yorkyred

We apologize for the prior post as it was outdated inventory. Please see the current products available for sale in Celebrity iLounge.

• MacBook
  
• MacBook Air
  
• MacBook Pro
  
• iPad Mini
  
• iPad Air
  
• Apple Accessories
  
• Belkin iPad Cases
  
• Belkin Cables
  
• Beats by Dr. Dre Speakers
  
• Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones
  
• JBL Speakers
  
• JBL Headphones
  

Does that include iPad Air 2 models ?

The big deals are for Brits and I'm guessing other Europeans where there are big discounts to be had. If I were American I would not bother given what's available on most people's doorstep.

Yorkshire puddings are usually only available on those cruises departing from the UK. Unsure if the OP will be on one of those or not, but he won't get a Yorky on a Caribbean itinerary ;).

It's the 13 night Carribbean going out of Miami on the 16th of November, I love Yorkshire pudding by the way, we used to have it as a dessert sometimes as a kid covered in Golden Syrup.

Ok we are shortly to sail on the Eclipse. In preparation I've been watching YouTube vids and next to the other cruise lines the food portions in the MDR look tiny. Now I'm a big eater and I think I could finish those main courses in three mouthfuls. Are they honestly that small in the flesh because I can see me heading off to the buffet afterwards to fill up.

How long are families actually on holiday for ? We are on the 13 night Eclipse cruise out of Miami on the 16th November

We have an included classic drinks package and will upgrade to the premium. For me the classic makes little sense regardless if you want choice. I'm not spending thousands on a cruise to have a choice of three wines and two beers along with big restrictions on top cocktails. That's just not a holiday for us.

I always add an extra $1 or $2 per drink. On the first day of my cruise I find my favorite bartender and throw him $50 and he will make sure you never have to wait in line for a drink. I give my room steward $50 on the first day as a bonus and I give the servers at the specialty restaurants an extra $10 per person.

 

These people work hard and 7 days per week sometimes for 6 months or longer with long hours. They work much harder than I do so I make sure I let them know I appreciate them being there for me.

Please let's not do the whole skipping the line thing yet again ? The op just wants to know what the acceptable level of tipping is for many.

Hi Mariah. We won't be joining you on the constellation after all sadly. Eric had a mild heart attack on the silhouette and we are still in Rhodes and he is in the cardiac intensive care unit. I think he'll be fine but I don't see any more cruises in our immediate future! So have a drink at the Sunset bar for us!

My thoughts are with both of you. A speedy recovery and hopefully you will soon be home.

I didn't realise it was an Elite benefit. When we were on Infinity TA in 2013, a future cruise consultant told us that there were efforts to make UK terms & conditions in line with US ones. I assumed that this had happened.

What I was told by the agent when I asked about penalties if we cancelled, was that we wouldn't have to pay £35 for change of our booking, as we were Elite.

It must have only just come in then because only a few months ago we had to cancel and lose our deposit.

Nothing extra, 18% is already a good tip.

Could this be because the OP is from the U.K. not the U.S.? There are different laws regarding vacation protections in the different countries.

Wondering the same, the US get many benefits we don't such as cancellation without losing deposits among many other things and maybe this is one of these examples of better protection in the UK that's often mentioned ?

Approximately 12 months ago we booked the above cruise, really looking forward to 2 days exploring Istanbul followed by 3 days exploring Nazareth, Bethlehem and Jerusalem! About 2 months ago the Istanbul section was cancelled with an overnight stay and a direct transfer to the ship together with an extra day at sea replacing it. We were disappointed but we still had the Israel trips to look forward to. About 2 weeks ago the situation in Israel began to degenerate and we were concerned that things may change again. Nothing was heard however, so we assumed everything would be okay, then with less than 18 hours to go before we were due to board our flight we received an e-mail from our travel agent telling us of a change of itinerary. The Israel section of the cruise had been replaced by visits to Rhodes, Santorini, Crete and overnight in Athens and the replacement of 2 days at sea all of which made us less than enthusiastic! We were offered a complete refund of cruise and excursion fees but other expenses such as foreign visa's, etc were not covered. We chose to cancel finding the new itinerary unacceptable and were grateful to our agents for being 'on the ball' as we received no notification from Celebrity until less than 12 hours to go before our flight! Although our cruise fare has been refunded, there are still outstanding expenses and of course the massive disappointment of not going on a cruise we had been looking forward to with great anticipation and I wonder whether there are ground for compensation from Celebrity?

