maxsales

My Oct, 2015 TA was $243/ day ($3650 for 15 days- booked at the opening), Nov, 2017 TA - $323/ day ($4200 for 13 days) - same AQ category. That is a lot for gratuity per day - $80.00/day. I lost all my excitement....:eek:

I feel your pan Isabella. Te 2017 prices are really high especially considering the lack of perks.

We will have to see how bookings go once the rush of certificates clears. Have to watch these prices in January to see if Celebrity can sustain these numbers.

My Constellation sailing April of 16 is an incredible value when looking at the 2017 numbers. 569.00 per person for a category six ocean view, Amazing, right?

A lot of us booked on a TA where they gave us free gratuities, but actually, they are collecting it back on the cost of the cruise. For example, my C1 costs $1699, but I get $188 in free grats, so that would bring the normal booking price as $1499. They just added the gratuities onto what the normal price would have been so to make you feel you are getting something for free. :rolleyes:

It worked well for celebrity as they sold many of those certificates. Prices for the 2017 TA's are way way up.

We are cruising on Celebrity Infinity thru the Panama Canal down to Chile in December. Never cruised on Celebrity before (NCL). I understand that the specialty restaurant US United States, has a cover charge of $35. That seems high. On NCL the specialty restaurants are $10-25.

If the specialty restaurants are that good, is it because the basic restaurants are not?

No, IMHO.

The problem is, sometimes a small family wants to eat healthy. I have diabetes. My daughter has prediabetes. My husband is trying to lose weight. We are willing to pay extra but not for my daughter to pay single supplement on an aqua room.

 

 

It looks to me an easy solution would be if you book concierge rooms you can opt out of afternoon snacks (which we always do since we do not eat them) and for an extra fee eat in Blu since concierge does have rooms for 3.

 

If Celebrity offered this they would get our business back.

You can request special, health related meals in the main dining room. Let's leave Blu for those that book aqua class.

:)

$149.00 per day is a little rich for me.

Hi

Can anyone tell me the current benefits for booking a future 7 night cruise whilst onboard a cruise and can I expect the same benefits if I book a Celebrity cruise whist on a Royal Caribbean ship?

 

Many thanks

Depends on the category you book, it will be an additional OBC, plus a reduced deposit.

Yes you can book Celebrity whilst sailing on Royal and visa versa.

Can't find the long thread on this....but I just checked a cruise on a major internet TA site. The site lists options for a C1 cabin as follow:

 

 

Cruise with FREE Drink Package $4,351 (ea) $8,702 (cabin)

 

Cruise with Free Drink Package

and $300 cabin credit $4,531 (ea) $9,062 (cabin)

 

How can Celebrity, in good conscience, charge $350 for a $300 credit?

 

Yes, I do understand the new packages and how they work better or worse on long or short cruises......but when TA's start to advertise, highlighting the stupidity of some of the situations, I think Celebrity probably should care....if for nothing else, so they don't look like they are insulting passengers intelligence.

unless that is a 13.33 day cruise the math is screwed up the cost to move from big to better is 15 per person per day. the 200 increase divided by 15 is 13.33 so something is wrong.

Sounds right, but Go big isn't applicable on TA, TP, close in bookings, short cruises, inside cabins, after certain capacity controls are hit on other cabins.

 

Not sure if one can call a TA and ask for a standard non discounted fare or not.

 

The Visa program is PROBABLY similar to a group booking, but can't be sure unless you try to book it. So you'd book EITHER the visa booking, OR a BBB booking.

 

Celebrity does general allow "stacking" of perks, pick one program or the other, not both.

The travel agent answer is no, can't do it. Unless there is a special rate category such as senior ect the lowest price category is go big on ocean-view and above.

as this Visa offer was indicating a specific travel agent my guess is the additional perks are from travel agent rather then celebrity so there is no combine ability issue. Travel agent can give you anything they want up to the 10% limit.

I would check your seating assignment after you board. Physically check it out. If not happy, see if you can make a change.

 

In Blu on one ship, we had 4 tables of 2 separated by about 10 inches which really ended up being a table for 8. I felt bad for the wait staff as well.

You are going to get many different answers here. On our last five or six celebrity cruises we have used select and had no problem with being seated at a table for two. I find all tables for two are fairly close together.

How do you get OBC with the senior rate? Thought it was not combinable.

I see the 1549 is the go big rate and the 1469 is the senior rate. Got it.

Is the $1469 senior rate per person or per cabin (I haven't seen very many fares where the rate for two comes out with an odd number)? If it is per person then it would be $320 extra to get $300 OBC.

I think you need to check your math

1549-1469 =80

80 x 2= 160

thus the difference for two to gain the 300 OBC is 160 or a 140 advantage.:)

The only way I could semi justify the toddler price is that she caused a lot of extra tidying and cleaning!

