jackal24

Really? That sucks

Unfortunately I did not have the same experience as you. I just posted my review here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2424485

My wife and I took our first (and unfortunately probably last) cruise on Seabourn last week on the Odyssey on an 8 night Mediterranean cruise. Here is my personal review, starting with the good things:

 

Embarkation in Monte Carlo: Excellent. We arrived at about 12:30 and embarkation took no more than 10 minutes. We proceeded to the Colonnade for lunch (which was average to good). Nice that they have a bag check available next to the Colonnade for your carry-on bags. Everyone was extremely friendly and wonderful. Staterooms were ready pretty much right on the dot at 2 pm.

 

Stateroom: Excellent. We were in a penthouse suite (1016) right next to the observation bar. I thought that the location might be a little loud, but although we could here the activities in the observation bar if we listened for it, it was never a problem. The room is gigantic compared to other cruises we have been on and was well furnished. The bed was comfortable and we have no complaints about the amenities (although my wife thought the Molton Brown toiletries smelled too "manly". That is personal preference though and not a complaint). Our stewardess was great, very friendly and the room always looked great.

 

Ship amenities: Excellent. While we are not big drinkers, we did have a few drinks in the observation bar and the pool bar. The bartenders were friendly and efficient and the drinks were good. My wife had coffee a few times from the Square and had the same experience. The library is nice and well stocked, as is the game room. The casino is small, but never overly crowded (in fact it was near empty most of the time). The dealers were pleasant (although they took my money :) ). Pools looked nice, although it was too cold to partake. I like the informal feeling of Seabourn Square as opposed to standing in line at a desk somewhere to make reservations/excursions etc. I also like the small size of the ship and feel that Seabourn might be making a mistake in getting larger ships (Encore).

 

Tours/Excursions: Excellent. We did the galley tour and loved it. We also went to the cooking demonstration. The chef is part comedian and we had a great time (as did everyone else there). We did one excursion (to Pisa) and it was well run and the tour guide was friendly and knowledgeable.

 

Fellow Guests: Excellent. Everyone was very friendly and we had some interesting conversations at the dinner tables. Seemed like the mix was about 60% American, 30% English, and 10% Other.

 

R2: Excellent. We decided to do R2 last minute and asked at Seabourn Square at around noon if they could fit us in. We were wait-listed, but called at around 6 to see if we wanted to join another couple at a 4 top table. We decided to join and had a great time. Many of the items I would never order on their own, but I ate all of them. Some were better than others, but overall I really enjoyed the experience and the food.

 

Food: Average. We had heard so much about the food on board and were really excited. Unfortunately, with the exception of our one night in R2 and the Indian night in the Colonnade, we were disappointed. The food was not bad, it just wasn't up to the level that we were expecting. Breadsticks were awesome though.

 

Hosted tables: We got invited to 3. We went to 2 (CD and a singer). We declined the 3rd (with the Asst. Capt I believe) because we wanted Indian in the Colonnade. Great conversation all around.

 

Restaurant service: Poor (and the reason we probably won't sail with Seabourn again). The service in the restaurant and colonnade was horrendous. Everything took forever. (I understand that fine dining is a slower pace, but this was far beyond that.) On the first night, I ordered a diet cola with my meal and had to ask multiple people before I received it. This continued the second night. On the second night, we were at a hosted table with the CD. I would have thought that the service would be better, but I was wrong. Once again I asked our waiter for a diet cola. Then I asked the assistant waiter, then the wine steward, then the waiter again. From the first time I asked until I received my drink took 45 minutes (I looked at my watch). It wasn't just the drinks though, everything took forever: we had dirty plates in front of us for over 15 minutes without the table being pre-bussed. The attitude in the dining room seemed to be "not my job". On the third day, I went to Seabourn Square to make reservations for R2. At that time, I informed them of my problems in the dining room. While they were apologetic and took notes of the conversation, nothing changed and the atrocious service continued throughout the rest of the cruise. It got to the point that I would bring a drink from my stateroom because I didn't know how long it would take to get one in the restaurant. Even water glasses would sit empty at our table. We usually joined other people in the restaurant and it seemed everyone was having the same issues. I understand that you can have an 'off night', but this happened pretty much every time we went to a meal, and actually seemed to get worse throughout the cruise. The colonnade for breakfast and lunch was no better. We would be done with our buffet food before we were even asked if we wanted coffee or eggs. I have seen others post about having their plates carried from the buffet for them. This only happened once the entire time we were on the boat. (We don't need our plates carried, but this is indicative of the service we received.) We asked for hot sauce one time. Not only did it take a while to get it, the waiter actually came over 5 minutes later to take it away to another table before my eggs even showed up. (do they really only have one bottle of Tobasco sauce on the ship?). On other (supposedly lower class lines such as RC and Celeb) ships, not only do they automatically refill glasses in the main restaurant before you have finished them, they seem to learn what we drink and have them out without even asking. I was scared to ask for a refill in the restaurant or colonnade because I didn't think it would show up before we left. Dining is a very important part of a cruise and I feel that we were really let down in this regard. I don't believe the problem was due to understaffing. We saw numerous people in the dining venues just standing around talking to each other. I really think the attitude was "not my job, let someone else do it".

