Switch to Celebrity

[NutsAboutGolf]

39 minutes ago, Crazy planning mom said:

They are trying and succeeding in getting younger people with Edge class.

 

Was only on E-Class, the Edge, once in the summer of 2021, I'd say on that sailing the age average was only like an average of 5 years younger

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

1 hour ago, Crazy planning mom said:

We sailed on NCL in October.  We enjoyed it very much.  We dont stick to 1 line and like to try different things.

 

I really like them too - but all that they can do is send me mailers (every week!) that are no different than what you see on their website... drinks... internet... flights. Just yesterday, in fact, I opened my mailbox and had three mailers. One from Royal (free balcony), one from Celebrity (free balcony), and one from NCL (no cabin discounts).

 

I called CAS (NCL) and asked about getting a discounted or free cabin - and they said it's been too long since I played, and they need recent play stats. Well, I guess they lack the smarts/ability to look back at history, and see what "might" happen if they coax me back onboard. I suppose that they must be doing OK filling ships... so why are they wasting their advertising budget printing and mailing me junk? !!

 

Tom

[sgttami]

I was only on one Celebrity cruise in 1996 that was a NJ PBA Charter cruise with 1000 partying cops!  We went to St.Maarten only for 4 out of 7 days.  It was before the dock was there so we had to tender to shore every day.  

 

I went as our PBA rep and had a great time. (Celebrity Century)

 

Formal nights were truly formal with gowns and tuxes and the food was wonderful.

 

It was also the only cruise I was ever on where the ship ran out of beer on the way home but we survived (LOL)

 

I'd definitely do Celebrity again!

[SRQbeachgirl]

5 hours ago, ChuckF said:

Celebrity is the line you take if you want to go on a cruise and be left alone.

 

Sounds like bliss. I can't wait!

 

3 hours ago, BlerkOne said:

Most Princess cruisers don't want to sail on Carnival?

 

But there might be more than a few Carnival cruisers who want to sail on Princess. 🙋‍♀️

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, SRQbeachgirl said:

 

Sounds like bliss. I can't wait!

 

 

But there might be more than a few Carnival cruisers who want to sail on Princess. 🙋‍♀️

No doubt. The old time Princess cruisers are still reeling from when Carnival bought Princess and things started going downhill. The problem is Carnival cruisers outnumber Princess cruisers by a large number and would swamp the Princess ships and bankrupt the Princess loyalty program.

 

But those who want to sail on Princess shouldn't need additional incentive. The Princess loyalty program still counts either sea days OR cruises. 16 short cruises on Princess (or less if you cruise solo or in suites), and you are at the highest loyalty level on Princess. 8 four day solo Princess cruises and you can mingle with the finest.

[BlerkOne]

1 hour ago, sgttami said:

 

Formal nights were truly formal with gowns and tuxes and the food was wonderful.

 

 

You're in for a shock if you think that still happens.

[sgttami]

53 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

You're in for a shock if you think that still happens.

Oh I know!  The old days of cruising are long gone!    That's OK too!

 

A fun time and safe trips are priority, no matter what line.

 

I've had a good time on cruises doing absolutely nothing.

[Duanerice1]

We are Elite on Celebrity and used to sail them exclusively.  They just got too expensive…. So, after cruising restarted we got some fantastic deals on Carnival. Had a great time, 5 cruises now. Have another in January then back to Celebrity in April for an ABC cruise.  
 

Carnival is fun for the most part.  We like the option of a couple of comedy shows every night.  Not available on Celebrity.  
 

I like the free room service on Celebrity and that you can get a hot breakfast.  We use room service daily. Not buffet fans.  
 

Like the casual food options on Carnival but dinners on Celebrity are so much nicer.  
 

Overall they both are nice in their own way and we’ll continue to cruise both based on prices. 

[SERK]

I've only sailed Carnival but I have noticed a big difference in just the type of cruise. The 5-8 day cruises vs the 14 day Journey's Cruise.  The shorter ones tend to have younger groups, blue cards and a little more rowdy.  The Journey's Cruises have had older vacationers and a lot more platinum and diamond cruisers.

[icft]

23 minutes ago, SERK said:

I've only sailed Carnival but I have noticed a big difference in just the type of cruise. The 5-8 day cruises vs the 14 day Journey's Cruise.  The shorter ones tend to have younger groups, blue cards and a little more rowdy.  The Journey's Cruises have had older vacationers and a lot more platinum and diamond cruisers.

