Jeremiah1212

There a similar starkness on both NCL and MSC when going from suite areas to non-suite areas. What I do like about Celebrity is that the Retreat areas are significantly more congruent with the rest of the ship. If I was content with sticking to the confines of YC (or even Retreat for that matter) that's the one scenario where I would consider an Oceania/Azamara/Regent alternative even though you're probably giving up some real estate in terms of cabin size. Aside from that the aesthetic of MSC ships in general isn't for me. Reminds me too much of a 1980's shopping mall.

The problem with Yacht Club is you’re stuck in Yacht Club. If YC is too sleepy for you, once you pass those doors you find yourself on Carnival 2.0 which is a hard pass for me.

Nightlife isn’t Celebrity’s strongest area. The planned parties are nothing like on NCL. There will be a deck party (white party, metallic party, something along those lines) but they don’t last long and aren’t nearly as well attended as anything on NCL. Late night is typically in the Sky Lounge but it’s just a DJ and the turnout varies significantly.

I would add booking a codeshare through a third party is also a recipe for disaster. Avoid.

To gauge awareness of the existing status match and get a feel for if there is even any significant benefit to the effort and expense the hook the programs together in a new way. Are you more likely to sail another line if your status is matched in some way or not? The already would have data to support most of the questions they ask. 3 of the 7 questions are secondary topics related to the credit card which I would hope most savvy travelers know is terrible. 1. Have you ever taken a cruise with our sister brand, Royal Caribbean International? If yes, what did you enjoy most about it? They may or may not know this. Without a loyalty number to tie in to hook the customer they may not have clean data to support this depending on what customer data they retain. 2. Have you ever taken a cruise with our sister brand, Silversea? If yes, what did you enjoy most about it? Same as question 1. 3. Given that Celebrity Cruises, Royal Caribbean International, and Silversea are all part of the Royal Caribbean Group family, do you think your tier status should be matched to the equivalent tier on our sister brands? Question 3 and 4 are the only ones that provide true customer insight. 4. Would an equivalent tier status match make you more likely to consider a future cruise with either of our sister brands? Same as 3. 5. Are you aware that Celebrity Cruises and Royal Caribbean International offers a credit card? Fluff. Trying to cross-sell the weak credit card. 6. Do you currently have the Celebrity Cruises or Royal Caribbean International Visa Signature Card? Probably could gain some data from this but they also have data to show who has the card. 7. If no, for what reasons? Select all that apply. Subjective/secondary topic. RCG is all about high yielding routes and passengers and increasing the onboard spend. If Celebrity did something like match Royal's drink ticket program that in turn reduced the number of people buying All Included and going with the cheaper Cruise Only rate that will not happen. The 'loyalists' are already low yielding. They aren't going to reduce that even more without something significant to offset the impact. There are several scenarios along those lines that lead me to believe that any potential change will come with a different sales approach in general.

They aren’t. The questions may be poorly written or written in a way to identify people who think their RCL and Celebrity status would be matched on Silversea when currently it is not. The heads of Loyalty have said several times, even once on a public PuP event, that Zenith/Pinnacle tiers would be off limits. There is little movement between RCL and Celebrity customers moving to Silversea. It’s more likely both programs look different in the future and Silversea remains an outlier or you get some very modest incentive at mid level RCL/Celebrity status. It would make sense to time this with a much needed revamp of the All Included concept but that may be taking on too much at once. We’ll see.

They’ve floated this idea for months and essentially have already said there would be tier caps in place as there with the current status match maxing out at Elite and Diamond. No way they dilute Pinnacle and Zenith. The hard part is if they pull in Silversea. Their loyalty program and onboard inclusions are so different it would be hard to offer a RCL/Celebrity customer anything valuable. Especially without irking the Silversea people who have spent massive amounts of money to earn a 10% discount or a free cruise.

All of Beyond's itineraries are 7 nights with no short Caribbean cruises. Having 2 ships doing Caribbean in the summer or 2022 was a lingering result of COVID and the 6/8 night Reflection cruises seemed pretty weak this past summer. It's most likely due to scheduling issues at the Miami combined with 7 night cruises overall selling better. Port Everglades does a lot of construction in the summer. I think the shore power installation at all terminals is supposed conclude sometime in 2025, T26 and T29 are supposed to be renovated and a new garage added, etc. https://assets.simpleviewinc.com/simpleview/image/upload/v1/clients/porteverglades/Port_Everglades_Master_Vision_Plan_Update_FINAL_ADA_21_10_2020_cbef0685-731f-4bcd-9fce-5e5c051bccda.pdf

Because Beyond will homeport in Miami instead of FLL starting May 2025.

I posted what Celebrity said regarding the butler return a few weeks ago. What’s being reported onboard seems to be tracking with their statement that by summer butlers would return. Still no indication if they’re planning a full reverse course or if the “returned” service will be any different from the past.

I think on paper (and on Jason Liberty's paper -meaning the balance sheet) it did make sense. But during the last update they fully owned it wasn’t working across the fleet and as a result butlers were coming back for SS guests.

When this was all unfolding Celebrity told TA's several times that no one was laid off. Most had taken other positions on Celebrity ships, some did move lines to Silversea (this occurred right at the same time Silver Nova started sailing) and a few were nearing the end of contracts. They also apparently had 2x more applicants for Ascent than they had open positions so I'm not sure the staffing troubles that persisted in 2021/2022 are really in play today.

