MarkWiltonM

On 2/22/2020 at 2:07 PM, CruiserMickey said:

Does anyone know what was or wasn’t done to refresh the regular veranda cabins? 

The regular veranda cabins have fresh carpeting and bedding.  We found the new mattress and the feather pillows in Concierge Class to be very comfortable.  There are also new curtains that look kind of cheap but do the job.  Otherwise, there were no changes to the furniture or the bathroom.  (Was kind of hoping they would move the TV to face directly across from the bed but I realize that would have been a huge ask.)  

They put out fresh scones  with clotted cream and jam in the Oceanview Cafe (buffet) at 4:00 pm daily.  It's a self-service tea.  The scones are usually very good. 

There are tables for two for both anytime dining and for set dining.  They may try to seat you at a large table but tell them you prefer a table for two. 

Another thing that may interest you.  At 4:00 pm every day, Celebrity puts out fresh scones with clotted cream and jam for tea in the OceanView Cafe.  The scones are really fresh and good.  This is not a formal tea; self-serve.  A lot of people don't seem to know about this.  Otherwise, Cafe al Bacio has great sweets for the taking, and their specialty coffees are very good.  

I usually find that the location I want puts me into Concierge Class over the regular veranda.  The highest-priced regular verandas are usually not much less ($100 to $150 for a 10-to-12 day cruise) than the lowest-price Concierge Class, and the higher price is based on a better location (I like to be exactly two floors below the buffet, in the aft.)  And if you are a Captain's Club member and you book the lowest-price Concierge Class (C3) you get a free upgrade to C2.  If you book C2, you get a free upgrade to C1.  The additional room amenities are minimal. I'd never heard of the exclusive pre-departure lounge until now.  The extra points are welcome.  The Concierge Class priority boarding is hit and miss. We got in the CC priority boarding line once only to see the people in the regular line beside us get checked in faster than us. 

How do you bookmark a thread or a roll call? 

I have a Classic beverage package on my next three Celebrity cruises.  I am wondering about the non-premium bottled water.  First question: Have they eliminated plastic bottles?  Second question: Do I have to order non-premium bottled water at a bar or in the Oceanview Cafe and then bring the water to my stateroom, or can I use non-premium bottled water that may be in the room (if they even stock that in the room/mini-bar)? 

Is it common to tip servers in specialty restaurants? I thought the daily gratuities that are added to our bill were distributed to all of the employees, including restaurant servers.  For most cruises I  give an additional cash tip to exceptional stateroom stewards but haven't tipped elsewhere. (We don't visit the main dining room often enough to have regular wait staff to tip at the end of the cruise.) 

On 6/20/2019 at 7:44 PM, Luvcrusn said:

They mail in the US and Canada if you request it. I've had consistent success in calling Captains Club to make the request. The requests made on the website may fall into a black hole somewhere north of Mars.

I haven't found a special number for calling Captain's Club.  Is there one that is different from the regular Celebrity customer service number? 

We usually book Concierge Class because of the better stateroom locations, the extra points, and the minimal upcharge ($100 to $200 pp depending on length of cruise) compared to the best non-CC veranda staterooms.  The canapes are horrible and we tell them not to bring them.  The service is the same as in a regular veranda stateroom.  Never even knew about the embarkation lunch but we enjoy the energy of the buffet on embarkation day.  It's crowded but fun (IMO). I wouldn't pay much of a premium though, and as I'll probably never make it to Elite status I'm not sure the points are actually worth it to me.  Location is key. 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruise-deals/special-offer

I saw a new promotion on Celebrity and re-booked a January 2022 cruise on Apex.  I got three perks instead of two and the total price was $400 less.   

I would say that's pretty good if you don't mind the nonrefundable deposit.  We got a C2 veranda (not Sunset) for 7 nights on Apex departing Jan. 25, 2022, for $3,964 with two perks with a refundable deposit.  That was with a Captain's Club free upgrade from C3 . 

They are all very similar.  You can't go wrong.

4 hours ago, ger_77 said:

Wow, we'll be on the Nieuw Statendam in January; it will be interesting to see if they've figured this out or not.  It really does sound disjointed.

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

We were on the Nieuw Statendam earlier this year and the Koningsdam the year before. We love the ships and especially the Lido deck buffet.  The Crow's Nest on the Nieuw Statendam is also great.  

