of the ensuing 26 years, RCCL/RCG provided the financing and infrastructure for Celebrity. I suppose Carnival could have bought them...

It's one on one in the working zone. It's too small otherwise and would be unsafe. Your actually time slots will be booked once you're on board, so it's a little unlikely you'll all be back to back. Each piece takes about 15-20 minutes of work with one of the professionals.

They'll probably clear for boarding around 11:00. We arrived around 10:30 for Equinox in early November in the Retreat. That seemed about right. Definitely no need to wait until 12:30.

I was going to just edit, but this is too crazy not to point out. There are a lot of people on CC, maybe not in the "real world" who don't buy drink packages. If you DON'T HAVE A DRINK PACKAGE and there's a wine you like available both by the glass and by the bottle, until someone wakes up, BUY THE BOTTLE! They'll hold it for you. It'll be fine for 24 hours. It's a different calculus if you have the package, and you may well have the package for drinks other than wine. But $60/bottle with gratuity for approximately 5 glasses of wine versus $19 + gratuity = $114 for the same 5 glasses! In simple math terms, $114 >>>>> $60... That can't be an anomaly. Check other wines by the glass and by the bottle. For the record, I've never seen anything like that at any land based restaurant. Frequently they don't sell their by-the-glass wines by the bottle. If they don't sell the bottle, the by-the-glass is usually based on 3-4 glasses per bottle to make up the margin where the bottle should hold about 5 6 oz glasses. With that pricing, you're going to come out ahead at 4 glasses, not the house...

Do you have a package? It's only $50 a bottle. Without a package, buy the bottle. Roughly $10/glass. $19/glass would be roughly $95/bottle. Everything is based on the beverage package. Crazy...

The bottle lists, until on the ship, are at the bottom of the lists of wine in the app for each venue that sells wine by the bottle. That's mostly the dining rooms and restaurants. It's not user friendly, and not necessarily accurate. The better lists will be in the specialties but those may or may not be available in other venues. And I believe even onboard the lists are venue specific. For the dining rooms, the sommelier will have them and should be able to tell you what is or is not available on the list. I'm not sure the previous bottle packages are still available. We've never done one, and that's my memory of the last thread on this subject

I think they do know their consumer. And those of us commenting on this thread don't make up a large volume of their current wine consumer base. Maybe in the day when they were winning all those Wine Spectator awards... The shipboard system revolves around package sales. You walk into a venue and your card says "Classic" (is it CLL?) and the system revolves around providing you drinks, including wine, within that package price. Bonus points for selling classic package wines at the very top of the classic package price to make them seem better. And people go for it to a much larger extent than we want to admit. Same at the premium package limits. And almost no one compares wine prices by the glass in the packages to the price of a bottle of wine. They have a package and don't care. If they didn't sell packages and wanted to keep the same prices, they'd have to raise the bottle prices. And it's even more apparent for high volume/high margin fruit drinks at the pool. Or the martini bar. Sorry, but I wouldn't fire the person. I'd probably give them a raise. If the consumer ever catches on to a degree that impacts alcohol sales (yeah, right 🙄) then you sacrifice them for the good of the corporation. Don't see that happening.

A little nuts for me. Traffic will "probably" be fine southbound, but who knows. It's Friday. Book a room near Pike Place, spend the day in Seattle, and have a leisurely trip to a 10:20 flight on Saturday (assuming the same flight schedule on Saturday). Tons to do in the area if you don't want to do downtown Seattle. That sounds a lot better than stressing over an early flight or wasting the day "homeless" for a 3:00 pm flight.

That's the thing, isn't it? I just thumbed through the wine lists in the app (not thorough; I'm not that into this question) and finally found Decoy (presumably the Cab) by the bottle. It's showing $19/glass on the current Equinox sailing. It's a $19/bottle retail wine. IF they're offering it by the glass, it should be $85/bottle ($19 * 5), which would be truly outrageous. Even crazier, it's actually $70 a bottle (again, the app only says Decoy, so I'm making the assumption that's the Cab) which makes no sense whatsoever! It's not that good of a wine to begin with, and that's a crazy stupid markup. The packages really skew the wine prices! There's no way I'd spend $70 for a bottle of Decoy when Freemark Abbey is $110, or even better, Penner-Ash Pinot Noir is $100. But if you have the premium package, Decoy is "free" and the much better Pinot Noir is $100, less 20% discount for the premium package plus 20% gratuity, so really $96 that you're actually paying. There is a level of insanity here! Just returned from an amazing week in Napa visiting wineries and tasting real wine. Need to breathe deep, calm down, and avoid wine threads on Cruise Critic...

Uber. No need to mess with a shuttle.

Asking about food allergies has become pretty common in many if not most restaurants. This "may" have been your comment, but we were asked both times we ate at Sushi on 5, and maybe Tuscan. I don't remember if they did asked the first day in Luminae. We get asked all the time eating out in DC and NYC. Sometimes sarcasm can get you in trouble... 😱

It's been awhile, but a lot of the better Lodi producers were very small and you'd be hard pressed to find them outside of California. Some of them, sure. Michael David, for instance (7 Deadly Zins, and a number of much better Zinfandel based wines). But the ones we enjoyed when living there were mostly very small. Had no idea Josh marketed a Lodi wine. Don't know that I've ever had Josh and don't know that I would. Wente makes some pretty good wines. No, not top tier California, but better than a lot of the $15 bottles out there.