HMR74

On board EQ now.

dining fairly good. Service mostly pretty good.

i still see strange things which I attribute to mgt.

eg, We have premium drinks, however in order to get fresh squeezed juices , only at Luminae, Blu or Aqua spa. Be nice to make it easy for the other ~80% in MDR. 
 

no bottled water when leaving ship. That used to be a nice touch as well as beach towels,

had dinner at Qusine the other night, braised short ribs of beef, excellent, but also in MDR last night, equally excellent and same size. Not sure why I want to pay  about 60 pp, for the show.

servers and steward could not be nicer and more attentive and they do hustle.

wine, the premiums are in some places but not others. At ensemble lounge they promised me they would have it the next night and they did. I understand that its a lot of inventory, skus to have, but X used to tell us all about how good its wine celler is. Did it replace wine celler space with a few more staterooms?
 

they screwed upon my internet. I bought 5 , 3 extras since 

we do not like switching back and forth , and do like having  iphones and ipads always on. 
 

now a days with two factor identification, its nice to have internet on 2 devices. Esp with windows machines which lock you out and you need second device. 
 

1 hour ago, phoenix_dream said:

Yes, and I have. Cheaper by the glass at high end Chicago steakhouses.

Juat a few years ago we went to a Wisconsin Supper Club on the Mississippi north of La Crosse.  Wisconsin Supper Clubs are the old fashioned establishments with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin playlists.probably on Sat Radio.

Anyway,  Prime Rib dinner was excellent  at good prices but I distinctly remember the drinks served. I had a crown royal filled to the top with a minimlal amount of ise and ice in a separate glass if I needed it.    $5

My wife had  a full glass of wine of what she liked at the time at 2/3 of the price in the north burbs of Chicago. eg, Wildfire. Not a Mortons etc,

When kids went to camp  ages ago, up in Northern Wisconsin North and west of Green Bay, a Supper Club named White Stag-wedge salad was 1/2 of the lettuce head. Drinks were the same "bargain"

A Stella on board is I think 11 or 12 now. A 12 bottle  case sells for 15 or so. Its not a micro brewery beer.

Betcha these places  in Wisconsin are still high value.

17 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Also let me add that the Sunset Bar had plenty of other upcharge Champagnes on the menu.  We tried them all.  The other bars were difficult to find Champagne.  We gave up and had Champagne at Sunset...

Thats true of my reisilng wine--the only apparent $17 reisling, is found in Murano--not found in MDR or any of the bars that I have seen so far. That obviously makes it difficult for an owner of the premium package to use it on the premium reisling.

58 minutes ago, drakes2 said:

Yes to both but I'm too frugal. I guess old habits are hard to break. 😆 

Well I am value oriented. And note, that even inside cabins are costly now. I see where an inisde daily rate on a cruise we woud like is 50% more than I paid for Aqua 4 years ago, computed an a daily cost basis and we know ther is also shrinkflation, in that pound for pound we are getting  less now regardess of the level of cabin.

I used to be frustrated over the shoreside service on many levels. Part of that goes away via using an agent, but its stil there. But I used to shrugg that aside because the cruise itself was so good. ummm.

2 hours ago, High on the Seas said:

They seem to be willing to tick off their customers for a revenue grab. If 2000 people on the ship get one drink a day at a $2.40 up charge that is $4,800 extra every day in their coffers. Ships sail year round so for a year that is $1,752,000 per ship. Multiply that by the 17 ships in their fleet and you are close to $30 million annually.  Probably just enough for LHB’s bonus. 

I agree with what you and the math say except I question whether they understand what they are doing.  I think they all belong to the "Let's throw stuff up on the wall and see what sticks" management club.

They need some (diversity) Seniors in managment that can tell then, "No, thats not how this works"  but look at the composition of managment-young. Not much mentoring going on.

They can raise  prices and get away with it as long as the  service and quality  of product levels do not decline. Customers like us will say, so what, the prices are higher and we can afford it, not thrilled to pay more,  but we walk away happy campers so where is the problem? Its when we are no longer happy campers with the product provided.

And management does not care or is not aware. Both attributes deadly for a business.

I  still maintain the management team has no clue what they/it  are doing. Either that or they are intentionally trying to screw up the company.This ongoing stuff is just stupid.  My observation is there...aw forget it, I might get in trouble.

