NutsAboutGolf

Here are more data points.  X has won this award for years along with other cruise lines.  For 2024, W.S. awarded X, VV, and NCL.  I just googled Wine Speculator Princess and they won 18 in 2023 but it doesn't appear Princess won any for 2024 despite W.S. naming the other cruise lines that did win

This award may be meaningless so it made me wonder how many awards, some will surely be meaningless, both X and Princess have.  Neither cruise line lists 2024 awards yet, the best guess as to why is because the year isn't over; so I did this for 2023:

Princess: 56 awards

X: 41 Awards I had to add the 14+11+16 below as when you click on the "view all 2023 awards" button (I highlighted it in yellow), you get the "bad request" dead page.  If X sees this post, I'd imagine they'd fix it quickly

4 hours ago, TGfromTX said:

Interesting. I’ve never seen that either. This was my first trip to see Bimini - much of the coast is not cleaned up.  I saw lots of debris but by a far majority was some form of drink containers - water and soda bottles, plastic cups, beer bottles. This is what I see when camping locally although I see more food packaging too.  I try to practice leave no trace so I try to book the same sites so i don’t have to clean up as much trash from others for the season. Seems like people become more considerate after the site is cleaned once. 

We got back from the Maldives about two months ago and saw a small cove and I'd guess there were 5K pieces of debris most of which were bottles.  I mentioned it to the guide who victim-shamed me (lol) and said it's the tourist's fault they need fancy bottled water and refuse to drink their perfectly clean tap water. I just explained to him, including the 2.5-hour layover, that it was a 24-hour flight, only here for a week, which means we don't want to spend any extra on the toilet if we can avoid it

5 hours ago, TequilaJane said:

Cant have a plastic straw but 1000 plastic ducks are ok

Plastic water bottles

5 hours ago, miched said:

Worried about pollution from the ducks.  They run a lot of rubber duck races for fund raisers.   There are many cities in MI that have one 

 

I don’t think many escape as they are contained in floating booms.  

 

Here is one in the Chicago River.    Over 75,000 ducks. 
 

 

Here is one in Tampa

 

 

This isn't directed at @miched, I'm quoting their content to expand on these duck events.  In most cases, cities don't buy 1000s of ducks from Amazon, they hire a company to run the event.  The "duck rental" company handles everything including launching, recovering, and cleaning the ducks.  Generally, if a city has a closed waterway, they have the event there, and if not the company takes great care to prevent them from "escaping".  Cruising is currently very dirty, the primary reason is they use Heavy Fuel Oil which can produce a layer of soot on E-Class SV balconies.  Passenger behavior such as not leaving food on the plate and re-using towels is a drop in the bucket.  Same with the ducks, I just say everything in moderation, reuse found ducks and maybe don't buy hundreds per sailing.  These ducks can find their way into open water and harm marine life

On 7/25/2024 at 6:00 PM, markeb said:

And before everyone jumps in to complain about the by the glass offerings...

 

From Wine Spectator:

 

"Wine Spectator's Restaurant Awards recognize restaurants whose wine lists offer interesting selections, are appropriate to their cuisine and appeal to a wide range of wine lovers.

 

To qualify for an award, a wine list must present complete, accurate information, including vintages and appellations for all selections. Complete producer names and correct spellings are mandatory, and the overall presentation of the list is also considered. Lists that meet these requirements are judged for one of our three awards."

 

They're an award based on the wine list, which is going to be the bottle selections. Which are honestly pretty impressive. When you get into the quality of wines that would win these awards, the prices are high, but not out of line with a high end land-based restaurant.

 

By the glass doesn't impact the award. In all honesty the only restaurant I've been in with a great by-the-glass selection was a Michelin 3-star with tasting menus. I'm pretty sure I've been offered pairings from the tasting menu in some cases. I don't look at the list there. I've got a CMS Advanced Sommelier making recommendations from a list curated by a CMS Master Sommelier. I'm not even trying...

