My Triumphant Return to Celebrity?

[JamieLogical]

I haven't sailed on Celebrity since September 2022, but I just booked the 10-day repositioning cruise on the Silhouette for April. The price was right, which has been very rare in my Celebrity searches for the past two years. Since my last sailing on Celebrity, I have sailed five times on MSC and twice on Princess. I have another Princess sailing coming up on the 10th and then two more MSCs between now and April, so it will definitely be an adjustment back to Celebrity, which I sailed many times between the restart and that September 2022 cruise.

 

What do I need to know about what has changed? I saw that gratuities are no longer part of the Always Included fare. Have there been significant changes to what is included in the Classic Drink package? The price for this sailing was low enough per person per day that we might spring for the upgrade to the Premium package. Do all of the ships have Stalink now? Has that improved the wifi situation at all?

 

What kind of shape is the Silhouette in? I have sailed on the Equinox and loved it. My last Celebrity sailing was on the Solstice and I found it not to be as well maintained and updated as the Equinox was, but I believe that was because the Equinox has been partially revolutionized? Has the Silhouette?

 

Any other stuff you think I should know about returning to Celebrity?

[FlorenceItaly]

Did you book HAL, or traded the TA for this one?  Just curious.  I love Celebrity but have been cruising HAL mainly since the restart due to some very good casino offers that are hard to beat.

Our last cruise on Celebrity was in July 2022.

[JamieLogical]

16 minutes ago, FlorenceItaly said:

Did you book HAL, or traded the TA for this one?  Just curious.  I love Celebrity but have been cruising HAL mainly since the restart due to some very good casino offers that are hard to beat.

Our last cruise on Celebrity was in July 2022.

 

Yes, we are trading the HAL transatlantic for this one. The HAL one was just a little too early in April for our schedules and the cost of travel around the TA would have been significantly higher.

[PTC DAWG]

You’ll be fine…upgrading to premium is a no brainer to me, especially if I already have a great deal on the cruise..

 

I’m seeing around $150 or so PPPD for a veranda on your 10 day..that’s great. 

I just looked at that cruise, nice itinerary..we headed to the ABC’s on the Beyond in September with friends..my first IV experience..

 

Edited July 30 by PTC DAWG

[canderson]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

I haven't sailed on Celebrity since September 2022, but I just booked the 10-day repositioning cruise on the Silhouette for April. The price was right, which has been very rare in my Celebrity searches for the past two years.

Still looks high to me.  We have a 14 nt WB TA coming in November that isn't as much for equivalent cabin class, and that's 14 vs. 10 nights!  Difference is about 10% pp per day.  Then again, we've got a one way fare to Europe to add to our bill.  You just have to get along the U.S. coast.

 

If you were on Celebrity 9/22, you won't find any major changes apart from your noted drop of gratuities as part of AI.  The quality of wine has, if anything, diminished a bit by the glass.  If that's your thing, be prepared to pay a bit more of an upcharge than you did before to get a good one, regardless of which package you choose.

 

 

[JamieLogical]

1 minute ago, canderson said:

Still looks high to me.  We have a 14 nt WB TA coming in November that isn't as much for equivalent cabin class, and that's 14 vs. 10 nights!  Difference is about 10% pp per day.  Then again, we've got a one way fare to Europe to add to our bill.  You just have to get along the U.S. coast.

 

If you were on Celebrity 9/22, you won't find any major changes apart from your noted drop of gratuities as part of AI.  The quality of wine has, if anything, diminished a bit by the glass.  If that's your thing, be prepared to pay a bit more of an upcharge than you did before to get a good one, regardless of which package you choose.

 

 

 

We don't drink wine, so no issues there. This one worked out to $139 per person per day for us with drinks, wifi, grats, and taxes in a balcony. Our usual target all in with drinks and wifi in a balcony is $150 per person per day, regardless of cruise line. Since this one came out a little under, we will consider upgrading to the Premium drinks. We did compare this to the Equinox TA in April, which had a slightly lower price per person per day, but the extra travel expenses would have made the overall trip much more expensive.

