terrydtx

In June I ordered the "warm water" lobster in Murano on the Equinox, I took one bite and it tasted awful and was so tough and stringy. I sent it back and ordered the Dover Sole which was delicious. Maybe it is being removed from the menu, finally.

On the Equinox in June with the new Starlink system we found making both voice (Wi-Fi calling) and video calls only worked with the premium Wi-Fi and it was so much better than the old systems. We also were able to receive incoming calls too.

On the Reflection and Equinox we had a large round table on the balcony that the butlers would set up for our breakfasts.

We did not book a suite with a butler on the Oceania cruise, but its not like booking a Sky Suite with a butler that is not the same as we booked. We can live without a butler when we book a cabin that doesn't have one to begin with. If a SS had never had a butler not having one now would be no big deal, but we booked and paid for cruises with an advertised dedicated butler. We will be on the Apex in 3 weeks and will find out for ourselves what this new Team will do and will not do compared to our past butler experiences. For example, when our butlers have brought our room service breakfasts to our cabin, they would set up our table with a tablecloth and even pour our first cup of coffee. From some current posts I have read the butlers no longer bring your breakfast to the cabin, regular room service personnel bring the breakfast on a tray and just leave it in the room with no set ups as in the past. It is the little things like this that set the Retreat apart from the service in the rest of the ship that we have paid to have.

I paid and booked my SS cruises on the basis that my dedicated butler would deliver my espresso every morning from Cafe al Bacio and it looks like that is not the case. I am owed restitution by Celebrity.

The lobster is a warm water lobster tail and not worth the cost to dine in Murano. I ordered it on the Equinox in June, took one bite and sent it back to get the Sole which was delicious. The lobster had a terrible taste and was tough and stringy.

We have done 9:30 flights from FLL with no problems. The airport is 10-15 minutes from the port.

That is good to know, we have Eden booked next month, I was hoping the lobster wasn't the same warm water ones they serve in Murano.

We board the Apex on the 14th so we are following your trip. We fly to AMS 3 days early.

We are booked on this tour in January from Brisbane but I have no more information other than what is on the Celebrity website. We looked at doing a private tour but could not find one that would pick us up at the ship. Most said we would need to take a 45 minute taxi ride to the starting point, something we didn't want to do.

Don't forget the free scoop of Gelato?😂

We looked at Regent and they were out of our price range too. But I am finding we can book on Oceania for about the same or less for a similar Celebrity itinerary in a SS.

Ours too for the same reasons.

I remember something about their newest ship launching this year has an area similar to the retreat.

Worst case is when you board you can change the reservation with the Eden manager,

We took a look at Princess suites but we just do not want to cruise on a ship with 4000+ passengers. They do have services close to the Retreat. Here is a link to them. Full suite (princess.com)

Have you tried canceling the original reservation and rebooking for just the two of you?

After Celebrity pulled out of the West Coast we book HAL in November for the California Coastal RT from San Diego on the newer Koingsdam. With all the cruise cancelations this month and redeployment of those ships to Florida ports it is evident where Celebrity is putting their emphasis for the future.

Did you book direct with Celebrity or a TA? I would contact either one and ask them to handle this for you. If your cousin cancels their cruise all of their connected other purchases should be canceled as well.

We had one fantastic butler on a previous cruise, and we have stayed in contact with him. I got an email over the weekend from him, he is now servicing only the higher suites and happy he kept his job. He did say that the passengers in sky suites currently on his ship are not happy and expressing many complaints with the Retreat Manager about the less service they are receiving from the Butler Team. I do not want to say which ship he is on so that he doesn't get into any trouble with Celebrity.

We only book Sky Suites with Celebrity, but with the high future pricing and loss of prior SS amenities we are looking more at Oceania as an alternative. We had looked earlier this year at booking the Equinox for a 2025 Santiago to Buenos Aires 14 day cruise. After doing comparisons we found an 18 day Oceanis cruise and booked a concierge class cabin on the Marina for $200pp less than the 14 night Equinox cruise in a SS. We really made a wise choice after the cancelation of all SA 2024-2025 Celebrity cruises earlier this month. After our Apex cruise next month and B2B January Edge cruise, I really believe we are done with Celebrity, and we will be Elite+ after the January cruises. We now are booking cruises for the itinerary not the loyalty status. We have 2 future cruises also booked on HAL both for the itinerary,

The app finally showed all 12 nights menu on our Apex Cruise next month around Aug 1st.

Isn't a Crow just one evolutionary step below a Vulture?

Celebrity is increasing their Florida Carribean cruise footprints by repositioning more ships to Florida home ports. So, maybe to keep in line with RC they should change their name to "Celebrity Carribean Cruise Lines". Recent RCG profit reports show the Caribbean cruises as being the most profitable.

I did see the Daniel Boulud entree, the horrible, IMO, Moroccan chicken is no longer showing in the app, only the starter and desert shows. Maybe Luminae is changing that,