D C

So what would you do if gratuities were baked into the cruise price?

This was a fairly recent change that happened with little fanfare. The standard (pre-covid) was refundable deposits. Should you be willing to accept a non-refundable deposit, Celebrity would generally give you some additional consideration at the same price. "all 4 perks", premium instead of classic drinks and the like. Personally, i was surprised to find (post covid} that a future cruise deposit was not refundable. I don't recall seeing a notice or being told at the time of booking while onboard. It was a subtle change that was contrary to who knows how many years of practice. I certainly will not admonish someone for missing an unexpected change in policy that runs counter to years of tradition.

Well said. After 10 years of sailing almost exclusively on X, we've moved on. We'll book celebrity on a last minute basis, but we're not paying non-refundable deposits a year or two in advance when Celebrity is in a state of flux with what's included or not, what extras might cost, how bad the dining cutbacks might be, etc. Plus they're the most expensive mainstream cruising option these days.

I'm sorry, but this is hilarious. Celebrity: we pay the crew X, plus we pay them Y thanks to gratuities, so they get Z in the end Virgin: we pay our crew Z, but we charge more You: Virgin is better because they pay their crews Z

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Celebrity's non-refundable deposits are a significant reason why we have no X sailings booked. Meanwhile, we have multiple fully-refundable future cruise deposits on Princess.

If the cruise fare was increased by the exact amount of the gratuities, and daily gratuities were no longer a thing, would that resolve your concerns?

I assume the value is for those who don't use or need much internet. I would never pay for internet in most instances. This is another strange difference between Royal and Celebrity. I'm elite on X, so I get 90 minutes of internet to use whenever. On Royal it's as much as I want, but only in a 24 hour period. Sure wish they'd both go to a "you get XX amount of data".

A lot of us are still trying to figure out the vague new names they just gave cabins. Went from a numbered 1-3 system to these seemingly identical names earlier this year. Very confusing. But, the biggest veranda balconies are going to be on the 'hump'. Look up room 8257 for reference of where they're at on S-Class ships. Those rooms essentially have a normal balcony plus another full-depth balcony that's cut on an angle. Sunset verandas have larger balconies as well. The biggest veranda rooms are what used to be Family Verandas (8108 for reference). No clue what they're called now. Separate living & bedrooms. Wide, but not deep balcony.

Likewise, I've linked and checked in family members many times.

Hit elite a few cruises ago. Nothing different in cruise planner. (it ain't that hard Celebrity! C'mon!)

Infinity doesn't have a "retreat". Simply suites with access to Michael's Club and Luminae. Otherwise, you have to mingle with the riff raff in steerage

"We cut the MINIMUM bid in half" is what it looks like to me.

Try going directly to your account page, instead of the main Celebrity page. This should prompt a login: https://www.celebritycruises.com/account

A couple of hours later and you would have had a pic of me crossing that bridge! 😄

Sounds like a lot of people need to rearrange their priorities to spend vacation ON vacation 🙂 We are squarely in the market that X is trying to draw. Still working. Plenty of vacation time and a sizeable vacation budget. Only 3 cruises in the next 6 months, and only one of those is on X, which is a change from our Celebrity-loyal past. "More for less" and petty charges are turn offs when there are cheaper ways to cruise.

Wait a second. "warmer"?? So their whole 'fresh out of the oven' line was total bulls***t, and they were essentially charging to put a stale cookie in the microwave? "nostalgia" and all that crap that some corporate lackey dreamt up was the same old cookie, just heated up a bit. Someone should be fired for that imho.

Honestly, I think that's a huge stretch. One need look no further than Bud Light to see how easy it is for a big company to be irreversibly out of touch with their customers. X is clearly trying to draw a "new crowd" that they arguably don't understand, while hopefully not pissing off their loyal base too too much. Personally, I think they're failing at both.

Depends on how you define "blindly". They've clearly made and implemented decisions when they either knew there would be an uproar, OR they made them NOT knowing there would be an uproar. Neither speaks well for their understanding of their customer base.

One of my favs! Very disappointed to see Woodford Double Oaked gone from Celebrity ships. It made the premium package very worthwhile.

I would hope not. Pappy is way overblown imho. I don't care how good it is, it can't be that good.

Nail in what coffin? X wants you to gamble, knowing that most people lose. If one gambles with OBC, they're giving you nothing in return. No food, no excursion, no duty free liquor, etc. I'm sure a lot of people blow through whatever obc they have left while others cash out and some actually win. The playing field is clearly tilted in their favour.

Amen! Looking at Alaskan scenery from INSIDE my room would suck.

Thus the reason we have ZERO celebrity cruises planned after a decade of 1-3 X cruises per year. We're not so ignorantly loyal that we're shunning everything else for the X Kool Aid. Had a very nice sailing on Princess earlier this year for so much less than X it was inexplicable (and inexcusable to not sail on P)

It doesn't hurt cruisers in the wallet because the then-unforseen loopholes are big enough to sail a ship through. The PVSA could vanish entirely and the worst thing would be an extra US port or two would be added to an itinerary.