I think the time has finally come to jump ship......

I will apologize up front as this may turn into a bit of a rant.....

Received an email tonight from our TA that our Feb 2/19 Hong Kong round trip Philippines, Vietnam on the Millie has been cancelled. Unfortunately cancelling cruises by - X- has recently become all too frequent. Fool me one, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! They also cancelled our Aug 20/18 Reflection Rome round trip to the western med, last fall, on approx. the same timeline - just before airline booking open up. So I guess we are very unlucky - two cancellation within 6 months.

To add insult to injury, they have provided 3 cruise options where they will provide price protection: the first has only one suite left - Penthouse. I seriously doubt they will give us that one. The second has only two SS left, and the third sailing is just not appealing to us.

A bit of background. First cruise on -X- was 2001, and up until 5 years ago the vast majority of our cruises were in the Caribbean as winter escapes. However, since our retirement five years ago we have increased our travel significantly, and travel 3 or 4 times per year for about 4 weeks at a time. All of these are land trips with a cruise attached once or twice per year. We are retired professionals, and our daughter as well as our son and daughter in law are also professionals. Both our children work abroad, one in the UK and the other in Asia. So we spend significant time travelling to visit them each once per year and they also reciprocate once per year. At the current time we have three cruises booked, one in 2018, and two in 2019 (yes one of these has now been cancelled). We generally plan longer term and have preliminary plans for 2020 underway.

The trip in August 2018 was to visit our daughter and then celebrate our anniversary on the cruise. The February 2019 was to celebrate the Chinese New Year with our Son and DIL.

We personally feel that -X- has lost the plot, and are trying so many things and making so many changes that they have started to alienate their core client group, and this has evidenced itself by the recent postings by many long time clients that they are looking elsewhere or even just taking a break for a while.

Since last fall when the first cancellation was made, we have been re-evaluating all things -X- and the assessment was lacking. While -X- professes Modern Luxury, and attempts to market as a luxury line, it is failing significantly, as is marginally able to claim the distinction of premium. Many of the onboard activities are just poorly disguised sales promotions trying to scoop some extra cash from your wallet. The $10 sales events held in the on board shops are reminiscent of the street and night markets of China; merchants trying to flog substandard "junk" to the masses. Really a $10 watch!! While food is always a subjective area, from our perspective the quality has declined, and what was once a four or five course meal is now a three course meal. The introduction of beverage packages has resulted in a proliferation of what are best described as "well" or "call" drinks. When the packages were first introduced there was a true premium option - that offered true premium spirits, many of those spirits are no longer available on board.

In an effort to save costs the number of on board service staff has declined. About 4 years ago we were having lunch in the MDR on a sea day. When we sat down I asked our waiter to send over the bar waiter or the sommelier. There was another couple already seated at the table and they indicated they had previously make the same request and no one had appeared. Our waiter came back about 10 minutes later to take our order, still no bar steward, so I requested again. Waited 5 minutes and I then excused myself asked anyone if they wanted a drink from Cellars Masters and went and picked up our drinks. When I returned with drinks, the hostess for the meal was also our regular hostess in Blu and she went ballistic, within 2 minutes we had the Matre d', assistant Maitre d', and 2 bar stewards and a sommelier. Too little too late. Unfortunately it has deteriorated even more of late and now the sommeliers in each dining room are run off their feet, and the assistant waiters have now become bar stewards.

Lately, we have switched solely to suites and I must agree that things have improved; however, there is a significant cost to that improvement. We recently decided to explore other options, and while similar concerns are prevalent across all mass market lines, -X- primary competition, as you move into the true luxury lines those concerns disappear and surprisingly the price point is not that much different.

We absolutely love the on board staff. They put their heart and soul into making your cruise experience the best it can possibly be; however, from our perspective all the irritants we have identified are a result of changing corporate policies and practices.

I have placed a hold on a cabin, on a cruise that was not offered as price protected, tomorrow will be the test to see how well -X- manages the situation. Two cruises are on the line, we will still follow through on this July's cruise as to many things have been put in place, but the others ........

Sorry for the rant, however, I know others feel the same way. I will come back and let everyone know how it goes in my discussions with -X-.

I feel with you- I am with you - in all you wrote- I " jumped ship" three years ago- four almost- and turned my self and also my money to Cunard- and I must say- I am very satisfied- Cunard is what X once was!

Modern Luxury- my my- what utterly nonsense- modern rip off - more like! Food- downhill- in both MDR and almost unbearably bad in the buffet area!

Servie and staff- exellent- but that alone makes one not really return!

Sad that- really- I am Elite Plus- but even those perks are not makeing me book a X Cruise in the near future!

So I can really say- I am no longer loyal to X! The are driffting more and more in the direction of RCI and Carnival!

