Gracie115

Yes, this!!

Princess just looks better and better. Yes, there have been some cuts and added expense but nothing on the par with everything X has done over the last 8 months. I agree that the staff are the ones who will suffer more than anyone. We're all smart enough to figure out if the "decrease" in price is an actual decrease before we book, but the staff will wind up with less in tips as the "extra" that many of us give now will be less than it is under the current program. I don't include myself in that group but then I won't be on a Celebrity ship for the foreseeable future. Celebrity once more proves that they don't give a rat's a.. about their long term repeat customers.....

It will...but.... nothing stops X from raising prices between now & then and then showing a "reduction" once this goes active. I, for one, don't believe for a minute that this change will result in any kind of reduction in cost to the consumer. Nearly all the changes in the last 6 months have had the opposite effect, why should this be any different? Think I'll go check a couple of cruises in 2024 for pricing and write it down and then check again in October....as you say...easy to compare.

Don't think you're wrong at all. Just another way to raise prices without actually raising prices........sneaky at best....

Just another move to become more "Royal" like. Royal doesn't include gratuities except possibly on their very top suites, which are very few. Every move that's been made just makes the 2 lines more and more alike. Still waiting for the one that states "We are now proud to present our new company, Royal Celebrity, with all ships from both companies included" Celebrity is just SO disappointing, we have nothing booked with them for the first time in 25 years. I keep sticking around here hoping to read about some positive changes but the opposite just keeps happening.......

Arnold is the best Sommelier we've ever had on X. He was on Apex last fall and I knew he was going to Equinox as he wanted back on "S" class ships. He's been with Celebrity for over 20 years.

We have cruised Celebrity 20+ times in the last 15 years, another 10 or so on Royal. Always had one or other booked. Now have NOTHING booked on either line. Princess 2024 TA and Viking to Egypt coming up next. Exciting itineraries, longer cruises, Princess full suite package now superior to Celebrities. Was excited for just a minute when I realized that Equinox would be home porting out of Port Canaveral late next year....until I looked at pricing..... NO way paying 10K for a 7 night Caribben in a Sky Suite.... YIKES. So we are off to other lines....

Reserve seating in all lifeboats, $9.99 plus 20%.

No live jazz at all on the Apex TA either last fall or this April. Aside from the theatre, which DID have good shows we were very disappointed in the live entertainment or lack thereof.

We found mostly DJ's and canned music on Apex. The Club VERY occasionally had some live shows. The production shows were great. Martini bar area music mostly DJ or canned and WAY too loud.

Daily housekeeping now only available for a $15.00 per day charge. Towel exchange available once per week at no charge.

We love the Rooftop Grill. It's our favorite of the specialty restaurants. We've been there in both good & bad weather and had great times at both. There are wind barriers and at least a partial roof covering to prevent the bad weather from ruining the evening. It is a fun unpretentious evening, a reasonable cost with great service and lots of choices for your meal.

I can do all those things too.... but THAT's not the reason I wouldn't book a Sky Suite. I wouldn't book them because they aren't worth the price being charged. Period... The lack of dedicated butlers and other cuts that have been happening are just additional reasons.

On the Apex TA in Apr/May the future cruises were often empty. We never saw a waiting line.

Yes, I have been corrected several times. I just never saw one in MDR on Apex in April, must have been busy that night.

The thing is that Princess AND HAL for that matter offer much better itineraries to many locations including the one @Ken the cruiser was referring to, as he said the Princess cruise is longer, with more days in the Antarctica area and less expensive. Maybe doesn't have the bells & whistles of an X ship but on this kind of trip the itinerary would be a priority for me. Princess does fine in the other areas for us too, but that is subjective as you say.

Exactly...no brainer for me... ESPECIALLY on a cruise like this....

