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Stateroom free movies eliminated


Nymich
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5 hours ago, Hlitner said:

Yes, HAL does offer some movies for free.....but on the other hand, this line has recently eliminated all their Production Shows!  Perhaps they feel that offering movies is an acceptable alternative to live entertainment!  HAL remains the only cruise line that we have cruised that sometimes calls a documentary nature movie their main entertainment!  So sure, if you want movies then HAL might be a good choice :).

 

Hank

I assume hal still at least has a piano bar which celebrity could use they also had live music in other places , really never cared about celebrity or hal production shows . 

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5 hours ago, Iamthesea said:

 

I have an iPad, not a laptop. 😞

 

 

Really!  I had not heard about this.  We cruise HAL back in December and had free movies and entertainment in the theater.  Have they just discontinued the singers and dancers, or all forms of entertainment like guest singers, piano players, etc.?

Good points.  If one hasn't been on HAL in the last few years they have no idea what is going on there.  

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Dunno about the HDMI hookup people are asking about.  We have always found the HDMI input to be blocked (not physically but by the TV software).  In addition, the remote is a hotel remote and cannot switch source.  And the "source" button on the TVs are dead.

Maybe this has changed, and maybe you find a case where it is available (like the 3 year old picture on Infinity) but we've tried on at least a dozen ships with tablets, PCs, portable DVD players and early edition Kindles with HDMI out port.  Never worked.

Edited by ECCruise
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44 minutes ago, Nymich said:

Fair enough but you fail to mention the PROFESSIONAL musicians HAL has at BB Kings and Rolling Stone Rock Room.  By far the best I have seen at Sea.  It isn't even close btw.  First time I ever saw a band on land or sea open with Hendrix "Hey Joe"

I have seen that area, I think it would be right up my alley...

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1 hour ago, George C said:

I assume hal still at least has a piano bar which celebrity could use they also had live music in other places , really never cared about celebrity or hal production shows . 

They only have a piano bar on some of their ships.  Other ships have a venue where they have dueling piano shows....or at least they do now.   When HAL moved away from piano bars on a few of their vessels they lost some excellent piano bar players/entertainers.

 

Hank

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1 hour ago, ECCruise said:

Dunno about the HDMI hookup people are asking about.  We have always found the HDMI input to be blocked (not physically but by the TV software).  In addition, the remote is a hotel remote and cannot switch source.  And the "source" button on the TVs are dead.

Maybe this has changed, and maybe you find a case where it is available (like the 3 year old picture on Infinity) but we've tried on at least a dozen ships with tablets, PCs, portable DVD players and early edition Kindles with HDMI out port.  Never worked.

Had read somewhere on these boards that some pack a universal remote.  Pairing one with stateroom tv reportedly allows access setup screens.

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13 minutes ago, Baron Barracuda said:

Had read somewhere on these boards that some pack a universal remote.  Pairing one with stateroom tv reportedly allows access setup screens.

Tried that too. You need a specific remote since it must match up with the TV. A universal remote you need to get the code for the TV and pair it. 

Neither worked. 

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It's a small thing, but I always loved on Celebrity how you could start watching a movie and pick it up later.  While waiting for my wife through the course of a cruise I often watched several movies a little at at time.  I bragged about this often when people started comparing cruise lines.  TV, on RCI is almost non-functional.  Some of the newer Princess ships have decide interfaces, but Celebrity stood out, to me, with the ability to watch a little at at time.

 

I also heard we won't be getting footstools on our CC room on our up coming cruise because they removed those as well.

 

Maybe the X in Celebrity stands for deleting features.

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18 minutes ago, tserface said:

 

X out foot stools.

It is ridiculous they are doing small cuts here and there and they think their production shows are everything.  We actually do Celebrity not for music, not for their shows.  We know far better.  We do it to relax and yes even enjoy a free movie in the cabin.

No wonder we just booked Oceania.  X needs to stop the petty cuts to pay for their Edge and Apex.

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Please forgive me if this was already answered, but can anyone whose been on the Equinox recently verify that no or very limited free movies are available in the cabin?  Our first ever cruise with Celebrity is this November, and we're trying to prepare for that possibility.

 

Thank you in advance.

(First post but long time "lurker" on cruisecritic 🙂

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Just on theSilhouette and tried to access the formerly free small selection of movies - nope nothing. On speaking to another guest who is on a back to back the free movies were available last week on a fjord cruise ! Customer relations’ staff we spoke to were unaware when we went to check. After a phone call they informed us that they had finished fleetwide but.... movies are show in Celebrity Central - not the most comfortable of venues remembering that the Silhouette doesn’t have a screen outdoor on top deck!! This has been disappointing....as we weren’t prepared and did enjoy watching (and being able to pause) movies. 

