terrierjohn

I would like to see X do a similar Spanish Islands Med itinerary to that done by RCI from Southampton, in recent years all their cruises have included Rome and Florence which, for us is getting a bit boring.

Kinda, sorta. The layout had stairways going between decks in the atrium between 3,4 and 5 then stopped, kind of like on the Royal (different deck numbers with Celebrity using lower numbers for public areas).

 

The elevators were about halfway in between those central short areas and the rear stairs. With the rear stairs being closer to the center then on a Princess ship. There are only 2 sets of elevators.

 

Actually you might almost consider them to be front elevators and stairs, stairs between 3 decks in the middle of the atrium, and a set of elevators and stairs at the back of the atrium.

 

Compared to a Princess design the stairs at the back of the atrium is about halfway between where the back stairs/elevators and the central stairs/elevators would be located. No true rear stairs/elevator.

Yes Celebrity only has 2 sets of stairs and it only has 12 elevators compared to Royal's 14, but the Solstice class only has 2850 passengers compared to Royal's 3600, and therein lies the difference.

So I want to know which companies supply Celebrity's food, so where does Celebrity source their meat and vegtables, from Tysons? As for the food in Celebrity Century I would rate it about 6-7 out of 10, and I am somewhat surprised at the lack of a French chef for Murano and the Grand Restaurant.

If you desperately need to know the suppliers I suggest on your next cruise you find somewhere to view the dockside loading arrangements. We watched the loading of Eclipse at Southampton on our Baltic cruise last year and most of the suppliers were US based. Idaho potatoes, Alaska salmon, New England lobster along with several US meat suppliers that I cannot remember. As for the meat quality it was more than adequate for us, in fact I had a fillet mignon in the MDR which was among the best restaurant steaks I have tasted; but food enjoyment is a very subjective thing and I imagine someone else may have hated their fillet.

True Mr B, but the Sydney port schedule for 2017 is out and showing Azura. ;)

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We also noted that Azura is presumably doing worldies from 2017, which probably means that Ventura will be doing fly cruises in the Caribbean rather than a couple of round trip Caribbeans as in 2015/16. Bit disappointing for us as we don't fancy either Oriana or Oceana.

It's the lack of mid-ship passenger stairs combined with insufficient and poorly programmed elevators that make for a perfect logistical storm. We went from the Royal Princess to the Nieuw Amsterdam last fall, a ship with 1500 fewer passengers and it had the same number of elevators and they were all larger than on the Royal Princess.

 

I've never studied elevator engineering, but it seems that, like public restrooms, there has to be a minimum recommended number per capita. Surely the Royal Princess is on the very low end of that.

Unless Royals elevators are bigger than the Grand class ones then they will be overloaded in comparison, with 1000 more passengers than the original small grand class and exactly the same number of elevators, especially without the central stairs to act as an overflow at busy times.

I agree a cruise ship is just one big cash generating machine and the cruise lines want to persuade you to spend, BUT, whether a ship has midship stairs or not IMO makes no difference whatsover to passengers spending habits.

In fact if they are p***** off because of the missing stairs they are far less likely to feel like spending extra cash, no matter how many times you force them to walk past a bar or whatever else.

Yes but if you didn't want to wait for the mid ship lift you would walk through the Spa Entrance where the desk is on your way to the forward stairs or lift. That is where they solicit you. The rooms where they provide the service are at the end past the stairs and lifts. To add I don't think that it was by accident that passenger services and the shore excursion desks are planted by the spa. You can't even walk Aft on that deck to get to the aft lifts and stairs. I don't think that's a coincidence either.

Not a coincidence but neither is it to force you to the forward stairs, it's because the 2 midship dining rooms are in the way, in fact on all Grand class ships, and the new Royal class, the only public decks you can walk all the way through are deck 7, promenade deck and lido deck and promenade deck is where most passengers will head for if they want to find the stairs.

I will grant that having the passenger services and shore excursions desks close to the spa might help to increase custom, but I am still to be persuaded that shopping footfall has anything to do with Princess changing the upper midship stairs to crew use only.

