To Celebrity from Royal

[MrBill923]

HI, Looking at doing a cruise on Celebrity Reflection. Reviewing prices for a Veranda Cabin, and I see you have to select two "perks" when finding the costs. Interesting! I can see selecting the Classic drink package (as we get the Deluxe on Royal). But what other option gets me the most savings? Do they really pay the gratuities? Although the $100 OBC per person looks good, are these perks for real? Thanks for the responses.

[Born to Cruise]

We select the Classic drink package and the prepaid gratuities and yes they are very real. Hope this helps and you will love the Reflection.

 

Cheers,

JoAnne

[jelayne]

The beverage package is a good choice for folks who drink liquor, wine, speciality coffees & teas. Beyond that you should do the math. The gratuties for a veranda cabin are $13.50 per day so on a 7 day cruise the gratuties are $940 so the $150 is a better choice. If it is a 12 night + cruise then prepaid gratuties are worth more than the OBC.

[Oville]

The beverage package is a good choice for folks who drink liquor, wine, speciality coffees & teas. Beyond that you should do the math. The gratuties for a veranda cabin are $13.50 per day so on a 7 day cruise the gratuties are $940 so the $150 is a better choice. If it is a 12 night + cruise then prepaid gratuties are worth more than the OBC.

 

I think you have a big typo. The gratuities are $189, not $940 if it is a 7 day cruise, so the OBC of $200 is the better bet.

[MrBill923]

So Royal has all different promotions (30% off, Buy one get half off second, Free nights, etc) most of these are just "fluff" and really don't affect their inflated regular prices. Are these Celebrity "perks" just the same type of thing (fluff) and are only for a limited time? Or is this their regular pricing structure? Thanks.

[bottomfeeder]

So Royal has all different promotions (30% off, Buy one get half off second, Free nights, etc) most of these are just "fluff" and really don't affect their inflated regular prices. Are these Celebrity "perks" just the same type of thing (fluff) and are only for a limited time? Or is this their regular pricing structure? Thanks.

 

When you are on the Celebrity website to price out the cruise, start going through a mock booking and you will see an option that says something like "check for other offers". If you click that link you will (often) get other options such as a resident discount for your state or a senior citizen discount--those prices will not include the "big better best" choose a perk thing. Check the difference in prices for those rates and what perks are offered under your original rate and you can decide whether the perks are a good deal for you.

[wallie5446]

HI, Looking at doing a cruise on Celebrity Reflection. Reviewing prices for a Veranda Cabin, and I see you have to select two "perks" when finding the costs. Interesting! I can see selecting the Classic drink package (as we get the Deluxe on Royal). But what other option gets me the most savings? Do they really pay the gratuities? Although the $100 OBC per person looks good, are these perks for real? Thanks for the responses.

Yes they are real. We are Diamond, our last 3 cruises and next are on Celebrity. The second add-on depends on the length of our cruise. Do the math, grats vs OBC.

 

FYI: call C&A and have them get your Celebrity Capt Club account set up. You will get matching perks from Royal.

[wallie5446]

So Royal has all different promotions (30% off, Buy one get half off second, Free nights, etc) most of these are just "fluff" and really don't affect their inflated regular prices. Are these Celebrity "perks" just the same type of thing (fluff) and are only for a limited time? Or is this their regular pricing structure? Thanks.

On our last 3 cruises we have come home with 7-8-9 pages of ZERO charges for drinks, coffee, juice, bottled water, beer, wine, liquor.

 

For years Chops was our benchmark Speciality, then we went to Murano, and the Lawn Club Grill on the Reflection! OH MY! Outstanding! We now book a 3-4-5 night pkg, the more the deeper the discount.

 

We have friends that book the lowest cost balcony, then get the all cruise Speciality pkg for $28 pp per day. Gonna try it one day.

[Miaminice]

All perks are for real!

Beverage Package should be a no brainer.

 

Gratuities or OBC?

Simple: if (depending on the lenght of the cruise) the cost of gratuities is higher than the offered OBC take gratuities.

[Longboysfan]

Yes. The two perks to choose from are great.

 

Although if you like specialty dining. Book a Aqua Spa level cabin. You get BLU which is like specialty dining.

Well worth it.

[Bobal]

You should also factor in what (if anything) you would spend OBC on and which level you would be at Captain's Club, as you will get some reciprocal benefit on Celebrity.

 

We recently booked two cruises and found that the drinks package and the gratuities worked out to be the best options for us.

[dkjretired]

Also, if you book through a Travel Agent it is very likely you can get a third perk or more OBC. For example you might get the $100 pp and drinks through Celebrity and then the TA gives you the paid gratuities. Might also get more OBC.

[jules815]

Everyone else has filled you in on the perks.

 

As you can see from my signature, I've mostly sailed with RC.

 

We were on Reflection last week and I absolutely LOVED that ship. There are several reviews with pictures and video here on CC. :D

[Luvcrusn]

No one on here mentioned that the drinks package also includes the drink gratuities, so there are no surprise extras on your bill unlike some cruise lines that give the drink free but charge extra for bar gratuities. Of course you can always tip extra if you'd like, it's not expected. We always take drinks and gratuities. Since we tend to take longer cruises and do Concierge or Aqua with higher daily rates the math works better that way for us. Another thought is that periodically X increases its suggested daily gratuity rates. If there is an increase and you have selected free gratuities you benefit by taking the perk since its value increases without you reaching into your pocket. Again, you're free to add to it if you choose.

[JMG]

We have found that the incentives given by Celebrity are great! We are D+ on Royal and know we will never make Pinnacle. while on board Royal we compared costs between the 2 lines doing similar itinerary and at that time, Celebrity was by far the better deal. At that time they had the 1,2,3 Go package. That deal was similar to the current Big, Better, Best promotion.

 

You have to be at least Platinum on Royal to get benefits on Celebrity. It is still good idea to contact Captains Club and set up an account to accumulate points. Points earned on Celebrity or Royal do not combine. Our D+ level is recognized on Celebrity as Elite but as far as Celebrity points go, we started at zero.

 

The lines have different pros and cons. We are happy with either line and always have a great cruise!

 

Yes, you need to do the math and figure out which deal works best in your situation. We signed up for one perk and then decided it was better to change to another. We booked directly with the cruise line so we called and the change was made without any problem.

[griffy116]

We're Diamond of Royal and decided we wanted to try Celebrity. When I checked Celebrity's site, they were offering all four perks. We got the Premium drink package, gratuities, free wifi and OBC. Our TA gave us additional OBC. We did the math and this was a great deal for us. I honestly can't see us spending anything after we board the ship. If that turns out to be true, it will be the FIRST TIME that has ever happened.

[MrBill923]

Thanks to everyone for your responses. It was also nice to hear from some Royal people who have tried out Celebrity. I will run the "numbers" on the perks and see which is best. I think I saw something that this "perks" promo was ending April 30th. I also contacted Cruises International to get a quote from them. I have to compare their quote yet, but they did give us $50 OBC for our Veranda cabin.

[39august]

We are not supposed to name travel agencies on these threads. That said, you should contact other companies. $50 OBC is pretty shabby. I've never gotten that little from a travel agent!

[MrBill923]

Oops! shhh.....

[montekat]

We are not supposed to name travel agencies on these threads. That said, you should contact other companies. $50 OBC is pretty shabby. I've never gotten that little from a travel agent!

Absolutely true! We booked recently on the Celebrity Edge and will be getting Classic drink pkg., gratuities and $300 OBC.

 

 

We are also Diamond on RCCL, but have found much better deals on Celebrity. We have also found Celebrity more to our liking.