Upper Suite Benefits

[Julma]

I know there is a bunch of laundry questions.  We were in a PH last week on the Summit.  We put laundry out almost everyday after day 3.  It came back, next day, washed and pressed. Very nicely done and never charged.  Much nicer than what you get with CC status.  One day there was a mistake and my laundry was done as an Elite Plus CC member instead of a PH passenger.  The clothes showed up 2 days later,  "folded"  and shoved back in the tiny bag and smelled burned.  I know it's free, but really no one's clothes should be treated that way.  I always do my own slip and snap a pic of the clothes and the slip, so I know what is gone and due back.  Our butler usually wrote PENTHOUSE, but missed that day.  I suggest writing it yourself.  It's a great perk for longer cruises.

[SusieAV8R]

2 hours ago, Julma said:

I know there is a bunch of laundry questions.  We were in a PH last week on the Summit.  We put laundry out almost everyday after day 3.  It came back, next day, washed and pressed. Very nicely done and never charged.  Much nicer than what you get with CC status.  One day there was a mistake and my laundry was done as an Elite Plus CC member instead of a PH passenger.  The clothes showed up 2 days later,  "folded"  and shoved back in the tiny bag and smelled burned.  I know it's free, but really no one's clothes should be treated that way.  I always do my own slip and snap a pic of the clothes and the slip, so I know what is gone and due back.  Our butler usually wrote PENTHOUSE, but missed that day.  I suggest writing it yourself.  It's a great perk for longer cruises.

We had a similar experience in PH on Summit in August.   Several times, our laundry was picked up by the Butler who completed the laundry slip. Items came back next day, nicely pressed and in a small basket.  DH and I completed the laundry list and put CC (we also are elite plus) and wow, 2 days later, what a difference!  Thank you so much for "joining the dots" for us!!!

[Midlo]

On 10/23/2022 at 9:24 PM, morpheusofthesea said:

Just that the balcony was rather limited by RS standards of other cruise lines and we felt that the piano was a lot of wasted space, unless one was hiring a piano player to play for a party in the PH. Tried a lunch out on the veranda of PH on a port day (no wind to contend with) but after 15 splendid minutes the port flies joined us and we quickly moved our 'picnic' inside.

The PH has loads of extra storage space, a much larger bathroom and shower, and the piano. The piano comes with an invisible piano player that doesn’t even ask for tips.

[morpheusofthesea]

8 hours ago, Midlo said:

The PH has loads of extra storage space, a much larger bathroom and shower, and the piano. The piano comes with an invisible piano player that doesn’t even ask for tips.

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Thank you. Did not use or even try. Might disturb the other cabins.

[Tom-n-Cheryl]

We found the Disklavier rather glitchy. I should have asked if they'd send someone to play in the early evening for us... lol

Tom

[George C]

11 hours ago, Midlo said:

The PH has loads of extra storage space, a much larger bathroom and shower, and the piano. The piano comes with an invisible piano player that doesn’t even ask for tips.

I thought they removed most of the pianos from the penthouse, my edge cruise definitely didn’t have it , rccl did same on there top suite . I thought it was cool having it .

[zgscl]

What time does boarding typically begin for X? Our boarding window is 11:30 but the shoreside concierge said we can arrive any time after 10:30 & we will be escorted through check in and on the ship. Curious if this sounds about right timing wise? We are sailing out of Long Beach if it makes a difference. 

[sbcs5390]

3 hours ago, zgscl said:

What time does boarding typically begin for X? Our boarding window is 11:30 but the shoreside concierge said we can arrive any time after 10:30 & we will be escorted through check in and on the ship. Curious if this sounds about right timing wise? We are sailing out of Long Beach if it makes a difference. 

Presumably you're at San Pedro for the Solstice. We arrived at 10:30 or 10:45 or so this month and it was just fine to go ahead and get on board. 

[zgscl]

51 minutes ago, sbcs5390 said:

Presumably you're at San Pedro for the Solstice. We arrived at 10:30 or 10:45 or so this month and it was just fine to go ahead and get on board. 

I am! That is definitely nice and a bit earlier than I’m used to with HAL (though I understand rooms will not be ready until later on). Thanks!

[Midlo]

10 hours ago, George C said:

I thought they removed most of the pianos from the penthouse, my edge cruise definitely didn’t have it , rccl did same on there top suite . I thought it was cool having it .

