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Celebrity Cruises Cancels One Hawaii Cruise


jsea

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When we had to change our flight reservations due to a previous Infinity pod problem, the airlines were very cooperative in making the changes needed due to an itinerary by Celebrity.

I did need a letter from Celebrity though stating this, which Celebrity provided us without problems

These reservations were made on our own, since we were flying on miles.

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Now if only Celebrity can deal with and come to a final solution on this recurring propulsion problem on their earlier "M" class ships.

It's not up to Celebrity to do this - it's up to Alstom and Rolls-Royce, the makers of the pods. To date, it would seem that they haven't... Which is why RCI has a lawsuit pending against them for, as I recall, roughly $600 million.

 

I don't see why they don't just replace the pods with the ones used on the RCCL Radiance class ships. There's been no trouble with them that I know of.

I'm sure if they could switch out the pods they would - but it's not like changing the brand of tires on your car! It's much too complicated... I guess theoretically it could be done, but it would be too expenisve, complicated, and time-consuming.

 

The solution to the problem is to fix the ones that are there - but Alstom and Rolls-Royce don't seem capable of that.

 

Incidentally while they have not had problems anywhere near the magnitude of Alstom/Rolls-Royce Mermaid pods on the MILLENNIUM-class ships, the ABB Azipod units fitted to the RADIANCE-class ships (and most other ships with pods) aren't perfect either. In fact I think there was actually a lawsuit settled between Carnival and ABB Azipod over the pods on ELATION, which was the first cruise ship ever fitted with pod propulsion. Of course that didn't stop Carnival from ordering another fourteen ships with Azipods since ELATION! (And most of them have been just fine.)

 

P&O Princess only ever bought two ships with pods, and those were AIDAVITA and AIDAAURA for their German AIDA brand (now reorganized as part of Costa after the Carnival-P&O Princess merger). Today the only ship in the P&O Princess empire (that's P&O, Princess, Cunard, Swan Hellenic and Ocean Village) that has pods is QM2 which ironically has the Mermaid pods used on the M-class ships - but a new and improved version that don't seem so troublesome. She is the only ship fitted with the new-generation Mermaids. Beyond the M-class ships, other ships fitted with first-generation Mermaids are MSC's MSC ARMONIA and MSC SINFONIA (originally EUROPEAN VISION and EUROPEAN STARS) and RSSC's SEVEN SEAS MARINER. I believe all have had similar problems to the M-class ships, but not as frequently.

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We're booked on the April 6th sailing on the Infinity so we're watching and waiting to see what happens. We all can sympathize with our fellow March 27th cruisers and are anxious to see what will happen. We will go on a Hawaii cruise (whether on April 6th or some other time), but half the fun is the anticipation and planning. My heart goes out to those who have been cancelled. Hopefully, somehow they will be able to make lemonaid out of the lemon that's been handed to them.

 

We're still keeping positive thoughts and appreciate all information that we get from the Cruise Critie board.

 

Beth

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Infinity arrived here in San Diego at the crack of dawn today. She disembarked her pax and sailed off to drydock under her own power at 10:30 AM Pacific time.

 

No clue as to which drydock.

 

Ron in Carlsbad

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Yep, I'm packed with nowhere to go. A free cruise is generous, but I'm not sure if we are able to redeem it before March of next year. We didn't use our free cruise for our cancelled Millennium cruise in 2000. Don't know really what else to say.................. :(

 

 

Also packed with no where to go. We found out 2 hrs. before leaving the house. Couldn't print out the boarding pass and in calling Continental they told us our flights had been refunded. What a shock then panic set in thinking we'd miss the ship.

Boo hoo, no cruise for now. I was really looking forward to warm weather and not looking at snow anymore

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I'm just curious, has anyone kept up a list of the affected ships and logged the dates and repairs they have had?

 

It's because of a similiar problem on my November 2004 cruise on the Dawn Princess why I will never be cruising with Princess again.

 

As I recall, Infinity starting having problems very early on.

 

We were booked in June '01 for an anniversary cruise which was cancelled a few days before to repair propulsion problems. I was really irate because I only found out about the cancellation by reading about it on the internet. Even though they had our address and phone number, all they did was send a fax to the agent who happened to be away.

 

To add insult, Celebrity offered as compensation a measly 50% off the full list price of a future cruise. Such a deal!!!??? Even then, a 50% discount was fairly common so this was zero compensation.

 

On the other hand, when we were aboard Princess and the cruise had to be shortened due to similar issues, we got treated like royalty in Venice at their expense for the remainder of the cruise as well as half our money back.

 

So my experience is the opposite, but that was when Princess was independent. But I sure won't give a dime to Celebrity.

