lexmiller

In the areas of entertainment, without a doubt. We shamelessly - with utter and contagious abandon - enjoy the Celebrity Life Activities - the activities themselves, as well as the staff. On The Edge TA last year, the team actually wrote us a personal thank you note, each writing their own words, thanking us for our participation in pretty much everything, as we helped make their job more fun😀. I still keep in touch with team members we met over a decade ago. Just this spring as we boarded Eclipse in Sydney, I got a massive hug from behind from a Celebrity Life Activities Host who recognized me from a prior cruise and was so happy to see us again - and no, we have never tipped the Activities Team members 😜. And am I talking about the trivia games, sort of - has my husband been on the winning Team Trivia team two cruises running, such that people asked to join his team on a B2B knowing his team would most likely win again (which they did), ok, yes! But it's things like the 8pm game show, like "Yes or No" - love that one!, and many many others - so much fun! And the adult game shows at 10 pm - not Liars Club, which yes is fantastic, but the adult only participation games - very fun! And the entertainment itself, the production shows - we absolutely recognize the quality in the productions, the production team members, most notably on the Edge Class ships where those 3 story high digital semi-circular screens have allowed the creatives to go out of their minds with new ideas - note in particular, Arte on Beyond, wow! Then you move into those areas of debate like food, which for us, 12 cruises post-covid - the quality of the beef in all of the MDRs, absolutely tanked - often our filets were inedible, so so tough.....so that's a shame but everything else remained not as good as it was, but still very good - like in Blu on a few of our cruises, no more bar server, the sommelier had to to EVERYTHING, which isn't right. BUT, I digress - Celebrity has always hit that sweet spot for us. Historically, excellent food and food still of top quality in the specialties (for us, Eden and Le Petit Chef are our faves, Murano on S-class. Fine Cut, no way - steakhouses are a dime a dozen on land, won't waste our cruise dollars on a steakhouse onboard). And the ships themselves, especially the Edge Class ships - we love the art! I highly recommend the onboard art tour on any of the Edge ships! Did you know the bronze horse on Edge was created by Charles Dickens' great (another great in there probably) granddaughter? Fun fact. The ships all have an elevated feel while at the same time, are approachable and not fussy. And the size, very Goldilocks for us - as a ship too small, you cannot offer the entertainment or casino which Celebrity has. And when we sail in Retreat (which we feel is worth the money only on Edge Class - and even then, "worth the money", ouch, as that's a LOT of money), we feel that is the best of all - a ship within a ship. I will stop myself here, but for us, in conclusion, yes, we do feel that Celebrity is the top of the Premium category. Not sure if it can remain there through all of the financial woes, poor business decisions, cutbacks, etc......

I've always felt that Celebrity is at the top of the Premium Cruise Line "category". From Celebrity, there is nowhere to go but up. And I'm not talking about the various mass market lines who have outstanding suite areas, as that's a different thing - I'm talking about your average run of the mill good ol' boy cabin with a balcony (or even yes, an IV) - taken as a whole, every detail, Celebrity is at the top of this particular heap. For us, to jump ship, the luxury brands though extremely appealing, especially Regent - go big or go home, after all - don't have the entertainment that we've come to absolutely love that only Celebrity provides - most especially, in the unparalleled theaters in the Edge Class ships. Also, my husband loves to play poker, the "real kind", sitting at a table and accessing and evaluating everyone's expressions and tells. No other line has the sweet spot that Celebrity has always provided for us. And about the "Modern Luxury" tag line, we did feel it was apt. So for now, we have 7 cruises currently booked with Celebrity, 35 under our belt. We will have to evaluate where we go from here, as we may find that we are going to stay put.

This makes a lot of sense to me, thanks for writing. And I've read that a large majority of the chocolates are thrown away by the passengers, the room attendants have reported that they're in the trash. There was a brief moment in time, when hmmm, maybe 8 years ago, and I'm not sure on which ship we were on, that instead of chocolates, we were greeted by chocolate covered Oreos on our pillow - oh, that was nice! Not every night, I think it was only twice - the ship had either run out of chocolates or they were trying something new. But that sure would be a nice touch, to not do nightly pillow chocolates and instead maybe on the last night of the voyage, to have a chocolate covered Oreo on your pillow as an "until next time" sentiment. Or not. But they were delicious! The pillow chocolates I always bring home and use them in my baking - I'm fine with going back to Nestle's morsels!

