terrydtx

Not having any recent experience with anytime dining on Celebrity to relate, but I can say on the HAL Oosterdam last year we showed up for anytime dining between 6:30 and 7:00 and never had to wait any night on a 14 night cruise to be seated. Their Lido Buffett was packed at night as on HAL you can get most of what is being served in the MDR in the buffet. I often go to the buffet to see the MDR entrees and decide what to order in the that night. We were a party of 4 and this cruise followed our cruise on the Reflection in the retreat. For my sister and BIL this was their first Celebrity cruise and overall they said the Oosterdam MDR had better food than the Luminae, but service wise Luminae blew away the HAL MDR.

The changes being discussed here and shown in the video that started this thread became effective on cruises that begin on or after Jan 1st this year.

I have seen posts on FB that the tweaks have already happened in both Blu and Luminae. There is a FB group of Retreat guests and they are highlighting the cuts in Luminae.

I believe it had to do with one or more of the 4 MDRs being underutilized while the others would be over utilized. This is Celebrity's attempt to even out the use and capacity across all MDRs. I guess with a set table and seating time in one MDR passengers thought they could not visit the others. We have not been in a Celebrity MDR for diner since 2018 as we have been booking suites for access to Luminae. But I can see the confusion with reservations being wanted and not shown available in the app.

I think the confusion is that you can now make reservations for the anytime dinning. But you can still show up when you want and get seated if no reservations are shown available. I read here that the E-Class ships have done away with traditional early and late seating due to them having 4 MDR's. It is all anytime dinning on them.

The Golden Corall near me has a better looking buffet than what I saw in the video. Here is what's for dinner at Golden Corall" Hot Dinner Favorites Golden Delicious Shrimp Carving Station Carved Bone-in Turkey Signature Sirloin Steak Bourbon Street Chicken Awesome Pot Roast Meatloaf Fried Chicken Fried Fish Baked Fish Manager's Choice: Featured Pork Entree Pot Pie or Chicken & Noodle Dumplings Pizzas

You can go into the Celebrity app on your phone and see prices for drink at each bar for your cruise. Most drink prices have gone up this year with big increases effective Jan 1. I have seen a lot of drinks above the $10 limit in my app. The premium drinks package is good for up to $17 now as well.

We looked at Virgin, but so far I have not found an itinerary we would be interested in. We are done with Caribbean cruises after this summer and we prefer cruises in more exotic places. We also want longer cruise of at least 10 nights or B2B ones with 2 totally different itineraries.

On that platform we can't name, of which I am a member there are over 40,000 members and many many upset Celebrity customers expressing similar concerns as here. There is also a Retreat only group and they are not happy with the Luminae menu changes like beef tenderloin being changed to broiled sirloin and no lobster surf and turf, it is now scallops and pork belly. Blu is also getting a lot of attention over the decline in menu offerings and quality.

I do not know if you follow Celebrity Captains Club on the media platform that can't be mentioned here, but there have been many posts and many irate customers posting there, so this goes beyond just CC. That platform has over 40,000 members too.

I think the bean counters at Celebrity were hoping to make these changes under the radar. If not for CC they would have succeeded.

I do have to say after years of dealing with HAL corporate they are no better than Celebrity with information. Last year we cruised on the Oosterdam in August that when booked, was supposed to have departed from Venice. I knew early last year we would not be going from Venice because of the big cruise ship ban. My TA repeatedly asked HAL about this and the same answer every time we were going to depart from Venice. After I heard on CC that all of last year's summer Oosterdam cruises had been moved to Trieste, my TA again asked HAL Corporate about the change. They denied it until about a month before departure when we got the email from HAL that our cruise was being switched.

We have since 2019 only booked Sky Suites on Celebrity and felt the price we were paying was justified by all the Retreat perks and benefits which made a SS a really good deal. We are seeing the future pricing for SS's to be outrageous compared to what we are already booked or paid in the past. Our Jan 2024 Edge New Zealand cruise is 40% more than what we booked in February 2021. We for now, are not booking any more Celebrity cruises past January 2024 and looking at alternatives like Oceania, which we already booked for a March 2025 for South America. We are also looking at a summer 2024 Oceania cruise from Boston to Montreal which we will book very soon.

