markeb

Not confirmed. Here's what's actually in the online newsletter: There’s never been a better time to book The Retreat for your next sailing. With a pair of new and exclusive offerings, guests of our top suites will enjoy further elevated services within our all-suite enclave, which features a private restaurant, unlimited specialty dining for lunch and dinner, resort-style lounge, and sundeck*, and a dedicated team of Butlers, concierges, and attendants. Ensure that you look flawless throughout your cruise with new Unlimited Complimentary Pressing of your wardrobe to accompany daily Complimentary Laundry Service for guests sailing in Royal Suites and above. Also, Guests of The Retreat staying in a Royal, Penthouse, Reflection, Iconic Suite or Edge Villa can indulge in more hours onboard with the addition of complimentary Extend Your Stay access.* The program offers you the option of remaining onboard and relaxing on disembarkation day in specific ports, allowing access to luggage storage, public areas, continued use of your Premium Drink and Wi-Fi packages, and lunch before you depart. So, treat yourself to our finest accommodations and service, and we’ll treat you to a vacation you’ll never forget. With a link to the Retreat page on Celebrity. Those pages still have the Retreat team language for Sky Suites. Note that even the newsletter uses "dedicated team of Butlers, concierges, and attendants" when largely talking about the higher level suites. The Retreat link goes to what appears to be the same language that's been there for months. Which makes some sense as they've been in the process of bringing back Butlers. There are multiple posts in this thread of Butlers returning to SS on current cruises. Give it a couple of weeks and see what happens. It would hardly be the first time that Celebrity marketing didn't match reality, or that someone on the phone gave an inaccurate answer...

Which links to a web page with no as of date. Please…

So that links to what was there a month ago, the last time I looked. Celebrity doesn't put as of dates on their web pages and I'm not seeing a date in their code. But this looks old. Did anyone see a version of the retreat that included butlers for sky suites a week ago? Or is this just last month's (last several month's actually) information. I'm not saying Celebrity couldn't do something blatantly stupid, but this link looks like old information. And the newsletter just takes you to the link for the Retreat you could get to all along.

Exactly. There are multiple posts in this thread of butlers returning. The language linked is the language that's been there for months, and is technically true today. But, as reflected in this thread changing ship by ship.

Can you post what you actually received? What you're saying directly contradicts what people are currently seeing onboard and what everyone up to the Celebrity President has publicly stated. The minifridge has NEVER been included as a matter of policy. It's frequently been restocked by butlers as a form of customer service. But that is NOT a change. Retreat Butler and team has been on the web page for months. Did it change to reflect the return of butlers and change back? Celebrity is far from perfect and doing a great job of shooting themselves in the foot, but I'm sorry, your post makes no sense. The info on the web page that you're showing is the "official" current state as they bring back butler servie. There is no there here!

That's bizarre. It's not what it says for the Retreat Lounge on Summit (or Equinox). Can't remember what other ships still have Michael's to look. I don't know that anything in the description is current!

The flyer actually says "re-price" even though it answers a bullet of adjustment... Re-price at prevailing rates? I can see those posts already: They'll re-price my cruise at cruise only without those things I don't want to pay for. It'll only cost me $1000 a person more than my current booking. Different going forward on new bookings, obviously.

That would be the business explanation, if the math works. The person cruising once per year is paying full fare, including the AI for the Retreat. In the age of internet marketing and niche marketing, the question is how much does it cost to recruit that once a year cruiser versus provide a free benefit to the repeat cruiser. And since status is for life, you're providing the same benefit to someone who now only cruises once a year, same as your new cruiser. Most folks with that status on CC still cruise a lot, obviously. As you say, softening demand would change the calculus. Glad I can analyze as an outsider, not have my job on the line doing it for them...

I guess a signature could theoretically cut down on freebies that are being recorded as lost and wastage today. Sounds like they put an accountant in as the F&B manager... I'd probably just scratch through it and hand it back. Kind of like most of your point of sale terminals that will accept anything as a signature. Seems pretty silly.