I will apologize up front as this may turn into a bit of a rant.....

 

Received an email tonight from our TA that our Feb 2/19 Hong Kong round trip Philippines, Vietnam on the Millie has been cancelled. Unfortunately cancelling cruises by - X- has recently become all too frequent. Fool me one, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me! They also cancelled our Aug 20/18 Reflection Rome round trip to the western med, last fall, on approx. the same timeline - just before airline booking open up. So I guess we are very unlucky - two cancellation within 6 months.

 

To add insult to injury, they have provided 3 cruise options where they will provide price protection: the first has only one suite left - Penthouse. I seriously doubt they will give us that one. The second has only two SS left, and the third sailing is just not appealing to us.

 

A bit of background. First cruise on -X- was 2001, and up until 5 years ago the vast majority of our cruises were in the Caribbean as winter escapes. However, since our retirement five years ago we have increased our travel significantly, and travel 3 or 4 times per year for about 4 weeks at a time. All of these are land trips with a cruise attached once or twice per year. We are retired professionals, and our daughter as well as our son and daughter in law are also professionals. Both our children work abroad, one in the UK and the other in Asia. So we spend significant time travelling to visit them each once per year and they also reciprocate once per year. At the current time we have three cruises booked, one in 2018, and two in 2019 (yes one of these has now been cancelled). We generally plan longer term and have preliminary plans for 2020 underway.

 

The trip in August 2018 was to visit our daughter and then celebrate our anniversary on the cruise. The February 2019 was to celebrate the Chinese New Year with our Son and DIL.

 

We personally feel that -X- has lost the plot, and are trying so many things and making so many changes that they have started to alienate their core client group, and this has evidenced itself by the recent postings by many long time clients that they are looking elsewhere or even just taking a break for a while.

 

Since last fall when the first cancellation was made, we have been re-evaluating all things -X- and the assessment was lacking. While -X- professes Modern Luxury, and attempts to market as a luxury line, it is failing significantly, as is marginally able to claim the distinction of premium. Many of the onboard activities are just poorly disguised sales promotions trying to scoop some extra cash from your wallet. The $10 sales events held in the on board shops are reminiscent of the street and night markets of China; merchants trying to flog substandard "junk" to the masses. Really a $10 watch!! While food is always a subjective area, from our perspective the quality has declined, and what was once a four or five course meal is now a three course meal. The introduction of beverage packages has resulted in a proliferation of what are best described as "well" or "call" drinks. When the packages were first introduced there was a true premium option - that offered true premium spirits, many of those spirits are no longer available on board.

 

In an effort to save costs the number of on board service staff has declined. About 4 years ago we were having lunch in the MDR on a sea day. When we sat down I asked our waiter to send over the bar waiter or the sommelier. There was another couple already seated at the table and they indicated they had previously make the same request and no one had appeared. Our waiter came back about 10 minutes later to take our order, still no bar steward, so I requested again. Waited 5 minutes and I then excused myself asked anyone if they wanted a drink from Cellars Masters and went and picked up our drinks. When I returned with drinks, the hostess for the meal was also our regular hostess in Blu and she went ballistic, within 2 minutes we had the Matre d', assistant Maitre d', and 2 bar stewards and a sommelier. Too little too late. Unfortunately it has deteriorated even more of late and now the sommeliers in each dining room are run off their feet, and the assistant waiters have now become bar stewards.

 

Lately, we have switched solely to suites and I must agree that things have improved; however, there is a significant cost to that improvement. We recently decided to explore other options, and while similar concerns are prevalent across all mass market lines, -X- primary competition, as you move into the true luxury lines those concerns disappear and surprisingly the price point is not that much different.

 

We absolutely love the on board staff. They put their heart and soul into making your cruise experience the best it can possibly be; however, from our perspective all the irritants we have identified are a result of changing corporate policies and practices.

 

I have placed a hold on a cabin, on a cruise that was not offered as price protected, tomorrow will be the test to see how well -X- manages the situation. Two cruises are on the line, we will still follow through on this July's cruise as to many things have been put in place, but the others ........

 

Sorry for the rant, however, I know others feel the same way. I will come back and let everyone know how it goes in my discussions with -X-.

I share your pain about the "cancelled" cruises. We had it happen to us for Dec. 2018. I've been lurking around CC to know that something was up when back in late Dec. all of a sudden everything but suites sold out overnight. I also knew it would be fruitless to call them and ask. A lot of people on our rollcall were adamant that it wasn't chartered and just another website glitch. One person kept insisting that she was told by an X rep that it was just normal "inventory maintenance". Guess we know what that means now, we finally got word last week that it had been chartered.

