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Google is certainly doing no favours with the location of the Underground Hospital, eh? That does explain why Rue des Buttes didn't look familiar. I suppose you could walk Mourants Rd South from the Underground Hospital to pick up the 94 or 95 towards the airport. Not a short walk that way, and with bus 95 every 30 min, it might not save much time. I'll second the Little Chapel since it's close to the Underground Hospital. But that visit isn't complete without getting a cup of Guernsey ice cream at the Guille Silver Shop! ALSO stopping for some ice cream in town is highly recommended. An alternative to doing both the Occupation Museum and the Underground Hospital could be to do one of them and the la Vallette Underground Museum. https://www.visitguernsey.com/experiences/activities/la-valette-underground-military-museum/ 10-15 minute walk from Albert Pier and it's a nice walk past the bathing pools and a different perspective of Castle Cornet. A climb to Clarence Battery offers a nice vantage point, too.

Thank you for sharing! Their lack of ability to even contact you appropriately is not very reassuring. And to say that the cutbacks are bringing them in line with other cruises is preposterous. Would be curious to know what cruise lines they think they're competing with.

Interesting. We were on Princess last week and thought the food was very good. Service wasn't up to what we're used to with Celebrity, but I gather that's as much a difference in how they normally do things as anything. Wouldn't say we had any bad service. Nothing worse than a typical restaurant at home.

We were shocked when we saw the Princess upcharge was under $30pp

Walking 🙂 This link will be helpful for planning: https://buses.gg/planner (Google maps seems to do this well if you click the public transit option, but lacks the timetables). You'll start by the ship at the Town Terminus The German Occupation Museum is just a bit off the route for bus 94 or 95 and very near the airport. For the Underground Hospital, it's bus 71. To get from the Museum to the Underground Hospital (or vice versa), your feet will be most efficient if you're able. It's around a 20-25 minute walk. You could take Bus 71 from one to the other as well. https://goo.gl/maps/LgQg8cwKhaiHnEtr9 Regardless of where you are headed, when you board the bus, let the driver know where it is that you would like to go. They will drop you off at the appropriate spot along the way. So in the case of the German Occupation Museum, you don't have to walk from the airport or anything of the sort. They'll let you off at a more convenient spot.

Is it really that good? Simple answer: No The upcharge for some of the specialty restaurants greatly exceeds the value received imho, especially when you're already paying for something (that used to be) good in the MDR. Are you really getting an $80 better meal by skipping filet & lobster night and going specialty? Not in our opinion.

We've learned that the "Spa Inspired" cuisine in Blu is generally not to our liking. We'll book in Aqua on M-class for room location if the $ is comparable to an otherwise preferred veranda.

Which is why team "They're just reducing waste" is off their rocker. Pasta:literally cheaper than the roundoff error for the budget on any given sailing. Grille station: thaw what you think you need, plus 10%. Get it wrong and it'll still be good tomorrow. In hindsight, our Infinity sailing in November was probably starting in on cutbacks. DW wanted to dine outside at the sunset, but I noticed they didn't have a grille station open. Another night, same thing. She had pasta for dinner while I wandered around a decently outfitted buffet and eventually had a collection of disappointment for dinner. The grille station was open but serving so-so burgers

Thanks for the perspective. It really is about what's important to us as individuals. We have a friend who is quite well-off, whose son is in the "ridiculously wealthy" category. When the son's private jet is unavailable/chartered, they fly Spirit (the son, that is), and our friends never sail above a regular veranda. We're equally happy in a regular veranda, as it spreads out our vacation budget. Not going to say we're happy to fly Spirit, but we will. 2 hours of a better flight experience to get to a cruise is nice, but not sufficiently memorable.

It's really strange to me. We've enjoyed Celebrity for our veranda price point, but can't imagine the experience increasing proportionate to the cost of higher tier rooks. But it clearly works for plenty of people, and as a shareholder I'm not complaining about that particular aspect.

So which is it? Are you delighted with the cutbacks, or do you not like the cutbacks? Based on your posts, you certainly seem delighted with them as you continue to wish for some guests to have a lesser experience because they don't want the same things from a cruise as you do. To say that OVC should be fine for those apparently inferior to you simply because "food" is still offered speaks volumes. I can only imagine what you would think of my wife and I for voluntarily having quite enjoyable dinners consisting of pizza and wine on multiple occasions on our most recent cruise.

