TFLG

Tried it 4 times now, I'm underwhelmed. Certainly better than the MDR on most nights, but also certainly not worth the $$ they charge. Maybe I've just ordered the wrong 4 things.:rolleyes:

I'll take the smell of cigar smoke over some of that stinky-ass perfume (and cologne) some people douse themselves in. Not a cruise goes by without me getting stuck in an elevator with one of them.:rolleyes:

Just got off the Eclipse and tactfully and politely asked for discounts on 3 separate occasions but was advised each time no discounts were being offered. No doubt the reason was that the ship with a rated double occupancy capacity of 2,850 had over 3,500 guests on board.

 

Our travel companions booked Murano and Qsine so I was hooked into joining them and my tab at Murano was $125 plus. Frankly, I was not impressed with Murano particularly paying $50 for frozen fish. The Qsine was a fun experience but again not worth the premium in my view. The fact that we found the food in the Main Dining Room to be excellent contributed to our conclusion that the specialty restaurants were a poor value.

We did the Eclipse in Late Nov and we managed to get discounts for every specialty restaurant. Murano was good, Tuscan Grill... meh, not worth even a 2 for 1, Sushi on 5 was a complete waste of money. The Best meal we had was in the Luminae. Our friends had a suite and got us in for $30pp. That meal was fantastic and well worth the money. The MDR food was pretty good most nights. We only had one night where the food was below par (well below par). It's certainly worth asking for discounts and on a port day they are usually willing to discount the price. On a sea day it's harder to get a discount.

On our last 2 Celerity cruises (last year) we noticed a lack of servers by the pool and at the sunset bar. I ended up going up to the bar and getting our drinks most of the time. The wait at the bar was sometimes a few minutes if it was busy but that's pretty normal for any busy bar. Even in the lounges the wait for a server can be "painful" so getting your own drink at the bar is the quickest. And yea, at the Martini Bar it can be ordeal to get a drink in the evening.

Agree, red label should only be used to remove rust stains.

Does anyone know if the JW blue label has the smart label that you can scan with your phone yet. I read they were going to start doing this a couple of years ago to help combat counterfeits.

well I was born mid 60's so I fall into the older end of that group and while we like celebrity we also feel there is plenty of room for improvement. The MDR food isn't really much or any better than what we have had on RCI (yea it's better than NCL or Carnival). The stuff we notice and like are the little things. We like the cabin bathrooms, the beds and sheeting, the towels on deck, the padded lounge chairs etc. We much prefer the musical entertainment on RCI and usually Carnival too. Celebrity just seems too conservative in the music choices and we are on the older end of the Gen Xers. We are usually in Quasor wondering where the heck everyone is:rolleyes: (in bed probably).

If "modern luxury" is their quest then they are missing the mark horribly. They need to go to any reasonably big city and hit some high end dining and entertainment spots. They are NOTHING like a Celebrity cruise. They definitely seem to be lost as to their target consumer. And I understand it's a tough thing to pull of. Bring in the younger (40-50) affluent crowd without alienating their older loyal guests. I think the ships are big enough to accommodate both groups, but do they want to spend the money to do it?

There's usually a band playing in the grand foyer on deck 3 in the early evening. There is usually a band in the Sky lounge from 10-12pm. and the Ensemble Lounge usually has music (although it's usually elevator music or some such thing). But if you are looking for a paino bar or something like it you are out of luck. One or two nights you might get a band on the pool deck at night. and there is sometimes live music outside at the sunset bar at the rear of the ship. I wish they had a pub like RCI!

We sailed it on the last cruise before last years refit. Let me tell ya, she was a tired looking lady on that cruise. The staff was great, the food was decent most nights (although terrible the first night). The bar staff was the bad part of the cruise, they were shorthanded and it showed. But it was still better than the Eclipse cruise we did in Nov. The Bar service on that cruise was abysmal. It's like they cut back on staff to limit the amount of drinks they make now that nearly everyone has a drink package. Sailing on the Infinity later this year, hopefully it's better than the millie was.

We were Concierge Class on our first (and only so far) Celebrity cruise. Our TA said that was the equivalent of our (at that time) Platinum on Princess. Our next cruise on X is basic (what do you call that?), so it will be interesting to see the difference (if any).

 

Yes, we are actually excited about our next X cruise. And our cruising friends are doing their first X. Hope it lives up to our wonderful Reflection cruise.

 

Again, we are not accustomed to the "class" thing. Didn't like not having access to one of the bars (being only Concierge), but the Reflection cruise was otherwise wonderful!

The only bar you cant get in is Micheals and that place is usually like a morgue anyway so you are not missing anything. Of course eating at Luminea is a pretty nice suite perk.

I'm used to cooking my own food. So Yea, the food on Celebrity is usually a step up (not always tho, I can cook a mean rack of lamb!:D).

The points are about the only real "perk" I actually found useful. The canapes are a waste and if you stay out late could quite possibly get you ill if you eat them (picture raw fish sitting for hours!). There's a whole buffet full of food 5 minutes away if you need a snack. I used the priority check in and my friends in the regular line got on before we did. Lotta hype, not much substance.

I only take the C cabins if the price is really close to the regular Veranda cabins.

everyone's correct, and by waiting you can decide if you actually want it. Most regular drinks are covered by the classic package. I like decent scotch and the fancy cocktails (martini bar...world bar etc) so I upgrade, my wife is fine with the classic. She likes the Wente wine with dinner and regular cocktails like margaritas, mojitos etc. all covered under the classic package.

So it was YOU!

 

On our recent Caribbean cruise on Eclipse I was told that they were out of Macallan at Oceanview Bar. Same at Martini Bar. No big deal. I just switched to Glenlivet. The next day, while on the "Behind the Scenes Tour" we visited every storeroom on the ship. There were 4 huge storerooms for alcoholic beverages and mixers.

