My thoughts on all the "cuts"

[TeeRick]

6 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I am trying to remember but didn't you do an Oceania cruise earlier this year? If you did what are your thoughts on them VS Celebrity?

No we never have cruised Oceania.  But considering it now.

Our last cruise this year was Celebrity Equinox in the Retreat (CS suite).  

We have been doing more land vacations and it has been great for us.

We are waiting to see what the Celebrity Retreat Product actually becomes before we book it again.  That in itself is a huge change for us as we have sailed in The Retreat exclusively a few times a year.  

Now trying Silversea.    Thinking about MSC YC and HAL.  Possibly Viking but dw loves a casino.

[terrydtx]

26 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

No we never have cruised Oceania.  But considering it now.

Our last cruise this year was Celebrity Equinox in the Retreat (CS suite).  

We have been doing more land vacations and it has been great for us.

We are waiting to see what the Celebrity Retreat Product actually becomes before we book it again.  That in itself is a huge change for us as we have sailed in The Retreat exclusively a few times a year.  

Now trying Silversea.    Thinking about MSC YC and HAL.  Possibly Viking but dw loves a casino.

I must be confusing you with another CC friend. We are done with Celebrity after our 2 B2B cruises in January. The Retreat product we bought into in 2019 is not the same now and with ridiculous future costs of suites we would be stupid for not booking on a more premium or luxury line. I am also looking at Regent and Silversea, but we have 2 HAL and 1 Oceania cruise booked in the next two years. We booked the 2025 Oceania South America cruise after Celebrity pulled out of SA and we saved money and got 18 nights on O VS 14 nights on X. Actually Celebrity did us a favor by pulling out of SA. We had booked the Oceania cruise and the Celebrity Equinox SA cruise to get the cabins we wanted with the intention of deciding which one to keep in 2024. We would have lost part of our Celebrity deposit and the rest would have been a FCC. Now we got it all back to our CC after they were canceled. Oceania has a 100% deposit refund up to 6 months from the cruise date.

Edited August 30, 2023 by terrydtx

[MamaFej]

7 hours ago, wineoclock said:

 First world problem? Possibly.
 

Edit: we always tip extra and saw that as a bonus & tipped a bit more accordingly and didn’t really stress about it. We will now have to factor in an additional amount and probably will stress that we are tipping an appropriate amount. 

We are on an Internet forum catering to people who can afford to cruise and have the time to read and post about it. Any concern conveyed here is a First World Problem. 
 

We here are First World residents. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your concerns are entirely valid. 
 

We are also people who care about the wonderful, hard-working folks from developing nations who do so much to make our First World traveling experiences fantastically memorable. 
 

When the First World executives in Miami make decisions that deteriorate the onboard experience, especially those that have to do with tipping, it doesn’t just serve to move folks higher up in the Captains Club along to upmarket or other lines, it likely serves to reduce the amount of tip money the amazing crew receive. It also almost surely serves to make sure that crew members get berated for decisions they have no control over. 
 

I imagine we’ve all seen crew treated disrespectfully or worse by passengers. Some of us have immediately and vocally stood up for those crew when the passengers are particularly obnoxious. I hope I’m wrong in surmising that crew are in for some rough times ahead. 

[Georgia_Peaches]

3 minutes ago, MamaFej said:

We are on an Internet forum catering to people who can afford to cruise and have the time to read and post about it. Any concern conveyed here is a First World Problem. 
 

We here are First World residents. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your concerns are entirely valid. 
 

We are also people who care about the wonderful, hard-working folks from developing nations who do so much to make our First World traveling experiences fantastically memorable. 
 

When the First World executives in Miami make decisions that deteriorate the onboard experience, especially those that have to do with tipping, it doesn’t just serve to move folks higher up in the Captains Club along to upmarket or other lines, it likely serves to reduce the amount of tip money the amazing crew receive. It also almost surely serves to make sure that crew members get berated for decisions they have no control over. 
 

I imagine we’ve all seen crew treated disrespectfully or worse by passengers. Some of us have immediately and vocally stood up for those crew when the passengers are particularly obnoxious. I hope I’m wrong in surmising that crew are in for some rough times ahead. 

Gosh, this was so well said Mama!  I'm tired of having to apologize for feeling a certain way about a product I've purchased only to have someone point out that I might be complaining about a "first world problem".  

[MamaFej]

19 hours ago, ChucktownSteve said:

If you can afford Celebrity suites, you can afford Regent. So I agree, no reason to do Celebrity any longer if you find the right itinerary..  That's too bad because I used to really like sailing the old Celebrity.  But times change and so do the direction of companies dependent on the change in leadership priorities.  I'm apparently  not their priority any longer.

There is nothing special about me to anyone but my family and friends. I did, however, feel as though we were becoming the sort of cruiser a line like Celebrity would consider a priority.

 

PapaFej and are middle-class recent retirees in our 50s, with pretty good savings and reliable pensions. We have sailed with X more than any other line, and have more booked with them. We have brought our young adult kids on cruises, in second cabins, starting nine years ago when they were 19, 15, and 12. We still travel with them once in a while, and are seeking a big adventure in 2025 to celebrate some major milestones. 

 

In my perhaps delusional view, we are (were?) pretty good candidates for priority market targeting. 

 

I think we will likely do less cruising than we had anticipated, but on traditionally more expensive lines.