PartyAllDaTyme

What points would you be awarded if you book a W suite guarantee? Would you have the lowest suite points (i.e 8 points per day), or the points allocated to the cabin grade you have been given (i.e 12 points per day for a Royal Suite, 18 points for a Penthouse Suite)?

Points are assigned on the basis of what was paid for, not the accommodations you'd end up with, so it would be 8 points per day. The same applies to visits from the Upgrade Fairy.

It's a business. The laws of supply and demand apply, and Mr. Bayley has a responsibility to the RCL shareholders to maximize the profits. Don't think for a minute that they don't take into consideration the customers and revenue they will likely lose when they make a change or lower their standards. But if the expected financial gains more than offset the expected losses, a change is made, whether the customer thinks it is in their best interests or not.

NJFred wrote a marvelous essay, and I congratulate him on a job well done! He is correct-- if things are not to your satisfaction, vote with your feet. Just please don't take it personally. I wish him good luck in finding a better line for the money.

At the risk of sounding crass, some might find a late-night proposal on a balcony following some (ahem) intimate activity to be romantic and memorable, but of course only if you and your beloved are so inclined. You might instead limit it to a long session of kissing and hugging in the moonlight. If you do decide to join the Balcony Club, be aware that most balconies are not as private as you might think. Make sure you're a ways away from the railing when you give her the ring so it doesn't go over the side in her excitement.

Congratulations in advance!

Thanks, Andy-- just what I was looking for!:)

I believe the issue with not allowing e-cigs outside designated smoking areas is that it's difficult to distinguish them from actual cigarettes, making it problematic for the enforcement of the smoking policy.

Anecdotal evidence, take it for what it's worth-- DW is extremely senstive to secondhand smoke. At a business conference, she began to have the usual symptoms-- watery eyes, windpipe constricting-- she looked around to see who was smoking in defiance of the no smoking regulation. The only one she found was someone vaping two tables away. No, she did not first see the person with the e-cig and then start to have problems. As I said, she's extremely sensitive, so vaping does not cause such a problem for most, but it apparently does have some side effects, despite what the manufacturers claim.

We were just on Summit in early February and never noticed a problem with the carpets. Then again, I wasn't looking for problems and so may not have noticed them. For what it's worth, then, any problems with the carpets are not obvious, at least not where we were.

For what it's worth, we had room service for dinner around 6pm on our last embarkation day, actual sailaway was 8pm.

FYI, room service breakfast requires you fill out an order form and hang it on the door by (as I recall) 2am the night before. I agree you should be prepared to tip the attendant since it may or may not be your cabin steward-- we do a few dollars for breakfast, lunch or snacks, a fiver for dinner.

"My mother thanks you! My father thanks you! And my cousin in Milwaukee sendeth a card!"-- Snagglepuss, Hanna-Barbera, circa 1960

Here's a link to the Connections registration page. You can find it under Roll Calls - Celebrity "Connections" Roll Calls - Register to attend a Connections Party (towards the top of the page).

Don't know; you should be able to register up to three days before sailing. You might try calling Captain's Club (if you're a member), but otherwise I would just show up-- if you're on the roll call and a sailaway party is planned, find out from others when and where, or inquire at Guest Services. They almost always have no-shows, so shouldn't be a problem to accommodate you. Never yet had anyone ask for proof that I registered.

I hope you got something in writing from the agent who "promised" you an aft C1 with a C1 GTY. I was not aware you could even get a GTY for a specific class, such as C1. I thought it would be for GTY Concierge, GTY Verandah, GTY Suite, and so on.

For a GTY, you takes your chances. Sometimes you get the minimum, which is what you wanted, sometimes you get more, which is not in this case. A GTY C1, if such exists, would not have GTY'd you an aft C1, anyway-- it could have been one in suite country on deck 6. (I'm assuming you're talking about an M-class ship, one with those stupendous aft C1's.) You can ask for an aft C1, but those are in high demand and I wouldn't hold my breath.

Is AQ better? It depends on your point of view. I hereby repeat my oft-told story of how I turned down a free upgrade to a Sky Suite in order to stay in an aft C1-- had the reservation marked "No Upgrades", they overlooked it, and it was not a GTY. I caught it in time before they had anyone else reassigned to it. But we had fallen in love with the cabin from the online descriptions and we didn't want to move. If it happened again, I think we'd try a suite, but I doubt we'd change for AQ.

I can't get my head around the fact that it is not permissible to discuss travel agents or tour companies on this site when you can discuss insurance companies. Seems like the same thing to me....commercial interests.