There were 5 price protected cruises, 4 of which wouldn't work because as luck would have it, we had done pretty much all those ports on our 2 most recent cruises. The only cabins on the 5th one that were available in our category were right under OVC. My wife is an extremely light sleeper and based on some of the feedback on CC, it would not have been a pleasant cruise.

There was one other cruise we would have loved to transfer too, but the answer I got back as "sorry, can't help you... company policy" and as luck would have it, there had been a classic X price increase of $500/pp the day I found out on CC that our cruise had been chartered.

To vent, I decided to send them a private message arguing my position through their facebook page and surprisingly I got a call back in less than 24hrs. The rep was looking for some more details on a couple of my points and has promised me a response by Monday. I guess I'll see where it goes before I cancel the two I have booked with them, but honestly I'm not holding by breath.

For a company whose sole product is for all intents and purposes a discretationary luxury spend, I can't understand how they can come up with some of the decisions/strategies they come up with.

Hope it works out for you. Good luck.

So sorry about your cancellations...we tend to be early bookers too and often combine cruises with extended land stays we can be financially booked into.

I will be very interested to hear how well Celebrity tries to accommodate you...personally I would be cheeky enough to point out two disappointments and a remaining PH! Nothing to loose by asking...

I feel for you having the cruises cancelled. We received our letter yesterday saying our January 2019 cruise on Millie was cancelled. She is going into dry dock. We got straight onto the London office and I have to say they were extremely good. We didn't change to the cruises they were offering but chose the same itinerary we had originally booked a couple of months later. We had originally booked a PH but those had gone but managed to get a RS which we are very happy with. Overall we are pleased with the deal they gave us.

Sue

Hi

We have just returned from Millennium and had RS 6140 and were disappointed that there is no privacy on the balcony. The only area covered is the tub in the corner so "everyone" above can look down on your balcony. It was unlike the Constellation last year when we did RS twice.

Hello,

I think that 'Modern Luxury' is a new 'ordinary' and not to be confused with what 'Luxury' used to be and still is - but on other cruise lines.

Regards,

Cublet

To vent, I decided to send them a private message arguing my position through their facebook page and surprisingly I got a call back in less than 24hrs.

The FB route worked for me when I had to cancel a cruise a few years ago. I knew I would loose my deposit ( I live in UK) but I was not expecting to pay for our air. They maintained I was told at booking, as it was via a low cost carrier. I said I wasn’t told and had nothing in writing and it wasn’t in the T&C in the brochure.

They said they would listen to the recording made at the time of booking. I objected, as I couldn’t listen to it.

I wrote all the above on FB and suddenly I was told we wouldn’t be charged for air!

The FB route worked for me when I had to cancel a cruise a few years ago. I knew I would loose my deposit ( I live in UK) but I was not expecting to pay for our air. They maintained I was told at booking, as it was via a low cost carrier. I said I wasn’t told and had nothing in writing and it wasn’t in the T&C in the brochure.

 

They said they would listen to the recording made at the time of booking. I objected, as I couldn’t listen to it.

 

I wrote all the above on FB and suddenly I was told we wouldn’t be charged for air!

Under the DPA you can make a subject access request and obtain copies of your recordings. There is a forty day deadline.

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It’s frustrating but I think you’re kidding yourself if you think it’s not happpening on other lines.

Two cruises canceled in less than 1 year ouch. We have been cruising for over 40 years and only once due to the fire on the SS Norway have we had a cruise canceled. We still love Celebrity feel the food has improved over the last few years we love it. We do like the service in Blu vs the MDR and when in the MDR have been lucky to have an excellent waiter that took our wine and drink orders as they have cut back bar service in the dining room. From ship size, entertainment, ports of calls to food.... We feel they are still the best for our money!

Welcome to the club.

Cancelled cruises, we have experienced three since we started cruising in 2010.

One on NCL in the MED due to political instability in Egypt (we had a port stop in Alexandria).

Two on Celebrity, both Around Japan cruises in 2015. One on the Century that was rerouted due to it being sold, the other was a charter.

On all three cruises, we found nice cruises as replacements, with price protection. The price protection really helped us on the October 2015 cruise called Japan and China (we still got to go to Japan and go to 4 ports in Japan plus Okinawa, Shanghai, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That cruise saved us $600 over the price on Millie.

The other Celebrity cruise we took was great, Singapore to Dubai on Century.

As for a decline in food quality and/or service, we have not seen this at all. We have done four cruises on Infinity, two on Connie, one on Millie, one on Century, one on Solstice and one on Eclipse. The Eclipse cruise was last October/November and probably our best cruise.

Everyone has different interests, demands and expectations on a cruise. We started cruising for the ports and the ports are our main interest in cruising. However, we do enjoy the ship experience, but we are not people that need a lot of hand holding.

