Don't sail the Millennium if....

[Sky Sweet]

I agree with those who have posted that some of the issues noted on this thread are the result of Celebrity's need to cut costs since their costs have been rising while their prices have not.

 

The problem is that Celebrity is going to cut corners where they feel they can get away with it. If cruise critic is a representative sample of its passengers,they know that maintenance issues are something that the majority of its passengers will overlook.

 

Based on a number of posts I have read on various threads, it appears that given a choice of welcoming champagne and deffered maintenance or no welcoming champagne with greater attention to ship's maintenance, the majority would choose the welcoming champagne.

 

On the other hand, I think it is also possible that Celebrity might have a two tiered system when its new ships are launched. It may use its newer ships to cater to people who are willing to pay more for a new ship that is in good condition, and use its older ones for people who are willing to overlook maintenance issues if the price is right.

[dkjretired]

Evidently you had a lazy waiter who didn't want to bring the dessert tray around. We had one brought to our table on our back to back Millie cruises this past Nov & Dec. And on the first cruise we sat on the upper level and on the second cruise we sat on the lower level and both waiters brought the dessert tray.

We were also on deck 7 in cabin 7164 for the first cruise and 7166 for the second. We had friends in 7180 for both cruises. All of our cabins were clean and our steward was very attentive - evidently his contract ended or he was assigned a different set of cabins for your cruise becasue he did a terrrific job of cleaning our cabin(s).

However, we did notice that around your cabin number they were working on the plumbing for the bathroom several days (the door to the plumbing is in the hall) and had cleaning equipement outside the room.

 

There was a recent post in which someone stated the dessert trays have been eliminated. This was very recent, I will see if I can find it..

[glgolfer]

Tos: We were on the Millie for our first Celebrity cruise the end of January and noticed many of the same maintenance issues you cited. We've been on 30+ cruises over 20 years on many different ships both old and new. We have 25 cruises on RCI and my wife commented that RCI would never let a ship have all the maintenance issues we saw on the Millie. We're not nit pickers, but it was obvious there was a lot of neglect in some areas.

We were in 8181 and the sofas were almost falling apart. There was a small hole in the bathroom that water bubbled up from when you stepped on that tile.

 

Friends of ours were on the Summit last fall and finally had to move from their Sky Suite because of the mold under the tile in the bathroom.

 

We were really surprised at the neglect as we have always heard how great Celebrity was. The staff was excellent. Our cabin attendent was one of the best ever. Our wait staff was adequate.

 

There's nothing that will ruin anybody's cruise and most folks won't even notice the neglect as evidenced by prior posts. Anyone going on the Millie will have a great time as overall she's a good ship.

[bububr]

Thanks for your observations:) .

 

We have yet to sail Millie and have our 3 night cruise in September where the inside rooms are going for $799.00 PP. and we have been scratching our heads wondering why?

 

I think what you and I and everyone else is seeing is the demise of X as X used to be and the beginning of X as RCCL.

 

Whith the 6 new Solstace class ships coming out ( which we have NO desire to sail on such a large ship with a grass deck? glass blowing? and a water show next to the pool? As for that monster wine rack in the midst of the diningroom, it gives me the feeling of a Bad B movie when it comes tumbling down on the passengers?) they are going to have to eliminate a number of the older ships which could be quite nice if they were kept up. Unfortunately with cash flow, like any other business...they make cuts in their older products as they phase them out, and use the money to fund the new product.

 

While what I'm saying is speculation on my part, I do think many of us X cruisers are in denial.

 

We recently sailed our favorite ship that we have sailed Many, many cruises on...the Century...and found it was not X as X used to be. Granted it could have been an off sailing, the wrong time of year or what ever, but Celebrity USED to be consistant with its service, maintainance ( except the pods ), and service fleet wide regardless. To us this past Century cruise was reminiscant of a Carnival booze cruise.....The service, the food ( except Muranos ), and the atmosphere was severely lacking.

 

WE already have speculation that Galaxy is leaving now that our prior favorite Zenith is gone. I assume with 6 new ships on the way that six will leave the fleet, or at least 4. With the pod problems and the unsuccessful law suits so far regarding them I have to wonder if the M class will dissapear also in lieu of this new mega mass market trash that they are promoting ...ie. Solstace, Equinox, and the other four to be built.

 

Dave:eek:

[richsea]

I agree with those who have posted that some of the issues noted on this thread are the result of Celebrity's need to cut costs since their costs have been rising while their prices have not.

 

Costs rising? Did not they address that with the fuel surcharge? They're cutting costs to increase profits

 

The problem is that Celebrity is going to cut corners where they feel they can get away with it. If cruise critic is a representative sample of its passengers,they know that maintenance issues are something that the majority of its passengers will overlook.

