May 15/2022 Eclipse Hubbard Glacier Cruise... Comments

[Spartan Tartan]

For those that were on this sailing out of Vancouver Canada, how was this cruise?

Any comments relating to food, service, weather,  number of passengers, COVID protocols would be appreciated.  Did the barnacle issue impact your cruise in any way?

 

Thank You  

  

[Peteymil]

7 minutes ago, Spartan Tartan said:

For those that were on this sailing out of Vancouver Canada, how was this cruise?

Any comments relating to food, service, weather,  number of passengers, COVID protocols would be appreciated.  Did the barnacle issue impact your cruise in any way?

 

Thank You  

  

Food - very good (We were in Blu), and the buffet was also good

Service - excellent in Blu; generally good but you could tell at certain points that they were shorthanded (staff covid isolation)

weather - mostly great! Juneau and Ketchikan sunny and 60's, Sunny and beautiful at Hubbard Glacier

70 % full

Very little in the way of COVID protocols; huge lines for check in (took 3 hours in packed spaces), very little masking, no transparency on # of cases, reports now of people coming down with Covid now that they are home

Barnacles had a huge impact: Very, very short hours in Ketchikan and Sitka

 

Having said all that, because we have done this cruise multiple times, I could live with the short port times, but had it been my first time in Alaska, I would have been very upset.

They are taking care of the barnacles this week, so this should not be a problem again.

 

As far as Covid, we do there were isolated individuals that were holdovers from the previous cruise. Don't know if/how many from this cruise.  As many people have posted, Covid is a risk you have to be willing to take, if you are going to cruise.  We masked everywhere inside and so far we are fine, but who knows.

 

It was still a beautiful cruise and I would do it again.

 

 

[s0479]

15 minutes ago, Peteymil said:

Food - very good (We were in Blu), and the buffet was also good

Service - excellent in Blu; generally good but you could tell at certain points that they were shorthanded (staff covid isolation)

weather - mostly great! Juneau and Ketchikan sunny and 60's, Sunny and beautiful at Hubbard Glacier

70 % full

Very little in the way of COVID protocols; huge lines for check in (took 3 hours in packed spaces), very little masking, no transparency on # of cases, reports now of people coming down with Covid now that they are home

Barnacles had a huge impact: Very, very short hours in Ketchikan and Sitka

 

Having said all that, because we have done this cruise multiple times, I could live with the short port times, but had it been my first time in Alaska, I would have been very upset.

They are taking care of the barnacles this week, so this should not be a problem again.

 

As far as Covid, we do there were isolated individuals that were holdovers from the previous cruise. Don't know if/how many from this cruise.  As many people have posted, Covid is a risk you have to be willing to take, if you are going to cruise.  We masked everywhere inside and so far we are fine, but who knows.

 

It was still a beautiful cruise and I would do it again.

 

 

I agree overall!  The disappointments for me were embarkation and shorter port times.  I personally would have liked more openness about COVID numbers and I believe it just helps make decisions.  Overall a great cruise!

[Spartan Tartan]

Peteymil, do they still have the Elite Cocktail Hour where you can sit in a private area in the Sky Observation Lounge where they serve hors d'oeuvres?  Or is it just an open bar concept throughout the ship now?

[dawnvip]

Also following as I will be on this cruise June 5 sailing! Thanks for the review @Peteymil

Were the line ups for embarkation even with pre-check in clearance and scheduled times? Was the embarkation line up due to understaffing, documentation and health checks, or ?

[CaptainJF]

Thanks for the detailed Peteymil.

One small question... on your Eclipse cruise, was the buffet self served or "staff served"? 

 

Thank you 

[debkaysmith]

Transparency would have been nice about so many issues - embarkation, never checking our pre board Covid  testing (unbelievable), the port situation in Sitka, Cellar Masters closed the first few nights, no Alaskan beer in Alaska! And especially the overwhelming number of Covid cases. 

[Peteymil]

11 hours ago, Spartan Tartan said:

Peteymil, do they still have the Elite Cocktail Hour where you can sit in a private area in the Sky Observation Lounge where they serve hors d'oeuvres?  Or is it just an open bar concept throughout the ship now?

Open bar concept. 

[Fly and Sail]

10 hours ago, dawnvip said:

Also following as I will be on this cruise June 5 sailing! Thanks for the review @Peteymil

Were the line ups for embarkation even with pre-check in clearance and scheduled times? Was the embarkation line up due to understaffing, documentation and health checks, or ?