[jenf22]

We got off Silhouette a couple of weeks ago after a 12 night Scandinavian cruise.  We thought the Starlink wifi was great - best of all our cruises so far.  We actually were able to stream TV though our Firestick with almost no buffering.

 

We don't drink, so I can't help you there.  I know a latte was $6 and a can of soda $4.80 🙂

 

We thought she was in great shape.  We had a standard balcony room and it was all we needed - maybe could have used more storage since there were 3 of us in the room.  Tough to find a table in the buffet a lot of mornings for breakfast and near impossible for lunch on sea days.  We actually made several passes one day and ended up getting burgers and fries from the grill and taking it back to our cabin.

 

Overall we really liked Celebrity.

[JamieLogical]

11 minutes ago, jenf22 said:

We got off Silhouette a couple of weeks ago after a 12 night Scandinavian cruise.  We thought the Starlink wifi was great - best of all our cruises so far.  We actually were able to stream TV though our Firestick with almost no buffering.

 

We don't drink, so I can't help you there.  I know a latte was $6 and a can of soda $4.80 🙂

 

We thought she was in great shape.  We had a standard balcony room and it was all we needed - maybe could have used more storage since there were 3 of us in the room.  Tough to find a table in the buffet a lot of mornings for breakfast and near impossible for lunch on sea days.  We actually made several passes one day and ended up getting burgers and fries from the grill and taking it back to our cabin.

 

Overall we really liked Celebrity.

 

I suspect a repositioning cruise in Aprile won't be quite as packed. Or at least I hope not, because we will have a lot of sea days!

[Lastdance]

22 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I suspect a repositioning cruise in Aprile won't be quite as packed. Or at least I hope not, because we will have a lot of sea days!

I love those cruises due to clientele; for me, I notice a completely different vibe than Caribbean.  Like you, many of us are venturing out to various cruise lines...

[mac_tlc]

40 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I suspect a repositioning cruise in Aprile won't be quite as packed. Or at least I hope not, because we will have a lot of sea days!

Is it the 4/28 repo to NJ? If we don’t end up doing a Japan to Vancouver TP, we will be there with you! Got a Prime Veranda with AI for less than $140pppd. 
 

Still some great deals —— except the suites.😞😞.

 

mac_tlc

[JamieLogical]

29 minutes ago, mac_tlc said:

Is it the 4/28 repo to NJ? If we don’t end up doing a Japan to Vancouver TP, we will be there with you! Got a Prime Veranda with AI for less than $140pppd. 
 

Still some great deals —— except the suites.😞😞.

 

mac_tlc

 

Yep, that's the one.

[ngrund]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

I haven't sailed on Celebrity since September 2022, but I just booked the 10-day repositioning cruise on the Silhouette for April. The price was right, which has been very rare in my Celebrity searches for the past two years. Since my last sailing on Celebrity, I have sailed five times on MSC and twice on Princess. I have another Princess sailing coming up on the 10th and then two more MSCs between now and April, so it will definitely be an adjustment back to Celebrity, which I sailed many times between the restart and that September 2022 cruise.

 

What do I need to know about what has changed? I saw that gratuities are no longer part of the Always Included fare. Have there been significant changes to what is included in the Classic Drink package? The price for this sailing was low enough per person per day that we might spring for the upgrade to the Premium package. Do all of the ships have Stalink now? Has that improved the wifi situation at all?

 

What kind of shape is the Silhouette in? I have sailed on the Equinox and loved it. My last Celebrity sailing was on the Solstice and I found it not to be as well maintained and updated as the Equinox was, but I believe that was because the Equinox has been partially revolutionized? Has the Silhouette?

 

Any other stuff you think I should know about returning to Celebrity?

