On the Edge Now…Cutbacks. 🙁

[CroozFanatic]

Very refreshing to see an honest post like this.

 

Thank you.

[Gracie115]

33 minutes ago, Tatka said:

Oh... Thank you. We are next...

We were really disappointed by our last cruise on Princess which we considered top line together with X, hopefully X is keeping its standards.

 

Please enjoy your cruise... learning from last year, who knows when the next cruise will happen and if it happens.

 

Our last cruise was also on Princess on the Regal.  I don't think they come close to the level of service that X does.  We enjoyed ourselves, so don't get me wrong, but prefer X by far.  Enjoy your cruise next week!!!!

[bajathree]

We sailed June 26th sailing in a Sky Suite. The only issues we noticed was first night in Luminae where dinner was slow...but nothing out of the ordinary for the first night...and breakfast day 2 where there was a major failure of some sort going on and breakfast took 1.5hrs. Everyone complained about that breakfast including the manager who was trying to figure why orders were taking that long to come out. By lunchtime day 2 they had corrected whatever issue was going on and it was smooth sailing from there (no pun intended). We found service to be wonderful both in and out of the Retreat. I don't eat a lot in Oceanview but didn't find any issue finding something I wanted the couple times I was in there. As for Eden...the show that they had pre-pandemic wasn't my favorite so it wasn't missed. I do think they are still finding their way with Eden....it did seem a bit boring in that space to me this time around but in all fairness we were only sailing at 36% capacity and the martini bar seemed to get the better draw of people.

Edited July 7, 2021 by bajathree

[lux4me]

We are happy to be back at sea. But we do believe in value for dollar.  We also know what good service is, as we have sailed Seabourn, Silversea, Oceania multiple times. our issue is if things are not 100% then don’t charge the full price.  It’s not the consumers job to suck it up while the business gets it’s affairs in order.  Hotels charge less during a “soft opening”.  If I can’t give my customers 100% of a promise that is not fair to them and their investment. 
plus with the billions Celebrity   have lost do you really think many of these things will totally come back.  

Look at the new go green program.  Celebrity is doing this to reduce cost and in lieu giving you something that costs them almost nothing…points.  They will see how many people sign up for it and then cut housekeeping to once a day.   

 

[peanut head]

Can you tell me if the Spa Cafe is serving a lunch menu or is it just juices/smoothies and snacks?

[FunCruiser56]

3 hours ago, DonnaMW said:

We are in aqua. Love the layout especially the bathroom. And lots of storage. Really nothing major to complain about and this is my about 45th celebrity.  Just glad to be back at sea.

Are they not serving breakfast in Blu?  Breakfast here is a big draw for us, have no desire to deal with the buffet area in the morning.  Hope everything gets better for you

[_Rick_]

Some people if they're not complaining, they're not having a good time.

[bikerunner]

I still see provisioning issues for a while for the ships.  The supply chain is so far behind on things right now and no where enough truck drivers to get this taken care of at this point.  I go out in Nov and expect some improvement but overall it will take 1/2 year to get things back to capacity at least I think.  Im not really sure what to expect at all when I go.  

[Seany527]

That’s disappointing to hear and wasn’t what I experienced on the Millennium.
I could potentialally see cut backs regarding options of food in the buffet and maybe even entertainment, but I wouldn’t expect to see the service being compromised. 

[lux4me]

We are not complaining.  We are just stating what we see.  We are deliriously happy  to be back on a ship again and we are very privileged to be able to live the life we do. We have another 21 days of crusing booked this year.   What we are saying is that this is not the same product it was before the shutdown and Celebrity is charging the same prices.  
 

[mnocket]

3 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

It's always funny to read feedback from people who were on the exact same cruise who have such differing experiences

I agree, but I find it sad when they try to invalidate one another's experiences.  I admit I may be overly sensitive to such disagreements.

[_Rick_]

6 minutes ago, lux4me said:

We are not complaining.  

 

LOL, ok.

[cantstopingcruising]

If someone posts their honest experience, I don't think it is another poster's place to criticize.

 

Someone mentioned that it is funny that two posters on the same cruise post opposite opinions.

 

That is because everyone is not at the same place at the same time..or doing or eating the same thing.

 

I remember a woman at a table near me complaining about her filet, because she noticed that I ordered the same  dish . Mine was fine. Hers wasn't. I believed her. There is no reason to doubt.

 

By the way, every time we take a cruise, I notice at least one cutback. This has been going on for years.

Edited July 7, 2021 by cantstopingcruising

[jelayne]

13 minutes ago, lux4me said:

We are not complaining. 

You sure fooled me.

[Tatka]

2 hours ago, Gracie115 said:

 

Our last cruise was also on Princess on the Regal.  I don't think they come close to the level of service that X does.  We enjoyed ourselves, so don't get me wrong, but prefer X by far.  Enjoy your cruise next week!!!!

 

  We sail with 8 lines (well minus Carnival now) and have our pros and cons with each including X. We had not so stellar experience on Silhouette in 2016 followed by amazing time on Royal Princess. Princess usually is very good to great, but last experience on Crown featured somewhat run down ship and various issues... This was our 7th cruise with Princess (we have 6 with X) and it was unfortunately weaker performance than on Explorer of the Seas by RCI... RCI is our most sailed line, but it is rated lower in our books than Princess. 

[phoenix_dream]

I think the OP is getting a little too hard a pushback from some folks, putting them down for "complaining".  This isn't a Celebrity fan page, it is called "critic" for a reason - a place to report opinions and observations both good and bad.  I thought the original post was well-written and had some legitimate concerns.  It did not sound whiny nor complaining just to complain.  Unfortunately all too often on these boards when people post something negative they get accused of being complainers and not being happy with anything, even if that is not true.

