stevetod

Its a real shame they don't regard quality food as something that makes cruisers happy. I know food is subjective and what some people like and dislike can vary. That being said this was so poor it appeared they just threw stuff out just to have something to offer with no thought of providing even a decent meal.

Just off the Adventure of the seas today after a six day cruise to Maine and Canada. Although my wife and I enjoyed the cruise entertainment, bar service and housekeeping, the food quality in both the dining room and the buffet was below what we have experienced on other Celebrity cruises. The Buffet was cafeteria quality with no dishes that stood out at all. We kind of expected this from other friends who had traveled on this ship but were completely taken off guard by the Dining room food. the first night we were served cold fish but excused it off as a first night issue. What came next was worse. We ordered pasta with seafood. I was expecting the dish would taste something of the seafood in the sauce. Well what we got was pasta in a watery white sauce with a couple of pieces of small seafood thrown on top. It was obvious the seafood was just put on top and not part of the cooking process and the fish pieces were hard. A big clue they were not cooked in the sauce. We both decided we had enough of the dining room and ate out each port to avoid it. The last night we dined in Chops and it was very good. 

One other point worth mentioning is the ship is large and with the amount of people that were going to breakfast they were too much for each venue and caused people to wait on lines in the dining room. When we docked in Maine my wife and I headed to the buffet at 6:55 am to grab something quick and head out to the tender boats. Well there was 1/3 of the buffet closed off and no tables available anywhere. We observed several people holding plates of food with nowhere to go and yet they never opened the 1/3 of the buffet that had closed off. Not exactly great service.  I would like to know if this is common on Royal or was it a ship issue. Comments welcome as we are planning our next cruise and are hesitant to go near Royal again.

Steve

My wife and I are on the Adventure of the Seas leaving June 8th and purchased the deluxe drinking packages. There is a listing on the web site of liquor included but wondering if say Amaretto / Sambuca both alone on the rocks or in coffee is included? I see a price limit of $12 per drink so I am assuming something like a Martini would be an extra charge?

Steve

As of today the drink package on Adventure is $49 per day.

Check the cruise planner. I just paid $49 per person for my cruise on Adventure of the seas on June 8th.

I recently was on the Reflection for an 11 night cruise and there were several days during the cruise that discounts were offered onboard. We got a 2 for 1 offer in murano on the first night because we were Aqua cabin guests but other nights the price was $30-35.

Thanks all for your responses. 

I received a free cruise offer from M Life ( Borgata casino ) and will be going there next week to pick up the voucher for a free cruise with Royal Caribbean on selected dates. Has anyone used this offer before and what should I look for?

Steve

Yes. Paul the driver stated that to me but he positions himself as soon as you walk off the ship. He is on the right side before the colored tents.

Steve

Just recently back from 11 night cruise on Reflection and found an excellent tour with great value. Its from #1 tours and the operator Paul stopped us on our way off the ship at the pier. He has a few open air buses and for $20 a person he takes you to the rock formation, the chapel and then the lighthouse. You stop for around 15 minutes at each stop. During the trip to each he provides great info about Aruba, housing, education, languages etc. Then for those that want to, he will drop you off at Eagle beach and return two hours later to pick you up and drop you back at the ship. For $20 a person its a great deal.

Steve

Great Thanks Jim!

Just wondering whether Celebrity still mails out luggage tags for a cruise. I know you can print them but after check in I use to be able to order luggage tags but could not find the link on my reservation...

Steve

Thanks for the suggestion.

I just found out about this relationship between MLIFE and Celebrity. I am currently a Select level Captains Club member and was advised to visit the MLIFE rewards desk ( for me the Borgata ) and show them the printed page from Celebrity which has my captain club number and tier status. MLIFE will then give me a gold card in place of my current Pearl card. Is this correct? 

I also found out that the gold card would provide $125 OBC on my 4/1/19 cruise but its a little confusing since I might not get that because I got the gold card from MLIFE through a match with Celebrity tier and not from the gambling required to achieve Gold at the Borgata. 

Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

Anyone have info on who the Captain is on the Reflection for April 1st sailing.

Steve

While we are on this subject can my wife upgrade to the Premium drink package while I just keep the Classic?

I will be on the reflection on April 1 and also dining in Blu. On formal nights can I go to Blu without dressing up ( just a dress shirt and pants)?

That's fine. It's their company and if people cruise with them and they make a profit then so be it. Just won't be with any of my money.

