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cruiseerf

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About Me

  • Location
    New York, NY
  • Interests
    TRAVEL!
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Silversea, Seabourn,Celebrity,Crystal,Regent
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Sicily

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  1. I know the Eclipse is in South America Patagonia etc.....I have seen few compliments or complaints about the current state of sailing? I will board in a few weeks. Does anyone have any "Fresh" information on being onboard? Staff? food? condition of ship, etc? Very quiet this season down there 😉Perhaps no news is good news? Safe sails to all!
  2. We were on a cruise where people had brought on a microwave, and two crockpots! We also saw a blender once on the table? What a magical village we share together ;))))))
  3. Keep in Mind that this might be from the last change of Celebrity several years ago. When they re-alligned the levels I became sapphire and was receiving $1000 per cruise to gamble with.....Within 1 year they divided the Sapphire category to "Sapphire and Sapphire plus".....and I was only receiving $500 per cruise. I have looked at the charts and they do say VIP lounge access so I would have brought it to the front desk to clarify if it was important.... Good luck to all!
  4. Did a B2B2B on Millennium in Japan last October and it was a great trip. For us this was a doer, not a Caribbean sit on our butt type cruise. We had tours almost everyday and meals booked and every hour was accounted for, it was amazing, what a culture! Also, The Millennium is older, Built Lower and has less impact from winds of the ultra tall ships.....she was able to get into ports that some of the big high Princess ships could not.....She rides the oceans well. Also something to keep in mind! You are going to LOVE it! Enjoy!
  5. I believe you will have Captain Matt Returning to helm these voyages. He is one of the BEST Captains Celebrity has....Serious captain, Great sense of Humour and a gentleman. He will be at your Zenith Meals etc, it is important to him and he believes in Celebrity. I have done this cruise many many times and it is a favourite....ENJOY!
  6. Keep in Mind that Ecuador is as corrupt as most countries. Each ship must have a permit for X amount of people and each line gets X amounts of permits etc. This is to protect the environment. When RCL bought Silversea, there was a "situation" as Silversea and Celebrity held too many permits.....Certain cruises were cancelled while they worked this out....Silversea has new expedition ships coming out.....I am sure this is all connected to permits....
  7. I know MSC was hiring any and all Celebrity butlers who applied due to the new managements butler changes....MSC was well aware and indeed took advantage. I believe this is why it is going to take Celebrity more time to ramp up their butler services after decimating it....Sad.
  8. While I see that Celebrity is well within its rights to put you in any Cabin they see fit as per the terms and conditions.....Wrong is still WRONG and this was very wrong. They charged your card.....and waited 6 days before some Senior Executive made the call to bounce you? WRONG. I am in agreement that compensation should be the difference in price between the CS and the PH as an FCC. I had this years ago on Celebrity with a Royal Suite pre covid.......And my travel agent took it up several levels and we ended up sailing in the PH. Celebrity made us whole, this is not what happened to this OP, disappointing. I too had a problem on two of our cruises end of last year, where over 60% of the suites sailed empty including 1/2 the royals and Both PH's.....And the Move up upgrades were never processed....Twice.....I too wrote to LHB the president and someone called and tried to explain their mistakes......epic fail. What saddens me the most is seeing customer satisfaction and $$ in these situations go down the tubes while Celebrity continues to raise their rates by over 100% in some instances. Huge changes in how Celebrity see's customer loyalty and treatment. Sorry this happened to you, I hope you still have a fabulous trip!
  9. Part of Travel is accepting changes.....After Covid, this happens more and more on many cruise lines. The only thing certain these days is CHANGE. You either have to move with it or move to another line I guess. Safe Sails!
  10. Does anyone know who the Hotel Director currently is on the Eclipse???? Cheers!
  11. I have been told the merger of the Captains Club and RCLs Crown and Anchor program will be in 2024. It will be interesting to see how that affects our benefits? The merged program makes sense as I have heard so many times, while waiting for onboard bookings, that they would prefer to take their grandchildren on RCL but they "don't get any points"......This should drive some new sales when it hits. I just used my triple zenith credit for my upcoming free cruise, very looking forward. Though not sure how much further I will progress as I have just done 4 Explora journeys cruises in January and they were Fantastic......Really a wake up call. Sometimes its nice to switch it up.... Safe sails to all!!!
  12. Yes, Usually when these ships are being rolled out on schedule it is ship Number 3 that they can make structural changes to. Explora 2 will be mostly cosmetic I would think. Keep in mind that once the design is approved and keel is laid, etc, the insurance company must get involved in most changes. So even the smallest of changes on cruise ships start at 1,000,000+. Safe travels.
  13. Thanks for comments. The ship was Fully staffed, Butlers and all as the SE Asia cruises were expected to be full in the retreat. I had thought that as well. Yes, it was an amazing way to see Japan.... But someone at Celebrity's home office Really Dropped the Ball here and I thought perhaps someone else had clarity. Now back to the Wine pricing ;)))))
