Karen@Steve

Thanks for your replies, no we are sailing from FLL, and with regards to the kettle it's only a travel one

They may confiscate it if they find it. They will return it at the end of the cruise. Hot water and tea bags are available in the buffet and via room service.

The only way I see this happening (getting a female stateroom attendant) would be to be one of the first on the ship and go to guest relations and find out if there is a cabin available with a female attendant. Not much chance but possible. It may help if the person requesting the change had a really nice cablin that they were willing to trade and pretty much be agreeable to take anything available.

I don't worry about it (male vs female) but I can see how it could a culturally or personally sensitve topic.

I would probably not switch. The bigger balcony would be more important to me. That said, if the points are that important then only you can decide. Also look to see where the conceirge cabin is. If it's not in a good location I would pass.

As for the wait time, I suppose it's the massive weather issues. People are probably struggling to deal with this weekends cruises, flight cancellations, etc.

One of us, DH or myself pack anything like that into our carry on. We take a lot of electronics so we always pack at least one backpack to stow valuables to keep with us at all times. One time I left a couple of pairs of gold earrings in a makeup bag for a return from a business trip and I threw it in the suitcase. Sure enough, the makeup bag never made it home.

I swear in some cases they must xray the suitcases for security and tag which ones have valuables. Why else would you swipe a makeup bag?

Sorry for you're experience. Hopefully it is all replaceable.

I notice that you only have 17 posts on Cruise Critic, and welcome to the boards. It is unfortunate that Celebrity has chosen the word "Elite" to denote its frequent cruiser level. The word itself has a connotation of 'snobbery', and there have been many posts like yours on many threads from people who choose to believe that a poster has a very high opinion of himself.

 

I believe that the OP in this case, like so many others, was merely indicating their cruise history with Celebrity and not making a comment on their social status. Hopefully in the future you will take this into consideration when reading and commenting.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

It's already snowing here and will be 8 degrees tonight with a chill factor of -5. We're supposed to get 8-12 inches. I wouldn't mind taking a cruise with just about anybody at this point (okay, maybe not the American Girls!).

Most of these folks are doctors, lawyers and high rollers. The bikes are expensive and are treated like gold. DH has a motorcycle and would love to do a cruise with it (me, not so much! :rolleyes:) Imagine the cost of just getting the bikes to the ship! I doubt anyone is going to take a cruise with only what's in their saddlebags.

That being said, I can understand not wanting to go with a large group. The people may be terrific but large groups tend to move in emasse around the ship so some venues become very crowded just by the nature of meet ups and large get togethers. Since this is only about 95 people I wouldn't sweat it in the least.

Only you can decide if you would feel out of place but it might be because these people have money to burn!

They usually hold back a number of tables and available reservations until the sailing date. My suggestion would be to go to the nearest restaurant as soon as you board and start looking for what restaurant and availability you want. All restaurants can be booked from any one of them. Just be first in line and you will likely be lucky to get what you want.

We received the coupons on our cruise. Since we are Select (and will likely be Select for a long time) we were really glad for the Gelato coupon. It was the only benefit we actually used!

There was quite a line most afternoons as almost everyone on the ship had the coupons. We watched about 20 parties get Gelato one afternoon. All but 1 party of 2 people had the coupons.

I just posted a review of our Nov 30th Reflection sailing and are waiting for it to appear on the site. We loved our cruise and felt on the big advantages over the M-Class ships was the less crowded feel. There were always places to sit and relax through out the ship.

I was a little taken aback by the 'for a fee' offerings on the room service menu but on further reflection (no pun intended) it seemed like a nice addition if you wanted something extra special it was avaialble. Room service for breakfast was a little uneven. Coffee with no coffee cups one morning...LOL and a wrong order on another morning. No big issue and they made it all right.

My biggest issue was with the bar service and the lack of basics. They either didn't have what they needed, ran out of it or found some on the last day. Not to mention that at times the crowd was 5 deep and the wait was 15 minutes or more. Lack of supplies really have no excuse. It was a small issue but one that lasted the whole week and made many people really angry. The bars seemed to just be overwhelmed and the bartenders not trained to handle the volume. People would walk up, stick their card in the bartender's face as he walked by and got served while more polite people were just ignored.

We found the food in the MDR to be wonderful. We had no desire to eat in any of the speciality restaurants even though we had planned on it. The filet the second night was as good as any steak I have had in any premium steak restaurant. We had select dining and one the first night we had such wonderful service that we made reservations and stayed with our waitstaff (Savio and Nary) for the entire week.

We had a wonderful time and nothing occurred that would ruin our vacation. We would sail the Reflection again in a heart beat.

I can't answer about aft cabins except to say that yes, they have a light on the balcony. Much like a porch light on a house.