Amen to that. It works in most industries. Those that provide excellent customer service retain customer business. I will give you a great example. September 11th ,2001. That tragic day and my office was in WTC 1. We had to relocate to a back up site in New Jersey and I had to drive everyday to work where I normally would have taken public transportation. I quickly realized that I was going to go over my car lease mileage limit so I contacted Chrysler and told them what happened. Their immediate response was " don't worry we got your back" and they covered the excess miles. I have been a loyal customer ever since. A fellow worker tried to do the same with GM and got the run around for months before he got a token gesture from them. He never got another GM car again. Its that simple.

I will echo some of the previous posters on this topic. I bought 3 balcony cabins for this trip at a cost of $9,100 and we had no problem with the itinerary change at first.Safety is the most important point on this issue. That being said when ship went to the worst port in the U.S. in Florida followed up by their own island( no port fees) and then not going to Nassau at all just screams of non equal value. To not refund port fees for Nassau is a bad way to run a company. There is even a question as to whether there was port availability in Nassau and whether we actually were going there. The way NCL handles customer service is appalling. To be honest I was not expecting any kind of refund from this cruise but was thinking along the lines of a future cruise credit in amounts comparable to what cabin type was booked. This was my first cruise with NCL. I have cruised on 9 different cruises prior to this one and twice on Celebrity and once on princess we received port fees back and OBC for missed ports. NCL's total disregard for this aspect of their business policy will to me mean no future cruises with NCL. there are plenty of other cruise lines and ships that are available. They will not see my money in the future.

I also saw an article on NCL yesterday and Del Rio was quoted as saying cruise fares are rising as of October

1st. He also stated that 50% of their bookings for 2019 are filled as of now. So his incentive to be accomodating to current guests is lacking. It's a short sighted business view and may work for now as the cruise industry as a whole is strong but nothing lasts forever and his loyalty base will decrease over time.

My group of six just got off the Escape this morning. We had 3 cabins with a price tag of $9,100. Our three days in Bermuda turned out to be one day in Port Canaveral where the top deck was inundated with these black flying bugs. When we came into port we had great views of oil tanks and large piles of sand before we finished docking. This has to be one of the worst ports anyone can visit. Surprisingly we were able to tender at GSC and the weather was good. Then the announcement came from the Captain that we were skipping Nassau to begin a wide track home to avoid the storm. I did not get upset about this change because I wanted to get back with the least amount of risk involved. But when I heard the other cruise lines were giving some compensation out to its customers I was totally disappointed in NCL's lack of response. Not even some type of credit for port fees since we only visited one terrible port that was not owned by NCL. The cruise was fine and to be honest the dining quality was better than I expected. That being said I feel NCL should have given a future cruise credit based on what cabin typed was booked. It would have been an incentive to rebook with NCL again. Short sighted thinking will have me going back to Celebrity.

Based on the latest update Florence is hitting the East coast late Thursday or Early Friday. The Escape will be in the Bahamas at least that is the plan. There is no way the ship can get back to NYC on Sunday without putting us through terrible weather. My plan is to board and then when we stop in Florida I will check on Florence. If it's the same or worse I will leave the ship and fly home to Newark. I have zero interest in that dangerous ride back.

Not sure how true this is, saw it on the NCL FB page.......From NCL FB Group.......Royal and Carnival is giving full refunds towards future cruise. Norwegian wont let us. So I'm pretty sure they have lost my business after this.

I am waiting to see what NCL will do if anything regarding additional OBC or credit towards a future cruise. It looks very unlikely that we will be able to visit GSC because of the waves so now we are down to Florida and Nassau. If they fail to provide some meaningful comp in some form then they will make their profit for this cruise and a percentage of people will look elsewhere for future cruises. I spent 40 years in banking and always found giving clients some initiatives brought increased future business or loyalty when other institutions came looking to have them move business to them.

I hope NCL knows what they are doing. This is the 5:00 pm update on the NOAA site. Does not look good to me for leaving Nassau and getting home.

I don't expect much from NCL. About 5 years ago our Celebrity ship left Bayonne one day late and we missed one of the ports. They gave us $200 OBC per person to compensate. During our Bermuda stop we were on the ferry from Hamilton and ran into some people from the NCL ship that was also there. They were pissed when we told them about the OBC credit we got. They were offered a free bottle of wine with their dinner.