johhnnyt

If you wish the butler will unpack for you.

He will have your shoes shined.

He will expedite your laundry.

He will book specialty restaurants. If you choose to dine in Blu he can make arrangements with the maître 'd.

If you wish additional towels, just ask.

If you want another type of pillow or an egg crate for your bed, just ask.

I misplaced a piece of jewelry and I knew it was my fault. The butler interceded with the Head of Housekeeping to protect the cabin steward. When I found the jewelry the butler handled all communications with the HOH. This also involved the ship's security and I was so grateful for his help.

Do let your butler know your preferences. He will ask. He will let you know when he has free time and will provide a phone number for you to call for service. It should be in your book on the desk but he will probably point it out.

He will make your cruise as wonderful as you imagine so enjoy every minute.

I've been thrilled with the butler service on Celebrity, but please please remember to tip him well before you leave. One of the nicest things one did was arrage for a cocktail party for 30 in my suite, he arranged every detail, and stayed during it to pour champagne. Seen so many people make request upon request on the butler and then just leave him high and dry when it comes to the final tip (no, the prepaid gratuity is not enough), so if you ask for top tier service, please be decent enough to tip the man accordingly

http://www.weather.com/travel/winter-most-flights-cancelled-25-years-20140214

Unless its an emergency I wouldn't be contacting Celebrity (or any other cruise line) for at least 4-5 days till they have stranded passengers who are coming/going taken care of.

The floods in the UK I'm sure have caused similar problems over there. Please try and give some consideration for people who REALLY need to get through right now, and hold off calling about things that can be dealt with later

Increased cost of travel? Can't buy airline tickets for that cruise yet so no loss there.

 

I really can't think of any real financial loss yet, over 1 year out.

 

The offer to cancel or rebook and get $200 OBC is quite fair given the timeline on this one. If you were months out, I'd expect expenses reimbursed perhaps, but I'd consider this a gift of $200 and book the alternative.

 

No need to stew over it. Accept the problem, and find the alternative and enjoy $200 on them when you get there in 15 months.

It's not like Celebrity did anything wrong in this case. Happens on every cruiseline every month, and perfectly legal and ethical to charter a ship for a fixed sum rather than worrying about selling it out, it might be a minor inconvenience for you nut hence the $200 OBC

I'm guessing most of the phone reps have been deluged with calls regarding people not being able to fly to their destination for a cruise, since most of the midwest and east coast are snowed in. I know my friend at Delta said the call volume they have had in past 3 days has been ENOURMOUS

I would hold off calling Celebrity for a few days unless its an emergency so they can get people booked/rebooked that are trying to get to a cruise

A professional pilot knows that they have to be prepared to fly during their "legal"hours. If the information I received was correct, the pilot was still in the "legal" hours, but essentially assessed himself as unprepared to fly.....after sitting in the passenger area for three hours waiting for the plane, getting on the plane and going through preboarding. From a safety standpoint I applaud his decision....however had he opted out of flying the plane earlier, they might have been able to find a standby captain to fill the crew. Since he waited so long, there was no way to get a replacement "legal" captain before the other two went illegal..so the flight was scrubbed. I guess if you are a half full guy, you think he really wanted to do the flight but just decided he wasn't awake enough to do it safely. If you're a half empty guy, you think he should have known he was borderline too tired earlier and he should have given the airline a chance to find another pilot much earlier....and you wonder if there was motivation to wait. Irrespective, it was a lousy night for passengers.

 

Just for completeness, the flight did leave at 3:30pm yesterday with a totally different crew and we are finally in buenos aires.

Just wanted to tell you I always enjoy your postings. You don't rant or rave, you're more like a good reporter keeping to the facts of whats going on and your observations. I've always found your insights spot on. Glad you made it to buenos aires, and hope you have a wonderful cruise

Perhaps I missed it, but I think the key here is what type of on board credit you were given. If the credit was given by Celebrity, then you have to use it on board and there is no refund for an unused OBC. If it was given by a Travel agent, then it's refundable.

 

When you are on-board, any charges are first charged against the non-refundable OBC.

 

It sounds like you had a $550 on board credit from your travel agent....and you had a $450 on board credit from celebrity. If you didn't spend the $450 then you lost the rest, but the $550 was refundable and you received that back after the cruise.

 

I'm just guessing...but I think the key here is how much of that $1000 was a non-refundable on board credit and how much was refundable. It is not unusual to have both types of credits and when you are onboard, you can see this on your bill because non refundable show with a code of OBCN and refundable shows as OBCR..

 

Hope this helps....

