1st cruise with Celebrity - Silhouette March 30th

[luv-my-kids]

I wish I had time to write a full detailed review of out 1st Celebrity cruise. With my work schedule there is just not time. We are both in our early 40's and are experienced cruisers. We were on the Silhouette March 30, 2014. We have cruised with Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival. I will just say we are not Carnival fans, it was our 1st cruise.

Anyways back to our 1st Celebrity cruise. We booked in a concierge class balcony room. We were pleased with the storage of the bathroom, but the storage in the cabin was just not enough. Three drawers and a closet is just not enough space. The storage over the bed was useless to me, I am short and could not reach it unless I stood on my bed. Also the amenities were just not worth any extra charge in my opinion.

 

We had select dining and always asked for a table for 2, we never had more than a 1-2 minute wait. We were usually always seated immediately. The service the 1st night in the dining room was pretty good, after that it was by far the WORST service we have EVER experienced on any of our cruises in a dining room. This goes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We do not ask for much, I just expect to receive my complete meal along with drink refills. On one occasion for lunch we finished our meal and waited for atleast 20 minutes for the dishes to be cleared and to be served dessert. We were also sitting there with empty tea glasses. They just never came back. We just got up and left the dining room. On another occasion we were seated for lunch again, our menus were brought and our drink order was taken. After 15 minutes no drinks and no server. We got up and left again. At this point I went to guest relations to make a comment. When we showed up for dinner the maitre d came over an apologized. That night we had good service, but after that the service was just VERY SLOW. One night we even waited 40 minutes for the main course to come out.

 

Another problem we had was Micheal's Club being closed to the non elite cruisers. I heard the rumors and called and spoke with a supervisor before our cruise, I was told that Micheal's club would be open for ALL guests.

 

We are craft beer drinkers and was really looking forward to the selection of beers in Micheal's Club. When we boarded the ship and went to go check out Micheal's club, we were told it was the 1st day of the change. They said go to Sky lounge, that some of the beers were there. When we were in Micheal's club we could see they still had the "coolers full of beers". Of Course when we went to the Sky lounge we were told they do not have the beer selection there. They had a few more than other bars but not what is advertised on their website. We met ALOT of people on board who were mad about this. We were upset, but were not going to let this ruin our cruise.

 

Another thing that bothered me was being charged for drinks, we both had the drink package, he upgraded to premium, I stayed with the classic package. On six different occasions we were both charged for drinks even though we always told them we were on the drink package and presented our cards. The drinks we were charged for were always in our package. I went to guest services every time this happened, they were really nice and always apologized and corrected it. It was just frustrating to keep up with this and wasted my time trying to get it removed.

 

I will also make a list of Pros & Cons. I left my glasses at work and this is too hard to write without being able to really see.

 

Pros

 

1. Never had to wait to be seated with select dining

2. They had the best Chocolate Martinis I have ever had.

3. The bartender in the Sky lounge was AWESOME and very knowledgeable. His name was Nehad. Also the Sky lounge had a great atmosphere.

4. Not very many kids on board. The ones we did see on board were behaving. I have three kids of my own, but do not want to be on a cruise ship filled with kids.

5.We enjoyed the juggling show on board.

6. We met some great people on board.

 

Cons

1. Worst dining room service we have EVER experienced.

2. The dining room closing for breakfast at 9:00 or 9:30 am. I think it was 9am on port days and 9:30 on sea days. They should atleast stay open until 10am. Who wants to get up early on vacation? Alot of people were trying to enter when we were leaving the dining room for breakfast and were turned away because they were closed. I can say they were NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

3. Being in the adult pool area for over and hour and never seeing a bar sever come by. I would have just went and ordered my own drink, but did not want to carry all my stuff or lose my chair.

 

I could name more negative things about Celebrity but do not want to seem like a complainer. I always try to look at a glass half full and not half empty.

 

I will say I am not sure we will try Celebrity again. We did have a great time, we were able to relax and we were not at work. But I do expect better service than we received. Like I said we are not hard to please, I do not want to be waited on hand and foot. I just do not like to sit with empty glasses or not be served my complete meal on almost every occasion. I guess I just expected more with "Modern Luxury".

 

Sorry not really able to proof read this with out my glasses. I wanted to go ahead and post this while fresh on my mind.

