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Here is some recent info in the thread linked below.  There is a third party they have to contact to get pricing. Spoiler alert: expensive.  Not sure of the timeline needed, either, so may be too close to the sailing to arrange so he should start this process ASAP.

https://www.celebritycruises.com/groups-and-events/special-occasion-cruises/wedding-cruises

Guarantee rooms can be assigned right up to when you show up at the pier.  Has always been that way, though X has generally assigned them earlier.  If they cannot give you a room in the category, then you get an upgrade.  Could be that they're still working on move ups and that is affecting what rooms they can assign.

13 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Another question for the Celebrity regulars.... I've now come to know that not all suites are considered equal in terms of what you get, but I guess I had incorrectly assumed that even the lowest Sky suite was still given butler service and some snacks and things. Was that an incorrect assumption?

Sky Suites now get assigned a "team" overseen by a "head butler" instead of an individual butler.  This was a change made this past summer.  Lots of brouhaha about it on Cruise Critic echoing your MIL's experience (not ever seeing the butler or only seeing them once and never again).  You should express your displeasure that what you bought was not what was advertised, IMO.  That type of feedback is what will hopefully reverse the trend of downgrading the product despite the sky-high pricing.  I'd also make a big fuss about the broken elevator to the suite area, personally.

She should hopefully get whatever else she needs by contacting the concierge in the lounge. 

You can check reviews for any other E-Class ship  (Edge, Apex, Beyond) and will find info that will be relevant.  First E-Class (Edge) sailed in 2018, so 5 years ago now.  Beyond was the most recent put in service (last year). 

Many of the NCL ships have Haven rooms scattered across the ship outside of the Haven area, e.g, Joy's corner aft and forward suites and a few of the family suites.  I think Celebrity's newer class of ships does the suite within a suite area concept better than Summit in terms of co-locating all the facilities.  Summit was built in 2001 and has retrofitted facilities.  Some of its sister ships in M-Class and the next class up (S-Class) don't even have the rooftop deck areas so you only have the restaurant and separate lounge as gathering places to run into fellow suite guests.  But even on the newer builds, there aren't many rooms inside the suite area itself.

Re: your keycard color question: silver is for suites, gold is concierge, and blue is for other categories.  They had a dark blue and light blue at one point, but not sure if that's still the case (light blue for Aqua Class).  I believe Zenith members (top tier in loyalty club) still get a black card.  Everyone else just has the loyalty level printed on whatever card they get. 

Check-in time is not the same as boarding time.  You can check in at 10:30a (if available) but not be on the ship until they clear it for boarding, which is usually sometime after 11a.  The people who check in early often have to wait to board and then are behind those who have priority access.  Some who check in later are boarding at the same time as the early arrivals.

You're usually talking about half hour increments here, so the obsession on being "first" to extend your day really is a bit silly, especially in Florida ports.  We're ultimately talking the difference between being on board at 11:30 vs noon (as an example), hardly worth the extra effort to show up way earlier to stand around.

Celebrity's secret to making sure there are always plenty of seats for their own production shows is to  offer things you'd like to see only once.

Book at the price you are comfortable paying.  If you book with refundable fare, you can adjust.  I would not count on any advertised sales to really offer a gigantic savings.  It's all based on algorithms specific to your sailing (and how popular it is) as to what you'll be able to get during a sale.  X is also known for playing pricing games when it comes to sales, increasing prices to get the bottom-line the same ballpark of what you see before the "sale" starts.

They'll hold you to whatever terms you booked under unless they cancel your sailing.  Not unusual for that schedule to slip one direction or another.  Historically they have added preview cruises as part of the marketing hype leading up to the official launch.  They announced these "pre-inaugural" sailings back in March, so those who booked early would have had time to react. 

As with any customer issue, it is up to whoever you complain to as to whether they might give you some OBC to soothe the pain of not being "first" (out of thousands).

38 minutes ago, the penguins said:

The only Princess cruise we have done was this year on the new Sky Princess. As the ship wasn't full we were offered a free move to a Mini Suite but having checked it out we rejected it for the reasons given. So yes unfortunately all mini suites are shower over a bath - such a shame.

This is true on the majority of Celebrity ships too.  You have to go to an accessible room if you want a curbless shower at the suite/mini-suite equivalents.  I like HAL's solution: both a tub and a separate walk-in shower in their Neptune Suites. 

That's really not the thrust of OP's question, though, which is a comparison between two different room types.

This is a sensitive subject on this board due to a unique situation in which someone was sanctioned for posting employee schedules on a regular basis.

Sometimes people on current sailings will ask the current staff if they'll be on, and they'll share that, or, you can look to see if the staff person has a social media presence in which they share that info publicly themselves. 

Concierge class doesn't get you much of anything on Celebrity.  A welcome aboard lunch on the first day is about it.  And a bottle of sparkling wine.  You also earn more points per day in the loyalty program if that matters to you.