In my opinion that is correct. I had made that assumption way back when this topic came up before the ship sailed. Having worked as a merchandiser in retail for over 30yrs I can tell you that traffic patterns are studied and the flow is designed to take the consumer deeper into the store. The spa is a destination venue. Only those who are interested will seek it out. However by moving it mid ship and creating a flow of traffic that forces you to pass it may increase the sales. I am sure they have a bunch of people outside the spa offering tours or hard selling services.

Am I reading the deck plans incorrectly? I thought the spa was tucked away at the pointy end of deck 5 beyond the forward stairs and miles away from the piazza.

When I look at the deck plans for decks 5, 6 and 7, I think they wanted to improve the flow of passengers past all the venues in the enlarged atrium.

Walking to the aft and forward stairs accomplishes this. The stairs are not that far away from the mid ship elevators.

Since decks 5,6 and 7 do have midship stairs I cannot really see this is the reason Princess chose to close them to passengers on the upper decks, so I am still waiting for someone to come up with a viable reason.

But I do agree with caribill that for anyone in a high deck midship cabin wanting to get to the lido deck at busy times will soon get very annoyed waiting for a an elevator with space, or they will have to walk all the way to the forward stairs.

Cost savings. A reported couple of million $ saved on a ship that was running over budget.

Is this fact or fantasy, as far as I remember the deck plans always showed the public stairs finishing on deck 7, and these were issued at least a year ahead of the maiden season.

I have not experienced the missing central stairs yet, but we will be sailing on P&O's Britannia next year so we will find out if its a problem or not.

However there is one thing that I do find strange, what did the Grand class crew use for a central staircase after Princess switched them to passenger stairs from the Golden all the way up to the Ruby.

And what was so important that Princess had to change them back to crew only for the new Royal class.

I imagine that they will have saved a bit on stair carpets, decorarting and wall art, but I hardly imagine that was the main reason.

Makes we wonder though.:confused::rolleyes:

Having done both a partial and a full westbound transit, and after reading the path between the seas, I can agree with both the positive and negative posters.

The immense difficulties the builders encountered which are vividly portrayed in the book are not apparent as you effortlessly glide through the gatun lake and even the gaillard cut, and all without any monsoon rains, raging yellow fever or a mosquito in sight. But I guess this is part of the problem with living in our modern world, there are precious few difficulties needed to be endured.

Despite this I am very glad we made the trip, the massive locks can still be appreciated for the early 20th century engineering marvel they are, and the number of ships paying such huge fees and the fact that new locks are being built belies Teecee60's view that an undertaking of this magnitude would not happen today.

So I would say take the cruise tick it off your bucket list and see how you feel afterwards.

Although P&O do not want TA's to offer discounts they have substantially improved the commission levels they are now offering, so I guess it won't be long until someone breaks ranks.

However we have always used a TA and for us this is also for peace of mind, especially when it comes to after sales service, one short phone call to our TA to explain what we want and we leave them to contact the cruise line and make the necessary amendments, seek additional info. or sometimes to switch our booking to a new offer and save money, which we have done both with a P&O and Princess cruise. Now maybe we would have achieved the same service and result dealing direct, but I rather doubt it, and it would certainly have required much more effort on my part.

So for us we think booking through a TA is by far the best option.

terrierjohn,

I have a question about Tronchetto. When I was in Venice last month, I wondered if it would be better from the ship to take the People Mover to the Tronchetto station & board from there (the vaporettos were so crowded). I picked up a local booklet from a hotel and noticed some vaporetto options that looked feasible, but with limited time didn't want to risk it.

 

From what you're saying, it seems like Tronchetto might be easier to get to & from San Marco than P Roma? I'm curious for next time. Thoughts?

As you will have noted from my post we did not take the people mover to Tronchetto from Maritima, but I imagine it is just as easy as going to P Roma, again not certain where the people mover stops but I guess Google maps will show you.

Once at Tronchetto it is easy to book and board the vaporetto that goes down the grand canal to San Marco and the ticket office staff will point out which jetty to use, and as you comment the Tronchetto vaporetto stop is far less crowded than it is at P Roma.

Do not pay money to go on as cruise and sit in my cabin watching TV only watch it for news and that is amply provided.

Good lord how patronising.

Not sure that it's patronising, although it is an opinion. It's also an opinion I subscribe to.

Whether or not it's patronising it is a somewhat selfish comment, and obviously one that P&O don't agree with, otherwise they would not provide stateroom TV, nor would they keep it up to date.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, just as long as they don't presume their's is the only correct opinion.

