terrydtx

The 90 days limitation was the language when we booked our 2024 Volendam cruise in February. Looking at HAL website I see that has changed and it looks like the promo is being used to drive new bookings in 2025 and 2024 cruises. It is still available on our Volendam cruise. Here is a link to how it currently works. Have It All Early Booking Bonus | Holland America Line

The early booking discount is usually only available for the first 90 days after the cruise is released for booking. We got it for our Volendam cruise next year but was not available when we booked our K'Dam cruise in November.

Still worth the upgrade.

If you are wine drinkers like my DW and I the upgrade to Premium is a must. The classic wine choices are mostly bottles that retail for $12 and less and one we would never drink at home.

You know who hated that name change the worst? The Butlers hated not being called a butler, as our 2021 Equinox butler told me, "I worked very hard to get the title of Butler and resent that the company made the change and most of my fellow butlers feel the same way."

On the Equinox in June the Craft Social bar had Fever-Tree but not the light. The Retreat Lounge was able to get Fever-Tree for us from the Craft SB. We love Fever-Tree products here at home. Everywhere else all was Seagram's.

Our sailing next month has the same issue with Kids menu only showing until day 5 of the cruise.

I am now getting the same on our Apex cruise next month, only the kids menu shows up until I go to day 4 or 5 of the cruise. Must be another Celebrity IT glitch or they are making changes on the menus.

You can also go into the Celebrity app and see all the MDR menus. Also know they most likely will change before you cruise next year.

Rich you and I are in similar boats. More than anything current pricing of Sky Suites is what is driving us to look elsewhere. Our New Zealand cruise in January on the Edge is currently selling a SS for $2000pp more than when we booked early in 2022. I would be passing on Celebrity at today's pricing. I see continued erosion of SS and higher benefits all under the cloak of saving money in the Retreat product's future. We can now cruise on Oceania in a Concierge class cabin (no Butler) on a similar itinerary for less per day than a Sky Suite (with a pseudo butler), this is loyalty the Celebrity way.

Why we got CO for our November K'Dam cruise.

I was Celebrity Loyalist (I hate the word Cheerleader) because of the great Retreat product which kept us from looking at other cruise lines. Then Celebrity started fiddling with the product, and I saw that Celebrity had no loyalty to its customer base. Loyalty is a two way street.

I thought the Solarium pool was only for adults, is this another unannounced policy change?

I was looking at menus today for the Koingsdam in the Navigator app and in addition to the one special entree each night, I see the Club Orange dining room menu also has a 12 oz New York strip steak each night, that the MDR does not have. We will be on the K'Dam in November in CO.

We just booked a small group wine tour with lunch in Bay Of Islands, New Zealand for $118pp with max of 11 people. A similar Celebrity tour was $189pp.

We no longer do any cruise line tours, they are too limited, overpriced and in too large a group in most cases. We have been very successful in finding private tours for our upcoming 6 cruises.

For now, but the Celebrity management can make changes at any time. A month ago they could have said they were leaving the dedicated butler for Sky Suites unchanged.

They're gonna be SO jealous! And then so upset when this Beta test goes to all suites.

We did a behind the scenes ship tour on the Equinox in June. After seeing how everything is laundered there is no way anything can be washed in cold water. All laundry from passengers are washed together in huge commercial machines. They do use detergents that are hypoallergenic with little to no scents. Think about how the laundry department washes and dries thousands of sheets, towels and linens per day, how could they take any passenger's bag of laundry and honor the cold water only requests. We are Elite so we get the one bag of free laundry, but my wife will not send out and of her delicates. She does a lot of hand washing in the cabin and uses something she buys from Amazon that are sheet detergent.

Earlier this week I posted about the conversation my TA had with her Celebrity rep who told her there are more changes planned for the Retreat product by the end of this year. I really believe this new team of pseudo butlers concept is merely a Beta test, and this will eventually go to all suites.

By the end of the year, I will bet money that this team concept will be across all suites. It is being beta tested with us 'Lowly" Sky Suites.

Thats the Celebrity Kool-Aid, how can they have positive feeback on a program that hasn't started yet? 8 to 10 Butlers in a team is not what we had in the past in SS.

I agree and you thoughts are close to mine. We are Elite and will be Elite plus after our 3 upcoming cruises, but I no longer care about loyalty programs when the cruise line no longer cares about their most loyal customers.

We have a Boston to Montreal cruise booked in August next year for 11 days, but we will spend another week in Montreal after the cruise.