I will experience it myself next week. HOwever, and I use reisling as my barometer, I saw two cheap reislings on the premium ,one was in classic before-cannot see that anymore and I see whats now a second probably upscale reisling  but apparently  only available in one of the specialty dining rooms.

The management goes from one mistake to another. Or in trying to fix one problem just makes the problem worse.

A few months ago I was told that on S class, I could not get premium coffee in the MDR-well, how far is Luminae from MDR on S. Or Blu. is there just one premium coffee machine and its at El Bacacio? 

Thats what I saw on Oasis  and not just that, it was in the middle of evening acitivity and a long line for the coffee and then a separate long line for the  sweets. In a not so pleasant setting--like being at a fast food joint. That was Oasis. A small coffee shop for  a 4700 double occupancy  ship. Serving one coffee at a time. The problems are contaigious within the RCL group.

It is almost hilarious.

9 hours ago, richczarnecki said:

Huh? We are talking about comparing a luxury level (Retreat) mass market cruise vs a full luxury line. Price, perks, etc. Sounds like some research could be very useful to me

 

 

Sy Syms, "an educated consumer is our best customer"--catchy phrase but appropriate.

One thing not mentioned , from my standpoint, was the "vibe" on board, at least S Class.

When the product pieces  wre  put together for the customer, it all felt good. Real Good.

Right now, X has "lost that loving feeling".  Bring Back that Loving Feeling, or we're gone gone gone.

Hat tip to the  Righteous Bros and Top Gun.

24 minutes ago, Moby Jones said:

We're currently onboard Beyond with friends. A sailing we booked almost two years ago. And that's the question we have been discussing. My only conclusion is that their marketing team is aiming the Celebrity product at newer cruises who don't really understand the difference between cruise line categories. Celebrity looks upscale when compared to resort style lines like Carnival and NCL. It even looks upscale against the mainstream premium lines peers such as Cunard, Virgin and Princess. But these newbies probably haven't yet figured out how it can look very poor value compared to lux lines. And that said, newbies tend to be younger. And I'm not sure how appealing Silversea, Crystal and Regent to name but three are to young thirty somethings....

But going back to Celebrity, even the current incentives to book onboard are really pointless. 

So we'll be booking on of the 6^ lux lines too. At a great price comparatively speaking and more importantly, with a great itinerary. 

I mentioned the young 40 something's the other day. My kids with their grandkids.  And their friends.

Crusing is not ther thing. And they all have been  on plenty of cruises and going to Disney.

Next year 4 families are going to all inclusive. The kids  (grandkids) love the nice beaches and the parents love the luxury and service level. Plenty of activities.

We  headed off in our own direction cancelling a b2b2b retreat on Beyond and doing a land trip  to Greece,  the islands and Italy for 6 weeks. Admittedly it is a totally different approch and my wife was apprehensive but it turned out us folks in the mid 70's dealt  with everytihng and enjoyed the hell out of it. Yes, a slower pace than 40 years ago  but we built in low profile days. It was also 1/3 the cost of the cruise, which made us enjoy what we did even more.

Whats the punch line?

 X (for us) and RCL (Oasis in the past, Icon in the future,for the kids) loses a small percentage of their revenues.

X will lose some retreat passengers upgrading in ammenities and downgrading in price, Perhas more than some.

Since the business is a very high fixed cost business, they will need to be above the  full 100% occupancy (made possible by 4 in a cabin, or 6700 on Oasis meant for 4600 full double occupancy).

And the bottom line here is cash flow is going to be hard to improve from this point. And it has a lot of ship to pay for. 21 billion soon to be closer to 30 billion. Wtih higher interest rates.

The cruise lines are caught between the rock and hard place. The only alternative they see is cutting this and that and finding new or additional sources of revenue and they all are out of good ideas.

They have to think out of the box and they cannot.

Not entirely  their fault-the lockdowns did not help. the CDC (I think) seemed to go out if its way to prolong the shutdown for cruise lines. $$$$$. Food costs went up and have not moderated. The killer wil be when oil prices go back up to triple digit. 

Just my analysis of why thiis  drink problem is a problem-they all need more positive cash flow. And th eway I see it, it's not going to improve.