One of the perks in Aqua we enjoy very much is the included bottle of bubbly. Last 3 Aqua Class cruises we took, this past April & May on Eclipse, we asked our attendant to not bring the bubbly, but rather a bottle of red - which he happily did, and even asked us detailed questions about which red specifically we would like. This is a nice perk to have, and one we would miss if this too were to be taken away.

Turn down definitely still happening, in every cabin category.

I'm seriously concerned that servicing your cabin twice a day will be eliminated. I know that some have signed up for the "go green" program but that even with that, the steward still usually comes in twice a day just to freshen up. If the twice daily servicing is eliminated, then it really will be only once a day. For us, the twice a day service is a true luxury experience - we shower in the early evening before dinner and the show, etc, and to come back to our room with everything so neat and lovely, is a big part of the Celebrity experience for us. I don't care about the pillow chocolates (my photo is the Celebrity "X" which I made with the chocolates - those that have been with the brand for a long time will remember that the chocolates used to come in many flavors, reflected with the colored labels.), the team of butler issue isn't a big deal for us, I'm so disappointed how X cancelled the Beyond itineraries for spring/summer 2024 and then the changes made to the other ships, MDR changes, charging for cookies!!!, and on and on and on - OH, and remember when pre-covid, every cabin (regular ol' cabins, not even Aqua), had TWO room attendants, the main person and the assistant? (lol now I'm spiraling!), but taking away servicing the cabins twice daily would seriously be the nail in the coffin for us. But since the Board is using Laura as their tool to slash and burn so much of what we have loved about Celebrity, I do fear that this may be the next cut.

My point is that we do still love Celebrity for all sorts of reasons that have been debated ad nauseum on every cruise board - and we are getting very near to Zenith. But we have also sailed Azamara - when you could still EARN Captain's Club points on Azamara - as the small ship experience, the ability to sail into more remote ports, etc, is a fabulous experience as well. Both products hold their allure, depending upon all sorts of factors. And my point is simple - to engender brand loyalty, to keep the money all in the same corporate pot, then we should be able to earn CC points on Silversea the same way we were able to earn CC points on Azamara - to earn CC points on Silversea is not a crazy idea, there is the precedent of earning on Azamara. Royal swapped one luxury line for another. So let us earn on the one the way we did with the other.

But the customers would still remain within the "family", not being poached away at all. If we could earn Captain's Club points on Silversea, it would keep more people within the Royal Caribbean family - the money stays with the company. We could earn on Azamara, we should be able to earn on Silversea. Many are disturbed with the changes with Celebrity and are looking to jump ship to Regent, Oceania, etc - to luxury lines as most of us agree that Celebrity was the top of it's category so the only place to go is up. If we could earn Captain Club points with Silversea, then the disgruntled Celebrity cruisers would have a reason to stay within the Royal Caribbean family. Win:Win - corporation is happy, passengers are happy.

Yes, but to earn CC points, the way we did on Azamara - not a stretch of a request here

Regarding Silversea......since it is a part of the Royal Caribbean brand, I wish we could earn Captain Club points on them, the way we used to earn CC points on Azamara - not just reciprocity, not interested in that, but EARN points on Silversea the way we used to earn points sailing Azamara. Royal sold Azamara and bought Silversea, trading one luxury holding for another......I am sorry we can't earn, it would help encourage brand loyalty, though I guess that isn't an important factor any more.

Definitely not going to happen I'm sure, as there simply wouldn't be enough passengers left to populate Luminae and there would be too many in Blu! Yes, cuts are being made, but there are limits - no changes to the Luminae/Blu access will be made as infrastructure wise, it makes absolutely no sense.

Yes, we too were there in May, on Eclipse, B2B so we had 3 full days in Lahaina, including an overnight. To see Front St TOTALLY destroyed, is just shocking. The banyan tree, Pioneer Inn, the Baldwin estate - the whaling history, the missionary history......so many lives and livelihoods lost - impossible for us to imagine let alone, comprehend.....😭

That never happened on the first night - at least, not in my experience. That was and is, several nights/afternoons into the cruise. And quite a while back, they did away with the 'sparkling wine and chocolates for all' Captain event in the theater - I remember that, how the Captain and officers would be in the theater on a designated evening, when it was still "formal night", and at the doors of the theater, bubbly and chocolates were given to everyone entering, was very nice.

OH, I wish that had been an option for us - we drew a hand on our cruise, YES, a HAND. Ugh. But this, love it!!! Good for you and thanks for sharing!

