Should we cancel? Getting worried with so many "X service has gone downhill" posts...

[Imonaboat2017]

Hello,

 

New to X, but am getting increasingly concerned with so many posts about the quality of service going downhill. We're sailing on Silhouette in December.

 

Our only other cruise was a disappointing initiation on the Monarch of the Seas (RCCL) about 7 years ago. It has taken this long for us to consider cruising again. We were told by an industry-insider (afterward, of course) that we were on RCCL's "training ship," and that our poor experience was unusual for the line as a whole. Yet...

 

Up until I started reading here, I was under the impression that Celebrity was one of the better lines, and our experience here would be much improved over our other cruise.

 

But reading so much about service decline, food decline, poor staff attitudes, etc. has me quite concerned we're going to be left very disappointed here as well. DH may swear off cruising forever if we have a repeat of the Monarch debacle.

 

Any thoughts? Due to work constraints, we are limited in how and when we can get away, so the longer cruises on the premium lines aren't an option for us just yet.

[SetU2]

Want bad news, read forums on the Internet. Every little thing gets sooooo blown up and very few ever come to post about the good experiences they have. Not just cruises, either. We just completed our 2nd Celebrity Cruise and booked our third. We had cruised 3 other lines and seem to have found that Celebrity just fits us. I can't say I know enough about you to say if it would be a good fit for you or not. It is a great line if you prefer a more relaxed atmosphere with better food.

 

 

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[Pier290]

LOVED THE SILHOUETTE!!!

Perfection all the way around!

Sailing on Equinox in 2 days! We are 40 and LOVE CELEBRITY TO THE CORE!

 

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[lola2013]

I learned in retail that seven times more people will complain about a poor experience than will say good things about a positive experience. I believe the same is true for travel. We took our first Celebrity cruise in 2013 and followed with three additional Celebrity cruises. They are wonderful. Do it; you won't be disappointed.

[chemmo]

It is often the odd negative that people dwell on rather than the quality of the whole cruise experience....I think you will be pleasantly surprised. We have 4 cruises presently booked over the next few years (including one on Silhouette) and nothing I have read or experienced on recent cruises has given me any reason to cancel!

 

In my opinion the Silhouette is a world away from Monarch of the Seas...

 

Relax and enjoy!

[jabrown40]

Absolutely loved our cruise on the Silhouette, we've booked two more with Celebrity. I'm in my 50's. We did eat in Blu, so that may not be your option. I thought our meals were very good, and no complaints with service!

 

 

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[reilly1]

Have been on more than 30 cruises with many different companies and Celebrity is by far our favourite. It is interesting to see so many complaints coming from first time posters. Draw your own conclusion. Worry not. The S-Class ships are all wonderful!

 

 

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[tomcruiser1234]

Just finished OASIS of the Seas

 

Very nice but no comparison in services to Celebrity.

 

Dont believe all you read, much more good than bad issues

[koopmae]

I should imagine that many of the negative posts will be from those that have travelled many times on Celebrity, and/or have enough disposable income to be able to use other 'premium' companies where the ships are smaller and more exclusive, which then make other perfectly acceptable ships seem poor in comparison. While I am new to cruises (2nd one in May and is Celebrity again) I am an old hand in hotel stays and I know how I react if I go from a the equivalent of a W and then 10 days later stay in a Premier Inn - it's not always favourable!

And those that have been with a brand for a while will notice changes that will, in this economic climate, seem like cost cutting or a change for the worse.

I/m pretty sure that if you go onto one of the other 'posh' cruise line forums that are mentioned on here as being the dogs dangles, there will be the same sort of people complaining that that glasses are too small for their soft drinks :D

[rain_bowbrite]

Everyone will have their own experience, but I say don't cancel and go for it as well. My guess is that the experience will be greatly improved over your Monarch experience. I never sailed Monarch and I'm awaiting my first X cruise as well in Dec., but what I have experienced is the difference size of ship versus pax capacity can make, as well ship decor and atmosphere.

