zanderblue

Apologies for hijacking thread......

just off off the Eclipse this past weekend. Disembarkation was chaos. We had booked group 20 to give ourselves an hour to get shoreside to meet a private tour. Immigration had been done onboard and we reckoned an hour to be plenty. 

As it turned out we were called 90 minutes late and made it to meet point 60 minutes late. Unfortunately, the tour had already left. 

No real reason given, other than the gangway was steep. Go figure???

1 hour ago, cruisestitch said:

Could be a hardware issue, but more likely a software problem so no spare parts will fix that.  Or, as said, it could be something wrong with the communications satellite and completely out of the control of Celebrity.

Yeah, it could be anything, I agree.

I have limited experience with similar arrangements and most organisations rent the satellite access along with specialist support to ensure any downtime is minimised. I’d be surprised if celebrity were any different.

IMO, I reckon 4 days is more than enough time to have it reinstated. If ships crew don’t have the skills or spares to repair; the problem should have been escalated to ensure the people or kit were at the next port of call.

Have to say that is really poor. I can understand if they require spare parts or expertise, but you have been in port in that time and they could have sourced these locally or had them flown in to meet you if needed.

9 hours ago, cruising cockroach said:

 

730p is a great time to be seated to dine to miss all shows.  Seated too early to finish the early show, and unless service is fast and/or you're only having 2 course instead of 3-4, finishes too late to catch the second show.

Our experience is different. Our last 6 or 7 cruises with Celebrity have all been Select dining and we have dined at 7:30 on them all. We have always made the 9:00pm shows comfortably. We don’t consider ourselves fast eaters, nor do we skip deserts ☺️. Nor have we ever felt rushed.

We do always dine at a table for 2, so I’d guess this must help.

As others have said, it allows individual preference. Early is too early and late is too late for us. We always pre book for whole cruise and then tweak if required.

The most popular eating time appears to be between 7:00 and 7:45pm, even with a reservation I have see us being asked to wait for 10 to 15 minutes if we wanted a particular table.

I have also seen folks without reservations being told the wait will be 20/25 minutes in similar circumstances.

I view it a bit similar to picking a cabin, you get a much wider selection the earlier you book. Same with picking a Select dining time, the popular times will be gone if you have left it late to book your cruise.

I’d advise you book a time as close to your preferred eating time you can, but be prepared to wait a short while if you want a particular table, particularly if you are dining at the busiest time.

There is another town called Hongai. It is the other side of the bridge and is an old town much less impacted by the tourist dollar. You can pick up a taxi/guide pretty easily where the tenders drop you off. It’s only about 20 minutes to get there.

There are a couple of temples and a local market. Also a very nice boulevard to stroll along at the edge of the bay.

The whole trip took us about 3 hours and cost about $25. We agreed price before we left.

I too have bookings through this TA. The final payment on first one was processed by the folks you mentioned. No final invoice forthcoming, but I could see transaction had gone through my credit card. I left it a week before calling, since they had said they were busy with the amount of bookings and had to check every one with Celebrity. When I did call them they then told me that there was a possibility that I had overpaid and they were working with Celebrity to figure out by how much and how best to recompense. This last conversation was about a week ago. I’ll give them a prompt in a few more days.

Worth noting that I am confident my booking is complete, since I was able to check in with no problem.

Aside from all our self preservation comments, it would be good to consider the poor TA in all of this........

Here’s hoping he gets well soon and has a speedy return to work.

Avis have a depot right next to Hyatt. Shuttle to port is just a few minutes.

The descision whether to return or not is wholly subjective. As you say the mood was gone and you felt better giving it a miss. Clearly the correct way to handle it for you.

Others mileage may vary.................

I do admire your patience though. I can’t see us waiting much beyond the 10 minute mark, before being inclined to take action.

We did have something similar in MDR one time a few years back. Long story short, after complaining to MD, It turned out our regular wait staff had been assigned extra covers and were stretched too thin.

It was a good conversation with him and I did notice a difference in service levels for the remainder of the trip.

thanks to everyone for all of the suggestions.

I typically take the amount of money that I think I'm going to spend but you just never know.

Got to thinking can you load let's just say 100.00 on your sea pass card go to a machine in that casino

Play a couple of spins and then cash it out? I just hate paying 5% for my own money.

It may not be that simple to add funds to your sea pass! See my experience on Equinox recently.

