ECCruise

This is a rampant problem on Celebrity's site.

The only thing we have found (and this may not work for you) is to NOT sign into your account but rather go to "Already Booked", then "Online Checkin" then submit Reservation # and details and you might be able to sneak in that way.

We have 5 X cruises booked, 2 accessible through our account, 3 not. As I told the CC rep the other day, as a stockholder, it really, really upsets me in the amount of money they are costing themselves in revenue over site glitches.

Royal Caribbean: Penny wise and pound foolish.

Just to add a little here...

As a veteran of 6 trips to Bermuda in the early (April/May) season, the Atlantic can be quite active this time of year. Although we have had pretty calm sailings, we have also had 30+ foot seas non-stop for 30+ hours. On that trip we were in an outside, mid-ship on Deck 8. Had we been in a far forward cabin that time, you would have found us camping out by the Purser, low and mid-ship, not in the cabin!

YMMV

Can someone supply a link to the press release? Thanks. :)

Andy posted the entire press release. There is nothing further on the site.

Coming from a country where tipping is not the norm I found the article very interesting and note that if followed through as indicated it would add around $US30 or $NZ35 a day on top of the $NZ15 already charged.

For our forthcoming 35 day cruise that would equate to an additional $NZ1000 for the trip or for a ship the size of the Celebrity Solstice $3 million dollars in additional gratuities over and above the compulsory pre paid ones.

One can see from these figures why the cruise lines can give away pre paid gratuities as an enticement to cruise with them.

 

The question then is Does the cruise line make up the gratuities that they have given away as an enticement or does the crew just have to wear it.

That article is so out of whack to be almost laughable. After 50+ cruises, and tipping above and beyond the "standards" on every one, I do not know anyone who is adding those kinds of tips to the price of their cruise. $15 per day, per child, to the child counselors? Absurd. $5 per person, per day to the dining server in addition to the standard gratuity? Silly. Yet, this guy is a real mooch when it comes to tour guides. $2 to $4 (for a full day tour) to the tour guide. Unbelievably cheap.

That "article" is a waste of server space on Cruise Critic.

For others who might be reading this thread and considering a trip with landings, I just want to say that this is not a picture of anything that I experienced on our Antarctica expedition with Lindblad. We were out in zodiacs many, many times, for landings as well as just cruising, and they were never launched in rough seas or strong winds. Safety concerns were paramount, and in fact our first planned landing on the continent was aborted because the winds were starting to pick up. Not to worry, though, there was plenty more to do that day (we spent a marvelous afternoon breaking through ice in the Weddell Sea), and many landings followed in the ensuing days.

 

To our great surprise, zodiac cruising turned out to be one of the best parts of the trip. It was nothing short of spectacular to be at water level in the Antarctic, getting up close and personal with icebergs, as well as leopard seals napping on ice floes, and seeing penguins from the close-in perspective of the shore.

 

Nothing insane about it.

I must say that I totally agree.

We did an excursion trip with Ponant 2 years ago, did 11 landings in 4 days on the Peninsula and never remotely experienced anything like the OP's description. In fact, we were treated to a wine toasting on the zodiak(s), served from another zodiak, at the conclusion of one of the landings.

I am fully aware that an expedition to Antarctica costs more (and usually significantly more) than a drive-by, but with Celebrity continuing to increase prices, I can't recommend strongly enough to compare with a number of the excursion cruises. In many cases the ambiance, food and service are far beyond anything on Celebrity. We've done over 50 cruises on all 7 continents with 8 different cruise lines, but nothing even remotely compares with our Antarctic trip.

Honestly, even though the menus have become a bit hackneyed, the value for us left long ago when the prices nearly doubled over the years. $90 for a meal may not be too exorbitant when compared to a good shore side restaurant, but when we dine shore side we don't pay an admission charge of $2000-$20000 (cruise fare, depending on itinerary) and we don't leave a pretty decent dinner at the door (the MDR meal included with the fare).

Still, as long as people keep paying the price--whether it is individual pricing or "packages" neither the quality or the price will change.

Is it typical that it's almost impossible to get through on the phone to Celebrity customer service. Huge online TA that starts with "Cru" has screwd up my reservation and trying to speak to a PERSON to beg for help.....and no one coming on phone at Celebrity

If you are booked through an Agent, whether they screwed it up or not, Celebrity will NOT talk to you regarding your reservation so don't spend a lot of time waiting.

I'm pretty sure the Celebrity website is run by the Obamacare people in their spare time. I do not believe I've seen a more unreliable site.

 

Jim

Except the Obamacare website works fine now.

Celebrity's still doesn't work and it is supposed to generate revenue.

Not.

Our two cruises are not eligible for share holder benefits. The Aug. one because of the 123 promotion (wave) and the Feb. because we got a reduced price.

 

As far as we are concerned, we will never be able to use the share holder benefits program as we always get discounted cruises within the RCCL family from TA's. Too bad it wasn't explained to us that it didn't include discounted cruise fares!!! We should have asked but were told it included all cruises with RCCL!!! I should have read the threads here first! When it seems to be too good to be true, it usually is!!