Looks like there are no longer any cooked to order stations in the OVC and I sure hope the fried fish fingers are not Tilapia!!! A carving station of roasted Turkey? The last thing I want on my cruise is turkey or liver and onions.

Since you are new to Celebrity you will soon find out what most of seasoned Celebrity CC members already know. Very seldom does the information given to TA's and passengers by corporate match what really is going on when you board. The people at corporate only know what they are being told to say by the higher ups to all inquiries. The only theme night in the video posted in this thread is that "you will get less for more" and you will like it. We very seldom have dinner in the OVC as we much prefer the MDR options.

Not on Holland, last year on the Oosterdam by the time we drank 6 small 12 oz bottles of water, 3-4 specialty coffees, wines by the glass and other drinks we exceeded the 15 limit a couple of times. It was so hot last August and we were drinking a lot of bottled water (in cans) each day.

Do you think Celebrity is not aware of the Carnival limits? They know and I would bet money that it is the next shoe that will drop.

I was happy to see the video posted so that the Celebrity cheerleaders and naysayers could see the changes, they have been denying on other threads, posted by someone who was actually on a cruise before and after the changes. Not really surprised as this is what was expected when Celebrity let a bean counter run the company. Add in the huge increases in cabin costs and it gets even worse. Our Sky Suite that we booked last February on the Edge for the January 2024 NZ cruise has gone up 40% since we booked. If we were booking today, we would be looking at Oceania or Viking Ocean and not Celebrity. We did book two weeks ago an 18-day South America cruise for March 2025 on Oceania. We had planned on booking the Equinox for 14 nights, but we can do 18 nights with Oceania for the price of 14 nights on Equinox with 4 more port stops. I am one of the ones on CC who sent an email to Celebrity Corporate about our dissatisfaction with the changes in service and huge price increases, and how they were driving us Elite loyalty members to look elsewhere. So far all I have heard back is crickets.

Higher package pricing, higher drink costs, smaller glasses, I wonder how long before Celebrity does like HAL and impose a limit on the number of drinks per day that are included in the drinks packages? HAL has a 15 drinks per day limit and that includes all drinks like water, soda and specialty coffees. The other thing HAL does if you have the standard drink package that comes with their Always included perks, you cannot upgrade to the premium package. I ran into this on the Oosterdam cruise we were in last August, in the past you could go to any bar onboard and get upgraded. I was told by more than one bartender that HAL changed their policy on this last summer. I even had a long and terse conversation with the beverage manager about this. At that time any drinks over the $11 limit would cost you the full price, in September HAL changed that to you only pay the difference plus 18% tips.

My TA can book our air, but I prefer to do it myself, so I have control over the flights. I do use my TA for access to her consolidator contacts for Business Class airfare. I also do book flights with Flights by Celebrity, myself, since I can cancel up to final payment, if I find better deals on my own or if my TA's consolidators find better deals.

The Connie has been for sale for years and if a buyer comes up with the asking price she will be sold, but considering the current financial situation of the cruising industry it will not happen soon. I believe the Infinity has also been for sale for years but so far so buyers just like the Connie.

This is the same menu in my app for our June cruise. The $15 is for a small martini and the $18 is for a large one which would not be included in the PDP. Very disappointing! The Classic martini with Bombay Saphire gin and vermouth is priced the same so I will have to drink 2 of them at a time since only the small one is included in the PDP.

We cruised last year on the Oosterdam and cruised from Trieste Italy. We had a boarding time of 1pm but showed up at 11am and boarded with no problems. It all depends on the departure port.

Krooznut covered your questions pretty well. A couple of other things to keep in mind. If you have any HAL issued OBC you cannot like other cruise lines use it to book shore excursions, spa services or specialty restaurants until you board. If you like Asian cuisine, make sure you try Tamarind on the Eurodam at least once, it is our favorite specialty restaurant on any cruise line.

I hear what you are saying. In February of last year, we booked our 12-day New Zealand cruise in a Sky Suite on the Edge for Jan 2024. Today the same Sky Suite on that cruise is $2000pp more than we booked and is a 40% increase. If we were booking this cruise today, it would not be on Celebrity.