Does Celebrity have guest lecturers on all cruises?

[ak1004]

On our last Reflection cruise in June, no single guest lecture.

[Banjo]

The wife and I for the past 6 or 7 years been doing a lot trans-Atlantics. Cheap way to see Europe when you combine it with air-miles. Usually they have 3 to 4 speakers through out the cruise. Many of those I found fasinating and with some of those I correspond with.

[Banjo]

7 minutes ago, ak1004 said:

On our last Reflection cruise in June, no single guest lecture.

 

I think if your cruise is port intensive you probably won't get one, if you have a lot sea days they schedule them.

 

We are booked on a 17 day Solstice cruise, Honolulu-Sydney, in September. This cruise has a lot sea days, hopefully they will fill the day up with some decent speakers.

[ak1004]

11 minutes ago, Banjo said:

 

I think if your cruise is port intensive you probably won't get one, if you have a lot sea days they schedule them.

 

We are booked on a 17 day Solstice cruise, Honolulu-Sydney, in September. This cruise has a lot sea days, hopefully they will fill the day up with some decent speakers.

 

We had 2 sea days, I expected at least one guest lecture. Our Azamara cruise in March was also port intensive, but we had 4 guest lectures. Same with Cunard and Holland. It's just matter of priorities. Guest lectures are simply not a priority for Celebrity - they don't bring any profits, only expenses. 95% of the activities on Celebrity are profit oriented.

[Mr Sea Gull]

12 hours ago, gold1953 said:

I hope they change this before the fall TA

 

You should be ok its usually only to/from Southampton cruises from April to October. 

[TeeRick]

Usually we have seen Beyond The Podium speakers on destination cruises where the itinerary warrants it like Panama Canal, Aus/NZ, Canada/NE for a few examples. They are usually excellent.   They can lecture on the areas visited or other topics - almost anything.  They are typically on longer than 7 night cruises outside the Caribbean.   But you might find them on some Alaska itineraries too. For cruises in the Caribbean the port shopping staff usually gives an overview of each port.  I personally have not experienced a Beyond The Podium speaker on Caribbean cruises. 

[Orator]

9 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

We had 2 sea days, I expected at least one guest lecture. Our Azamara cruise in March was also port intensive, but we had 4 guest lectures. Same with Cunard and Holland. It's just matter of priorities. Guest lectures are simply not a priority for Celebrity - they don't bring any profits, only expenses. 95% of the activities on Celebrity are profit oriented.

The Production shows are included in the base fare. The Guest Entertainers are included in the base fare. The musicians that perform on the ship are in the base fare. Guest lecturers are part of the base fare. I think that your statement that "95% of the activities on Celebrity are profit oriented" is a bit of an exaggeration. But, I would agree with your statement about priorities as we've seen some shifts toward profits. This is not exclusive to Celebrity as cruise lines need to pay for their new toys.

[keesar]

19 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

Usually we have seen Beyond The Podium speakers on destination cruises where the itinerary warrants it like Panama Canal, Aus/NZ, Canada/NE for a few examples. They are usually excellent.   They can lecture on the areas visited or other topics - almost anything.  They are typically on longer than 7 night cruises outside the Caribbean.   But you might find them on some Alaska itineraries too. For cruises in the Caribbean the port shopping staff usually gives an overview of each port.  I personally have not experienced a Beyond The Podium speaker on Caribbean cruises. 

 

We have had one or two guest speakers for every cruise until about 4 or 5 years ago.  Seems around the same time as cutbacks of activities staff.  

[ak1004]

29 minutes ago, Orator said:

The Production shows are included in the base fare. The Guest Entertainers are included in the base fare. The musicians that perform on the ship are in the base fare. Guest lecturers are part of the base fare. I think that your statement that "95% of the activities on Celebrity are profit oriented" is a bit of an exaggeration. But, I would agree with your statement about priorities as we've seen some shifts toward profits. This is not exclusive to Celebrity as cruise lines need to pay for their new toys.

 

All entertainment including Production shows, Guest Entertainers, musicians etc. are included on all lines. This is the basics. Guest lectures can be considered an "extra", along with things like art lectures etc. This is where lines like Azamara and Cunard are miles ahead of Celebrity. But Celebrity is also cutting on libraries, art galleries etc. and putting more cabins instead.

[Banjo]

21 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

We had 2 sea days, I expected at least one guest lecture. Our Azamara cruise in March was also port intensive, but we had 4 guest lectures. Same with Cunard and Holland. It's just matter of priorities. Guest lectures are simply not a priority for Celebrity - they don't bring any profits, only expenses. 95% of the activities on Celebrity are profit oriented.

 

I guess you were on a European cruise on the Reflection. Surprised you did not have some "Beyond the Podium' speakers.

 

Spring of 2018 we were on the Reflection for a trans-Atlantic cruise (Ft Lauderdale to Civitavecchia). The speakers we had were outstanding. It included the retired director of Kennedy space Center, the retired household administrator of the White House, a doctor lecturing on the History Of Medicine (since I am a retired Hospital Administrator I enjoyed this) and they had a port destination speaker on what to expect when you arrived at the ports.  

[EDLOS]

On 7/17/2019 at 1:59 PM, Ken the cruiser said:

We were on a Canary Island (10 day) and a 15 day TA b2b on the Eclipse in Oct 2017 and had 3 lectures every sea day. Then on the Reflection in Jan 2019 we were on a 10 day and 11 day b2b Caribbean cruise and had 2 lectures every sea day.

