geric26

I have a Celebrity cruise that I am cancelling. I have always booked through the TA, and always have refundable deposits.

My invoice on this one does not mention NRD anywhere, and the TA's website does not show it either. They claim that 'it has been their policy for some time'.

Celebrity have confirmed to us that the copy of the invoice that they have does indeed have NRD on it, therefore any refund will not come from them.

Looks like the TA is using the cheaper NRD option and then assuming every customer knows about it, or is just forgetting to make it clear. Having two different sets of details on the same invoice does not look good.

In these troubled times I hesitate to go after the TA, but I don't think I have an option.

Hi, I will be on a Mediterranean cruise this November, with a stop in Sicily at Messina. There is an excursion to Taormina, and from what I am reading in the description, there are 140 steps to take to get to the center of town from the tour bus. Has anyone done an excursion to Taormina and if so, what is it like to get to the city center? I would really like to see the city, but I am hesitant about a steep climb. Any advice? Is there another way to get to the city center once off the bus? Many thanks!:)

As another poster has said, usually the drop off is in the parking garage. There are lifts, but sometimes a bit of a wait. When you get to the top, if you keep to the left, you will find a path up towards the town. this is up hill, but there are no steps, so I think most of it should be step free. It's worth the effort to get there, nice relaxing place, lots of history, nice views, shops.

Good Evening all ….... and thanks for the welcome “home”!! I promised to blogg out our trip home today because if it were in a soap opera no one would believe the detail. It is a bit scrappilly written but I hope you get the gist.

 

After packing we checked with reception that the car had been booked OK to take us to the airport and we made our way to the Panorama lounge where we found a spot amongst the Utility bunch. For those that don't know, on kicking off day people are split into various teams. So we plonked ourselves down between Red Team and Green Team and confusingly Dark Green Team. These teams are called by colour over the Tanny by Ms Von Tassel and they eagerly make their way off to get on coaches to go to wherever they are going - normally the airport.

 

As you might predict virtually all of the talk was about what had been drunk the previous night and who was the most ill today. On the Red Team table next to us, one tattooed female was regaling her team with how drunk her husband was the previous night and that she had dared him to slide down the bannisters from top to bottom deck which he had claimed he had done and others claimed to have witnessed it.

 

Anyway us not being in a team we waited until they had all melted away and there was now just an elderly lady with a stick and us and we three headed down to reception at 11:10 as instructed to have our luggage collected so we could pick up our cars at 11:30. I checked again that the car was there waiting for us and I was reassured that it was. The grumpy girl on reception had difficulty getting someone to take the luggage but eventually a few enthusiastic young chaps came along and took out luggage to the bottom the the gangway to the quay. At the bottom they started to go back onto the ship and I asked “where are the cars?” and they waved vaguely and now the security guy in his whites had joined us and I said “Look this lady can't take her luggage and I want someone to take ours and no one is going to leave us until we are safely in a car …....”

 

At this moment I couldn't help but notice over the security man's shoulder that a car on the quayside that appeared driverless has started slowly to back up, and gathering speed until it tipped off of the quay and with an enormous thud landed wedged between Whisper and the water with a good half of the car over the water. At this point the three of them ran off towards the car leaving us standing there and I then ran after them saying “look that bleedin' car is going nowhere – you need to come back and look after us and see us to the car's waiting for us”. One of the lads took our luggage and off we went. To go through the hall to where the cars were supposed to be but there was no drivers with our names there. I asked the porter lad whether he had a walkie talkie and he didn't and I told him he was going nowhere until someone came looking for him or the other porter came with the elderly lady in a push chair. Eventually he came out and now we had two SS porters. Neither had walkie talkies so I sent one back to explain to the ship that we were holding on to the other one until either cars showed up or someone from management came out to sort it out. During the intervening time whilst wifey guarded the young chap so he couldn't do a runner I went off to ask a taxi driver how much to the airport and he said a lot of stuff in Greek with just one word I understood which was “strike”. It transpires that today all the taxi drivers in Athens or in Greece are on strike and there is secondary action to stop all private drivers, presumably something SS's ground agents might have known. I then went up to a solitary van driver “how much to the airport and he said 300 euros “as all the taxis are on strike ….” and so I went back to join wifey. I was now feeling that I needed to not only look after us two but I couldn't abandon the elderly lady who was becoming distressed and was going to a hotel to await a later flight to Dubai and on to Oz. She was in a state of panic as she said she had no money as she was expecting SS to supply the transport and I promised her I wouldn't abandomn her and I'd see her safely to the hotel snd she'd be fine.

