Definitas

There have been several reports of passengers being forced to disembark mid cruise or between back to back cruises due to testing positive for Covid. There has been very little detail about whether there were co-morbidities which influenced the decision but it seems to be a potentially worrying trend. It is also unclear just how many passengers (out of thousands) have been affected. Are these just isolated incidents or is the problem becoming more widespread? Passengers find themselves having to disembark unexpectedly for all kinds of reasons and the reality here could be that numbers are small. Perhaps people who have been personally affected (no third party hearsay please) could let us know?

I didn’t say that I don’t tip. Indeed, I consider myself fairly generous and I value good service and creating a rapport with crew members. However, I resent having to pay a gratuity up front (in the case of speciality restaurants before I have even set foot on the ship). However, a business model whereby people are paid a viable, legally mandated living wage by their employers and tips are a welcome bonus should be the norm. Unfortunately, cruise operators shirk their responsibilities by registering their ships under flags of convenience and are not subject to better standards of employment law. I have to confess that I don’t know anything about US employment law but presume there isn’t a legal minimum wage for employees in the service industry or, if there is, it is insufficient, requiring them to rely on tips to boost their income rather than being a welcome bonus.

I think that sums it up very well. We always tip and despite the current system of inclusive tips we always tip extra, particularly those we build up a rapport with. However, paying the tip before you even set foot in the establishment is clearly unacceptable. No restaurant I can think of in any country in the world demands you pay for food and service in advance on the day you book.

That is pretty much where I stand too. I took my granddaughter into an ice cream parlour to get a cone to go and went to pay for it using my phone and 18, 20 and 25% tip options came up and were based on the total price including tax. We would definitely not be expected to pay a tip on ice cream to take out. However, as previously mentioned, “When in Rome”. It was the first time I gave any thought to the fact that tips are calculated on the tax as well as the goods and service. Of course, we have VAT at 20% included in all of our bar and restaurant charges and I also never thought about the fact that we automatically tip on top of that (albeit at an average 10%)

An interesting comparison. I’m not sure where we ought to think we are when onboard but, despite the bulk of the passengers being from the US, we are neither in Rome, nor in the US. If we take the ship's registration we would be in Malta, where tipping is almost never expected. Indeed, leaving aside what those working in tourism expect, tipping is not at all widespread in Europe and m when tips are given, they are nowhere near the amounts expected in the US. I’m not sure where you go to or which restaurants you frequent in the UK but I can categorically say that the cost of living in the US is way more than it is here. We have family in Chicago and recently spent a month living in a condo belonging to a relative and were shocked at the price of pretty much all food items in supermarkets. In mid price restaurants the price of food and drinks was off the scale compared to our prices. Most of the basics were double or more than we pay here. However, all of that is largely irrelevant. It is, as I said previously, a cultural thing. In Germany (where a fair number of my family live and where I lived and worked for 10 years, being employed in a bar is restaurants largely requires professional training and is considered prestigious and so attracts a decent salary meaning that tipping is not necessarily expected and rounding up to the nearest note denomination is often the norm. Tipping for getting a beer whilst sitting at a bar is definitely not just expected. Our prices are all shown inclusive of tax so you don’t have to factor in 30% for tax and tip like you do in Chicago. Unfortunately, the employment practices in places like the US and on the ships where there is no legal minimum wage and people are employed in some cases for a pittance means that people in the service industry have to rely on the generosity (or otherwise) of their customers. Instead of spreading this model around the world, the perpetrators need to clean up their act and pay their staff a living wage so they don’t need to depend on hand outs from their customers

It will definitely dissuade us from using the speciality restaurants. We have had lacklustre experiences in Murano and Tuscan Grille this year and would question the use of the word “speciality” to describe them. We have noticed that some of our previous favourites have been taken off the Tuscan menu and replaced with items that are just not as inviting. There is also the “cultural divide” with the 18% tip which we see as excessive as a “routine tip”. Here in the UK it is still thankfully uncommon to have a tip added automatically and the latest norm in the US of printing a range of suggested amounts beginning at 18% verges on extortion. It reminds me of how budget airlines advertise a low price ticket and then add a whole range of additional charges. (I shouldn’t say too much or they will start adding 18% gratuity for the flight attendants!) The situation is further exacerbated because £UK is down over 20% on the dollar against historic norms. I’m not against tipping for good service or rewarding those who go the extra mile (of which there are many amongst Celebrity crews) but I want to decide myself who to tip, when to tip and how much to give them. Put simply, I resent Celebrity (or anyone else) presuming that I will be happy to add almost a fifth to my bill before I have even sampled the food or experienced the service.

At one point in time Celebrity used to say that the additional charge for speciality dining was, in part, to reward the staff who were going the extra mile to provide a first class dining experience. Presumably the entire up front speciality dining charge now goes into the Celebrity coffers and they add an additional 18% for the staff.