I totally agree. It used to be that the 3 - 5 day cruises were the ones to avoid but the 7 day were great. Now to get the level of housebroken passengers you used to get on 7 day cruises you have to go to 14 day cruises.

[Nunagoras]

May I come in? For the ones that don't know me I'm more prevalent on the MSC boards, once that is my cruise line now, with a presence on the RCI boards occasionally once I have gone once with them.

 

There seems to be a trend here on CC across all boards that will be good to follow largely on the society: People want to upgrade their cruise experience on a cruise less but cruise better sort of experience. Similarly all cruise lines wish to have newer generation cruisers, while on the other hand handling short of badly staffed ships...

 

TBHH: It won't be so difficult for the baseline mainstream companies like CCL, RCI, NCL, MSC to bring along a whole set of new sailors, especially on the exploding short weekend getaway cruise market... But now how will the upmarket lines to react? Princess and X are somewhat going on the same way the baseline mainstream ones are heading, just on more refined way. Upper market ships are also smaller than the baseline mainstream ones too. I'm curious to see where this will lead us eventually. On one thing I'm almost certain: Apart the brand new occasional cruisers out there nobody seems happy with the direction the cruise industry is heading, or at least not here on CC, even though CC only represent a tiny fraction of the cruise industry clients...

 

Personally count me as one more on the "cruise less + upgrade cruise experience" crowd.

[LMaxwell]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:38 PM, pzsdd6 said:

As a longtime Carnival customer, Diamond with 50+ cruises, I’m personally disgusted with the current state of affairs on Carnival ships. Just take a look at all the comments from Carnival customers that really want to cruise with them, but can no longer stomach the crap shoveled out that’s supposed to be food. The horrible customer service, bathrooms that smell like a toilet……it’s like going to a concert and pissing in a trough. 
So, with that said, my DW and I have been moving over to Celebrity. Yes, it will cost you more! But you will get so much more for your money. It’s like cruising used to be…….quality, class, and caring. I recently saw a comment that sums it up best “death by a thousand cuts” all brought on by Carnival because they have no clue what people who cruise today are looking for. I realize that some people will disagree and that’s OK, but for the rest that really want to enjoy cruising again like it was, take a look at Celebrity………amazing!

 

45+ cruises across various lines and Celebrity this year was the best of the best.  You have NO idea what you are missing. Try it; you''ll never look back 

[cyntil8ing]

This is insignificant, but an example of the differences between Carnival and Celebrity.
 

At the buffet, I have a hard boiled egg for breakfast each day. On Carnival, they’re loose in a pan and it’s nearly impossible to grab with the metal tongs. Nearly all the eggs are cracked from people trying to pick one up. Once you get one, it rolls around the plate, threatening to fall off. 
 

This morning on Celebrity Millennium, the eggs were on a bed of rice to prevent them from rolling around. There were plastic tongs so as not to crack them when picking them up. There were egg cups to hold them in place on the plate.

 

Not at all important in the grand scheme of things, just one of the small touches that often go unnoticed. 😀

 

 

[LMaxwell]

If you happen to port next to a Carnival ship, or at a tender port; notice the difference.  Celebrity will have tents up for shade, stations with multiple flavors of ice water (3 or 4 types), someone going around handing chilled, damp face towels. We never waited longer than 5 mins for a tender and watched the lines for Carnival and RCI snake around out in the sun; I was back onboard the ship and could see the same crowd at the Carnival and RCI tenders for another 30+ mins.  One small example of the numerous small touches that may be hard to place a value on or describe how nice they are, but once you experience them, the "old way" seems like a pain in the neck.  

 

Did I pay more for Celebrity? Yes. It took about 30 seconds onboard the ship to see where all the money went. Several of the new/big Carnival ships cost as much as Celebrity; I wouldn't take Carnival at 2/3 the price let alone at parity there's no way. 

[Oceansaway17]

2 hours ago, cyntil8ing said:

This is insignificant, but an example of the differences between Carnival and Celebrity.
 

At the buffet, I have a hard boiled egg for breakfast each day. On Carnival, they’re loose in a pan and it’s nearly impossible to grab with the metal tongs. Nearly all the eggs are cracked from people trying to pick one up. Once you get one, it rolls around the plate, threatening to fall off. 
 