I upgraded my drink package during a recent sale when it was $9 a day p/p

 

this is the list of the drink package items:

 

drink-package-pdf-flyer.pdf

[DaKahuna]

Hi Jamie -- good to see you over here. 

 

I did a live review of our Silhouette sailing in 2022.  We were in the Retreat but feel free to check out the link in my signature. 

 

8 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

I saw that gratuities are no longer part of the Always Included fare.

 

That is correct.  

 

7 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Have there been significant changes to what is included in the Classic Drink package? The price for this sailing was low enough per person per day that we might spring for the upgrade to the Premium package.

 

 Some of the drinks, beers mostly, have been moved to a price point $1 to $2 above the $10 Classic Drink package coverage. 

 

 Cocktails are  still pretty much the same.  If you have a taste for a specific brand of alcohol, the check to see if it is on the Classic or Premium package.  As with MSC,  you pay the difference plus gratuity for anything priced above your Classic $10 limit. 

 

7 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Do all of the ships have Stalink now? Has that improved the wifi situation at all?

 

 Yes, all the ships have StarLink however, Celebrity throttles the bandwidth they give.  I believe they are now only offering one WiFi package so expect maximum download to be about 4.5-5 Mbps and Uploads to be around 2.5-3 Mbps. 

 I found I had no problem doing my live review but there was a wireless access point right outside my cabin door on both my Millennium cruises which gave me a very strong signal. 

 

 

 

[gold1953]

This ship has been completely done over. Condition is great. All carpets replaced , drapes etc. new colours which are nice as I really hate that old orange stuff 

[JamieLogical]

Thanks for all of the answers so far. We really love the Equinox so we are getting very excited about this sailing even though it's a long way off and we have three other cruises between now and then. Glad to hear about the upgrade to StarLink. I remember the wifi being really terrible on my past Celebrity sailings, even the two where I had the Premium wifi. I remember the Basic wifi being about on par with my 90s 14.4 modem. It was just enough internet to make you frustrated. Something would start to load and give you hope, but then would never finish. Or you would get search results, but then nothing happened when you tried to click into them. And the Premium wifi I had the one time I was in the Retreat and paid for on a separate occasion in the hopes of getting some work done onboard was only barely perceptibly better.

[canderson]

Mind you, this is off a sister Silversea ship where they provide 10Mb/sec bandwidth, but note the 66ms latency.  Doesn't sound spectacular until you know that this was from the middle of the Atlantic where there are (obviously) no ground stations, so there's a lot of relaying going on.  Really good results.

 

[wrk2cruise]

1 hour ago, canderson said:

Mind you, this is off a sister Silversea ship where they provide 10Mb/sec bandwidth, but note the 66ms latency.  Doesn't sound spectacular until you know that this was from the middle of the Atlantic where there are (obviously) no ground stations, so there's a lot of relaying going on.  Really good results.

 

 

 

And the latency on the old system was somewhere between 300 and 600 ms.  Starlink is great.  I have used it on 2 different cruise lines and have been able to stream TV with very little buffering in NZ, Tahiti, South America, TA, Med.   On Celebrity it was with premium package.

[JamieLogical]

Just now, wrk2cruise said:

 

 

And the latency on the old system was somewhere between 300 and 600 ms.  Starlink is great.  I have used it on 2 different cruise lines and have been able to stream TV with very little buffering in NZ, Tahiti, South America, TA, Med.   On Celebrity it was with premium package.

 

I don't need to be able to stream video, just check emails, poke at Cruise Critic, post my live blog, and look up stuff to prove my husband wrong. 😋

[canderson]

4 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

...and look up stuff to prove my husband wrong. 😋

Your internet privileges are hereby revoked!  😄

[PTC DAWG]

14 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I don't need to be able to stream video, just check emails, poke at Cruise Critic, post my live blog, and look up stuff to prove my husband wrong. 😋

I miss the days of not knowing who was right…Wife and I usually stay off the internet for the weekend…so we can both be right..

