terrydtx

Blu should be able to provide you a meatless dinner.

Thank you for the review, we will be on the Equinox in June with our 12 year old granddaughter, her first cruise experience. We did you ABC Islands cruise on the Equinox in 2021 on one of the first cruises after covid lockdowns.

If you are booked on a cruise, you can use the Celebrity app to see all the dining options for your cruise along with hours and menus. The Mast or pool grill is mainly burgers, hot dogs and fries and is normally open from 11:30 am to 6:00pm. The only late-night option is a limited menu at the OVC from 9:30 to 1:00am. The other late option is room service and you will be charged a $9.95 plus 18% tip for delivery. Cafe Al Bacio has some desserts and sweets and is open until midnight.

The other sneaky thing Celebrity has done for more revenue is taking about 40% of the Sky Suites and redesignating them "Aqua Sky Suites" and pricing them within a few hundred dollars of a Celebrity Suite. I have not been able to see the added value of an Aqua SS for the price they want over a standard SS.

That is just dismal that the MDR is still that understaffed. I do not remember service like you describe on any cruise line we have sailed with, even Carnival. I am glad all of our future booked X cruises are in Suites so we can dine in Luminae.

Both our June Equinox and September Apex cruise have no poached lobster or the filet on the first night. Both menus show the scallops and pork belly for the surf and turf.

They can change depending on ship and itinerary. The best place to find this is in the Celebrity app, it will list the times on your cruise for every day.

Why not they are selling out on all the future cruises we are booked on at these new high prices. It is almost like Celebrity has a mindset that if they price their Retreat class cabins high, people will have the perception that they are a real luxury experience.

I have never had an issue about noise from the connecting doors. They are as quiet as the full walls between cabins.

I have read your posts about Celebrity Suites. I have also looked into Seabourn but can't seem to find anything near the pricing you have quoted, if I did, I would jump on it, if the itinerary was right for us. We did book a 2025 cruise on Oceania where the cost per day was considerably less than being in a comparable itinerary on Celebrity in a Sky Suite. Our currently booked Sky Suite cruises were booked considerably less than what Celebrity now wants for the cruise. I could never justify booking anything more than a Sky Suite as the higher suites are so outrageous in cost for not getting much more than a bigger cabin over a Sky Suite. For us they have almost priced us out of their suites market for a SS.

There have been discussions on CC about only the pool bar can be open while anchored in GC, was there any notice about this for your stop?

We only book suites and no charge for room service for suites.

We stopped using cruise ship pools years ago after finding a well soiled baby swim diaper floating on the bottom of the pool. That was on our one and done Royal cruise. Also fighting off the chair hogs is another losing effort. My skin doctor is making too much from me every time I spend too much time in the sun as well.😁

We loved having shrimp cocktails delivered to our cabin by our butler every afternoon to our cabin. We had a standing order for this last year on the Reflection and we would come back from shore excursions and have our shrimp on ice waiting for us curtesy of our butler. I hope that hasn't gone away too. They were nice big ones too.

In August 2021 on the Equinox, we had no choice but to stay on the ship in Nassau. The day before we arrived, Nassau went to a Covid policy that only passengers with SHIP sponsored excursion could get off the ship. We had a private tour booked that we had to cancel that day. We were also the first cruise ship allowed to stop in Bonaire post Covid. We were not sure Aruba was going to let us dock until the week before the cruise. That was the only port we had to show our proof of vaccination to the customs people.

Wow, Nassau exchanged for Aruba with no explanation is a horrible switch. I detest Nassau after being there so many times and love all of the ABC islands. The ABC islands and BVI are our favorite islands in the Caribbean.

We will be on the Equinox in June with our young granddaughter for her first cruise. We did the Equinox in 2021 just after she started sailing from Covid and loved the cruise.

That has all changed this year based on reports from current passengers,

I have never liked not being able to use HAL issued nonrefundable OBC before we board on HAL. We get much more OBC with Celebrity Suites and we can use it for any pre-board bookings. Last year we had a good amount of OBC on the Oosterdam and my wife wanted to use a spa service on embarkation day but couldn't pre book with our OBC. Our November K-Dam cruise will not let us book specialty restaurants this far out like you said.

We decided we wanted an aft facing cabin on the Koningsdam so we are only in an aft veranda for this short 7 day cruise of the California coast. We are not doing the Club Orange add on either. We are planning on dining at least 4 nights in the specialty restaurants with 2 of them in the Tamarind so we saw no reason to do CO. First thing I noticed was how much less cost the HAL specialty restaurants are compared to Celebrity. After our Apex cruise in September it will be interesting to see how HAL's newest class of ships compare to the E Class ships. We will book an Alaska cruise for 2025 while onboard and we hope one of the Pinnacles will be in Alaska that summer.

After seeing these posts about the Zuiderdam world cruise, I went back to read some of the more current posts on page 8 and 9. There have been some complaints about food quality but I did see plenty of mentions about surf and turf, prime rib and other beef dishes being served, the more common complaints were about food not being served hot enough or that the second lobster tail was $7.50 upcharge. I agree with your assessment that some complaints are more over boredom of seeing the same menus being repeated on such a long cruise.

There has been some recent HAL Charters sold and possibly your cruise date was one of them and HAL hasn't informed you yet. Once a charter is sold the cruise disappears from the web site and on the app. Have you checked with your TA? If your cruise was canceled they will contact the TA for the booking first.

Last August our travel group of 4 sailed on the Reflection from Rome in Sky Suites followed by a cruise on the HAL Oosterdam from Venice in Signature suites. After the cruise the 4 of us agreed that the food choices and quality in the Oosterdam MDR was overall better than the Reflection Luminae. We had prime rib, beef Wellington and good steaks in the Oosterdam MDR and the HAL Lido Buffet was far superior to the Reflection OVC. We all much preferred the Retreat Suites experience and product over the suites on the Oosterdam. However, after very successful Retreat cruises prior to last year, we were a little disappointed in Celebrity and felt last year Celebrity had lost a step. From all I have read this year, it sounds like Celebrity may have lost another step or two. Going Forward we now have 4 Celebrity, 2 HAL and 1 Oceania future cruises booked. Where Celebrity is probably losing us is in the huge price increases, we are seeing for booking the Retreat on future cruises. In November we are doing our first Pinnacle Class HAL cruise on the Koningsdam and are very much looking forward to the experience of this newest HAL class of ships. Our TA was recently on the Rotterdam and raved about the ship and food over the Celebrity E Class ships.

Just cured me from ever doing a Cunard cruise. It's a vacation and the last thing I want to do is play dress up? I did it for work for 40 years and after retiring all my dress up suits went to Goodwill.

Don't forget plenty of high end Tilapia in the MDR. Yummm