Eliminating Butlers - Spoke to Celebrity. Here is conversation.

[billc23]

11 hours ago, Dolebludger said:

 And on Regent, there aren’t  any “infomercials” about shore shopping.  It is a true “lux line”.  And now, it can be booked for less than an X SS!  I liked Celebrity when it was a lower cost alternative to Regent. It isn’t that anymore.

Spread the word. If one is willing to pay the price for a SS on Celebrity then one can afford Regent, Silversea, etc.

It is necessary to research the lux lines because they all offer a bit of a different experience and one may not be pleased with them. 

[Tudy]

 

9 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

So you think it's the right choice to sell someone experience A, and then decide later to reduce the value by delivering experience B?  Makes no difference if you personally use that service or not. If I paid for a car that was supposed to include, for example,  heated seats and Hyundai decided to eliminate that feature in my car, it doesn't matter if I live in Florida and don't or rarely use it. It's a service paid for, and therefore should be delivered.  Period. I don't understand how people can think that kind of bait and switch is ok. Maybe if they make a change on something you do actually use, after you bought and paid for it, you'll understand. 

My thoughts: Celebrity does reserve the right to change the service provided. But with a change, they would allow the passenger to cancel without penalty if they respected their passengers. This would also provide valuable feedback for Celebrity regarding exactly how many people were upset enough to cancel.

 

Its a bit of an aberration for me but our next 3 cruises are in sky suites. I ask myself if I would cancel if I could do so without penalty. The answer is "Not sure." The first cruise I got for a fabulous deal. If I could cancel I probably would. I would not just go for a veranda because we only booked the cruise because the suite deal was so sweet. The other 2 cruises are major celebration cruises B2B, and were booked so long ago (2019, Lifted and shifted several times) that I would pay more for a veranda and we really want to take these cruises. I can live without a butler since I must, but the suite is now not so sweet.

[TeeRick]

10 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Did you ever call the Hotel Director?  I never have but until recently, Celebrity hadn’t promised something I paid for then took it away.

 

Edit: people keep telling us to find another cruise line.  I may shop around but I won’t book another NRD cruise.  My mistake to do a non refundable fare and a mistake to think I’ll get what I paid for.

 

Some of you say “upper suites are ok as long as X makes no more cuts in service”.

 

You have that in writing?  Oh wait.  🙄

To be honest, all cruise lines have become much more expensive and have cut quality and services.  There is no safe place.  We need to choose an itinerary and ship that we like and suck it up I guess.  Or find other vacation choices besides cruising.  We have found excellent deals in land vacations.  We also book vacation homes.  We booked one on the beach for a month this coming winter.  About the price of a Sky Suite for the two of us for a week.  We are definitely doing much less cruising in the past year and have only a few booked in the next two years.  None on Celebrity.  After years, sad to say.

[billc23]

24 minutes ago, chisoxfan said:

Impressive -at around 140 bucks a tin you could pay for your whole cruise ordering enough. I'd have Jeeves deliver twice a day.😁

 

 

True, but the novelty wears off. Our first Silversea cruise was a port intensive Adriatic cruise and we had a bottle of champaign and caviar most days when we returned to the ship. Since then, maybe once or twice a week. 

[hcat]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

Terry- this is very much the truth.  I find no major difference anymore between Celebrity and RCCL - other than the ship size of course.  Celebrity is no longer a step above (IMO).  Our next two cruises are on RCCL in mid-level suites - so no butler (genie) - which I don't really care about.  But we have WiFi, Coastal Kitchen, Suite Lounge, etc.  With our D+ benefits we get plenty of included drinks even if we go out of the Suite Lounge, or go to the Diamond Club.  Gratuities are not included anymore for either line.  These suites on our next RCCL cruises are less expensive all-in than the lowest level Sky Suite on Celebrity.  So we have switched for now.  We are going on RCCL in non-vacation periods so not as many kids.  But we really don't mind the RCCL higher energy experience.  Others here will gasp at that of course!  Yeah we are still giving our money to Celebrity's parent corporation RGG.

we will stick with X... we are not suite customers so did not lose a Butler...We like the X  ships..Royal has bigger ships , lines to get in to events, and too many pax.. So one less competitor for Royal space! 

 

We found the food on Oasis very poor compared to X  but that was awhile ago!  Glad we still have choices!

[TeeRick]

1 hour ago, hcat said:

we will stick with X... we are not suite customers so did not lose a Butler...We like the X  ships..Royal has bigger ships , lines to get in to events, and too many pax.. So one less competitor for Royal space! 

 

We found the food on Oasis very poor compared to X  but that was awhile ago!  Glad we still have choices!

We will be dining in Coastal Kitchen which is like Luminae.  Not in the MDR.

[hcat]

1 minute ago, TeeRick said:

We will be dining in Coastal Kitchen which is like Luminae.  Not in the MDR.

never  had that  CK experience, but found Luminae on BEYOND  quite lacking..so you will likely  be better off.

We can't all love the same things!

[shirazcruiser]

We still sail on RCCL as D+, but not on the mega ships anymore after our last 2 Allure sailings. I wish RCCL would do what X did by carving out a portion of the MDR to create a Coastal Kitchen on the smaller ships.  Now we purchase the Unlimited Dining Package when CK is not available.  RCCL Grand and Owner's suites are still our favorite cabins of all the cruise lines.   

[billc23]

1 hour ago, hcat said:

never  had that  CK experience, but found Luminae on BEYOND  quite lacking..so you will likely  be better off.

We can't all love the same things!

The Luminae experience, food, and atmosphere is so much better on M and S class. I tend to only book Royal ships with CK and enjoy it for the service. M class Luminae allows ordering from Blu/MDR in a less crowded space.