Don't know about that. This seems like they are trying something new. We've had dozens of Stockholder credits on both Celebrity and RCCL and trust me, we've never booked a cruise that didn't have some sort of either discount (in the "old" days) or OBC from the TA (since they deep-sixed any discounts). Will have to watch this closely since we have 4 Celebrity cruises booked--2 that we have confirmation (months and months ago) of the Stockholder credit, 1 that we knew we wouldn't get it because it was a future onboard booking and 1 that we have applied for the credit yet.

That's annoying. Carnival Cruiseline (Princess, Cunard etc) make no distinction as to how the cruise has been purchased. It's a shareholder benefit and should not have these distinctions applied.

Plus, CCL OBCs are combinable with almost all other OBCs from the cruise line including early booking, military, veteran, etc.

RCCL (and Celebrity) IT departments should be evacuated and burned to the ground.

And the ashes buried.

Deeply.

Where do you want to start? Multiple emails thanking us for just getting back from our Royal sailing. Last sail date, 4 years ago. Multiple emails for preparing for our upcoming cruise(s). Cruises booked on Royal: 0. Now the WOW sale with OBCs "Up to $400!!" Until you click on the link and it takes you to a page delineating OBCs up to $300 (lost $100 on the click, I guess). Or the total inability on a lot of booked Celebrity cruises to book shore excursions. Or complete immigration information. Or ready check-in.

More examples of working as cheaply as possible to try to shove more to the bottom line. They need a real IT department.

It's a 1600 difference, it's a two week British isles cruise with one cruising day. The balconies are smaller with a mini suite Than with a balcony room?!?

 

On our last cruise with Azamara we usually ate breakfast on the balcony but basically just slept in the room...

Over $100 per day extra on a port intensive cruise? No way for us.

We've done outside, obstructed and not, lots of balconies and over 100 days in mini suites but never would consider that premium, especially on a cruise where you will be off the ship a lot, let alone out of your room.

We were given the same information during our Equinox cruise at the beginning of December at the Future Cruises Desk. The discount is to be reduced to 5 %.

Unfortunately the best prices/cabins for 2014/15 are already gone. We're planning to book for 2016.

Not sure what you meant by best prices/cabins. Every trip we have looked at in 2015 the basic outside cabins on deck 3 are virtually all available. There are no lower category cabins ever and no verandas, only suites.

3rd transatlantic on this ship. electronics were the only issue(s)

 

on Dec 1st transatlantic ...no At&t phone service available to us. The internet was also varied with response from terrible to over the top.

 

food and service were all very good to excellent+

 

any other experiences, please share

Princess ship. 30 day trans-Pacific, Anchorage to Bangkok.

No internet access for 19 days, no phone for the same period.

BTW, 15 of those days were during the financial meltdown of 2008, including huge equity drops and bank failures (including Wachovia where we had much of our $$$ parked). No access to brokerage accounts, bank accounts or any other accounts.

Stuff happens. We survived.

Well, when you put it this way, it's "not necessary" to engage in vacation travel at all. We all engage in discretionary travel for our own personal reasons, presumably for many of us to see and experience new and amazing things. I actually hate the term "bucket list," and, for me, an expedition to Antarctica was not about "bagging" a continent or checking something off a list, but about having the incomparable experience that we in fact had there. It's much more than just "setting foot" on a piece of land. Would a "drive by" cruise be wonderful? I'm sure it would be; what we could see just from the ship was great. But would an expedition be totally different? Without question. It's not about one or the other being "necessary."

 

You can enjoy the splendor of the Grand Canyon by standing on one of the rims, and millions do each year. But do you get to experience something amazingly more and different when you hike to the bottom and spend a night or two down at Phantom Ranch, and then hike out under your own power? Absolutely. And neither trip is "necessary."

Totally, totally agree.

There is simply no comparison of a drive-by to a trip with landings. We did this in 2012 with Ponant and although their prices have since increased, we paid less than what we would pay for a drive-by in 2014 or 2015. And that was with 11 landings in 6 days on the continent. I would never commit to a drive-by until I thoroughly exhausted all options for a landing expedition.

In over 50 cruises and dozens of land trips, whenever anyone asks us "what was your favorite trip?" there never is hesitation on our answer. Antarctica.

Celebrity did a great job on the Solstice for Super Bowl this year--in the theater, big screen, Ravens fans on one side (with banners and balloons), 49ers on the other side.

Best part of it is we were off the coast of Oz which meant game started at 12:30 PM on Monday, perfect mid-day entertainment.

We had a couple of cruises where it was imposed (probably 6 or 7 years ago). The earlier poster was right, the outcry was pretty loud (you could get hit with an additional $280 in charges days or weeks before you sailed) and so they just factored it into the pricing and still kept the potential of additional charges if the price goes haywire.