They did, the only ones left are on ships that haven’t completed the “upgrades”. Equinox is one of them.

[George C]

2 minutes ago, Midlo said:

They did, the only ones left are on ships that haven’t completed the “upgrades”. Equinox is one of them.

Celebrity seems not to like pianos they do not have a traditional piano bar like most lines , they also removed the piano from Michaels when they converted it to the retreat . 

[Midlo]

26 minutes ago, George C said:

Celebrity seems not to like pianos they do not have a traditional piano bar like most lines , they also removed the piano from Michaels when they converted it to the retreat . 

Don’t understand their reasoning but they own the ships so it’s their choice. We enjoyed the piano in the PH. We listened to it while having a drink or two while getting ready for dinner around 4:30. As far as bothering neighbors, on our last cruise we sat next to the couple in the RS next door and I asked them if they could hear it. They said no. Hope they weren’t just being nice!

[prmssk]

So after following this thread so closely, now that we are on our way back to Tampa as our cruise comes to an end, I thought I would share my experience.  We are in the penthouse on the Constellation.  This was our first upper suite and quite a splurge for us (as it probably is for most).  The room blew us out of the water.  I'm not sure you can beat the deck of the penthouse on an M class ship.  Our embarkation day was also truly amazing.  All I had to do was mention penthouse, and they were escorting us around all the lines of people and to the head of the security line, which was a huge benefit as the coast guard inspection really delayed boarding (this was Tampa's return to the US from Europe).  Upon boarding, we were escorted by Concierge Kaya to our room and then to Luminae for lunch.  Luminae staff have been amazing.

 

And before I go on to the issues we had, we truly had an amazing cruise and I'm glad we did it.  But I'm really disappointed in our butler and even the concierge.  Our port changed from Belize to Costa Maya and with the change from a tender port to a docked port, I wanted to be able to watch sail away and so immediately upon boarding asked the concierge to change our Tuscan Grill reservation.  We were told there was not any availability until much later than we wanted to eat.

 

Our butler didn't check in with us until late afternoon on embarkation day and when he did, he was clearly in a hurry and more concerned with making sure we understood that any room service we ordered would arrive cold.  He also told us he had just boarded that day but that he had previously been a Butler on the Eclipse.  We handed him a sheet of our requests as he ran out which included basic things like a fruit bowl, limes, and afternoon snack preferences,  He clearly didn't even read the sheet until at least day 3 (and it was a five day cruise).  We had to follow up several times on the things that mattered to us and some things never got fulfilled.  Fairly early on the Retreat Manager did stop in.  She caught us off guard so we weren't ready to respond but we did hesitate and mention a number of requests that hadn't been fulfilled like the fruit bowl.  She managed to send someone else up with a fruit bowl but never checked in again and honestly we didn't want to spend more of our vacation chasing down requests.

 

We got way too many treats in the room yesterday but absolutely nothing any of the other days.

 

We asked if we could get robes to take home and when we followed up yesterday, our Butler's response was, "didn't I tell you that was approved?" and then he looked to our room steward and said it was his area.  He said if we don't get packaged robes, we should just take the ones we have been using.  Packaged robes have not arrived yet and we have already done most of our packing.

 

Maybe my expectations were too high after reading others' experiences but I didn't expect to have to continuously be following up on things.  I'm still really glad we did this.  The Scarlet Lady did a full turn just off our balcony yesterday morning which was absolutely magnificent to watch.  And we docked right the Infinity in Cozumel who arrived after us and left before us.  So we truly had some memorably experiences in this suite.  But I don't think I would book an upper suite again for the amenities after this experience.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Sorry to hear that.  No, your expectations weren't too high.  The quality of the staff was too low.  I don't know if that's a function of it's having been a short cruise, but your experience in the PH should not have been like that.  I sailed in the PH on the Summit last spring and the butler and the cabin attendant were awesome.  The cabin attendant was so good, he was promoted to butler and was my butler on a 4-night cruise I added on to the 12-night repo on the Summit in October.  I was in a royal suite on both cruises and the service was excellent.  Being sick of the pajamas, I asked for and received a new robe instead.