7 hours ago, fragilek said:

I had been looking over the holiday weekend at my excursions on the Edge (sailing in the next 3 months) but my prices did not drop until today.  Our St Maartin dropped 25% so cancelled and re-booked.  The BVI one, I was thinking about, fell over 33% so now booked as well.  Worth a look today

Thanks for the tip.  I canceled and re-booked three excursions for our Feb. 23 cruise on the Silhouette and saved almost $100.  Interestingly, one of our excursions, in St. Vincent, had actually gone up in price. 

We snorkeled with Woodwind in January 2019.   They had lost our names for their list but let us on anyway.  The boat was very crowded, but the crew/staff were very knowledgeable and helpful.  We also had the misfortune of being there on a very windy day with choppy seas that were difficult for newbies, and there also wasn't a lot to see underwater where we were able to stop.  The guides definitely watched out for everyone in the water and offered assistance when necessary.  And they served us a hot lunch afterward, which was nice because it was pretty chilly due to the wind.  For people who aren't snorkeling, it's not a boat with a lot of space for relaxing and there are no loungers, etc.  

This is interesting.  We choose the beverage perk exclusively for premium coffee drinks (espresso and cappuccino) and occasionally a bottle of non-premium water.  We do not drink alcohol.  My spouse and I each have two to three coffee drinks a day, so I'll have to figure out if we are better off choosing a different perk now that it will cost us $28 per day total just for coffees.  It will probably not be worth it.  I'll have more of the free coffee/tea and splurge on a cappuccino once a day maybe.  But I can see how Celebrity must be losing money on this perk for people who are drinking wine, beer, and spirits every day.  We booked 2020 and 2021 cruises with the beverage perk before this change went into effect so we're in good shape.  But I'll be sure to bring a copy of that PDF detailing the effective date and copies of our booking dates just in case their computer system tries to apply the new charges retroactively, contrary to their statement.    

I will be sailing on Celebrity's Silhouette in February 2020 after a four year break from the cruiseline.  The last two years we sailed on HA Koningsdam and Nieue Statendam and we were impressed with the abundance of free movies and, in particular, the number of new movies that had recently been in theaters. They are great for rainy days or evenings where you've worn yourself out during the day on shore excursions. It seems like Celebrity is raising its prices to be somewhere between the "premium" and "luxury" categories.  So what do you get for the extra money?  The food on HA is at least as good if not slightly better and the staff on HA is much friendlier. On the other hand, I have missed Celebrity's Cafe al Bacio. I hope that is as good as I remember. 

Thank you ipeeinthe pool!

I read that the hurricane in the Bahamas may affect dry docks scheduled for Grand Bahamas Shipyard.  Can someone tell me if the Celebrity Silhouette dry dock in Jan. 2020 is/was scheduled to take place there, and, if so, if anyone knows the status?  We have a cruise booked on the to-be-refurbished Silhouette for Feb. 23, 2020. 

On the subject of "the oldens":  I truly believe the time will come--hopefully sooner rather than later---when making fun of people based on their age will seem as barbaric as racist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic comments. 

On 6/8/2019 at 8:57 PM, poncho1973 said:

We're fairly seasoned cruisers (about 120 nights or so on Royal, a half dozen Disney cruises, and 1 Norwegian cruise) who went on the freshly updated Equinox this past week.  We didn't really have a lot of expectations, but were excited to try something new.  We came in as Elite thanks to our Diamond status on Royal.

 

The good:

