actuarian

Wouldn't "your appropriate bid" have also gotten denied if that other person had "booked it cheaper direct earlier on"? Either way, that same other person would have the room.

I have made quite a few move-up bids and I have won some and lost some but I have never received an "outbid" email. The problem is that it is not clear what it means. Of course, anyone who bids on eBay gets emails of this sort all of the time but, on eBay, all bidders start out equal. That is not the case with Move-up. For example, if my original booking was for an Aqua Class room and I bid $500 to move-up to a sky suite, can I be outbid by a $600 bid from someone who's original booking was for an Inside stateroom? The truth is that the workings of the move-up system are so vague that, IMHO, most of us understand how it works about as well as most of us understand quantum mechanics. I do believe, based on my own experience, that the chance of succeeding with a move-up bid very much depends on how much demand there is for the cabin the bidder would be moving out of. Often, when I succeed, it seems to be because I made my original booking early and booked a room type that is in limited supply, like a Sunset Veranda room.

You do keep the perks but, because Concierge class gratuities are $0.50pppd more than balcony gratuities, you will be automatically charged for that extra amount if you win your bid. For example, since you have gratuities as a perk, if you successfully move up with a bid of $100 pp, then your credit card would actually be charged $207 (assuming a 7-night cruise), rather than the $200 you might be expecting. Most of the time, this difference is too small to take much notice of but it becomes a little bit more significant if you move up to The Retreat.

Ship: Summit Length of Cruise: 5 Night Cruise Sail Date: 12/12/2022 Date email offer received: N/A; I bid before receiving the email Captain’s Club Tier: Elite Plus Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: Celebrity Current Cabin: 8121 Original Cabin: 9162 Bid? Yes If YES - Bidding Details: Cabin Category: S2, upgraded from A1 Bid Offer: $500 pp Notification Date: 11/3/2022 Accepted / Rejected Accepted General Comments (offer details, etc.). Cruising single. Original and upgraded cabin both handicap cabins. I bid on November 1, before receiving the email and the offer was accepted 2 days later, 39 days before the embarkation date. Total cost including the bid was $1.608. The current starting price for an S2 is $4,309 so this seems like a wow.

Not always. I just had a Move-Up bid from Concierge Class to a Sky Suite accepted today.

I doubt whether they actually oversold. That would mean that they sold the same room to two different parties and, while the Celebrity web site is not great, it is not that bad. More likely, they have a large party (like an extended family or a VIP group) that are asking to all be accommodated together in the Retreat and they do not have enough rooms available in the Retreat to accommodate all of them.

That sounds like a mistake that you should try to have corrected. When you win a Move-Up bid, you do not get any additional perks (other than ones like dining in Blu that are attached to the room) but you are not supposed to lose the perks that you had with the original booking, as sometimes happens when you upgrade or reprice a room the old fashioned way.

I do not think IV cabins are “a disaster”. However, I do think that they are poorly named. The name “infinite veranda” sounds like a particular kind of veranda and that is not really what it is. It is really a panoramic ocean view cabin with a window that opens. Unfortunately, it is difficult to come up with a short name for such a thing. However, I think they will spread to more and more cruise lines in the future simply because, as other posters have pointed out, replacing veranda cabins with panoramic ocean view cabins is a way of conserving fuel, regardless of whether the windows open or not.

I called the Captain’s Club number and was told that the site is “down for maintenance”. They expect it to be back sometime tomorrow.

I also miss the marvelous French restaurants that used to be on the M-class ships. Each one was different and I think they were all better than Murano and they were certainly far better than Le Petit Chef. I also miss the huge libraries and the indoor cinemas.

While I have not yet been in an Edge Villa, it is advertised as having direct access to the Suite Sundeck, and I have seen those entrances while on that sundeck. Doesn’t that mean you can exit the suite on deck 15, take the elevator to deck 16, and reenter the suite without ever walking the stairs?

In my experience, that is true unless you are in the Yacht Club on MSC. YC staff are selected to be the most service-oriented people on MSC and service in the YC is close to perfect. The YC restaurant is great. The YC is actually pretty similar to the Retreat on Celebrity Edge Class. Pool deck, lounge and restaurant are comparable. YC also includes complementary in-room minibar, something Celebrity charges for in the Retreat except for in the top suites. Most YC rooms are similar in size and price to Celebrity Sky Suites but come with perks that are more like Celebrity Royal Suite perks. On the other hand, IMHO, the rest of MSC outside of the YC does get lousy service and is several rungs below Celebrity (or even Royal Caribbean) in quality.

My understanding is that the officers are paid based on their rank, not on which ship they are on. For example, the Captain of the Millenium makes the same salary as does the Captain of the Beyond. However, when given a choice, officers often prefer to operate a smaller ship like an 1109-stateroom M-Class ship than to operate a newer larger 1646-stateroom ship like the Beyond. I am pretty sure that the officers with the most seniority are most likely to be given a choice. Regardless of all that, I have always been just as impressed with the quality of service on M-Class ships as with the quality of service on newer ships. Those M-Class ships still have a lot to recommend them and I for one would never say that the newer ships are better; only that they are different.