Any VOIP, whether SKYPE or whatever, is an incredible bandwith hog.

If you do get service, and are exchanging those pretty smiles with those back home, you are gumming up the pipes and causing everyone else on the network to take forever to read/send a simple email.

The services usually are blocked, as they should be.

As a previous poster said, it depends on the security at a given port of embarkation.

We've had to remove our laptop(s) a number of times in different parts of the world.

Honestly, these threads are tedious. They should be in the cliche dictionary for "Beating a Dead Horse."

Nothing is going to change. Celebrity needs to fill berths (thus the laxness) and generate revenue (thus the continuation of formal nights). If you think the "host" gives a hoot about maintaining "decorum" was, for us, shattered many years ago when we spent an enjoyable evening in a public venue, on formal night, with the Captain who was dressed in his day uniform of short sleeve shirt and no tie. He was having a fun night, as were we, though at that time we were formally dressed.

Also, anyone who has sailed Celebrity in the last 5 years (since the S-class rollout) and hasn't noticed a distinct change in demographics is either living in a cloud or simply refusing to accept change. Ditto if you don't believe the existence of (and marketing of) drink packages isn't a refection of this demographic change.

Depends enormously on the ship, the crew, the passenger mix and more.

We've done well over 100 nights in Select Dining on 6 or 7 different ships...off the top of my head:

50% no wait at all

30% wait in line (which is frustrating when you have reservations) for 1-10 minutes

20% waits in line (or at the head of the line) for 10+ minutes.

Always for 2 tops. Always pre-reserved.

Would not consider traditional dining again for a split second.

One thing about the insulated cups sometimes sold as an add-on to the coffee card. The ones they are selling now are absolutely worthless...we wouldn't even spend a dollar for them. We do have cups that look very similar (until you see the difference in weight) that are 6 years old, used hundreds of times on ships and off, and still work fine. The ones we bought in May were absolute junk--the "guts" separate from the stainless skin, coming apart every time you take the top off. Bought and exchanged 2 on the ship, hoping for better results but the replacements were just as worthless. Ended up in the trash immediately upon returning home. A cheap lesson at $14 but a lesson learned.

This kind of sums up our experience--and reaction to it. We used to book Celebrity and Princess about equally, generally 12 to 24 months out. When Princess changed their marketing focus to "nose bleed" prices up front while Celebrity's prices began lower (sometimes HALF for similar itineraries) our Celebrity bookings have gone to around 2x our Princess bookings. Currently have 46 days booked on Celebrity and 0 on Princess, so for us, their strategy definitely does not work. Whether or not it works for the masses is a question for the bean counters.

I guess it depends on how badly one wants to travel a certain ship/itinerary.

 

As an example, I've always had it on my bucket list to do a transatlantic. This past summer I started researching Spring crossings on several different cruiselines. Narrowed it down to the Royal and Celebrity Equinox. The first at $1799 for the cheapest balcony (15 days) and the latter at $999 cheapest balcony (13 days). Granted the Royal is a new ship and an extra two days, but not worth $799 more in my opinion. So I booked the Equinox. And yes travel agents can discount Princess and lower the price, but I also received $185 obc with the booking.

 

So with that analogy, Princess lost my cruise $$ because they started out high. Sure the price might plummet to $999, but by then it's too late plan flights and hotels- at least for me.

 

Tony

This is my virgin Celebrity cruise - does Solstice use US currency or Australian currency when in Australia and New Zealand?

 

I posted a question on another thread about how much cash to bring for tips. I am not looking for arguments about tipping. I am a good tipper and I know how hard cruise workers work. So I have pre-paid the tips. HOWEVER, as a good tipper for good service, I would like to anticipate and make sure I have sufficient cash to treat well workers that are going to make my Xmas and NYE cruise fantastic. I plan to use my debit card and my credit card (international fee free card) for purchases ashore and have some AUS and NZ currency.... but want to know what is a reasonable tip for good service. Is $100 too much for a great cabin attendant for a 12 day cruise (in addition to the pre-paid tip) or is $10 more the norm. I don't plan to do room service (I'm a solo traveler and don't need meal times as an alone time).

 

When I travel by ground, I usually assume $5 per day for a guide as a tip... but I have no sense as to what is normal for cruises. I am seeking this only as a guide -- as If its above and beyond service, then I would do more...and if its not good service, I would probably no add to the pre-paid.

 

Thanks to those for not trying to debate the to tip or not tip theme - those threads are elsewhere.

As to currency, US is used.

As to tipping beyond the pre-paids, it really is dependent on the level of service. For very good service from a steward I would consider $10 too weak and $100 too heavy. We would more likely be in the $40-50 range for a 12 day.

If you are spending even 1 night before you cruise, stay at a hotel that offers parking for the duration of the cruise and a shuttle to the port.

We've done this many times and the cost of the hotel is generally less than the parking alone would be (especially at the port) and even more so the longer cruise you are taking--although if you are on a Connie 4 or 5 day the savings will not be as extensive.