TNcruiser1

Me three. Awful experience on a £10k trip of a lifetime and zero customer service from Celebrity. Appalled.

Me four. They handled the Jan 21 Antarctica cruise horribly! Our next cruise is on Princess. Next one on Celebrity? NEVER

2 Weeks Notice. ?

Ours arrived on the 13th by email from Celebrity, traveling on the 16th from the UK so not a lot of time to think about it.

Problem is now I have one booked in September from NY to Quebec and back with Celebrity but do I trust them to give me the advertised cruise no, DO I WISH TO GIVE CELEBRITY ANY MORE MONEY NO.

Trouble is I cancel I have lost everything yet they change at a late date, options none, monies back very little.

VOTE WITH YOUR CASH DON'T GIVE THEM ANY MORE.

Exactly the right approach. If you read the cruise contract, you have to have great faith in the cruise line because they can get by with doing almost nothing that they have promised. Their response to this whole mess tells me that they really don't care. Too many good choices - I'll never sail them again. Sorry to hear you already have a booking with them. Maybe you'll get lucky and they will actually do what they have advertised. Looking to book another cruise in the near term. Celebrity does not warrant any consideration. With a business that has so many repeat customers, you'd think they would be smarter!

I have never been able to get the discount. Even if there is no OBC, any promotional discount or Diamond/Elite discount applied to your cruise disqualifies you from the Stock credit. I stopped applying.

My experience exactly. Carnival Corp is much better on this. Have some of their stock and get OBC on Princess and Holland America every time.

Great letter

quote=Luvtocruise8;55243444]This is the letter we sent. So far, they have said they would not do a thing for us. Interesting that they are giving 50% off on a future cruise to those who were cancelled for 4/2. Fact that they did cancel that cruise proves that there really was as problem. We, and our friends who were also on that trip, would be interested in any suits.

February 6, 2018

Dear Ms. Lutoff-Perlo,

We are Elite Plus cruisers on Celebrity, Captain’s Club #700500850. We have just returned from the January 21, 2018 Antarctic sailing on the Infinity. As I am sure you are already aware, this cruise was extremely disappointing and, we feel, very mishandled by Celebrity from before we started.

First, I would like to start with the good news. The staff, especially cruise director Alejandro and his team, were outstanding and did all they possibly could to keep us entertained and help to make the best of a bad situation. This holds for everyone from the dining room, housekeeping, the kitchen staff, Paulina the Captain’s Club hostess, Javier the concierge liaison and guest relations. Sadly, they were constantly berated by very upset passengers for a situation that was totally beyond their control.

The problems began with your decision to continue this sailing with a damaged ship, resulting in the initial cancellation of Puerto Madryn, 2 days before we left for Buenos Aires. We were told by Mickey Live, who was a major contributor to any success the cruise had, that Antarctic itineraries were only completed as originally scheduled 40% of the time! Knowing these odds that it was likely to have to miss another destination, makes it especially unconscionable to have had to proactively cancel one of only 4 planned stops. It was obvious the ship was running on one engine, causing it to not be able to maintain necessary speeds to reach the other destinations on time. Perhaps if this had not been the case, we would have reached Pt. Stanley prior to the bad weather setting in. Apparently a competing line was in the area and was able to complete their total itinerary, including Puerto Madryn and Pt. Stanley.

Due to the need to reduce speed, we also got to Ushuaia a few hours later than scheduled. We were told that this would be compensated for by staying in port longer. However, with shore excursions not beginning until 5 pm and most not returning until 10:30, the town was completely closed down when they concluded and so staying until 2 am was useless and again put us even further off schedule. In essence, on a 14 day cruise we had 1.5 ports and missed having the up close wildlife experience that most of us had come for.

But for us, that wasn’t all. Our third day in Buenos Aires pre cruise my husband was mugged in a supposedly good part of town, losing an expensive watch and sustaining much bruising to his arm. Apparently, about 20 other similar incidents occurred with passengers on this ship. On February 1, the captain sent out a letter of warning about this type of activity in Buenos Aires. Clearly, this was a known problem as many of the entertainers and staff “joked” about it. This warning should have been posted prior to any passengers arrival in Buenos Aires, perhaps on your website.

