Royal Genie vs NCL Butler Service vs Celebrity Butler Services

Hello Fellow Cruise Critics,

I am trying to figure what would be the best fit for my DH and I. We are really lazy on vacation, and just enjoy the shows and dining for the most part. We have sailed with NCL and RCI before. We would be new to celebrity if we chose that route. The prices are all about the same for what we are looking at. What would be your 1. 2. 3. options.

Thank you

Jenn

As you are into shows ...

On Celebrity, only formal nights get a seat reserved for you by your butler.

On RCI, the genie will automatically reserve a seat for you at the main headliner shows, but will discuss with you on a daily basis what other shows you want to go to and will reserve seats for you if you want. However there is a reserved section for every main theatre show that you can show your card to get into. So RCI is much better for shows if that is your main thing.

Can't answer NCL never cruised on them.

If you are into food...

RCI - if you have a room with a Genie, all the speciality restaurants are included. But you don't need to do any pre-planning, a couple of weeks before the cruise, you will get an e-mail from the Genie, and you can let them know where you want to eat and they can book it for you. They can change it on the fly during the cruise.

On Celebrity you get access to the shore side concierge, who will do all your booking for you. We also rocked up to one restaurant one night as we thought we had a booking but it wasn't in their system, but they just fit us in, saying we have to look after our penthouse guests. Only Signature, Penthouse, Royal and Reflection suites get all speciality restaurants included, other rooms have access to a butler, but not included speciality restaurants. So just saying you have access to a butler on Celebrity may not be a like for like room.

Both Celebrity and RCI have a speciality restaurant that only Suites class can get access to, personally we found the food better on Celebrity. Also for dinner, if we weren't in a speciality restaurant, on Celebrity we just turned up and were seated. No need to panic to get there by 6pm. If we were ready at 6:05, 6:10, 6:40, we just turned up and 90% of the time had exactly the same table. Even on RCI we had dinner reservations every night.

Even though you are on the same drinks "package" as everyone else - we found they treated us better on Celebrity. For example, as most of the wines were unknown by us (they were mainly American wineries), we would just say what sort of wine we wanted and we got it by the glass, except they left the bottle on the table and kept on filling up our glasses, until the bottle was empty. Wine by the glass is included, wine by the bottle isn't.

Getting on or off the boat (especially at tender ports and disembarkation day) the Genie does that with you and they are only looking after 3-4 cabins so it is easy to arrange a time. For Celebrity - its the concierge that does it, not the butler, so you have to go and meet with them, and there was only one for all people that have access to them. Status as well as room types.

If you want a truly lazy cruise - we found the RCI Genie far better than the Celebrity Butler.

If you want a more special cruise - we found we were treated better on Celebrity and in some ways more relaxing as we ran to our schedule.

Please note this is a sample size of 1 cruise on each brand.

The was so much help! We ended up booking a Grand Loft Suite on Royal, and we are totally looking forward to being in the Star Class!

Never been on NCL.

Have experienced suite life on Celebrity a few years ago. We had 2 speciality restaurants included. Butler service was really nice but was focused on services within the cabin. Things like afternoon tea served. Special canapés randomly appeared. Breakfast was served in the cabin with table properly laid out (with table cloth) and the quality as good as if you went to the restaurant.

Seemed to me that on Celebrity, the butler experience within the suite was excellent but he didn't do much for you outside of the room. Not done Star Class on RCI but get the impression that the genies are busy making your stay enjoyable as much outside of the room as within.