phoenix_dream

An interesting itinerary! We’ve traveled to Milwaukee many times as we live less than 2 hours away. If you like German food, check out Mader’s. Awesome. And I’m sure you’ve already booked a room if you’re flying in early, but if not look into the Pfister downtown. I’ve been to Mackinac a couple times but it’s been awhile. I actually won 2 nights at the Grand Hotel in a radio contest years ago. It was really cool to stay there. The first time we went we rented bicycles and rode all over the island. It was a lot of fun. If you have a sweet tooth check out one of the multiple fudge shops, they are known for that.

Kringles are amazing! The best places to get them are in Racine where they have several bakeries that specialize in them. My personal favorite is the almond.

The oatmeal is often a soupy mess as well. I rarely order it onboard

100% agree. They try their best I presume but they are very often wrong about many onboard things. Best to get your info here on Cruise Critic or when you board.

My last cruise on Apex was very, very loud in various areas. I already have tinnitus and if you don't have it, trust me you don't want it! It's annoying and never, ever goes away - and there is no cure. I always have a pair of ear plugs in my little purse when sailing. I've had to use them more than once, especially on Apex.

little sticky tags. I also sometimes find them months later. They usually attach them to the inside collar of a shirt, or along a seam (which I wish they wouldn't do as I'm always afraid I'm going to rip the seam apart as those babies stick!)

I will be very interested in hearing about your experience. Had the pleasure of meeting you at a CC gathering in the Zenith area a few cruises ago, and have followed many of your posts. It is so very, very sad to see people like yourselves feeling that you need to try other lines to try to capture the greatness Celebrity once was. We have 7 X cruises booked in the coming year, but are definitely after 20+ years considering other lines for beyond that. We will still definitely enjoy our booked cruises, but as loyal cruisers we will no doubt notice what is now missing. Enjoy your cruise!

Ah, that could have been the situation

We did this once and had a good experience. There was one downside however - the taxi driver did not speak very good English and I don't remember a lot of my high school Spanish. Just a suggestion to anyone doing this to have a short conversation before getting in that car.

Out of US ports you are always supposed to do it that way. Of all the ones I've done, we've had to leave the ship and return, except for one and I have no idea how they got away with that one.

Just want to address one issue you had for others consideration. It is very common on Alaska cruises to have sporadic internet and perhaps even TV signals. It's because of the remoteness of the locations. I think it would be the case regardless of ship and regardless of cruise line. We've experienced this on every Alaska cruise we have sailed (and we've sailed many, including last year) I'm also curious - I don't recall ever seeing self-service wine in any of my retreat experiences (of which I've had fewer than 10, most in the last couple of years). Was this common before? I don't think I've sailed in the Retreat on Millennium, but have on Apex, Equinox, and Solstice and maybe others, I don't recall.

I think with the push for a younger crowd we will see the Retreat getting a lot more families when school is out due to the extra space in the cabin.

I take exception to your comment about the retreat level and people being upset at not getting what they expect. How about we word it the proper way - they are not getting what they paid for when they booked. People have a right - at any level of cabin - to get the service they paid for when booking. It's not a question of having a higher expectation. It's a question of expecting what you paid for. When the main dining room cuts were being made there were tons of posts complaining about that, and rightly so. So why is it different just because someone is in the Retreat?? People in the Retreat (and that's sometimes me, and often not) are paying huge sums of money for their experiences - in many cases double the pre-Covid price, or close to it. Why shouldn't they be upset if changes are being made after they booked to cut the service they were expecting?

And I've got a bridge to sell you, and the cow really did jump over the moon. My opinion is that they may drop somewhat, but not that amount. Or, they will drop that amount for a few days for those of us analyst types who are doing before and after comparisons and then they will sneakily creep up rapidly. I would love to be wrong about this!