[gordylad]

why the switch to MSC? I have heard many conflicting reports about them but have never sailed ourselves.....we started sailing celebrity in 2011 and continued every year sometimes twice per year....every time we look at other cruise lines we end up booking Celebrity again lol.......we almost booked Royal Caribbean recently but we spoke to a couple who had been on and they didn't like the smoking situation in the casino, said it was strong and smoke carried to other parts of the ship..that put us off. Perhaps one day we will book another cruise line but so far no complaints [well maybe a couple of small ones but they have been rectified]....

[JamieLogical]

22 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

I miss the days of not knowing who was right…Wife and I usually stay off the internet for the weekend…so we can both be right..

 

Remember when you used to have to wait until you could get to a library or an encyclopedia to know who was right?

[canderson]

7 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Remember when you used to have to wait until you could get to a library or an encyclopedia to know who was right?

Yes.  I also remember being offered wines with which I was unfamiliar and just crossing my fingers.  No more!

 

[JamieLogical]

21 minutes ago, gordylad said:

why the switch to MSC? I have heard many conflicting reports about them but have never sailed ourselves.....we started sailing celebrity in 2011 and continued every year sometimes twice per year....every time we look at other cruise lines we end up booking Celebrity again lol.......we almost booked Royal Caribbean recently but we spoke to a couple who had been on and they didn't like the smoking situation in the casino, said it was strong and smoke carried to other parts of the ship..that put us off. Perhaps one day we will book another cruise line but so far no complaints [well maybe a couple of small ones but they have been rectified]....

 

So I met a bunch of solo cruises on an NCL Breakaway sailing over Halloween 2022. My brother actually dragged me onto that cruise, because I had sworn off NCL before that. Anyway, on that sailing I met a bunch of solo cruisers and one of them was a huge fan of MSC. He convinced all of us to join him on the inaugural sailing on the MSC Meraviglia out of NYC that following April. I decided to make it a semi-B2B and my husband and I did the repositioning cruise out of Port Canaveral, and then I did the inaugural out of NYC with my solo cruise crew. I never looked back. I LOVE MSC! The price is right, I love the two ships I have sailed on so far. That solo cruise crew sailed together again over Halloween on the Meraviglia last year and we are booked on it again for this Halloween. Unfortunately, our fearless leader, the one who got us all turned on to MSC in the first place, passed away in February.

 

Unfortunately, MSC does have limited itineraries out of the east coast. We try to do all of the non-standard ones we can (husband and I are doing a 10-day to St. Maarten, San Juan, St. Thomas, and Puerto Plata out of NYC in January), but we cruise more frequently than those sorts of itineraries are available. Thus the subbing in Princess (and now Celebrity) in between.

 

Edited July 31 by JamieLogical

[ggo85]

We were on Silhouette in June in Retreat.  Great shape.  Great crew.  Felt much less crowded than Reflection (which we sailed earlier in the year).  

 

Starlink was fantastic.  The best connectivity I've had at sea on any line / ship. There isn't much selection with the Classic drink package.  

 

We were on a cold weather cruise so didn't experience chair hogging or lack thereof.  But venues never seemed crowded beyond the usual.  For example, there were always plenty of seats in the theater, seats in various venues, etc.  

 

I was also impressed with the number and variety of free activities (I define that as no cost and also not trying to use the "free" activity to sell you something (like foot analysis).  I did origami, painting, lots of trivia, etc.  The passengers made the events fun.  

 

The one negative on our cruise was the cruise director staff (below the director).  Most were late to events, provided no direction, appeared totally disinterested, and sometimes were actually rude to guests.  It was as if they hated their jobs and the passengers (not necessarily in that order).  They are usually so upbeat that the difference on this particular cruise was very noticeable.  

 

Overall, however, we were very impressed.  It ALMOST made us want to cruise again on X.