As my cruise draws near, I do have a couple of questions for a first time Celebrity cruiser

[kywildcatfanone]

23 hours ago, DCPIV said:

I encourage folks to double check that when they call to order.  As much as I hope you are correct, I've had an experience that was inconsistent.

 

I assumed that was the case on one of my sailings last year, so I was happy to just hang out on my balcony while waiting on the order.  I went back in well after it was due to show up, but nothing was there.  I called again, and they said that they tried to deliver, but no one came to the door.  They also said they were not allowed to come in even if I gave permission when I ordered.

One more question on this if I may?  Do you have to be in a specific cabin category for this?  I asked on the Princess site as that is who I generally cruise with and had not heard of this, and apparently they do offer it, but only for full suites.

[NutsAboutGolf]

10 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

One more question on this if I may?  Do you have to be in a specific cabin category for this?  I asked on the Princess site as that is who I generally cruise with and had not heard of this, and apparently they do offer it, but only for full suites.

 

With X, any cabin types including inside you can order room service or MDR dinner for free except between 11pm-6am (or something like that).  It's a nice perk but many prefer to be waited on and it's also tricky as there are only small tables.  Food will be be delivered on a tray, two plates w/metal covers fit side by side on the tray so each item will be stacked each item like starter(s), soup(s), salad, entree(s) and dessert(s) will be stacked.  We have eaten like this once in 2019 but prefer going out to eat, I have ate at the MDR and later called room service around 9pm to have another lobster tail delivered.

 

Easiest way to eat assuming it's only two who want to sit near eachother (one could eat outside if there's a balcony and one inside but you're not together) is to put the tray with one plate for you and one for your significant other on table and enjoy, when done, grab another plate and put the dirty one aside.

[ambrtonj]

On 9/18/2022 at 5:28 PM, kywildcatfanone said:

What I mean is we booked something called Elevate, and it is supposed to contain the classic alcohol package, the wifi and tips. 

 

I believe that Elevate has the Premium Alcohol package with Tips and Surf WIFI. At least that is what it was when I signed up for it.

[LB_NJ]

On 9/17/2022 at 5:21 PM, kywildcatfanone said:

Services meaning what?  I assume they will serve breakfast in the buffet that morning, and as long as I can get more coffee, I probably wouldn't be looking for anything else that morning.

Things like this are subjective however, I personally thought the regular coffee on Celebrity was absolutely horrid, and although I like a good cup of coffee, I will usually tolerate almost anything.  The espresso-based coffees were fine.

 

On 9/17/2022 at 5:44 PM, kywildcatfanone said:

I am looking forward to trying the food on Celebrity.  I've always found Princess food to be okay, and plentiful, but not anything special.  I do like the pizza though. 

It has been a few years since I travelled on Princess (Jan 2018) however based on that and a trip this past June on Celebrity I think the MDR food was comparable.  Food of course is very subjective.

[kywildcatfanone]

8 hours ago, LB_NJ said:

Things like this are subjective however, I personally thought the regular coffee on Celebrity was absolutely horrid, and although I like a good cup of coffee, I will usually tolerate almost anything.  The espresso-based coffees were fine.

Yeah, the buffet style coffee wasn't very good on Princess, but we could get the specialty coffees and they were okay.  The coffee station also had brewed coffee, and I assume the Cafe on Celebrity does as well.

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Yeah, the buffet style coffee wasn't very good on Princess, but we could get the specialty coffees and they were okay.

Princess  doesn't make fresh brewed/drip coffee but instead uses a coffee concentrate syrup that is combined with water to make regular coffee. They are very proud of this system but people are very divided about the quality and taste of it.

[LB_NJ]

4 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Yeah, the buffet style coffee wasn't very good on Princess, but we could get the specialty coffees and they were okay.  The coffee station also had brewed coffee, and I assume the Cafe on Celebrity does as well.

If I remember correctly the Cafe doesn't have brewed coffee.  The closest is Cafe Americano, which was good.

[kywildcatfanone]

36 minutes ago, LB_NJ said:

If I remember correctly the Cafe doesn't have brewed coffee.  The closest is Cafe Americano, which was good.