Why? Well for one reason on my recent bookings my TA is giving me OBC for 10% of the cruise price. And that OBC is fully refundable which essentially means I am getting a 10% discount on the base price

You're assuming that the Aqua Class rates with no perks will decrease after implementation. The skeptic in me says they won't, at least not to the level of the cost of the perks. But yes, we can use our perks and pay less than non-Zeniths. That's also assuming that the Zenith perks will remain as is. Unsubstantiated discussion on another board indicates that next year they will be blending the Royal and Celebrity loyalty programs. And of course Royal's perks are not as good as Celebrity. Their highest level only gets a discount on beverage packages, and free internet for one device only - definitely another cut for us IF that happens. I finally made Zenith last year after 20+ years of cruising and more than 75 sailings. It would just be my luck that when I finally get there they change it. Yes, I sound negative. Don't know how else to sound with all the changes of late

You will still have a great time I think. What is happening overall IMHO is that Celebrity used to be an excellent cruise line. Recently they have been making changes presumably due to revenue loss from Covid that are perhaps bringing Celebrity down from excellent to maybe good or very good. Some of the frustration you read about also was from testing some ideas that many of us thought were horrible, but they rolled those back. So it's definitely not all bad news - it's just that these new changes are very noticeable to loyal Celebrity cruisers and we are not happy with many/most of them as they are less than the experience we remember, and thought we were paying for when we booked. A new cruiser would likely not even know the difference (with the possible exception being maybe some unhappiness with the food?)

ABC's are absolutely my favorite Caribbean cruises!

So what does it contain then? Serious question, not being snarky

My issue is that the skeptic in me says that while AI benefits will be changed, the prices will not be lowered to reflect that. I sincerely hope I am wrong. As a Zenith CC member who already gets free premium beverage and Wi-Fi (for now at least) I would be very happy to see a complete menu option where people could pick their level of perks - like in the good old days. Lots of people don't drink enough to warrant a package, and not everyone (although admittedly most) will need or want wi-fi. It was frustrating to see it all included in Aqua Class, and Suites. Unfortunately it still exists for the Suites, other than the gratuities.

I think that's called a funny/not funny comment. I have 7 upcoming cruises booked, two of them in Sky Suites, and it seems that every day when I sign onto Cruise Critic or a FB group I read about another cutback or change that lessens my experience. With one exception in 75+ cruises I've only had one so-so cruise on Celebrity and the others have been good to great. In fact until recently I would guess many would think of me as a Celebrity cheerleader! Not sure what to expect on our upcoming sailings. I will board with an expectation to have a good time regardless but I confess there is more anxiety there than I should be having for such an expensive vacation.

Oh yuck! I'd rather eat turkey any day than eel. But everyone has different tastes. I guess I'm not sophisticated enough🙂

Why are they taking out tips? Because tips don't benefit the passengers and that way they can keep the same pricing and hope people don't figure out that they in essence just raised the prices again and hope you don't think about it that way. I am very concerned about the staff also. It will be much easier for people to identify the tip amounts and try to eliminate or reduce them, especially perhaps people from other countries whose traditions do not include tipping. I know experienced cruisers realize how the tip situation works, regardless of their own traditions, but I'm concerned that the brand new cruisers won't know much about how pricing and tipping works on cruises and will end up shorting the staff. I hope I am not offending anyone, as I don't mean they would deliberately try to hurt the staff, but they may not take the time or make the effort to understand the cruising process enough to realize how much the staff depends on that money for income.

I don't disagree with you. At the same time, I think most people who cruise a lot have their favorites and really look forward to them as part of their overall cruise experience. If they ever ditch the short ribs which is my favorite, or the french onlon soup which is DH's favorite we would be very disappointed. I'm not a big fan of the Luminae menu overall, so I'm hoping they are adding some options that appeal to me.

I think they claim that their "focus group" is asking their restaurant managers what dishes are popular and what dishes don't get ordered much and/or don't get great feedback. But the skeptic in me these days says they are trying to lower the menu costs for them and trying to do it in a way that makes you feel like you are getting more gourmet food. Personally I was never fond of much of the Luminae menu anyway so I am hoping I like the changes. Time will tell.