 

By now the Guest Relations lady - Samantha- was coming to look for and retrieve her boy and I asked where the cars were and she headed straight off to the cafeteria and found a chap who was having a ciggy, and a coffee and playing games on his phone. Evidently he was their ground agent and must have seen us waiting but simply decided to stay where he was. He started phoning and it was clear that there were either no ground arrangements made or they hadn't turned up and no one seemed overly bothered. He went over to the previously mentioned van driver and there was some haggling and the next we new he had been commandeered to take the lady to the hotel and us to the airport. So we thought. Before I let the ground agent go, I made him explain to the driver in Greek that he wasn't to abandon the lady on the pavement of the hotel but had to go and find a porter for her. “It is no problem sir” the agent said" because we are taking you to the hotel as well as it isn't far from the airport and you can make sure she gets a porter". I made it clear that we were not leaving the vehicle until we had been dumped outside Marco Polo departures. And so we left.

 

It was a pretty horrible ride with probably the slowest driver that Greece had ever produced with an incredible knack of working out which was the slowest lane to be in and always it seemed managing to catch every amber or red light. We arrrive and the usual BA bun fight checkin and eventually having been promoted to Queue Prefect on the flight embarkation ie sending all "pusher inners" to the back of the queue we made our way on!

 

Drunk some voddy and the lovely Rachel a Northern cabin crew girl was all chatty and asked if we'd enjoyed our stay in Athens and we said we'd been on a cruise. She asked where to and we said from Rome to Athens. She said “You don't work for Utility Warehouse do you? I was on a Rome flight a week ago and we were full of Utility Warehouse people and boy did they enjoy their flight …...” We said we weren't but they had also enjoyed themselves to the full on our cruise. She said “Oh, I know all about Utility Warehouse. My husband is a pilot and one of our friends is also a pilot and an agent for Utility Warehouse. Everyone avoids him now because whenever they see him he is always asking who their broadband and phone and electric companies are and never let's it go ...”

 

Anyway …... that was the story of our day. They say that travel broadens the mind but to be honest I think my mind has been broadened more than it need be and I am looking forward to a few quiet days. I might write a few more words about stuff as people ask or as I think of something funny to say. :)

You sure you're not making this up? No, you couldn't really I suppose!

Quite amazing, but never mind, Silversea gets $1 billion and they all get to keep their jobs. For now.

Good to know!

 

Good luck and ask for anything you think I may help with. Write the letter without any superlatives, keep it crisp, factual and number the paragraphs ........ I get the impression you know the drill. :)

After following the correspondence on this subject I am appalled at Silverseas attitude but mainly amazed and impressed by the knowledge and assistance given by UKCruiseJeff. Try and put that into dollars....

As I stated in my opening post, thankfully most people only had minor issues.

 

I Booked a 6 star cruise. Having found out about the stretch I contacted Silversea and they guaranteed that the ship wouldn’t sail if she wsnt perfect. Of course on a project on this scale there are going to be some issues. Having asked Silversea why there was no dry run following the dry dock inviting TA’’S etc to try the ship out, their response is that we didn’t anticipate there being any problems. Again asking Silversea why they sold the cruise out and didn’t hold back any cabins to switch passengers with problems, their response, we didn’t anticipate there being any problems.