The toddler takes one place on the ship. The ship has a finite number of passengers Therefore everyone is charged.

True.....

 

I got $1935.00 from my TA and 100.00 from Celebrity booking the Penthouse

on a 15 night TA....thought it was pretty sweet

What category cabin?

Ah, great. Thanks for the help! Maybe you could also tell me if the parking is convenient? Trying to decide between port parking or off-site, not so much a matter of expense, but more that too far of a walk will be problematic for a few of the drivers in my group. All of my other experiences at PE were up at the north end where the parking is right across from the terminal. TIA

 

Just looked at the port map.... I don't see ANY parking indicated near 29.

offsite just look at the price difference. Prepaid park n go is less then half what port everglades charges.

Any tips on keeping these things safe from being stolen? I can't imagine they are often stolen, but I just find myself feeling very paranoid about these things. We are only bringing on the must-haves to minimize any worry.

Thanks!

put them in the cabin safe.

Can anyone who recently renewed their passports tell me how long it took to get the new ones? I sent the forms in on June 8th and still have not recieved them I know they they got them since I sent them certified mail and the checks cleared a week later, getting nervous going on our cruise end of Aug. and hope to have them in time.

No set answer. It varies depending on the volume of requests received.

Just a suggestion but send in your renewal when you are with in 8-9 months of expiration. Some countries require six non expired months be remaining to allow entry.

Hi

 

I was told in a post that MTD doesn't required to pre paid gratuities is that true? I have a reservation for freedom 2016 and the minute I clicked MTD gratuities were added to the final cost of the cruise

 

Thanks

RCCL dropped the requirement about two weeks ago. Call royal, your TA or C&A. They will be taken off.

THE BAD NEWS: Unless you are saying that unlimited internet is a promotional offer, your TA is totally incorrect! Unlimited internet comes only with RS and above.

 

THE GOOD NEWS: However, if you do have unlimited internet, it is not just available in the iLounge. That would be pretty useless when you consider how often the iLounge is being used for classes. Even in a PH on an M-class ship as far aft as you can get, I was able to access the internet on my own tablet during the whole cruise.

Unlimited internet is now part of the "best" package available on most sailings after 10/2015.

Andy must have choked on his Kimmelwick. oh no :D:D

since this is a new way of booking cruises and appears to be permanent it is important to carefully look at the cost/ benefit relationship when making any changes to existing bookings

They did not get all the 123!! They only had the bev pkg which they upgraded prior! I think they got a good deal!!

Gotcha. I was going on their opening statement that they booked on the 123 and had all three. My bad should have read the post more throughly.

Okay... we took the plundge. We upgraded from our 123go purchase to the current Best offering. It is a short cruise, but it made sense to us.

 

12/13/2015 Elipse - Mexico 5 days

 

We do not plan to get off the ship. That affected our decisions.

 

Previously booked in a 2B accessible cabin at $619 pp. One perk: classic drink package. We already paid to upgrade to premium before the price increase.

 

New price for Best is $769 pp and we chose classic drink package and unlimited internet for 2 people. Upgrade for premium package carried over.

 

This was done as a reprice of the existing reservation. We did not have to cancel and rebook. Done through our TA. If we had to cancel and rebook, we would not have changed. Once in awhile the cancel and rebook ends up with a loss/change of cabin. Not much room for error when we must have an accessible cabin.

 

Total increase is $300.00. Internet is important to us and the unlimited package for one is about $300, so we each get a connection.

 

Please know that we are not getting off the ship, so the vacation is the ship. The premium drink package is so we can treat the drinks like the MDR. We can try something we never had before and if we don't like it, we can hand it back and try something else. Internet is important to us, so this seemed to be the best deal.

Sounds to me like you made a bad deal. You paid three hundred more and lost prepaid gratuities and an onboard credit just to add internet. That is mighty expensive internet.

If this change hasn't gone through you may want to rethink.

If you want to change to Go Better or Go Best you would have to re fare but you could always add on the other's individually & not change the package name.

Example if you take the Beverage package with the Go Big you can still pay for Gratuities & upgrade to Premium package before you go.

That is my take on it.

Don't think that is accurate. Watched two webinairs on the new promotion and it appeared that in both the statement was made that go better or go best could be added at any time up to about ten days prior to sailing. It would not effect the base price on your reservation Your price would only in crease either $15 or $45 per person per day depending on which you chose.

The booking would not be priced at current rates unless of course the fare had decreased and the new fare was specifically requested.

Hi Maxsales

 

UK i'm afraid!!!

Ouch! Oh well, in that case I would simply call and ask.:)

well not really much interesting news on that chat. But I didn't really expect any so disappointment level is low.:):)