Five Things Celebrity Doesn't Want You to Know...

[Lastdance]

1. How to work their web site.

 

2. How they determine who gets emails and who doesn't.

 

3. Why their site tells you there are no cabins available when there are plenty.

 

4. Why some Celebrity Reps can't answer your questions and others can.

 

5. Why your particular cruise was just canceled and you find out two weeks later.

 

Yet, we still sail with them and love the product!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Edited December 20, 2016 by Lastdance

[gordylad]

1. How to work their web site. - For a large organisation their web site always seems to be a bit amateurish

 

2. How they determine who gets emails and who doesn't. - I would have thought as long as you subscribe you should get an email?

 

3. Why their site tells you there are no cabins available when there are plenty.- This is something that baffles a lot of cruisers. Refer to point 1.

 

4. Why some Celebrity Reps can't answer your questions and others can - Agreed.

 

5. Why your particular cruise was just canceled and you find out two weeks later. - Haven't been in that position.

 

Yet, we still sail with them and love the product! We do but sooner or later regulars will switch to other cruise companies for better value and more variety of sailings. This will be the downfall of Celebrity.

[mandream]

2. How they determine who gets emails and who doesn't. - I would have thought as long as you subscribe you should get an email?

 

Yes, it would be reasonable to think so, but unfortunately it does not work that way. I have subscribed, and re-subscribed many times in the past 8 years. I think there was a 2 month period when their system had a bug and they actually sent me promotional emails ;). The rest of the time - nada.

 

Mike

[Kartgv]

6. Why you can't book a dinner reservation at Tuscan Grill or any tours for 2 people without it doubling up the reservation and charging double. You try deleting one of the duplicates in your cart and it deletes all of them.

 

7. Why you can't tab the 'back' arrow and get back to the page you were previously on. Instead it takes you back to some random starting point.

 

8. Why they just sent me an email inviting me to book dining and tour reservations online for my May cruise, but when I get to the website, it says that the site is 'on vacation'!

 

9. Why they either WON'T or CAN'T fix the embarrassingly horrible website!

 

All of the above have been happening for days now.

Edited December 20, 2016 by Kartgv

[ghstudio]

I was hoping this thread would be things like:

 

1) If you are elite plus, then upgrade from classic to premium on the ship and they may give you a 10% discount. (they gave me the discount last week)

 

2) They actually will hold tables in select dining or blu if you have a party of six or more...see the dining folks when you board and set up a reservation...if you set it up, you can just walk in, bypassing the line completely. We had our own table for 8 set up and ready for us at 6:30 every night...no wait, no line.

 

3) You can almost always ask for "fresh berries" for dessert, even though it's not on any menu. If you like one type of ice cream, they can arrange to have it for you every night, even though it's not on the menu (our friend had rum raisin every night).

 

4) If you want freshly made expresso coffees, go to cafe bacio. The elite breakfast does not make the expresso to order...it sits ready made. Quality varies greatly in the MDR.

 

but I guess in the theme of previous posts...I'll add:

 

5) You can either spend an hour or so booking select dining reservations for every night on line...or you can call the captain's club and get it done in about three minutes.

Edited December 20, 2016 by ghstudio

[jelayne]

I hope Celebrity doesn't figure out how to send me promotional emails!

 

My secret to not getting frustrated is to use Celebrity's web site as little as possible!

 

I find available cabins on a website that lists all open cabins and book and pay through a TA.

 

If I want to make a change to my booking I call the TA.

 

Do independent shore excursions with others from the Roll Calls.

 

Wait until we are on the ship to book speciality dining reservations- normally get a decent discount.

 

If I want to purchase a beverage package I call the Captains Club.

 

So on-line check-in and ordering luggage tags are about all I do on the X website.

[Straughn]

Yes, it would be reasonable to think so, but unfortunately it does not work that way. I have subscribed, and re-subscribed many times in the past 8 years. I think there was a 2 month period when their system had a bug and they actually sent me promotional emails ;). The rest of the time - nada.

 

Mike

 

Exactly my experience. I get only emails directed to me about a specific booking. Do I get the promotional emails? Well, I sign up, get one or two, and then nada. I sign up again. Rinse and repeat. Same issue with RCCL.

 

When I talk to Celebrity, they tell me that my provider, Comcast, must be blocking them. I talk to Comcast and they say they are not blocking emails from Celebrity. I believe Comcast because I have no problems getting emails from HAL, Princess, and a bunch of other companies who send out promotional emails.

[gordylad]

Celebrity Cruises established 1989.........give them a chance its only been 27 years :eek:

[Fish Lover]

These same problems plague many large companies that are in the service business, let alone just cruise lines.

 

The easiest thing to fix is the website, however I suspect they are dealing with a lot of legacy systems and have run out of options for "making it work". The back end systems likely needs a complete replacement and that is very expensive.

[ChucktownSteve]

These same problems plague many large companies that are in the service business, let alone just cruise lines.

 

The easiest thing to fix is the website, however I suspect they are dealing with a lot of legacy systems and have run out of options for "making it work". The back end systems likely needs a complete replacement and that is very expensive.

 

Several months ago Celebrity announce they hired a company to completely revamp their web site. I suppose it will be available in ten years. Please be patient.

[Davidc5412]

I've seen many complaints about the Celebrity website so I guess there must be issues but I have never found a problem with it

 

Have booked and paid for crusies , shore tours beverage and dining packages and dining reservations all without issue

 

Sadly also had to cancel our next cruise after having booked and prepaid shore tours. Only slight irritation was having to cancel one by one but no big deal as that was how I booked them. Full refund back to credit card in under a week

 

Just a different view for a change :)

[WpgCruise]

but sooner or later regulars will switch to other cruise companies for better value and more variety of sailings. This will be the downfall of Celebrity.

