terrydtx

And on E Class ships a real open traditional balcony.

For us the Luminae is the number 1 reason to stay in a SS. I have never liked the MDR and their not so good menus. Retreat Lounge is number 2 reason.

We were able to ask for afternoon snacks including cheese and shrimp which were delivered by room service crew. Nothing was left unless we ordered them first. We called the retreat butler team number first time and were told to place order direct with room service in the future and it took 30-45 minutes for delivery every time. No standing orders for morning coffee or juice unless you filled out the RS card the each night before. No surprises left in cabin, but we did get the pillow chocolates every night from our room attendant. On thing I forgot to add, one afternoon the 4 in our two SS's of us wanted a glass of white wine from the Retreat lounge to have with our cheese plate, and John the bartender gave us the whole bottle to take back to our cabin without asking.

You are correct that has never meant you have a machine in you cabin.

We got home yesterday after spending a week post cruise in Santorini. When we boarded the Apex on the 14th I asked the Retreat hosts in the Retreat lounge about what we could expect by not having a dedicated butler in our Sky Suite. I mentioned the premium bottled waters and was told the only free water in our cabin would be the standard can or plastic bottled water and our room attendant would leave as many as we needed each day. We opted for the plastic bottled water and had a least 6 in our cabin every day all supplied by our room attendant. I was told we would no longer be able to have a butler deliver drinks from the bars to our cabin. These were two things we all knew about before we boarded anyway. I was also told we could access any of the premium waters, and beers from the lounge anytime we wanted to take back to our cabins. I then requested that everything not free in our cabin be removed, which was done by the time we returned from lunch the first day. Any other things we needed would be taken care of by the Butler team in the Retreat lounge. The few times I called the retreat butlers my call was always answered on the first call. Room service was done by standard room service crew members and was on time, hot and correct every morning. The delivery people offered to set up out table for breakfast as was done in the past by our butlers. Most other ex butler duties were done by our very good room attendant. Overall the Sky Suites did meet our expectations and we were satisfied but still not 100% happy about the changes. Will we continue to book the Retreat with Celebrity? With the other changes like no longer including gratuities and any OBC along with the huge increases in pricing for SS, I seriously doubt we ill book any more future cruises with them after our two cruises in January already booked. As a side note to Cookiegate I thought I would post this picture of the still free cookie jars at Cafe Al Bacio.

I had the new duck last night and what improvement it was very good but on the spicy side. The corn soup with prawns was also good.

You too Jim and Iain see I spelled it correctly, lol

Thank you, we are at the airport to begin our journey.

We live in Grandview subdivision off of Kyle Seale North of 1604. We have a view of 6 Flags and UTSA.

We leave tomorrow morning from San Antonio to fly to Houston and then Amsterdam to get on the Apex Thursday. I am not sure if I will do a live report or just a thread about my experience with the new butler team. We are traveling with a group of friends and may not have the time to do a live thread, so I may just do the report on the butler teams and other SS changes. If I do a summary I could do it after we get off the Apex and go to Santorini for 5 days.

It was a nice surprise and why we try to use Hiltons when we can. We have 3 Hiltons booked in January and February in Australia and I am hoping we get some upgrades there too.

This would even be better!

My TA was telling me last week, as bad as Celebrity has raised prices Royal has raised theirs even worse. We are also booked on the Koingsdam in November from San Diego.

We booked on the newer HAL Koingsdam in November for a California Coastal cruise. Great pricing on a newer ship with Club Orange dining room. Celebrity had abandoned the West Coast to HAL, Princess and Carnival.

I looked at MSC for non-Caribbean cruises and couldn't find any YC itinerary that was longer than 7 nights that we liked. And the few I found did not have the YC on that ship, so no MSC for us for now.

Well since the new Host Team can't take our laundry for us, we have to take the laundry to the team and get our drinks at the same time.😁🤞

Is that the new Sherpa Team?

I will try to get a picture of us filling the tote with bottled water and beers from the Retreat lounge. LOL Here is a picture of the tote, looks like we can get a couple of days supply of drinks in it,

Me going to get some drinks at the Retreat Lounge

BTW, when we used FE last year, we booked BC seats for about $1000pp less than we could do on our own with 2 airlines. We flew to Rome on United and the home from Venice on Delta, this is another huge advantage of using FE.

We fly tomorrow to Amsterdam 3 days early. My understanding is the late arrival protection is for the cruise departure date. It will not cover you if you only end up coming in a day later. This why you should also have trip insurance which would cover you for missing a day because of a flight change or missing a connection. Lasy year on our Oosterdam cruise we had to spend 3 extra days in Venice due to a covid quarantine. We used flight ease for that trip with BC seats and FE was able to change our booking by 2 days to fly home in BC at no cost to us. Those of us in quarantine who booked air on their own were on their own to change flights to get home. One couple had to wait an extra 4 days to get on a flight to get home.

it will be a duplicate of the Beyond and Ascent. This is from a recent forum on future cruise ship construction.

We board the Apex Thursday and we are using private transportation to the ship, I would try that when you get off the ship. We are using Welcome Pickups. Welcome - Making travel easy, friendly, personal (welcomepickups.com)

There is actually a contracted 5th E Class ship, unnamed, but due to be out in 2025 or 26.

In June at the Hilton Ft Lauderdal Beach resort we got a free upgrade from standard room to full 1 bedroom 1200 sq ft suite with Ocean View 2 days before we checked in with out asking. The bottles of water were 2 per room, as we had 2 in our room. That upgrade was worth $300 per night and we were there 3 nights before our cruise.