Where Should Celebrity Create New Routes & Sailings?

[cruisestitch]

7 hours ago, Torfamm said:

That isn’t true in all ports. In many places, it’s just like any port day for B2B passengers. 

It’s never like any other port day, no matter where you are.  It’s true that in in some places B2B passengers, don’t all have to get off and then back on again, but breakfast ends early. The buffet has no late risers option.  There’s no Elite breakfast.  Aqua spa cafe is closed.  Often the solarium pool is closed.  The elevators are jammed with people toting luggage.  Constant announcements create an ambiance that is not conducive to sleeping in.

[cruisestitch]

Speaking of longer itineraries, I’m abandoning Celebrity this fall to take this cruise on Princess. 33 days.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

if I don’t get up by 6 am , please check to make I am still breathing 🤣

[Ex-Airbalancer]

2 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

Speaking of longer itineraries, I’m abandoning Celebrity this fall to take this cruise on Princess. 33 days.

Princess and HAL have interesting cruises to the South Pacific from North America but Celebrity rather do 3-4 day cruises in Caribbean 🙄

Which line would be better Princess or HAL ? 

[PTC DAWG]

25 minutes ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

if I don’t get up by 6 am , please check to make I am still breathing 🤣

5-8 am is when I do my best sleeping.. 🙂

[Torfamm]

2 hours ago, Liao said:

That was my experience in Miami last year.  We all (40ish) met in a conference room, handed envelope with new seapass, off the ship, flashed passport and right back on ship total time was 45 minutes.

In Europe none of that is required. A turnaround day can be like any other port day unless you are changing cabins. We did a B2B2B2B and never had to get up early or clear customs. They don’t require that all passengers leave the ship the way the US does.

As I recall, there was no requirement to leave the ship in Hong Kong earlier this year either, although we did get off to go sightseeing for the day. 

[Torfamm]

58 minutes ago, cruisestitch said:

It’s never like any other port day, no matter where you are.  It’s true that in in some places B2B passengers, don’t all have to get off and then back on again, but breakfast ends early. The buffet has no late risers option.  There’s no Elite breakfast.  Aqua spa cafe is closed.  Often the solarium pool is closed.  The elevators are jammed with people toting luggage.  Constant announcements create an ambiance that is not conducive to sleeping in.

I didn’t notice any of that on our last B2B but it certainly may have been your experience. They can change a lot of that though if they want to offer longer cruises that can be booked by linking shorter segments. There’s no requirement to close any areas or not offer services.

The number of people staying on B2B definitely can vary, depending on the itinerary. In Europe for example, I’ve seen many, many people staying aboard for multiple segments on ships where differing segments can be purchased a week at a time. It can be a great way to customize an itinerary.

[cruisestitch]

There are easy turnaround days and there are difficult ones. Usually the ones in Europe are on the easy side because passengers aren’t required to disembark. However, on silhouette last month there were 400 back to back passengers and we were told to meet in Tuscan.   That location was already being used for some disembarking passenger so there was limited seating.  And under the best circumstances, you can’t put 400 people in that space. The traffic jam was almost funny, except that it was sad:  A disorganized mess.

 

now on the difficult end of the scale, in Port Everglades, you get to disembark and walk the long hallway, turn around and walk back. Unless you’re told to have a seat and wait, and I have waited up to two hours in the terminal while they readied the ship for us to return.  Once we all had to wait because a disembarking passenger was “lost “. The passenger was repeatedly paged and never showed up so they had to zero out the ship and do a complete search. Eventually, somebody said “why don’t you call his cell phone”.  Turns out he was at the airport waiting for his flight. For some reason he had not dinged out or the system malfunctioned, and we waited and waited before they would let us back on..

 

when it’s easy, it’s easy, and when it isn’t, turnaround day is simply no fun

[Jeremiah1212]

15 hours ago, Cruise Junky said:

I really wish they’d start marketing those as longer cruise options. Don’t make me do the work, actually sell them as a long journey that I can do with one booking.  

 

We'll see what they do with deployments moving into this winter. There has been a lot of leadership changes at Celebrity since the most recent deployments were thought up.

 

I will say selling these itineraries the way Princess and MSC market them does seem to create a lot of confusion for inexperienced cruisers. It also complicates inventory if you want to hold cabins for people doing multiple segments that wish to stay in the same cabin. (Personally I find selecting cabins on the Princess website itself incredibly frustrating). Not sure if that is why Celebrity has always shied away from selling these but as far as I know it's never happened to date.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

5 hours ago, Liao said:

I really wanted to do a relaxing cruise this past December.  I booked a 4&5 nighter B2B, intending to almost exclusively stay on board other than Key West.  The mindset really is booze booze booze and I frankly have a hard time relating to folks who think a day at Senor Frogs is the journey of a lifetime category, so for now Im only booking TA’s with Celebrity.

 

There is definitely a different crowd on those shorter cruises, so combining them doesn't always work.  I just did one recently.  The upside was that there were few Zeniths aboard and we had two very nice, small Zenith dinners.

Edited June 7 by Happy Cruiser 6143

[CeleryCruiser]

19 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Yes, I also would like to see the Caribbean 14 nighters come back.

Me too!