Trying to decipher the wine situation. I am on a cruise next week, and the app has interesting situations.

To keep permutations low I like Reislngs.

The MDR has 2--the $12 per glass Chateau St Michelle, and its $50 per bottle an dteh J&H Sellbach Kabinitt, same $12 and 50, except the bottles if buying 1 at a time near me ate 8.95 and 15.95

 We wil also be dining in Petite Chef, Murano and Tuscany--

Morano has 2 additinal Reislngs, Tuscany has 1 and Petite Cheff has one reisling.

Thats per the app -which even teh executiv eoffice tells me is inaccurate even on the day of sailing. (Then I ased myself, why have it)

Anyway for me,the resioings offerred are 17 or under, mostly at 12, but none are listed on the classic package, whereas in the  past the Chateau Ste Michelle was on the classic.

This is all too colex to keep track of. All I want to know, keeping it simple, whats the best aka most expensive reisling I can get in premium package and why is it not avaiable in most venues.

On S class, the dining options are on 4 or 5, I think,Luminae, Blu, MDR ,Petite Chef, Tuscany and Murano all there.

On an different level, I saw something reporting that X is seriously considering a total rennovation of S class. That means redoing  the MDR  like Edge has for the 4 MDRs. Plus making Retreat more exclusive. perhaps putting Luminae up there somewhere, as well as Michaels club. Perhaps X will put a rollar coaster or 7 story slide up there. Certainy a larger Sunset bar like on Edge series and all of it extending a few feet further over the side. Perhaps add another level or two to accomodate  Retreat.

It muchs be sgnificanty less expensive to do thatthan build a new Edge--baffles me but I am certain the financial MBAs there have it nailed down. 🙂

We were on NCL Westwerd decades ago and shortly after we were on it they decided to make it longer for more cabins..

BTW a Stella is $11 plus 20%.

If from Chicago, the name is "Da Eclipse". 

I attribute many spelling issues to use of phones and tablets and everybody is in a rush. Lot's of truncated words. You  becomes  "U".

most commonly misspelled word in my book, is "seperate" which drives me nuts.

Back when I started working,  big accounting firm, we had a pool of typists -the era of IBMs Selectric. Nothing automated.

Their joke about the "College Boys" was that with all the education we had, they had to correct our spelling, grammar, punctuation et al.

They were correct. Somehow that was not taught well in HS or College.

One good class required for the men in Business; Accounting and Management,  was Home Economics for Men.

By the way, is there going to be a battle over who uses "X". Celebrity or Elon Musks "X".

My 2 cents worth for the day. Not worth much at all.

34 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

You can bring two bottles of it on the ship....

 

I still don't understand how people equate how much a wine costs on land vs on the open seas.  Start a cruise line, sell it for $16 on board, make a fortune.  🙂

 

Do I think the $2 charges are somewhat silly, yes...but the cost of it at your local liquor store just doesn't equate in my mind.  

the point is few of us like being insulted by the wierd arrangement X puts out. In my case,they moved a wine thats 5 a bottle from classic to premium, and thats plain old nuts.

13 minutes ago, Diav said:

High Seas,

Since there is no World Class Bar on the Apex, I checked out the Craft Social Bar. They said that the zacapa  are included in the pop, no up charge. They did not have Azteca. 

the Wi-Fi on the apex is absolutely terrible for the past few days!

where is the ship when wifi is bad?

Just received an e mail on this--at Liquor Barn in Illinois. This is an example of when there should be an upcharge.

But this caught my attention

18 minutes ago, riredsox said:

They actually said they had an ‘award winning list’ which of course they did.  They just never had the wines that were on the list!

Back a few years ago we were on a TA that I wanted to buy a package to buy several bottles at a discount. While I thought about it X pulled the special, and told me the reason was that there was so much demand , but there was not space on the ship for it.

I though that was a fishy excuse then, more so now. Because statistically they know how much booze they will go thru on probably any cruise, given demographics etc. They even know what we have had for our drinks making it more predictable.That stat changes if we cannot get the drinks we want.

How well they use the info is another subject. Subjective because they can use the info to reduce their financial exposure to lowest margin drinks, by running out of stock early in a cruise. Sorry!

eg, I do not understand how Heineken can be on Classic and Stella on Premium. Both basically a mass produced beer. Retail they are priced the same. A buck a bottle perhaps a little over that. $13-$15 a 12 bottle case. but I like Stella better. Do they sell more Stella and that fact gets it into Premium?