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Also packed with no where to go. We found out 2 hrs. before leaving the house. Couldn't print out the boarding pass and in calling Continental they told us our flights had been refunded. What a shock then panic set in thinking we'd miss the ship.

Boo hoo, no cruise for now. I was really looking forward to warm weather and not looking at snow anymore

 

Wow, I feel for you guys. Guess we all have our own story to tell and glad to say we made lemonade out of lemons. :) Celebrity's compensation was very generous and we can't be happier. We can wait a few more months for our family cruise.

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Boy, that Infinity sure has its share of problems. I've been on the ship three times. The first time was it's first trip out to Hawaii. I guess the ship was being delivered late and our cruise was delayed by a month. My husband and I were able to change our vacation time, so we went a month later, with a 50% discount (which we were very happy to receive). When we got to the dock, we found we had been upgraded from an inside cabin to a balcony. We also got to sit at the Captain's table one night. This was our first Celebrity cruise and probably spoiled us for good.

 

Six weeks later, I went on the Infinity to Alaska, with no problems whatsover (got upgraded from an inside guarantee to an outside).

 

Last year, we went on Infinity from Valparaiso, Chile to Ft. Lauderdale. Again, the Infinity was having problems (which, by the way, I read about on this board long before my travel agent heard about it). Our cruise still went ahead, although, since the ship was travelling at reduced speeds, we missed our stop in Ecuador. On a cruise with 10 sea days out of 14, it was disappointing to have a port cancelled, but, what can you do? They gave us a cabin credit (can't remember how much - I do recall something about getting the credit and then somehow getting another one a couple of days later. Not sure what that was about, but we weren't about to argue.) The also had open bars on that day in the hours before each dinner. I'm ashamed to say I took advantage of that both before and after our early seating. :-) Once again, we got to eat at the Captain's table one evening, which is no big deal to most of you, but I find it nice - doesn't take much to make me happy.

 

All in all, I'd probably be a little nervous to book the Infinity on a cruise where I was bound and bent to see a particular port, but I really can't complain about the way Celebrity handles their pod problems, except for the fact that people on these boards seem to have more information that the people on the Customer Service phones at Celebrity. When I read on the boards that the Infinity was having problems last year, my travel agent found it hard to get any useful information from Customer Service. I was just worried that our cruise would be cancelled - the one after ours was, which I'm sure disappointed a whole lot of people. It would be great if Celebrity was a little more pro-active about telling booked passengers about propulsion problems.

 

I guess I'll just depend on all of you out there to tell me what I need to know.

 

Brenda

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Ma Bell said: I also don't go on the Princess boards and bad mouth them.

 

Ma, what's your problem?

 

I gave an honest recount of my experience with Celebrity relating to this topic and in response to a prior comment which referenced Princess. So I don't see how that's "bad mouthing." The last time I looked, the name of this site was still cruiseCRITIC, which presumably means sharing good and bad experiences. Or do you have some personal connection with Celebrity that makes your opinion biased?

 

Had Celebrity offered me some actual compensation, as opposed to a phony discount, I would have had the chance to say something positive.

 

Tell you what, I'll write to them and see if they want to give me the same deal as the Hawaii folks. And if you have contacts there, as it appears from your attack, then you can let them know.

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Mas Bell,

 

Of course you are entitled to your opinion; too bad you didn't bother expressing one.

 

True, I've never sailed on Celebrity. How could I when they cancelled our cruise 4 days before a 30+ anniversary and did nothing to make it right?

 

I had previously sailed on Cunard (several), Princess (quite a few) and Radisson and HAL (once). I wanted to sail on Celebrity to experience the good things I had heard about the company. Unfortunately, they didn't deliver.

 

Instead, I've take more cruises since then on Princess and Radisson.

 

Obviously, you thought enough of Princess to go on 12 of their cruises, so I assume you've given them more than dime.

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You said they offered you 50% off on a future cruise. If you had sailed with Celebrity you would know that they don't play the brochure rate game like Princess does and then take 50% off. The 50% discount offered to you would have been 50% off whatever rate you could find. It would have been a true 50%. That's how they always handle their discounts. They aren't phony like the Princess rates in their brochures. Apparently you didn't bother to find out.

 

I had a number of bad experiences with Princess so I just haven't been back for about six years and probably never will. We are on the April 6 Infinity cruise which could possibly end up being cancelled since the March 27 has been. I'd be very disappointed and would expect a refund and enough to make up for any penalties on airlines or rooms, but really nothing else. Mechanical problems happen.

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No actually I did check, as did my travel agent, and the Celebrity "discount" was from the brochure price, not from the best price available. Had it been a true discount, I would have rebooked. BUT IT WAS A PHONY DISCOUNT AND THEREFORE PHONY COMPENSATION.

