clojacks

We got off a 7 day Norwegian Fjord cruise on August 28, and this past Monday I cancelled a Southern Japan cruise we had booked for March almost exclusively because of a horrible onboard customer service experience with not 1, employee, but with almost the entire onboard staff. We had booked about a dozen consecutive Celebrity cruises and now have 2 NCL cruises booked for next year. This is not the Celebrity we came to look forward to sailing on.

On 8/31/2023 at 4:04 PM, Ex-Airbalancer said:

I just find Retreat passengers bring up that you have to book YC , Heaven, Oceanic , Viking etc in just about every thread 

I think most people Aqua and below have check the other cruise lines and probably found them out their comfort zone for booking 

So that why I feel there should a separate section for Retreat passengers 

I started a thread somewhat along the lines of where I think you are headed and the mods deleted it, even though I absolutely think it was a relevant topic. I'll repeat what I said there and that is that I am tired of the same handful of complainers posting and reposting and reposting the same bitches...

7 hours ago, jelayne said:

There are no gratuities added to the wi-fi package or upgrade.

Terry was mistaken

A quote for the masses…”Terry was mistaken…”

Eliminate people who fill their personal water bottles at the water machines in the buffet.

7 hours ago, RTShaker said:

Was this with the basic? On my April cruise I could see pictures and post on CC while using my premium minutes, but not with basic.

It was with basic, but it wouldn’t even let me log in to reply to any roll calls I belong to.

Curious question. Just got off the Silhouette from Southampton through Norway and back to Southampton, and the whole voyage I wasn’t able to post any remarks, comments, threads on CC while logged into Celebrities Starlink. When we returned to Southampton, we turned around and boarded a Princess cruise around the UK and were immediate afforded full CC access. Any guesses what was going on?

17 minutes ago, Oceangoer2 said:

I would take the word of a butler whose job/pay scale may be affected over the spin X can put on it.

Has anyone ever not had a steward tell them they send every penny home, or that they have 5 kids, or that the family depends on them, or…. My point is, the cabin attendants are not stupid, and they know how stretching a story will quite possibly work to their benefit tip wise. So yes, I might be cautious about what a butler or steward tells me, staff or work related.

5 hours ago, OysterD said:

4 to do the work of 16 is not what was said. The quote was there will be 4 butlers remaining (presumably for upper suite cabins) and the SS are served by a team (who won't be referred to as butlers as has previously been stated multiple times). 

 

It's like Chinese whispers. Someone is told something on a ship by a butler, relays that message either in part or fully, but isn't clear exactly what is meant. Someone reads that message and (presumably because of inherent bias due to all 5000 posts hes made on the subject being complaints) takes the pessimistic view, jumps to a conclusion that there will only be 4 people in total doing the work 16 used to, and then everyone just keeps reiterating that, even though nobody has a clue!

 

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU...I think some of us know who you mean. It's amazing that particular person seems to want to keep telling us what we should believe, rather than we find out.

5 hours ago, terrydtx said:

It doesn't seem to stop you as well!!!! 

Says the guy with almost 9000 posts to the guy with only 1500….

21 hours ago, C4HCG said:

Deleted as on second thoughts, I have nothing new to add.

That doesn’t stop terrydtx from commenting over and over and over….😉

21 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I always book my own hotels direct.    

 

I have been looking for the hotels that Celebrity offered but only finding City Stay available under excursions and only for my European reservations.    My understanding this is a different product and includes transport and excursions.   Prices are based on a per person rate in lieu of per night and EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE    In looking at Barcelona the prices start at about $1,000 pp per night. 

 

I do recall reading here on CC that people have booked hotels from Celebrity at a nice rate but like you can not get the website to even search for them.

Actually, the Hotels By Celebrity option was there, but extremely well hidden. When you have a bunch of options available to select in a large boxy format on the page, why do you put other options on a line in text out of where your eyes are targeting. I realize it was my error, but man, I was looking for a half hour before I found it. 