 

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/about-the-awards

X not having any typos is far more impressive than actually winning the wine award 🙃

2 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Wouldnt be a very interesting cruise in the Med 😉

Countries in Blue are in the EU

 

I quoted you as you stated the Connie and Infinity may leave, stick those in Norway for the Baltic sailings.  Have the X ships with shore power sail the Med

13 minutes ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Can the old ship plug into shore power,

I believe in 2028 EU all cruise ships must be able to connect to shore power 

it might not be worth to up grade ships to 2025 standards 

I could really see the Connie and Infinity leaving soon 

The program is very complex, Poland is suing over it.  Therefore, don't be surprised if deadlines are extended and/or temporary waivers issued.  Also, when things like this happen, European non-EU ports make it known they're open for business without the EU requirements 

I'm not telling anyone how to enjoy your vacation so if staying on the ship brings you more joy than getting off, stay on.  I think even spending 15 minutes off the ship is just a nice change of scenery, browse a gift shop for a few minutes even if you don't plan on buying anything

1 hour ago, Mike981 said:

 

That is how we do it. We keep a running list on our phones and also take a picture to make sure we get the name correct. On our last cruise we had eight different people that we highlighted for great service.

I've seen people take pictures of name tags, yet for most, that probably means they didn't ask for their last name.  Then who knows what they actually said in the survey "Gabby was the best, promote her immediately!".  Worst case scenario, another girl named Gabby gets promoted...lol

Celebrity/X's social media team on X/Twitter has been awesome as they seem to have POCs on every ship and corporate.  Answers may take a week but have always received a satisfactory answer

About a year ago I asked about the revolutionary schedule, and their response:

4 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

IMO, it sounds rather non-specific to me.  "Making improvements" doesn't exactly sound like a commitment to the original Revolutionize plans.  Guess time will tell

We can take it a step further as she said "CONTINUOUSLY making improvements" which is the exact opposite of a single-stop dry dock "revolution"

56 minutes ago, Liao said:

It also said it would be interactive 🤔

It says interact; I suppose it's ambiguous

14 minutes ago, TheHawk1 said:

Interesting that the deadline for her responses was today and a lot of questions were left with no response, particularly in the first couple pages of thread. Interesting she chose to reply to the most recent questions first and ignored many of those who submitted early in the process.  The whole thing seemed like a pointless exercise in marketing.

It was advertised correctly, we write the questions and she (and/or her team) writes the answers.  They even stated it's possible she might not even answer

I do agree that the older questions should have appeared first

Edit to add:  It seems like people believed it was presented as "What actions can we take to improve your experience on X?"

15 minutes ago, IDL said:

Similar to the Jerry Seinfeld’s rental car stand up comedy routine; she may be willing to accept all questions but answering them not so much.  I submitted a question July 4th concerning the price of the meal at Eden and not even the courtesy of a response. 

If she answered, it would be a safe bet she would have replied with something like this, obviously replacing the beverages with specialty dining pricing

Seems like their original revolution plans were created around 2017, a lot has changed including X's leadership.  Entirely possible a Revolutionized Eclipse in 2025 doesn't look like the Millie or Sillie

11 minutes ago, Orator said:

They use the surveys to determine who is promoted, bonuses, shore excursions and many other things. That's why it"s important to mention outstanding crew.

I've always wondered about this.  For the crew, it's all about luck.  In a perfect world, the passenger writes "John Doe, our waiter from Blu, was the best", yet how often does that happen (rhetorical)?  More realistically...

-No last name, name tags only list first names

-If no last name, hopefully, no one else with the same first name

The passenger doesn't mention the job/section

-Passenger can't even remember how to spell the name well enough for X to identify 

2 hours ago, LMHSRN said:

Can someone explain how the tournament works?

You pay a fee an what does that include?  Does that give you chips?  Do you have to buy chips?  Is there a high/low limit?

