Cap_D

Just FYI - The current face of the butler team is the housekeeper that cleans and has no method to communicate or coordinate with the rest of the team... that's not a butler and a lot closer to every sky suite passenger is on their own, schedule dependent, to interface with any other service or product on the ship, e.g., by waiting in lines, waiting on hold, retrieving VM messages, having to use a corded phone and not being on the balcony, retreat sundeck or anywhere except bedside or in the toilet room (but the retreat team attendant may be available to keep it clean). 

Setting aside the fired butler and their services, also missing seems to be the "Luminae room service breakfast menu" that is promoted with the Retreat as a stateroom amenity at time of booking a sky suite (including for the Xcel sailings in 2025-26).  Breakfast may be worth around $25-40 / per passenger, per day if it's a Luminae multi course and dish meal made to order. 

Thank you for sharing.

Not sure if posters here have all the realistic info, so if anyone is reading this and thinking there's a butler team that is wowing customers the reports are the team doesn't match up with what was provided pre cutbacks.  The butler team is in practice a head butler that may say hello once or so, and the overworked housekeeper / room attendant who cleans the room and other rooms that may or may not be in the Retreat.  There are many threads and first hand accounts that substantiate this regardless of title or what Celebrity says about the services continuing to be the same.  Those services included items that appear in bullet points and various other claims made by Celebrity in various places.  Those services also included the ability of the butler person to access the ships services, and use their discretion to serve the customer.  Whether the butler had provided all the services pre cutback is not relevant, but there are many reports of them being useful and available.  By and large the room attendant is not  providing all or any of the services, and the head butler is at best placing a room service order for coffee and often missing, according to many first hand reports.  Not commenting on the merits of a bait and switch or deceptive advertising claim. 

22 hours ago, jcpc said:

believe Yuksel (you probably know him too!) was responsible for her being promoted.

Yuksel was on Apex last Spring, and stellar. 

The issue with doors latching that I had read about on the other other message board seemed to be about the hallway and bathroom doors, magnets, and not the balcony door.  I think it was a different commenter that said the IV windown open a bit eliminated whatever noise that person had in their cabin. 

My thinking is there's a few different issues being experienced by passengers depending on the room type, but that there is undoubtedly a wall and ceiling issue that some rooms have and those can't be avoided through self help.  

One upshot of the much criticized Retreat Lounge is seems like a good place to exchange info among passengers and confirm issues.   

Has anyone overlayed the rooms with issues with a deck map to determine if there is proximity to the stretch part of the ship? 

I took a gander at that other FB site linked by the poster on the Beyond Creaking thread on this site.  I find FB hard to navigate, but could confirm there were reports and secondhand reports of creaking consistent with ones that have been reported for Beyond since it launched.  I did not see 100s or even dozens of individual reports but would no more question the reports provided than anything on here (except here often people post proof, or such longtime posters they come with credibility, and I know some of you have met each other over the years).   It also seems the other site has some posters that seem surprised by the ship potentially having issues, etc. 

Interestingly there was a theory provided that seemed plausible.  It went... Even when and if the issues can be resolved in one room, if any of the adjoining rooms, including above and below have creaks they may be heard.  It was also stated that the doors were often not fully closed, which sounds to me like a contributing factor but not the main issue that's been a cause of the continued issues plaguing the Beyond (and seemingly the Ascent).  Something like the doors not easily latching is a step above the hangers and bathroom door slam issue, but not something anyone trying to find noise wouldn't identify rain or shine, fear seas or otherwise.

My view is Celebrity and Royal (again) dropped the ball in working to resolve the issue regardless of the cause, until demonstrates otherwise.  The passenger experience falls on Celebrity.  At this point there should be an in room video explainer and mitigation process that doesn't involve foam earplugs. 

Wow.  RCL and Celebrity had plenty of time to address the noise issue.  All the LHB PR, Captains Club webinars, trivia with captain, a hip cruise director,  fake art by Peter Max, and a seafood extravaganza doesn't make up for noisy cabins. 

With regard to the CocoCay itineraries, there's only 8 Beyond stops (I think that is what "cool" Andrea said) and the others are on the older ship in need of a refresh.  Considering there are 3-4 ships that are new, I'm not sure this is a big drain on availability of other ititinaries or ships being used elsewhere.  If it wasn't CocoCay the ships would be stopping somewhere like one of the usual ports in Mexico, Nassau, or worse like Jamaica all ports where one is likely to be with ships that are Royal, NCL, Carnival, MSC etc.  CocoCay at least offers a superior beach day with water one can drink, some included food that is edible, and a clean restroom.  What's being lost, a bus ride to ruins or walk through the port maze of questionable vendors with trinkets that are actually made somewhere else, Effy and Diamond International stores?  Those are still available at other stops, onboard, or a different cruise.   Also, the ship won't require one to use a tender from a  shady beach club and it won't capsize, like the one leading to the death of a passenger.    