• Our stateroom was very nice and seemed MOSTLY upgraded, but not fully.  The bathroom was NOT upgraded, but had a nice new toilet seat (sticker still attached for the entire trip), but the tile was very old and everything seemed a bit worn.  It was fine, but I know several people were asking if the bathrooms were upgraded.  We had a J2 verandah on deck 7 mid-ship.  The balcony was nice and we had zero problems with our room for our entire trip... although this morning (arrival back in port day) about 3-4am I think the a/c stopped working as my wife and I woke up in a sweat with the room very, very warm.  However, it started getting cold again by the time we got up to leave.
• Captain Kate.  I'm going to put her in the good, but with a two caveats.  1st, she's American and this is for my wife.  My wife has this insane bias that all cruise ship captains should be Scandinavian.  My wife did enjoy her being a woman captain, though.  2nd, she's really, really, really, really scripted and corny.  I think this makes her a hit with the older folks, though.  She sounds like she's 100% reading every announcement word for word directly from a script and gives a corny saying of the day and a mostly lame pun/joke of the day.  She might just need a bit more practice, though?  I'm going to put her in the good because she was the most visible captain I've seen in all of my cruises.  She also was standing at the gangway this morning personally thanking everyone as they left.  I was majorly impressed by that move.  It's unlike anything I've seen.  We saw her at a couple of events and she went out of her way to be EXTREMELY kind and friendly to everyone.
• The solarium.  We're big fans of solariums and this was a great one!  We spent a lot of time here and it was excellent.  We napped.  We read.  We swam.  We didn't eat... but that's for another category.
• The lawn.  WOWZERS.  This was personally my favorite part of the ship.  We loved it.  We watched the sunset here.  We watched movies here.  We just relaxed here.  We watched glass blowing.  We loved, loved, loved, loved it.
• The oceanview cafe.  We both thought this buffet was really nice and IF it had handwashing stations would be right up there with the best ones we've been to on cruise ships.  I loved the ice cream station. 
• The smoke-free casino.  We don't gamble, but it was so nice to not have to avoid an entire floor of a cruise ship (the casino and anything near it) because of smoke.  We walked through and went to nearby events several times.  The place was packed, so I don't think it hurt business.
• The ship in general.  For a 10-year old ship, even fresh out of dry dock, it was very nice.  It was a simple ship, but a nice one.
• The staff.  We found a lot of very nice crew members on the ship.  It was a very friendly staff (ok, I think most of them were starting new contracts, but hey!) and we had a lot of fun.
• The shaded areas near the pools and on the lawn.  The number of shaded areas was amazing.  They had awnings and structures and overhangs galore.  It was nice to not have to sit in the direct Caribbean sun, although there were plenty of sun areas, too!  The couches and alternative chairs were fun, too.  It wasn't just pool loungers, they had options.
• Pepper grinders on the tables at dinner.  BOOM!  GOLD!
• Sushi On Five.  This was an excellent place to eat.  It was very lightly populated, though.  It was definitely delicious.  They were running a dinner special of all-you-care-to-eat for $25 a person, which was great and we made the most of it.  My tiny wife is a sushi-eating machine.  She had 3 apps and 4 full (8 pieces) trays of sushi.  The last couple of pieces she just ate the guts and left the rice/seaweed, but she put it down like a champ!  I was both impressed and scared.

 

The less good:

• Some of the service.  I don't want to sound entitled or bratty in any way, but my wife and I looked at each other last night as we were packing and said that we never felt special AT ALL on this entire trip to that point.  I'll add a caveat that Captain Kate's good-bye (12 hours after that conversation) falls into the makes you fell special category, but it was literally the very last 10 seconds we were on the ship.  Disney is pretty much the world leader in making you feel special, but Royal does a really great job of it, too.  When we are on a Royal ship, we feel like we're wanted and we're a priority.  We were just a cog in a bigger Celebrity machine here.  Everyone was polite and said pleasantries, but we never just felt special.  It was kind of a bummer.  I thought this was the fancy line of the Royal family?  It didn't feel like it.
• Elite status.  After the goodies you get as a Diamond on Royal, being Elite on Celebrity was like being Gold on Royal.  You really don't get much at all.  The Captain's Club event on 5 of 7 nights was like the Diamond Lounge's ugly stepsister.  They had 3 canapes each night and the options on the drink list were really light.  It's no wonder the place was a ghost town!  Finding a seat wasn't a problem, you could have almost any seat!
• The spa cafe in the solarium.  This was a the biggest joke on the ship.  It was open for approximately 8 minutes and 30 seconds each day.  The servings were legitimately light fare, but I didn't see many people eating it.  The servings were like a spoonful of egg salad or a kale salad that might fit into a ramekin.  I asked one of the guys for some silverware (they were closing and no more food was out, but there were forks, knives, and a flat napkins on a tray behind him) and he said they didn't have any.  I pointed to the tray behind him and he nodded.  "No more silverware" he said and shrugged.  So I tried a different approach "Could you hand me a fork, a knife, and a napkin?" He nodded and said "Sure thing!" and did so.  WHAT??????
• The food desert.  There were hours on the ship when the only food offering was the hamburger place by the pool.  They offered hamburgers, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, and fries.  They also have a turkey burger (pulled out from under the cabinet in a warm box) and a veggie burger (I never saw one, but the guy would tell the "come back in 10 minutes please" and mostly they just said nevermind.  I didn't see anyone get one.
• The oldens.  Holy crap was the age of this cruise INSANELY HIGHER than any cruise we've been on in the Caribbean.  So many hover-rounds!  So, so, so, so many smashed feet because the people driving them were crazy!  So many wheelchairs and canes!  So many Arthur Murray dance lesson graduates!  My wife said it was cute to watch them dance their routines and watch them mouth the step counts, but it was also very Stepford.  I'm no dancing judge, but it seems like dancing should be about feeling and not counting.  But if a song was playing, there was an A-M graduate couple out there counting!  So much perfume in the elevator!  AS A SIDEBAR, the i-Lounge was so funny and great for older folks.  There was always a line in there of older folks asking for help on their phones or tablets.  They had daily classes to teach people how to use them.
• The food.  Generally speaking it was more bland than our other cruise line experiences.  There just wasn't a lot of flavor going on and the food did not impress.  A lot of people told me that Celebrity was a big step up in the food department, but it wasn't for us.
• The specialty dining or our lack thereof.  We tried to get in and they simply don't return phone calls.  I called the day of once and managed to get a real person, he told me that I could ONLY get Le Petite Chef and ONLY at 9pm.  No thanks.  But then we spoke to several people who said their specialty dining was mostly empty.  I called twice more and was forced to leave a message... no returned calls.  They must not have wanted our money.  The second-to-last night we were walking the hallways after dinner and peeped in on 3.  Tuscan was 1/2 empty.  Morano looked like pretty empty.  Sushi on 5 was empty except for 3 tables.  A guy offered us lunch the next day for $30 or dinner for $25... we were on it!  Why did it take until the last day?
• So so so so so so much less to do.  People may poo-poo the rock climbing walls, the ice skating, the bumper cars, the zipline, the slides, the water slides, the FlowRider, etc, but man this ship had virtually no excitement going on!  There just wasn't much to do and it was a good thing there were only 2 sea days because there wasn't much at all to do.
• Everything cost more, or at least almost everything.  Then again, it's the upgraded line, so people with more money come on it?

