BPCW

As someone who has dealt with Forbes in my day job, they are mostly pay for play now. So Celebrity likely paid them for this (poor) write up.

Not sure why people cannot express disappointment or downgrading of quality/service from previous X experience without these over the top “I guess everyone will have a terrible time” or “your expectations are out of line” type posts… Many, many experienced X cruisers, us included, have felt this. X still has a good product and you’ll still have a good time but that doesn’t change people’s opinions that X is on a downhill trajectory.

You are entitled to your opinion but not sure why people defend a billion dollar corporation that is increasing pricing and reducing service/amenities. We should ALL be calling these changes out in hopes they change their mind or stop the price increases. If people want to stay with X due to brand loyalty, that’s their choice. If people want to shop around (we do) because the additional cost of sailing on Celebrity doesn’t match with the benefits, then go for it. But we should all hope for improved service and amenities at the best price.

If people want to pay Celebrity prices for an NCL level cruise experience because of brand loyalty, more power to them. Celebrity is counting on that because they have zero loyalty to you as a customer. Or if Celebrity’s changes still exceed your perceived value, by all means book away. People can spend their money however they want. But lots of people are looking elsewhere, us included, for the first time in awhile.

Mine came on Day 1 of the cruise (early Feb 2023). Redeemed about 10 days before sail date.

My dad got called up and won the free cruise a few weeks ago while onboard Millennium. The casino (Blue Chip host) said they would reach out to him “within a few days” to arrange for the free cruise. It’s been 2+ weeks and he hasn’t heard from them. Can you outline how it worked for you?

Based on service and price from our recent sail on Millennium, we are going to shop around for the first time in 5+ years. May still end up booking X but they’ve given us a reason to look around and we plan to do so.

Forgot to add a funny (but odd) oversight coming off of Millennium this past Saturday. First line on the white of the page “Disembarkation: Fort Lauderdale on Friday, February 11, 2023” #1 - the ship disembarked in San Juan, PR… #2 - we disembarked on Saturday (Friday, Feb 11 doesn’t exist)… I’m not sure how Celebrity didn’t catch either mistake before sending it to 2,100 passengers. Meaningless mistake but it’s this lack of attention to detail that X was sooooo good at was made over and over and over for us last week.

I’m glad I wasn’t crazy and others had similar experiences. My wife and I joked to each other several times during the cruise “did we accidentally get on a NCL ship?”, haha. I am not sure why there are so many Celebrity defenders or doom and gloomers in this thread (many who haven’t experienced these changes yet). Many of us are just trying to give people honest assessments of our real experience onboard. Like I said in my long winded review, I had a good time and these complaints didn’t severely detract from my enjoyment outside of some missed evening activities due to super long MDR dinners and some wait time annoyances. I would book X again in a heartbeat. But I’m going to shop around again and test the waters (really haven’t done so in 6 years) because I didn’t see the value of paying more for sub-par “typical” Celebrity service that I have come to expect from the premium we are paying and our other 5 previous Celebrity cruises. My goal was to let people know that if you haven’t been on X in a while, you will likely notice the changes (at least on the smaller ships in non-suites) and to be prepared to lower expectations so you aren’t disappointed on your trip. It’s certainly not to talk people out of booking because it was still a great 8 nights. But the common complaints about poor service, not enough crew, lower food quality, nickel and diming, etc that I read here before our trip almost 100% was reflected on our 8 nights even though I went into it thinking “these message board people are probably a lot pickier than me” - I was wrong, they were right.

FYI - Just got off Millennium this weekend and someone in our group tried dinner in OV twice and said that only about 1 out of every 3 stations was open and that the food selection was very poor. That said, we had 2.5-2.75 hour dinners (not by choice) in the MDR so I can see why people don’t want to spend that much time at dinner. But if OV selection isn’t good and specialty restaurants were full as they were on our ship, it’s a weird situation onboard some ships.

