Shiba_Lover

The reason more focus is out on Retreat... I suspect they earn exponentially more money on one retreat room than on X number of non Retreat rooms. Made up scenario, but if my ROI on one Retreat room is 30%, and my ROI on a concierge room is 8%, I need to sell 4 concierge rooms. If my ROI on an inside is 3%, I need to sell 10 and so on. Again, just made up numbers and my guess.... But they put more value on Retreat because it is indeed more valuable to them, in monetary terms ( please do not make this about valuing customers - just speaking about money/ earnings)

If you actually want to find what the executives intend to do about their debt, you can look at their shareholder notes. Since it is a publicly held company, they post their announcements and plans. What you won't find are the details of how they plan to achieve them. In other words, you still see "we are going to make sausage" but you won't find"here is how we are going to make sausage" at the ground level. Speculacting here is not really going to add anything you can't find on countless other threads.

We've done several which are all described here in detail. Enjoyed World Wine the most. Just a note - while you can book ahead of time - they may or may not actually hold these once onboard. We have previously booked them ahead of time - then found out they were cancelled due to lack of people signing up once we were onboard. So just be aware it could happen. If this does happen - they will ask if you want to move to something else or get a a refund. If you have signed up for something more expensive (like Riedel) and they ask if you want to move to food and wine - they refund the difference if you agree to move.

As much as everyone would like to think Celebrity is out to get you - no. It has to do with Android vs IOS. With Android there are so many platforms that the cost to try to test EVERY tablet that the app could be deployed on is enormous. And, it just simply would not work on every tablet (think how many website issues they have now on Edge, Chrome, Firefox, etc) - multiply that across every tablet manufacturer. That's the issue. It's not that they are out to get people with poor eyesight and are targeting only millennials. It's simply a matter of keeping the app up to date and the inability to test properly - and it is not only Celebrity - many companies struggle with this.

I have extremely sensitive skin and have had laundry done on X a few times. I have been OK.

Could not agree with this more. Also have a blackbelt in Six Sigma and did process improvement for years. I also wish they had someone doing this. I had an issue with a few things on a recent TA and spoke to the retreat manager and gave her some feedback. She literally told me she was very impressed with my constructive feedback and at the end of our cruise, we received a considerable FCC. It's so simple - if only they would get someone to look at the issues they could easily resolve.😂

Expectations are zero, so hard to go lower 😁 I did notice today in the Amex app that it says my offer from Celebrity was redeemed. So that's a positive. Although yesterday, I also redeemed an offer from a Drunk Elephant, a skincare company. Today I received an email from Amex saying "you've redeemed an offer from Drunk Elephant". I did not have the email from them saying that about Celebrity. Hope this one goes through too.

Gotcha - I doubted it would work. Figured no harm in attempting since we need to pay in a few months anyway, and some people earlier in the post said it worked in a previous offer (maybe different T&Cs of course). But I'm the only one with the offer anyway. But hey, at least I was able to take advantage of the offer!

You mean paying again for authorized user? Or paying towards a balance? Is it only good on a NEW reservation?

I honestly cannot blame them for shutting down the OV for dinner. I would sometimes go to eat a simple salad for dinner and this would be when the entire OV was open. It would indeed be a ghost town. Every station was open - and nobody was there. A huge waste. While I understand a few people may want to eat there for dinner, it is does not make economic sense to keep it open to serve a few. So yes, that means I may miss out on getting a salad there too. No worries - I will keep cruising and just need to pick and choose in getting something light either in MDR or begging for a main dish salad in Luminae (yeah, good luck).

I used my Amex to pay 1000 towards my Galapagos cruise. Checked on the card of the authorized user - no celebrity offer, so can't try to see if that works. Will check in a few days to see if it pops up and if so, we'll try to pay another 1K on it to test the authorized user theory.....

Celebrity's website has all the amenities listed -I just randomly picked a ship - but a sunset sky suite is the same as a sky suite in terms of amenities. You can just pick the suite on Celebrity web site and see the amenities Sky Suite - Celebrity Cruises Suites

Hi all - we arrive back at the Miami port and I've checked the port guides. There are 7 ships doing turn arounds that same day. Would there be any potential taxi issues? Our flight is not until 1:45 and we dock at 7. Looks like there all of the ships dock at either 7 or 8AM. I am thinking we should be fine given our flight time, and this many ships at once may be common for Miami, so I guess the taxis know to all queue up. Any thoughts?

I guess I could pay part of my upcoming cruise that still has an outstanding balance. That should work 🙂

Thanks. Good to know. I will book through TA and use the offer. I think the only difference in onboard is reduced deposit. Our TA gives extra OBC.

Thanks for the heads up. I got this one on plat card. The fine print does say I cannot use it for onboard transactions, so be sure to read carefully if you have an upcoming cruise. We sail in Feb and I was thinking I would book something onboard. Might call TA instead.