This morning on Celebrity Millennium, the eggs were on a bed of rice to prevent them from rolling around. There were plastic tongs so as not to crack them when picking them up. There were egg cups to hold them in place on the plate.

 

Not at all important in the grand scheme of things, just one of the small touches that often go unnoticed. 😀

 

 

it is the details that make a difference between a good ship and a great ship.

and yes sometimes the way things are displayed in the buffet have me shaking my head.

[BlerkOne]

What the heck is this thing suspended in the middle of the atrium? (a rhetorical question). Not sure I would want to stand under it.

 

 

[pzsdd6]

Hello all, OP here. 
Live update from the Mardi Gras! First let me put this in perspective. This is a 7 day cruise over Christmas week, so every issue be it good or bad is multiplied exponentially. Currently sitting in San Juan, 3 days in and this cruise has verified everything I originally posted and more.

First let me say that the ship is beautiful, everything is sparkly and new. That’s it for the good. Started out with our luggage. Dropped off with the baggage handlers at 10:30, as a diamond, one of the very few perks left is supposed to be expedited priority luggage handling. They couldn’t locate our bags until after 5pm. I tried several times to work with them to locate the bags, gave them detailed descriptions…etc. Brand new luggage and they destroyed my hard case bag, cracked the case all the way thru. It would take me hours to tell what I had to go thru with no resolution. Their resolution was for me to go shopping in San Juan on my vacation time, buy a bag, lug it back to the ship for reimbursement (typical of Carnival, they cause problems and pass it along to you to deal with). The food is almost inedible, I say almost because there is still ice cream! Carnival has built a ship that cannot support the number of people on board. The Palm restaurant, check in….wait 1 1/2 hours to get seated, entree showed up an hour later, food was cold ( the gravy had re-solidified) real appealing! All told, 3 1/2 hours to have dinner.

(continued-on part 2)

[RenoNanaOz]

On 12/19/2022 at 2:38 PM, pzsdd6 said:

As a longtime Carnival customer, Diamond with 50+ cruises, I’m personally disgusted with the current state of affairs on Carnival ships. Just take a look at all the comments from Carnival customers that really want to cruise with them, but can no longer stomach the crap shoveled out that’s supposed to be food. The horrible customer service, bathrooms that smell like a toilet……it’s like going to a concert and pissing in a trough. 
So, with that said, my DW and I have been moving over to Celebrity. Yes, it will cost you more! But you will get so much more for your money. It’s like cruising used to be…….quality, class, and caring. I recently saw a comment that sums it up best “death by a thousand cuts” all brought on by Carnival because they have no clue what people who cruise today are looking for. I realize that some people will disagree and that’s OK, but for the rest that really want to enjoy cruising again like it was, take a look at Celebrity………amazing!

 

You will find very similar complaints on The Celebrity Board.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

3 minutes ago, pzsdd6 said:

Hello all, OP here. 
Live update from the Mardi Gras! First let me put this in perspective. This is a 7 day cruise over Christmas week, so every issue be it good or bad is multiplied exponentially....

 

After the Christmas cruise we just got off of (4-nt Liberty), we've pretty much decided not to cruise over Christmas again. We've done it twice now. We have one more Thanksgiving sailing booked, but that's probably it for turkey week too...

 

Tom

[pzsdd6]

Part 2:

Carnival cannot feed all the passengers in the restaurants. That’s why currently Cucina and Chibang which are supposed to be pay to eat venues, are free. They have to get passengers to eat there or the restaurant would back up indefinitely. Tried to eat the shawarma, got a pita filled with burnt pieces that looked like over cooked hamburger. Street eats, another free food venue, except it hardly ever open and when it is it’s staffed by 1 person, who has to cook, prep, plate and serve. Average time per customer was almost 5 minutes to be served ( because they have to keep stopping to cook and prep. So you imagine the lines……

10pm: tried to get pizza, over 100 people in line, 6 ovens all empty while 2 guys try to pre make enough pizzas to fill the ovens, again 2 people!

Guest services: over 200 people in line, wrapped around the entire deck area, diamond line was over 50 people waiting. 4 guest service employees.

Carnival Mardi Gras magnifies all of their issues exponentially! 
Talk about herds, OMG…..you can’t walk anywhere, it’s a fight to get thru the inconsiderate herds and their kids (1400)….

