LOP

Glacier

On the Millennium last week and it was Crystal Geyser.

Oops, that is what I meant...Crystal geyser, sorry the martini bar fog is still lingering...

Glacier

Happy belated Birthday!!!!!!!!:)

I am looking to book a cruise in Australia/New Zealand in January 2016, The choice is between a Skysuite on Celebrity Solstice or a Club Continent Suite on Azamara Quest.

The itinerary is similar but the Azamaracruise is a day shorter and slightly more expensive.

We are a couple in the 40s who like peace and quiet and appreciate good food and drink, on which ships would we get the best the Experience?

It looks like that Celebrity has five sea days on Azamara's two and Azamara stays longer in ports as well, on the other hand you get to see Hobart Tasmania and Melbourne with Celebrity but not Picton and Napier in NZ.

Azamara staying overnight in both Wellington and Sydney.

Celebrity also has a 12 day cruise equivalent to that of 14 days but without Hobart and with a seaday less, it is also quite a lot cheaper than Azamara, to make a decision just gets harder and harder .......

Ok, we are in the same age range and have cruised Celebrity quite a bit (Sky suite once, Celebrity suite twice, Royal Suite many more times), just returned Monday from a Summit cruise to Bermuda. We have cruised Azamara Quest on a B2B (24 days) in suite 6088 last year and we have viewed a club continent suite.

Our observations: Of the suites you are speaking of, Celebrity will offer more space especially in the bathroom. They will also offer more activities on board and there are more choices. Their port stays are much shorter. The food (which is subjective to each individual's taste) is not as good as Azamara. More people obviously on Celebrity.

Azamara offers a much more laid back atmosphere but offer some unadvertised and unexpected treats along the way, you just never know what will occur. Service is above par throughout ship. ALL gratuities are included in the price. Most alcohol (and all non-alcohol) drinks are included in the price. Food is far superior (in my opinion) on Azamara. LESS people obviously. A much more upscale atmosphere to say the least.

Longer port stays/overnights and seemingly stress free excursions. You will be on the low end of the average age range if that matters to you.

If you are looking for more sea days and shorter port stays and more space, then celebrity is a great choice. If you are itinerary driven and seek a first class cruise experience, then no question azamara hands down would be my choice.

I do not believe you will be disappointed either way.:cool:

As I said in my first post, the excursion is called "Berlin on your own". It's transportation to and from Berlin with the time in Berlin unaccompanied. (I am not particularly fond of group expeditions, whether the ship's or SPB's or any other.) That's why I needed to know when the likely meeting point to return to the ship would be--because we will be "on our own" as is our preference.

I understood your post, I was just agreeing about SPB and we used them privately...not part of any group, and we were very pleased especially in St. Petersburg.

Enjoy your trip to Berlin.

SPB tours is awesome...and agree that there is minimal 6 hour round trip travel time; warnemunde/berlin

Choice "A" does not work for those that book suites so choice "D" makes the most sense for those of us that book that category.

OBC makes little sense on an all-inclusive (or most-inclusive) line and shore excursions are hit and miss and many times passengers will book private excursions.

That is my opinion only however.

[My ideal cruise at the moment would be four nights stay on Lake Como, a tour of Tuscany and then a week sailing out of Venice to the Greek Isles.....anyone out there listening? :)

Well, I'm with you on that Lottie. Are you listening Azamara - Lottie has a great idea. There must be more people who would love that sort of package.

Lynne:)

Ditto!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Cruise Critic Members,

When Bill was still here, he had posted information on the cruise booking engine. This is still a project that is very much alive and active. This booking engine will allow guests full visibility to pricing and stateroom availability.

While many of you do the actual booking through your travel agents, for those who prefer to do it online, this booking engine will also allow you to book any combination of cruise, air, hotel and transfer. Or just simply your cruise!

This was initially scheduled to go live in April, however, as sometimes happens with such projects, with the initial roll-out of this booking engine for our sister brands in the UK, some challenges were found, which we now are working on fixing. The new live date is now by end of August.

 

 

Thanks again for giving us your feedback. The Cruise Critic forum comments are a great gauge for us to make sure we stay on top of our guests’ needs.

Looking forward to that change.

I mentioned to Bill long ago that if I am unable to view cabin availability and pricing WITHOUT entering all of my personal information, then I will not feel comfortable booking Azamara regardless of who I book through.

As a result, I am booked for both cruise trips and land trips for the next 2 years out on other cruiselines, etc.,...not to say there isn't room for more, but Azamara...well, it has already been said.

Thank you Bonnie for the updates.

Hi Kellie,

A good, concise, fair review. I wish it had been a better experience for you since I hyped it up so much.

I have read your thoughts concerning staterooms by other passengers which is why we opted for a larger cabin on our cruises.

Unfortunate that the food was not up to par either. As an FYI, hot dogs were grilled during our trips...wondered what changed?