 

For comparison:

MS Monarch was 47,510 tons and carried 2,744 passengers while the Silhouette is 122,210 tons and carries 2,886 passengers. Hopefully that right there should make for a much better experience. Silhouette is almost 3 times as big and carries about the same amount of passengers as the Monarch and is quite the beautiful ship.

 

Just something else to chew on. :-)

[Imonaboat2017]

Thank you all for the reassurances :hearteyes:. I really, really appreciate how wonderful the CC community is!

[Orator]

Silhouette is a wonderful ship! Will be doing a B2B for 21 days in her starting Sunday. Actions speak louder than words. When your aboard the ship and see the number of repeat cruisers just ask yourself: Why so many Captain's Club members if the experience is disappointing? Silhouette won the Celebrity "Ship of the Year" for 2016.

I've read some of the complaints of some on cruises that I've been on and often wonder if we were on the same cruise. Is everything perfect all the time? No, seldom perfect, but pretty darn good!

[casper106]

Remember that thousands of people cruise and never write reviews here (or other places).

 

Cruising is good value for what it is and there is something for everybody to do and see and eat.

 

You won't be disappointed.

[jelayne]

At one time I managed a large Payoll department issuing 1O,000+ checks a month. If 9,950 were correct no one heard about it, but we quickly heard about the 50 that had an error- even if the error was minor (meaning under $3.00.)

 

We have completed 33 cruises, 16 on Cekebrity with 5 more booked. We have never had a bad cruise and I never write reviews. If I have a problem on the ship I address with the appropriate person while on the ship. In the few occasions we have had a problem on Celebrity 99% of the time the problem was quickly taken care of on-board.

[Fouremco]

The old adage that good news doesn't sell newspapers applies equally to Internet forums. Even when people have enjoyed a cruise overall, they often spend far more time talking about the few negative points in their reviews. Highly positive threads generally also have a very short life span as readers move on to find more interesting fodder.

 

In the past year we've cruised on Celebrity, HAL and RCI. DW and I both feel that Celebrity continues to be the best of the bunch and our future bookings reflect that.

[NEW 2 CRUISIN]

You should read the GOOD reviews, too!

 

:cool:

[jasm8449]

I've been sailing Celebrity for 20 years and am so excited to know I will be boarding Silhouette next week!! Don't cancel your cruise if only to have the experience of shaking your head and thinking "I can't believe I almost missed this amazing cruise because of some whiners on a website forum".

 

 

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[Cruising from Mississauga]

Hi, I'm sure that if you expect to have a great time, you will increase your chances! My first cruise was on RCCL, and I went back to them years later and was disappointed...but it was still a great time! I've been very happy with Celebrity since I tried them on my second cruise, and this was way before the S Class ships, which are truly phenomenal IMHO. I think the complainers, in general, are working on their own issues more than anything else (Not everyone! There are legitimate complaints!). For me, the old adage fits, if modified: If you think you are going to fail, or you think you are going to succeed, you're right. Substitute "have a bad time/have a great time" for fail or succeed, and that will likely be your experience. Have a great time!!!

[HoneyG6]

We just got off the Silhouette and this was our first trip on it. We have been on the Reflection 2 times and have cruised over 19 times so we are not new to this type of vacation, which is our best way to go. However, the Silhouette was not up to par on this voyage. The good: the rooms and ship are clean, the food is good (not great), our cabin steward was great as was our waiter in the dining room. There were lots of things to do on the ship so you won't be bored. Getting on and off the ship was easy. The bad: the prices for the specialty restaurants was way out of line at $40 pp. We had reservations at the Anytime Restaurant for 8 each night at 6:30, but was told no such reservation existed. We were disappointed with how this was handled. On a 'manager's recommended' excursion, I had a bad experience. Although the Silhouette staff was helpful, and Celebrity paid for my medical care, we felt that a refund was due us, but all we received was a discount. The entertainment was so so. On last year's Reflection the entertainment was great each night. In Summary, there was just a feeling of 'something is just not right', can't put into words, but it was just 'off'. We did not reserve our next cruise on Celebrity and plan on going back to Royal Caribbean for a change. Hope this helps.