 

Based on a number of posts I have read on various threads, it appears that given a choice of welcoming champagne and deffered maintenance or no welcoming champagne with greater attention to ship's maintenance, the majority would choose the welcoming champagne.

 

What makes you believe that because someone appreciates the welcoming champagne, they don't care about ship maintenance? That seems kind of silly.

 

On the other hand, I think it is also possible that Celebrity might have a two tiered system when its new ships are launched. It may use its newer ships to cater to people who are willing to pay more for a new ship that is in good condition, and use its older ones for people who are willing to overlook maintenance issues if the price is right.

 

All cruise lines tend to charge less for their older ships. This is no reason to neglect maintenance

 

burbur - 6 solstice class ships?

[Fun Loving]

Evidently you had a lazy waiter who didn't want to bring the dessert tray around. We had one brought to our table on our back to back Millie cruises this past Nov & Dec. And on the first cruise we sat on the upper level and on the second cruise we sat on the lower level and both waiters brought the dessert tray.

We were also on deck 7 in cabin 7164 for the first cruise and 7166 for the second. We had friends in 7180 for both cruises. All of our cabins were clean and our steward was very attentive - evidently his contract ended or he was assigned a different set of cabins for your cruise becasue he did a terrrific job of cleaning our cabin(s).

However, we did notice that around your cabin number they were working on the plumbing for the bathroom several days (the door to the plumbing is in the hall) and had cleaning equipement outside the room.

 

Just returned and noone got a desert tray brought to their table.

[Sky Sweet]

Reply to Richsea..

 

My comment was based on the fact that whenever the subject comes up, the majority of posters comment that the welcoming champagne is an important perk to them and they would be upset if Celebrity took it away.

 

At the same time, a significant number of people who have posted about the importance of welcoming champagne have criticized posters for their comments about maintenance issues on certain Celebrity ships.

 

That led me to believe the majority of cruise critic posters love the welcoming champagne, but do not consider the condition of a ship to be an important part of a cruise.

[richsea]

I still fail to see how if one likes the champagne, they don't care if the ships are not maintained. I agree that there are those on these boards who may think that X can do no wrong & will defend X at every chance. But the vast majority of posters are, I think able to see shortcomings in X. It is true that most do not put faith in a totally negative review, especially from the one hit wonders, & also take with a grain of salt, the Pollyanna reviews. I know I do.

 

As I said earlier, what disturbs me most is the increase in negative comments regarding maintenance & well as some of the attention to detail that Celebrity has had a reputation for providing..........and yes, I think that the welcome champagne is just one of the little extras that I appreciate from Celebrity; & I do care about the maintenance of their ships.

[Sky Sweet]

I still fail to see how if one likes the champagne, they don't care if the ships are not maintained. I agree that there are those on these boards who may think that X can do no wrong & will defend X at every chance. But the vast majority of posters are, I think able to see shortcomings in X. It is true that most do not put faith in a totally negative review, especially from the one hit wonders, & also take with a grain of salt, the Pollyanna reviews. I know I do.

 

As I said earlier, what disturbs me most is the increase in negative comments regarding maintenance & well as some of the attention to detail that Celebrity has had a reputation for providing..........and yes, I think that the welcome champagne is just one of the little extras that I appreciate from Celebrity; & I do care about the maintenance of their ships.

 

Hi Richsea :)

 

I agree wtih you about the increase in negative comments concerning maintenance issues with Celebrity, especially from people who had well balanced reviews that also discussed the positives, as well as the negatives, of their cruise.

 

That was one of several reasons why we booked our upcoming Mediterranean Cruise on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas instead of Celebrity.

 

This is slightly off topic, but I noticed that you live on Long Island. I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island during the fifties and sixties. To make this comment more on topic, our house on LI was always very well maintained...LOL :)

[mahdnc]

There was a recent post in which someone stated the dessert trays have been eliminated. This was very recent, I will see if I can find it..

 

One data point:

 

Desert trays were presented in the dining room during our Millennium cruise in late Jun 2007. I am sorry to see this practice discontinued.

[hajekfam]

Just returned and noone got a desert tray brought to their table.

 

Evidently the elimination of the dessert tray on the Millennium is a very recent event - it did not happen a year ago as the original poster's waiter told him.

[richsea]

Hi Richsea :)

 

I agree wtih you about the increase in negative comments concerning maintenance issues with Celebrity, especially from people who had well balanced reviews that also discussed the positives, as well as the negatives, of their cruise.

 

That was one of several reasons why we booked our upcoming Mediterranean Cruise on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas instead of Celebrity.

 

This is slightly off topic, but I noticed that you live on Long Island. I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island during the fifties and sixties. To make this comment more on topic, our house on LI was always very well maintained...LOL :)

 

I'm glad that your house was very well maintained. Did you parents serve a welcome champagne?:D I grew up in the City & mt family migrated out to the Island in 1960.

