NEFoodies

Loving the great information. Thanks to those who responded to my last question. Now I have another. I saw a beverage menu from the Pinnacle Grill reportedly from March '18. It did not list one glass of white wine for under $9.75. This seems odd given that the Explore 4 package we have gives us a dinner in the Pinnacle and the Signature Beverage package which caps drink prices at $9. What am I not understanding?

MDH and I have 13 Celebrity cruises under our belt and due to recent experiences decided that whether it was our tastes changing, or Celebrity's vibe changing, it was time to try something new. After a three year hiatus from cruising we have booked our first HAL cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam for February 3, 2019 in cabin 7106. It has been too long! We are taking my 80 yo mother and her cousin, they'll be in the cabin next door (7110). We are very excited about the music venues and the specialty dining. My mother and husband are very excited about "high tea". My question for the experienced crowd here...I need reassurance that the aft cabins we booked were a good choice. I want cabins above and below for sound management and I wanted a balcony that my 6'2" husband could sit on without hugging his knees. I read in one of the threads on CC that the mid-ship verandas are very shallow (4' deep) and decided to go for aft on the navigation deck to get a standard balcony depth. Thoughts? Experience with these cabins or similar? Thanks for any input offered. Happy cruising!

Love this thread! MDH and I have 13 Celebrity cruises under our belt and due to recent experiences decided that whether it was our tastes changing, or Celebrity's vibe changing, it was time to try something new. After a three year hiatus from cruising we have booked our first HAL cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam for February 3, 2019 in cabin 7106. It has been too long! We are taking my 80 yo mother and her cousin, they'll be in the cabin next door (7110). We are very excited about the music venues and the specialty dining. My mother and husband are very excited about "high tea". We are running out to a work event in a sticky hot and humid afternoon (I'll close my eyes and dream of being on the high seas) but I did have a question for the experienced crowd here. I need reassurance that the aft cabins we booked were a good choice. I want cabins above and below for sound management and I wanted a balcony that my 6'2" husband could sit on without hugging his knees. I read in one of the threads on CC that the midship verandas are very shallow (4' deep) and decided to go for aft on the navigation deck to get a standard balcony depth. Thoughts? Experience with these cabins or similar? Thanks for any input offered. Happy cruising!

Thanks to all the encouraging, kind and validating words. The reason the thread title included the word "likely" is because I remain the eternal optimist and always hope that perhaps it was simply a bad moment in time. However, MDH and our travel companions have asserted that in the absence of any outreach by Celebrity, the Alaska (and any future) cruise with this line is out of the question.

To those looking forward to their first cruise with Celebrity...ENJOY! We have consistently loved the crew and always marveled at the service experienced on board all of the Celebrity ships.

This is being written with sadness. My husband and I have enjoyed sailing with Celebrity for more than 10 years. We enjoy the concierge class amenities and have identified the Millennium class ships as our preferred class for sailing. Sadly, a recent issue may result in us never sailing on Celebrity again.

In April 2015 we were on the Summit and decided to book our next cruise in order to secure the "All In" perks ($300 OBC, pd gratuities and Classic Bev. Pkg.). We (and our travel companions, friends we had introduced to Celebrity) noted that as we wanted to plan out a bit, the cruise we were interested in (specifically Alaska 2017) had not yet been announced and as such we questioned whether we could book on-board. We were assured by both the sales manager and a sales associate that we could book any random cruise in the cabin class we would want and when the 2017 Alaska cruise dates were released we could simply change the reservation retaining all the perks.

On two separate phone calls with Celebrity cruise vacation specialists first in October 2015 with Marianne, and then in November 2015 with Tyson, we were assured that when the Alaska 2017 dates were released we would be able to simply change our reservations and transfer the perks offered on board with the reservation.

On January 3rd I called to change our June, 2016 cruise reservation to the Celebrity Infinity Hubbard Glacier July 23, 2017 sailing. I wanted to book a concierge class (C2) cabin and expected to be paying the flat C3 rate due to the one level upgrade my captain's club status affords me and I also expected that I would carry over the perks secured on board the Summit in April 2015. After putting me on hold twice for a total of almost 30 minutes, Jeffrey came back on and shared that the "all in" promotion expired April 2017 and that the sales people who had indicated otherwise "should not have done that". He suggested that I write to the corporate office to express my concerns. I immediately did, though I do NOT believe that I should have to help Celebrity correct their inconsistent application of policy and protocol. At the time of writing this, we have received no response.

My issue is not the amount of money (the "good, better, best" promotion is not bad). My issue is that this has become a pattern of declining customer service from Celebrity corporate office. We have, over the last four years, had to correct errors made to dining reservations, billing, and excursions. The website has been erratic and the customer service on the phone has been almost infuriatingly inefficient and ineffective. We have nothing bad to say about the crew of any Celebrity ship we have been on but I don't want to feel devalued by the parent company. I simply cannot abide the apathy being evidenced by corporate management towards loyal customers.

Maybe it's time to look at Oceania.

Jenna -

To echo what other posts have said, "thank you!" Your willingness to take some of your precious vacation time to attend to the many queries from all of us and give us all a glimpse of what we can look forward to is quite generous.

I do have one question...we are in a sky suite and look forward to Luminae when we board next week (4/18). However, given that we will be up at the crack of dawn and traveling all day from Connecticut, I cannot imagine waiting to eat dinner until after 8 that evening. Are there options for dinner that precede the muster drill? Would the MDR be a possible alternative? If not I guess we could consider the buffet if that is open for dinner.

It's not that I think we will starve :) but I want to maximize the dining potential.

Thanks again. Keep up the good life!