19 minutes ago, riredsox said:

$8.99 a bottle in Walmart!  And Celebrity always said they had the best wine at sea.  Fancy Celebrity, real fancy!

X did not just say it had the best, it promoted it as a differentiator from other cruise lines.

1 hour ago, jelayne said:

Road trips are my absolute last choice.  Fly somewhere and spend 3-5 days exploring pre and post cruise is my #1 choice.  Cruise and return 2nd choice, AI resort 3rd choice.  Road trips only if necessary to see family.

Great that there are options.

Talking about foreign road trips. Even then only 1-3 hours actual driving on our driving days. Lots of stops and unplaned short side trips if we find anythign interesting, even if stopping only for 20-30 minutes looking out from a mountain. As we have the car, we buy a couple of cheap shoulder type folding chairs and a cooler and a small table to put between us and have a nosh along the road. I am talking about a month or more say exploring Spain and Portugal.

 Have seen the good old USA by road, with many stops along the way. Back roads, not interstates unless no choice. Then B and B's where like cruising ,you meet new and interesting (for the most part) folks.

My wifes cousin just nought a motor home. Now thats not my thing--speaking mostly about the clean up maintenance and size which preculdes many back roads.

Cruising--like the concept of catching a cruise in one country and ending in another country, so we can do some pre and post cruise exploring.

21 minutes ago, tfred said:

we have done some of the DIY vacations (tons of air, CC and hotel points) and had a great time as well

 

We like an easy winter vacation (we live in south Florida) and a cruise a good choice   Been on a few ships and like X. Although we had done two Crystal River cruises and they were phenomenal   Really benchmark material 

 

X (The Retreat for us) has been great. Service, food, booze all good. The "magic " does wear off after a few cruises but what should remain is seamless service with an exemplary experience. On Apex in 10 days so we shall see if the money is worth it. A few other cruise line options for this kind of money 

 

I received Vikings regularly  scheduled  snail mailed brochure today. They have an 8 day cruise from Toronto to Milwaukee. , startng at 6k PP.

The introduction made a point about not nickle and diming.

Drinks only at lunch and dinner.

Whatever vacation one chooses, you need to look at the total picture of what you get and how much enjoyment you get.

I still really enjoy motor trips, drive your own car. No forced schedule. Just like to be in a new town/city at dusk. Even then the  technology on tablets  and gps/nav systems makes it pretty easy to find where you are going. That used to be the stressful part. Where you could drive for 30 minutes in wrong direction, pretty difficult now.

58 minutes ago, tfred said:

it is absolutely possible to a land vacation for less money in some great places

 

the perceived advantage of a cruise is the "one stop shopping" - room, shows, booze, food within a resort setting.

 

There is no shortage of suite cruisers on FB that are struggling to find a hotel in Fort Lauderdale for one night  - these are not the people who can organize a trip to Santorini on their own. Especially with a group of almost any size ( and I have done it) the dynamics of cars, what time to you eat breakfast?, is very difficult.  Cruises and  Marriott/Ritz Carlton style resorts  are very popular - try booking one in Florida right now - and they are expensive (easily $700/night plus food/booze)  

 

Cruises and resorts allow a group of any size to do what they want and just meet for dinner. A family of 4 (H/W kids) can set their own schedule and can do different itineraries   

We have learned that when we want  a sightseeing intensive vacation, we do our own landtrip. It’s coming out to about 35% of the cost of retreat for comparable time. 
 

we go alone. We get up and out when we want to, we dine where and when we want to etc, all the logistics the way we want. We go-off on tangents all the time.

My fear is our friends will want to tag along. 
 

we dine nicely, sometimes elegantly. And we have lots of fun. We see entertainment, and do things like take cooking classes and relaxed days at wineries. We do not feel we missed anything. We rent airbnb or VRBO, either way in the middle of things. And nicely appointed with plenty of space.  90% happy rate. 

but we also have lots of fun in a different way on a cruise. Especially if there is good chemistry with a group or just other couples. 

my concern with the cruise in 2 weeks is it will not be as magical as we are accustomed to. X spoiled us and now it may be frustrating us, where problems were minimal, and they were fixed quickly and nicely fixed, making lemonaide out of lemons. 
 

the shoreside service has always been a pain in the  butt. But once on board, great. 
 

we will soon see. 

next up for X they could limit the number of drinks daily  on a package. That would be a pistol. 