[George C]

35 minutes ago, prmssk said:

So after following this thread so closely, now that we are on our way back to Tampa as our cruise comes to an end, I thought I would share my experience.  We are in the penthouse on the Constellation.  This was our first upper suite and quite a splurge for us (as it probably is for most).  The room blew us out of the water.  I'm not sure you can beat the deck of the penthouse on an M class ship.  Our embarkation day was also truly amazing.  All I had to do was mention penthouse, and they were escorting us around all the lines of people and to the head of the security line, which was a huge benefit as the coast guard inspection really delayed boarding (this was Tampa's return to the US from Europe).  Upon boarding, we were escorted by Concierge Kaya to our room and then to Luminae for lunch.  Luminae staff have been amazing.

 

And before I go on to the issues we had, we truly had an amazing cruise and I'm glad we did it.  But I'm really disappointed in our butler and even the concierge.  Our port changed from Belize to Costa Maya and with the change from a tender port to a docked port, I wanted to be able to watch sail away and so immediately upon boarding asked the concierge to change our Tuscan Grill reservation.  We were told there was not any availability until much later than we wanted to eat.

 

Our butler didn't check in with us until late afternoon on embarkation day and when he did, he was clearly in a hurry and more concerned with making sure we understood that any room service we ordered would arrive cold.  He also told us he had just boarded that day but that he had previously been a Butler on the Eclipse.  We handed him a sheet of our requests as he ran out which included basic things like a fruit bowl, limes, and afternoon snack preferences,  He clearly didn't even read the sheet until at least day 3 (and it was a five day cruise).  We had to follow up several times on the things that mattered to us and some things never got fulfilled.  Fairly early on the Retreat Manager did stop in.  She caught us off guard so we weren't ready to respond but we did hesitate and mention a number of requests that hadn't been fulfilled like the fruit bowl.  She managed to send someone else up with a fruit bowl but never checked in again and honestly we didn't want to spend more of our vacation chasing down requests.

 

We got way too many treats in the room yesterday but absolutely nothing any of the other days.

 

We asked if we could get robes to take home and when we followed up yesterday, our Butler's response was, "didn't I tell you that was approved?" and then he looked to our room steward and said it was his area.  He said if we don't get packaged robes, we should just take the ones we have been using.  Packaged robes have not arrived yet and we have already done most of our packing.

 

Maybe my expectations were too high after reading others' experiences but I didn't expect to have to continuously be following up on things.  I'm still really glad we did this.  The Scarlet Lady did a full turn just off our balcony yesterday morning which was absolutely magnificent to watch.  And we docked right the Infinity in Cozumel who arrived after us and left before us.  So we truly had some memorably experiences in this suite.  But I don't think I would book an upper suite again for the amenities after this experience.

We were treated like royalty last year on edge in penthouse, anything we asked for we got, but we were not that demanding. Not all butlers are created equal, we had one in royal suite that was just so so, but all the concierge took care of any issues, our first sky suite we had a fantastic butler. 

[SusieAV8R]

1 hour ago, George C said:

We were treated like royalty last year on edge in penthouse, anything we asked for we got, but we were not that demanding. Not all butlers are created equal, we had one in royal suite that was just so so, but all the concierge took care of any issues, our first sky suite we had a fantastic butler. 

 

1 hour ago, George C said:

We were treated like royalty last year on edge in penthouse, anything we asked for we got, but we were not that demanding. Not all butlers are created equal, we had one in royal suite that was just so so, but all the concierge took care of any issues, our first sky suite we had a fantastic butler. 

Our 5 night cruise on Summit in September 2021 and our 11 night cruise on Constellation in November 2021, both in PH, were fabulous, with outstanding service from the Luminae Maitre' D' to our Butler and Suite Attendant (Both cruises were well below 50% capacity).  In August of this year, we had a 7 night cruise on Infinity (you guessed it, in the PH, with 60+% capacity).  The service was VERY different , more along the lines of prmssk's experience.  When we arrived home, I sent a detailed email to X, which was shared with at least the Maitre' D.  I was also advised that I should have spoken to the Hotel and Beverage Manager at the onset. We are booked in the PH (13 nights) on Summit over Christmas/NYE.  We now have devised "alternate game plans", depending on our initial experience with staff. After all, we like our vacations to be relaxing! 🙂

[JFontaine]

Telling you to take home the used bathrobes hanging in the closet is a lazy, wrong response. I too was sick of the pajamas and asked for a robe on two ships this year and was told no. The inconsistency in overall experiences. And I'm not sure anyone at Celebrity cares. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by JFontaine

[prmssk]

1 hour ago, JFontaine said:

Telling you to take home the used bathrobes hanging in the closet is a lazy, wrong response. I too was sick of the pajamas and asked for a robe on two ships this year and was told no. The inconsistency in overall experiences. And I'm not sure anyone at Celebrity cares. 