I've never sailed Royal Caribbean, & wonder about the maintenance of their ships vs X since they are the same company. One would think that the maintenance programs on both lines would be identical.

 

Have a great cruise!

[JackieT]

I was on the 3/9 sailing on the millennium and they brought the dessert tray to us every night. Maybe our waiter did that only? It looked like their common practice to tables around us.

[sandypail]

I was on the 3/16 sailing and my waiter did bring around the dessert tray.

Actually the dining room and Olympic restaurant were the hightlights of the ship. My cabin was clean, but we were given very few of the cc class perks. We did however get the sewage stink which rendered our balcony unusable. To made up for the loss of our balcony we were given a bottle of "Red Table Wine".

[glgolfer]

RCI and Celebrity are owned by RCCL, but have different management. We have been on 25 RCI cruises on 16 different ships over 21 years and have never seen the maintenance problems we saw on the Millennium.

It just looked like they were maintaining some areas and items to the neglect of others. They might be ignoring what they consider low traffic areas.

The folks below us said their sofas were also in very bad shape, the drapes were torn and there was mold and mildew in the bathroom.

We were both in famliy oceanviews with the huge balcony.

[sammiedawg]

This review brings back memories of our only X cruise, the Century about 3 years ago . 18 months before it went in for refub.

I posted on the boards how shabby our bathroom and cabin were, I was too embarassed to go into details but it was nauseating. We turned in a list of items that needed replaced/ repaired the first day, nothing was done other than a nice front desk person called me to discuss things and someone came to look at the phone/TV. He thought they were fixed but they were not. . The telephone didnt work which meant we didnt have voice mail or wake up calls, the TV worked intermittently, the desk chair had a broken leg, the comforter and upholstery on the chair were stained. The carpet had a massive deep stain and the carpet was so worn it was not cleanable

We noted the outside deck carpeting toward the front of the ship, originally tan or gold in color, was literally black with dirt. Broken chairs in the Ren DeV vous lounge, when you sat down the springs were non existent. Chairs in the buffet area stained or had broken legs

I have a TA friend in another state who did not book this cruise for me, she cannot discount , she doesnt own the agency. She told me afterwards she was getting lots of negative feedback on this line as far as ship conditions go.

I guess nothing much changed in 3 years

We've sailed many lines, no one line is perfect but X is the only one we had this type of complaint about

[lysolqn]

I've learned that cruises are never quite as bad as negative reviews paint them, nor quite as perfect as glowing reviews would have one believe. Different levels of expectation, varying perspectives and flexibility or lack thereof amongst individuals often account for the widely disparate experiences and contradictory views of passengers as reported on Cruise Critic, even passengers on the very same cruise.

We were last on Millennium in December '06 and found little, if anything, about which to complain. We will board Millie again in just a few weeks and shall see for ourselves just how bad things have gotten - or not.

[Amlee]

Your right Richsea. I know that our waiter was not happy with the lack of the desert tray. He told us that they stopped with taking it from table to table over a year ago. I was surprised to hear that someone who was on the cruise 2 weeks ago got to see one. We were on the upper level of the Metropolitan at table 525. I could see about 60 of the upstairs and none of those tables had the ammenities I discussed in my review. I think it is a cost cutting issue and its no secret that the fuel costs have to be significantly hitting the cruiseline's bottom line.

 

I would rather have them charge me a few hundred more and keep the Celebrity difference than let the service slide

 

Ok, that is just strange! I sailed the Century in Sept, the Connie in Nov, the Millie in Feb, and just got off the Summit on the 22nd of this month. On each cruise I have had the dessert platter brought to my table.

[operafan]

We were on Millie in 06 and it needed work then. There was a sewage stench and our cabin was very worn (drapes shredded, carpet dirty, bathroom moldy....) but the rest of the ship wasn't too bad. Since then we've been on Constellation which was in near perfect condition and Voyager of the Seas, an 8 yr. old ship that looked brand new. Granted, the food on Voyager was nothing to write home about but everything else was done incredibly well. Does anyone know if maintenance issues are left up to the staffs of individual ships rather than corporate??

[Amlee]

I have to agree with the OP about the carpet. The carpet down our hall was nasty! Huge stains in the floor. The ship also had Noro and was under code red status. We noticed that there was several new stains in the carpet.

 

As for the elevator buttons, this must be something like the pods. As I have come across the buttons not working on just about all of the Celebrity ships I have been on. It's a joke with me now.

[Drew B]

Tos, much of what you criticized, I doubt I would notice or particularly mind. However, this got my blood boiling.