 

I came on to this board because I had heard that Celebrity was giving free cruises to the latest group to be affected by the propolsion problems and I wanted to verify that information. My thought was that I might want to see if they wanted to rectify the situation with some real compensation.

 

I hope your cruise sails as I know from experience how disappointing and annoying having a cruise cancelled can be (we also had airline tickets which had to be cashed in which the travel agent took care of.)

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Celebrity does not have brochure rates. I don't know who your travel agent is, but they should know that. The people who have had these discounts always get them on the price they find with their travel agents.

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The mail from Celebrity in July '01 used the term "brochure". And I see that at least two different cruise and travel websites give their pricing on certain Celebrity cruises as "save up to 48% off the brochure price" and they show a brochure price and the actual sellng price.

 

I don't see how they could send out a brochure without any price in it.

 

My travel agent at the time was a big northern California agency with whom I had previously booked other cruises and travel (including a Tahiti cruise and pre-cruise stay in an over-the-water bungalow). They always worked very hard for me in part since they made plenty of money. I'm sure they knew what they were talking about.

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When Celebrity cancelled our 2000 Millennium cruise, the compensation was 50% off a future cruise or a free cruise on a few selected sailings on the Horizon and the Mercury. All the free sailings were during the school year which left us out as we have a young one. The 50% was off the brochure rates, that's why we did not take up their offer too. The old brochures did indeed have the high suggested retail prices in them. I used to read and study them. (LOL) As this all occurred before 9/11 and the addition of the other M-class ships, Celebrity probably had better "leverage" over us. Times have changed since, so it's hard to compare. Today, all I can say is that the Celebrity's "compensation offer" is generous even though I lost a $1350 deposit to them before Xmas. That's another story.................. :(

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Ishmael,

 

The first time we sailed with Celebrity was 1994. They did have brochure rates then. I guess I'm amazed that someone would still be trying to get something 4 years later. I'm assuming you did get your money back for something you didn't use. Sorry you couldn't use your discount. If you use an agent, the notification always goes to your agent. That's what they get paid for.

 

On our 25th anniversary we went on a cruise and went the day before with arrangements made by the cruiseline. We ended up at a horrible hotel in Hollywood, Florida. After checking into our room we went downstairs to register for the cruise and while we were in the lobby my jewelry and cosmetics were stolen from the hotel. (no compensation). We went on the cruise and on the second to last day my husband had a hemorrhage from his lung. They wanted us to get off in Cozumel. No way. We signed a release and stayed in the cabin where a nurse checked him once in a while. I sat up for 36 hours watching him til we got back to Ft. Lauderdale. We were taken to the hospital in a cab where we discovered he had TB. He was in quarantine in the hospital for 10 days. I stayed in a hotel and the next day we had a hurricane. All the power in the hotel was out and they had to get me from my room with a flashlight. I went back and forth to the hospital in the tropical storms that followed. Lots of fun for our anniversary.

 

Anyway, the cruiseline never did anything to help us. I just took care of things myself. I'm happy to say my husband recovered and 10 years later we laugh about the cruise from hell.

 

My point is things happen...sometimes worse things than having a cruise cancelled. From what I've seen through the years, Celebrity always tries to provide fair compensation, but there will always be those who aren't happy.

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Glad to see some people remember that Celebrity used to have "brochure pricing;" so I'm not senile.

 

Ma, your husband's experience would certainly make a cruise cancellation seem like a minor event. I guess I'm amazed that anyone would leave their jewelry in a hotel room in a horrible hotel in Hollywood, Florida.

 

There's been too much consolidation in the cruise industry; it's become like GM and Ford where they slap different labels on their products but the Buick, Olds and Chevy (or Thunderbird, Edsel or Cougar or whatever) are the same product when you scrape away the nameplate. As a prior poster noted, Princess apparently went downhill after their acquisition. My experience is based on their pre-merger sailings.

 

In general the priority for large corporations has become the enrichment of management. Product reliability, honesty, customer relations, past promises to employees, and responsibility to shareholders are by and large ignored values.

 

I've learned enough about Celebrity and its cheerleaders from a quick perusal of this site to know that it's not what I want in a cruiseline. As you say, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I'll spend my cruise dollars elsewhere.

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We went downstairs for 15 minutes. The jewelry was in a locked suitcase. Some of the best people you'd ever want to meet are on Celebrity cruises, but if you think you can make a judgment from a message board I guess you're right.

 

After perusing the posts you have made to other sites, it seems you have issues with the other cruiselines as well. As I said, some people are just never happy. I hope you find a cruiseline to satisfy you.:)

 

We've also had 3 cruises cancelled. Not a big deal.

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