Impressions from Connie's Return Voyage

[goldsmip115]

This makes me very sad to hear.  It seems like there are very disparate reviews of the ship, the experience and the overall impressions from guests.  To summarize, universally there seems to be great accolades for the crew.  I’ve not read anything negative about the food/dining other than One bad experience in Tuscan Grill with cold food and a sub par steak.  There seems to be some very legitimate maintenance and outdated soft good issues reported especially from those in Aqua cabins.  Universally it seems that retreat passengers are very pleasantly surprised with the updating of suites and all around accolades for Luminae and the retreat lounge and the retreat hosts/butlers.  What have I missed thus far?

 

it seems that the first cruise sailing with nearly 1,600 passengers was a challenge.  It was 5 nights, sailing over a weekend, first sailing for Celebrity out of Tampa in 16 years, etc. It has been reported that the 10 night  cruise that left today has 860 passengers registered.  May be less with cancellations.  I’m on the 11 night cruise out of Tampa leaving on 11/22.  As of last night there was 416 vacant cabins, not including those that are occupied by the crew.  Hoping for a wonderful sailing and a wonderful experience in my PS and in Luminae.

 

I’m hoping for more reports from the current cruisers and hopefully some photos.

[RollWave]

19 minutes ago, goldsmip115 said:

it seems that the first cruise sailing with nearly 1,600 passengers was a challenge.  It was 5 nights, sailing over a weekend, first sailing for Celebrity out of Tampa in 16 years, etc. 

 

 

In our opinion this had a lot to do with the service issues that were experienced but it does not excuse the condition of the ship.

We were on Summit a month ago. Less than 300 passengers. While this was a very nice & relaxing experience we also felt it was fair to the crew too so they could get their feet under them.

[RollWave]

2 hours ago, goofysmom99 said:

The Millennium has been redone and you might enjoy it.  Cabins were very nice on my recent Summit cruises.

 

Thank you for this information - good to know about Millennium! We were on Summit last month and it was a wonderful experience from start to finish and everything in between. 

[Northern Aurora]

10 minutes ago, RollWave said:

Thank you for this information - good to know about Millennium! We were on Summit last month and it was a wonderful experience from start to finish and everything in between. 

 

We spent the last two weeks of September on the Millennium.  We hadn't been on the ship since 2018 for a Trans-pacific and following cruise around Japan when we spent a month on the ship.  My husband and I were very pleased -- she doesn't look like the oldest ship in the Celebrity fleet!

[Ken the cruiser]

We sure hope more folks that cruise on Connie in the following weeks continue to update us CC folks here in the shadows scheduled to cruise on her in December and beyond with their experiences, hopefully more good than bad.
 

I remember 5-6 years ago we sailed on the HAL Veendam and had brown water flowing from the pipes one day in our cabin which really freaked us out. But the engineers resolved the problem within a day, but still it definitely grossed us out! 
 

Hopefully, the Connie engineers will resolve the water and internet issues really soon as well as any other issues that can make a cruise “less” fun.

[RhumondTonique]

Can anyone describe the type of covid test used? Do they accept the DIY at home tests? What type of proof do they accept for an antigen test? Thanks!

[Jim_Iain]

38 minutes ago, RhumondTonique said:

Can anyone describe the type of covid test used? Do they accept the DIY at home tests? What type of proof do they accept for an antigen test? Thanks!

They do accept the at home test but must be the one that is monitored by calling in.  You can present the results via e-mail or print  the results from their website.    These test can be purchased through a Celebrity branded page.

Edited November 13, 2021 by Jim_Iain

[RollWave]

11 hours ago, marieps said:

Very sorry for your experience.  Did they do anything for you?  We got a bit of FCC but had to make three trips to Guest Relations before receiving it.

No - we do not want any FCC. We have a cruise book in December on Millenium and another on Edge in January. We are taking a break from cruises until after November 2022 (our son is getting married so we will be busy next year). We do not want to have to keep track of a credit and we will be looking to explore other cruise lines.

 

After our third trip to the Ilounge to get the wifi working on our phones my husband mentioned to one of the attendants that he was going to go to Guest Services and ask them upgrade him to the premium wifi for the remainder of the trip. He wanted the upgrade b/c the room was so horrible, the wifi was not working, there was no interactive TV etc... The attendant said it is not worth the time in line because they will not do that. (By the way - the Ilounge attendants were wonderful. Very kind & patient. They frequently had a line of people - upset people and they never lost their cool)

 

We had to deal with Guest Services to get a view of our bill - the interactive TV was not working so we could not see our account and the APP was not working either for the billing (the APP worked perfectly fine on Summit last month). We mentioned that the cabin was sub-par and they just ignored the comment. We were so over the entire experience we did not want to add arguing to the situation.