The black square means that the room has a sofa that can be converted to a bed. Those are the rooms that are able to accommodate parties of 4.

One way to check whether you would be losing the Indulge package is to compare the cost of upgrading to Concierge Class with the cost of upgrading to Aqua Class. Aqua Class fares are almost always "all inclusive" so, if there is an excessive difference between the cost of Concierge Class and the cost of Aqua Class, it will be because the Aqua Class rate includes several perks and the Concierge Class rate does not. I often see this when I look at rates for new bookings. For example, today's cost for a 6-night cruise on the Infinity on November 5 is $826 pp in Concierge Class and $1,326 pp in Aqua Class. Looking at the fine print, I see that the Aqua Class cost includes drinks, wi-fi and tips, while the Concierge Class cost is a "Cruise Only Rate". If the perks were the same, the rate difference would have been around $200, instead of being $500.

Most cruise lines have frequent cruiser programs but, unless I am missing something, no cruise line offers benefits to frequent cruisers that are nearly as valuable as the benefits that are given to members of the Pinnacle Club. Pinnacles can book an ordinary stateroom and get nearly all of the perks that are provided to people who book the top suites (other than the star class suites). For example, Pinnacles are admitted to Coastal Kitchen but, even on sister cruise line Celebrity, there is no Captain's Club tier that can get a non-suite guest into Luminae. There are certainly no frequent cruiser benefits that can get a Norwegian cruiser in an ordinary room into Haven venues or a MSC cruiser into Yacht Club venues. It is hard to even imagine a frequent Cunard cruiser being admitted into Grill Class venues without booking a Grill Class stateroom. The Pinnacle Club really is unique.

One thing about the new setup combined with recent price hikes for drink packages is that, unless you consume more than 10 adult beverages per day, it no longer makes sense for diamond and above members to purchase the deluxe beverage package. For example, if you are diamond plus and consume 10 adult drinks per day (far more than I ever consume), you would only have to pay for five of them. That means that, if you skip the drink package and purchase drinks that cost $13 or less (most drinks), you would have to pay no more than $65 for five of them. By comparison, the deluxe package usually costs $83.99 per person per day (with the 20% pre-cruise discount). The refreshment package ($29.99 pppd with the discount) or the classic soda package ($8.99 pppd)may still be useful so that the diamond/diamond plus vouchers do not get wasted on non-adult beverages.

Celebrity is recategorizing rooms on all of its ships next April; that is unrelated to the drydock, which will be in January for the Reflection. The 4 rooms that I mentioned in my previous post (9374, etc.) that are being recategorized from C2 to C1 next April 23 are rooms that already have slightly larger verandas but that are right now being offered at the C2 price. No verandas will change size during the drydock. However, there are no concierge class rooms on S-class ships with huge verandas like some concierge class rooms on M-class ships have.

If you go to the above site, you can select the button labeled "Starts April 23, 2023" in order to see how rooms are to be recategorized. After that date, certain rooms will be category C1 even though they are in an area of the ship where the surrounding cabins are C2. Those rooms have larger verandas. Examples are rooms 9374, 9399, 1210 and 1403. However, the veranda sizes do not vary all that much on Solstice class ships. By comparison, there are much bigger differences in veranda sizes on Millennium class ships. For example, the four C1 staterooms on deck 6 of the M-class ships have huge verandas. Those four rooms will be recategorized as UC (Ultra Deluxe Concierge Class) next April 23 but, until then, they are still priced the same as as the C1s on deck 8, which have normal size verandas.

This thread is very confusing. The Summit repositions from Boston to Miami on October 15 so any Boston-Boston cruise has too be sooner than that. There are only two Boston-Boston cruises that are available right now. The dates are August 31 and September 21. There are two other dates (9/11 and 10/3) but those are completely sold out.

I also did the first two. The first menu, which was the only menu for several years, was marvelous. That was the menu which included bouillabaisse, lobster tail, and filet steak. The second menu was nowhere near as good but I assume the change was to please the accountants by reducing the cost of the food.

I am on a 12-night cruise out of Rome on Oct. 5 and the app only shows the LPC menus for the first four evenings. There is no lobster shown but that does not tell me anything about night 5, which is lobster night in Luminae and in the MDRs. Do all 12 menus show up for your October cruise?

If #1 is the case and "go home" means flying, it seems awfully unfair to the people seated on the airplane next to the person who failed the test. That person would be contagious with COVID-19 and really should be quarantined, not put on an airplane.

I think you meant .039%, not 0.39%. The latter would be 1.31 million.

Regardless of where you get your drinks, they will not show up in your folio (unless they cost more than $13) until you have exhausted the daily drink vouchers (4 for diamond members and 5 for d+ members). However, that does not mean that the vouchers are not being used in the diamond lounge; in my experience they are. On the other hand, if you are a Pinnacle or in a suite, then you can order drinks in the suite lounge and those do not use up your vouchers.