 

I smiled at this note, and the reason is that I look at Celebrity's marketing strategy as a funnel: as long as they have more customers coming in at the top, than going out at the bottom, they're ahead of the game.

 

For the first January in 16 years, we won't be on a Celebrity cruise. After 2 less than satisfactory cruises we are doing what I have always suggested people do when they are not pleased with the product which is to find another option.

 

Oceania will be getting our January cruise this year, and we'll see if for just a little bit more $$ we get a lot more value.

 

For darn sure life's too short to be complaining about a vacation, time to see what else is out there.

[pmcue]

The email could be as simple as you opted out of RCCL who owns Celebrity and said Send No Emails. By law they can no longer send, unless you go back to that profile and change.

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Forums mobile app

[easyboy]

As long as bookings come in, all our observations are just "noted". It's business.

[Marelaine]

Exactly my experience. I get only emails directed to me about a specific booking. Do I get the promotional emails? Well, I sign up, get one or two, and then nada. I sign up again. Rinse and repeat. Same issue with RCCL.

 

When I talk to Celebrity, they tell me that my provider, Comcast, must be blocking them. I talk to Comcast and they say they are not blocking emails from Celebrity. I believe Comcast because I have no problems getting emails from HAL, Princess, and a bunch of other companies who send out promotional emails.

 

I have been receiving promotional emails from X since our first cruise 7 years ago. My mother cruised with us once about 4 years ago. She receives offers, at my email address, more often than I do. We don't receive the same offers. They used to send us stuff via snail mail, too. It seems so random.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Be careful what you wish for on the e-mail front. For a long time, I got nothing. Now I get at least one a day. They are currently urging me to book Celebrity Air and shore excursions for a cruise in November 2018. Really? My guess is that neither is available yet. Not to mention that I have 3 other cruises before that one. They seem to have lost interest in bugging me about those.

 

[fshagan]

Exactly my experience. I get only emails directed to me about a specific booking. Do I get the promotional emails? Well, I sign up, get one or two, and then nada. I sign up again. Rinse and repeat. Same issue with RCCL.

 

When I talk to Celebrity, they tell me that my provider, Comcast, must be blocking them. I talk to Comcast and they say they are not blocking emails from Celebrity. I believe Comcast because I have no problems getting emails from HAL, Princess, and a bunch of other companies who send out promotional emails.

 

I work for a SaaS business automation company that includes email delivery as one of their services (we deliver a few billion emails a year from our little company). If I were to consider whether to believe Comcast or Celebrity in this matter I would take Celebrity hands down. Their promotional emails have the proper information in the header and my Google Suite / Gmail accounts receive them fine, even the ones that come through my mail account on my own hosting server (where I have SpamAssassin set up pretty aggressively).

[cdn_tbird]

Exactly my experience. I get only emails directed to me about a specific booking. Do I get the promotional emails? Well, I sign up, get one or two, and then nada. I sign up again. Rinse and repeat. Same issue with RCCL.

 

When I talk to Celebrity, they tell me that my provider, Comcast, must be blocking them. I talk to Comcast and they say they are not blocking emails from Celebrity. I believe Comcast because I have no problems getting emails from HAL, Princess, and a bunch of other companies who send out promotional emails.

 

I think I'm getting everyone's missing e-mails. Just checked my Deleted folder and there are 77 in there over the last 3 months. :p:eek::D

Edited December 21, 2016 by cdn_tbird

[jelayne]

I think I'm getting everyone's missing e-mails. Just checked my Deleted folder and there are 77 in there over the last 3 months. :p:eek::D

 

Cont bother forwarding mine😂

[caribill]

Sadly also had to cancel our next cruise after having booked and prepaid shore tours. Only slight irritation was having to cancel one by one but no big deal as that was how I booked them. Full refund back to credit card in under a week

 

 

Doesn't cancelling a cruise automatically cancel any shore excursions and automatically refund the money paid for those excursions?

[morechances]

How about this....

I have 2 cruises booked and when I go to my reservations it shows no bookings. Yes, I added them months ago. And they were there at one point.

I tried adding them again and nothing happens.

The only way to get to them is to try check in. Then they show up.

[PostcardJar]

IMHO, X's website leaves a lot to be desired. But we all keep re-booking because the on-board experience is so great. On shore, customer service isn't great. Once on the ship, they make things happen. That's why we keep going back.

 

(And we go back in 3 days! -- Summit Holiday Cruise -- Woo!)

[Fish Lover]

Several months ago Celebrity announce they hired a company to completely revamp their web site. I suppose it will be available in ten years. Please be patient.

 

Clearly then you are not familiar with the development of technology. It isn't as though they can just buy a system off the shelf. It may well take two years or more to implement. Further their system is a high traffic reservation system and it isn't simple to safely implement change. Been there, done that,

[ChucktownSteve]

I think I'm getting everyone's missing e-mails. Just checked my Deleted folder and there are 77 in there over the last 3 months. :p:eek::D

 

You want mine too? :p

[ChucktownSteve]

Clearly then you are not familiar with the development of technology. It isn't as though they can just buy a system off the shelf. It may well take two years or more to implement. Further their system is a high traffic reservation system and it isn't simple to safely implement change. Been there, done that,

 

Clearly you don't understand that I was factoring in all that plus the speed at which Celebrity accomplishes such tasks after having to have the bugs fixed time after time after time. So yes it could very well take ten years. Look how many years Celebrity's web site has been having problems.

 

I did say, "Please be patient." So your point? I work in an IT/Communications Department. Tell me something I didn't know.

Edited December 21, 2016 by ChucktownSteve