[C 2 C]

21 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

I thought a 14-21 day cruise in January/February from Florida around the Canary Islands , Brazil, some Caribbean islands and back would be a big seller 

Brazil always has visa complications.

[C 2 C]

7 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Princess and HAL have interesting cruises to the South Pacific from North America but Celebrity rather do 3-4 day cruises in Caribbean 🙄

Which line would be better Princess or HAL ? 

No one beats the itineraries offered by HAL. 

[phoenix_dream]

Celebrity is all about marketing towards the younger, more affluent, working crowd so I don't see them adding much in the way of longer cruises or exotic itineraries.  I so wish they would bring back the 14 night Caribbean options but that is just a wish and a dream at this point.  I just don't get it myself.  They are competing against their own brand, Royal, who already appeals to that crowd and has many HUGE ships to fill.  I am no marketing guru but it just makes no sense to me.  People can only carry that huge credit card debt so long so I predict they may come to regret this decision.  But upper management in general in all types of business and CEO's in particular tend to only look a year or two ahead to make sure they get their big bonus so I don't see this changing any time soon as the strategy is working for now.

[NMTraveller]

Well I think that Celebrity is headed in the other direction.  They have been making the itineraries' shorter vs longer.  We did a 14 day southern Carribean on Celebrity.  It is time to start looking at other lines ...  They do have the better itineraries...  The other lines also have real balconies ...

Edited June 7 by NMTraveller

[Tom and Ingrid]

I find the starting point for the length of a cruise to be 7 nights minimum.  I can't imagine, if I didn't live in FL, how anything shorter would be appealing to me. I always filter out the shorter lengths when browsing sailing options.  I prefer longer but not too long as I'm not retired, but anything up to 2 weeks is a reasonable length for a real vacation.  The 7 night ones are good for a one week vacation and the 14 are great for 2 week vacations, I could only see offering shorter ones as part of a long weekend & holiday, or as a one time "gap filler" to get things staggered properly in ports.  

 

There are still remaining gaps in our Celebrity cruising map & ports list, but we're steadily chipping away at the bigger ones, and when looking to add to the pipeline, I do feel a bit constrained by what's on offer.  Luckily, we're not that close to running out, so it's more a matter of getting them scheduled.

 

But, yeah, I am hoping they start thinking more along the lines of what folks have been suggesting here - longer options and/or new ports of call. I agree that RCCL ships can handle a lot of the 4 and 5 day stuff easily and it really seems like that's the whole purpose of some of those bigger ships.

[Ex-Airbalancer]

1 hour ago, C 2 C said:

Brazil always has visa complications.

So do a lot of countries 

[NMTraveller]

A southern Carribean cruise is a good example of where a 10 or 12 day is just too short.  You cruise all of the way down there and back and only visit a few islands?  A 14 day southern Carribean cruise is perfect...

[WestLakeGirl]

1 hour ago, phoenix_dream said:

Celebrity is all about marketing towards the younger, more affluent, working crowd 

And yet how do explain this model?  She is in current ads

Edited June 7 by WestLakeGirl

[Payd]

Circumnavigate Australia. I believe Princess does a 28 night cruise. Could be broken into 2 or 3 different cruises to allow for those that don't have enough vacation time. Australia is so big and all of the major cities are coastal . . . . would be a wonderful experience!!

[Gracie115]

9 hours ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

Princess and HAL have interesting cruises to the South Pacific from North America but Celebrity rather do 3-4 day cruises in Caribbean 🙄

Which line would be better Princess or HAL ? 

Depends on the ship

[NMTraveller]

57 minutes ago, WestLakeGirl said:

And yet how do explain this model?  She is in current ads

French fries?  Are you sure it is not Carnival 😁

[WestLakeGirl]

Nope….thats a current Celebrity ad.  You can see this same lady twice in the fast moving video on the celebrity home page.

Edited June 7 by WestLakeGirl

[phoenix_dream]

1 hour ago, WestLakeGirl said:

And yet how do explain this model?  She is in current ads

I explain it by calling it pandering as they have been accused many times by their very loyal cruisers for targeting the younger crowd, and many have talked about trying other brands because of it - and have done so.  Nothing they have changed in recent times have been to attract an older crowd.  Putting one picture of an older person in an ad doesn't change that.  I could go on and on and list the changes I mean but not worth it as it won't change anything.

Edited June 7 by phoenix_dream

[RICruisegal]

On 6/6/2024 at 3:39 PM, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Yes!

 

I'd like to see the return of the 14-night cruises in the Caribbean.  Or to Canada/New England out of Cape Liberty.  Sailing from Boston is not fun.  The terminal is old and the longshoreman's union prohibits Celebrity personnel from coming ashore to aid passengers.  It's ugly.  The short ones they're doing now may be bringing in the dollars but they're also wearing out good crew members with frequent turnarounds.

I did a Carnival Canadian cruise out of Boston a few years ago.  I am from RI and this was the easiest embarkment/disembarkment of all my cruises.  My DH and brother dropped my SIL and I off curbside with our luggage, parked the car in the designated lot & were bussed back immediately to the terminal. We rode the escalator & then within minutes were on the ship. It was great at the end of the cruise to be home within an hour instead of the usual flight.