 

Another thing to remember, don’t take glasses out of your stateroom. They won’t replace them. I found that out on Monday when I returned to my cabin to find I had no glasses. I asked the assistant room steward who told me that they are short of glasses and I would need to go to guest relations to ask for more. So I drank my manhattans out of plastic water glasses from the buffet line. I would walk up to the 10th deck for breakfast and always bring back 2 glasses. Again, not the worst thing in the world, but not something I would have expected from Celebrity.

 

That would NOT be an acceptable answer to me, and my response would be "I'd appreciate it if YOU could ask your supervisors or guest relations for me. If they have any problem, have them give me a call..."

 

If that didn't work, I would be VERY tempted to decrease my steward's tip accordingly (and I've never even considered giving less than 1.5 X the suggested amount). It is not good service when you ask for something very reasonable and are essentially told "Do it yourself"... :mad:

[Sky Sweet]

RCI and Celebrity are owned by RCCL, but have different management. We have been on 25 RCI cruises on 16 different ships over 21 years and have never seen the maintenance problems we saw on the Millennium.

It just looked like they were maintaining some areas and items to the neglect of others. They might be ignoring what they consider low traffic areas.

The folks below us said their sofas were also in very bad shape, the drapes were torn and there was mold and mildew in the bathroom.

We were both in famliy oceanviews with the huge balcony.

 

Hi PaulWN :)

 

I have heard similar comments from a number of friends who have recently sailed on both Celebrity and Royal Caribbean That is one of the reasons why we feel comfortable about trying Brilliance of the Seas for our Mediterranean Cruise in June.

 

It is a bit of a mystery to me why RCI is doing a better job of maintaining their Royal Caribbean Ships than their Celebrity ones, when Celebrity is suppose to be a step up from Royal Caribbean.

 

I realize that Celebrity has a few special touches that distinguish it from Royal Caribbean. However, in my opinion, special touches are a nice extra but not a substitute for taking care of basics.

[Drew B]

• One thing that drove my wife and I nuts....there were a few times we could not make the sit-down dinner due to excursions or other things we were doing, we would go to deck 10 hoping for a nice buffet that related to the sit-down dinner as many other cruise lines do this, instead EVERY SINGLE night was exactly the same stations with variety...pasta station MAY have different sauces or pasta types, that was it.

 

 

None of the ships in the Celebrity fleet offers a dinner buffet, per se. In addition to the pasta you mentioned, there should have been a pizza station and a sushi station. Also, the grill and the aquaspa would be open during part of the dinner time frame (till 7:00 or 8:00). Also, there is a casual-dining option (a sit-down meal with waiter service, but with more varied seating times than the main restaurant). Finally, there is room service, and you can order from the menu of the dining room.

 

I'm sorry that you were not informed of the lack of a dinner buffet prior to sailing. I am a bit of a maniac about getting this information out there - and particularly about correcting people when they mention a dinner "buffet" on Celebrity - because I don't want anybody else to be misled and disappointed as you were.

[Lois R]

I was on the 3/9 sailing on the millennium and they brought the dessert tray to us every night. Maybe our waiter did that only? It looked like their common practice to tables around us.

 

Hi,:) I sailed GALAXY while you were on Millennium.

We were offered the fresh pepper every evening for soups,

salads and entrees.

They didn't bring the dessert tray but until this thread

I totally forgot about it.

[Jade13]

Tos: We were on the Millie for our first Celebrity cruise the end of January and noticed many of the same maintenance issues you cited. We've been on 30+ cruises over 20 years on many different ships both old and new. We have 25 cruises on RCI and my wife commented that RCI would never let a ship have all the maintenance issues we saw on the Millie. We're not nit pickers, but it was obvious there was a lot of neglect in some areas.

We were in 8181 and the sofas were almost falling apart. There was a small hole in the bathroom that water bubbled up from when you stepped on that tile.

 

Friends of ours were on the Summit last fall and finally had to move from their Sky Suite because of the mold under the tile in the bathroom.

 

We were really surprised at the neglect as we have always heard how great Celebrity was. The staff was excellent. Our cabin attendent was one of the best ever. Our wait staff was adequate.

 

There's nothing that will ruin anybody's cruise and most folks won't even notice the neglect as evidenced by prior posts. Anyone going on the Millie will have a great time as overall she's a good ship.

 

I keep thinking of you and your post that one of your all time favorite cruises was your Hurtigrutin Norwegian Coastal and I believe you get one dinner and no options. Personally (even though my DH is a Chef) the food would not be a deciding factor for us on any cruise. We know we won't starve. But, Customer Service is and I believe that is where Celebrity is lacking. I had way too many customer service issues and they just continued onto the cruise when our children were not found in the system (and then suddenly in an inside on a deck above us) when we booked a specific cabin directly with the cruiseline (which we checked a few days prior to departure). Also, expectations mean a lot when all the drinks were gone over an hour prior to the last tender...