And, fwiw the CocoCay dates aren't ones of major US holidays. Presumably Royal has those dates fully booked with their ships.

One unrelated observation, the lack of actual knowledge of brand awareness by those on the webinar, the starkness of the backgrounds make some of the YouTubers like pros.  

Also, for the most part, the webinar was very similar to the one that was given to the trade and available in the celebrity commitment website about a week or so ago prior to the deployment schedule being released.  That had less interstitial pictures of the destinations.

Fully realize that every point and discount matters at some point, especially given the various ways celebrity and royal are jacking up prices. But I'm really at a loss to understand how one even realizes or knows if any of the promoted discounts are actually going to be applied at the time of use, or make the experience better. For example, there are sometimes discounts on the crease planner for laundry but then depending on the level of status one can get a discount on laundry. I have to imagine that it's all sort of a crapshoot. But, every potential bit helps.

1 hour ago, luckyinpa said:

good reason to book ..oh wait already did! i found the chops steak on liberty of the seas disappointing but i did like central 150 on oasis. so this should be even better! 

Please report back.  Thanks. 

38 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

I no longer order baked potatoes out anymore since they are never consistently hot and soft. I have now perfected making baked potatoes at home and will only have it at home, Here's the recipe and believe me, it's FOOLPROOF and a game changer. 

 

Thumbs up to Americas Test Kitchen's techniques and recipes.  I'd also put a plug in for the Serious Eats website, which has a number of recipes from alums of ATK like Kenji Lopez-Alt, and any other source for a Kenji recipe (NYT, social, and cookbooks).  Not to turn this into a recipe thread, but those are first look sources for techniques and recipes in our household. One other source, Brian Lagerstrom on YT, and he could be a Celebrity Cruiser (he at least posed for a pic with the Lawn Club in the background).

Hopefully they are not adding a sea pass card reader or, even noting room number, when placing an order for bar service in the Retreat Lounge.  The time from ordering to service is already lengthy on E-class ships due to the lounge design, and even worse on the Edge with no bar.   All have limited space and paths for the server(s) or require a guest to stand in a walkway area while waiting for a drink.   

Btw, on the Retreat Sundeck my experience has been the bartenders will often take down room numbers and name to avoid having to run the cards, and then manually enter later on similar to how service is done on carts or in OVC at the temp drink stands.  

Somehow the pool bar always seems faster. 

This was interesting amid the cutbacks, up charges, etc.....

https://www.thestreet.com/travel/royal-caribbeans-celebrity-makes-an-impressive-dining-change.

"Bethge then jumped in and explained that this wasn't an accident. Celebrity had actually been working for years on a new steak broiler designed to be hotter than previous options available on cruise ships, she told the group of us.

Celebrity Ascent is the first ship to add the new broiler, but plans are underway to change that."

@Jim_Iain Have you and Iain had any meals in your Royal Suite (I think that was the room type) this leg?  Since there's often talk of specialty dining being included in the upper suite fares, I figure I'd ask, although it seems you've had most meals in Luminae.  

3 hours ago, asnaleah said:

“Which ship is the Double Cheeseburger listed???”

 

Here is the menu description from Eclipse.

”Luminae Double Cheese Burger

  Smokey brisket, cheddar, pickles, horse radish BBQ sauce”

French fries not listed. I have only seen them offered with the lobster roll. Not a complaint, just reporting.

I miss the onion-bacon jam.

Not to make work for anyone, but different threads on food categories like burgers, fries, steaks, and pizza may be useful for people to monitor, report, and comment on the quality of each, and allow for some QC.  It may also help to understand what the intended baseline is vs troubleshooting due to provisioning or bad cook.  Jim's and other trip reports (especially Jim due to breadth), and posting of menus definitely helps in this regard, and is very much appreciated - thank you.

With regard to fries, on Edge Spring 2022, Apex Spring 2023 each out of FLL, for example, we've only had at multiple venues, the same coated french fry (bright yellow) from frozen bags with multiple languages, which had the truffle oil spritz on the Retreat Sundeck and Luminae, but were plain at Mast Grill.  We also saw the same base frozen fry at Rooftop and in the OVC.  In videos, the same fry appears to be present at the Bistro (although I think they are marketed as fresh cut).

On the same trips as above, we had the same "thick" probably 8 oz burger patty at Luminae and the Sundeck.  