 

To not anticipate there being any problems following a project of this scale to me is incompetent and completely lacks foresight. It smacks of a company that thinks only of the bottom line regardless of the duty they have to provide what ther guests have paid for and put things right when they fail to provide that.

 

To be told by SS that it would be unfair to other passengers if they were to offer anything other than the future cruise credit really is very unfair to those of us that did suffer from these problems.

 

We are not moaners or nit pickers, we tried our very best to enjoy our holiday and we certainly weren’t looking for problems.

 

The long and the short of it is that if things go well i’m Sure you’ll have an amazing time but if things go wrong then don’t expect SS to do anything to put it right. I expected better from their Customer Services.

 

If that makes me a nit picking, moaning Silversea basher than I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

I think that this is a fair view of the situation. We were looking at our first Silversea cruise next year, but maybe we will keep looking a little harder...

We did Rome to Dubai on the Spirit last November and because of the time and distance concerns we took ship’s tours to Petra out of Aqaba and Luxor/Valley of the Kings out of Safaga. We had no problem signing up for the tours but I had been watching MySilversea and signed up for both pretty much the first day they were available. You can see our website for our report on both. Here is Petra: http://www.klugsplace.com/Aqaba2017.html Here is Luxor/Valley of the Kings: http://www.klugsplace.com/Safaga2017.html

A special thanks for this reply as I have now had time to scan the reports on Klugsplace which give an amazing coverage of the two tours. I will be reading them many times!

Thanks so much for the great information you have all given.We know the Petra trip will be quite tough, but the next day we will have to back up early again for Luxor. How tough are we?

Thank you for not picking on my "2109" date - I fear we and the Spirit may not be cruising then....

Looking at Silver Spirit October 2109 Athens - Dubai. Has anyone had trouble getting on the ship's excursions? The risk of delay on private excursions is a worry in these places as it would be a long chase to catch up with the ship if delayed! Who recommends private excursions?

Ultimately, the things so many find negative and disappointing about X is that they remember the 'good old days.' We want things to be as good as they used to be. But we've all grown a bit jaded about cruising. The first ten times is ALWAYS better than the 31st through 40th cruise. It's human nature.

 

And, let's get real. X is changing it's product to appeal to younger demographics. The loyalists are getting old and will either stop being able to physically travel or croak. Like all businesses, Celebrity needs new customers, and they will change to attract those new customers. If that means losing some of the loyalist (many of whom have grown tired of the product anyway), I don't think they care all that much.

 

Whether they are successful or not - who knows.

One of the smartest posts in this thread!

This is the current full suite benefits flyer:

 

https://www.princess.com/downloads/pdf/ships/PrincessSuite_eFlyer.pdf

 

Note that the only flowers mentioned are "complimentary fresh orchids"

 

If the promotional video added other arrangements that are sold at additional cost, that's just marketing. Most of us know to expect sales materials to fluff up the products and take them with a grain of salt. Maybe in your part of the world such exaggeration is considered deceptive or even fraud, but in the USA advertising is not remotely legally binding nor even considered something to pursue with management. So please don't take offense if much of the reaction on this board will range from indifferent to scorn for "yet another round of first world problems." Your feelings of disappointment are your own, no matter how many responses will predictably say you should have researched the Princess experience more thoroughly (ie beverages included in the PBP will not be delivered to your cabin without charge, even for full suite guests).

You mean it's OK to tell you on their website "this is what you will get" and then not deliver it? Really?

Penthouse Suite (Diamond Princess, March 2018)

The suite video (still current today) shows and describes “alarge flower arrangement” together with a smaller flower arrangement and anorchid. We only had the orchid in the suite, and as my wife loves flowers we askedabout the flower arrangement she was looking forward to and were met with blanklooks from the room attendant and Guest Services. We eventually purchased ourown arrangement. This is justmisdescription, and Princess should not have to rely on this. Either you getflowers or you don’t, but just let us know please.