Thanks for the heads up. I got this one on plat card. The fine print does say I cannot use it for onboard transactions, so be sure to read carefully if you have an upcoming cruise. We sail in Feb and I was thinking I would book something onboard. Might call TA instead.

I saw no discounts on my last Apex sailing. I do see many pre-sailing discounts in the cruise planner for my next few cruises. If you THINK you may want to book - I would do the pre-cruise booking. If you book online pre-cruise, I do not believe you can cancel though. Here's an example of the discounts I see for Tuscan. First night is 33% off, any other night is 9% off. They also have Le Petit Chef at any night for 8% off, and they do say gratuity is not included. Of course, what others see may be different - it's been pointed out it is demand based.

I like this guy;s videos - he does many of the ships, and mentions the plugs and other things. Its good to know what to expect. If you need other ships - he has playlists and you can find the ship / cabin type for many others as well.

Here is a good video - And here is the retreat lounge and full ship tour. Retreat lounge is at 47 minutes, 30 seconds in and the retreat sundeck is at 7 minutes 50 seconds in.

you can easily communicate onboard through the app, which will work well. There is a messaging component of the app. and you can add each other to your allowed contacts then communicate through that (add to contacts in the app as in some random stranger can't just chat with you unless you were to specifically give them your name to allow it). In terms of wifi using your own cell service - it may or may not work well, even if you have premium wifi. Some ships have upgraded, some not. We've had premium wifi on the last two cruises, and sometimes it worked (even in port), sometimes not. That is true of texting, calling, downloading.....

Sneak Peak of Eden is interesting too - I would go to that. They hand out some drinks and several performers give a brief performance of their acts in Eden. If you have ever seen Cirque du Soleil or similar - they have some performances of that type. We saw a trapeze type performance, and a floor acrobat / balancing act. You just get a short look at a few of the things that would be going on in Eden during the sailing. Worth a look and Eden is really a beautiful space.

I did Create and Pour on Apex. Sign up with the Captains Club onboard. Do not just show up - trust me on this - ours was very popular. People who just turned up were not let in. It is limited due to seating, and the Captains Club signs you up onboard. You will be led through drawing with an art instructor, and given a glass of wine to enjoy while drawing. It was fun. On embarkation day - among the things in the room you will have a flyer with the create and pour class listed. If interested - I would sign up for it early. You can always cancel if there is another activity you find you want to do later.

I like the staff on X. I like knowing what's onboard. I don't know - maybe some think that's boring, but I like it. While I do agree the pricing is higher, and there are some changes, I can understand the economy drives that. I worked for a fortune 50 company for 25 years in financial analysis in roles that explained performance for shareholders. So, I can understand what is driving some of these changes behind the scenes. I would suspect that if I went on the Oceania, Viking, Silversea boards - I could find people saying very similar things - pricing is up, some things have changed, etc. I've got a short cruise in Feb on Summit (just to escape winter for a few days), then we have the Flora in October and we have booked the Arctic Circle in 2024 on Apex. So we are here on X for a while, all in Retreat even though the prices are a bit crazier than it used to be. But, we really enjoy the service and amenities, even with the changes.

We were on Apex for 28 days in May/June 2022. I can give three examples of "issues" that I have not experienced on previous cruises. One lunch, I had raw chicken in the Oceanview. I spoke to a chef (not the person serving, an actual chef) to point this out. He did not believe me at first, but took my plate and went back to the kitchen. He came to find me a few minutes later while I was making a salad and apologized (and had them remove the entire steam tray of chicken). Fortunately, I had not eaten the chicken but only cut into it and recognized it as raw. Another night, in Luminae - the same. Raw chicken. Again, fortunately I had not eaten it, but only cut into it. Also in Luminae - I had ordered a dish called Moroccan Tagine. It is supposed to be one of the Daniel Boulud's signature dishes. It was very dry and had no flavor. It is SUPPOSED to be a very flavorful stew type dish. Both myself and the woman at the next table mentioned this to the server. We were both told that pervious people complained about the spice and "soupiness" of the dish, so they changed it. 😂 We did notice the wines seemed to have gone down in quality. Not sure if this is a supply chain issue or a cost-cutting measure. Will be on the Summit in February, so we'll see if they have better wines back on board. Cookies in the Cafe Bacio - have never been good and still were not - only tried once. I agree - these are like some store-bought Chips A Hoy or something. Not good. I did get a small chocolate cake one afternoon on a sea day, and it was good. The deserts in Luminae were very good on the May/June cruise. I did not have any deserts in Oceanview, so cannot comment on that. I have always thought the food in Oceanview was "ok" - and on Apex it was also "ok" (other than the raw chicken I mean). I will say that had a special pizza oven, so the pizza was a bit better on Apex than previous ships I have been on. I did have a Turkey burger at the outdoor grill by the pool one day, and that was pretty good.