Above the full refund no, The general opinion on here is that Celebrity are pretty poor regarding communication but the change of ports were put in place because of things out of their control. Yes they have given short notice but how would you look to claim the compensation ? I don't Celebrity would offer anything so would you go down the line of spending your own money to file a claim ?

Because this is Cruise Critic! Therefore, it's only natural for a post about losing wedding rings/having rings stolen to turn into a debate about the proper ring wearing habits for all married people worldwide.:rolleyes:

There does often appear to be a pattern in these things. A simple question ends turning into some form of blame game.

I don't find that hard to believe at all. I take my wedding ring off very infrequently sometimes not for many months at a time. It is a basic gold band and not very wide. Doesn't interfere with hand washing or sanitation at all

 

 

You're very naive. In my many years in business management I've seen cases where managers, even VP's, with good salaries and positions and years of tenure throw away their careers to steal amounts of money or merchandise that were inconsequential in relation to the impact on their career and lives.

 

There is no reason to believe that cabin stewards as a class of workers are any less honest than those in any other profession. But the fact is that people who commit crimes don't consider the the consequences of their actions the same way that us honest people do so it is illogical to presume that they'd think through things the same way you or I would.

I'm afraid I agree with this 100%. While not making any judgement on how the rings went missing my wife has worked in banking for many years and there have been a good few examples of long standing staff been sacked for theft both from the bank, and fellow employees. There appeared to be no thought of the consequences of their actions to both them and at times their families. I would find it amazing if Celebrity had never had any form of incident involving one of their staff over the years the same way any other international company would.

Not sure why so many posters are questioning why the rings were removed, I've removed mine many times when having a shower and forgot to put it back on. The op was simply asking if there was anything they could do now it's happened. I'm not sure they need a lecture on ring removal.

In short, nothing they can do I'm afraid.

They were charging people to get into the art auction, and go to the $10 t-shirt and watch sale, and the Capt Club wine tasting? :confused:

They were charging for an Art auction, most cruise lines try and bribe you with a drink just to get people in.

I am generally a Celebrity cheerleader. However, we were on the Eclipse ending Sept 15 and were advised that due to the aforementioned changeover of entertainment the three subsequent cruises were to be significantly affected in this area. That's all well and good to tell us but we were wondering whether upcoming pax were warned. Obviously not.

And that's the rub, yes changes needed to be made but communication for those already booked who are not at final payment or those thinking of booking ? Let's be honest the big productions are pushed in all the promotions, on the website, in the brochures. At least give people the option before they book or pay that final big amount of money. To me its no different than closing all the speciality restaurants or all the pools for a cruise, I want to know what I'm getting if it's known that far in advance.

Just to add having taken a look. Eight of the last eleven reviews on here only get three stars, that's unusual.

Where on the Internet do we find these reviews? The ones here on CC do not bear this out.

Member Reviews

87% Loved It

972 Reviews

 

This is from the Review section here on CC.

The reviews on another site are mixed and I think this may have been one of those cruises where they lost all the big productions due to the changeover to the new shows, this from one review.

"

Firstly, the entertainment was poor both during the day and in the evening. Daytime they had quizzes, with watercolours and golf on sea days and one or two games occasionally. Nearly all the daily programme was taken up with selling seminars and the like. There was no bridge class, no church service, no choir, and no cooking classes. And with 3,000 passengers and six sea days.

The evening - well – Celebrity decided not to give us any major productions/ shows (we got one) and they did not tell us at the time of booking nor before we got on the ship. Instead they got in second rate people. They knew we were not getting any lavish productions but wouldn’t get in 1st class acts to compensate. Because rehearsals were going on in the theatre, this meant that lectures and other events were restricted to smaller rooms and they obviously cancelled some lectures. There were few proper destination lectures. "

In my view and given the big production shows are an important part of a cruise for many I do think Celebrity should have informed people in advance, it's not as if this was not planned a good year in advance.