“On Equinox in April on Carribean cruise, I had problems.

Went to cashier and asked for $100 to be added to my sea pass and was refused. They told me initially they couldn’t do it because I had no OBC. Then went on to suggest that I played cash in the slots. Crazy thought in what is meant to be a cashless environment.......

Eventually, talked to guest relations desk and got nowhere, so asked for GR director to get involved. A lovely lady called Julie called back and promised to get to the bottom of it. I had a call from Casino manager shortly there after, who resolved the issue. I got no explanation as to why I had been initially refused.

Next night at cashier, I had credit added and my folio was immediately debited, in fact my credit card had the money authorised same day. The cashier did add that she was correct in refusing previous evening and that adding credit to my sea pass was a one off at the direction of the casino manager..........”

On Equinox in April on Carribean cruise, I had problems.

Went to cashier and asked for $100 to be added to my sea pass and was refused. They told me initially they couldn’t do it because I had no OBC. Then went on to suggest that I played cash in the slots. Crazy thought in what is meant to be a cashless environment.......

Eventually, talked to guest relations desk and got nowhere, so asked for GR director to get involved. A lovely lady called Julie called back and promised to get to the bottom of it. I had a call from Casino manager shortly there after, who resolved the issue. I got no explanation as to why I had been initially refused.

Next night at cashier, I had credit added and my folio was immediately debited, in fact my credit card had the money authorised same day. The cashier did add that she was correct in refusing previous evening and that adding credit to my sea pass was a one off at the direction of the casino manager..........

I appreciate these folks are poorly paid and I doubt that I would not have tipped him. More a case of my late realisation that I didn’t really have that choice without some effort on my behalf.

It most definitely was the cabin attendant who delivered the canapé. We met him several times as he brought them in.

Thanks for your review. We'll be on Equinox June 2; also in concierge. Do you remember what was available for breakfast from room service? There's been conflicting info on the boards on whether or not concierge still offers an extended menu.

Thanks in advance for any info you might have!

We did have in cabin breakfast on one day.

It was an extensive menu, included, continental and cooked. Only item I recall was at cost was the steak.

a short review of our 8 day ABC cruise this last week.

Embarkation was very efficient. We arrived at terminal at 11:05 and were onboard with bubbles in hand by 11:30.

We were in concierge and took advantage of lunch in MDR. Unfortunately, no short ribs on menu, but the chicken i had was very good.

Cabins were made available around1:20pm and we headed for ours then.

We were in 1253 which is midships port side, just aft of hump. Got to unpacking and discovered dirty underwear from previous guest in 2 of the drawers in the unit. Pretty disgusting and a bit smelly when drawers opened.

I called the cabin attendant who showed up quite quickly and removed items and sanitised the drawers. He was highly apologetic, but clearly he nor his supervisor were on the case. Later that night, I opened cabin mini bar and found a couple of half empty water bottles, again I assume from previous guest. This oversight troubled me somewhat more. If it had been missing items, I am sure I would have been charged for them. In any case, I reported to attendant again next morning and he removed the half empty bottles.

All in all pretty poor cabin preparation by the attendant, I thought.

He managed to compound this later in trip with canapés not being delivered on one day and even more bizarrely, he delivered canapés on Thursday, just before we left the cabin. We went for a walk and came back to cabin about an hour later and he had taken it upon himself to take them away again. Other than these oversights, everything else was just fine.

We ate in MDR every evening. Food quality was pretty good and service both food and wine were first class.

Entertainment was a bit of a mixed bag. We had seen 2 of the production shows on earlier cruise and gave them a miss. The other “Life”, was okay but probably not as good as the others. The impressionist and singing act Uptown were both very good.

I didn’t really like the band (badness), but several other folks we talked to gave them rave reviews.

There was a total of 4 sea days and we were always able to get a sun bed without too much hassle, although we did notice a bit of chair hogging going on, this was despite notes being displayed on the beds that reserving beds was not permitted.

In summary, we had a very enjoyable cruise and didn’t let the minor glitches with the cabin attendant spoil it.

One further thought I had whilst driving home........

We had prepaid our tips, so the cabin attendant will have had his full share, despite having underperformed somewhat. Food for thought for future perhaps.

Would you be able to tell me the names of the big production shows?

Great approach. Think I will follow your lead on our cruise next week.

You can check this online in manage your reservation section. If it has changed to Select, you can then go into cruise planner and reserve times if you wish.