I work for one of the large travel insurance companies. I voluntarily will not name it because I don't want to sound like I'm shilling for them. There's darn few travel insurance agents around compared to travel agents, so I don't think there's much potential for a problem in this area, but I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest. It's also a conflict of interest because Trip Advisor, who owns Cruise Critic, is affiliated with TAs and it would be awkward to have their competitors allowed to advertise on here.

I question whether or not they took into consideration the effect of not honoring the equivalent number of cruise credits for cruises already booked but not taken.

Well, I have my answer. I received a nice phone followup to the email I sent to Mr. Bayley the other day, asking them to reconsider honoring equivalent points for cruises booked when the new plan was implemented. The answer was unfortunately they are not able to do so at this time, and they hoped I would understand. They definitely understood the frustration. I asked if Mr. Bayley had taken into account those loyal Captain's Club members in my position, and I was assured they had, but it was felt that the cost of being able to honor the additional points would be too high. However, since they had received much negative feedback regarding this, they may possibly reconsider and retroactively award the points. In any case, they had learned for any such future planning.

I finished the call by mentioning that the price for all cabins on Millie for Post Cruise Alaska Cruise Tour #10A on 7/4 were all $99,999, and has apparently been that way for two months. She sounded a bit shocked and said she'd notify the IT guys. That was a couple of days ago, and it's still not fixed.

If you book before final payment and are happy with the price you're paying, knowing it might not get better, then book the lowest class cabin you'd be satisfied with. If there's a price drop before final payment, contact Celebrity to claim the lower fare or upgrade yourself to either a same-or-lower priced but higher-class cabin, or pay the difference to switch to a higher-priced (but now lower than what it was) higher-class cabin. (Exceptions: New Bookings Only promotions or if you used a promotion to book-- in the latter case, you might void the promotion.) If there's a price drop after final payment, you can't claim the lower fare, but can still switch cabins-- no refund for switching to a lower-priced cabin, though.

I work for one of the large travel insurance providers.

Any nation on the itinerary will do. We also have "Caribbean" included as a destination. I advise people to list the nation they'll be spending most of their time in, or whatever nation is the main focus of their trip.

However, the destination nation can sometimes make a difference. Some plans are very factor-based, and one nation may be seen as a riskier destination. I once had a customer get a quote for the same trip her friend was also taking-- same plan, same price, same ages, same itinerary, but she gave me one nation and her friend gave me another. The premium almost doubled.

It may pay to look at quotes using all of the destination nations.

If people left because it became a bit more difficult to earn these "loyalty" perks, they weren't very loyal, now were they? If they took their business elsewhere over such a trivial reason, they didn't deserve those perks in the first place.

 

The cruise line may not be a charity, but neither are all of us greedy people who demand a few dollars worth of perks or we'll go elsewhere.

 

I choose my cruises for the ports, the service, and the overall experience, not for a few free drinks.

If you want loyalty, buy a dog:D!

In the eyes of a customer, it takes about ten good experiences to negate one bad one. There's a difference between blind loyalty and continuing a mutually beneficial business relationship. If it's perceived (rightly so or not) that someone's being done dirty, it's the customer's option to vote with the feet. It's in X's best interests to manage the perceptions.

I'm far from jumping ship, even though it's more than a "few" dollars. This is but one straw. But eventually the camel's back may break.

I'm certain they crunched the numbers regarding how many customers they'd lose by switching to the new system, making it harder (overall) to reach higher levels. I question whether or not they took into consideration the effect of not honoring the equivalent number of cruise credits for cruises already booked but not taken. Then again, they did make an allowance for Selects that were close to Elite. Maybe they drew the line there, but maybe they only considered the plight of someone who was close to the edge for their next cruise.

X doesn't always have a great track record of thinking these things through. Remember the aborted "X the Rules" campaign a couple of years back? As I recall, they admitted not even running that campaign through a focus group and were genuinely shocked at the backlash of Celebrity faithful that feared that they were going for more of a Carnival approach to cruising.

I suppose one point to consider is that Cruise Critic members make up a small but vocal minority of their customers-- many probably didn't even realize what the change meant to them. It's ironic that the ones that would most be annoyed at the way this was handled are among their most loyal customers.

Thank you ALL for your comments and information! It sounds like the S Class ships have what we are looking for.

 

Since the search function is still down, would someone please list those S Class ships for me? :confused:

 

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Eclipse, Equinox, Solstice, Silhouette, Reflection. S Class named for the first ship, Solstice.