Hmm, oh well.  Do they have a similar drink to a white chocolate mocha?  That is what I drink at the local coffee shop.

[kywildcatfanone]

2 hours ago, kwokpot said:

Princess  doesn't make fresh brewed/drip coffee but instead uses a coffee concentrate syrup that is combined with water to make regular coffee. They are very proud of this system but people are very divided about the quality and taste of it.

Sorry, I meant the brewed coffee at the IC, not the buffet. 

[kwokpot]

1 hour ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Hmm, oh well.  Do they have a similar drink to a white chocolate mocha?  That is what I drink at the local coffee shop.

There's a regular chocolate mocha coffee that's tasty, I don't remember if there's a white chocolate version. 

[bama4cruisin]

2 hours ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Hmm, oh well.  Do they have a similar drink to a white chocolate mocha?  That is what I drink at the local coffee shop.

Yes, they have a White Chocolate Mocha on the Cafe al Bacio menu.

[AstoriaPreppy]

23 hours ago, kwokpot said:

Princess  doesn't make fresh brewed/drip coffee but instead uses a coffee concentrate syrup that is combined with water to make regular coffee. They are very proud of this system but people are very divided about the quality and taste of it.

 

You’ll hear lots of people say “food is subjective” on Cruise Critic, but the Princess coffee dispensers are almost horrifically bad by any discernible metric. 

 

Luckily, the new Princess ships (Royal class) have abolished the Nescafé-style coffee concentrate syrups in the buffet, in favor of the standard cruise ship buffet style grinder/brewer/dispenser machines. It’s a night and day change… the new coffee is actually consumable without loads of cream/sugar. The new Princess ships also have an espresso bar in the buffet, and the ocean medallion system makes it easy to order an americano/cappuccino/etc wherever you are on the ship. 

 

Re: food on Princess v. Celebrity: we prefer Celebrity MDR food, as it tends to be more creative in preparation/style than the Princess food, which is more basic. Celebrity tends to offer more international flavors and ingredients than Princess, but both are generally well-prepared. One MDR difference is that Princess no longer offers any traditional early/late assigned-time seating. You can select a designated time to dine each each night (and even which MDR), but you won’t automatically get the same table/dining team each evening.

[kwokpot]

29 minutes ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

Luckily, the new Princess ships (Royal class) have abolished the Nescafé-style coffee concentrate syrups in the buffet, in favor of the standard cruise ship buffet style grinder/brewer/dispenser machines. It’s a night and day change… the new coffee is actually consumable without loads of cream/sugar.

I didn't know that but that's great news! 

[LB_NJ]

3 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

One MDR difference is that Princess no longer offers any traditional early/late assigned-time seating. You can select a designated time to dine each each night (and even which MDR), but you won’t automatically get the same table/dining team each evening.

 

FYI, on Celebrity we usually do the Celebrity Select time dining however we tend to dine at the same time each evening and on the last cruise they tried to give us the same wait staff each night.

[kywildcatfanone]

I am really looking forward to ordering from the DR menu to my room.  I assume that includes desserts?

[mandream]

2 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

I am really looking forward to ordering from the DR menu to my room.  I assume that includes desserts?

Yes

[kywildcatfanone]

3 hours ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

Luckily, the new Princess ships (Royal class) have abolished the Nescafé-style coffee concentrate syrups in the buffet, in favor of the standard cruise ship buffet style grinder/brewer/dispenser machines. It’s a night and day change… the new coffee is actually consumable without loads of cream/sugar. The new Princess ships also have an espresso bar in the buffet, and the ocean medallion system makes it easy to order an americano/cappuccino/etc wherever you are on the ship. 

I was so glad on the Royal and newer they added the espresso bar to the buffet area, so you have more than one place to go for specialty coffees.  Not sure what that will look like on the new Sphere class ships, but will assume something like that will continue.

[canderson]

12 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

I am really looking forward to ordering from the DR menu to my room.  I assume that includes desserts?

