Oldsweets

Every time and I mean every time I have called Blue Chip they have been professional & helpful. This is not to say they gave me everything I wanted to hear but I believe they heard my question/concern and attempted to resolve. I would call the and the worst they can say is NO. I suspect if they can say yes then will…..

More info….. the past summit host is likely moved on to another ship if that is your question. We hope he moved to solstice for our March cruise. Nice Guy as were the husband and wife team aboard summit.

We understood from a post here that Dining under the Stars on the yacht club pool deck is held (obviously weather permitting) when you're in a port has a late departure. On our seascape itinerary next week our latest port stop except for ocean cay is 6pm. Does this itinerary host the Dining under the Stars and if so which port usually? Thanks in advance for your assistance. 8 Days − 7 Nights Port Miami, Florida Ocean Cay, MSC Marine Res,Baha AT SEA Cozumel, Mexico George Town, Cayman Islands Ocho Rios, Jamaica At sea miami

Thanks

Thank you… we only sailed a few months ago and were aware the small bottles were gone just couldn’t recall what large single bottle Choices were. Again thanks!

We sailed Yacht Club last year for the first time and didn’t see Steak & Eggs (our favorite meal) on the Breakfast or Room Service Menu. We are sailing Seascape in 8 days & wonder if anyone has had any luck in ordering a small steak with breakfast? We understand we are eligible to utilize the Aurea area Restaurant as being in Yacht Club and is this true and do they serve breakfast, lunch & Dinner like the Yacht Club Dining Room? Lastly, we have an awful memory & can’t recall the liquor selections choices for the cabin? Lastly, we didn’t use our Thermal Spa Pass last trip and understand that you need to register for a specific time slot for the week. Is this true or what is the process. THANKS

See my response to your question on page 8 of this subject

Sorry don’t know any meetups on the Cruise for the 22nd. Our meetup is hosted by ur comped and the last one they did aboard MSC was last fall. It seems like they do one per quarter with MSC and the other months they are held on other cruise lines. We paid for an upgrade for the yacht club last time and were the only one from the “casino meet up’” that stayed in the yacht club. This trip they comped us and we don’t know that anyone else out of our group in yacht club so I doubt we are driving up the numbers. I suspect it’s simply the upgrade offers from MSC as the root cause for higher numbers. I can tell you though you should wish they would be a high number of casino guest in yacht club as we spend so little time using the yacht club perks given the events scheduled for us elsewhere. Last time we missed “every” event except for the Seafood Deck Lunch. We also spent almost no time at the pool, and only ate breakfast once, lunch zero, and dinner twice in the yacht club dining room. Some of that was our ignorance, some was less then helpful information from the staff, and some was the casino and it’s events. Having said that we are doing yacht club again and hopeful for an even better time. Fingers crossed!

Nope 1/15 as part of a casino meetup. So planning is important so we don’t miss the best events

Would be interested in hearing/seeing any input on YC Deck parties etc that you saw? Our only other YC cruise saw cancelations as a result of stormy weather and just wonder what we might see in 2 weeks? Thanks

We had plenty of notice to try and book another airline but “every ’ airline was sold out except American who wanted $2200 per person for tickets. Simply not able or willing to pay that price to fly. Sadly, we have reached a point in life when a 13 hour drive was simply not as wise as it would have been even 2 years ago. The easy decision was to take our licks and wait for the next cruise which luckily is mid January.

I have found all of your review most interesting and certainly appreciate your sharing. This will only be our second YC and while it was a gift from the Casino I am even more impressed by your 7 bottles or liquor. Either your one heck of a tipper, cruise YC a lot, or both. IMPRESSIVE

Southwest just sent my wife and apology e-mail for our canceled flight from Ohio to Orlando which resulted in our missing a cruise this week with our grown children. In this e-mail they advised us they would re-funding our early bird booking fee’s within 30 days and will be sending us each a $200 voucher for future use. I have responded to this e-mail that this didn’t cover the cost of our 2 cabins we had to cancel with Carnival, the penalty we incurred for canceling ground transportation, and the penalty with another airline we had booked for our return after our cruise. The $200 each is something but begs to move to a bigger question which is given our next Cruuse/trip is a Jan 13 flight into Miami via Southwest. My next step is to look at other airlines and determine if I should cancel Southwest and rebook with someone else. Sadly, like many I am my own worst enemy as I am simply too dang cheap for my own good sometimes.

We had booked 2 inside cabins using a casino offer for 3 people under free cabin plus fees. We were meeting children & grandchildren in Orlando to travel on Freedom as a group. Southwest told us early this morning that our flight was part of the 2/3 of all booked flights being canceled and we were unable to find/book seats with any other airlines as they were sold out. My wife and each canceled our reserved rooms with the expected penalty of $100 for one room plus $200 for our second room and $100 from application of a previous canceled casino fee from another flight that was canceled earlier in the year. No complaints about carnival but boy do we feel guilty about the third person (my sons mother in law) who was joining us as a third person and who is already in Orlando so our canceled flights didn’t affect her. Carnival allowed us to put her in the same inside cabin which had been a free inside casino offer cabin but her new cost was $2500 with $500 onboard credit. We get it no casino offer but a shock at the price. The lesson here folks is if you try and be nice to someone by booking an extra cabin because you both have a casino offer it may end up costing you a few hundred bucks extra if you cancel and the 3rd person could end up paying thousands. When I asked my son this morning if he was comfortable with this $2500 for an inside room for 1 person (his mother in law) he said “what can I do leave her behind”. I could only respond “ I am not sure how much you like her”. He like her enough that they are paying the $2500 for an inside room.