 

It will be a while before we cruise again, but unfortunately I think we are going to have to look elsewhere on our next cruse.

Do the TVs in the suites (odyssey) have hdmi inputs available?

I guess I'll just wait until I'm on board. Thanks.

I am expecting to get my first time cruise OBC on my upcoming cruise. I was looking at a shore excursion, but when I try to reserve it, it wants my credit card. Does it charge me now? I want to use the OBC to pay for it. Do I just wait and book onboard?

If you have made final payment then you wont want to switch to a ta as you may loose out financially. Booking directly with SB is no problem, to be honest they will contact you directly with upgrade offers first, so it is sometimes advantageous.

 

Thanks

No you are not to late for a referral

Email me at charles dot garfit at btinternet dot com and i will refer you and sort out the voucher and $400 credit for you.

 

Email sent

I just booked the Nov 8 Odyssey out of Monte Carlo. I booked on their website and made full payment. Can I/Should I switch to a TA? What about a referral? Too late?

Unlike Diet Coke and Coca-Cola light which are the same product with different badges, these are not quite the same product.

 

As a Diet Coke aficionado, I can tell you that Coke Light does NOT taste like Diet Coke (at least in Asia).

My SO is a Diet Mountain Dew fiend. Is it available on board? If not, is there any problem bringing our own on board?

It is not complaining it is getting what you paid for. Speak Up.

 

While I agree that we should have spoken up, that is just not in my nature. Honestly though, there should not be that many things that we should have to speak up about in the first place. If it was only 1 thing wrong, I could understand, but our experience dealt with multiple different people giving bad service in different departments, as well as food that we felt was not up to par, and dirty robes. Too many issues in different areas makes me distrust the cruise line as a whole.

 

I am sure that others have a great experience and I hope they continue to do so. I am not trying to discourage people from going to Celebrity, just stating how we felt so that people can make informed decisions.

I would say that you should not write off Celebrity (nor the Constellation) after one trip--most of those issues appear to be personnel. You did seem to get several doozies, but I wouldn't pass judgement on an entire line or ship due to that.

 

I would agree, but it is really hard to throw more money at something that we had a bad experience on. First impressions are very important.

 

OP--I notice you only have 4 posts. Have you cruised other lines?

 

I am not an avid cruiser, but I have been on RCCL three times and Disney once. At this point, I will probably just save my money up and go on Disney (with the kids) or Silversea/Seaborn/similar (without).

 

While I am sure that many people have a great experience with Celebrity, they have left a rotten taste in my mouth that would be hard to overcome.

This was our first Celebrity cruise, and probably our last. We did a 5 day from FLL to Key West and Cozumel.

 

Embarkation: Wonderful. We showed up around 2:15 and spent no more than 10 minutes from the time we got to the pier to the time we were onboard. Our stateroom was available immediately.

 

Stateroom: We had an interior stateroom (2140) and the room was pretty much as we expected it. No real surprises with the room itself. Both robes in the room were stained. One had stains in the 'rear end' area and the other one had multiple smaller stains scattered around that appeared to be blood stained. Our stateroom attendant replaced them quickly, but we were hesitant to use the new ones even though they appeared clean.

 

Stateroom attendant: We had some issues here. First, we asked if he would mind removing the items from the minibar so that we could place our own sodas in it. He informed us that we could just take everything out and place it in the drawers. I felt that he was making us do his job. The other bigger issue was in the schedule. After the first two nights, we switched from select dining to main dining (see below). I made sure to mention that to him, but when we returned from dinner every night at around 8, our room had not yet been touched. He now knew when we were having dinner, but didn't touch the room till after 8 each night. On a little better note, he did remember that we preferred extra towels in the room and had extras each night.