There was one room attendant on Princess compared to thebutler and room attendant usual on other lines. We only occasionally use theservice offered by a butler, but sometimes it is very useful. Small things likecarbonated water in your room (with the premium drinks package) was is not usuallya problem, but could not be done with Princess. The wall mounted hair dryer inthe Princess suite could not cope with my wife’s long hair, so we asked if ahand held hairdryer could be made available. No. Generally not too helpful.

Overall, a bit underwhelming, but the Sabatinis breakfastwas great, the Club Class dining worked well, and we had no problems with thefood or the excellent service. Overall,quite good, but just missed the real suite experience.

Penthouse Suite (Diamond Princess, March 2018) v Sky Suite(Reflection, September 2017)

Suite.

The Princess suitewas roomy and despite the ship’s age, or the time since the last refurb, therewas a remarkable lack of scuff marks or wear, with only a clumsy shower resealjob spoiling the picture. There was a very large balcony, but you had to bearin mind that past half way to the rail you were visible to all balconies aboveand could also look down onto the mini suite balconies below. Celebrity balconyis smaller but private.

Suite service.

There was one room attendant on Princess compared to thebutler and room attendant on Celebrity. We only occasionally use the serviceoffered by a butler, but sometimes it is very useful. Small things likecarbonated water in your room (with the premium drinks package) was not aproblem with Celebrity, but could not be done with Princess. The wall mountedhair dryer in the Princess suite could not cope with my wife’s long hair, so weasked if a hand held hairdryer could be made available. No. The suite video (current today) shows anddescribes “a large flower arrangement” together with a smaller flowerarrangement and an orchid. We only had the orchid in the suite, and as my wifeloves flowers we asked about the flower arrangement we were looking forward to andwere met with blank looks from the room attendant and Guest Services. Wepurchased our own arrangement. This isjust misdescription, and Princess should not have to rely on this.

Dining.

We knew that the Club Class dining would not quite compareto the Celebrity Luminae arrangement, but there was no waiting, the wait staffgave excellent service, and the food was very satisfactory. All as promised. ClearlyCelebrity have spent more with their concept, and we prefer it, but dependingon the route and area you will likely pay more for it. The Princess breakfastat Sabatinis was excellent, and equalled Luminae. The buffet, Horizon Court,had quite satisfactory offerings, and the table service for drinks etc was atouch better than Celebrity we thought. Thereis no equivalent however to Celebrity’s Michaels Club on Princess.

General.

The Diamond Princess seemed more crowded than the S classboats we have been on, but this could be due to the cruise being only an 8 daySydney – Sydney instead of the usual Mediterranean routes. On sea days it washard work to get a coffee, and one time we were turned away from the Lobby Baras they had a 15 minute backlog of coffee orders. Sailaways were not a time fora quiet drink on the Deck 10 balcony however, with the noise from the Deck 15 partymaking us move inside.

Overall.

The vote goes to Celebrity - we felt we really had a SuiteExperience, and we look forward to another one in 6 months.

We were not worried about being first on after the refit - Azamara learns quickly, an extra 3 days, and the Singapore work ethic!

So it was, a renewed ship, all finished on time. Have sailed Princess, Celebrity and Crystal, and we were prepared for the ship to show its comparative age once under way. However, this was the smoothest ship we have been on, and aided by 16 days of flat calm it was sometimes difficult at night to tell if we were travelling or not.

We had heard many kind comments about the great crews on Azamara - we agree with them. As a cruise "product" this one is out on its own due largely to the efforts and attitude of all the crew. The food was a good standard, the wine was good enough and your glass was never empty, the stateroom was kept immaculate, and everyone had a smile.

Could it get better? My wife's shoe came apart - no problem, leave it to me. Returned better than new.

Our flowers in the stateroom were definitely tired after 10 days - 4 yellow roses then appeared. In the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The Azamazing evening was very well organised, and we had a great evening.

Nearly the best part was the return to the boat at 10.30 - 11pm. Cold champagne, cold towels, a band playing, and the Captain there to welcome us back on board. That overworked word, amazing....