13 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

 

If they are the 1,000+ a night people there are two likely options. They are used to paying that price with nothing included so an extra up charge here and there is negligible. Or if they are All Inclusive people who are accustomed to the trash liquor and sparse house wine that you typically find on those properties anything is an improvement. Cruiselines, not just Celebrity, are capitalizing on that and charging accordingly. 

you are talking about the Ritz Carlton folks when going there during peak season. That's the group that can write checks all year without reconciling the checking account, if you know what I mean.

while we get accomdations ton land hat are very good we can do it at 300 a night and less if we look for more than a few minutes. That leaves 700 a day for everything else. We never get close to it.

But when I go out for a pizza dinner in Italy, and order a Stella, the Stella is not $12 plus 20% grat.

There are plentry of nice places on a land vacation , with great ambiance and great food where you can get away for 20-30 PP plus drinks and walk away rather happy. And yes the upper level wines and whiskeys are available for a lesser cost than the cruise line.Heck, the lower end drinks are available on land in most cases lower than the ship price to us. Actually, since I have Whiskey in a glass at dinner, my wife on land would order 1 carafe or half bottle of house wine for 4-5 bucks and would be thrilled. The upcharge dor a better wine , not fantastic, was still inexpensive. With X drink packages its like joining a club and thats your membershp fee, entitling you to inexpensive drinks.

And yes, for that 300 accomodation you can be right in the center of where the action is so in 5 minutes after leaving your room you are in the middle of things vs using a tender  or a port where it takes 10-15 minutes to get down and off the ship and to the exit of port, more if buses are necessary, it eats into your already short day in port. And remember gangway up at 30 minutes before sail.

Our new years eve group was thinking about earlier dining venues and remember 15 years  when we ordered 2 bottles  of a yellow tail at $34 each when those bottles at retail were 5 bucks, 7 at most. We shrugged, it was NYE then as now and their prices were surcharged.

But I do not like spending money unnecessarily or not getting good value regardless of what I spend.

16 hours ago, terrydtx said:

I agree this will be the reality.

they now have 3 reislings, perhapsmore on the Premium.

Once of them The Chateau St Michele, apparently is off the classic and on the premium. That as I have said before is a bottle I can buy at 4.99 if I buy the case.

They probably would sell it for about $35. for the bottle. which if the per glass of 12 is used is 60  a bottle. 

The J&H Selbach is in the mid teens per bottle, at retail, but not easily found, prob 45 per bottle on ship. I will see in 2 weeks.

I was afraid that with the cheap reisling in premium,  the other 2 wodl be upcharged by first the $2 then 5 or 6 for the other.

As I keep saying is that none of this makes busines sense that would be connected with an overall strategy-because its all over the place.

The "let's throw it up on the wall to see if it works " strategy.  I think they really believe they are doing a great job and are puzzled by the input of their customers. Ya know, the people paying for the product.

I am becoming fascinated by all this from a management perspective. How could a group of people make so many mistakes that irritate customers is beyond me. They are killing their critical success factors, and the irritated ends up being a different group of say 30-40% of the customers for each issue. .

And then the "fix" is like jumping from the frying pan into teh fire.

37 minutes ago, High on the Seas said:

There have been too many bad decisions lately to think Celebrity has been thinking through all of the ramifications of their changes. 
 

Cookiegate

Buffet food reductions

MDR food quality

Room service charges

Sky Suite butler changed

Vaping in the casino

etc. 

empty suits

I was in corporate a long time. we spent a tremendous  amount of time questioning proposals, and sometimes  it would go up to the CEO who found a flaw in "our" thinking. so the  idea was canned. and in retrospect, rightly so.

Thats apparently not happening at X. Perhaos they have thewrong people in upper levels of management. Nonethe less. I see the problems  there and how it manifests to the "guests" , with a certain arrogance or indifference.

We pay a lot of money for these cruises and thats okay if we are happy with the product received. And that includes we have limited time available for vacations and do not want to se a week or 5 wasted.

