Aussiepair

We were offered an "upgrade" on two previous cruises with anther cruise line and accepted them both, biggest mistake we have made. Both times we were "upgraded" to a noisy room that nobody wanted. Since then we have always picked our cabin and stuck with it.

On 10/14/2022 at 7:42 AM, f1jon said:

These offers are making my head spin! For those of you who receive these offers, will you share how much you spend in the casinos? Do you have a "system" to get these offers?

 

 

I have never received any of these offers but my sister has not paid for a cruise on any cruise line in the past ten years or so and she often gets deals for a second passenger. She plays poker every day of her cruise and sometimes spends eight hours a day at the tables. Apparently with poker they calculate how much money you have put down in bets for the duration of your cruise, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose just how much you put down. She is presently on a cruise out of Sydney, Australia. I suspect the cruise lines are doing well out of her but she says she does OK.

In Australia tipping is not customary unless exceptional service is provided, this is because all workers in Australia receive a fair minimum wage, unlike countries like the US where many occupations receive a ridiculously low wage and are expected to survive on tips. For this reason most cruise companies that sail out of Australia are now including the HSC in the fare structure, as is normal for Australia and they don't require a daily HSC. 

Some people, especially Americans, don't understand the cultural and economic differences between the two countries and think that Aussies are cheap for not tipping, the truth is that in Australia we make sure everyone is paid a fair wage so begging for tips is not required.

When I cruise with my wife we always pay the HSC and we also tip our dining room waiters and room attendants well, they go out of their way to make our cruise enjoyable so we show our appreciation.

Thanks for posting such a comprehensive report Sarah, nobody can accuse you of not going to enough effort. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Your review is going great Sarah. Anyone that posts a negative comment about your review obviously leads a very sad life, it would be so simple for them to just not read it if they don't like it. As for the happy laundry lady, we have struck selfish people on every cruise we have been on and most seem to come from the same country which is unfortunate as most Americans are very nice people.

Just disembarked from the Millennium after a two week cruise from Vancouver to Seward and return with my wife.

We have cruised with Princess, RCL and may times with HAL.

Our experience on the Millennium was at least as good as any other cruise we have been on. It was our first cruise with Celebrity and right from the start it was obvious they did some things different from the other cruise lines.

Our pre cruise safety drill was carried out painlessly in the theater, not packed like sardines under a life boat on an open deck.

Our cabin was clean and in great condition. We had pre booked cabin 7008 at the front of the ship, it was the quietest cabin we have sailed in.

Cabin staff and waiters were the best we have had on a cruise. We have never seen bad staff on a cruise ship, just bad passengers, but these guys were exceptional.

The food was very good, maybe slightly below HAL but unlike HAL our meals were always very hot.

We did hear a few passengers complaining while on the ship but on every occasion it was for the most trivial reason. At breakfast in the MDR one morning a couple sitting with us became very upset and rude to the waiter because they had to wait a few minutes to get some milk for their coffee. It was obvious to us that the waiters were being run off their feet yet this couple still abused them.

The entertainment was excellent, a good variety and very entertaining. Overall probably equal to the best we have seen on a cruise ship.

We would not hesitate to cruise on the Millennium again.

Thanks for taking the time to post your views Fred.

We board the Millennium this morning for a return cruise to Seward and are very confident the ship will be all we expect. Friends who have sailed on her have all been more than impressed.

I take very little notice of reports claiming everything was doom and gloom on a cruise ship. Some people manage to find negatives for the most trivial of reasons, we have seen this on every cruise we have been on.

If you want a true review of a cruise ship you need to read the reviews of first time cruisers not the reviews of people that have cruised many times and compare the cruise to previous cruises that may have better memories for reasons other than the condition of the ship.

The smoking situation is working itself out. Smokers are flocking to HAL and non smokers are going elsewhere, problem solved.

Much as I'd love to cruise with HAL, since seeing their beautiful ships in Alaska.

 

I just don't look at their overseas cruises, as a matter of principle! I can't be bothered by a company which discriminates against someone because of where they live.