 

At one point during this five day absurd experience  we looked around to see if there were hidden cameras and we were being punked

 

 

 

 

[canderson]

+1 to the comment above re interactive TV.  Would swear we had it on Connie before, but must have imagined it.

 

Our OBC for the first leg really was all held in a single account, but for purposes of the app, was split 50/50 so that we saw half on each phone.  Weird.  After we spent down half on my phone, you could then see it spending down on the other phone.  Really confusing at first because each phone was showing 1/2 of the correct amount.  On the 2nd leg, the whole amount shows on my phone.  Need to check DW's to see what hers says now.

 

Anyway, it all added up correctly in the end for leg 1, but had us really confused.  Without the interactive account on the TV, we had to inquire.

[RhumondTonique]

10 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

They do accept the at home test but must be the one that is monitored by calling in.  You can present the results via e-mail or print  the results from their website.    These test can be purchased through a Celebrity branded page.

Thanks for the hint. Thanks to you I found this. It answers all our questions about testing in great detail. Celebrity should have included this in their precruise emails but they didn't.  Silly.

 

 

 

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/healthy-at-sea/accepted-covid-tests

 

 

[marieps]

We used the Abbott test purchased though a link on =X='s website.  We used laptops rather than the phone app to be monitored by the proctor.  Be advised the service seems to have been outsourced to India, and all four proctors with whom we dealt had very heavy accents, which can be difficult when you are hearing impaired as I am.  The proctors spoke more slowly when asked.  That certainly helped. 

[Jim_Iain]

1 hour ago, marieps said:

We used the Abbott test purchased though a link on =X='s website.  We used laptops rather than the phone app to be monitored by the proctor.  Be advised the service seems to have been outsourced to India, and all four proctors with whom we dealt had very heavy accents, which can be difficult when you are hearing impaired as I am.  The proctors spoke more slowly when asked.  That certainly helped. 

I think it depends on the time of day that you call.    I did my test and had a representative from Philippians  and Iain had someone from India when he called.     I was worried about the problem of understanding a heavy accent and used a set of headphones which really helped.

 

I also used a PC to do my test and afterward felt It would have been easier using an iPhone.   We both had challenges holding up our ID and getting it focused for the proctor === the same for the QR code.  The downside might be be trying to do the test and hold the phone at the same time.   Maybe having your partner do the camera work would be a good compromise.  

[marieps]

26 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I think it depends on the time of day that you call.    I did my test and had a representative from Philippians  and Iain had someone from India when he called.     I was worried about the problem of understanding a heavy accent and used a set of headphones which really helped.

 

I also used a PC to do my test and afterward felt It would have been easier using an iPhone.   We both had challenges holding up our ID and getting it focused for the proctor === the same for the QR code.  The downside might be be trying to do the test and hold the phone at the same time.   Maybe having your partner do the camera work would be a good compromise.  

Hi Jim,

I also used headphones.  I'd recommend that to anyone hearing issues or not.  We had to tilt the laptop cover so the camera could see the process on the counter top.  Not too complicated.   Oceania only requires 3 days out on results, so we can use a state testing site for free for that one in February.  Hope you enjoyed your recent cruise.

[Jim_Iain]

29 minutes ago, marieps said:

Hi Jim,

I also used headphones.  I'd recommend that to anyone hearing issues or not.  We had to tilt the laptop cover so the camera could see the process on the counter top.  Not too complicated.   Oceania only requires 3 days out on results, so we can use a state testing site for free for that one in February.  Hope you enjoyed your recent cruise.

 

Really did enjoy our cruises.     I liked the home testing.   Our first cruise we had to pay $95 for the test as Kaiser (our health care provider) couldn't guarantee the 3 day test results.    The told us to schedule it at a local company and submit a claim.   I did the claims including the Abbot tests this week so will be interested to see if they reimburse.    I'm good either way.

 

We had also purchased the home non-monitored tests and did a pretest just for peace of mind and also did a pretest prior to the B2B test.   Having done the pretest we had the process down pretty good except trying to get the laptop camera to focus on the QC code. 