I just tried a dummy booking online and did not see anywhere to enter special occasions without giving my credit card info, but last time I booked online it had the option. My experience (probably atypical) is that they don't always follow through very well.

We just got back from a cruise where we celebrated both my birthday and our anniversary. For my birthday, I did not get balloons or banners, would not have received the birthday cake if my DD had not said something. For the record, I didn't really care if I got balloons or cake or not, but seemed odd that they'd ask if you're celebrating a birthday and then apparently ignore it. I'm not certain if they do balloons anymore, though I recall seeing birthday balloons on someone else's cabin door.

For our anniversary, they had a Honeymoon/Anniversary special event in one of the lounges (Revelations on Summit) with a musical combo for dancing, cake, a selection of free drinks, and photos available for purchase. I believe that takes the place of balloons.

Edit-- if nothing else, once on board, go to Guest Services and notify/remind them of any special events. In my case, I did that and it still didn't help, but it couldn't hurt.

Do we know why it has been taken away :confused:.

See the announcement at the top of the forum page.

Same as any Celebrity ship-- smoking only permitted in select outside venues. Been a while since I've been on an S-class, so someone else can report where.

:(I miss the Search feature!

It didn't work out well for us though since they changed over while we were on the ship and instead of 3 credits/90 points plus 30 bonus for a total of 120 points, we wound up with only 45 points even though we were in a Concierge cain for 15 days.

5 points for Concierge cabin x 15 days should equal 75 points. Did you pay for a verandah and get an upgrade?

 

I have no problems with the conversion they did. We were one point shy of Elite after our last cruise. We are now 35 credits shy of Elite with the new system. We could have taken a short 3 day cruise in an inside and made Elite. Now we must take a 7 day cruise in CC or higher for Elite. I'm not upset. It's a program of FREE perks, and Celebrity doesn't owe them to us, but instead is giving these perks as a BONUS. I'll say that again - a BONUS!! We should all be thankful we get anything at all, instead of being all annoyed because we may have to cruise a bit more to get them. :rolleyes:

Throw me a frickin' bonus:rolleyes::D!

By that logic, we should all be okay with it if they decided to eliminate Captain's Club altogether, which they have every right to do. Just because they have the right doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a huge outcry at the perceived injustice of it all.

This is a promotion to encourage repeat business. There is a certain value to what they're offering, and it's part of a business transaction. Part of what I'm paying for is the eventual perks of a higher tier-- it's not a bunch of freebies. The free 90 minute internet package for Elites alone will save us $50 per cruise, and we'll now need to wait one more cruise to get there than if they had honored the conversion rate for the cruise credits. If I had no cruise booked and I knew that the basis for gaining ground in the program is going to be less, I can make an informed decision as to whether I think it's worth it or not, overall, to continue to do business with X. But for a cruise that's already in the works, it's reneging on what they told me would happen.

There's nothing like a promotion that's been screwed up to backfire and cause animosity instead of goodwill. Overall, I applaud the changes because they were necessary, but let's not tell the customer that their next cruise will get them 20% of what they need to get to the next level, then change it to 11.7% after they've paid you money.

It's not the weeks from the due date, it's the weeks into the pregnancy. I recall in the 1940's or so when we were expecting, DW's OB asked about where she was in her monthlies and if we had any "opportunity" between day this and day that. We had only happened to have had the one time, so start counting from then. No estimation was needed. It's a fixed number. If OP is in the same situation, there's no room for error. Liability insurance is going to say if a pregnant woman is on board at any time during her 24th week of pregnancy, there'll be no coverage if something happens and she sues the cruise line.

Getting back to the idea of getting off the ship at week 24 day 0, I would then also think that the insurance is written such that it will not cover any portion of the cruise-- it would be an exclusion. This is the reason the language says "cannot accept guests who will have entered their 24th week of pregnancy by the beginning of, or at any time during the cruise or Cruisetour." They would not be covered for liability starting from Day 1 of the cruise, even if the guest is not quite yet 24 weeks along.

Read CaroleSS's post. OP needs a note from her doctor that she's fit to travel, which would include how far along she is. It may be an "educated guess", if the, shall we say, opportunity for conception was during a range of several days. If she's already reported to her OB that it had to have happened on a specific day, it would be fraudulent to represent otherwise at this point. It would also be fraudulent to now claim no pregnancy. Since she's already been in contact with X about this, she can't take it back now, in any case.