terrydtx

Haven't seen this yet on HAL we have 2 future cruises booked with them.

I can agree on this and I haven't made any decisions on what excursions to use for our 2025 Oceania South America cruise on Oceania. We also have a $1000 shore excursion credit to use on that cruise. For our cruises coming up I have no problems or fears with private tours in Europe, California, Australia, New Zealand and NE/Canada.

But now we get our full deposit back for the Equinox booking. We originally booked the Equinox on onboard another Equinox cruise and never canceled hoping to transfer the deposit to another Celebrity cruise. After we got the better deal on Oceania we booked it too knowing we would get 100% of our deposit back if we canceled. I was prepared to lose the $200 non-refundable deposit on the Equinox booking. So Celebrity did me a favor by canceling.

I would be happy with one free cookie with my free CC gelato. I have not once paid for the gelato above the one free one I always get.

And I only use very reputable 3rd party tour companies that also have guarantees to get us back to the ship on time. Several of them are highly recommended on CC and one Spain Day Tours has a forum on CC. We have been mostly doing private tours since Covid and not once did we even come close to missing the ship. Until I wised up, I too avoided the non-ship tours for the same fears you site but I no longer have any worries. Some of the private tours we have on our upcoming cruises I was the organizer through our Roll Calls. We have 7 of the 8 ports on our Amsterdam to Athens cruise next month booked with private tours all organized and filled with fellow people on our roll call. We not only booked very interesting tours but saved hundreds of dollars by not booking with the cruise line.

I am convinced the whole RCL Group is looking for new ways to nickel and dime their way to bigger profits.

Celebrity has no plans to continue doing South America cruises as they are not as profitable as 7 day Caribbean ones. Celebrity did us a favor by cancelling the 2025 Santiago to Buenos Aires 14 night cruise. We are now booked on Oceania for 18 nights for less than our SS on the Equinox.

No such thing as a quiet drink in the martini or Sunset bar just before dinner.

I was reading a post on a cruise media site that talked about how RCL was going to start charging for the Pizza on their ships. Before they did this, they sent out questionnaires to get an idea of how their loyalty members felt about this. The responses were 10 to 1 against charging for pizza and RCL backed down and decided not to change.

Thank you for your very insightful response. When you mention how people in the retreat pay a premium, in most cases, a Sky Suite will cost more than double the cost of a standard Verandah cabin.

I have never seen that bar menu on any of our past SS cruises, and we have always received unlimited Evian bottled water without even asking and at no charge. If this is the case now, we will still have our min bar emptied and bring back bottled water and beer from the Retreat Lounge. My DW and I normally drink 2-3 bottles of Evain a day and no way I will pay for them now.

Our butler on the Equinox in June was Katarina from Ukraine. Before any of us knew about the butler changes, she expressed in a conversation one afternoon that her current contract was up the end of August and so far, she had not been offered a new contract. I asked her what happens if they do not renew her contract, she said she would have to go back to Ukraine, and that really frightened her. I sure hope she got her contract renewed.

I need to add to this. On that cruise our butler later told me that the standard room service people had been substituting skim milk for lactose free milk on room service orders. If our butler had not been so diligent or if we were under the current new butler system our granddaughter would have unknowingly been served lactose loaded skim milk which could have put her in the hospital or ship's medical center. Now that butlers no longer deliver the room service breakfast this could have been a reality for us.

On our Equinox cruise 2 months ago, our butler also supplied us with flavored vitamin water for our 12 year old granddaughter who was in the suite with us. She does not like any soda other than Dr Pepper which was not available on the ship, so our butler, unasked, supplied the Vitamin water. Also on the cruise our GD who is also extremely lactose intolerant ordered lactose free milk our first morning with her cereal on room service. Our butler called us before the delivery that he could not find any lactose free milk anywhere on the ship. Turned out later it was not loaded on the ship in FLL. He then called back to say he found coconut milk at one of the bars and brought that every morning thereafter for her. We had problems finding deserts that our GD could eat without milk, cream or butter. Our butler got with the Luminae chef and came up with a chocolate mousse made with coconut milk and had it delivered to our cabin for the GD every afternoon. Now, will I get this kind of service from a butler team? I really doubt this.

On a 7 day Celebrity cruise if all 2500 passengers buy 1 cookie, that would now equate to $5000 in increased revenue. Over 52 weeks that would be $260,000 in new revenue plus another $52,000 in crew gratuities, so the little things do add up.

Chemo, you and I have had this discussion on several threads and on all of our past 4 Sky Suites cruises we had the service from all of our butlers that I have described. Many others on CC and other social media sites have also posted they received the same service we described. I had every butler since Covid tell me that our Premium drinks package included the wine, beer and bottled water in our mini fridge along with bringing drinks from the bars to our cabin. When I am told this by a representative of Celebrity, the butler, it has to be part of the Celebrity policy. If we get anything less next month, it will be deemed to be a reduction in services by our new butler team. From what has been posted so far this is the case on current cruises.

Have you looked at 3rd party private shore excursions? We are at the point that we no longer book cruise line excursions unless we have an excursion credit or extra OBC. We are so tired of being ripped off for big bus crowded excursions that we have no control over itineraries. We will be in Lisbon next month and we booked a private tour for just the 4 of us in our group for $75pp less than the same excursion on a bus the cruise line offered.

We booked our 3 upcoming cruises in early 2022. The same thinking was used in January when Celebrity went from free room service for all cabin categories to charging for RM for all but the suite guests. No compensation or grandfathering for those who booked when the RS was free and included in their cruise fare. On our last cruise on the Reflection last year our SS butler had 15 suites and he was the only butler we saw for our cabin. Now with the reduction and changes they have about one butler for every 30-40 Sky Suites, this to me is a reduction in service

Celebrity's new motto "Luxury at an extra cost"

I brought that point up in my phone conversation with Celebrity and their response was, in their view the service was not taken away and no compensation will be offered. I told the person, I did not believe them and that after my 3 upcoming Retreat cruises I was done with Celebrity. Her response was that was my choice, they do not care if they lose any current customers as they know we can all be replaced.

Another cutback?

It all started in January when Celebrity changed room service to a cost on all except the Suites and the reduction of evening OVC entrees, now the chipping away continues, one warm chocolate chip cookie at a time.

Oh I will be very vocal on CC and the other social media site if we do not get the same level of service as in the past. I believe your cruise was the last one on the Apex before the changes went into effect on this past Monday. I have seen posts this week on another social media site, that on the E class ships that already made the change, the 130 Sky Suites on them are now being served by only 5 total butlers, not much of a team, IMO.

After cruising extensively for 20 years I can get a better lobster at Red Lobster than any I've ever had on any cruise. I tried the lobster once in Murano and as I said in this thread it was uneatable and it sent I back to get the Dover Sole. Move on Murano serves more than just lobster.

This is now a worse situation than the SS butler changes, this affects almost everyone on the ship. I think all cookie lovers should now jump ship, then maybe prices for cabins will drop. 🤣