[luv2brk]

I am so glad you posted this. My husband and I (late 30s) were on the March 23rd sailing. I haven't written a review yet because I didn't want to sound like a complainer when I am generally not. I completely agree with you on all of your points. It was vacation after all but I wasn't blown away. This was our second celebrity cruise and much different than our first. We have enjoyed princess in the past. Our first celebrity was way better than princess, but our second celebrity was worse. I thought the excitement was wearing off.

[Dall]

Wow! We have cruised Carnival 4 times, RCI 6 times and our first Celebrity cruise was on the Silhouette in Jan this year. We travelled with another couple who have done many cruises. We all thought the experience outshined any of our other cruises. The food was a step above any other we've had in dining room and buffet. The chocolate martinis were good, as well as the banana split martini:D We are all in our 50's if that makes any difference.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Dall

[miched]

We tried the dining room for lunch many years ago and found the service to be the same. Terrible and slow. Never went back again.

 

Pool Butlers. What a joke. I have never had anyone offer or ask if I would like something to drink from the bar at any pool on Celebrtiy. I have read where some have been offered ice cream while sitting at the pool area and have never seen that.

 

Michaels Club has never been a success. I guess that is why they are eliminating it. It is either closed, or having a special event and that was or is the problem because after a while it becomes transparent and no one bothers to see if it is open because it it usually isn't. I did go into it a few times on the Reflection. I was the only person in there besides th BT and server that were busy flirting with eachother. When I did served the beers were old and spoiled due to the lack of turnover so I would leave to dump it somewhere.

 

Granted Celebrity is not perfect but other cruise lines aren't either. It always grinds me when they want you to rate everything as exceeded expectations. There is very little that does as good service is what I expect. It seems as if many times the help is now trying to get by with doing as little as they can get by with, they are becoming Americanized. 🇺🇸

 

🚢

 

 

🚢

[Christine Frances]

I actually wrote on a comment card to figure out a way that the pool bar staff would know that you have already declined a drink. We found it very annoying while relaxing or reading to be asked every 5 min. Much prefer getting my own drink when I feel like one.

[wallie5446]

 

 

3. Being in the adult pool area for over and hour and never seeing a bar sever come by. I would have just went and ordered my own drink, .

 

I actually wrote on a comment card to figure out a way that the pool bar staff would know that you have already declined a drink. We found it very annoying while relaxing or reading to be asked every 5 min. Much prefer getting my own drink when I feel like one.

 

When we were on the Reflection last Nov we noticed a lack of servers 'hawking' drinks around the pool, so we asked a few about why this was.

We were told that a large % of the comment cards were coming in with the comment Christine mentions, ie: too many pushie servers hawking drinks by the pool. So they reduced how many worked the pool area.

[momoforeo]

We had a completely different experience on our recent cruise (just got off the ship). We thought the service was great. We also had Select dining and never had to wait to be seated, we sat at many different tables for dinner and always had great service. we spoke to many others who agreed. Some service was better than others, but that is always to be expected and all was at least great.

 

We didn't eat lunch in the MDR so i can't comment on service then, but did eat breakfast there most days (cut it close by 2min one morning) and had really good service. And the morning we ate in the Buffet for breakfast we also had really good service - coffee and juice brought to us, table cleaned up, etc.

 

Our only complaint in regards to service was our cabin steward. Our room was always cleaned promptly and well, but we did not receive our Loyalty coupons until I asked, nor did I receive our celebrity tote bags without asking.

 

I enjoyed dionner every night, but one and on that night they did everything possible to make sure I was happy. The maitre d' also wrote down my comments on what I did not like and why.

 

We did not see lots of servers at the pool or in the theater. But they were there and I was glad not to be asked every 5 minutes if I wanted a drink. In Labadee they were very present.

 

I was very happy as was my travelling companion and we would definitely sail on Celebrity again.

 

I haven't written a review yet, but hope to soon

[EvelynAlexa]

Celebrity is on our list for an upcoming cruise. Your review is consistent with others on this site. The negative comments are important. Flagwaving positive remarks can be a happy cruiser or a professional flagwaver. We continue to research. Thanks for sharing. May your next cruise have more positives.

Alex