That sailing just recently went fully sold out. With an entirely full ship and presumably a healthy backlog of MoveUps I would suspect they are trying to balance a few things. Many people assume if a ship is sold out they have no chance of winning a bid which is not necessarily true. If people had a month to recognize the ship was sold out then cancel their pending bids it could negatively impact the $$$ stream. If they know the ship is full and the bids are at the expected level, why not lock them in so you can't get cold feet or change your mind and cancel the bid.

Celebrity threw this info out several months ago but it should still be relevant. It only pertains to Caribbean cruises. The length of Caribbean cruise makes a notable impact in the average age. New to cruise/new to brand 50% on 7 nights 35% on lon (8+ nights) 66% on short (<6 nights) Loyalty (i.e. portion of returning guests) 49% on 7 nights 67% on long 34% on short Average age being 60+ 51% on 7 night 75% on long (almost 80% boomer/silent gen on long Caribbean) 37% on short Traveling with family 10% on 7 night 3% on long 14% on short Roughly even split on boomer/silent gen and everyone younger on 7 night cruises. Short Caribbean has a fairly similar generational breakdown.

Your assumption is correct. A 10 night Caribbean spanning over 2 work-weeks seems to weed out most younger people. Edge Class ships and 7 day Caribbean itineraries are where you'll see the majority of younger Celebrity passengers. Europe is a little different. The Monday-Thursday itinerary essentially takes up 2 work weeks where as you could do a 9 night (although those are far more limited now) that runs Friday-Sunday and take off a week + a day. For that reason the more popular Southern Caribbean cruises are often being condensed to 8 days from 9 running Saturday-Sunday. Even on a 7 night it can seem a little sleepy at night if you're used to Royal Caribbean. I recently was on two Royal Caribbean ships after not having been for several years and there was a significant difference in age and type of passenger.

As someone who has booked a few hundred Infinite Verandas over the last few years, including many for first timers, I will say my experience does not match what you are trying to convey. We field a lot of complaints and gripes but that is not one of them. Like many things on CC there is a vocal few with a strong opinion who try to convince everyone else their opinion is the right opinion.

I was in one of the Icon IV cabins last month. The veranda area is larger on Icon but it wasn’t necessarily better. It’s somewhat wasted space with the curtain acting as the divider. My preference would be the E class layout over the Icon layout.

Icon actually does have the electric blackout shade like E class ships in addition to the fabric blackout curtains instead of the solid bifold doors found in E class. It does change the potential use of the space to some degree if you wished. I’m not sure how I felt about it on Icon. I never felt the need to pull the curtains shut.

There is no additional OBC published right now that would be given from Celebrity this month. OBC from the travel agency depends on several variables. The cadence for February offers will be: Friday - Monday: bonus savings of $100 for inside and oceanview/$200 for veranda and higher Tuesday - Wednesday: bonus savings of $75 for inside and oceanview/$150 for veranda and higher Thursday - BOGO 75% or 50%. 75% off second passenger for NRD, 50% off on refundable deposits 2/19 to 2/19 - 3rd/4th/5th passenger sails free available *with some restrictions

This is probably the best summarization of the problem that Celebrity seems to not understand. Celebrity gave a crumb of an update on this last week to travel agents. The takeaway was basically Sky Suite butlers were eliminated because NPS score (i.e. the survey scores) went down due to slow service received in Sky Suites at peak times of the day. They acknowledged that this new approach didn't work exactly as they thought and that some ships are executing the team approach better than others. They also acknowledged the rumored June dates for "butlers to come back". They said the elusive more to come due to any major change taking a few months to implement. They are hoping between April and June that all ships would be operating with butler service. They seemed careful to not say that butler service in Sky Suites would return in its original fashion. This still leaves several months for people onboard different ships and even the same ship in different locations to receive substantially different service and experiences within the same cabin category. They did acknowledge [to quote them] that some times things don't always work as they think and they have to adjust yet again. The continual "adjust yet again" is the growing problem and the source of a lot complaints and dissatisfaction for customers. It's an absolute pain for TA's to keep up with and feel the wrath of unhappy customers. This was the same response they gave for the wine retooling. I'll save that for another post if anyone is interested. So to address your point that people want to understand what they are purchasing, to be frank between now and June we don't know. We don't know what it will look like or what the job titles or duties of various individuals will be. You may have what feels like amazing butler service of the past or you may have a room attendant and that's it. Or somewhere in between.

If you’re concerned about getting the latest and greatest model just cash out your OBC and buy one when you get home.

The ship is the same size as Ascent and Beyond but actually carries 12 less passengers with 6 cabins overall less than Ascent and Beyond. There has been suggestions made that some public spaces will be completely different but no details yet at all. Blu seems more likely to be able to be reconfigured but I doubt the overall footprint of Luminae could change since the restaurant and kitchen already consume that entire space. I’m 99.9% sure that while fuel savings concept was made up in CC. Someone “heard” it on a tour or something. We’ve all heard from really creative “I heard” things onboard over the years…

That was never said definitively. There are more regular balcony cabins but 30 out of 36 are suites. Xcel compared to Ascent/Beyond: 24 more Sky Suites 6 more Celebrity Suites 31 more Aqua Class cabins 21 less Concierge Class cabins 62 less Infinite Verandas (E1/E2/E3/ES) 6 more Standard Veranda (SV/P1/P2 and the four new V1 cabins) 4 less Ocean View cabins 6 more Inside Cabins

Huh? The 75% off second guess still applies during Black Friday. The additional savings will incrementally increase until the 23rd.

It may be totally unrelated but I have a Jan 2025 cruise booked on Eclipse from Fort Lauderdale that the app has been showing as an Equinox sailing for several weeks now. Website still shows Eclipse.