Glad you both enjoyed yourself. Obviously, Celebrity is making a lot of people happy. Good for them. I've been cruising on X since 1998 so have seen LOTS of changes, some good, some bad. Perhaps what we came to expect from Celebrity was/is too much to expect in the world today. We were younger then and perhaps our $$'s got tossed around a bit more carelessly than they do now. So we look elsewhere to make sure we are getting what we want. Maybe there will be another X cruise in the future, who knows. I do know it will not be an Edge class ship. There is still hope for an S class sailing someday.🙂 (oh....there was no Sommelier in the MDR on the nights we were in one in April...or maybe there was and he/she was too busy, we never saw them. )

You are a new cruiser so you are unaware of the downgrade in quality in food from prior years. Not just quality but the variety of choices is far less than it once was. On our sailings pre pandemic there was far more live music entertainment, strings trios around the ship, dance music in the atriums around dinner hours(E class doesn't have a real atrium area..though they call it that) late night live music in the Sky Lounge, frequently featuring some of the singers & dancers from the theatre groups to get the crowd going. Some of the ships featured piano bar entertainment(though that ended well before the shutdown). Guitar players in the Sunset lounge. It seemed there was live entertainment to be found somewhere all through the day and evening. Not so anymore. So many venues rely on "canned" music. On our 2 post Covid cruises over the last 10 months the daytime entertainment was basically trivia trivia trivia. The MDR used to have Sommelier's, haven't seen that in a long time. All suites had dedicated butlers, now Sky Suites have a "team" which I don't think will provide the kind of personalized service that a dedicated butler has. Vaping allowed in the Casino.... one of the things that brings (well brought) passengers to Celebrity was it's no smoking of any kind indoors policy. Luminae on the E Class ships is a huge step down from M & S class. Now just another MDR, just a bit smaller but just as loud. Service suffers and even the staff when asked which class they prefer if they have worked in all will tell you it's not Edge class. That's just off the top of my head. AND then the really crazy increase in pricing has us looking seriously elsewhere. As I stated in my post a TA for 17 nights in a PH3 on Sky Princess at $2500 less per person than on the Apex (12 nights) makes it a no brainer for us. We work too hard for our money to just throw it at Celebrity because of some misguided sense of loyalty.

THIS!! AND THIS!!! And so many more (including my own) talking about the large price differences with Celebrity compared to other lines. Both comparable lines(Princess) where the price is much lower or higher end lines like Seabourn or Regent which now seem to have comparable pricing but offering a much higher end product with FAR superior itineraries. All this talk about "the ships are full why drop the price" may well be one way of looking at things. But my thoughts are all those "NEW" people to cruising who are happy to pay the elevated prices will soon become "seasoned" cruisers and start looking around when they become bored with the same old same old itineraries and they see what other lines can offer them as far as price and amenities are concerned. It will take awhile but suspect it will happen. When it does Celebrity just might wish they had made an effort to retain their loyal base which seems to be eroding. As much we've loved the Celebrity product for 20+ years I just can't pay $9.5K plus for a CS on a 12 night Apex TA in fall 2024 when I can book a PH3(far superior suite than the CS) for $7K and 17 nights. No brainer. Why throw money at a line just because we have in the past. I'll keep looking at X's offerings....just not expecting much at this point.

And so is Holland America, Seabourn, Cunard........

We have been on 6 Princess cruises and have never had that happen. I do think it's possible for this to happen on any line though.

Princess offers quite a variety of foods in their MDR and Reserve areas. We aren't a fan of the Crown Grill, one of the specialty restaurants but Sabatini's is great and the cost for either of them is far less than X's specialties. Not really any Cirque de Soleil shows that I've seen on Princess. They do have some good shows in the theatre, but Celebrity is better in that regard. We found there was more to do as far as activities are concerned with Princess. During the day on Apex it was mostly just trivia... If I had a daily listing of the last Princess cruise we were on I'd post it but I don't keep those. Am sure you could find them on the Princess CC boards.

The OP was comparing 2 new ships, Apex and Discovery with Discovery being slightly newer and much LESS expensive...so your theory doesn't work out in this situation.

Should be FOOD