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The_Big_M

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  1. Yes, coffee and alcoholic drinks are reasonable. As said, it's just the juices/non-alcoholic drinks which are ridiculously overpriced.
  2. Maybe to pay for the overpriced juices, or coffees/teas?
  3. Then that says more about corporate ethics than whether it's the right thing to do. We're all adults - in fact, they make it that way by not accepting children - so how about treating us like that and being upfront with us instead of lying, so you never know what's true or not?
  4. Others have a more traditional base -most started before apps existed, so keep more of the old methods. Whereas Virgin is a very new cruise line, and came up with new ways to do things, without ever adopting the old ways. Hence, others still have more traditional methods instead of only the new app way. I see where VV was going, and it makes sense - but there are some big flaws. Unfortunately on the very first day of my cruise with VV, there was some server failure - so you couldn't even see the bookings I'd made for that day - but other days appeared. And I wasn't 100% sure of the time of my restaurant booking - and they don't send you any confirmations or any other records when you make a booking (unlike other lines). So there was no way to see what booking I had - it appeared I had none, so though it had been accidentally deleted. But I knew all restaurants were completely booked out, and they also told you if you weren't there in 15 minutes then tough, your reservation was gone. So there was a bit of a panic. So I called guest services. They couldn't help either. But they said go to the maitre d in Razzle dazzle. So I went there - they'd closed (early), and said they also couldn't help. But said "there'd been some reports of problems - just go and see how you go". Great - aside from wasting the time and giving a lot of stress, there was no resolution. Anyway, I went to the restaurant and time I thought I had booked - slightly earlier to be a bit safe. The maitre d' there could see the booking and said all was fine... But it's not a great way to run things.
  5. Not only the above, but also the fitness classes have to be booked through it. Plus it's where you get primary visibilty of the schedule since they don't distribute them directly either. They do have printed copies in a few locations, but you'd have to make a trip there to get them. So yes, it is a pain, and is glitchy - but the cruise operations are based around it, so without it you will have a tough time.
  6. It could be added, just as Azamara used to be. Much simpler than the speculation about having a single program for all.
  7. Which then means one cruise on Silversea and you're immediate Diamond on RCL. As said previously, the question as asked was silly as they already have that loyalty transfer between programs. And trying to broaden it to a unified scheme makes no sense for multiple reasons, and doesn't have any signficant benefit.
  8. No need to go back to the hotel. Check out when you prefer, take your bags to the terminal and just before the entrance is the place to drop them off. It will be open when you arrive and they will take them then. Then, if you're too early you can spend time around Circular Quay and the Rocks while you wait, but you should be able to board from 11-11:30, dependent on successful clearance of the arriving passengers.
  9. Virgin voyages: "We just want somebody's credit card we can charge."
  10. Not defending the situation, or Celebrity's handling of the process. However, the reason given still is possible and potentially plausible. It doesn't have to be that it was a Penthouse Guarantee, but they may have sold any intermediate grades between Celebrity and a Penthouse as well, as a guarantee. e.g. a Royal Suite guarantee. In this case, they still couldn't assign that passenger booking to your Celebrity suite, so the only 'spare' one may be the Penthouse. It may even be that there had been an additional Royal suite when booked, but it became unserviceable for whatever reason. That would also do away with the speculation about them being a VIP - anyone could have booked that.
  11. Their bidding is to maximise revenue. They seem to place minimum bids based on similar amounts to the cost of the cabin. This is likely as they are sailing full on most sailings so there aren't a lot of empty cabins to fill in any case, and so the few if any available can be sold to those who have had a change of circumstances .e.g had a subsequent bonus, or extra cash now available for upgrade, or just the psychological separation between the upfront cost and the upsell (e.g. it's only x more, disregarding costs alread paid) or just availability when they booked i.e. they want that cabin type but it wasn't available when booked.
  12. Yeah, that was a weird one since the way the question was asked (that you can get your loyalty benefit level in one program when you sail on another) is already the case! But the answer seemed to hedge around just having a single program instead - but agree with you, that would be a bad thing since it would complicate benefits between ships i.e. you're xxx level but on Celebrity these are your benefits, and on RCL you have these benefits, plus mean an overall degradation of earning, since progression could potentially be much faster now - so to compensate they would have to slow down progression.
  13. For me, one of the big turn-offs was the answer about adding 2 types of wine to the premium package, and they're looking at adding some upsells - but she made out it was all such a big deal. One of the biggest disappointments of my last celebrity cruises was the food and drink offering - and then I sailed on Virgin Voyages and it was a breath of fresh air... yet not so different to other mainstream cruises with a wider beverage offering. The last Celebrity cruises only had 1 cider (and it even ran out for a short while), and that's all. Plus anything modern, or exotic just isn't carried. Whereas others have a much wider range of drinks, including juices and cocktails. Yet here at Celebrity, adding a couple of additions to the small wine list is a massive deal. (When they often run out of stock as well!) They really have a lot to do to live up to the premium label they now claim - and used to hold.
  14. Agree with your experiences. Evidently what Celebrity has offered is additional choices, rather than being integrated into the regular menus. This is supported by it being a separate section in the buffet, rather than having good choices integrated throughout. I have only seen the additions in the buffet as recent sailings have been dining in Luminae and Blu. So it's good to see an addition in main dining, although as you say they don't change the menu, unlike the regular menu. Blu doesn't have special options, but fortunately its regular menu has more options by default that are vegan, vegetarian, or pescetarian. Unfortunately, Celebrity really misses a trick in Luminae and hasn't made any changes there, which means it is the least appealing of those available. There's only one vegetarian (not vegan) dish a day, not always very good, and they don't customise, and even getting alternative menus from other restaurants is in practice problematic.
  15. It's a bit like the vaping trial in the casino, and removing butlers with no notice, despite paying for them (as well as many other things). Celebrity reserve the right to make any negative changes to your cruise, and are not concerned with how you feel about that.
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