 

Sounds more like the typical YVR disaster due to U.S. pre-clearance at the port (OP correct me if I'm wrong). That was the reason why I decided to take Solstice from Seattle. I took 3 cruises ex Vancouver and I'm done with their chaotic process.

[Peteymil]

7 hours ago, CaptainJF said:

Thanks for the detailed Peteymil.

One small question... on your Eclipse cruise, was the buffet self served or "staff served"? 

 

Thank you 

Staff served

[Peteymil]

10 hours ago, dawnvip said:

Also following as I will be on this cruise June 5 sailing! Thanks for the review @Peteymil

Were the line ups for embarkation even with pre-check in clearance and scheduled times? Was the embarkation line up due to understaffing, documentation and health checks, or ?

We were sent an email the morning of embarkation telling us to arrive 1 1/2 hours late. There were problems with the disembarkation of the cruise before us, and some of them got off over 2 hours late. That of course backed up the whole process. 
This cruise was very early in the season for Vancouver, and remember they didn't have cruising for a long time, so the port process needed to have the kinks worked out. 
I will say our disembarkation was very smooth. 

[Fly and Sail]

43 minutes ago, Peteymil said:

We were sent an email the morning of embarkation telling us to arrive 1 1/2 hours late. There were problems with the disembarkation of the cruise before us, and some of them got off over 2 hours late. That of course backed up the whole process. 
This cruise was very early in the season for Vancouver, and remember they didn't have cruising for a long time, so the port process needed to have the kinks worked out. 
I will say our disembarkation was very smooth. 

 

Did they still do immigration pre-clearance at the terminal in Vancouver?

[Peteymil]

30 minutes ago, Fly and Sail said:

 

Did they still do immigration pre-clearance at the terminal in Vancouver?

Yes

[bigbenboys]

Leaving out of Canada Place cruise terminal to a US state you must go through Canadian and US customs before checking into your cruise. Our next cruise is on Millie next month out of Seward to Vancouver. Our 1st time leaving out of Seward. 

[dawnvip]

15 hours ago, Fly and Sail said:

 

Sounds more like the typical YVR disaster due to U.S. pre-clearance at the port (OP correct me if I'm wrong). That was the reason why I decided to take Solstice from Seattle. I took 3 cruises ex Vancouver and I'm done with their chaotic process.

It's been 2 years due to covid, so there could be changes I'm not aware of, but all of my experiences pre-clearing US Customs through YVR have been normal. What disasters are you referring to?

[lovecruzin]

22 hours ago, debkaysmith said:

Transparency would have been nice about so many issues - embarkation, never checking our pre board Covid  testing (unbelievable), the port situation in Sitka, Cellar Masters closed the first few nights, no Alaskan beer in Alaska! And especially the overwhelming number of Covid cases. 

We were on the 4/23 cruise to Hawaii, also never asked for our test results. We mentioned it several times and were told either “you’ll show them up there” meaning the next person or “we’ve seen them in the app”.

I chalked it up to us being the 2nd ship out of Vancouver but clearly its still an issue. Very disappointing. 
 

 

[cruznoob57]

What is "the port situation in Sitka"?

 

Our May 29 itinerary has been changed to drop Sitka and replace with Icy Strait Point but there was no reason given. 

[debkaysmith]

Our Eclipse 05/22 cruise that was cancelled entirely due to the barnacle situation - I couldn't be more grateful at this point. It was a hassle - rebooking a future cruise on expired cruise credits, hotel, airfare, transportation, etc. But I am happy to try a different ship and experience. Don't get me wrong, the ship is gorgeous. But I wouldn't want to do it two weeks in a row right now. Well, and I couldn't because I caught Covid onboard last week 🙂 

[Peteymil]

1 hour ago, cruznoob57 said:

What is "the port situation in Sitka"?

 

Our May 29 itinerary has been changed to drop Sitka and replace with Icy Strait Point but there was no reason given. 

A ship recently hit the dock and now they can't handle multiple ships. We were there last week and when we got there the other ship in Port had to move out to tender. I'm not sure who takes priority but we moved to the port.

