What does Celebrity do for special occasions?

[cnschultzy]

My fiance and I are getting married the day before we embark Edge in February, 2020.

 

I mentioned the special occasion when booking and asked if X does anything special for these types of occasions. The X agent alluded to a bottle of wine but basically told me not to expect anything. That's totally fine with me - the cruise is enough of a celebration for us and I understand that many others are marking special occasions on these trips. 

 

However, I did notice that my invoice has a note next to Special Services that says "HONEYMOON." Not sure if that's how celebrations are noted but it will be interesting to see if they do anything special! 

[helen haywood]

Are you booked in Concierge or Aqua Class?  Those come with a bottle of wine.

[cnschultzy]

33 minutes ago, helen haywood said:

Are you booked in Concierge or Aqua Class?  Those come with a bottle of wine.

 

Good question. At the time I booked a regular IV so no bottle of wine would have been included when I was speaking with the agent.

 

Prices have some down so I recently upgraded to AQ so I suppose there will be wine in the room regardless. 🙂 

[phoenix_dream]

21 hours ago, helen haywood said:

I think the moral to this story is if you want something special done for your birthday/anniversary...you should do it yourself.  That way you can’t be disappointed.

I think this is exactly correct.  We have sailed over our anniversary many times, noted in our booking, and sometimes we get nothing and sometimes we get a little cake at dinner.  We have never, ever gotten rose petals or champagne or notes or anything like that - and we have sailed X over 50 times, many on special occasions.  I am glad for those who do get such nice treatment, but as you said it cannot be counted on - we are certainly proof of that.  I suspect if you are in a suite you have a better chance of being pampered, but I don't think that's always the case either.  I wish Celebrity would be consistent with these things - either do this stuff for everyone who notates it, or don't do it for anyone.  Expectations versus reality mean a lot.

[happy cruzer]

If a cruise line did something that cost anything, then everyone would be having a special occasion.  Same with restaurants or other businesses on land.  Also sometimes a company may do something like door decorations and get criticized for being lame or cheap.  Don't think that they can win trying to do something "special" across the board.  Maybe a staff member once they meet you and have an idea of what you like or enjoy could but one answer across all levels of cruisers would be difficult.  What do you want to see (probably different for someone else)?

[Vagabond Knight]

I think if something gets done, that's nice, but I don't expect it unless I've specifically ordered/paid for something.  Just about everyone on a cruise is celebrating "something," and the cruise itself is a pretty darn good celebration.   And there are those who would say they're celebrating something just to get some kind of freebie.  We're ALL celebrating a birthday that year, right?  😉  Just go ahead and order an extra dessert... or two.  

 

We were on an Alaskan cruise for our honeymoon eight and a half years ago on a different cruise line and went to their steakhouse for a special dinner.  We weren't asking for or expecting anything special, just hoping to have a little personal celebration dinner.  We saw some cute little tables for two by the window and asked for one of them.  "Sorry, we save those for our honeymoon couples."  "Cool.  We''re on our honeymoon!"  You could tell by the look on the person's face that they didn't believe us even though it was true (yes, older people get married/re-married), but they somewhat reluctantly sat us there anyhow.  

[SuzeCruz1]

We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on Summit in September.  Duly noted on our reservations.  Acknowledgement by Celebrity - zip, nil, nada.  But we had a wonderful cruise.

[zitsky]

On 11/1/2019 at 9:15 PM, marshabear said:

We just returned from a TA cruise on the Infinity..celebrating our 30th anniversary, which was noted on our reservation....received NOTHING! Also,  our TA had paid for something to be delivered to our room but we did not receive that either!

Now, this did not bother us really, but felt bad when the TA mentioned she had ordered something and asked if we got it and enjoyed it....

The trip was still the best one yet!  LOVE Celebrity!

 

 

Marsha

 

Marsha, so it was a surprise and you didn't know until the end of the cruise?

[IslandDelight]

I celebrated my 60th birthday on the Equinox last year. I told the head waiter my birth date. The waiters sang Happy Birthday and I was given a small chocolate cake. It wasn't very good. It was dry and lacked flavor. My travel agent, on the other hand, had champagne and strawberries delivered to my stateroom. You have to create your own memories for your special occasion and not be disappointed if the cruiseline does not meet your expectations.