 

We left HAL due to their continued decrease in entertainment options on sea days and have been more than happy with our move to X and Princess. 

Gee ! If you said the above on the HAL website, you would think you committed some type of heresy.

My last on HAL a TA in 2016 where there were no enrichment speakers, no piano bar, no Lincoln Center group , BB King "Blues" (no Blues Music) and construction going all across the Atlantic.

That did for this 4 star HAL cruiser. Have done 12 cruises since than on NCL and Celebrity and only miss my free laundry from HAL

[Turtles06]

2 hours ago, Banjo said:

Spring of 2018 we were on the Reflection for a trans-Atlantic cruise (Ft Lauderdale to Civitavecchia). The speakers we had were outstanding. It included the retired director of Kennedy space Center,

 

That's Jim Kennedy (no relation to JFK)... we've been lucky to be on several cruises where he was a speaker.  He's fantastic.  So much so that on the Silhouette westbound TA in 2014, during absolutely gorgeous sea days during the crossing, the theatre was filled in the middle of the day with people who wanted to hear him. 

[Ken the cruiser]

4 hours ago, EDLOS said:

Gee ! If you said the above on the HAL website, you would think you committed some type of heresy.

My last on HAL a TA in 2016 where there were no enrichment speakers, no piano bar, no Lincoln Center group , BB King "Blues" (no Blues Music) and construction going all across the Atlantic.

That did for this 4 star HAL cruiser. Have done 12 cruises since than on NCL and Celebrity and only miss my free laundry from HAL

LOL!! I’ve been following a HAL thread on “What you like most about HAL” and a few times I’ve wanted to put “nothing, when compared to X and Princess”, but I didn’t as I thought that wouldn’t be in the spirit of why the OP opened the thread. 

[sailco]

7 hours ago, Banjo said:

 

I guess you were on a European cruise on the Reflection. Surprised you did not have some "Beyond the Podium' speakers.

We did two Med cruises just recently and there were Beyond the Podium speakers on both. They weren't all that great. One only had about 30, maybe 50 people at each talk and the CD was always trying to drum up business for her including asking people to sit down the front to make it more intimate. Quite embarrassing really.

[8mma]

On 7/16/2019 at 10:22 AM, comcox said:

 

 

Also does Celebrity still have libraries on all ships (I know some cruise lines are doing away with them, HAL included)?

On Edge they had a cart near Eden for book exchange.  I always loved having a real book to hold but now I am resigned to my Kindle or iPad mini for books to read.  It is just so much more practical than lugging a bunch of books around and I know I'll have something to read that I'll like for sure.   I do miss the libraries though.

[alwaysonaship]

I recommend you look at Crystal or Seabourn as they have libraries and guest lectures. Not much more than Celebrity, and you get a lot more for your money. All inclusive.

[MITZZI2]

My husband and I have done 4 transatlantics between October 2017 and April 2019. The first three (two on Reflection and one on Silhouette) had three Beyond the Podium Speakers and we enjoyed them all (some more than others). On our most recent Reflection this April there were only two. One was a repeat from October 2018 and the other one we weren't that interested in the topic (although we went to a few of her talks and she was a good speaker). So disappointed that our mornings which were usually busy with talks left lots of time to try to find something to do. We are taking a break from Celebrity, especially the Reflection (6 cruises is enough) until 2021 Australia and New Zealand on the Solstice. Hopefully they will have some new production shows.

[Fogfog]

On 7/16/2019 at 11:22 AM, comcox said:

I've not been on Celebrity in a while and I want to know from recent cruisers whether they have guest lecturers on all their cruises.

 

Right now I'm booked on a Holland America transatlantic cruise for fall and have just learned HAL will not be providing any lectures on that cruise at all, other than shore ex port talks, and this cruise has 7 sea days after the last port!

 

Even though it will cost me some money I am considering shifting over to a Celebrity transatlantic cruise instead but I want to be sure there will be lectures.  There are two possible cruises, one on the Edge and one on the Reflection.

 

Also does Celebrity still have libraries on all ships (I know some cruise lines are doing away with them, HAL included)?

We had only 2 speakers on a recent TA with Celebrity (14 nights)

One was an MD who spoke on how illnesses impacted history etc. 

The second had topics that were a bit new-agey and we skipped them

There was a book swap

No speakers about the destinations/history/geo-pol/cultural. None

[cruisemom42]

On 7/16/2019 at 11:22 AM, comcox said:

Right now I'm booked on a Holland America transatlantic cruise for fall and have just learned HAL will not be providing any lectures on that cruise at all, other than shore ex port talks, and this cruise has 7 sea days after the last port!

 

 

How did you discover that HAL will not have any lecturers? I was under the impression that they still offered lecturers on cruises longer than 14 days and on TAs.  

 

I've not had much luck being on any HAL cruise with lecturers, but this is what I've read consistently on the HAL boards. Did you find a way to confirm (or not)?

[Mr Sea Gull]

On 7/19/2019 at 9:03 AM, sailco said:

We did two Med cruises just recently and there were Beyond the Podium speakers on both. They weren't all that great. One only had about 30, maybe 50 people at each talk and the CD was always trying to drum up business for her including asking people to sit down the front to make it more intimate. Quite embarrassing really.

 

This is basically what it's like on the Silhouette with Matt Monro talks, many passengers are frequent travellers from Southampton so it just becomes monotonous. How many years can they go on rolling out the same speaker from April to October, surely if they are trying to encourage younger cruisers they wouldn't even know who Matt Monro is.