Reference to Celebrity insurance is misleading. They sell the insurance but take no responsibility for it, nor do they enter into any negotiations over a claim. I was surprised (shocked) that they simply claim it is a third party product for which they take no responsibility. I purchased cover for my son and his family who are resident in the US. when it came down to it, it was next to useless. Caveat Emptor

I have to agree 100% with the OP. Getting served is at best a lottery and The availability of wait staff has plummeted compared to the halcyon days when the norm was to be approached almost immediately and the bar Menu would be turned over or napkins would be placed on the table to show you had been offered service. The issue isn’t just one of service staff though. Prior to the introduction of the drinks packages for almost all passengers, profits depended on the amount of drinks that were served. Now, due to the fact that almost all passengers have the drinks package, the business model is reversed and maximum profit depends on the minimum possible number of drinks being served. Necessitating passengers to stand at the bar and wait, particularly at peak times, severely curtails the number of drinks served. That is especially the case when there are only one or two bartenders. We used to enjoy sitting in the Passport Bar on S-Class ships. However, for a large part of the evening in addition to serving people in the bar area they make drinks for both the MDR and Luminae, including making coffees, which makes service painfully slow. Celebrity is still a favourite but it is absolutely fair to say that the provision of service has nosedived compared to what it once was. As a footnote, we had a suite for the first time last year and we both remarked that service in the retreat area was pretty much what it used to be throughout the ship, underlining the fact that this is about the bottom line

We were on the westbound Transatlantic as the final leg of abb2b2b which called at Bermuda. We (and the ship's executive) only found out about the Bermuda requirements midway through the second cruise. We were threatened (they said advised) that, if we failed to obtain the Bermuda Travel Authority within 96 hours we would be put off the ship in Fort Lauderdale and denied boarding for the last leg of the cruise. We were also informed that our Covid Recovery Certificates would not be valid and we would have to test on the penultimate day of the preceding leg and would have to leave the ship if we tested positive (despite what was on the website at that time and having been given written assurances by the guest relations manager that no testing would be required). Needless to say it was a very stressful 96 hours and I think that, in view of the draconian attitude taken by Bermuda at that time, whereby all passengers had to test and all passengers had to obtain the travel authorisation (an exemption for remaining onboard as a transit passenger was not an option), it is fitting that the port is dropped and Bermuda is denied the revenue it would have received.

We are also having this discussion. The premium drinks package (which we always have because I like to drink craft beer and Mrs Definitas likes bubbles and the odd martini) costs approximately $170 per day per couple. As Elite Plus we would get free teas and coffees (but we are happy with the Tetley in the eateries) and potentially some happy hour drinks so I am wondering how close we would get to a $1200 bar bill over a 7 day cruise. We like having the option o drink what we want when we want but part of the issue is that there were shortages of lots of our favourites on our last 3 cruises, particularly craft beer and premium sparkling wines, as well as premium wines in the MDR. We are on a 14 night B2B in January and I'm tempted to try the cruise only fare for the first week to compare (and maybe be shocked that we do indeed drink 1200 dollars worth of booze in a week!)

We haven’t cruised with Cunard for almost 20 years but are thinking of giving them another try because of the constant erosion of the Celebrity product. We have only had a suite on Solstice class (Silhouette) and were very underwhelmed by the whole experience, especially how oacked the retreat lounge and the dining room were. Current suite pricing on Edge class makes me think it is way too expensive.

If you have Elite status you can only get the 20% discount if you pre-pay before boarding. The discount is not available on board

Performance of the "surf" package has been abysmal on recent cruises and unavailable for days on a transatlantic cruise earlier this year so I would not pay anything for it until I had read real time reports from users to see what sort of performance it provided. The large number of subscribers on a ship concentrated in a very small area means that the available bandwidth will be the key factor regardless of satellite numbers or location. Given that bandwidth is the price driver, I suspect this is a case of positive spin on a commercial decision to move to a cheaper provider rather than provision of an improved service.

We were on a TA back in March and the first port of call was Bermuda. At that time 100% of passengers had to be tested for Covid and 100% had to have the Bermuda TA. We were on a back to back with the preceding Caribbean cruise and were given a letter a few day into the first leg saying if we didn’t get the Bermuda TA before arrival back in Fort Lauderdale and if we didn’t test negative, we would have to leave the ship and would be denied reboarding for the second leg, which made for a very tense week. I would never choose a cruise with Bermuda as a port ever again in case the rules change again and we were put in the same situation.

Have you had chance to do any research on cruise only prices yet Geoff? I'm sceptical that there will be any real benefit to non-drinkers such as you

I feel exactly the same and I am also grateful for your advice regarding using an older iPhone. I have an iPhone 8 which I had been advised wouldn’t work. Now I know it will work exactly as I had planned, I am goto order some airtags. Thanks for your help

Our last 2 suite experiences have been exactly as described, whereby the ship is at approximately 50% occupancy but the suites were all full. Clearly income is more important to Celebrity than passenger experience