MISTER 67

Agree on MSC, I would take them over Carnival in a heartbeat. To others don’t believe some of the bad reviews in regards to MSC, sailed with them 5 times and never a bad cruise, entertainment is super with an afternoon when you can go to shortened version of an Opera, we’ve seen Madame Butterfly and La Traviata, they were outstanding and brought tears to my eyes. We’ve been on 70 cruises and tried Carnival 1 time but never again. If it’s Celebrity or Carnival, it’s no contest, go with X.

Looking forward to it!

You’re probably right but so far they’ve never turned down a booking of ours. Guess what? We loved the old Vegas too, haven’t been back since 1990.

We are 4 Star Mariners with HAL but the pandemic hit them hard and the cutbacks are noticeable, we are avoiding them until things change for the better.

Good take and no one is forcing anyone to take a cruise on Celebrity. For instance we are veteran cruisers for over 40 years and 70 cruises and are old school. We refuse to eat in specialty restaurants, we live without the internet for for a week and don’t do drink packages as we enjoy our one cocktail a day before dinner. We only sail in the Caribbean as we hate flying, we live in Florida and drive to the ports. We don’t take excursions as we’ve been to all the islands with places like St. Thomas and San Juan over 30 times, we very seldom get off the ship. All we want is our 4 cruises a year with good food, enjoyable entertainment and excellent service, we feel we are getting that with Celebrity but if the rates continue to climb we will probably switch back to Princess where we are Elite members.

We’ve been on 8 cruises since the startup with 5 on Celebrity. Only bad cruise was with Holland America. We were on the Infinity last October and it was one of the best cruises we’ve had out of the 70 we have been on. Food was very good in the MDR, fantastic entertainment and the service was outstanding. The ship for her age was in great shape and is just the right size. The Captain and officers were quite visible as IIRC we saw the Captain every day. The other 4 cruises on Celebrity were also very good with no complaints at all. The buffet on the Equinox and Reflection were really good with amazing variety. The only thing that will keep us away from Celebrity in the future are the prices, I’ve notice rates inching up higher and higher and we like to cruise 4 times a year, our next cruise is on the Equinox in August and we have a decent rate but higher to what we are are paying for a Princess cruise in December.

I don’t know who @davekathy is and I don’t care if they believe me or not.

We’ve had cruises that the volume level of music was ear shattering, just don’t know why Celebrity feels it’s necessary to blast music at these abnormal levels, who enjoys that. We have complained more than a few times.

Back in the day drinks on cruise ships were a lot less than on land at your favorite restaurant or cocktail lounge.

Those are very nice inside cabins, we had one on the Nieuw Amsterdam last December. I’m too lazy right now to look up the room number. Plenty of room and the nice L shaped sofa.

We’ve been on 8 cruises since the start up with 4 on Celebrity, the food and variety on Celebrity was very good with no complaints, compared to Holland America it’s no contest, Celebrity is much better. We have also found the food and variety in the buffet on Celebrity ships especially on the Equinox and Reflection to be outstanding. Our first 2 cruises after the start up were in the fall of 2021 and the food was pretty good also but Celebrity was a little better.

The Pinnacle class ships are 48 feet longer than Signature class ships, not a huge difference, not like Royal Caribbean ships and some of the other behemoths that are over 1100 feet long. We were on the Rotterdam a year ago and though we prefer the Eurodam and the Nieuw Amsterdam we didn’t find the Rotterdam crowded at all and it was sold out.

I appreciate your sentiments, thank you.

We’ve been on 9 cruises since the start up and there has only been 1error and it was on Holland America and in our favor, about 4 days into the cruise we were given an additional 250 dollars in OBC, being the honest fellow that I am I went down to passenger services and asked why we were given the extra OBC, after about a 15 minute investigation it was discovered that it was an error and was corrected.

We are 4 Star Mariners and have been cruising with them since the early 90s, with a total of 70 cruises I think I’ve forgotten more about cruises than most people will ever know including maybe you.

We sailed 3 times with Celebrity last year and once this year with one more booked for July, every cruise was great with very good food, entertainment and service. We noticed no cutbacks from our previous cruises with Celebrity before the pandemic. We also have a cruise booked with Princess in November, we had 2 very good cruises with them right after the startup in the fall of 2021.

We will have to go by word of mouth. If there is an overwhelming change in reviews where people are raving about HAL then we will give them another shot. We do love HAL ships especially the Eurodam and Nieuw Amsterdam.

I agree with everything you have said and as 4 Star Mariners we refuse to sail with HAL until there are changes for the better.

If any of you miss the traditional promenade deck on HAL ships like I do and are sailing on Pinnacle class ships there is a small but nice quiet and covered area with loungers on the Panorama deck on the starboard side just forward of the Tamarind restaurant.

Average age of 70+ seems a bit high, Holland America maybe but not Celebrity, we’ve sailed with both lines many times and also Princess who age wise is about the same as Celebrity.

We thought that the Seaside was geared toward a younger crowd and younger families, they had a DJ in the Atrium from late morning to late evening blasting music, it was so loud that you could hear it while having dinner in the MDR, we and other diners actually complained to Maitre D. There was also a lot rides and others things on the top deck for the kids. The Seaside also had way too much glass and mirrors with the decor, sometimes you really had to figure out if you where going to walk into some glass. The Divina and Maraviglia are much classier ships. As far as status match, we needed to fill out a form that was emailed to us along with taking a photo of some documentation what your highest status is with another line, it went very smooth.

Just don’t sail in the summer with MSC when the ships are loaded with kids but to tell the truth, I found the behavior of some European adults on MSC ship to be quite boorish.

We have sailed with MSC 5 times but we are not wild about driving down to Miami, we drive to Ft. Lauderdale all the time for cruises but those extra 35 miles on I 95 is like being in a NASCAR event. As far as the differences, Celebrity has better food and service but some of the Italians dishes on MSC are outstanding as is the pizza. Not a lot of variety in the buffet, just about the same everyday, you can’t beat the variety in the buffet on a Celebrity ship. Entertainment is better on MSC but Celebrity is pretty good. Both lines have beautiful ships but we didn’t care for the Seaside, we liked the Divina a lot more. There will be announcements on MSC in 5 languages, once on board you have to go to Charge Card station to register your credit card which I always found strange. Dealing with guest services is much better on Celebrity. MSC will give you a status match with the cruise line that you have the highest status with, our first cruise with MSC we were automatically given Black Card status because we were Elite with Princess. Some nice on board perks but I’ve heard some have been discontinued.

We booked a cruise a day after Hurricane Ian hit us last Sept 27, that was the 28th and we cruised 2 days later on the Infinity to the Caribbean. We had to get out of town as we had no power or internet, recharged the phone with my car, good thing we still had cell phone service otherwise we would been stuck at home without any services. We had just enough gas to get us to Ft Lauderdale about 160 miles from Punta Gorda. No problems at all with booking, if we waited one more day we would have been out of luck as Celebrity will not book a day before a cruise. We had a great cruise and by the time we returned home our electricity, cable and internet were all up and running. As far as excursions and reservations for other things, we are in our late 70s and hardly get off the ship anymore so I can’t answer the concerns you had in that regard.

Celebrity does a good job with most of their salads at dinner in the MDR. As far as veggies, most dinners have just a couple of measly pieces and not enough to rave about.