[pantoot]

Do a couple of searches and you will see people have been complaining about a decline in the food since Michel Roux left in 2007.

 

Here a poster lays out the steady decline, starting in 2003.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1830095

 

I am surprised we aren't all eating cat food by now.

 

Really though, I think a lot of this comes down to how memory sometimes works. Its called Fading Effect Bias, and it means that you tend to remember the highlights of trips more than the bad stuff. So, recent cruises you will remember the frayed carpet, or the rust on the balcony, but the older memories will focus on the things that made you happy, like white gloves and silver serving trays.

 

Obviously there have been cutbacks, reductions in staff, and things go wrong, but remember that not all of the changes that are made are negative. Thousands of people have a great time every week, and chances are, if you allow yourself, you will too. (If you get on board and start looking for problems, you probably will find something to be upset about)

[fizzy1]

No !! Don't cancel!!! Did our first cruise on Celebrity 4 years ago. Baltic on Eclipse . Only sailed with Cunard up to then . Just booked med cruise on Silhouette for Sep next year. Enough said

 

 

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[If only]

You will love your cruise, you have to remember that people don't like change & that cruise critic is only a small percentage of people onboard. Yes things have changed but for us it is still the best thing going. We have been on about 60 Celebrity cruises & yes there have been small issues but nothing to make us stop going on Celebrity. Just to clarify we have also been on Carnival, NCL, Princess & RCL.

 

 

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[Ahoy maties]

Sailed on the Summit last week. Second time on a Celebrity ship and I thought the service was excellent. Dining staff was attentive, prompt and very friendly. Bar staff and guest relations were professional and the stateroom attendant competent.

 

I do read about service complaints, and we should gather as much info as possible, however there is often one general theme. "I want more free stuff" and when the free stuff is not given to me, then service is terrible.

[grandgeezer]

We have done 39 cruises with 22 on Celebrity (224 days) so we have some experience in cruising.. We are taking a hiatus, at least for now as we don't see the value anymore. The only things that really stand out is the ships are beautiful and the staff is really friendly, everything else is just ok. We love the M class ships as well as the Equinox and Reflection, but don't like the Silhouette. Our last 6 cruises have been on the Silhouette and never again. The production shows on the Silhouette are the worst ever and the only good, consistent meals we had were when we splurged and booked Aqua and were able to eat in Blu. We are in the minority but we know what we like and don't like and won't be influenced by the majority.

If you are going to compare cruising to land vacations at least make it apples to apples. For example, if you book lower than suites, find a hotel with rooms around 190 sq ft that includes a bathroom, if you exclude the dinky shower, is not much bigger than the ones on an airplane. We have to fly to any vacation we take so that isn't a factor for us either.

[Harrylinden]

Hello,

 

New to X, but am getting increasingly concerned with so many posts about the quality of service going downhill. We're sailing on Silhouette in December.

 

Our only other cruise was a disappointing initiation on the Monarch of the Seas (RCCL) about 7 years ago. It has taken this long for us to consider cruising again. We were told by an industry-insider (afterward, of course) that we were on RCCL's "training ship," and that our poor experience was unusual for the line as a whole. Yet...

 

Up until I started reading here, I was under the impression that Celebrity was one of the better lines, and our experience here would be much improved over our other

 

But reading so much about service decline, food decline, poor staff attitudes, etc. has me quite concerned we're going to be left very disappointed here as well. DH may swear off cruising forever if we have a repeat of the Monarch debacle.

 

Any thoughts? Due to work constraints, we are limited in how and when we can get away, so the longer cruises on the premium lines aren't an option for us just yet.

 

Don,t cancel your cruise just because you read a few negative posts.Go and see for yourself.If you don,t like it ,then don,t book Celebrity again! Chances are you will find more positive things about the ship then not.We are going in May on the Equinox ans can,t wait to see what shes all about.Don,t worry and enjoy your cruise.:p