terrydtx

Here is the email for Celebrity Executive office, I sent them an email yesterday that I hope they respond to. ExecutiveOffice@celebrity.com When the testing of allowing vaping in the casino leaked out I got a response from the above email the day after I sent it.

We have 3 cruises booked in the Retreat, the first in September on the Apex, I will then be able to decide if this team concept works for the better but my gut tells me it will not. The high prices now for Sky Suites already had us looking at other cruise lines, and this new change is the last straw.

Actually last year they went back to Butler. Our butler on the Reflection last August told me this and she was so happy about the change. I have yet to talk to a butler who liked being called a Retreat Host.

Since it appears that the leak and resulting fire storm of this possible change originated from correspondence between a butler and passenger, I suspect the butlers are being now told to keep quiet on this. My friend usually gets back to me quickly.

I saw a post on the social media site we can't mention here that RCL is making changes with their 'Genie" butlers.

I switched my financial adviser company when my previous one went from a dedicated adviser to a "team" and they used the same argument you mention above. It was not at all the level of service of what I was getting before, not even close so I jumped ship with them too.

I agree a team will never offer the personalized service of the one dedicated butler. For example, I like my coffee stronger that what Celebrity room service provides, we ask our butlers to add a few extra shots of espresso to our morning pot of coffee the first morning and they then do that for us every morning without asking. Our butler has always known what we prefer for our afternoon appetizers in our cabin and usually they are waiting for us when we return to the cabin in the afternoons. Our butlers have all offered to bring drinks from the bar to our cabin, without asking. I have walked back to my cabin with a drink and had my butler scold me for not calling him or her first. Will we continue to get this type of personalized service with a "Team", I think we all know that answer. One good thing is we will be tipping a lot less. We allocate between $10 and $15 per day for our butler in extra cash gratuity, I will not be tipping a team that will not offer the personalized service we are used to and expect,

Even with the HIA you can go to your online account under manage your cruise and see your booking for Pinnacle grill. You will also be able to see if other times are available to change to. If not once onboard, you can check the Pinnacle grill the first day to make a change to later time.

We are looking at 2025 Alaska cruises and Celebrity is no longer on our list to consider. We are looking at the HAL Koingsdam with the Club Orange dining room. We will book a Signature Suite, about the same size as a Sky Suite. We will get all the premium drinks, Wi-Fi, gratuities and one night specialty dining included We will add the HAL Club Orange for $50 total per night which adds the Club Orange exclusive dining room for dinner and breakfast. CO includes priority boarding, tendering, a dedicated concierge service and we will be paying a lot less than a SS on the Edge and getting a traditional open balcony.

We have considered our Butlers more of our friends than a "servant" and have stayed in contact with a couple. I have reached out to one in particular to see if he is one on the chopping block, I have not heard back from him yet.

If we were to book less than a suite it would not be on Celebrity. There is so much more competition out there without the Retreat amenities that IMO offer more than Celebrity does. The Retreat product, including the butler, is what has kept us sailing on Celebrity up to now.

if Sky Suites never had a dedicated Butler, it wouldn't be a big deal. We do like all of the other Retreat benefits and in the beginning of our retreat bookings we would still have booked without the butler. It is like offering lobster dinner and then taking away the lobster and calling it a seafood dinner, but if it was called seafood dinner from the beginning no one would care. We have done 5 Sky Suite cruises and we found the Butler to be an excellent amenity that is one of the benefits that has kept us from looking at other more premium cruise lines. We can now book an Oceania Concierge class verandah without a butler for about the same cost or less per night than a Sky Suite (also without a butler) on Celebrity. This makes our decision to book Oceania for our March 2025 South America cruise even more appealing. This will cause a lot of Celebrity loyalists jump ship like us, but why would Celebrity care, there will be plenty to fill the SS cabins who never knew about a personal butler.