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Whilst I don’t think I have ever watched a movie on any of our Celebrity Cruises I think it is very poor that they have stopped them...Cruise entertainment should be about choices, everything from big production shows to falling asleep in the afternoon half watching a film.

 

I also feel that it is wrong that cuts seem to be just ‘slipped in’ ....Guests have booked cruises expecting to have movies available in their rooms just as concierge guests expected to cruise with footstools...

 

We board Equinox in a couple of weeks now. We do still love the product but think it is about time Celebrity started asking guests about what is important to them and make it clear in their on line brochures what to expect. 

 

As The Big M says, if you can get movies in economy on a flight it seems a reasonable expectation to get at least a small selection in your room...

 

Or maybe that wonderful IT system at Celebrity forgot to pay their provider the fee....

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1 hour ago, Alwaysmorecruising said:

Please forgive me if this was already answered, but can anyone whose been on the Equinox recently verify that no or very limited free movies are available in the cabin?  Our first ever cruise with Celebrity is this November, and we're trying to prepare for that possibility.

 

Thank you in advance.

(First post but long time "lurker" on cruisecritic 🙂

 

We board September 23rd, I will do some posts and will let you know if no one else responds first...

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On 9/9/2019 at 1:32 AM, Iamthesea said:

The last time we were on Celebrity (May), there were only a hand full of free movies playing.  We download Amazon Prime movies onto my iPad and watch those should we need to.  Is there a way to hook an iPad up to the stateroom TV's so that we can watch on a larger screen?

Yes there is. You need a reasonably long hdmi cable and a video connector from apple. There are different ones dependant on whether the ipad powers from lightning or USB-C. The USB-C one is called USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter at the Apple store (costs £75 here) Expensive but it can handle 4k

You then need to get the maintenance to unlock the TV so that the source button on the remote control works. 

 

We went to the trouble of doing this on our cruises in February/March on the Silhouette so it does work although it took us 4 nights to watch a movie from the start to the end! 

Edited by Gordoncruickshank
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Chemmo, your comments summarize my feelings about Celebrity and cruising in general.

 

The constant downgrading and eliminations year after year give me no confidence in cruising. Having cruised many years, there were decades where you booked knowing that the product would be as good as the previous year - those fab Celebrity lemon tarts with the small square of bitter chocolate on top would be there, again. The shrimp and avocado sandwiches in Baco upon entry to the Solstice in 2013 in Barcelona, oh my. Both gone.

 

Celebrity was busy building the M class, S class - big investments, but still they provided a consistent, high quality product to everyone.

 

In the past 5 years the industry is focused on cutbacks, on all lines while at the same time making the ships more Vegas, perhaps to distract patrons from the downgrading. The words "nickle and dining" were not routinely spoken or written about.  It is not just the mass lines, the Oceania board right now has many comments about the downgraded food and service, which I concur. 

 

I am very suspicious about the intent of the cruise industry and simply do not trust them to provide what I paid for. But then, I am suspicious about many industries and their downgrading of products/services, think airlines. 

 

People all have different assessments, this is mine. 

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6 hours ago, Alwaysmorecruising said:

Please forgive me if this was already answered, but can anyone whose been on the Equinox recently verify that no or very limited free movies are available in the cabin?  Our first ever cruise with Celebrity is this November, and we're trying to prepare for that possibility.

 

Thank you in advance.

(First post but long time "lurker" on cruisecritic 🙂

As I said in the OP last week on Wednesday September 4, the 5 free movies were gone.  I called Guest Relations and they said that their broadcasting department said that Celebrity "was not renewing the contract" which basically means Celebrity CUT THEM.  I then asked fleet wide for people to report in if on a ship currently.  Since then passengers from the Reflection and Silhouette have reported in that there are no free movies.  I am doing my comment survey today and I hope everyone takes 5 minutes to email Celebrity or post on twitter whatever how cheap this is!   There are ZERO free on demand movies but plenty of Celebrity Sales nonsense to watch listed under free.

Edited by Nymich
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29 minutes ago, Algebralovr said:

To unlock a TV, you’ll probably need an actual Samsung brand remote.

 

Sometimes you can get IT to unlock a TV port to connect a personal device.  Not the people in the iLounge, the actual IT guy down on deck 3.  

don't forget your blow up beach ball for a foot stool as well.  This is ridiculous to pay thousands of dollars and discuss things like this.

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