Only if you finish your supper! 😁

[suekel]

On 9/19/2022 at 3:43 PM, kywildcatfanone said:

We have already decided "no long pants" on this cruise, but I am thankful for the comment about ordering DR food from room service, I had no idea  that was even an option.  I will have to check as well on my next Princess cruise.

 

On that note, is everything available to order, even  things like salads and other "non entree" items on the menu?  I will absolutely try this out, and might order it every night.

On Princess, only full suites can order from the MDR.  You can order from the specialty restaurants but it costs. 

[antsp]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:39 PM, edgee said:

Of course you will get a great breakfast! IMHO every morsel of food that touches your lips will be superior to what you have been served on Princess. Pizza being the only possible exception!

That's hilarious 

[edgee]

Of course you will get a great breakfast! IMHO every morsel of food that touches your lips will be superior to what you have been served on Princess. Pizza being the only possible exception!

That's hilarious.

 

And oh, so true!! 

[kywildcatfanone]

Rather than post another thread since I would be a terrible reviewer, I figured I would just post in my own previous thread.

 

We are back now from the Infinity October 1-8 cruise.  I won't compare to Princess but in one place,  but will comment some based upon my previous experience which is with Princess.

 

The ship:  The Infinity is very nice overall. I would agree with folks that it needs refurb,  but really only found a couple of things that needed immediate addressing.  One was the drains around the pool and at the top of the pool stairs area all need to be redone, the rubber or whatever material is it, has shrunk over the years, and they all look to be ill fitting and a trip hazard.  The rubber material on the track was the same, had some cracking and tears in a couple of spots.  You could tell it had been patched many times, which was fine.

Our room was fine, but the wood panels do need to either be replaced or wrapped with something to update the decor.  If they made the showers 3 inches wider, they would be wonderful. 

I was not expecting saltwater pools, didn't like that all that much,  but they had showers to use close by. 

Was told we had about 1500 passengers on this sailing, so 2/3 full.

 

The food:  This one surprised me.  I had read a lot on here about Celebrity being superior to Princess, but it seemed very much the same to me.  In fact, I'm not sure Princess might  be a  bit better, particularly the  buffet area.  Options were limited there, and we saw the same desserts across multiple days.  There was always plenty to eat all the way around,  but I was expecting it to be better than it was.  One thing that bothered me was the Mast Grill hours ending at 5:30pm.  I would often get a burger sometime in the evenings, but could not on Celebrity.  I don't understand that at all.

 

The service:  Our room Steward Douglas was fantastic.  We got to know him, we spoke often when in the hallways and he was really great.  Most of the employees would greet you when you walked by and I really appreciated that.  Service was overall great.

 

I did want to mention one other thing.  There seems to be some confusion from some of the threads I have read around the  Book Now or Book Later options for FCC's.  There is no difference  between the two from what we were told, other than the Book Now allowed you to  book the current promotion, which you can do with Book Later based upon it's expiration date.  Any OBC would be be the same for both.  I was under the impression from some things I read that you got something additional for Book Now, but that doesn't appear to be the case from what I was told.

 

We do plan to do another on Celebrity, and plan to do one of the newer ships, although it doesn't look like even the newer ships have more pool options than the Infinity, but I have to look closer at deck plans.

 

I'm unsure if the Covid issues and/or lack of staffing is why some of the venues had odd or shorter hours or if that is the norm with Celebrity.

Edited October 8, 2022 by kywildcatfanone

[dlh015]

11 minutes ago, kywildcatfanone said:

Was told we had about 15000 passengers on this sailing, so 2/3 full.

Wow...now that's a big ship...

 

OK, just kidding...lol....thanks for your review!

[kywildcatfanone]

One more I forgot.

 

The Internet.  It was embarrassing.  I realize they are making bank with the costs they charge you to "upgrade" to the stream internet, but the basic should at least work for loading images from web pages.

You could probably some small amount better internet to make it fully usable for those who don't want to pay for the stream, but I have also read that the stream doesn't work well.  That should not be the case in 2022, and Celebrity certainly could do better by it's customers.

[kywildcatfanone]

1 minute ago, dlh015 said:

Wow...now that's a big ship...

Oops, was supposed to be 1500.  my bad, lol.