As a fellow Lifetime Titanium with Marriott (one of the rarest loyalty statuses out there, as you know!), I agree. I don't begrudge Zenith members here, but I'm a bit surprised. Someone at Celebrity did an analysis that keeping Zenith's cruising was a net positive on Customer Lifetime Value. Marriott doesn't "owe" me anything for all the money I spent with them. United doesn't "owe" me anything for all the miles I flew. The programs are designed to encourage "presently profitable" (I'm going to steal that...) customers (a good reason that airline and hotel programs are annual and lifetime status is a very high hurdle) to continue spending. I'm actually more interested that Celebrity felt they needed to do this. Jason Liberty keeps saying that demand has been increasing for RCG as prices have increased. That's in their public filings, so there has to be a basis in fact. That would suggest there's no financial reason to make this change. I don't know how many Zenith members there are. I know I've watched United Global Services members turn right through the cabin door to economy, and I did the same many times while I had 1K status. I guess their concern is that the highest tiered members of their retention program would rather cruise someone else than "fly coach with perks". Or pay the flat rate pricing. And frankly the "always included" concept was the direct opposite of the "nickel and diming" everyone complains about. And competitive (before some of the recent price increases) with luxury lines for the Retreat. Glad for the Zeniths. It's a great thing for them. Scratching my head on why it makes business sense if the ships are full. They're not doing this because it's "the right thing to do"...

It's not just the immediate port activities either. BMW and Mercedes, at a minimum, have vehicle processing facilities associated with the port. Military Sealift Command has a major vehicle processing center for overseas shipments of personal vehicles. Those are just a couple of quick examples. It's going to be messy, as you say.

The Baltimore Sun is reporting there was a pilot onboard. There are unconfirmed reports that the ship lost power; no one's going to confirm that until there's a full investigation. I'm not that familiar with the Port of Baltimore, but from the reports I've seen, cruise ships are a blip on the radar. Shipping traffic into an out of the port is suspended. No one is saying for how long. That's container ships, roll on/roll off car shipments, etc. Whoever's in the port may be stuck there, and it could be awhile before anyone else gets in. Praying for the victims and their families.

It's Newark. They posted a couple of weeks ago about going from EWR to Broadway to catch a play. Do you have to take the train to the Uber pickup point? EWR isn't my airport...

No, I didn't.

What ship what venue? It's showing $17 on Summit in the MDR.

Best live moment ever. 2016. Nats Park. Incident into Rosie live. If you know, you know…

Again, what was the last generation who didn't believe the next generation's music was awful?

That may be the greatest oversimplification of musical tastes of the two generations I'm counting on funding my social security I've ever seen! Yes. EDM at the club. Yes, with a big but, to hip hop and rap. Those are two very broad genres that encompass an awful lot of music. Most of it's not my style either, but some of it's pretty good. And a lot of Millennial and Gen Z music is new country, which has become almost the descendant of southern rock. Apple has a pretty good playlist for Gen Z, as do a number of other sources. It's all over the place. Everything from late 90s TLC to Cee Lo Green to Kelly Clarkson to Carrie Underwood to... You can't lump Millennials and Gen Z into Hip Hop and EDM. If you do you're just as bad as our parents when they couldn't accept the Beatles, the Eagles, Springsteen, Billy Joel, Quiet Riot, etc. I've seen teenagers at Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen concerts, not always with their parents, and my wife and I have been to Paramore and loved them. We were at a Patti Smith concert last fall and the age certainly tended to my late Boomer/early X generation, but there were plenty of people a generation younger than me there. Insert Dr. Rick gif here...

Someone got it!

As in most restaurants, you’ll get much better wine by the bottle than by the glass. The package pays off if you’re mostly happy with the by the glass offerings, have a beer or cocktail or two, and throw in some bottled water. Then you get the discount on a good bottle or two. And don’t pay too much attention to the pennies!

With the premium package you get a 20% discount on the bottle price. You’ll still pay a 20% gratuity but on the discounted price. Easy math is $100 bottle @ 20% discount is $80 plus $18 gratuity is $98. With gratuity you pay $2 less than the posted price, but $22 less than the bottle would cost without the package discount. ($100 + 20 = $120)

Hasn't that always been true? I've never seen Luminae open for lunch on a port day (other than embarkation day).

I guess it's too simple to just point out that RCG has invested heavily in Florida with cruise terminals in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Port Canaveral, and Tampa. Every cruise that leaves one of those locations increases the return on those investments. And those cruises are mostly leaving full. Including plenty of cruisers willing to fly from the West Coast. Seattle and especially Vancouver give them advantages that wouldn't exist in Southern California. They can reach Alaska easily from either location, and Vancouver as a non-US location allows them to do one way cruises to Alaska or Hawaii. Europe and even Australia have become big "other markets" for RCG. If the OP has an actual business case for San Diego I'd love to hear it. Although having multiple user names on the same platform usually gets one banished. I'd have to look at the user agreement on CC...

Well that greatly simplifies the definition of modern popular music! Keep having fun out here! 😁

Agree. Although I'm stuck with Disney+ since they're now the "other than UK" distributor of Doctor Who. How does a ...