Good post, agree with everything except #3…at least on the smaller ships. We tried to book Tuscan Grill on the second day on the ship and it was sold out for the entire 8 night cruise and we could only be on a waiting list. Which leads me to believe the service issue is mostly a staffing issue and I hope it gets resolved and they get back to pre-COVID staffing. Because if they don’t plan on getting back to those service levels but plan on continuing their premium pricing…good luck with that with some many other options out there. Customers aren’t stupid and, outside of the dedicated X people, they will struggle.

I literally just did that and that was the post they were replying to. I read the negativity towards the changes from people WHO ACTUALLY HAVE CRUISED since they were made. I waited until I had my own personal experience and gave people my honest assessment. And to me, the changes (at least on the Millennium), were noticeable and not good but not bad enough for me to boycott X or anything dumb like that. But we will certainly shop around because we couldn’t tell many differences between X and RC or NCL that would be worth the premium.

Just got off Millennium yesterday. The lobster, along with most entree portions (except the duck and steak Diane), were noticeably smaller. Here is a photo of our lobster. Cooked well and tasted very good but definitely wasn’t enough for one person unless you prefer small portions.

In my opinion, if X knows a ship is understaffed then don’t sell to capacity. I would think the luxury and great service mantras are way more important than some short term additional revenue…

We just got off of Celebrity Millennium yesterday and I’ll give everyone my rational, but real, opinion. Background - 13th cruise (6 RC, 1 NCL, 6 Celebrity), 40 years old, traveled with a group of 12. The good -the food was generally very good. Several “misses” on things (inedible steak, etc) but those things happen. -The ship was at capacity but didn’t feel overwhelmingly crowded. The 2019 refresh is holding up every well. -We had a good time and none of the good or bad would drive us away from cruising in the future. The bad -The ship was at capacity and it seemed like there were half of the crew they needed. Most bars were consistently 10-20 mins to get a drink if there were more than 8-10 people there. The bartenders were severely understaffed and couldn’t run their bars very well. I witnessed several incidents of passengers getting into arguments because bartenders were serving people who just walked up over people waiting. Not nearly as many servers walking around either. -MDR was agonizingly slow. We did late dinners each night (8:30) and the EARLIEST we got done was 10:45 one night. Most nights were 11-11:15. Service was also very inconsistent and it was clear our wait team has too many tables. One night we would wait 20 mins for them to acknowledge us and get menus. Another night, we would order in the first 15 mins but the first course wouldn’t come out for another 40 mins. Mostly the time between appetizer and entree and entree and dessert was brutal. Most nights we had to ask for more water. I tipped the sommelier mid-cruise and asked if we could get quicker service if we are going to be sitting here this long and he did great after that. Overall, we aren’t picky and did mention that we didn’t mind sitting for so long but would be ideal if we could get out by 10:30. Never happened. -A couple in the group did OV for one dinner and they said the selection was almost laughable. Like it was difficult to find stuff you wanted to eat…complete opposite of breakfast and lunch which has solid selections. This tracks with what everyone else is saying. -The nickel and diming on everything that people have talked about is real and noticeable. Room service fees, extra lobster fee, $130 for a ship tour, etc. Overall -It was a good cruise, but no where near amazing. We missed a port (Bahamas) due to weather but that’s certainly no one’s fault. -I will echo many, many others who have said that Celebrity has sucked all of the “luxury” out of their cruising experience. When we did an X cruise for the first time, we were blown away after comparing it to RC and NCL. Now, it’s hard to find their differences. -If the little things really matter to you like onboard champagne (gone), personal connections with staff (still there but they are so strained it’s not like it used to be), better service (all but gone), elevated food (good but not amazing) that X is/was known for, then you will likely not like any of these changes. I was skeptical reading about these changes and how they would impact us prior to departure. Our experience won’t drive us away from X but we will most definitely shop around for our next one. It’s no longer worth paying a 50-100% premium for X because, to us, there was nothing premium about our experience. If anyone has questions, happy to answer without the doom and gloom or exaggerations.