Did anyone read of any reports from Australia when LHB and team were on Edge?  I haven't seen any detailed reports.  In any event, LHB is less than impressive except in her ability to ignore the reality of what she is operating and the issues she is causing.  The irony is LLP is over on Instagram hawking a book on leadership, using ones time to the fullest, and other leadership principles often with imagery from when she was CEO.  The messages are open to interpretation, but its almost as if there is a bit of trolling going on.  Although both are presumably only interested in the bottom line even if they took different paths to get there.

Most on here have heard this or experienced this already, but since there's some new commenters:

The Retreat was designed to include butlers as glue; without the butler service the Retreat experience is veering into being useless except for a larger room and a source of frustration.   In practice, the butler may sometimes be underused or make mistakes (we didn't get a breakfast order one day and it entirely messed up the excursion, and took a lot self-help to resolve (e.g., after the order arrived, having to go to Luminae to get utensils, condiments).  But, in the Celebrity system, especially because the alternative is 1:1 waiting in line or using a wired phone, the butler was an essential part of leveling the experience with the service that any comparably priced (or less as is often the case) resort, hotel, boutique hotel experience would deliver on as a baseline and most likely to be a source of "wow," which now just leaves the Luminae team for most suite guests, along with a cast of crew that is spread more widely.  Post cutbacks, its been established that the point of contact is the housekeeping staff, which is ridiculous.  While important, the person cleaning (including the toilet) should not be the person responsible for morning coffee service or any food handling, let alone anything else.  They also don't have any "authority" or "gravitas" to get anything done internally on the ship.  Even a desk clerk at a hotel has more "power" than a Celebrity housekeeper.  (I'm using housekeeper because that is the function of the room attendant, host, etc. regardless of fancy title).  

Many of the services a butler can or would handle don't require a butler on land, but because the way shipboard operations work a butler can made the difference.  For example, on Celebrity the Butler would be the primary point of repeat contact and have some ability to follow-up on anything and everything, integral to overall QC for the room, room service, room service QC (ensuring right items for each order, right amount of utensils, etc.), pre-packaged drinks / minibar, troubleshooting seamstress, laundry, etc., answering basic questions without waiting in a line with 20 or more other people and then getting solicited by hawkers offering insoles, restaurant packages, cork screws, liasoning with overworked other crewmembers, departments, etc, some who don't have phones / computer / Ipad that are used by crew to communicate, etc.  

Has anyone seen reports of noise on Ascent?  I have not, but only been reading the reports on this site, and not Facebook or other places.  

One emerging onboard trend is the shifting of items from included to an upcharge in order to make up the OBC that was included in the promos up until October-ish.  The drink prices being raised to above the threshold for the packages is one example, and there are likely more in the works. 

In addition to raising the actual total cost of the trip, the depletion of OBC to cover the gaps will also result in fewer tailored experiences and perception of choice. E.g., on an e class, we may have opted out of an OVC lunch and visited the Bistro and not had to outlay cash.  This then also places more attention on what's included, and whether it's adequate for the expectation and so on.  That then places more strain on the shipboard crew who presumably sense the passengers aren't as upbeat as they've been in the past, has many of us wondering if Retreat is worth considering some of the routine issues they have, and for 80% of suite rooms the main point of contact has become the housekeeper who wasn't given butler school training and quite possibly was just cleaning up a mess (and we appreciate that greatly) or, haggling with the waiter to find the $20 mass market bottle of wine that now suddenly has a per glass price of about the same on the ship.  (There was even the recent thread on this forum about soda).  Everything suddenly has a value that probably makes little sense in the outside world, and serves to help degrade the vacation experience.    

So, everything has been pushed down or out on the customer, yet the marketing and what one expects is something more than having to hope you're the one is an exception to everything that has been reported.  

And, it's been reported that more RCL managers are finding their way to the same roles on Celebrity ships.  If intentional by corporate, it's further steps to scuttle what even the modern Celebrity experience was attempting to achieve.  

16 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

I just completed the End of First Cruise Survey -   First time I have not give a 9-10 survey.   The staff is amazing,  Edge is just off and we were discussing that we will probably never sail Edge again.    As a comparison Apex rated a solid 10 in April/May.

 

We were looking at WindStar last night .... hmmm.    Iain found one he liked but it is weeks after our next 30+ day B2B TP.    

Jim, I know it comes down to a number of factors and some of the issues have been provisioning, but curious about how much of the off aspects of the journey are the senior staff and managers vs LHB/corporate? 

We had some issues on Apex in March/April, but once we surfaced them then it was apparent that the hotel director Christophe, Yuksel, Eleana and others in Retreat, food and beverage guy that responded to a QR code submitted item, CD Brittany (who we engaged with because our child loved Jessica's magic show) all worked together to correct, recover, and at times wow.  So, we had a great over all trip.  They were top of their game in terms of working with what they had, even if towards the end of their 3 months, as it was just before the TA.  One difference, we were not on an epic itinerary.  I read your Apex posts at the time, and I believe you had some of the same senior officers and crew.  Of course, cutbacks on staff whether directly or indirectly can still impact upper suite guests, lack of supplies, bad logistics at a port and so on could all have messed things up and exposed riffs.  