No wonder the laundry came to a standstill in the TV documentary !!😳

 

 

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Are you insinuating that all Elite members on board were ex P&O cruisers taking advantage of their unearned status due to the largesse of Princess's Captain's circle system.:rolleyes:

I was looking for a more accurate emoticon but I can't find one for 'Yah booh sucks'.:p

What I should have clarified was Princess no longer add P&O cruises to the captains circle since the middle of last year, if you are already in their captains circle the old cruises prior to that still count.

Definitely incorrect, our October cruise on Azura has been added to my Captains circle account, AND our planned Britannia cruise in April is also showing on my Princess cruise history, after which I will also be joining the Princess Elite.

However my Ventura cruise booked for Jan 2016 is not showing, so either Princess will cease taking account of them by then, or more likely their IT system has not been loaded with 2016 cruises yet.

I firmly believe though that only those who plan on stiffing the staff are getting hurt by this policy.

cle-guy, clearly you failed to read the last line of my post.

As a Select diner I have absolutely no problem in paying the gratuity, but I would like to have the same opportunity as the fixed diners to offset this against my OBC by paying it on my final on-board account, on the odd occasion when I have more OBC than I can drink.;)

The reason Select Dining has pre-paid grats is because it was introduced before X started the auto tip system, so anytime diners were made to pay in advance to ensure the Select waiters were not disadvantaged.

Of course fixed diners could still "stiff" their waiters by simply not tuning up in the MDR on the last night.

But when X introduced the auto tip they still insisted that Select diners maintain the pre-paid grats., although they continue to allow fixed diners to opt out of the auto tip if they want to, however Select diners cannot get a refund no matter how much they demand it. Which seems rather perverse to me.

Not that I would ever want to opt out of paying the grats, but I would like Celebrity to allow me to pay them on my onboard account which might enable me to use my OBC, if I have enough.

We normally only use the room TV for news and sport and this is generally well catered for. Most lines out of the UK, and even in the Caribbean will have CNN, BBC World, Sky News and Sky Sports news, and US lines will have ESPN as well, and this does sometimes have live premier league football games.

It would need to be too cold to go out on deck or the balcony, and too crowded in the public lounges for us to even contemplate watching any of the on demand films or TV shows.

I think this thread demonstrates that we are all guilty of second guessing how P&O, and other cruise lines, deal with the disribution and management of the auto tip pool.

Truth is none of us really know, and even information from crew members is possibly suspect because they cannot trust us not to snitch to management.

However what should be accepted is that most crew members are happy with their career choice and its remuneration, the majority of which comes from tips, otherwise there would not be a waiting list for cruise jobs.

But everyone should continue to tip to at least the full auto tip amount to ensure that these hard working staff continue to be adequately rewarded.

Read the whole thread he initially got his calculations way too high and said so in a later message yours are even higher and completeley inaccurate because £3-95 tip is shared between cabin steward, waiter and assistant waiter.

Nope he only allocated £1.50 to the Steward, which is probably less than he actually gets, which I assume is indicated in the brochure. I stand by my calculations.

Well the £3-95pppd is paid to cabin steward,waiter and assistant waiter so even if nobody else is paid out of it that throws your wage configuration completely out of the window. So lets say cabin steward gets £1-50 then using your formula it is £3 per cabin of 2 people x 14nts x10 cabins which equals £420 per 14nt cruise so a big difference in your estimation of £1106 from your totally wrong assumption that cabin steward keeps it all which he doesnt.

 

So as the old saying goes dont let facts get in the way of a good argument.

Your calculation is OK but the number of cabins is wrong, the last time we spoke with a steward he said he handled 19 cabins, plus some of these will have more than 2 passengers, so the total will be nearer a £1000, or £2000 per month. __________________

John.

They are still using Langelinie regularly for a number of cruise ships, and in fact Eclipse is due to use this berth on 27th August along with Emerald Princess, according to the "ships in port" feature on the port website.

It could easily be trialled by offering it to a certain tier of peninsular membership.

Why would a trial need to be specific to any group, run AI in the same way as others do, on one ship or them all, for a given period and check it's success.

Then decide whether to roll it out fully.