  14. First off let me say that the Millennium Japan cruises were lovely. Japan is different fascinating, interesting and checks all the boxes for Exotique. Add in Korea and you have an AMAZING destination cruise which this truly was. We had booked Sky suites on the Solstice years prior covid etc and had been bumped onto the smaller Millennium and it was fine. Suites were much smaller....but overall as a destination cruise, doable. Food in all restaurants was ok with Tuscan Grill being the weakest. That said, we were out almost everyday eating at fine sushi restaurants and various styles of Japanese and Korean foods...so by nightfall we were mostly tired and still full from our lunches. We had tours arranged in Every Port. About 6 months prior to our cruise, our travel agent emailed us that several passengers had received notices that our cruises had had an "inventory control problem" and had double booked passengers into cabins that were not there. Therefore some passengers were getting Bumped from our cruises (we were on B2B). Thankfully we never received this notice but I believe there was a past thread about this. Our ship had between 1800-1900 passengers and was lacking its full load of 2200. We were told that the Japanese gvt required them to stay at least 10-20% less than full as a safety precaution (after the previous japan covid debacles).....So I think this bumping of passengers was less of inventory control and more of trying to work with Japanese authorities to not "Jam and cram" their ships making them more a of a Petri dish. This was an interesting fact. The 4, Sep-Oct Nov Japan cruises on Millennium all showed "closed" on our travel agents website....according to her even on Celebrity's website. There was not a cabin to sell, Move or adjust. All 4, 12 day cruises were Closed off. Which was strange when we received our move up offers? IF the cruise is so full, Why are we being offered upgrades? But apparently full and closed are two different terms? Our 5 sky suite cabins bid for all upgrades in the ranges provided for our first cruise (would have been an additional 10-12K of revenue). Sadly, None of our upgrades were approved and other guests we met in The retreat also had the same experience. October 12th cruise......We had only 65% of our suites occupied and with both Royals and Celebrity Suites sailing empty yet nobody had processed these upgrades???? The financial loss for Celebrity on this is HUGE, especially as new management is doing everything they can to maximize revenue?? This made no sense? Second cruise occurs and again we receive our upgrade possibilities and again, NONE of our upgrades are accepted. For the October 24th cruise we sailed with suites at less than 50% occupancy. We had 1 PH, 2-3 Royal suites and several Celebrity suites all sailing empty with sky suites yet again? When I asked the hotel director Andrea Muegge why the onboard revenue did not see these empty suites and offer them to the B2B passengers at a discount the week prior? At that point it is lost inventory. She was very nice and said yes "Someone should probably have caught that".... would you move now? And I said absolutely not (we were on day 18 of 24 at this point)...But somebody dropped the ball here $$$. She said she should bring it up with the powers that be.....Which you know is as good as the circular file cabinet.... Again, With over 50% of the suites sailing empty...And upgradeable inventory which would not have changed passenger count......Why did someone close out these 4 sailings losing potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars? Celebrity uses an outside company to process the upgrades, the company owns the algorithm that decides who is upgraded where when etc. They analyze the cruises and determine the upgrade priorities. Then this is sent to Celebrity home office for review and then it is forwarded to the ship for final review (because they could have passengers trying to stay on etc)....And then home office authorizes the upgrade company to proceed and they all make $$$ and passengers are happy as well. A true win win. So my question and one I sent to Laura Hodges Bethge was a clear, What happened here? Why was nobody trying to maximize revenue on these cruises? Who was in charge here? As both a Very frequent guest and a stockholder ((yay RCL) why were these cruises destined to not succeed it seems? As you can imagine I received back a phone call from a Lady in the "executive offices".....she tried to tell me they have protocols and appreciated my feedback. The call was useless. She did not understand that NONE of the protocols had been followed and that was my point...... She "Understood" but could answer no questions....and I had to call her back several times as she was in work spottily. Nowhere. So There is the strange story of the Millennium Japan cruises. We are Very happy we took the opportunity to re visit Japan and it was a fantastic way to do it. I just wish we had more clarity of what was going on here regarding cabins? As an aside, when we were leaving on the November 5th the suites were once again at 50% occupancy.....what to say. Management needs a look at this. Wishing everyone Happy Holidays, Safe cruising and effortless travels. We would wholeheartedly recommend Celebrity cruises for Japan again......or any cruiseline.....so nice not to haul luggage and so easy to see the country. Cheers!
  15. This ship needs a full refurb or she needs to be sold.....IMHO she is on her last legs. Terrible internet, mediocre air conditioning and stains on much of the furniture etc. She would have to have the most Amazing itinerary for me to consider her again......This refurb will be short for maintenance issues I am told as well.
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