Our seashore cruise saw the night of the pool party hit with rain so all was canceled. We missed the reception with conflicting dinner reservations so have no feedback if YC parties sadly. Hopefully in Jan we will get the opportunity to experience them.

We had no meeting with anyone other then our butler as he went over the cabin features, safety briefing requirements, and things he could do for us. If you offered me a free cruise on the fifth day if I could pick out the HEAD Butler or the Maitre De from a line up you would have kept your money. At no time did I meet, speak, or know who the maitre de was at any point until the fifth day when we had a brief conversation out on deck when he apologized for not introducing himself sooner. I have no idea who the head Butler was on our trip but thanks to the lady who clarified the room steward as the assistant Butler . I appreciated his frank and honest apology. I WILL make it a point to track the Maitre De down at the start of our Jan cruise.

Please don’t take my remarks as an actual complaint just our recent (first time) experience in Yacht Club Seashore. We arrived at our boarding time of 1030 and had about a 45 minute wait before boarding. Pleasant and expected experience. Once aboard the service was good and our Butler was. Visible everyday. Never saw or knew if we had an assist butler and the room steward did a great job. The newspaper was not available for a few days as they were having some sort of printing issue and discovered that when I went out to the desk in the afternoon to inquire when we should expect to see the paper. We order coffee in our cabin almost daily which was fresh, hot, & timely. In actuality was the only service we successfully utilized our Butler for. We didn’t attend shows with a Butler escort & the 3 times we attempted to use the escorting off the ship for Port Stops they had too many yacht club members for the elevators which left us behind so we used the stairs. We finally joined the escorts on the debarkation floor but found that this was simply not well ran. We found the same for debarkation on the last morning and for us process was clearly disappointing. We have cruised numerous other lines with expedited processes for getting off the ship and all of them including Carnivals were much better operated. We found that the use your wrist band for expedited elevators didn’t work at all for us all week nor for any of the Butlers which probably contributed to the debarkation frustrations. At no point we’re the Butlers able to capture an empty elevator for the 20 or so folks they were attempting to take off the ship and were forced to feed in small numbers of yacht club guests with instructions of what to watch for and do once they got to deck 2. We ate most of our Breakfast and Lunches on the Yacht club pool deck and found the food here to be very good with plenty of choices. We also found especially at breakfast that the crew responsible for taking orders for eggs or to cut the mornings meat to be disengaged. They often kept there backs turned or managed to look right through you. We often would walk around the line verbally requesting acknowledgement. At lunch time we didn’t find the same experience and believe the difference was the Person in charge was possibly different at the lunch then at breakfast. We only ate one dinner meal in the yacht club dining room s we found the menu was too limited in selections for my husbands taste buds and we asked the Butler on numerous occasions for the dinner menu’s and while promised they never materialized. On the 5th day we asked who the maitre di was as we had read such good things and hadn’t observed him. We told our butler we were assuming the maitre de was in quarantine and told no he isn’t and was surprised we hadn’t had an introduction. That same day at lunch the person cooking a special sample meal on the pool deck stopped us in line and introduced himself with an apology saying that he was the maitre de and he was sorry that he had failed to introduce himself much earlier in the trip. At no time did anyone attempt to inquire or resolve my husbands concerns about the menu for dinner and we simply elected to eat elsewhere. Once home we attempted to complete a survey sent to us by MSC but sadly the survey wouldn’t work so we gave up after attempting to complete in on numerous occasions I started my comments with as complaint although admittedly they certainly read that way. We believe part of the problem belongs to us as we are not demanding folks when we cruise and the process just seemed foreign. We have booked a 2nd yacht club cruise for January and now that we have a better understanding of what to expect we are hopeful that things will improve. We recognize that in order to maximize our benefit of yacht club we will need to be more aggressive in what we like and don’t like.

We used UR Comped for match play instead of going through MSC and we were most pleased with how well it worked. We did do match for ship card level. We are now booked on our second cruise with msc using UR Comped.

here is John Herald’s response to this posting about early boarding: No I’m afraid whoever posted that is completely wrong as it has not yet returned. It is a work in progress and is soon as it has I will let you and everyone know.

While we sail Carnival a bunch and enjoy many parts of what carnival offers we find the loud over the top scenes every day in the pubic areas not of our choosing. We simply pack up and depart once they change to the chair moving beat of loud music begins and seek out a quieter location. We get it even though it’s not for us.

Bacon has not only been a shortage but the quality is always changing and many times is better. On one cruise a month ago the bacon was “THICK” slices and wonderful and last week it was nice regular home-styled slices with a wonderful flavor. In both cases it was t Lilly I would have found bacon as good in my own kitchen. Who knows what the next bacon trio will find.

Likely although even last weeks offer like every other offers (until now) have been just base fare offers as well. Was hoping Celebrity was opening it up some as we will pass on it 90 percent of the time because of the surcharges for drinks & internet. Good Job this time at least for us.

We called yesterday and after an hour and half had to give up. Called carnival last night and only had a 10 minute wait and called carnival again this morning and the wait was under 3 minutes. Called MSC last week because it’s IT is horrible but only had about a 6 minute wait to talk with an agent. So clearly celebrity us lagging behind some other cruise lines. Going to try celebrity again today and hope for the best. Oh, and yes we do indeed cruise that much that we would need to speak to 3 different cruise lines in the same week.

Was pleased that Blue Chip Club finally offered Balcony Cruise with drinks & Internet. This new offer is only open to us through 1 Aug and was for the Pacific Coastal. We have been sailing with other lines casino offers because of the huge surcharge for drink package, internet, port fee’s, & taxes. We were thrilled!