Reserve on Princess gets you the separate section in the MDR on a daily basis with its expanded menu.  You also get the free bottle.  The amenities of Princess are a little more elevated, IMO. Most important to me would be a traditional balcony instead of the infinite veranda (window that opens) setup on Celebrity assuming you're really talking about a mini suite on Princess and not something else.  Itinerary would also weigh heavily assuming similar price points (I would not pay more for Celebrity in Concierge unless it was a killer itinerary that I had to sail).

You just have to watch the promotions as there is no set cadence.  You often see it advertised as 3rd/4th person sails free or for a reduced price when they happen.  The last specific "kids sail free" promotion I remember was in 2019. 

The answer as with so many things is "it depends."  There is a minimum amount of time it takes for transactional data to flow between banks.  That can take several days.  The sending bank and the receiving bank also will have their own policies that determine how fast it makes it back to your card account.  The same is true with cash deposits, too.  On the front end, there is still a delay between the time you swipe your card and see the charge and when the company gets the cash for the transaction.  Modern systems will give you credit with the customer on your account, but they don't really get the money immediately.

Beyond that, the business undoubtedly has business rules surrounding who can issue refunds and how that process works.  The refund may have to be processed in a few different systems to get out the door.

Twelve hours ago they weren't showing up.  Probably just website maintenance. 

13 hours ago, Sea38 said:

Terms & Conditions on mine said book a cruise within 6 months to gain OBC, if this has not been done then you have another 6 months to book (but you receive no OBC), nothing booked within timeframe or if the timeframe expires (1 year) then the deposit you put down was non-refundable.

 

The above is why I didn’t take up the offer, as it couldn’t be guaranteed that any future cruise I wanted to book (once I got home) was not an ‘exciting deal’ which it cannot be used with.

 

The future cruise team told me to call the UK sales team from our cabin so I did, they told me that I needed to speak to the future cruise team on-board, I was just going round in circles!

 

The very small print at the bottom of the flyer that they keep placing in your cabin does say not combinable with ‘exciting deals’ but you won’t know what cruises are exciting deals until you go to book and then you will be told that you can’t receive the OBC!

"Exciting Deals" are cruise-only fares that are discounted.  Those are not typically able to be combined with other promos.  You should be able to book a cabin under a different fare on the same cruise but it would almost certainly cost more.

You'd need enough curtains to cover the width of the cabin.  As you see in the photo, it doesn't really block out all the light so skeptical that it would be worth the trouble.  Why they didn't just put a curtain partition in from the outset is a mystery to me.  Several cruise lines do have that option in their rooms. 

49 minutes ago, seanquirke said:

Hi all, 

 

We will never agree on this subject. For me I don't agree that any company let alone a multi billion pound corporation has the right to ask me to pay  Staff appreciation to help top up their wages. Why oh why do we even consider that this is acceptable behaviour. Why am I made to feel or even be told on this site that I am a bad person if I pay $6000 for a cruise in a basic balcony cabin and remove any staff appreciation.

I generally agree with those who think tipping has gotten out of hand (everywhere), but you aren't buying a cruise for $6K.  You are buying a cruise for $6K + the expectation that you will pay the tips at $X per person per day.  It's not like they spring it on you after the fact.  Plenty of blame for the corporations that do this, but, at the end of the day, the employees should not be the ones made to suffer.  Choosing to book with the corporation means you agree to abide by their operations, which includes the daily gratuity scheme.  The real way to protest would be to not book the cruise.  Protesting by removing the grats means you are stiffing the employees. 

12 hours ago, Sailingsoph26 said:

After reading this thread, I decided to see if menus have been added to our Constellation cruise next spring. They have been, although I’m not familiar enough with the menus to know if they’re updated or not. What I did find fairly amusing is that they have not been spellchecked and there were several typos. Not a big deal by any means and I’m sure these are works in progress, but it’s not that common to see so many mistakes in official comms and the editor in me was screaming! 😆

 

This way you cannot complain when something doesn't meet expectations. 

"No, madame.  The menu clearly says we serve Aragula, not arugula"

They should post them outside the restaurant, too.  People often look at the menu to decide where they're going to eat.

OP mentions a priority lounge in the terminal.  Was there ever a separate lounge for Elite and Elite+?  I thought it was just priority lines for check-in (even pre-pandemic).

We're reversing the cuts we implemented...but if you're sailing between now and Thanksgiving (or sailed in the interim), t.s.

It doesn't matter until it does.  As long as you know that you may end up waiting until your assigned time (or after, if there is some sort of delay), then all is well.

I'm not clicking on offsite links for anything so I didn't participate.  CC has the ability to create polls.  I only respond to those if they're set up to not show how specific people vote. 

None of that changes that the trend is to the negative on what customers are saying online.  Online reviews do influence decisions, especially in younger generations.  This is why X has started pushing more PR out there to try to stem the tide IMO.

If the ship was supposed to homeport in San Juan and now is going to be doing some charters from FLL, there will have to be some sort of repositioning cruises in the mix somewhere.  Probably what they are trying to figure out. Could maybe involve maintenance dry dock, too, if it's about time.