[helen haywood]

I did a Binax test as a trial for our upcoming cruise.  On the initial connection to the proctor they told me they were having “echoing” issues and asked if I’d mind switching to a chat mode.  So if one is having trouble hearing or understanding the proctor ask to switch to chat.

[marieps]

20 hours ago, helen haywood said:

I did a Binax test as a trial for our upcoming cruise.  On the initial connection to the proctor they told me they were having “echoing” issues and asked if I’d mind switching to a chat mode.  So if one is having trouble hearing or understanding the proctor ask to switch to chat.

I'm not the best typist, although that is a nice option.  

[TeeRick]

On 11/13/2021 at 6:45 AM, RollWave said:

At one point during this five day absurd experience  we looked around to see if there were hidden cameras and we were being punked.

Again sorry to hear about your multiple issues.  Maybe the hidden cameras were not working too?😀

I know punked is the current term.  I did enjoy the show Candid Camera years ago.  Now everybody has cameras and they record and post everything including being punked.  I wonder if they ever did Candid Camera episodes from an old cruise ship?  Anyway hopefully your next cruises will go much smoother.

[CruisersLB]

Thanks for all the information. We will be on the Connie in January. Hope they get all the kinks out by then.

[CruisinNole]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:35 PM, Northern Aurora said:

Interesting experiences.  Any other passengers from the "restart" cruise care to comment?

We had the brown water issue also. The water smelled horrible too. We were told to run the water 24/7. Cleared up by Wednesday but we stuck with the bottled water for the final day of the cruise. We found everyone very responsive and apologetic for the inconvenience. We were kept informed about the issue and felt like everything was done to correct the problem. We received an FCC and have already booked another cruise. Had WI-FI issues one day -- while in Cozumel, I believe. No problems at all with the app. Worked perfectly and we used it constantly. Able to check our account through the entire cruise. My husband was at Guest Relations to get the form to use OBC for tips and asked for a print out of our account. We got a print out every day afterwards without asking for it. 

[marieps]

2 hours ago, CruisinNole said:

We had the brown water issue also. The water smelled horrible too. We were told to run the water 24/7. Cleared up by Wednesday but we stuck with the bottled water for the final day of the cruise. We found everyone very responsive and apologetic for the inconvenience. We were kept informed about the issue and felt like everything was done to correct the problem. We received an FCC and have already booked another cruise. Had WI-FI issues one day -- while in Cozumel, I believe. No problems at all with the app. Worked perfectly and we used it constantly. Able to check our account through the entire cruise. My husband was at Guest Relations to get the form to use OBC for tips and asked for a print out of our account. We got a print out every day afterwards without asking for it. 

No one advised us to run the water 24/7.  I wish they had.  

[glmacruise]

I certainly don’t find brown water acceptable at all. A 100 future credit are you kidding me? I’m certainly expect better on my coming cruise. Don’t restart if you can’t deliver a quality product .

[Northern Aurora]

4 hours ago, CruisinNole said:

.....  We found everyone very responsive and apologetic for the inconvenience. We were kept informed about the issue and felt like everything was done to correct the problem. We received an FCC and have already booked another cruise. ....

 

Thank you for your update.  

[CruisinNole]

33 minutes ago, glmacruise said:

I certainly don’t find brown water acceptable at all. A 100 future credit are you kidding me? I’m certainly expect better on my coming cruise. Don’t restart if you can’t deliver a quality product .

Not a single officer or crew member I spoke to said that the water issue was acceptable. The people I spoke with were quite concerned and tried very hard to correct the problem. And this isn't the first time that we've experienced brown water on a cruise. We experienced the same thing on a Royal Caribbean cruise and the difference in the response was notable.

[marieps]

1 hour ago, CruisinNole said:

Not a single officer or crew member I spoke to said that the water issue was acceptable. The people I spoke with were quite concerned and tried very hard to correct the problem. And this isn't the first time that we've experienced brown water on a cruise. We experienced the same thing on a Royal Caribbean cruise and the difference in the response was notable.

I certainly would not say anyone downplayed it.  There's no way those affected could have been moved as it was so widespread.  Perhaps corporate will respond to numerous comment cards.

[CruisinNole]

22 minutes ago, marieps said:

I certainly would not say anyone downplayed it.  There's no way those affected could have been moved as it was so widespread.  Perhaps corporate will respond to numerous comment cards.

I wasn't aware that it was widespread. I overheard one person speaking about it and  not one word that most of the ship was affected. We didn't complain on a comment card or ask to speak to the hotel manager or any other officer. The word "compensation" never passed our lips.