IN regards to who to book with, 95% of the time, I do to, and probably will this time, but it will be in Japan, and I figured Celebrity cruisers will probably be staying in the hotels listed on the HBC page, so I just wanted to see which ones Celebrity is using, and then check my own rates.

And now it is telling me my reservation is locked....

I've been trying to access the Hotels by Celebrity on the website for my booking, but...surprise!..I can't get anything to open. In fact, when I try to go to it, my Celebrity page becomes ghosted and I can't go anywhere.  Anyone else try to access it tonight?

A cruise that we are looking at for 10 days around Iceland, Norway, etc is showing CBS's at $1000 more than a balcony. We recently sailed in a CBS through the Panama canal, but as nice as it was, I don't remember what made it special? What would make it $100 per day per person nicer than a Balcony? This would be in one of the new Prima class ships.

35 minutes ago, terrydtx said:

Rich you and I are in similar boats. More than anything current pricing of Sky Suites is what is driving us to look elsewhere. Our New Zealand cruise in January on the Edge is currently selling a SS for $2000pp more than when we booked early in 2022. I would be passing on Celebrity at today's pricing. I see continued erosion of SS and higher benefits all under the cloak of saving money in the Retreat product's future. We can now cruise on Oceania in a Concierge class cabin (no Butler) on a similar itinerary for less per day than a Sky Suite (with a pseudo butler), this is loyalty the Celebrity way.

This might be a dumb question, but if you're willing to sail Oceania without a butler, then why wouldn't you sail in one of celebrity's higher or more desirable Balcony cabins...without a butler? I'm assuming it would be less than Oceania's w/o a butler? It doesn't really look like you are comparing apples to apples to me, yet you have been very vocal about your dissatisfaction with Celebrity changing the Butler concept? Why are you willing to sail Oceania w/o a butler, but not celebrity?

2 minutes ago, Spif Barwunkel said:

Perhaps this thread has outlived its usefulness, saturated to the point where written waterboarding is no longer effective. What was once necessary and meaningful commentary has become monotony, and with monotony comes repetition and useless explication. The offended become the offensive in their inability to accept any attempt at positivity or disagreement. With the exception of a few others, over the last 20 pages, the only meaningful posts have come from "clojacks." While attempting to espouse the cause for this thread, he/she eloquently explained thoughts and opinions in a more controlled manner, and for no reason was forced to go on the defensive. Sometimes your strongest advocates are not necessarily your best CC friends.

 

The few purveyors of gloom and doom, gathered together in a dark-dank room, where epithets used and wrinkled loom....and not one butler to clean up the mess.

Spif.....who have no idea how much your kind words mean in this era of keyboard anonymity....where telling another poster to "shut up" appears to be a tactic when you no longer are interested in listening to thoughtful and harmless opposite "opinions". Thank you very very much.

17 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I agree with all of this. I'm not sneering at all, just making an observation that people who tend to post views that have no basis seem to fall on the side of defending Celebrity. It's a very generic observation.

Can you explain what you mean by “having no basis”. Is this the cruising version of “never having played the game” means you can’t coach or comment on a sport?

5 minutes ago, shirazcruiser said:

You say that there are about 20 dissatisfied posters (not 200); however, there are plenty of CC members who don't post even though they have an opinion.  Also, there are a lot of cruisers who don't know about CC as I've experienced when I'm talking to a fellow cruiser and mention something about CC.  They've never heard about this site....my DH has never been on CC.  There are going to be a lot of surprised SS passengers when they embark on their sailing to learn there has been a change regarding dedicated butlers since Celebrity was not up front about reporting the change.    

Keeping that in mind, isn’t it possible that those who don’t post are just as possible to give it a chance?

47 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

@clojacks do you have a Sky Suite booked currently?  I do not.  I agree with you that the Team concept might work.  We will see soon from the folks here about to sail in Sky Suites.  As I keep stating, I am a bit pessimistic (and I usually am not) because of the complete lack of transparency and communication by Celebrity on the change to current customers booked in Sky Suites and especially those past final payment.  The customers past final payment perhaps should be grandfathered and given an option of individual butlers  Or the change should have been announced and implemented in 90 days.  No need to do this immediately without any notifications except for immediate cost savings.  