Our cabin attendant left two additional robes on our bed to take home this evening after we again asked our butler about getting new packaged ones - they were even more used than the ones in our closet, one with mending on the back that was coming apart.  I feel like that made it even worse.  (We did pick out the best of the ones we had and left the mended ones in the closet.). I'm not going to let our butler/concierge experience ruin this vacation but I am disappointed in that aspect of our trip.

[RichYak]

22 minutes ago, prmssk said:

Our cabin attendant left two additional robes on our bed to take home this evening after we again asked our butler about getting new packaged ones - they were even more used than the ones in our closet, one with mending on the back that was coming apart.  I feel like that made it even worse.  (We did pick out the best of the ones we had and left the mended ones in the closet.). I'm not going to let our butler/concierge experience ruin this vacation but I am disappointed in that aspect of our trip.

I hope you choose to compensate them accordingly. 

[zgscl]

Do they offer shoe shine/polishing service by any chance?

[sbcs5390]

31 minutes ago, zgscl said:

Do they offer shoe shine/polishing service by any chance?

Yes - bag in closet for it. I didn’t use the service. 

[chemmo]

We try to include. as many small requests as possible on our list to the shoreside concierge (fruit bowl, limes, lemons… )as well as the usual drinks list etc. Most of the time they are there on arrival. In our experience if they are not they appear the second day as the butler will have contacted someone (day 1) to prepare. Also requested snacks will kick in day 2.
 

On a short cruise the delay of even one day is a chunk of your cruise so more noticeable. 
 

Butlers saying room service will arrive cold etc. is totally unacceptable. One of the joys of the M class PH is dining on the balcony and in suite. It sounds to me as if he was trying to reduce his work load. As is waiting until day three for a fruit bowl. We have never had service this bad in any suite and would have firstly complained to the butler then if there had not been an improvement we would have asked to speak to the suite manager.

 

Re pyjamas and robes….In our experience some ships are better stocked than others. On Equinox, no problems. On Silhouette last September they did not have any  pyjamas or robes at all. The fact that your ship had just returned from Europe may mean they simply didn’t have any new robes in stock. If that was the case they should have been open and honest with you are they were with us. Packaging two old robes is simply tacky but may have been a bad idea by your butler/room attendant to appease you.

 

Look forward to your next experience….Bad butlers are rare…

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by chemmo

[JFontaine]

Great butlers are even rarer..In my opinion most fall into the middle. Men and women who work four months or more, morning, noon and night, seven days a week, without much training or support. I'd do far worse. The problem is Celebrity charges for and promises a first class experience  without the means to deliver.  When I complain to management they are so quick with a future cruise credit that it's routine for them. I want THIS experience to be a delight.  Getting a few dollars off the next doesn't mean much to me.  

 

 

[prmssk]

Thanks for all your comments.  We probably should have followed up with the Retreat Manager one more time but the last way we wanted to spend our already too short cruise was doing more follow-up, especially after the first conversation didn't change much.

 

4 hours ago, chemmo said:

Re pyjamas and robes….In our experience some ships are better stocked than others. On Equinox, no problems. On Silhouette last September they did not have any  pyjamas or robes at all. The fact that your ship had just returned from Europe may mean they simply didn’t have any new robes in stock. If that was the case they should have been open and honest with you are they were with us. Packaging two old robes is simply tacky but may have been a bad idea by your butler/room attendant to appease you.

 

Yes, I went into this realizing we might not get robes (or pajamas) and we were very careful to word our request in a way that we just wanted to know what was possible.  Our follow ups were all focused on whether our butler had asked his supervisor about our request.  We really just wanted an honest answer.

 

Aside from Galapagos next year which I imagine isn't a true Retreat experience, our next suite experience will actually be in the Yacht Club.  It will be first time on MSC and I am curious how it compares.

 

[Guest 4-2-N-8]

All this talk about bathrobes, shoe shines, asking (demanding?) for this or that.

 

It's as if showing up on a cruise is supposed to mean you're 18th century royalty (and the seemingly sometimes silly expectations that go with it).

 

Sheesh, it's a boat ride. I just want a blankie on my bed. 😅