Thank you, I was just going to write nearly the exact thing - we've sailed in and out of Amsterdam many times, with Amsterdam as either the point of embarkation or debarkation. We always spend several nights in the city, eating, touring, spending all sorts of money - this is a common thing for cruisers to do when talking about a point of embarkation or debarkation, which Amsterdam is (or was!), a major cruise port. Amsterdam will be losing quite a bit I believe, if they move forward with this plan.

Celebrity has switched to a ticket prize system - for every trivia, contest, game that you win, you are given a prize ticket which you collect and save until the last full day of the cruise when you turn in your tickets for prizes - the more tickets you collect, the more significant the prize you can pick. Not to get too excited, as in general, the 'big' prizes are t-shirts. The 8pm game show is an exception to this - you receive an actual prize for that game, usually a hat or a deck of cards or some such branded piece of merchandise. Team Trivia is a big exception to this. We sailed on Eclipse this spring from March 26 through May 21. There were two very long cruises during that span, sailing from Sydney to Hawaii and then from Hawaii to Vancouver - lots of sea days, so Team Trivia was a big deal. You form your team on the first sea day and you stay with that same team throughout that cruise, accumulating points for each time you meet - for these cruises, it was always 10am every sea day in the Sky Lounge. The winning team is announced on the final sea day after the final game. The prizes for this were pretty significant. Since there is a Corning Glass still on the Eclipse, every member of the winning team received a beautiful hand blown Corning Glass item as well as a beautiful EFFY leather banded bracelet with a silver "X" charm - very nice! And of course, a few lesser Celebrity branded items to round out the lovely gift bag which every member of the winning team was presented. Husband was on the winning team for both of these long cruises - he worked, I reaped the rewards. 😄

WHY are you wasting your time engaging with this guy @NMTraveller? I wrote what I feel was an excellent reply and @OysterD wrote by far the best. He shouldn't be cruising at all and is on these boards just to mess with us.

WOW, ok, not even sure why you cruise this category!? Clearly it is not for the entertainment in which case you absolutely belong on Regent, Silversea, Windstar etc. Good for you to be able to be so critical, very happy for you. And LOL about your comment about the Cirque shows in Las Vegas - last I heard, Las Vegas is ON LAND so they can of course have incredibly mind blowing stages like that at the Bellagio for "O" and at the MGM for "KA". But I stand by my statement about the Edge Class stages and the production shows on those ships and I am so pleased that you are able to discard them with such utter disdain - love your attitude!

Were you able to find his page/group, in order to follow him? I know you have to request to join.....if you need more help, I can try to be more subtly subtle with my clues, in order to not have my reply to you deleted again? 😅

Host Andy IS posting a live review, and I very specifically said where you can find it a day or so ago, but the admin deleted what I wrote - because apparently it is on a social platform that I am not supposed to mention - so I believe you can take it from here!

Yes, however, Disney doesn't have a casino - if still playing craps is important to you.

Yes, and he reported that there was definitely vaping in the casino on his cruise, but that the cruise immediately before his, the casino staff told him, had even more vapers. Very helpful to have him on the Equinox live now giving a thorough account of all aspects of the cruise, including the MDR menu.

We have found the production shows on the Edge Class ships to be EXCEPTIONAL! As in, wow! When I say entertainment, yes, the various guest acts can be catch as catch can, very subjective as to one's likes or dislikes - one person may love the comedy acts, one may love the xylo-synth guy (OMG, NOT ME!!!!!), one may love the Elton John homage guy etc etc. But the production casts throughout the fleet, those kids have talent - and the best casts have been channelled to the Edge Class ships, and with the new 3 story electronic wrap around stages oh man, really terrific. From our trip on the Beyond last fall, I even said, "I would get right back on this ship for the next cruise if only for the reason to see the production shows again."

Very cute! Love the personalized Halloween magnet - did you find that on Amazon? We were on the Eclipse recently, and a passenger in our hall had a white board outside his cabin, writing a quote of the day - always fun and enjoyable for all! We made a point of reading it every day, and several times we saw crew passing by and stopping to read it also. I think that magnets on your cabin door are good fun and allow for an expression of whimsy! Maybe those of us that like the magnets are also those that go all out for Christmas or other holidays!

Definitely! Across the fleet, people don't decorate on Celebrity with as much gusto as say Disney, but decorate some indeed do! We in fact just ordered a personalized cruise magnet for our door for our Apex B3B this fall - lots of great options on Amazon, more even than on Etsy we found! We were on the Beyond in a Sky Suite this past Halloween, and put several Halloween magnets on our door, and enjoyed walking the halls admiring others' decorations. As I said, not a LOT of people decorate, but a good number of people do. Have fun, why not??