Why is Constellation still scheduled to sail to Israel next week (Oct 23 sailing)?

 

If it's dangerous now why are they not telling booked passengers that there may be a problem?

It's very poor considering it's just about certain to be off limits, to sell cabins for that cruise, with the same itinerary at this point is out of order in my view.

I just find Celebrity cruises out of Southampton very expensive. I guess they are just hugely popular given there are no flights involved and I know the Eclipse is a massive hit with Brit cruisers. Even looking at their cruise on the 15th September 2016, £4800 for the same cabin cat we paid £2770 for this November in the Caribbean, same sort of length just a day different, and the same ship and that cruise to the canaries has tons of cabins left. Celebrity getting every penny out of folks with some of this pricing.

I agree with you completely. When I first started reading this post, I was thinking "Really?" :confused:

Then, right before I read your post, I was just questioning my husband about how upset we might be after booking the most expensive cruise we've booked and they canceled the only port we were really interested in going to? Well, we booked that Mardi Gras cruise where the Equinox will be docked in New Orleans for 3 days. We are saving up for it right now as it is really something we want to do and as mentioned, it is pricey ....especially for an inside cabin.

We've been in a mini-suite for a longer cruise for less than this is costing us. Now, let's just imagine that the New Orleans portion was cancelled and we were only given a day or two notice? We'd be really disappointed after looking so forward to it. We will definitely buy insurance so it won't devastate us but we'd be more than a bit crushed after looking forward to this for so long....so I do have compassion for the people that are missing out on their dream trip.

 

With this being said, I still think Celebrity has made the right decision. It may seem like very short notice, and it is, but they were probably scrambling like crazy to both find new ports of call as well as making that final decision as to whether or not they were going to make thousands of passengers irate over unknown circumstances. When the violence escalated, I am sure they felt as though they had no other choice.

 

PS - I am not sure I would entrust my safety with the word of a tour guide over the state dept's warning

Of course all of this is correct, there are however certain cruises that are far more at risk of alterations than others and this was always one most likely to see port changes. This was from July last year.

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/news/news.cfm?ID=5923

I am sorry to all those onboard for this cruise, I know that it must be very disappointing. I know people who booked this cruise just for the ports that were cancelled, when they told me that they booked this cruise back in April I told them to be prepared for those stops to be cancelled. Other cruise lines cancelled these stops months ago. Celebrity had a hard time selling this cruise into June, at one time there were more than 300 cabins available and I told my friends that they would only cancel at the last minute because they wanted to sell more cabins before they made any adjustments to the ports of call. Celebrity, as a business, had to make this call. They do not make it based on what they believe can happen, but on the premise that if something does happen it will be devastating to the families with loved ones on the ship and yes, how it will hurt the cruise lines bottom line if something would happen. When you are booking a cruise always remember that the cruise line is not your friend they are a business that has to consider many things, passenger safety is one of those things along with the intangible things for them such as lawsuits and loss of reputation if something were to happen.

 

I also believe that if you wanted to visit the Holy Land you should take a few days before a cruise and do it on your own, that way you have the final say to go or not to go at a time of unrest. I know that it is not always financially possible to do both, but if the Holy Land is your only or main reason for going on this cruise then you should either do it that way or just take a week on a land or independent tour.

 

I have read throughout this thread that people onboard don't need a lecture, that is true, but they also have to admit that this change should not have been a surprise because of what has been happening there over the last month. I just hope that all those onboard have a great time and create some great memories.

Could not have put it better myself, anyone could have seen this coming. Celebrity goes, a few passengers end up killed, and all hell breaks loose. Celebrity are covering themselves from every angle here and I think most on here are experienced and worldly wise enough to know that's what big companies do every day of the week.

The situation in Isreal has escalated over the last few days which is not the fault of Celebrity, the title of the thread is ridiculous. Sorry but I honestly don't understand the logic of some people who think any cruise company with any level of responsibility for its customers would have done anything different. You can't just find wonderful ports of call at the last minute. I'm hoping to book the same cruise next year but I'm well aware it could end up being changed.