terrydtx

I imagine, if I went to Denny's and ordered the prime rib or roast beef, it would look like your picture.

That looks worse than what we get at the Texas Roadhouse restaurant for $24 per plate. Is that shriveled up looking lump in the back a Potatoe?

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No they are now being run by a bean counter and the bottom line is all that matters now.

The E Class ships are what is setting Celebrity apart from the competition especially with the Retreat. After our Equinox cruise in June, we do not want to cruise in anything other than E Class because of the Retreat product, but X is doing their best to price us out of that product.

Thanks for all the information. We are going to sit down and seriously look at their 2024 Australian cruises. I already figured we would want the Rockstar Suites as they look close to the SS on Celebrity. In other areas like the Med, they do not do longer cruises and that's what we do now. We have a B2B on the Edge in Australia for 22 total nights and then we will do a 10-day land tour on our own. The Equinox cruise in June is with our 12 year old granddaughter in a SS and then we are done with any more cruises in the Caribbean. Just gotten too old for beaches and sun, we now cruise for places to go in the world where we have never been.

The title of this thread, Spain Day Tours, that is the vendor. www.SpainDayTours.com

When we lived in Birmingham Alabama, we had a sandwich shop that made all his Philly cheese steak from a standing rib roast, and it was delicious.

On the Reflection we had the Ginger crab cakes appetizer and I swear the crab came out of a can. I have bought canned crab in the stores and I know that was the same kind of crab in the cakes.

Funny, I tried to order the escargot once without the snails just to get the garlic butter and our waiter told me they couldn't do that.

I had them one night on the Reflection last year and you are right they were so small and hard to find in all the garlic butter. Dipping my bread in the garlic butter was the highlight of the dish.

Yes on Armadillos, mostly as road kill. A neighborhood about a mile west of us has had several reported sightings of a mountain lion in the last couple of years. House cats are a favorite meal for the coyotes and foxes. The last time I spotted our neighborhood fox on our street, it had a small cat in its mouth. The deer here are like pets, too many people feed them from their yards.

You could say the same for calamari, call if fried squid and it probably wouldn't be as popular. Years ago, when we lived in west Texas locals loved BBQ Cabrito, but few knew in reality cabrito is Spanish for baby goat.

We live in the hills above San Antonio and we do have coyotes running in our streets along with an occasional fox and bobcat. Not to mention rattle snakes in our yards but never seen an iguana.

Going further, I am comparing the above to Oceania. We booked two weeks ago, an 18 night Oceania cruise of South American for March 2025. We took the wine and beer by the glass at meals beverage package for $400 total pp over the base cruise price and then upgraded to the complete beverage package for beer, wine and spirts in any bar or restaurant at any time for $20pp more per day. So, for the 18 nights the total beverage package cost us $400 + $360= $760 (includes gratuity) total pp or $42pp per day. Also the Oceania beers and wine by the glass is far superior to what Celebrity offers in the PDP by the glass.

Looking at it differently, we have the PDP included in our Sky Suite Apex 12-day cruise in September, we are now getting an added benefit worth $2850.72 at the discounted price or $3139 at the full price.

Then if prebought for a 7-day cruise the total price is $118.78pp per day or $832.51pp for 7 days including tips. For two of you in a cabin that adds $1663 which is more than some cabin classes. WOW!!

Thank you for your report, this turns this thread into a reality rather than mere speculation. On another popular social media site many recent passengers are reporting the same as above. One person called it the NCLization of Celebrity. LOL

This thread has prompted me to look at Virgin again, they have some longer cruises in Australia for next year 12-14 days and they are very competitive to our Celebrity Sky Suite pricing. I had to look twice and then see that Virgin prices their cabins at total coat per suite, not per person. If it is true, they match loyalty status, we are Elite on Celebrity, they are even more competitive. I wonder if at 73 we maybe too old for Virgin, they make it sound more like party ships in their marketing

For us it has never been an issue getting a reservation, our butlers have been able to get earlier ones when asked. Also, our last two cruises were in half full ships. In 2021 on the Equinox our butler got us a 6:30 reservation in Tuscan Grill for our Anniversary and it was mostly empty, maybe 15 people were having dinner at that time. Same thing on the Reflection last year in the Lawn Club Grill it was maybe 30% full when we dinned there, the steaks BTW were very good but not worth the cover charge.

I may be wrong but doesn't the $109 include the 20% gratuity?

On our Reflection cruise last year, the beef steaks served in Luminae were the worst of any cruise we have been on, in quality, taste and tenderness. The running joke in Luminae was we were being served old milk cows. I had better beef in the Old Sizzlers steak houses. I brought up the poor beef issue with the Luminae manager and he explained that Celebrity was using a new beef supplier and that we were not the first to complain. BTW that new beef supplier was only for the MDR, Blu and Luminae, the specialty restaurants all used a different supplier according the Luminae manager. After 2 terrible steak encounters, we decided to stay with the other non-beef entrees and overall, the food was excellent including the fish. No Tilapia was served in Luminae or the OVC that I saw on that cruise. What is driving us to look elsewhere for our cruising dollar is the future pricing on Sky Suites that are up in some cases more than 30%.

Can we please not turn this long and informative thread on HAL into another 20+ page discussion on Chair Hogs? There are plenty of those threads in CC already along with dress codes in the dining rooms.😁

I wonder what they would charge for a regular Bombay Saphire large martini. It should be less than the new $17 PDP cap. I believe previously in the martini bar they were $13 or $14 for the large ones.

Watch out for the Iguanas falling out of trees.