 

I wonder how much business from Australia, HAL looses because of its policy.

I know of many Aussies that feel the same as you. Luckily there are still cruise lines that don't discriminate.

This is more of a warning for other passengers as I have just figured out the solution to the problem (Ha! JK about that one! - see edits) I was originally going to post about:

 

Original Problem:

 

"I booked my August cruise while the 123go promotion was going on and I chose the beverage package and gratuities option (BEVCLINGRAT). When I went to do my final payment a few months ago I noticed that in addition to the BEVCLINGRAT credit that appeared on the breakdown of charges was also 300 dollars for gratuities! I paid the full remained of my balance minus the 300 dollars listed for "gratuities" since I should not be paying for gratuities when they were included in the 123go package. I just went to look at my account on celebrity today and it says that my balance due is 300!!"

 

 

Solution:

 

I would have sworn that when making my final payment I unchecked the box to pre pay gratuities but it seems to have gotten rechecked by itself somehow. To solve the problem of getting charged for gratuities when they are included in your packaged uncheck the gratuity box under total balance due:

 

Total Balance Due $ xxx.xx USD

[ ] Gratuity $300.00 USD [ ] CruiseCare Protection $518.00 USD

 

This still just seems super shady to me and I wonder how much money Celebrity has managed to get out of people accidentally double paying for gratuities.

 

***EDIT: when I originally unchecked the gratuity box my "balance due" immediately went down to "Total Balance Due $ 0.00 USD". I just went back to the manage reservation page and it now says that my balance due is $48.00 USD. Is this just a celebrity website glitch or is something suspicious going on here?!?!

 

*** ONE MORE EDIT: I just remembered that I had taken a screenshot when I originally made my final payment on Mar 30 of "My Vacation Payment Summary" (in case something like this were to happen) and sure enough right there it has Balance Due as $0.00 USD! So sometime between then and now they decided to try to sneak the $300 dollars for gratuities back in. Even after I fixed it AGAIN to go back to balance due of $0 it now says I have a mysterious balance due of $48. WATCH OUT EVERYONE!!!

Are you saying you had the option of choosing both the beverage and free gratuities under the 123 promotion? When we booked our upcoming cruise we were allowed to choose one option not two.

The last that I saw, the trip had reached day 4 with another 9 to go. The conclusion may be some time!:)

Yet another negative post from the Cap'n. Didn't your mother tell you if you don't have something nice to say then say nothing.

All the cruise lines seem to do the same thing and it is ridiculous. The Cairns / Port Douglas area of Far Nth Queensland has more to offer than just about every other area of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef is worth the cost of a cruise just on its own if it is seen properly. The GBR is a full day experience with most day trips leaving before 9am and returning after 5pm with many spending much longer at the reef. The cruise lines need to overnight at Cairns and Port Douglas to give people even a chance of making the most of their cruise.

We are actually trying an Alaskan X cruise after cruising with HAL, Princess and RCL.

HAL has great itineraries and service plus their food is very good but they rip off Aussies with their pricing policies. Their smoking policy is also very pro smoking.

Princess has great service but similar pricing policy for Aussies and their itineraries don't work for us. Their food was reasonable.

RCL was a lower standard all round on the cruise we took with them but it probably varies between their ships.

We are very looking forward to our Celebrity cruise, just two weeks to go.

I am not a grub but having my cabin serviced once a day is plenty for me.

There is no way I would leave items like dirty dishes in the hallway for people to trip over, in fact it amazes me that people do.

I can criticize HAL for many things but service from their workers is not one of them.

I would pick the itinerary before the ship for a Med cruise. Turkey, Greece, Croatia and Italy offered more for us than the Western countries even though we weren't expecting it to be that way.

Our experience in the Caribbean' date=' the Baltic, and the Mediterranean is that HAL uses the least convenient dock when there is a choice. I presume the port fees are less at the container docks.[/quote']

 

Bingo.