[cruzebugduo]

We also were on the May 15 sailing out of Vancouver and overall enjoyed the cruise.  However, the embarkation was the worst we have ever had with any previous Celebrity cruise. The port being unorganized and having wifi problems accounted for much of it, along with very late clearing of previous cruise. We encountered a double booking of our room upon checking in and unfortunately no one seemed to know why or how to remedy the situation. After about 45 minutes of frustration as they held the whole line up rather than just taking us aside to fix the problem we were told it was solved and allowed through to US customs.  That went fairly quickly only to enter another long line for another hour to have boarding passes checked to get on the ship. Upon showing our passes they said we had a different room number.  We told them that wasn’t our stateroom and they replied you have been given an upgrade.  We embarked the ship and went to the new stateroom only to find not an upgrade but actually a downgrade from aqua to concierge class.  Off we went to guest relations for another hours wait.  At guest relations we were finally told that the previous people in our room had Covid and it had to be quarantined for additional cleaning. I asked when the room would be available and they said they didn’t know.  We asked why we were told we got an “upgrade”, when in fact it was a downgrade and at the very least it should be an equivalent aqua class or suite.  We were told there were not any suites available as they were all spoken for and no aqua class at the moment and told to use the concierge room and they would call us if an aqua class came available.  We then asked about Blu and all the aqua class perks we wouldn’t be able to use with our Concierge cards. He finally then issued us Aqua class stateroom keys so we could access these amenities and promised he would call as soon as he knew more.
We decided not to unpack and it was around 5:30 by this time and we went to dinner in Blu and the show to try and put the whole process behind us.   Just as we returned to our cabin we received a call telling us they had found an aqua class cabin and we were moved in about an hour.  The new cabin had an obstructed view of the window washing equipment and was not our large “Hump” balcony we were looking forward to, but at that point we just wanted to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

The staff, food, entertainment were thoroughly enjoyed even though at times they were understaffed. The ship itself is in great shape and even with the short port times, the weather was amazing and we made the best of it. We masked the whole cruise except when outside on shore excursions. We were the exception as most were not masked.  Disembarkation was slightly delayed but we were able to get the the airport and make our 1:00 pm flight with no problems. 
Unfortunately, on Tuesday my DH has tested positive for Covid.   He is doing okay and we are thankful for vaccinations and booster.

Overall, we will definitely sail with Celebrity again as overall the quality and service is still great and it fits with our cruising style. However, with just a bit more communication to let everyone know what was going on and to let those new passengers affected by previous cases onboard know early in the process would have made an very frustrating start to our vacation more easily understood.  We all have been affected by Covid and no one is immune to its far reaching effects. I must say I was worried about catching Covid just before or during our cruise, but it never occurred to me that we might have to give up our cabin because of a previous passenger.  

 

[Peteymil]

1 hour ago, cruzebugduo said:

We also were on the May 15 sailing out of Vancouver and overall enjoyed the cruise.  However, the embarkation was the worst we have ever had with any previous Celebrity cruise. The port being unorganized and having wifi problems accounted for much of it, along with very late clearing of previous cruise. We encountered a double booking of our room upon checking in and unfortunately no one seemed to know why or how to remedy the situation. After about 45 minutes of frustration as they held the whole line up rather than just taking us aside to fix the problem we were told it was solved and allowed through to US customs.  That went fairly quickly only to enter another long line for another hour to have boarding passes checked to get on the ship. Upon showing our passes they said we had a different room number.  We told them that wasn’t our stateroom and they replied you have been given an upgrade.  We embarked the ship and went to the new stateroom only to find not an upgrade but actually a downgrade from aqua to concierge class.  Off we went to guest relations for another hours wait.  At guest relations we were finally told that the previous people in our room had Covid and it had to be quarantined for additional cleaning. I asked when the room would be available and they said they didn’t know.  We asked why we were told we got an “upgrade”, when in fact it was a downgrade and at the very least it should be an equivalent aqua class or suite.  We were told there were not any suites available as they were all spoken for and no aqua class at the moment and told to use the concierge room and they would call us if an aqua class came available.  We then asked about Blu and all the aqua class perks we wouldn’t be able to use with our Concierge cards. He finally then issued us Aqua class stateroom keys so we could access these amenities and promised he would call as soon as he knew more.
We decided not to unpack and it was around 5:30 by this time and we went to dinner in Blu and the show to try and put the whole process behind us.   Just as we returned to our cabin we received a call telling us they had found an aqua class cabin and we were moved in about an hour.  The new cabin had an obstructed view of the window washing equipment and was not our large “Hump” balcony we were looking forward to, but at that point we just wanted to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

The staff, food, entertainment were thoroughly enjoyed even though at times they were understaffed. The ship itself is in great shape and even with the short port times, the weather was amazing and we made the best of it. We masked the whole cruise except when outside on shore excursions. We were the exception as most were not masked.  Disembarkation was slightly delayed but we were able to get the the airport and make our 1:00 pm flight with no problems. 
Unfortunately, on Tuesday my DH has tested positive for Covid.   He is doing okay and we are thankful for vaccinations and booster.

