canderson

I'll be calling tomorrow. The real crime would be on Constellation. All of the deck furniture in the suites had been changed out during the shut-down and was all brand new and very comfortable. There had better be a plan for my veranda to look like it did then. We've still got a ways to go before final payment is due:

Like George C, we most often eat in Luminae, followed by specialty restaurants when the mood suits, but if you're asking to determine whether people are willing to pay for specialty dining, our vote doesn't count. Like George C, we have no up-charge for specialty dining. I just voted "Other". As a side note, we only sail on M and S class ships, so we are able to watch the MDR menu for gems that don't cross over to Luminae's menu (pulled lamb in phyllo anyone?), and order them from the MDR menu in Luminae.

Have lost track ... which ship?

It's been a long time - since we kept having issues staying logged in - that I've had an issue with the boards here, and blessed if I can find anywhere to report them. In the last 48 hours, I've had an inordinate number of transient server failures resulting in

We also chose the Silver Suite as it seemed the closest match to an X RS, and for some reason, the Muse class ships put their next higher two categories right up in the front of the ship - nice for port days, but on a TA, not very practical if you like veranda time. Agree on the entertainment options. I think the one thing that surprised us was that while the main theater is smaller, the other venues around the ship are not (tons of public space), and yet X is able to provide a 3~4 piece string ensemble or similar and SS is not. Back to amenities: One of the unexpected RS 'amenities' on X was the presence of a WiFi node for a mesh network? in one of the cabinets of the main room of our RS (first seen in 2021). Made for solid 5 bar WiFi connections. I don't know how they've placed them around, but if that's a feature in RS in general, it's a nice benefit if you have things you need or want to do online during a cruise. I still can't find an X 'Amenities Grid' that is more recent than the one I posted from 2020, and things have changed since then. Anyone?

They're still advertising a Royal Suite this way: Veranda with lounge seating (whirlpool tub on Solstice Series and Millennium Series ships) and they still illustrate them this way:

So, back to it. We enjoyed our Silversea experience very much. Granted, our experience is limited, but it was my impression that what would be considered outstanding service on X is pretty much the norm on Silversea. Then again, the crew:pax ratio is a good bit higher on Silversea, so I guess this isn't surprising. We sailed on Dawn, where it's 411:596 (0.69) at double occupancy capacity. On the crew heavier M class ships, it's still only 999:2710 (0.46). With half again as many crew members working for the same number of pax, one would expect a higher level of service. Since Silversea is 'technically' a classless ship, it's different from the Retreat in that all are invited to dine and participate equally. There's no Luminae, no Retreat Deck, no Retreat Lounge / Michael's. Food overall was very good, though there were two dings in particular. Sushi on 5 lays out nicer sushi and sashimi than the equivalent Silversea ship, and I had one entree where it was to include lemongrass as part of the recipe, and as much as I like the stuff, I suspect someone blew the recipe, because it had totally overpowered the dish - and I do mean totally. Imagine seeing a recipe call for 0.5kg of lemongrass and adding 5kg instead! Menus were sufficiently varied, and it was easy to move back and forth between two of the dining rooms, with others available on a reservation basis. Wait staff was excellent, and the sommeliers (one real L2 and one L3) were the best we've had shipboard. Speaking of wine ... Here's a kicker ... like any line, Silversea will sell wine by the bottle. The difference is that they often charge normal shoreside retail for it, not Celebrity's 2.5X or more shoreside retail. I was able to score a couple of bottles of Tignanello, and one even higher end Antinori, at slightly LESS than they cost here at home. Found a new favorite of that genre while there, too, $215. I really liked my Illy espresso machine in the cabin, and will definitely miss the Lavazza if it's not there when I check into my RS in November.

It's not 75%, but still an enormous % of the whole. Here's how it looked just pre-COVID https://www.statista.com/statistics/287114/cruise-passenger-share-by-source-country/ with the US providing 46% of the pax, and Germany in 2nd place at 8.7%. With the U.S. removed, it would be a very different industry.

You're right - these days, it's only "inspired". Corporate became paranoid about the safety of the supply chain, apparently. Too much trouble to vet smaller sellers at many individual ports.

I'll give you a hand. We're on the same TA, and the 'kids' have an aft balcony on 7.

Just headed out the door. Will leave this page up and respond this evening. The experience was very positive. We took a Silver Suite on Dawn, roughly equivalent to a Royal Suite on the M and S class ships.

Unless they repurposed the space for some reason, why on Earth quit stocking and using it??? Just makes life harder on the butlers and pax. Did you notice what they're doing with the space?

When did *that* stop? Had it in RS M and S class as recently as Nov 2022. Beginning to wonder why I'm looking at Celebrity again after moving to Silversea for 2023.

If a chef buys fish or lobster from a local market, it could be the only fresh fish or lobster served on the cruise! By way of contrast, we don't think so much about how fresh the high chairs are. ☺️

Please re-read what I said. The blanket statement by an X employee Please re-read what I said. The blanket statement by an X employee, if accurate, that "They stopped offering this", was not qualified by location, and is no longer correct. That the conversation was held in FLL instead of some other port doesn't change this. The reason that the distinction is important was because for a period of time, Celebrity really HAD "stopped offering this", and the employee, if your account is complete, could easily have misled someone into thinking that it had never been restarted elsewhere. Perhaps the employee said "They stopped offering this in Fort Lauderdale", but that isn't what was posted.

9:00 tags are usually about as late as we see in BCN - or pretty much anywhere else. You might want to extend - you can stay until typically 90 minutes ahead of the next departure. Here's the flyer from X: CEL_06_30_23_FLY_Extend_Your_Stay.pdf

"They stopped offering this" was rather a blanket statement by X staff, unqualified with any location, and for a period of time in recent history, was entirely correct as stated. But this is no longer accurate. Many don't realize that this program has returned, but is limited to ports in Spain, Italy and Greece. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the X folks aboard your ship in FLL were also unaware of this.

Present - Rome (Civitavecchia), Barcelona, Venice (Ravenna) and Athens (Piraeus) are included. Perhaps they'll add back more in the future?

They did stop. During COVID. The program restarted in selected ports in 2023. Check the date on the following Celebrity brochure: CEL_06_30_23_FLY_Extend_Your_Stay.pdf

For Royal and above, there's no charge.

Non-retreat guests wouldn't be able to do that for lunch on embarkation day in any case. See "Inclusions" in the pdf attached to a following post.

The selection is always pretty narrow, but there are discounts based upon demographic. The Cruisingpower web site used to post an Excel sheet for TAs showing all of the possible discounts, many by state of residence. Haven't looked there in ages, so not sure if they still do.

Excellent point. The cruise line is looking for a profitable cruise overall, and the vast majority of the costs involved in a specific cruise are fixed regardless of whether there are 100 more or 100 less passengers aboard. So total revenue required is set against total costs. So charging for double occupancy is their way of assuring something like you describe doesn't happen, and revenues significantly reduced vs. costs. That said, booking solo shouldn't cost MORE than double occupancy for the number of solo travelers that cruise. That's too punitive.

Would you have set foot on X's classic old Horizon class ships back in the day? SS's recent builds are all substantially larger than that ... just a lot less passengers aboard.

Old? Like Celebrity, there's the older ones and brand new ones in their first season. Look again. Their most recent six ships are less than 4 years old. Small? Smaller than X ships, but the newer ones are larger than before. And don't mistake passenger count for size when comparing. When looking at the SS fleet, you must also remember that some of these are older Expedition ships that **must** be smaller, and make port in locations that Celebrity cannot.