 

I think there is a valid point being made that you should get what you paid for.  We all understand the difficulty in getting back to business after such a long shutdown - intellectually at least.  But if you can't deliver the full product, you should not be charging the full price.  That to me is both obvious and logical.  Perhaps they should have been offering some "soft opening" discounts to people on the first few sailings - if not on the basic cruise price then perhaps other ways (OBC, better specialty restaurant discounts, etc..).  Another option - advise passengers ahead of time that certain benefits/services would be missing and allow them to cancel without penalty if they so desired (and I don't mean FCC unless desired - I mean cancelling)

[lux4me]

11 minutes ago, jelayne said:

You sure fooled me.

The definitions per the dictionary 

complain- the expression of dissatisfaction 

 

critique-to give one’s view and worth of something 

 

I can explain it to you….but I can’t understand it for you.    

[PTC DAWG]

If a restaurant was closed, I get that..if they ran out of eggs, I get it…

 

One time, on a Southern Caribbean cruise they ran out of Diet Coke AND Light Beer….oh the humanity…no refunds offered..we survived. 

[deliver42]

People have to remember that with limited passengers, they will have limited crew. What they're doing is like a shake down cruise, and there will be growing pains. For those who expect what was are being unreasonable at this time in my opinion.

[Denny01]

I fully understand that one person sees the same experience as fantastic, and another has issues and they share. No problem seeing there are different  views. someone didn’t have to wait for an omelette and another felt it took too long. Varying expectations and actual experiences. And I appreciate the OP sharing. It’s helpful to all. 
 

with that said, I become a bit suspicious of threads that aren’t just critiques, but reference costs. When a poster starts down the path of ‘it cost too much’, ‘they shouldn’t charge full price’, I wonder if this is a thread to just share a legit issue, or a poster is preparing to complain to the company wanting some compensation and will reference their posts to the company. We’ve all seen that and realize the posts are just there to put heat on the company to get compensation. 
 

this isn’t true of most critical posts, but when the poster talks about it not being worth what they paid, especially more than once, it has that connotation.
 

den 

[CruiseAF]

I think the OPs review is very critical and specific. While I think everyone is entitled to their own opinion I believe that two or three simple miss cues do not ruin a cruise for me and if I go in to every cruise with a negative mental attitude that nothing will go wrong, I will never have a good cruise. 
 

On every cruise I’ve been on, something with either the food or service has gone awry at some point in time, it’s inevitable. 

 

To place blame it specifically on the celebrity edge during their 2nd cruise back is completely pointless. 
 

Of course things are going to be different and celebrity will charge as much as they can to fill their ships to the temporary maximum capacity while providing the best service they can. 
 

It’s been 15 months + since we have all done this  (guests and crew) so I would ask everyone to cut them a little slack here.

 

OP,  can you tell us some positives that occurred on your cruise? Did you have an enjoyable time overall back at sea after all this time? 

[Gracie115]

1 hour ago, lux4me said:

We are not complaining.  We are just stating what we see.  We are deliriously happy  to be back on a ship again and we are very privileged to be able to live the life we do. We have another 21 days of crusing booked this year.   What we are saying is that this is not the same product it was before the shutdown and Celebrity is charging the same prices.  
 

 

Ok I get what you are saying.  But I think it unrealistic to expect things to be up to par on the 2nd sailing in 16 months.  None of what you have objected to is really a "cutback" if you ask me.  Slow service WILL get better, the buffet WILL open to full capacity when they are MUCH closer to full passenger capacity.  The "missing " items at dinner will be fixed.  

 

As far as pricing all the lines are charging more but I would be glorious to be on a ship right now.  Yes, they are more than they were 16 months but pretty much EVERYTHING in the world is too, including hotel prices that you mentioned... I know this I manage one.   

 

I hope you can overlook the minor misses you are noticing and just enjoy the fact that you are on a ship after the pandemic and there are literally 1000's of us that would trade with you in a flash.....

 

Don't sweat the small stuff........

[lux4me]

We are having a great time.  First time away since lockdown.  Eden has some great dishes last night and the drinks at that bar are GREAT!!!    We are dining in le petit chef tonight and looking forward to it. The steaks and fish onboard have been very good.  The pool area is great with the ship at barely 50%.  Capt Kate may be the most entertaining capt at sea.  We were at the silent disco from opening till closing and it was a blast 

 

PS- we are not looking for anything from the cruise  line.  This was our error in expecting the ship experience  to be what it was, with the prices being the same. 

[Denny01]

1 minute ago, lux4me said:

We are having a great time.  First time away since lockdown.  Eden has some great dishes last night and the drinks at that bar are GREAT!!!    We are dining in le petit chef tonight and looking forward to it. The steaks and fish onboard have been very good.  The pool area is great with the ship at barely 50%.  Capt Kate may be the most entertaining capt at sea.  We were at the silent disco from opening till closing and it was a blast 

 

PS- we are not looking for anything from the cruise  line.  This was our error in expecting the ship experience  to be what it was, with the prices being the same. 

Good. And very good to hear you are enjoying the cruise and giving us a heads up that these initial cruises will have issues. 
 

appreciate you being the guinea pig for the rest of us. 
 

den

[bucfan2]

43 minutes ago, lux4me said:

 First time away since lockdown. 

Interesting.  Florida (where you're from, correct?), has been off 'lockdown' for well over a year.  I find it interesting that your first time away, you chose to cruise.  Not good or bad, just interesting.  Perhaps unreasonable expectations from an industry that has been shut-down for the better part of 16 months led to part of your disappointment?

Edited July 7, 2021 by bucfan2