Overall, we will definitely sail with Celebrity again as overall the quality and service is still great and it fits with our cruising style. However, with just a bit more communication to let everyone know what was going on and to let those new passengers affected by previous cases onboard know early in the process would have made an very frustrating start to our vacation more easily understood.  We all have been affected by Covid and no one is immune to its far reaching effects. I must say I was worried about catching Covid just before or during our cruise, but it never occurred to me that we might have to give up our cabin because of a previous passenger.  

 

Were you supposed to be in 1610 or 1606 by chance? 

[cruzebugduo]

Yes 1610

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, cruzebugduo said:

We also were on the May 15 sailing out of Vancouver and overall enjoyed the cruise.  However, the embarkation was the worst we have ever had with any previous Celebrity cruise. The port being unorganized and having wifi problems accounted for much of it, along with very late clearing of previous cruise. We encountered a double booking of our room upon checking in and unfortunately no one seemed to know why or how to remedy the situation. After about 45 minutes of frustration as they held the whole line up rather than just taking us aside to fix the problem we were told it was solved and allowed through to US customs.  That went fairly quickly only to enter another long line for another hour to have boarding passes checked to get on the ship. Upon showing our passes they said we had a different room number.  We told them that wasn’t our stateroom and they replied you have been given an upgrade.  We embarked the ship and went to the new stateroom only to find not an upgrade but actually a downgrade from aqua to concierge class.  Off we went to guest relations for another hours wait.  At guest relations we were finally told that the previous people in our room had Covid and it had to be quarantined for additional cleaning. I asked when the room would be available and they said they didn’t know.  We asked why we were told we got an “upgrade”, when in fact it was a downgrade and at the very least it should be an equivalent aqua class or suite.  We were told there were not any suites available as they were all spoken for and no aqua class at the moment and told to use the concierge room and they would call us if an aqua class came available.  We then asked about Blu and all the aqua class perks we wouldn’t be able to use with our Concierge cards. He finally then issued us Aqua class stateroom keys so we could access these amenities and promised he would call as soon as he knew more.
We decided not to unpack and it was around 5:30 by this time and we went to dinner in Blu and the show to try and put the whole process behind us.   Just as we returned to our cabin we received a call telling us they had found an aqua class cabin and we were moved in about an hour.  The new cabin had an obstructed view of the window washing equipment and was not our large “Hump” balcony we were looking forward to, but at that point we just wanted to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

The staff, food, entertainment were thoroughly enjoyed even though at times they were understaffed. The ship itself is in great shape and even with the short port times, the weather was amazing and we made the best of it. We masked the whole cruise except when outside on shore excursions. We were the exception as most were not masked.  Disembarkation was slightly delayed but we were able to get the the airport and make our 1:00 pm flight with no problems. 
Unfortunately, on Tuesday my DH has tested positive for Covid.   He is doing okay and we are thankful for vaccinations and booster.

Overall, we will definitely sail with Celebrity again as overall the quality and service is still great and it fits with our cruising style. However, with just a bit more communication to let everyone know what was going on and to let those new passengers affected by previous cases onboard know early in the process would have made an very frustrating start to our vacation more easily understood.  We all have been affected by Covid and no one is immune to its far reaching effects. I must say I was worried about catching Covid just before or during our cruise, but it never occurred to me that we might have to give up our cabin because of a previous passenger.  

 

 

Sorry to read about your cabin troubles. Very bad luck. 

[Peteymil]

2 hours ago, cruzebugduo said:

 At guest relations we were finally told that the previous people in our room had Covid and it had to be quarantined for additional cleaning. I asked when the room would be available and they said they didn’t know.

They were not truthful with you. The people in that room caught Covid on the previous cruise and they allowed them to stay in that room for the entire week. They never left the room. That is fine except they should've told you the truth and you should be compensated for having a view that was partially blocked, because that is not what you reserved. 

[Ben Kenobi]

4 minutes ago, Peteymil said:

They were not truthful with you. The people in that room caught Covid on the previous cruise and they allowed them to stay in that room for the entire week. They never left the room. That is fine except they should've told you the truth and you should be compensated for having a view that was partially blocked, because that is not what you reserved. 

I thought the same thing Petey, I'd be pushing for a refund or some FCC.  You paid for something you'd didn't get, they should be compensating you.  I know I wouldn't have been as calm as you were during this whole snafu.