 

I have entered my daughter and now she wants me to explain it.  I haven't the first clue either.  LOL

To buy in, you either need to pay at the cashier cage or the option should be in your cruise planner and is usually discounted when there are flash sales.  You can also buy it now and cancel it by going to the cashier so if it's part of the flash sale going on now, you should buy it

2 hours ago, goofysmom99 said:

I always thought the Pinnacle pins were sooo tacky, but now zeniths can have a swell pin, too.  Hmm, I wonder if I can paraphrase the dictionary example for use of the word déclassé:  Celebrity, a once-great cruise line that has become completely déclassé.

 

 

 

 

 

#RememberCookieGate would be quite the conversation starter...lol

18 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

Just wait.... I just received an email to order your very own Zenith Name Badge.

 

 

 

I really want one that says "Preview" lol

11 minutes ago, keesar said:

If you really want to see a crew member get excited, give them the famous fruitcake from the holidays.  

Offer to trade your $5 bills for any $2 bills that they or their friends have difficulty using

7 minutes ago, canderson said:

Her response was clear enough, I thought.

 

"The post-cruise survey is one of the best tools we have to truly understand what we do well and what needs improvement. We do not interpret ratings less than 10 as a failure, nor do we expect to always receive 10s."

 

Just the opposite of what you often hear aboard.  If Miami really wants a useful tool, they're being thwarted by onboard practices.  That would make the behavior, by definition, inappropriate.

 

You can say she's lying or mistaken about the desire to have a useful tool, but that would be a different (and confusing) conversation.

At the operational level, an 8 isn't a failure, yet when it comes time to move crew members over to the Xcel for a possible promotion, they're probably going to pull from the ship whose team always gets 10s and not the one who gets 8s

2 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Based on her PR sounding response, I didn't get a feel that she thinks the practice is inappropriate.  In fact, she didn't even address the practice even though there were at lease three separate questions posted about it.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, I wish I asked “Who’s the current CEO of Celebrity cruises?”  Although I doubt they would’ve replied to it

13 hours ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I will note that these changes were made by many cruise lines and Celebrity should receive very limited credit for them.

I do agree with the premise, it would be a huge con if they got rid of either tomorrow.  Yet you have to give them credit for keeping the eMuster going, they didn't have to.  They had the buffet staff served but that went back to self-serve.  Starlink is more of a gray area as you only get the benefit if you pay for it (Zeniths paid for it by gaining 3000+ CC points)

If we want to get specific and say improvements/additions to the complimentary food that wasn't a cutback reversal, there's NONE.  AQ lost their daily treats, X says it's because no one eating them; why not make them better (rhetorical)?  X introduced the paid cookie and suffered massive backlash which could have been avoided if they said "Due to the feedback we have decided to PILOT the cookie as a free offering on the Equinox (only ship it was offered) for the next month".  But no, they just removed them
 

I appreciate they offer lifetime status.  At they end of the day, they offer it because their competitors do.  Perhaps one day they'll change to a requalify model but you'd imagine that would be for NEW cruisers only

1 hour ago, tfred said:

x hasn't done this because it doesnt cost them really any money or aggravation at present - a few drinks. Once legacy pax create an issue with space (in the Retreat) crowding out customers who have paid for the Retreat then the party is over 

 

X wants to retain "presently profitable" customers , not the DYKWIA? crowd

If it doesn't cost them any money, why not offer free laundry, CaB coffee, and 5-7 happy hours to everyone for free?  Like many things, this has been discussed in length before.  The short version is that many will book the sail-only rate without the drink package and rely on the elite breakfast and elite happy hour for their drink

For me personally, On X, I have never paid for pressing, laundry, or coffee and usually get my drinks from the casino yet may have purchased a drink or two per sailing.   Once I became Elite, I started doing laundry, pressing, the elite happy hour, and coffee during the elite breakfast on every sailing including a 4-nighter.  Once Elite Plus, I have 1-2 coffees daily and do the second bag of laundry (if needed)