Always tricky when you try and cash out OBC, since it is ONBOARD credit, especially when your only point of reference is that "the rep told me I could", glad they showed exceptional customer service and went above and beyond what they were obligated to do

If a cruise line was more proactive in looking for symptoms, I think they might catch some of these early.

The other part of it is, if they promoted looking for it early it would bring out every hypochondriac on board to the medical facility with every real and imagined symptom around

The full value vouchers (upon confirmation by a doctor, of course) is a great idea though as everyone wins on that one

It's an interesting article, the way I read it is their secret is prevention/isolation of the symptoms rather than damage control once its onboard

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/11/health/navy-norovirus

Blue is nice but not really any different than MDR except portion size. Tried AQ on two sailings and ended up eating in MDR half the time anyway, as we just weren't all that impressed by Blue. No better or worse than other dining options

Instead I found the specialty dining venues a better quality meal, and even after eating at them 6 or more times a cruise still found it less expensive then booking the AQ fare

Its good marketing

Put the word exclusive on a restaurant and people will line up no matter what they serve. Probably be the same food they serve at Bistro on 5 now just with higher prices. Great idea on Celebrity's part

Allure and Oasis were both designed for the internet crowd with a higher bandwidth.

Would be a disaster for Celebrity to offer unlimited as the Celebrity ships even after being upgraded have a much smaller bandwidth, so no doubt it would be slower than molasses if they offered it unlimited and lots of people signed up for it

Realistically though, whats the point of cruising if you're spending all your time on the internet/phone, it kind of defeats the purpose:D

1/2 hour a day (maybe an hour if you upload a lot of pictures for family/friends) should be more than anyone needs

Allure and Oasis were both designed for the internet crowd with a higher bandwidth.

Would be a disaster for Celebrity to offer unlimited as the Celebrity ships even after being upgraded have a much smaller bandwidth, so no doubt it would be slower than molasses if they offered it unlimited and lots of people signed up for it

Realistically though, whats the point of cruising if you're spending all your time on the internet/phone, it kind of defeats the purpose:D

a half an hour a day (or maybe an hour if you upload a lot of pictures to family/friends like I do) should be more than anyone needs to stay in contact, otherwise not much of a holiday

You can upgrade from a veranda category 2D to 2C, concierge category C3 to a C2 or from an aqua class category A2 to an A1 now. You can't upgrade suite categories.

Read the fine print on the onboard flyers. I know when we were on the Norwegian Fjords cruise in June, I noticed the onboard material offered a two category upgrade so I booked a C3 and got a C1

A day or so later they contacted me and said it was a mistake as the policy had changed January 2013 to only allow a one category upgrade for the concierge class cabins BUT after checking with Miami they honored it since it was still listed as an option

The hot tub on the deck on the Royal suite is too small to consider it an asset, so in my opinion the only gains on the RS over the Celebrity Suite are

1. Bigger Bathroom-Shower is much nicer

2. Dining area/kitchenette-If you entertain and want to have full dinner parties in your room

To me the CS if wonderful, as we really don't have others over for dinner, and if do have guests plenty of room in the CS, so it boils down to the shower, and extra half bath, and don't really think the extra cost is worth it

Does the fine print say that you will get bumped from your cabin if the cruise line gets a better offer from someone else? Because that is what has happened here.

It pretty much does say that

They do reserve the right to change or cancel the cruise with their only obligation being a refund of money paid

That's any cruise line as far as I know, not just Celebrity

Usually found the meeting the first sea day the most populated

Seen anywhere from 2 people to 15 at any given meeting

Been interesting the wide variety of people you meet, I've enjoyed every one

It was funny I got sober ~16 years ago, and had paid for a cruise that turned out it would coincide with my first month of sobriety. Talked it over with my sponsor and he thought I should still go.

I thank the lucky stars and the people onboard for being there for me:D

Thanks Mike, Well I won't hold my breathe for the letter or any form of notification other than the cruise is fully chartered and your cruise is off.:D

I think that it's rather ironic that most people want affiliations/groups/clubs etc revealed to them but I'm guessing many wouldn't feel comfortable at all revealing their own. As the customer relations guy at Princess said, you really can't do it without violating the privacy of the passengers in the group.