I hope you told Max (piano player) we said hello. Russ and Philip are great as is all the staff in our experience.:cool:

Welcome home and hope your next trips are better. BTW, we cruised the Reflection in January and it is a beautiful ship, largest we had ever been on. Would cruise it again. Summit to Bermuda this June!:D

Safe travels...

As Celebrity just signed with Canyon Ranch, I thought that might be a possibility for Azamara. However, as most of us are aware, Azamara is run separately from Celebrity, and makes their own decisions.

 

I'm not a Spa person, so I cannot pass any judgement on Steiner or Canyon Ranch.... but I also moderate the Celebrity forum, and most of the member comments are very positive about Celebrity making the change to the new vendor.

 

I happen to be on the first Celebrity Eclipse sailing (April 5th) which will feature Canyon onboard, and will be sure to share my observations at the Celebrity forum. Stay Tuned !

Thanks Andy,

We are spa people and now spend the least time in steiner operated spas than any we ever have, due to past experiences.

They just do not focus on proper training, customer service, customer focus. in our opinion. It seems to be all about increasing revenue at the cost of losing clientèle.

Sure, there is a stand-out person ocassionaly...but rare in our experiences.

Treat your clients right and the revenue will grow.

crap. was hoping for someone else, like canyon ranch...anyone but steiner.

oh well.

You must call to book. We booked one for the full week in January and received a discount for doing so.

There were some non-advertised perks we received as well that I must not share publicly...but you will be pleased.

Yes, you can use your drink package benefits while in the alcove.

I would book another alcove in an instant if available...enjoy.

Wow' date=' I am not a propeller expert by a mile but is that a weld/braze seam on that prop, or is that a rope or something? And look at the prop blade where the bent area was ground out and not rebuilt (top blade above the seam/rope). This guy has been around the block. My guess is that a new propeller is on order for the next dry dock. Amazing to me that a shaft seal could be supplied on such short notice, maybe those things are more standard parts than I assumed.[/quote']

 

It is a rope. The prop is fine with that cutout and will be replaced or rebuilt no doubt at another time.

shaft seals are typically always in stock at drydock facilities.

 

Rest assured.

 

In another life, I worked on ships (engine room) and have been part of many drydocks, engine rebuilds/replace, and ship builds.

Sounds great!

Pleased with this announcement. Looking forward to the extras that we have enjoyed on other cruise lines. Nice move Celebrity!

Sky suites are not included in the new perks...celebrity suites are only included in "some" of the new perks...RS and up get ALL the new perks.

Thanks all...and anyone that has ever met me or my wife can attest that we ALWAYS have a smile on our face and a pleasant greeting.

And as I stated, there were a few very friendly faces in terms of staff, but overall this is the lowest in terms of customer service that we have ever experienced...especially from what we witnessed (not experienced) with management.

Oh well, we are not bitter, just wanted to share our experience in hopes that others have a better time on future cruises...as I'm sure they will.

Again, Reflection is a GRAND ship, Celebrity did very well on this one!!!:D

My take on a recent reflection cruise, please excuse the grammatical errors noticed after the fact.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=249175

Dined at the porch several times on our 1/18/2014 cruise and received great service. We had rented an alcove for the week and they delivered our orders to us in our alcove...always with a smile and good, hot food.

We dined in the venue itself on embarkation day and it did not open until noon, but everything was good and fast.

For me, Joel and Signe, the biggest issue is communications. I am at the Discoverer level and have five Journey cruises booked in the first half of 2014 yet received NO notification of the change in shore excursion discount policy nor have I received any emails announcing promotions, special pricing, or anything else from Azamara. And I have signed up for emails on your web site, even though, as a Le Club Voyage member, I should be getting them without having to keep requesting them.

 

I have to say that is incredibly inept marketing.

This is RCCL company wide. Their WEAKEST point is/always has been their IT department or lack thereof. It is blatant and often the amount of mistakes and lost revenue their web tools create. I cannot understand why they appear to not invest in a proper IT tool to generate revenue and acquire new customers and RETAIN them....but that's just me.

Spoke with AT&T in-depth yesterday about service on an upcoming Reflection cruise.

In a nutshell, they do not support the "onwaves" service like they support "cellular at sea" which is why they, at&t, do not offer the wireless phone cruise package on this particular ship.

They would not admit it, but they have not reached a financial/service agreement with "onwaves".

"Our experience" has been...ABSOLUTELY! We have sailed on Celebrity on 4 m-class ships in a RS each time (and other lines too in similar suites and Azamara's penthouse equivalent) and the butler does the same thing for us that he/she does each morning of the cruise and it also allows him/her to say goodbye and allows us to thank him/her and extend a gratuity. We also get the same opportunity for the stateroom attendants and assistants.

Our experiences have only been that debarkation day is a bit more active.

Enjoy your cruise and your breakfast.

Fair enough...the non-alcoholic surcharge gets my goat too...

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

LOP,

 

Thanks. If you could send the photos again to tkletnick@aol.com I'd appreciate it. All of my spam files are empty. Perhaps I inadvertently deleted the photos when I got home as we were gone about 6 weeks and did have a full spam folder.

email sent