Generally 2-3 OVC dinners on a 7n. Simply don't need or want a lengthy multi-course meal every single night. Would depend on menu offerings in both the OVC and MDR, as well as weather conditions outside by the sunset bar. It's exceedingly rare for us to eat any meals inside at the OVC. Al fresco dining is wonderful, especially when you know it's freezing at home.

I received a survey after they called me. The survey email itself was signed as: Corporate Guest Relations Leadership Team, while the title of the rep I spoke with was referred to as Post Cruise Corporate Guest Relations Team. The call center that fields these emails is surely different than the normal Celebrity call center, most notably in that they're dealing with customers from a totally different perspective. They need to be provided with talking points to the issues they're being bombarded with. Ideally, they would get talking points in advance, but I suspect there's some lag time, and the points may change as more and more feedback comes in. I wouldn't be surprised if the agents frequented FB and CC boards to see what's going to be headed their way.

What you described is what we expected, but certainly not what we experienced. Not once did a bartender or server know who we were based on the medallion and they were all asking for room numbers from everyone (bartenders, bar servers, and restaurant servers alike). Had to tap it to go into the MDR for dinner and to get coffee from the buffet espresso station. Kept seeing servers wandering around shouting out names as they were looking for people. Seemed like a total disaster.

Email addresses are not case-sensitive, so LLutoff-Perlo@celebritycruises.com will work. Surely not her actual address, but the 'call center' staff that responds seems to do so within a couple of days.

That's not how it works. Those are sample menus at the link. The menu changes every night, and each restaurant has the SAME menu as the other 3, except for the 'exclusive' menu , which is the same every night at each of the 4, and different from the other 3. For example, if this is accurate for Cosmopolitan, this is the only portion that does not change night to night.

Some of those complaints are downright comical in comparison to X's cutting. Garbage cans missing? Steaks with no sauces? I've been home from my first Princess cruise for a couple of days now. Filet on more than one night in the MDR, lobster with no charge for extras, beef wellington, spare ribs. Multiple carving stations in the buffet both lunch and dinner. A full assortment of dinner options in the buffet. Not sure what portion sizes used to be on Princess, but there's nothing stopping that poster from asking for another. I'll agree with the critique that the medallion thing is pointless, but it works just like a key card except your door unlocks as you approach. Hardly ever used it since every server just asks for a room number. From our perspective, the grass isn't perfect compared to the X we knew, but it's better than the scalped lawn that we would have been standing on had we sailed on the Summit.

The daily menus are identical to one another. The "Classic" available everyday menus are slightly different from one to another.

For the same reason they sell a premium beverage package when they know they won't be delivering the listed spirits. $$

Not us. Steerage non-gamblers, and no fee was charged.

Nope. No fee at all. They had a $20 minimum, and my son had ~$19 in OBC left. He went to guest services, gave them the dollar, they added it to his OBC to give him exactly $20 and the casino gave him exactly $20 in a voucher.

That's exactly why we refuse to book anything on X and why we have future deposits with Princess. Who knows how bad things will be on X by the time a future cruise actually rolls around. We took a $200 penalty when we canceled a 5n Summit sailing in favour of a 7n Princess. That penalty was money well spent in light of the recent changes, we think.

Mainstream media doesn't pick up cruise stories except for the noteworthy stuff. Loads of sick people (but not with covid), falling overboard, rescues, fires, failed engines, that sort of thing. Bad word of mouth publicity that is far more important than a 45 second blurb on the evening news. Blogs, forums, and actual person-to-person communication are where people get far more information, especially those people who are seeking it out because they're interested in cruising. Personally, I'm telling a lot of cruise friends & family about how the X experience is nothing like they remember, while also saying how much we enjoyed our recent Princess sailing.

One more reason to not put down a sizeable non-refundable deposit, I suppose. Willing to take the chance on Princess with a refundable $100pp, but X has to show me their sorry for this current mess before they get anything. Not that prime rib is the end of the world, and I'm sure X is getting a pretty good volume discount on the amount of beef they (used to?) buy. Per person cost can't be that high to put 8 oz of prime rib in front of those guest who order it. So if that's the sword they're going to fall on, things have to be pretty friggin dismal.... or, and possibly more likely.... Lisa's next big bonus check is based on some nonsensical short-term financial goal that she's intent on meeting, customers be damned.

So close! Common knowledge that hot dogs come into their prime with the 5th baking. That perfect bite-to-chew ratio.... like the dog that has been on the rollers at 7-11 since Monday when you snag it on Friday.