We were late booking a cruise a couple of years ago and were initially assigned late. I called and the agent advised that they normally only waitlist up to 25 and had to check that there were less than that on list before we could be added to Select.

If same system is in place you’d like to think that you’d have a good chance of being moved.

The other point to consider is that even if you are reassigned to Select, then all the mid evening reservations have gone and you are left with very early or very late.

Fingers crossed for you.

Yes, it includes regular bottled water. It does not include a he premium brands like Evian or Pelegríno though

Don’t know for sure the exact amount of tables allocated between reserved and walk up. However, I suspect it is not fixed but rather a variable amount. Early in evening I’d reckon the percentage available for walk ups would be very high, but as the evening moves into the popular times of 6:30 to 8, then I’d expect it would drop dramatically (due to folks having made reservations), but then pick up again as the evening rush tails off.

The other factors in all this of course, is the size of table and the preference of the diners on whether they want to share a table or sit by themselves.

When Lumanae was built within the MDR, it cut deeply into the number of fixed dining seats available. All too often now, unless you request early fixed dining a year or so in advance, there is none available—hence folks being given select dining. Sometimes, even a year in advance is not sufficient. You can always check immediately when you board as to any availability but to tell folks to simply change to fixed dining is not as simple as it might appear. If we are not planning to go to the MDR for dinner, we always let our waiter and the MDR know so that our seats can be used for Select—and yes, Select can be seated downstairs when there is availability at the fixed dining times. We’ve watched people being led down the stairs to tables near us as well as our dinner “mates” telling us that people had been seated at our table by 6:15 so as not to disrupt service.

 

 

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I had wondered about that, but reckoned that the extra foot traffic might be disruptive. But as you say if there are Select diners wanting to eat at fixed times, it would make sense to utilise any unused tables downstairs.

In the instance we are discussing on Silhouette, I’d guess that one of the issues is their inability or unwillingness to segregate those guests with reservations from walk up guests.

I’d be pretty disappointed if I’d gone to the trouble of making a reservation and then find out that my table had been given away earlier to some one who hadn’t bothered to make a reservation or was too late in trying to do so.

I will propose a contrarian point of view. It might be better if ships did not accept any reservations for Open Sitting Dining programs. Reservations only complicate things and slow down the entire operation. If you want to eat at the same time every night, simply book fixed sitting. Otherwise, just show-up at the door when you want to eat and you will be seated. This is why many cruise lines are starting to do away with open seating reservations during high demand hours.

 

We love open sitting and simply head to the MDR when we want to eat. If we want to share a table with some friends we all go together. If on our own we will normally ask to share a large table and will generally be seated immediately. Those that have various demands (such as a 2-top, favorite waiter, etc) will often get a beeper and have to wait.

 

Hank

Hank. Not sure I agree with you here. But wouldn’t life be boring if we all thought the same. :)

Shore based restaurants manage a reservation system without too much fuss, as the norm. When their covers are booked they offer alternative time until all sold out.

Only real difference onboard is that when they are sold out they are able to offer fixed dining.

I suspect one of the issues is that Select is too popular and they are trying to please too many folks. Personally, we find early, too early and late too late, and would most probably not book a cruise if we couldn’t get Select. I guess this equates to another incentive to book early.

I made advanced reservations for Anytime dining for every night at 6:30 on the Celebrity website. We were seated at the same or nearby table each night, so we had the same wait staff. That's the good news. The bad news is the Silly has signs designating two lines, one for reservations and one for walk ins. They IGNORE the signs and do just one line, regardless of reservation status! I spoke with the Maitre' D about this process (as I am a LEAN professional who specializes in process improvement). I hope they will address this accordingly.

That is not good and significantly different from our experience. On Silhouette and eclipse previously they had two lines at starboard side door, with rope barrier between them and a podium at each side. One for the folks with reservation and one for those without. Each line was staffed with host or hostess.

If they are channeling everyone into one line, this will make a mockery of even trying to make reservations.

We prefer select and try and make reservations for the whole trip. On sillouhette and eclipse we have had to wait a few minutes on the odd occasion. I did notice though that they only seemed to use the starboard side of the upstairs MDR.

Last cruise on Reflection was good, there was never a wait, but I did notice that set up was different, insomuch that all of the upstairs was in use for Select. With the port side door for those with reservations and the starboard for those without.