 

Tuscan Grill: We ate at the Tuscan Grill the first night and were not impressed. First, although we showed up at the allotted time, and were sat promptly, we waited 10 minutes before our server came over. He explained the menu to us and then asked if we wanted any beverages. My wife asked if a full bar was available and our server said "just a second" and left. 5 minutes later, we see him with another table without returning to ours. It really confused us. After another 5 minutes, the assistant waiter came over and asked us if we were okay. We told him what happened and he seemed as confused as we were, but did get our drinks. I'm still not sure that our server even knew about the drinks, because we never did pay for them.

As far as the food goes, the crab cake was very good, albeit small. The French Onion soup was some of the best I have ever had. My wife ordered the shrimp cocktail and it was not cold at all (maybe intentionally?). I don't remember what my wife ordered for her entree, but I do remember that she thought it was average. I ordered the Strip and it was about Ponderosa quality. Not exactly what I was expecting for additional fee dining.

Part of my experience was probably the fact that I didn't complain about anything (except for the confusion about the drinks). In retrospect, I probably should have asked for my money back for that dining because it was definitely not worth any additional fee.

 

Select dining: We had the select dining. On the second night of the cruise, we went up to dining at 7pm. I know this is prime time and was expecting to wait. We were told 15-20 minutes, but didn't get called for about 40. When we were shown to our seat, we walked back and forth with the host while he tried to find the table. He eventually had to ask another server where it was (shouldn't the staff know?). After being seated, the service was poor with long periods where we were sitting waiting on the server to come back to check on us. The food was mediocre at best (with the exception of the French Onion soup). After this experience we decided to see if we could switch to one of the regular dining options. We went to the customer service deck on the ship and the lady directed us to the Maitre'D in the dining room. I do not remember his name, but he was very accommodating, providing us a private table at the main dining service and even showing us the table and asking if it would work for us.

 

Main dining: We had the main dining for the last 3 nights of the cruise. Our waiter (Emmanuel) and assistant waiter (Antonio Orlando) were superb. They were one of the few things on this cruise that made it bearable. Once we had those two as our servers, we never felt that we weren't being attended to in the dining area. They went out of their way to make us feel welcome. At one point, my wife ordered an entree that she didn't really enjoy. Emmanuel noticed this and almost seemed offended that we didn't get something else (we were not that hungry). We had talked about just getting a few cookies from the buffet for desert, but we made sure not to mention this because I am sure Emmanuel would have gone out of his way to go get them and bring them back and we really didn't mind getting them ourselves.

The food in the main dining room was once again mediocre with only a few exceptions (the peanut butter ice cream was excellent).

 

Buffet: Ranged from average to pretty good. The Indian selections were quite good; the desserts were all poor. I'm not sure if it is because Celebrity caters to an older crowd, but it seemed like there was not enough salt in anything. Desserts were pretty tasteless.

 

Elevators: I know it is kind of weird to give elevators their own selection, but we just couldn't figure them out. We primarily used the midship elevators and they seemed to have a mind of their own. For example, we would be on deck 10 and push the down button and would watch an elevator with one person on it descend from deck 11 and not stop on 10. On a few occasions, we even saw an empty elevator arrive at our floor, stop a second, and reverse direction without opening. Other cruisers noticed this as well, and we just started getting on any elevator regardless of the direction it was heading because we didn't know when another one would stop on our floor.

 

Tours: We only did one ship sponsored excursion (segway tour in cozumel) and it was great.

 

Pools: The pool areas, while crowded on the warmer days, did not seem excessively so, and deck chairs always seemed available (although we did notice a few chair hogs, it didn't seem to be a major issue). The bar by the pool was always busy and usually had only one bartender working. He was great, fast, and enjoyable, but it seemed understaffed for the number of guests there. The indoor Thalasotherapy pool was really nice and a lot warmer than expected, but I really enjoyed it.

 

Shows: We did not go to any of them, so I can't really comment on them.

 

Casino: I can't really complain, because every time I went in there I won. If I had stayed away from the poker tournaments (which I did not do well in), I would have been up quite a bit. In the end I broke pretty much even, so no issues there.

 

Overall, I was disappointed in our Celebrity experience and will probably not be going on another one. The only thing that we really enjoyed about the experience were Emmanuel and Orlando in the MDR.

Just make sure they are clean. Both of the robes we had in our room initially had stains on them.

If I do not have any beverage package at all, is there anything free to drink in the dining venues? Tap water, OJ, lemonade, coffee, etc?

I booked a 5 night cruise on Constellation for Feb. When I log into the website, I can choose a soda package for $40 ($8 per night) plus a service charge of $6, so a total of $46 per person. If I go to the "gifts by celebrity" section, I can order a soda package for a 5 night cruise for $35 with no service charge. What am I missing here?