Gracie115

You hit the nail on the head. Those who have never cruised Celebrity have no way of knowing how much the product has slipped in the last few years. Also have no way of knowing how excessive it has become to book a Celebrity cruise. Celebrity, IMHO, is banking on this to acquire a new clientele who are willing to pay high prices for lesser service and quality since they know no better. They don't give a rat's xxx about the long time X cruiser. We are "expendable" at this point.....

The fish & chips were the best item when we ate there in December. The pork chop was so tough you couldn't cut it. So obviously not consistent at all.

Interesting on our visit the only item we thought was great WAS the fish & chips.......

Agree, it was VERY loud for us too. Depending on the item the food was fair to very good. My pork chop was tough and almost impossible to cut. On the other hand my DH's fish and chips were excellent. We will go back but will be more careful about what we order and try to get seated in the quieter areas, if there are any.

@Jim_Iain Which cruise did you book with Oceania? I believe having booked an Owner's Suite that you will have more Specialty Restaurants that you can make reservations for about 90 days in advance. Also believe you should have no problem with an 8:30 reservation or so, the 6-7:00 times seem to book very quickly. We loved Toscano, our favorite and if given the opportunity to book more than once I would do that. We are the same as far as not needing to be entertained while on board, Oceania should be a good fit for you. Service was wonderful (think Celebrity 10-15 years ago.) Butler was outstanding and am sure in an Owner's Suite even better. One of the things that we found and liked was that if we had questions ahead of time we weren't forced to go through our TA, the O staff answered happily and in fact when we first booked (before transferring to our TA) were told, "please call anytime you have questions." Very refreshing. Enjoy planning. We also booked another O cruise on the Allura but that's not till 2025. May have to find something in between.😀

I didn't know that... thanks for correcting. Still learning a lot about Oceania.

We just did our first O cruise last month too. We found that the Terrace Cafe matched the GDR menu each night, with other additional items too. Don't know ship you are on but depending on that you will either have 2 or 4 Specialty restaurants to choose from. They all have Toscano & Polo Grill which we thought were great. We were on Vista which had Ember (a replacement for Jacque's on Marina & Rivera). We thought Ember was good but not even close to as good as Toscano or Polo Grill. Red Ginger, the 4th on those ships was good but I think next time we will just tell wait staff to have the chef choose for us as we ordered and ate WAY too much food. We ate in the GDR the remaining nights which were good but not as good as the Specialties. The service was great. I don't remember any nights that were more special than the others. Lobster, inone form or anther, was available in at least a couple of the Specialties every night. We are also "Celebrity refugees" having been very underwhelmed in our last couple cruises, I'm sure you will enjoy O, we sure did and booked our next cruise with them before debarking.

@Jim_IainJim I am sure you will love the Vista. It's such a beautiful ship. We were on her in December for our 1st Oceania cruise. Service was amazing everywhere. Very different experience from the larger ship experience, all in a good way. I know you are looking at an Oceania suite but if you wind up in a Penthouse instead I think you will still be pleased. It is very similar in size to Celebrity's Sky Suite, put appointed so well with dining table both in the room and on the balcony. No large rocking chairs!!! Our butler was amazing. But I would love to travel in one of those larger suites myself sometime.

Wonderful pictures!! Makes me want to book Connie again, love, love, love all the wood still in the Royal Suite. Michael's Club looks so inviting!!

I completely agree. Have been predicting the merger of the two for a couple years now. Royal Celebrity Cruiseline. Has a nice ring to it.

There is no defense for this no matter how anyone here tries to rationalize it. What a horrible way to start a vacation. I'm sorry the OP and daughter had to go through this.

Better than the ones on Royal, Celebrity & Princess... from personal experience.

YES YES & YES. Nearly impossible to find comfortable seating anywhere outside of the theatre/

@Jim_Iain Agree with all your reasons & more.

Actually the gym was very nice for a smaller ship. Quite a few different weight machines, some free weights also. There were probably 8 or so treadmills, a couple of recumbent bikes and a couple regular ones and a couple elliptical machines. We had no problem finding equipment available to use.

Good to not go in with high expectations but I think you will find the Vista a great ship. We finished our 1st O trip on Vista just 10 days ago and were very pleased. The ship is beautiful, elegantly decorated and service wonderful. A much better experience than our last 2 Celebrity cruises. We also had PH1 and were very pleased. They are a bit larger than most Sky Suites, much better appointed with furnishings, the bathroom is large with double sinks and a great rainfall shower. We couldn't have been happier with the room. Of course it is a much different experience because the ship is so much smaller. But the service everywhere was excellent, rarely waited more than a couple minutes before wait staff asked for drink orders. The specialty restaurants (no charge to anyone) are good to great, Toscano and Polo Grill especially. We booked another cruise on Allura in 2025 while on board.

That looks like an interesting TA on an S class ship. The cruise that follows, Buenos Aires to Buenos Aires has a wonderful itinerary, one I haven't seen before on Celebrity. We have been looking for a South America cruise and this itinerary is enticing!!

Thank you Jim. Something I haven't mentioned in of my posts on CC about Oceania, or at least the Vista, the ship we sailed. They have a library that is absolutely amazing. 3 rooms of books on every topic. Warm inviting comfy chairs. I don't know if the other O ships have this wonderful space, the Vista IS their newest ship, but it was just a lovely surprise to find this space on the ship. Most lines have eliminated or scaled down these areas to the point that they hardly bother. I know that Kindles and the like are the thing to do now, I use my Kindle too, but even sitting in an area like this be it with Kindle or one of the hundreds of books available was a welcome treat. Good luck on your cruiseline hunting, and on your upcoming Solstice cruise, I love the "S" class ships and especially the old Michael's Club, which Solstice still has. Hopefully it will feel more like Celebrity than your Edge experience.

We were on Vista last week, our 1st O cruise. We found people mostly dressed "country club casual" in the evenings. Having said that we also found people who dressed up more, even saw one couple in tux and gown. All in all it was a wide mix of really casual to semi-formal (or formal in the case of the tux & gown couple). So wear what you want. The only thing I saw enforced personally was one person who had to go back and get a shirt with a collar to enter MDR for dinner.

Our SBC for booking on board was $250 and the fare reduction was $300 per person.

Just went and looked again...... I did get the $800, the $600 was the $300 per person on board booking credit. Sorry for the confusion. 😵

Yes it does...... interesting. I will have my TA, who has now taken over the reservation look into this. Thanks

Good question. I think they would tell you no but, at least in our case, our remaining "non refundable shore excursion credit" wound up offsetting other expenses. I expected to walk off with a bill for the total of the Gratuities and it was actually about $80.00 less, and yes the Gratuities were charged at full amount.... go figure, but I'm not complaining.

Allura 12 night Nov 16, 2025

It's happening before 1/1. We just booked a 12 night on board last Friday and we recieved $600 not $800