Then, on the final day we participated in the Tigre River excursion with airport drop-off. As we approached the airport, the guide informed us that all our luggage had been transported to Terminal A. Passengers who had flights from Terminal C, which we did, were to get off the bus, get their luggage and return with it to the bus to be driven to Terminal C. We were encouraged to leave carry ons and personal items on the bus as the driver would remain. When we returned to the bus, number 18, with our luggage, it had left without us, but with my husband’s leather jacket clearly visible on his seat and our carry on with all his medication (he is diabetic) and our jewelry!!! Fortunately, bus 19 was still there and was able to call ahead and make sure that bus 18 waited for us to get there. But the tour guide, Gabriela, was very clearly negligent in not being aware that people were missing.

In speaking with fellow passengers it was agreed that Celebrity missed a tremendous opportunity to diffuse some of the disappointment and verbal abuse of their staff by offering something like free drink packages or unlimited internet for the remainder of the cruise. Not even one free drink was offered!

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that we will never repeat. We expect Celebrity to make major compensation for this disaster up to a refund for the cost of the cruise, and/or a major credit to a future cruise. We had reserved 2 additional cruises on board before the major problems began, but are seriously debating whether to continue our relationship with Celebrity.

Looking forward to a timely response,

Just for the record, this was what Celebrity sent out 2 weeks prior to sailing. As you can see Ushuaia got put back to 2:00pm from its original 9:00 am slot. This was then pushed back to 4:30pm arrival with the excuse of poor weather.

Port Stanley was originally allocated 9 hours which went to 12 on the revised itinerary. We could easily have managed a short stop somewhere if Celebrity had our best interests at heart.

We were short changed!!!

 

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Amen

I'll pray for those on these additional cruises prior to drydock. The consequences if the one working unit was to fail??? Ifthey only need one engine, why did they have two installed on the ship? Why is the ship going out of service for an emergency dry-dock?

They should have canceled thecruise I was on. At a minimum, fully disclose the problem and offerrefunds for those who would not want to go on a broken ship.

They are taking the infinity out of service when it reaches Florida and Nassau where they have the dry dock. It’s possible if not likely there wasn’t a capable dry dock available in South America prior to your cruise.

 

I guess you would have them taking the ship out of service and cancelling all the south america cruises after yours.....even though the ship is quite capable of safely doing cruises on one engine.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

Glad you have such faith in Celebrity. There will be extra staterooms available as many of us will never cruise with them again. The ship is is such good shape that they have to pull it out of service and cancel a cruise, but it was just fine for ours???

We paid for a properly working ship and they gave us one what was broken. It appears that they find that acceptable to them. Doesn't work for me. I'll just vote with my feet.

Happy cruising.

Really?? If we’d not been having propulsion problems we could have gone to Falkland Islands??And you know this because you’ve studied at a maritime school, or you understand navigation maps, or you were on the bridge seeing all of the readouts, technology etc and made that pronouncement. And you understand where another port is and whether their schedule would allow us to dock and the ripple effect that would have on arriving on time for disembarkation?

 

Very tired of reading these disparaging comments.

 

I was on this cruise, and the one before it (back-to-back). Let me shed some light on this.

 

* We were told in advance, while on the first cruise, as were those who would board for The Antarctica Cruise, that there were propulsion problems and Port Madryn would therefore be cancelled. A) There was never a safety issue; B) we would still have a good speed but, over the longer haul, the small change in speed mounts up so we would not go to Port Madryn; and C) Celebrity was refunding us for one day and for any shore excursion we’d booked there, because this change was due to the ship itself.