[critterchick]

On 11/1/2019 at 6:15 PM, marshabear said:

We just returned from a TA cruise on the Infinity..celebrating our 30th anniversary, which was noted on our reservation....received NOTHING! Also,  our TA had paid for something to be delivered to our room but we did not receive that either!

Now, this did not bother us really, but felt bad when the TA mentioned she had ordered something and asked if we got it and enjoyed it....

The trip was still the best one yet!  LOVE Celebrity!

 

 

Marsha

 

We were on the same cruise celebrating our 25th. Our stateroom attendant or butler put up a sign and some balloons, which I thought was really nice. Nothing in Luminae at dinner, but they were so rushed and crazy that I would have felt badly for them if they had.

 

I thought about ordering flowers ahead of time, but our last bouquet was so dreadful that we have given up on that on the RCL lines.

[zitsky]

Uh oh.  I just ordered some flowers the other day.  Maybe I should cancel?

[waterbug123]

On 10/31/2019 at 4:22 PM, stah1mr said:

 They didn't do anything for you for free?

 

On 10/31/2019 at 4:37 PM, phoenix_dream said:

 my husband advised Celebrity ahead of time that we were celebrating an anniversary, and when.  On the date, our waiter showed up at our table with a little chocolate cake and they gathered around to sing "Happy Birthday" to me!  Needless to say, DH was not pleased. 

 

What exactly did you all think they should do, for free?  I get it that sometimes people get a bottle of champs or a sign on their room or some chocolate covered strawberries or whatever, but my guess is that it is up to the individual hotel director, whether they have the inventory on board, and how busy they are or are not with other people's celebrations. 

 

I've said this before but I'll say it again- everyone who ever celebrates a birthday or anniversary on a cruise ship wants to feel special, and when it is YOUR birthday/anniversary, it's natural to feel like you are the only one celebrating anything and to expect the ship staff to treat you as such.  But do the numbers....on a 7 day cruise on a ship with 3000 people, the odds are that 50-60 people will celebrate a birthday that week.  Then add in all the people whose birthday isn't actually during the cruise itself because they couldn't cruise over their actual birthday but are celebrating it on the cruise.  Then consider all the anniversaries occurring during the cruise, or like with birthdays, occur at some other time but are being celebrated on the cruise.  You could easily have 100+ celebrations every single week.  What should the ship reasonably do, for free, for all of these people beyond a celebratory dessert?  Even 100 bottles of cheap champagne will add up when you multiply that by 52 weeks/year and again by the number of ships in the fleet...suddenly you're talking about over 50,000 bottles of champagne, 50,000 sets of room decorations, 50,000 whatevers. 

[zitsky]

15 minutes ago, waterbug123 said:

 

 

What exactly did you all think they should do, for free?  I get it that sometimes people get a bottle of champs or a sign on their room or some chocolate covered strawberries or whatever, but my guess is that it is up to the individual hotel director, whether they have the inventory on board, and how busy they are or are not with other people's celebrations. 

 

I've said this before but I'll say it again- everyone who ever celebrates a birthday or anniversary on a cruise ship wants to feel special, and when it is YOUR birthday/anniversary, it's natural to feel like you are the only one celebrating anything and to expect the ship staff to treat you as such.  But do the numbers....on a 7 day cruise on a ship with 3000 people, the odds are that 50-60 people will celebrate a birthday that week.  Then add in all the people whose birthday isn't actually during the cruise itself because they couldn't cruise over their actual birthday but are celebrating it on the cruise.  Then consider all the anniversaries occurring during the cruise, or like with birthdays, occur at some other time but are being celebrated on the cruise.  You could easily have 100+ celebrations every single week.  What should the ship reasonably do, for free, for all of these people beyond a celebratory dessert?  Even 100 bottles of cheap champagne will add up when you multiply that by 52 weeks/year and again by the number of ships in the fleet...suddenly you're talking about over 50,000 bottles of champagne, 50,000 sets of room decorations, 50,000 whatevers. 

 

You're a real Debbie Downer.  Do you know that?

 

LOL.

[critterchick]

18 hours ago, zitsky said:

Uh oh.  I just ordered some flowers the other day.  Maybe I should cancel?

 

Keep the order, but bring a screenshot of the arrangement on the website. Even if the photos are “representative” of the bouquet, I always took that to mean that some of the blooms may not be available, so they would substitute something else. What we got had all of the flowers, but only about 1/3 of the quantity. I did complain to Guest Services, and they sent somebody to look at it, then promptly refunded my money in the form of OBC. Presumably refundable, but we spent it. 🙂

I wish you better luck than we had!