We have never sailed in a Suite. Closest we ever got was in a Princess Mini-Suite....not even close to the same.

20 minutes ago, clojacks said:

Is it at all possible that they honestly and truly believed that this might actually end up being an improvement AND a cost savings both at the same time? Is it possible that they have observed that while some butlers are constantly attending to someone who wants help finding a sock, and others don't get a request to do anything for hours? There are a handful of you who's pessimism and negativity must be draining...to have that skeptical of an attitude about something that just might work. And, it just might not, but are you all geniuses in human capital utilization? Big deal, so you've sailed in suites and now you think you could be the Hotel Director on board. I'm going to suggest that as negatively as you view Celebrity (which, BTW, boggles my mind that you hang out here to just bash and bash and bash for 40 pages) that just maybe they do have experts who have researched and collected data that supports what they are trying. I doubt they used a dart board for for the "change of the week " as some appear to view this.

Full transparency, we sailed Celebrity exclusively for about 10 years...from about 2012 to just this past February, when we decided to give NCL a try after 10 or so years away. Part of the reason to try someone else was because of our experiences with dining on our last 2 Celebrity cruises, one of which ended the same day we boarded NCL. Due to our NCL experience, which was fantastic food wise, we have also now booked a Princess cruise for 3 weeks from now. Rather than go on and on and on about the decline in food experiences on Celebrity, we decided to give some of the lines we sailed with in the past a new try. My point is, you can walk away without beating a dead horse until there is nothing left of it.

3 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

No.

 

Improvement for who?  The cruiser or the cruise line.  All changes they have done recently have been an improvement for the cruise line.

"There are a handful of you who's pessimism and negativity must be draining...to have that skeptical of an attitude about something that just might work"...

Is it at all possible that they honestly and truly believed that this might actually end up being an improvement AND a cost savings both at the same time? Is it possible that they have observed that while some butlers are constantly attending to someone who wants help finding a sock, and others don't get a request to do anything for hours? There are a handful of you who's pessimism and negativity must be draining...to have that skeptical of an attitude about something that just might work. And, it just might not, but are you all geniuses in human capital utilization? Big deal, so you've sailed in suites and now you think you could be the Hotel Director on board. I'm going to suggest that as negatively as you view Celebrity (which, BTW, boggles my mind that you hang out here to just bash and bash and bash for 40 pages) that just maybe they do have experts who have researched and collected data that supports what they are trying. I doubt they used a dart board for for the "change of the week " as some appear to view this.

13 minutes ago, C4HCG said:

Don’t sail suites so none of my business but if I did I would just give it a chance, until you’ve tried you can’t say 100% it will be a worse service, an equivalent one or wait for it…….better! Who knows?

For the life of me, the number of people who almost seem to be willing it to fail, so they can say "See, we told you so" is mind boggling. Is it honestly thrilling to be that driven by wanting to see something crash and burn so badly?

25 minutes ago, zitsky said:

Make a list of benefits.  Then make a list of which benefits were taken away because Celebrity is struggling financially.  I have one year and a half to think about this.

I get all the reasons for the complaining and posting by everyone. What I don't get, is what is going to be posted that is new info after 36 pages? There are almost no new posters entering the arena here. Is the intention just to have an outlet to vent or is it to try to convince others they are making a mistake if they book with Celebrity? I'm pretty sure most knowledgeable posters in here with hundreds, if not thousands of posts, realize that none of this is unique to Celebrity! EVERY SINGLE CRUISE LINE is facing their own financial battles and handling them in some fashion that is going to piss off some subset of passengers.

1 hour ago, Ex-Airbalancer said:

With going in with a negative attitude how can you have a great time 🤔

 

This appears to be the prevailing attitude of a lot of posters with upcoming cruises….anticipating the worst, and not willing to believe it might be the opposite.