 

* This was primarily an Antarctica cruise and people booked it to visit the 7th continent and go around Cape Horn. Celebrity delivered and did so fantastically. Micky-Live, their naturalist was amazing and spoke live, piped in to areas around the ship and all cabins over ship tv as we did these amazing places. Captain went slowly around Cape Horn insuring all areas of ship could see it by his turning the ship. Paradise Island in Antarctica was incredible - Captain did two slow doughnuts (turn arounds) enabling everyone in all areas of the ship to have close-up views. Weather was great (not always the case). When we arrived at Elephant Island (where Shackleford’s men were stranded) it was so foggy we could see nothing. Captain waited and waited and waited....and fog lifted slowly and he waited..and then lifted completely. Agin, two slow doughnuts so everyone could see. It was amazing, And understand here, this was the purpose of the cruise - to see Antarctica.

 

* Yes - we were late to Ushuaia and people set out on excursions at 4:30 and some returned at 11. My understanding was currents and winds were against the ship going there, affecting the arrival. I know of two people who cancelled their excursions when they learned of the late arrival, and were refunded.

 

* Falkland Islands — gale-force winds (not just “because of winds”) and “extremely rough seas”- and in good conditions this port is a 45 minute tender. Captain sent letters to every cabin, announced, and showed maps etc on tv station. Those with private excursions booked were given a free phone call from Guest Services to alert them. Those who booked excursions with Celebrity were refunded in the manner they were booked: if you booked it before the cruise using ship board credit, you were refunded in ship board credit or if before the cruise by credit card, your credit card was refunded. If you reserved on board, you got an onboard credit. This was a very large and extremely dangerous weather system that was becoming apparent as we sailed...and indeed, we still had some rough seas as we skirted it. To assume that we would have missed the storm if we’d had full propulsion is not factual.

 

* I was in the library where the head of Concierge class was at his desk. As with Guest Relations, Celebrity assumed people would want to vent and had their desks staffed early. I witnessed people being belligerent to staff, sometimes as many as 20 at a time crowded in the library with voices raised. Same thing at Guest Services. Our wonderful cabin attendant was yelled at and had a door slammed in his face.

 

And let me be clear — which is not what you’re reading in these threads, people were angry because they did not see penguins. Penguins. Not because they wanted one more land stop...They are angry and threatening class action suits, because they did not see penguins. Staff are on 10 month contracts, away from their families, so we can cruise....missing their family...always smiling....and people were furious because they didn’t see penguins. Antarctica was the billing and main reason for the cruise....our safety, excellent and always pleasant service....and people are yelling because they didn’t see penguins??? Let’s have some perspective here. I understand disappointment. We’ve all been disappointed at times — but this kind of vitriolic anger because an Antarctic cruise didn’t have penguins up close?

 

*Last point: crew were incredible through the entire cruise. Added shows in afternoons and evenings with amazing performers who put together extra performances...orchestra members, singers, etc who learned new shows on the fly, practiced extra so they could deliver...more activities, more of everything on board while many people were rude and belligerant.

 

I for one commend Celebrity for their service, their commitment to safety, commitment to the environment, support of non-profits, training program and support of their staff, visibility of officers all over the ship, every day and evening, visibility of staff continually cleaning the ship...etc etc etc.

 

We will continue to sail Celebrity and are so grateful for our wonderful Antarctica cruise.

Sorry to hear you are on the February sailing. I'm on the ship right now and we aren't making 18 knots. This ship is wounded. They cut one port before we sailed. Were very late to the only port we have had so far. Tours were in the dark. Then Falklands were cancelled because the weather had gotten bad. If we had been on time. weather would have been fine.

Lots of unhappy people on this ship. If I were you, I'd cancel and demand a full refund. This ship shouldn't be sailing until it is fixed.

Given the way they are handling this, I may never cruise with them again.

I don't agree, If they are able to maintain 18 knots, that's close to normal.

 

I'm not sure what the expectation is for the Captain, since both the current guests and upcoming guests were already made aware of the propulsion issue, if something has changed yes, but otherwise why would he bring it up?

 

From the facts posted it the weather was the issue that ultimately changed the schedule for the last two port changes unless I'm missing something.

 

As a passenger on the February 18 sailing , I'm hoping they don't change the schedule as it stands now, seems like it would accomplish nothing since biggest issue has been bad weather