This is Cruise Critic - anything to be improved?

A couple of our Indian tours were poor and not as advertised, no doubt due to the tour provider's inadequacy, but you can't push Destination Immersion without getting this up to standard.

We had the CC suite for size as the standard staterooms are a bit squeezy. We were disappointed then that the suite seemed to have less hanging space than the balcony cabins. Do not overpack when in the CC suite.

We are not into design look, but know comfort. The new design we think is not so comfortable - drawers, shower door handles, towel rail and chair all have extremely sharp corners which can inflict damage. In a potentially moving environment this does not seem sensible design. The two chairs we found just miserable to sit in. The bed however was great.

We make it overall around 99.5% - that's not too bad!:D

You have a door?! lol :)

Good point. Will check the deck plans.:D

So now we do get a shower?:)

Will wait until we open the door....:confused:

Thanks Pam. We know we are boring to those not in CC suites. However, we were initially assured through our TA and the Celebrity/Azamara rep from Sydney that 8043 (also mentioned in a post as being assured of a shower by Azamara) would be getting a shower. (It is medically inconvenient for my wife to get in and out of a tub).

We saw the original port and starboard division, thought it was sensible and we were lucky. Saw all the other confirmations and relaxed, paid our final payment. Now we see that all N1s get tubs, and all N2s get showers. No logic here.

Azamara kept the details to themselves, then at the last minute gave out the details a few weeks before the refit. They have then switched around. Confusing, and a bit incompetent.

We also know that April 15th after refit on Quest may be testing, but we hope Singapore will be more efficient, and we look forward to all we have heard about the crew.:)

We are booked on the April 15th Quest voyage. Booked before we knew about the drydock schedule, so we did not know nor were we informed. Too late to reschedule now. We have gone through the months of trying to find out if we were getting a shower or bath (medically important) but could get no information.

Our booked tour in Colombo has been cancelled, we paid $167 but have been refunded $140. We read of fairly significant issues after the Journey refurb. and see that many people dismiss them as insignificant. We don't think so.

However, we still look forward to the trip, but do you really think we will book another?:confused:

You are correct RallyDave (I hope) The information given by Bonnie was not clear at all, but I surmised as you do that it was the odds and evens system that we should look at.

I have never seen such a shambles as this long drawn out fight by "customers" to get some information about the product that they have booked.

No one seems to know much really do they? How can this really be the situation? I have asked for info from Azamara, and asked if our preference could at least be noted concerning CC shower or tub, but have not so far been graced with a reply.

The experience starts long before you board.....

The lack of information on the Suites refurb for both ships is quite sad for such a company as Azamara. It is doing them no good at all. Emails to them asking for info remain unanswered.

Still time to cancel though....:(

We are booked on the Quest April 15 2016 voyage out of Singapore after the refurb, and reading the postings concerning the slow release of the bad news on the CC suites, we are wondering if this is one cruise to be cancelled.

We cannot even ascertain whether we may get a proper shower or a bath shower, with Azamara not replying to Emails on this subject. Now to hear of the pathetic handling of the refurb, we are worried!:confused:

Jazz's concise summation and explanation of the problem was the best I have seen for a while - sorry it does not assist the OP though!:(

Hi. As I understand we are pretty much "stuck" with our first booking choice if we book in the UK. I am often quite envious of US members who seem to be able to amend or cancel without penalty. I am slightly regretting a cabin choice for the September cruise from Istanbul, but as I also booked with Celebrity UK there is very little I can do. Wishing you all the best with changing. So sorry about the loss of your dog.

At last someone has offered sympathy about Suite Susies loss!

With those three restaurants being closed on embarkation day, it really sets the tone doesn't it.

This is getting very poor.

Tried all three on Solstice in March - Tuscan our favourite, Murano good, but my Dover Sole was like rubber:mad:, the Chinese one poor service, but food OK.