PinkT

Just for comparison this is the email I received from Royal Carribbean back in 2022: “Dear Guest, To accommodate routine engine maintenance, we've reduced our speed between ports and as a result, we've adjusted some of our arrival and departure times in Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. We're terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused by this, but the safety and comfort of our guests and crew is always our top priority. Below, please find our revised Anthem of the Seas 23 September 2022 itinerary.” There were substantial time losses to times in port. I believe it was over 9 hours in total. As I say RCL didn’t even try to argue and gave me a full refund despite it being way past pay in full date. Concerning that there still seems to be similar issues with Anthem now nearly 2 years later. But that’s an aside. My main issue now with Celebrity is can I stump up money and book for a cruise now knowing there’s some kind of potentially similar issue with Apex and I may not get everything advertised in regards to port time 🤷‍♀️ Just quite disappointing

Was looking at booking the 11 night Iceland out of Southampton this June but then read this thread. It’s put me off. I also have had a previous experience with Royal Carribbean and Anthem a couple of years back. They emailed the time changes, I googled and there were many posts and articles saying there was an engine issue but a part couldn’t be sourced due to Covid. It freaked me out a bit. We were paid in full and I called them, explained what I read online and customer service gave us a full refund within seconds with no denial of what I’d asked. I just never know if it’s safe to be on a ship that MAY be having issues with engines or stabilisers in the middle of the ocean?

Thanks for the replies all. I also don’t see what the problem is Celebrity are trying to “solve”? Many people say there’s hardly any kids on board, so why do they need to make extra allowances for them? Why do they even want to go in the indoor pool in a warm Caribbean cruise? Also if that’s now the policy that every day they can use it why not Celebrity own it and advertise the fact that out of 7-10 adult pool hours, 2 are in fact no longer that? Why try to hide it? If it’s no big deal then change the marketing. The cynic in me thinks it’s because they know it will annoy the adults that they rely on too. There’s already an outside pool for everyone. I don’t see why they need to be all things to all people when we there’s so many family friendly lines anyway plus as I said there’s an outside pool for them to use. If we’d have known this we wouldn’t have chosen Celebrity. We liked the fact it stated it had an adults only relaxing space. Nowhere was it said it then becomes a family zone. Can I rock up to kids club during certain hours? Nope. It’s age limited. Petty I know . As I said we’re not anti kids, we’ve cruised Disney many times and love their adult section. No family hours there. Princess has an adult only section, no family hours. I just don’t like being hoodwinked into buying a product that is then adapted long after booking on the app to something that goes against what it advertised in the first place. Even if it is only 2 hours, it’s not adult only anymore.

I think my biggest issue is that it’s still marketed as “adults only”. Even underneath family hours on the app it states the no under 16s policy so it’s just confused messaging. The fact this was added way after actually booking didn’t give me all the info up front. Obviously now from reading here it’s how it is. But if celebrity had just said up front this is a mixed use space we wouldn’t have booked as we like to spend some vacation time adults only. I’m sure we will have a great time still and if we experience things that don’t work for us we will just leave the space. If it is a huge issue for us then we don’t use celebrity again

Thanks everyone for your replies 😊 I feel a bit better now. It was just a shock to see it added in there suddenly. I’m not anti-children but I find it weird celebrity market it as an “adults only” area in all cruise info… apart from when they say so in the small print. For the January Caribbean cruise it’s on the app under ship view and then “activities”, select solarium pool and it has the hours and then family hours underneath. For our May cruise out of Barcelona it’s something totally different there it shows each days activities rather than individual pools so no idea about that one

Hi everyone, we are new celebrity cruises (but not new cruisers) with 2 cruises booked. Noticed today on the app that our 10 day Caribbean on the silhouette in January/feb has family hours added to the solarium hours for every day 5-7. This definitely wasn’t the case a few days ago. Don’t feel great about this as when we booked it was described as adults only. It means there’s no adult only pool areas in these times and I doubt folks will stick to the times allocated. Such a shame as we probably would have picked another line if this was advertised up front. It’s not like inclement weather if it’s already planned this far ahead. We’re heading to Europe this month on the edge with no mention of family hours there.