3 days in and it’s horrible. We are so disgusted that we even tried to get a flight out of San Juan just to get off the ship, unfortunately we could not get a flight ( Christmas holiday)!
part 3 next port…maybe

[pzsdd6]

P.S. forgot to add this:

While trying to find something edible at the market place buffet, I was in line behind a gentleman and his wife. I over heard him tell his wife that at the prison where he works the inmates get better food! That alone should sum it up for everyone! 

[BlerkOne]

I took a picture on our Celebration cruise of many entitled peeps in the guest services priority line while there were only one or two peons in the regular line. Not a lot of Einstein's in the former line.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

15 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

I took a picture on our Celebration cruise of many entitled peeps in the guest services priority line while there were only one or two peons in the regular line. Not a lot of Einstein's in the former line.

 

So, just being in that line earns them the "entitled" label? Agreed, though, I would have navigated to the shorter line, as the red carpet at the entitled line is a little too plush for my blue blood, lol

 

Tom

[KKB]

OK...our 1st Carnival cruise ever a week from Sunday (free casino offer). Carnival Miracle to Hawaii.

Have done over 20 cruises: Princess started our love affair 20 yrs ago, we also sailed DCL (1) & RCCL for 10 yrs. Then found Celebrity & felt the kick up in service & food. Have tried NCL the last few years as well due to poker cruises.

 

Our take: Celebrity is best for food & service (STILL IS since start up): Princess is close.

NCL & RCCL have the best shows & specialty dining.

We are like to be BUSY all day long...so people who say Celebrity & Princess are "sleepy" are full of crap.

We started on Princess in our 30s & Celebrity in our 40s. We are doing activities (trivia, game shows, shows, corn hole, pool volleyball, golf, dancing, casino etc) from (late) morning until late. 

We are often dancing until after midnight or later. (pushed 2AM on Celebrity last month!!!)

(Uh, Princess to AK was NOT like that...things quiet down early on AK cruise)

 

Celebrity & Princess cruises food have been just has terrific post-shutdown as before, imo. 

NCL--other than MDR & specialty dining, the buffet/casual dining declined.

Service is an issue--and I feel certain this is due to labor supply issues we are encountering in nearly every industry. The staff is still accommodating & pleasant, but there are some difficulties.

 

PRICING--I contend that there is a PERCEPTION that Carnival is cheaper than other lines.

I have NOT found this so, more often than not.

At bare bones pricing, you MAY find Carnival a LITTLE cheaper BUT NOT ALWAYS.

And if you are interested in All-inclusive pricing (drinks, tips & wifi typically), Carnival CANNOT compete.

Once Celebrity & Princess went to AI pricing (at a MUCH better price than buying things separately--we were getting drinks, tips & wifi for only $50pp/day on Princess this year), it is difficult for us to book on other lines. 

$50pp/day for drinks? Coffee, soda, pre-dinner cocktail, couple glasses of wine with dinner, nightcap--BOOM, CHEERS is worth it. I was NOT sure...until I used the "drink package calculator"

 

Am am all about a good VALUE. I compare similar dates/itinerary/ship (size & age) on all lines when looking. We had $600 credit from Carnival for a COVID cancellation...I honestly thought we were going to eat it as even using it, I could not get as good a deal as I could on Celebrity, Princess or NCL.

Only a FREE cruise made it worth it. 

(once we pay for CHEERs, 1 SHARED device plan & tips, we are only saving about $1200 over booking this 14 day cruise with Princess at the same time...Carnival wanted $800 more for the bare bones rate than Princess had we booked ourselves)

 

DO NOT GET ME WRONG.

We find all these cruise lines more alike than different. 

Various ships have things we LOVE & wish all ships did...and things we are not fans of.

We will sail them all again. (eh, maybe not DCL...they ARE a BIG tick up in price from others)

 

I'm just saying that from my extensive research ( librarian here...travel--mostly cruising--is my part time retirement job...), Carnival is not always the cheapest. If you do not need the paid for drinks (coffee, soda, alcohol, etc), then it MIGHT be. 

I'm just saying it's good to have options...

 

 

[BlerkOne]

3 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

So, just being in that line earns them the "entitled" label? Agreed, though, I would have navigated to the shorter line, as the red carpet at the entitled line is a little too plush for my blue blood, lol

 

Tom

They earn the entitled label for being entitled to stand in that line. I find that line can often move slower because of entitled people asking a question (or complaint) with 42 parts.