If your recent cruise was the the Nov 13th sailing (or the one after) then YES it was ME!:D:D

Hi TFGL

 

I just saw that you are from Riverside , Ca...so am I and I also see that you will be sailing the Equinox in June. I'll be on board for the June 4th sailing. If that's you're sailing, let's meet up for a drink and toast the I.E....

Yes, we are on the June 4th sailing, it is to celebrate my wife's 50th on June 5th. We can certainly hook up for a cocktail:D

We were on the Silhouette TA in November and loved it!. The Martini bar was a little to crowed for us but bar at World Class Bar Had nice small crowd. George the bartender was nice and even fixed a "special drink guaranteed" to cure my husband's cold. What we really enjoyed was the mixology class they held three times. It cost $30,was limited to eight people. George had recipes for 8 drinks and each person prepared one of the recipes behind the bar and served each of us a small portion. We learned a few tricks and met some new friends. We took the class twice we enjoyed it so much as did another couple.

It drives me crazy that on one ship the bartender will make custom drinks, next one I go on "nope only whats on menu". On the Equinox last fall, the bartender would make me the old Molecular drink I liked. The first couple of nights I had to go get him Grand Marnier, after that he had the bottle and made them for me every night. This last cruise on the Eclipse no such luck. BTW bartender on Equinox got a nice big tip and mentioned in the cruise review. Last one got nada! The bar staff on our last Eclipse cruise were pretty bad (except Martini bar). The Pool Bar, Sunset Bar and World Bar staff all seemed to be really mad all the time.

We've done two 14 day Caribbean trips on the Eclipse. The next one is in a few weeks. We'll see how it goes.

I think most of the entertainers were due to change so you might get a better bunch (unless of course you like an Alanis Morrisette type singer who just made me want to slit my wrists). And hopefully the bar staff got a talking too. There were actually quite a lot of people mentioning the poor attitude of the staff at the bars. I think we were on the first cruise after the ship came from the Med. So that might have had something to do with the odd selection of musical acts. But it doesn't explain the pissed off bar staff.

I know this will go against the "theme" of this thread but I would prefer the ships to cater to a younger mix. The first Celebrity cruises I did felt like cruising on a hospital ship. The more recent ones have been better (except for that last one on the Eclipse). But the ships are big enough to accommodate all of us. There are lounges where elevator music can be played for those that are into it. And there is the Quasor club or Sky Lounge for those of us that would rather get our groove on:p (Picture awkward 50 year old dancing to hip hop). But believe it or not I do prefer the old formal format over this new one. And my group even looks pretty sharp on the regular nights:D. I just wish the experience was more consistent. One cruise great food, next cruise bad food etc. It should not be that hard to have decent food on all the cruises. Oh and in the theater, enough with the ventriloquists already, really does anyone like them?

There's no Macallan on the Eclipse...... I drank it all:D

careful buying booze in the Caribbean, a lot of that fancy scotch hails from China! Much like the Cuban Cigars and the Rolex watches.

I really liked the Molecular Bar and most of the group I cruise with enjoyed the drinks there. I'm just off the Eclipse where I tried most of the cocktails at the new World Bar. I can see why it's usually empty. I found most of the cocktails to be pretty bad. They were uninteresting, unimaginative and not very balanced. Just bad! And the bartenders would not make anything not on the menu no matter how much I begged them. There are a couple of tasty cocktails served in Sushi on 5 that are made at the World Bar. Could not even get those. That's complete BS, if I have a drink package I should be able to get the drink made without having to purchase low grade sushi (and it was low grade).

There is certainly a lack of consistency on Celebrity lately. I don't know if it's the crew, the passengers or what. But I've sailed on 6 celebrity cruises (5 different ships) in the last 3 years and the experience has varied quite a bit. The last one, a 14 day on the Eclipse was probably the worst for on board experience. The bar staff were downright depressing, especially at the pool and sunset bar, and I hated our sommelier. Most of the musical entertainment was better suited to a funeral than a cruise. No music by the pool most days and when they did have live music it was terrible. But the food was some of the best I've had on an X cruise lately. The 3 or 4 cruises before that, the food was just ok and sometimes terrible but the onboard entertainment and bar staff were terrific.

For sure I've noticed less staff, longer waits for drinks, poorer overall quality of food, crappier towels, and fewer of those little perks you expect on an "upscale" line. Also the continual hounding for the specialty venues, shops and other onboard upsells is getting a little old now. If I wanted to be pestered like that I would attend a timeshare event. And it's not just X, most of the lines are doing it. Everything seems to be about the upsell now.

Obviously the lines have to change as the target audience changes. Today's target is not the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago. My mom and dad (in their late 70's) seem to complain about everything on Celebrity now, but we usually like the stuff they complain about. That will be us in 25 years:D

We also eat a lot of sushi, so we know good sushi. We tried Sushi on 5 on the Eclipse in November and it was really really bad. Prices are similar to a sushi place in SoCal maybe a bit less. The menu is pretty limited and most of the rolls are unimaginative. But the real problem was the quality. The rolls were pressed ridiculously tight and the sashimi was watery and gross. Honestly the buffet sushi was lame, but I'd take it over what I was served on 5!

We were excited to try it on the Eclipse as we eat sushi every week (kinda love the stuff). But boy were we disappointed. Quite possibly some of the worst sushi I've every had. The apps were fine, the rolls were pressed way too tightly and it was like eating a roll of thick paste. Also the selection is pretty lame. The sashimi was disgusting and it seemed as though the fish had been frozen and thawed several times as it was just a watery mushy mess. The salmon seemed ok, but all the other fish was gross. Certainly not going back there. Also told the waiter and he didn't seem to care one way or another.