Well, you just know how rowdy these gospel and country fans are! :)

Did a cruise a while back on the Summit with about 100+ bikers (motorcyclists), I was talking to the hotel director one day about it and she said with exception of the extra manpower of loading/unloading bikes at each port, they were the easiest group she ever worked with. Nicest most polite group she ever encountered, great tippers and polite to the staff. She wished every group was so nice

I try not to judge a book by it's cover. Usually when I do I'm wrong. Years ago a woman from Texas at our table (I'm guessing 70ish years old), she would wear a $10 housecoat to dinner each night. Best sense of humor at the table and she made me laugh hysterically every night. Turned out third night I found out she had booked both Penthouse suites onboard (one for herself and one for her sister). Never would of thought that to be the case.

Celebrity tends to attract 55+ crowds anyway, rarely are they the hell raisers. Always a few cranky ones, but generally pretty nice people no matter where they are from or what their interests are.

As I said, call and pretend to be interested in joining the cruise. Just ask how many participants they currently have.

Event:

Oak Ridge Boys Rally-at-Sea II Cruise (2/22-3/1) 2014

Start:

February 22, 2014

End:

March 1, 2014

Updated:

May 6, 2012

 

Venue:

Celebrity Reflection

 

 

Phone:

888-711-7447

 

Address:

departing Port of Miami, Miami, FL, 33132, United States

 

http://www.cruise-eta.com/event/oak-ridge-boys-cruise-228-34-2013/

Or you could just call and pretend to be yourself and just ask them :)

It looks to be a pretty rowdy group, I'm thinking Woodstock at sea

Oak Ridge Boys Cruise

I'm not! I would be furious if my personal info was shared. However don't you think they should let their customers know if their vacation will be impacted by restricted venues, dining times or any changes in established rules?

Just not sure how you could do it without ignoring a passengers right to privacy though. If you do it for one person (or one group), don't you have to treat all passengers the same?

That opens up a real Pandora's box. I wish they would tell me before I board a 15 hour flight that there will be 2 small kids were in the business class cabin, or that a hotel I reserved 7 months in advance was holding a Tequila Lovers weekend (both happened to me) when we arrived, but not sure in either case how the respective airline or hotel could have done anything about it, nor would I have expected them to.

Thanks for pointing out that you haven't experienced this problem. It's always helpful to get advice from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

Just curious, are you willing to have the cruise lines query and disclose your affiliations, beliefs, etc with other passengers prior to boarding?

I don't know of any cruise line that provides information on 'other passengers' affiliations, memberships, special needs etc and nor should they for privacy reasons.

How would it work? three months before sailing send out a letter saying

WARNING

600 Knitters will be onboard

120 Scot Bagpipers

11 people in wheelchairs

9 members of the Goldberg family from Pittsburgh

Will be on your cruise, here's a list of the events each has planned, so if you want to cancel the cruise, do so now?

If its that important to you that all facilities onboard be available 24 hours a day, maybe renting a yacht would be a better choice

Of the 20+ cruises I've done I've never had any group impact any cruise experience, although a friend went on a grateful dead cruise, and glad to say I wasn't onboard that one

If these groups are a problem or given special privileges it just proves Celebrity is the same as any other run of the mill business - "bottom line is Money"

Well it is a business

Can't think of any cruise line that doesn't want/encourage groups on board

Roll of the dice, like getting stuck with the chronic complainer at your table, the guy that wear the tee shirt on formal night, etc, some get be terrific and others ugh

To me no difference than if any group was booked at a hotel. Cruise line to me has no obligation to tell you who their passengers are, unless you feel comfortable that they could release your details to others

Been on with family reunions, gay groups, knitters, stop smoking group, wine lovers, and a German group that I think were some kind of collectors

Never once has any group impacted my space or cruise

Sometimes a venue is closed off for an event, but who cares, it's open later or next day

You do have to keep in mind that any member review is one persons experience and very RARE cases is it objective or indicative of what happened on the cruise in general or on the ship past or present.

I think like most things you just try and filter through them. The best and worst reviews you discount completely, and then looks for trends and commonalities in the rest.

I think we've all been on cruises or holidays with people that no matter what, can't be pleased, and were destined (in their own heads) to have a miserable time no matter what actually happens, and by golly they will.

The other end are the people I love meeting, the folks that no matter what will make the best of any situation. If a minor irritation comes up to them it's not a deal breaker, those are the ones I always hope are sitting at our dinner table.

One cruise we had a husband/wife attorney team at our table that were the most chronic complainers I ever met. Every single day you would see them at the guest relations desk raising hell about every minor issue you could think of (the coffee at Cafe Cova too hot, they didn't dry the bathroom floor after cleaning, sand in our spinach at dinner last night, towels are scatchy, etc etc), and every night we would hear about it at dinner, and of course how they wanted to be compensated for each one.

So bottom line is read them, take them in, and spit out the extremes, because rarely are they indicative of anything