We had a C2 on the hump with the deepest balcony. It did not make the room dark and gloomy at all. The sun was low in the sky at the end of November and we found it overly sunny and actually closed the curtains slightly to keep the sun out of the room on the way out of Miami into the Caribbean on the Starboard side. Much more comfortable on the return trip.

We were on the Reflection sailing Nov 30th. Rarely saw them used and mostly they had to keep the tops down since it was windy. The bulk of the lawn was also 'resting' so there wasn't much going on up there and access was mostly blocked. I was considering the same thing, renting on the San Juan day but we just never got to it.

The Sunset bar does not serve food. However, the Oceanview cafe is floor below and has an outside eating area. You can walk up to the sunset bar via an outside staircase if you wish.

The Porch is open for lunch for $5 which is outside on deck 15. They serve soups, salads and panini's. It is located near the aft elevators.

We had them on the Refection Nov 30th sailing in Conceirge Class. They arrived everyday, you didn't need to ask for them or be there for them to be left. We enjoyed them very much. The old variety were good too but I like there. The only thing I wish they would go back to was the fruit bowl. The three apples on a plate just did not cut it. They were sour and hard as a rock. I missed the grapes!

Casino Smoke - There was a horrible smoke smell in casino area that permeated through the shops along the port side of the ship and up to deck 5. I’ve never noticed this on other Celebrity ships in recent years.

 

 

I do not think it was a smoke smell more of a mildew smell, noticed it on out TA on the Equinox, when the they bring out the $10 crap to sell, probably been sitting in the bottom of the ship hole for months

It was pretty awful. It kept us out of the shops and the casino. There was also a women who wore some type of perfume that you could smell coming at least 20 feet away and caused poor DH a couple of bad allergy attacks (despite all the meds he takes) and an asthma attack. Geez, haven't people ever heard that a scent should not percede you into a room or linger after you leave? ???

Hi,:) I always respect Anne's reviews and am quite sorry this happened

on her cruise. I will tell you normally there are always waiters walking

around the pool area taking orders. Not sure what was going on with

the lack of bar staff...hopefully this was NOT the start of something

new:eek:

I found plenty of opportunity to order drink from the pool bar waiters. I'm not sure if it depended on where you sat but we order continually on the days we sat around the pool. Both on the pool deck and on the upper deck. I also am not shy about attracting attention if I need service (yoohoo!)

We were on this cruise too (Hi Everybody) and agree with Host Anne almost word for word. In general we were very impressed with the ship and service. It was truly a great cruise. The only negative comments would be about the bar service. The bartenders were overwhelmed and the bar would continually run out of the basics. Who ever heard of a Mudslide made with Tia Maria and no chocolate syrup???? Small thing but also a pretty basic service was missed.

The other thing we noticed was the buffet was just not prepared to handle the number of people returning from shore excursions. One of the few times I can say there just wasn't enough food. The lines at the pasta station were 10 to 15 people deep. The pizza line was long too until they completely ran out then it was empty. The other stations were closing or changing up. We could have order room service or went to the Mast Grill but it as a small disappointment. Again pretty obvious but the staff just kind of ignored the issues as people complained.

Just small things we noticed.

We took the DYI route and wished we had used the ship's excursion. The price would have been about the same but saved us lots of time with the traffic to Red Hook, back and forth. Not to mention the first cab (Ship to Red Hook) was kind of scary.

Glad you're all have a wonderful cruise. You should also be aware that the local residents of Hawaii were not likely eating turkey for Thanksgiving. Turkey is probably more available now then years previously with the big mainlain box stores. Mainlain transplants will have more traditional dinners but dinner for most residents was likely a mix of traditional items like candied yams but also roast pig, taro or poi, local fresh vegatables, rice and local fruit pies and cakes.

This thread will probably be closed and you should check out the port threads. I've not stayed there but I checked over on Tripadvisor and it gets pretty good reviews. However, the airport is quite far from the cruise port so allow plenty of time in the morning to get to the port.

Prior to our Celebrity Millenium "transpacific cruise" from Hawaii to Sydney in November I was in very good health, went swimming & paddle boarding in Waikiki, with loads of walking around that vibrant city. I was blown away with Halloween night in Waikiki.

Firstly, I am not blaming Celebrity or any of their crew for what happened to me.

During the latter part of the cruise, I noticed on quite a few occasions, people coughing with wheezy chest conditions, similar to the flu. When dear Wife & I were in the lifts/dining area/and Celebrity Theatre. When anyone sat beside us in the theatre with flu like cold/cough, we immediately moved to another location to escape the dreaded flu. Some passengers heard that one couple was put off the ship at a certain port because of their flu infection.

Anyway, we arrived in Sydney, I seemed okay, we flew home to Qld, then a few days later, the flu hit me like ton of bricks. I was laid up for 2 days in bed. My doctor has prescribed medication, and I am now only starting to improve.