The X ship seems rudderless.

like a 3 and 14 football team, it needs a  shakeup. 4 and13 is about the same as is 5 and 12.

Winning is everything. (Lombardi)

First, mgt should have been thinking how to make it easy and pleasant for guests right from the get go.

Second, if I am not in retreat not in Blu, and in the masses, but buy a premium package then I shoud be "qualified" to get the same drinks anywhere on board, not to hear that the particular drink is not available in that steerage venue.

And I do understand the real upper level wine and whiskeys shoudl be prices differently.

In the end its not a problem, we will avoid  X if we are not happy with the value received (subjective)  and its an independent decision our ours from our friends, who BTW just complained the other night that the newest prices are getting higher. I have not yet looked.

1 hour ago, tfred said:

could be the time difference.  The area code was Wichita Kansas (middle of the USA, though they might just be using a US number to route through).  Definitely a non-native English speaker 

 

lets see what happens on board

I think the person calling from KS  is the one in exec office assigned to me and my issues. I have her direct number and I can call directly. But I will follow the process unless ther e is an emergency. A lot of them work from wherever they call home.

Todays call was on 2 issues, my App was not updating  and I keep getting blue chip promos via snail mail,  to somebody who is either using my address, hacked X, or an X systems problem.

The app issue was that the dining room "schedule had the last 2 days of cruise showing at venue closed.Got that fixed, but the rep volunteered to say that we cannot count on menues posted in advance, and we will not know till day of that dinner. did nt discuss it further as I knew shis to teh Caribbena andbad are provisioned for the cruise.

I also know on 7 , 9 and 10 day cruises there is more than enough storage room to have sufficient brands of drinks available for a full ship cruise with "normal " allocation among specific brand. and we all should know it since ships can do 14 and more day cruises without scheduled provisioning.

I still contend the problems are starting at the top and 1 down levels where it really appears they are managing by trial and error, and its teh contacts we have who have experience that are fixing the problems on an individual basis rather than revisiting the policy or process.

1 hour ago, DingoMom said:

Long day today in Western North Carolina. I was just catching up on this thread when I read this post by @HMR74. I swear I read the last sentence as: 

 

Then milked a cheap bear.

 

Thank you for the deep belly laugh!! 🤣🤣🤣

The way I am typing now it could have been bear. And we did do some really stupid things in college, which was safer to do then without social media.

57 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

I hear you, in September after our Apex cruise from Amsterdam to Athens in a SS we flew to Santorini and spent 5 nights is a 4 Star Luxury Suites only Boutique hotel. The hotel was in the middle of Thera perched on the caldera cliffs with a million dollar view.  The hotel included a made to order huge breakfast every morning brought to our private outdoor terrace table by a butler. Each Suite had a private outdoor hot tub and our luxury suite had about 1200 sq feet. Our Sky Suite cost us about $1076 per night for both of us not including what we spent for shore excursions, our Santorini hotel room cost us $390 per night. We ate fabulous local Greek cuisine dinners each night with drinks and good wine and did not come close to what we spent per night to be on the ship. This experience is what convinced us to do more land trips and less cruise days for future vacations.

We were there in May. Our pricing was about the same had we done the SS Cruise.

Rented an Airbnb a block in, for 145 a night. It was adjacent  to the owners living quarters, with a real back yard. Not nearly as nice as yours, Just down the hill I guess east  from the all night bakery. Looked back down the hill to airport area. I thought I had a good deal till I just heard yours, a better value for the money you spent. You only go around once.

That said we really enjoyed the 4 nights there.

Our daughter texted us to try Kokkaao, the morning after we went there. probably near where you were at. Elegant, not stuffy,  and real nice.

 on 2 of the days there were no big ships in port. One day there were two. That day the lines for the Cable car were very long and very slow.

Best meal was on Rhodes, at a restaurant on west side on the water  at sunset.

Mykonos was a favorite, we stayed on the water at main area with all the restaurants and walkways right there.. Only ventured outside the area twice.

Greek Cuisine as you said was great.

Our adult kids gave us each an air tag of theirs, being older they wanted to know how we were doing. They loved being in on the action by tracking us. Even when they tracked us going in circles being lost in Rome.