PS - I typed my message above before I read Jim's response to Alexandra @Norwaylady

Cigarette smell is fairly is unmistakable, but do check the drain in the bathroom.  Many who have been on other Edge class ships have experienced a smell emanating from that drain.  Hot water seems to help if the cause is the "trap."  Also, ask for a new air filter.  There's an entire thread on mold/smell on Beyond, and while Ascent is new the cabins were installed weeks or months ago and so on.  Not saying it's anything other than cigarettes, or that there's an issue, but it does seem to occur.  

32 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

I can confirm there was another who was female and from the Philippines as of last spring.  So now we have at least two

@NutsAboutGolf another female Camp at Sea employee from Philippines? 

Given the staffing arrangements we saw on Apex and Edge, I am surprised another staff member didn't observe anything worth someone taking a closer look at tapes or monitoring before this incident was reported by the child and their parents.  Crew also would interact with other crew during off hours, so it's not as if they "go home" and keep as many behaviors a secret as someone who clocks in and out at a daycare center.  

The OP asked about Equinox, I know.  FYI, anyone reading, the videos from the Ascent show gray colored plastic high chairs positioned near the aft bar / pizza station along an interior wall.  

1 hour ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

Even if it was just loaded (which I don't believe) then it should have been available on the second day.  I really think they are playing the supply chain issues card as a way to limit consumption of the premium products people have paid for.

Fully agree.  It takes far too much vigilance and work to get what one pays for with the QC falling on the paying customer. 

@Northern Aurora and @emmas granPlease put those Edge comments in the survey.  And, hope you had a wonderful trip despite the various hiccups reported on other threads.  Too bad you couldn't tell LHB directly who apparently boarded in Sydney. 

Awesome pictures.  We shared them with our family over breakfast.  

Any signs of LHB and team from Miami, or the missing provisions? 

A couple observations and ideas:

We generally have had no issues on the ship, but we do caution that not everyone is trustworthy just because they have a smile and uniform, or are on vacation.  The cameras help some, but don't stop everything or crimes of opportunity or the deranged (like the molester on Silhouette crew).

Set some calendar reminders to check the safe before embarkation.  And, have a practice that your spouse/partner double check the safe no matter how adamant one is that is was checked. 

For poolside and other lounging situations where you may bring more than you want to carry into water or the nearby area, we have occasionally used ski locks or a master lock mini portable safe with a string lock to tie to a chair or other fixed post.  We didn't do that on the ship, but had it for port visits to beaches.   A pouch can be good for going on the water. 

Tiles and airpods may be of limited use on the ship for location purposes (between the wifi and need for other users, some of the locations may show the shipyard or another location while on the high sea), but the buzzer may work, it would work on land, etc.  So, we have them for all of bags, including backpacks, and so on.  We have them in our cars, too. 

We set our bank accounts through apps to limit the amount of withdrawals and lock other certain apps to hidden spot on our screens.  No need for anyone that may gain access to your banking or investments.  We wouldn't do this for a US business trip, but we would for Caribbean, Mexico, and Bahamas.  

You can lock and wipe your devices from anywhere and any computer.  But, you need your credentials and to know how.  Your mobile phone company can be helpful too. 

We don't travel with anything important on the memory cards or hard drives of our devices.

Unless it's bedside with us, locked in a room  safe or non shady locker that is required, or going through a scanner, we don't leave our phones anywhere, and would not leave tablets or computers unattended.  The inconvenience and our lack of access to info is just too much to fathom.  Don't let someone else use your phone or devices logged in as you. 

Tap your credit cards when possible at POS terminals.  Don't let them out of your site. 

Leaving a sea pass card unattended seems like trouble or at least inconvenient.

Have a printed list of phone numbers.  With phones, FaceTime, etc, they may no longer be committed to memory. 

Always bring a cable/charger or backup battery on excursions.  Don't charge unattended.  Small backup batteries are inexpensive. (A long one is great for the room with no outlets on one side the bed, or airport).

Carry your driver's license/passport and plane ticket through security, and hold it over your head or in front of you.  And, get your phone, and wallet out  of your bag or bowl ASAP after it clears the scanner.  If the alarm goes off and they evacuate the terminal have what you need on you.  

Ziploc bags work great for air buds, and other pocket items if taking a dip. 

Cash is great for tips, getting out of a jam, a van ride on Grand Cayman etc.  Cash doesn't usually cause the jam.  It can stay in the safe when on the ship, but would think a sizeable cash tip gets the martini bartender's attention too.