As I said this is no reflection on Celebrity or any other cruise line, its just unfortunate that when you have hundreds of people jammed together on a cruise ship, some bug will come along & hit someone.

Its been 9 days since we arrived home, and still can't shake off this flu, but I am slowly improving.

I never had this problem on our previous cruises - Pride of America around the Hawaiian Islands & Sun Princess South Pacific cruise.

I am thinking of giving cruises a rest for a while, and considering fly & stay holidays in the next 12 months, perhaps Bali or Samoa/Tonga.

Sorry you got sick. I've never been sick during or after a cruise but got a really nasty respiratory infection after a flight sitting near someone that was obviously ill. There is no real way to protect yourself from all infections but getting the flu shot is an obviously way to give yourself better odds of coming out unscathed.

I think you summed it up very well. There is a difference between inferring that someone is saying I am so angry with Celebrity because of this change and I am not going to book with them again versus simply hoping that Celebrity would honor the previous calculations.

 

Do people cruise simply for the points, no of course not. Now many, including myself have booked CC to get double the points of a veranda. That is something that makes sense to consider. For an extra $50, $75, or $100 per person is it worth getting double the points and/or the benefits with the CC?

 

I fell that Celebrity could have handled the conversion much better by announcing the changes at least 90 days ahead of time. Would I like my points to be calculated using the old system since I am past paid in full? Of course I would. Am I going to pout and scream on my upcoming cruise? No, I will enjoy it. But I can simply ask them to calculate my points under the old system and they can say yes or no.

Exactly. Thank you for putting it so well.

It does seem to be getting a bit out of hand, doesn't it? :rolleyes:

But, we might need to be patient for a while. Host Andy is enjoying a well-deserved vacation cruise with his family. So, it looks like Host Walt is doing his best to hold down the fort, in these "interesting times". :eek:

 

Seems like a good day to stop and say "thank you" to all the hosts, mods, admins, and tech folks, here on CC -- who work hard to provide a place where we can all share our love of cruising. Happy Thanksgiving! :cool:

While some might think me one of the 'ranters' (is three posts a rant) I agree. Thank you CC and all who participate for everything you do through out the year. Happy Thanksgiving.

I didn't get by her post that she was saying people could not post their problems or complain as much as they want, I think she is saying that many flamed her for complaining about a change that Celebrity made to her (telling her that Celebrity had the right to make changes and she should live with it) and now those same people are complaining about how changes that Celebrity made are unfair to them. It seems like some say changes are okay, unless it applies to them and then it is wrong.

Sorry, I took it differently. That she was sort of glad that other people were being flamed for complaining as she was. I don't disagree that people are only concerned with what affect themselves. I had nothing but empathy for those that lost their vacations due to the Millie problem. Many people didn't care. WHen I posted that I was disappointed with Celebrity changing the rules 6 days before my sail I was flamed probably by the same people who got Elite status in 4 cruises and now are looking down on people who cruised more than that and are still working toward status.

I am also of the belief that if Celebrity sold me a cabin and promised me an extra cruise point under the old system they should make good with their promise. Others are free to disagree. In my case, I can't show my disappointment by canceling or even modifying my reservation as an adjustment to their change in the contract as I am sailing in 3 days. Just giving me some type of the option would probably have appeased me.

Other than that I think the new program is a good one. And yes, I did book a CC cabin for the extra point on this cruise and the last as the amenities aren't really worth the price difference. And for those who say that the elite benefits aren't in important, please cc me on the email you send to Celebrity saying you don't want those benefit as they are not important to you.

I'm going to cruise in a few days, I will enjoy my cruise. Celebrity is a nice line and I love the smoking policy. I have one more cruise I have to take with them (will never buy a future cruise credit ever again) and then I will look around and decide how I want to use my vacation $$s. I will probably never make elite until I retire, if ever and will make my cabin decision based on that fact.

I do land based travel with a company that honors their loyalty program. When they make a change they announce it in advance and allow people to adjust to their satisfaction. Celebrity might want to think about doing that in the future with at least 90 days notice. As in...starting in XX/XX/XXXX we'll be changing our loyalty program to blah, blah, blah. Doing that would have allowed me to decide to keep my cabin, change my reservation or cancel if I so chose.

I probably would have not done any of those things but by the fact that they didn't give me any choice makes me feel rather devalued by Celebrity. So feel free to disagree, I don't care. My feelings are mine.

Well said...I'm actually loving all this...when our Alaska cruise was canceled this past summer and I was on CC venting frustration about a cruise canceled after a year of planning, 24 hours prior to departure, I was flamed without mercy by many who are now posting sour grapes over the new Captains Club...boy is this fun to watch!

Didn't stop you from posting over and over again about your situation. Everyone gets to vent. I did and was flamed too. Doesn't change your situation or ours that in some way we lost out. Maybe we should both agree that Celebrity could have handled things alittle better.