@chemmothis has to be one of the best responses in this thred, I appreciate your thoughts,

This is a post from another social media site:

If they take Sky Suites out of the Retreat they better lower the prices and give those of us already booked a substantial refund. This makes leaving Celebrity so much easier and makes real premium lines like Oceania and Viking even more competitive with a SS. But we will save the extra cash we usually give our butlers.

We have a South America cruise booked on Oceania, March 2025 for 18 days. We booked a Concierge Verandah cabin, for 18 days for $200pp less than the similar itinerary on the Equinox Sky Suite for 14 days. No butler but we have a larger cabin on a small ship with awesome food. I see use going more with Oceania as they are now competitive with Celebrity. August next year we booked on the small HAL Volendam for an 11 day cruise from Boston to Montreal in a Vista Suite with Club Orange and all the premium Have it all amenities.. The cost was half of what Celebrity wanted on a 11 day RT from New York. The Volendam is a 1400 passenger ship.

We may be looking at MSC Yacht Club now.

We are on the Koingsdam which is one of the 3 new Pinnacle Class ships, the others are the Rotterdam and New Statendam. They are all about the same size as the E Class ships.

This was just posted in the social media site we can't mention and it doesn't look good as it sounds like the Butlers are being let go after current cruises end. For what it's worth, our butler from our most recent Celebrity cruise (Edge Villa on Beyond in June) reached out to me to say that indeed the mass dismissal of butlers is true. He was one of those let go. That surprises me since he was working upper level suites. It also seems to be immediate...as in they are all no longer on the ships when they finish their current cruises. In any case, I would expect that those of you with bookings in anything below a Royal will NOT have a butler and I wouldn't even be sure if you're Royal or above. And for those who think "oh, I don't use the butler much", I'd just caution you to think how overwhelmed your cabin stewards and Retreat Lounge staff will be now that there is no butlers to fulfill all of those requests for all of those cabins. I don't want to be the "downer" on someone's upcoming vacation, but I think everyone should be prepared. If any of this proves incorrect, I apologize. It is hearsay, but it's hearsay from as close to the situation as I could imagine. So, take it for what it's worth

We have a cruise booked on one of the newer HAL ships for November in an aft facing Verandah. We added their Club Orange for the private dining room, priority boarding and tendering, free room upgrade, and expedited concierge services. We also got the premium drinks and Wi-Fi and crew appreciation, plus a $100pp shore excursion credit, $100pp OBC and one night in a specialty restaurant included. We will get a few of the nicer amenities of a Celebrity Suite at more than half the price of a Sky Suite on Celebrity. The New HAL ships have none of the horrible IV cabins too.

We book Suites for many reasons, but when we booked, a Butler was one of the amenities we bought into. So we are paying something for that amenity. If we had never had a butler in the first Sky Suite we sailed in, this change would be not that big a deal. We cruise some on HAL and they do not have butlers in their highest suites, but those high suites cost much less per day than a suite on Celebrity. Knowing how Celebrity works they will take away this amenity for those already booked and just say they have that right, that seems to be the Celebrity way of doing things.

Yes there will be USB ports an 120v US plugs on the ship, but for us they are never enough so we carry adapters with us that will work in over 100 countries, they are under $20 on Amazon and very small. Most of your electronics that use USB are dual voltage 120/220 volt so all you need is an adapter. The ones we use also have 4 extra USB plugs. Here is the one we use and they are approved for use on cruise ships.

I sent an email to ExecutiveOffice@celebrity.com this morning to see if they will confirm or deny that this is going to be a new policy. It will be interesting to see if they respond and what the answer will be.

One more confirmation of our worst fears. Royalizing instead of Revolutionizeing. What is next, 4000+ passenger mega ships with rock climbing walls and water slides?

Again, you are not talking about the same thing. When we got off the ship in Maghera we had NO choice but to take the supplied shuttles from the dock to the Venice Island cruise terminal, which took almost 30 minutes. We could not take the train or any city buses that was not an option.