 

The weird:

• Embarkation was weird.  The new terminal is great in Port Everglades and a vast improvement over the first time we were there several years ago and our terminal was basically the spooky warehouse building from every 4th Scooby-Doo episode (the other 3 locations being a mansion, an amusement park, and somewhere near a graveyard) you watched as a kid.  A very nice older man asked us if we wanted to try the "cool, new" embarkation process.  The line was about 1/1,000th as long, so we said "YES WE DO!" and went to the line with the facial recognition boards and people with tablets.  After absolutely nothing happened with the facial scanners (or maybe it's just instantaneous?)  and about 3 questions from the tablet guy, who glanced at our papers & passports... we were in!  Super fast.  We were then directed to a man who insisted on seeing some documentation about us being in that line, some express pass or something.  I said "that nice man right there asked us to try the new system and we don't have those passes."  This caused the man to get very huffy and start mumbling something.  He then walked away.  We didn't know if we were supposed to stay there and wait or what?  After a few seconds of him being gone and now speaking to someone else & laughing, we just decided to board the ship and see.  Cool.  We were on.  I honestly don't know what happened or didn't happen.  However, the time from entering the hall at the terminal to walking up the ramp was about 3 minutes at most.

 

 

It was our first experience on X.  I think I'd like to try Edge or one of her sisters at some point in the future, but from this very limited experience, I'm not seeing how X is the future for us.  We'll try again, for sure, but after several people IRL told us we'd never go back to Royal after we "moved up to X" I think that it just isn't the case.  It's not going to be a regular thing for us.

 

That said, any day at sea is a good day!  And most importantly, we had a very nice time with what we did.  We're the type to roll with whatever, but for the sake of review I'm laying it all out there.  If you have any questions or comments, I'd welcome them.

I am just about to purchase internet for a 12-night Caribbean cruise in 2020 on Celebrity Silhouette.   They have two tiers of internet now.  The more expensive "unlimited" internet version allows you to stream video and use VoIP technology for Skype, Facetime, etc.  The "Surf" package allows you to surf the internet and check email, etc., without streaming video and VoIP.  For 12 nights, the fees for the Surf package are $129.60 for one device and $194.40 for two devices.  The Unlimited streaming/VoIP version is $269.00 for one device and $404.00 for two devices.  They also have packages for three and four devices.  It seems fairly reasonable to me compared to prices I've paid in the past.  Since I don't need to stream video or use VoIP but my spouse and I may want to be on the internet at the same time, I'm going for the Surf package for two devices.  That works out to $16.20 a day (not sure if there are additional taxes).   

I don't know how you can be aware that it's non-refundable if you are not told in advance.  But, believe me, it won't happen again.