terrydtx

I wonder how long before Celebrity bans taking unopened bottles of water, beer and soda out of the Retreat Lounge? Then also locking the self-serve coolers when the lounge is unattended. I can see this happening after they notice a huge drain on the lounge's inventory. Celebrity seems to be hell bent on squeezing out every cent they can for more profit, why else would they crack down on "rogue" butlers who in the past provided their suites with free water, soda and beer?

I didn't think a SS could order room service from Luminae, but I have recently read posts about doing this. On the Reflection last year when we had a very late lunch onshore we did order just a bowl of the French Onion soup from our butler for our dinner on our balcony table. That soup can be a meal in itself. I know we tried to order RS breakfast from Luminae and got turned down too.

While in a SS we have never had room service for a dinner, only breakfast and occasional port day lunch. Can a SS get room service for dinner from Luminae?

And where less costs you more!!

Thank you, we booked this cruise with Club Orange and we are looking forward to the CO restaurant. We also have an aft facing verandah cabin.

Loving your review, we sail on the Koingsdam in November and it will be our first Pinnacle class ship.

I agree it is the dumbest thing ever. First day on the Apex next week our plan is to call the Retreat team and have our mini fridge emptied of all of the pay extra items. We have always done this in non-suite cabins too. Our Retreat tote bags will then be used to fill up on water and beer in the Retreat lounge to restock our mini fridge. We do not drink sodas so we don't need any of them. The extra exercise to walk to the lounge will help walk off more calories. This has to be the dumbest way to treat high paying passengers.

I agree HAL and Princess pioneered cruising Alaska and have more experience that any other cruise lines.

inquiring minds want to know

I agree, I was just saying what I was told by the always inconsistent Celebrity agents.

After 4 Retreat cruises it will be nice to finally have a changed menu and with out the DB Moroccan Chicken

I booked the CO on our 2024 Volendam cruise and we went from a B Vista Suite to a top level A Vista suite, which paid for the CO add. We had planned to book the A Vista anyway so CO is a freebie for us. When we added CO to our November Koingsdam cruise, we couldn't get an upgrade as we were in the aft facing verandah which was the highest in that category. What we did get was an additional $100 OBC for not upgrading.

After we found out about the changes in the Butler service I sent an email to the Executive Offices about my concerns for our Apex cruise next week. I received a phone call from someone in that office to address my email. I was assured that we would have a team of 8-10 butlers to service the sky suites on the Apex cruise and that we would get the same level of service as in the past. From what I have read so far, there are no teams of 8-10 butlers but more like 2 or 3, so my expectations next week are not very high.

Yes room service is still free to Retreat passengers, all other classes have to pay for delivery. We will be on the Apex next week in a SS. I doubt you will be able to have a shrimp cocktail delivered to your mini fridge anymore as from what I am reading SS room service orders are being delivered by standard room service crew members. It may now be left out on a counter or table if you are not in the room.

Maybe the new menus have not made it to some ships. The new menu shows up on the current Apex cruise in the app with both the breakfast and DB menu changes.

According to the rules in the CO benefits, the CO cabin upgrade is not available for Neptune and Pinnacle suites bookings. In fact since all the other benefits of CO are included, that may be why you couldn't add it. See the explanation in post #10 above.

More intimate, smaller and much quieter, more like a fine dinning land restaurant.

Even in a non-suite, on any cruise line, I have always been able to have our room attendant remove the items in the mini fridge. I do not consider, like some here, that this service request is above and beyond what should be expected. We like the fridge for keeping bottled water cool and even a bottle or two of wine that we bring onboard. We do not drink soda so any in the fridge is useless for us. It was nice in the past to have our butlers keep our room stocked with bottled water and even some wine, but that seems to anger some that we got that. Not a problem to go to the Retreat lounge and stock up from there as we will be there anyway for our drinks.

We still can not see menus on the app for our Apex cruise next week.

CO only gets priority seating for dinners in the MDR on non Pinnacle class ships. CO has a separate line to enter the MDR and they get seated before other non-CO passengers waiting in line. I have never seen any reason for reservations in the MDR for breakfast or lunch as neither is that busy. The MDR is only open for lunch on sea days too.

If you want to see sticker shock look at prices to fly to Australia. We fly to there in January for our B2B Edge cruises. Premium economy has cost us almost as much as one of our cruises and Business class is running about $12,000pp which is more than we paid for both cruises. Last year we flew to Italy in Business class for $2368pp, next week we fly to Amsterdam and home from Athens BC for $4410pp, that is real sticker shock.

We used FBC for our Business class flights next week from San Antonio to Amsterdam returning from Athens. Our big advantage is we are flying to Amsterdam on United Airlines on a direct flight from Houston and we are flying home on American Airlines on British Airways from Athens to London to Dallas Ft Worth. The price we booked and paid back in November 2022 was $1300pp less than booking direct with one of the airlines RT. Being able to book with multiple airlines at a decent price is the big advantage for us as to book direct would require two one way tickets. We were able to pick our seats with United when we booked online. After we paid for our air tickets last May we could go on the BA online site and book our seats for free. We also booked FBC for our flights to Australia in January. We fly to Sydney on Amercian and return from Melbourne on Air New Zealand, again something we could not have done direct at the price we paid with FBC. These flights were all in Premium Economy as BC to Australia were over $10k pp

From everything I have read from current SS passengers after the new Butler changes, Celebrity has cracked down and will not let the Butler team or room attendants provide free water and sodas anymore. Passengers are being told to go to the Retreat lounges to get their water and sodas. I will be on the Apex next week in a SS and I intend to find out for myself, but the Retreat tote bags will be good for hauling items from the Lounge to our cabin. I just hope we can get the mini fridge emptied by our Butler team so there is no confusion over what is free and not free.

Is your second leg with a different airline? If so you will need the record locator number for that airline and the flight number. This happened to us last year and we called FE to get the record locator number. You may also be able to see this information online in your account under flights for the cruise.

Please explain how? The CO dining room is a huge step above meals in the MDR and they serve the same breakfast as the non Pinnacle class ships for Neptune and Pinnacle suites.