[waterbug123]

23 hours ago, zitsky said:

 

You're a real Debbie Downer.  Do you know that?

 

LOL.

 

LOL, sorry, just putting things into perspective.  😉

[miched]

On one cruise when talking to the CC host during the Elite breakfast he asked if we were celebrating anything and we said no as we were just enjoying a cruise and enjoying life.     He then  told us that we were in the minority because were one of the  few that weren’t celebrating anything.  I don’t know if that had anything to do with a few little extras that we never experienced before. 

 

It was the first and only time we were invited to dine at the Captains Table., a Bridge tour and invite for a sail away on the heli pad

 

Don’t know if nothing to celebrate had anything to do with it.  

 

happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅
 

 

[micheleata]

For my birthday on the Equinox last month they brought out a piece of chocolate cake with ganache.   So delicious!

And they sang.

[kayehall]

Just a cute story...  Was on RCCL Explorer at a specialty restaurant.  At the end of meal, we were given a beautiful dessert platter that said Happy 25th Anniversary!!  We got a chuckle because we were on our honeymoon!!!  God I hope we didn't look that old!!!

[hcat]

If you note the Celebration on your res you may get something else, but the standard is  not much more than the very choc cake in the dining rm..always confirm with the  maitre d a day ahead.

 

We order our flowers anyhow.  You can order a Celeb package online  for extra fee,...rose petals , candy, Champagne,   etc.  Zenith, & Elite  sometimes  get something from Cap Club with a card..... and guests  in suites, AQ and CC  have a  better chance of an extra rose, candy etc.  Some cabin attendants add an animal sculpure and  wine....

 

They used to have an anniv party but have not seen that recently,  unless a roll call group or others arranged it.

 

I think the door signs  are new and a very nice touch!

[Iamcruzin]

On 10/30/2019 at 5:26 PM, stah1mr said:

A piece of cake on a ship with free food seems a waste and a glass of bubbly with a drink package purchased also little value.  🙂  Not a big deal.  I really don't care but was just curious.  They just asked us when we booked.

We sail the same time every cruise so it’s either our Anniversary or DW’s birthday and I imagine that a good majority of passengers are celebrating some occasion on any given cruise.  I’m not sure what you are expecting them to do. On Princess they did put up a door decoration and gave us a card to submit to the waiter for a small cake which was delicious. Other than a cake and singing what else would you expect?  We don’t even mention it anymore. Just celebrated DW’s 50th on Royal Caribbean. DW isn’t one for public acknowledgement so I didn’t say anything. One of the bar tenders picked up that it was her birthday when he scanned her card for a drink and wished her a happy birthday. All of these cruise lines sell a celebration package which is extremely over priced but that’s the way they are going. The ships are too large for them to elaborate on every passenger’s special occasion.

[zitsky]

But it didn't cost anything for that bartender to say "happy birthday".  Maybe they can't give a cake or flowers to everyone, but they can acknowledge it.

[gold1953]

We sail Celebrity and were told that due to the large #'s of people celebrating something that it must be while on the cruise to get acknowledged. We personally don't need strangers to be aware of our special days

[zitsky]

That's reasonable.  I don't see anyone on this thread asking for an event that is not during the cruise.

[hcat]

On 11/6/2019 at 5:54 PM, zitsky said:

Uh oh.  I just ordered some flowers the other day.  Maybe I should cancel?

I woudn't cancel.

Flowers we ordered for our cruise  on EDGE...(large one  and  the smaller arrangement)  were very lovely fresh and long lasting   ordered again for return to EDGE next week.

 

We  usually order flowers ...if the  flowers are not up to standard you can  send them back for replacement . Only had to do this once in many yrs of cruising with flowers

Edited November 10, 2019 by hcat

[hcat]

13 minutes ago, zitsky said:

That's reasonable.  I don't see anyone on this thread asking for an event that is not during the cruise.

Lots of people Celebrate within proximity of the actual  b day or anniv date.    Hard  to always match it up , but we cruise for our b days  and anniv..close as we can get to the  actual dates! Still fun to Celebrate!

 

The choc cake is very sweet but we enjoy sharing with neaby tables esp in BLU! You can tell them ahead not to sing if it is embarrassing!