Very strange that HAL call their Mariner program a loyalty program yet penalize cruisers for their loyalty.

If you do some research on some of the larger US TA's you will see that some last minute offers from HAL for US citizens can be half the cost offered to Australians.

The fact that most times we have much larger airfares to get to the cruise ports is not taken into consideration unfortunately.

Not only do we get squeezed on the fares we also get no consideration when it comes to cabin allocation. On a recent Baltic cruise on the Rotterdam we were given a known problem cabin despite the fact that we had paid full fare and were 3 star mariners. Cruisers that paid less than half of our fare were given cabin upgrades.

I just did a quick search for a 7 day Alaskan cruise on a HAL ship. For an ocean view cabin there are numerous offers on a US site for $499 US. On a leading Australian site for the same cruise an ocean view cabin will cost us a minimum of $1210 US with most costing more.

Well, you are doing your part! Twenty six of your 93 posts have been about smoking? You are certainly passing the word around. I see it started when a "300 pound gentleman" smoked cigars 24/7 on the balcony next door to you last year.

 

I wouldn't like someone smoking 24/7 next to us either, but I'm not obsessed with the subject. In fact, in my 1,700+ posts, probably only 10 are smoking related. It's not my job to inform future cruisers, it can be read on HAL's website.

 

I hope you have a wonderful smokeless cruise on the Celebrity Millennium. You've made a wise choice switching to Celebrity because of HALs smoking policy and informing everyone not to book a certain cabin on the Rotterdam.

I am quite flattered that you would take the time to read all my posts, I hope you gained something from them. If there is anything you need help with don't be afraid to ask, I am more than willing to explain it for you.

You know the OP ask a simple question that has been answer many times over, but yet this thread has drag on for some 3 pages, enough with the snarky remarks, spend your money where you want, go on whatever cruiselines you choose, for whatever reason. All these smoking threads are not going to change anything, except to bring out the worse in people.

What these threads do is make all cruisers aware of what they can expect before they make an informed decision on which cruise to book.

I would not like to see a heavy smoker outlay a large sum of money to book a maybe once in a lifetime cruise only to be told when they board that they are unable to smoke during their cruise. For exactly the same reason I would not like to see a non smoker book a maybe once in a lifetime cruise only to find a cigar chain smoker on the balcony next door like we had.

Everyone is entitled to get the best out of their cruise, with information like on this thread people can make an informed choice on which cruise line best suits them.

I missed the tongue and cheek part also, but agree with everything you stated so eloquently. I also don't care if others threaten or stop sailing on HAL until certain policies change. Who cares, there will be others to fills the cabins.

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Exactly and they will more than likely be smokers which will make the other cruise lines even more attractive to people without addictions. I for one will be passing the word that if you want to smoke then cruise HAL.

A couple of years ago I sent an email to HAL and it took them over two months to respond. I sent one last year and are still waiting a reply, looks like things are slowing down. Hopefully X won't keep you waiting as long.

Unfortunately, too late but I did break out my WW2 gas mask.

Maybe those ladies that smother themselves with perfume do it for a reason, it may be better than the alternative. The perfume may be uncomfortable but it won't kill you like passive smoking can. If I was a smoker I would book all my cruises with HAL.

My wife and I spent four weeks on the Nieuw Amsterdam in a balcony cabin. The first two weeks were great but for the second two weeks we were unable to use the balcony due to a cigar chain smoker in the next cabin.

I don't expect to cruise again with HAL until they change their smoking policy but if I did there is no way I would book a balcony.

Just off 28 days on the Millie and our bathrooms were spotless!

 

 

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Great to hear that Christine, my wife and I board in 8 weeks for our first X cruise on the Millennium.

As for the moldy tiles there are commercial grout cleaners available now that would fix the problem in minutes, at least until it could be permanently fixed at the next dry dock. They use a mild acid solution that removes a tiny bit of the grout.

Many people would find nothing wrong with the tiles in those photos, in fact they are quite clean compared to the way a lot of people live but for others like my wife and I they are not even close to being acceptable.