[abbydancer2003]

3 minutes ago, billc23 said:

The Luminae experience, food, and atmosphere is so much better on M and S class. I tend to only book Royal ships with CK and enjoy it for the service. M class Luminae allows ordering from Blu/MDR in a less crowded space.

I usually don't get dining packages, as on a 7-10 day cruise, I prefer to do one specialty only.  However, with my sister on the Beyond we have a 3 night, because Luminae on the E class has limited off menu options.  I'm modifying a lot of things.  

[CruiseRQA]

3 hours ago, RichYak said:

If I've already paid for it 90 days in advance and the restaurant refuses to refund me for providing a lower quality meal? Of course!

 

 

Anybody here ever pay for a restaurant meal 90 days in advance?  

[zitsky]

7 minutes ago, CruiseRQA said:

Anybody here ever pay for a restaurant meal 90 days in advance?  

You mean on the ship or on land?  On ship, of course.

[billc23]

47 minutes ago, CruiseRQA said:

Anybody here ever pay for a restaurant meal 90 days in advance?  

Yes, via gift cards! Local restaurants have promotions for discounted gift cards so I always buy some for myself. This year the NH State liquor store gives a $20 bonus for every $100 gift card purchased. No restrictions and can be used the next day. 

[RichYak]

54 minutes ago, CruiseRQA said:

Anybody here ever pay for a restaurant meal 90 days in advance?  

Either way, your example was nonsense. You choose. 

[dlh015]

32 minutes ago, RichYak said:

Either way, your example was nonsense. You choose. 

Yeah, I had to laugh when they posted that the car example didn't hold up...followed by two examples that actually didn't hold up... 

[sn2792]

7 hours ago, zitsky said:

Are our standards for butlers so low that we get excited about ice delivery?

I don’t have low standards. I don’t need the butler.  I wasn’t excited about ice. I was happy with the service provided. In the past when we had a butler, they would keep wanting to do things for us, We finally had the butler bring us coffee and tea in the morning because we felt obligated. I don’t drink or eat breakfast in the morning so it was a waste because I threw out the tea.

[Whinenowine]

19 minutes ago, weregoingcruising said:

Is it you the people or we the people?

nah the 'the' is silent...

[billc23]

1 hour ago, RichYak said:

"You people..." 🙄

Yous people in my world...

[Calvin]

On 7/30/2023 at 4:44 PM, NutsAboutGolf said:

Totally understand any product/service cutback is disappointing, yet this is unfortunately covered in your cruise contract.  I doubt complaining to an online chat person will yield anything yet perhaps complaining to the exec offices will result in an OBC credit or something.  Agree with it or not, it seems X's parent company, RCG, wants to standardize some of X's experience with RCI.  For now and I hope this changes in the near future, they're not taking any of the "passenger friendly" experiences such as better and more frequently entertainment

I completely agree with complaining directly to the cruise lines, but I'll bet they also read many cruise comment boards to see what people are generally thinking.

[MamaFej]

22 hours ago, terrydtx said:

Bill the point here is we booked suites knowing what we would get, a butler, and then Celebrity takes them away. But we paid for a service we didn't get. Can we live without a butler, yes, but again we paid for one. If we had booked our first Sky Suite 4 years ago and it didn't have a butler, it would have been a whole different story because we wouldn't have known what we missed.

 

I do not claim to know for sure, but my gut feeling is that this is the goal. Suck up the concerns/complaints by past cruisers about no longer getting what they paid for, and gradually replace them with new customers who don't know the difference. 

 

Of course, in future years, those new folks will be complaining that they no longer get _______, and they will be replaced as well. 

 

I am not in any way saying this is okay, it's just what I perceive. 

 

 

 

[goofysmom99]

Maybe they'll just rename the categories.  Then folks coming from RCI will think they're really getting something special (Luminae).  What a clever plan. 😉

Edited December 18, 2023 by goofysmom99

[Dolebludger]

Well, the loss of a butler would perhaps wouldn’t be such a big deal if it hadn’t been accompanied by other cuts (tips no longer included, for example), and significant fare increases. 

[Joker54]

5 hours ago, CruiseRQA said:

Anybody here ever pay for a restaurant meal 90 days in advance?  

Troll often?

[hcat]

3 hours ago, MamaFej said:

Also, I can't help but wonder if the folks who are supportive/defensive of X not giving people what they paid for, whether it's included Room Service, dedicated Butlers, second lobster tails, or whatever, are folks who bait and switch customers in their professional lives. The practice certainly is not exclusive to cruise lines. 

We agree 100%  X was not fair,  many posts state there's not much that can be done to reverse course now.. esp if cancelling incurs  financial loss  Reality is that some  folks can only change course  in the future and hopefully deal with a more reliable cruise line. 

 

Comment is a bit harsh!

[Dolebludger]

Actually, no, the comment is not too harsh. There is a large, open question about how much wiggle room should be allowed in a mandatory contract fine print drafted by any seller when what’s  delivered is not quite what was originally purchased. This language in the fine print of the “cruise contract” is supposed to protect cruise lines when they have to change itineraries because of weather and wars. Totally fair. But cruise lines’ interpretation of this has gone way beyond this. And it isn’t just Celebrity. My favorite line now (Regent) is currently involved in a problem of major port cancellations in the west coast of Mexico on its newest ship (the Grandeur). The reason for this is that this ship was designed to hook up to the ports electrical service instead of using its engines to generate electricity in ports. An environmental thing. The cancelled ports (according to Regent’s admission in emails to booked guests) was that the cancelled ports did not have electrical hook up capability. This mess doesn’t affect our Regent booking, so we will go. But if Regent’s handling of this doesn’t satisfy me, it will be goodbye to them too!