My main criticism of Celebrity in the last couple of years has been the significant increase in pricing, coupled with the price bundling of drink packages, etc. that we don't want. Since we have done cruises all over the World, we do a lot of transatlantic or repo cruises these days that are cheap and don't have price bundling. Life is still good and so is Celebrity.

I'm assuming the Jan-Feb 2019 dry dock is for the "Celebrity Revolution" upgrade. Celebrity claims they are spending $400 million to modernize the fleet. I don't see this as a bad thing. Fortunately, I'll be on her in August 2019 after the upgrade.

According to the OP, they cancelled the cruise BEFORE the airfare booking window opened. I don't see that as a bad thing. Imagine if they had cancelled AFTER booking airfare!

I've seen cruises cancelled on all cruise lines. I had one cruise cancelled on NCL less than 6 months out. It happens.

I'm assuming the Jan-Feb 2019 dry dock is for the "Celebrity Revolution" upgrade. Celebrity claims they are spending $400 million to modernize the fleet. I don't see this as a bad thing. Fortunately, I'll be on her in August 2019 after the upgrade.r

 

According to the OP, they cancelled the cruise BEFORE the airfare booking window opened. I don't see that as a bad thing. Imagine if they had cancelled AFTER booking airfare!

 

I've seen cruises cancelled on all cruise lines. I had one cruise cancelled on NCL less than 6 months out. It happens.

A cruise in January has also been cancelled. People have flights for those :eek:

As promised, I am back with an update: :D

Everything worked out as I had hoped, and to be honest probably a little bit better than I hoped.

Booked the February 16/19 Hong Kong to Singapore, with an easy itinerary and lots of sea days. Singapore is an added bonus as it was going to be part of our 2020 plan as a stopover on our way to Australia.

The discussion went very well. Called my TA this morning and discussed a strategy; gave her all my arguments and she put me on hold. Came back about 3 minutes later and said there is a 15 minute wait time...no issues. She came back on at the 25 minute mark and said they have escalated the issue. At this point we agreed when they can back on I would join the call. Ten minutes later I joined the call and now we were talking with the resolution group, I took the call over and explained my issues specifically the lack of transparency and "honesty" of -X- in keeping clients advised. (What I didn't mention in my original post was that I was already convinced the cruise was being cancelled and had called -X- late November inquiring as to why the cruise had dropped from inventory on their site yet was available on TA sites - fed the standard line about inventory/revenue reviews......the same thing that happened last June, prior to the first cancellation.) Put on hold for about 5 minutes and came back with everything I wanted - a price match to the cruise I was giving up. Done. I had to concede the additional $400 OBC for rebooking because of the cancellation - no problem; -X- gave up far more than that.

We were able to rebook in the same cabin, S1 6146, adjoining the PH. While all M Class Sky suites are essentially a rectangle and about 50 sq ft smaller than an S class, the bathroom in these two units (6146 and 6145) are about three times the size of a regular sky suite bathroom with an almost full size tub, a stand alone shower unit (proper size) and two basins on the counter.

I am very pleased how receptive -X- was to a logical argument (at least from my perspective it was logical) and how willing they were to satisfy my request.

In the long term it does put future cruises with -X- in question, as we consider the cost benefit of continuing. For example our June /19 cruise has a 50% higher price on a per night basis than the average of our last 4 S1 costs. As mentioned when I strip out the cost of the "free" perks and add back what I would actually use (ie. unlimited internet is great to have - but I don't need it, premium beverage package in a suite is not necessary) there is still a significant differential in cost. As mentioned above, the bundling is able to hide some of the facts.

Once again the client facing staff were able to make it right.

If this is the start of the Celebrity Revolution dry dock upgrade process there will be plenty more people impacted in the next two years.

Forget others and the future for now...I am sure many other CC readers like us are just really pleased you have come out with a really positive resolution. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the rest of us...now look forward to your cruise!

I feel with you- I am with you - in all you wrote- I " jumped ship" three years ago- four almost- and turned my self and also my money to Cunard- and I must say- I am very satisfied- Cunard is what X once was!

Modern Luxury- my my- what utterly nonsense- modern rip off - more like! Food- downhill- in both MDR and almost unbearably bad in the buffet area!

Servie and staff- exellent- but that alone makes one not really return!

Sad that- really- I am Elite Plus- but even those perks are not makeing me book a X Cruise in the near future!

So I can really say- I am no longer loyal to X! The are driffting more and more in the direction of RCI and Carnival!

New CEO has set a downgraded tone and has attracted a clientele that seems not to be bothered by it.. some see it as better than where they drifted from...We have one booked on EDGE..after that not sure where we will go...hoping EDGE is a better experience.

I’m so happy you’ve had a good outcome, and I hope you have a wonderful time on your cruise:) I’m envious of your fantastic itinerary!

OP, glad to hear things worked well for you. Gives me some hope that they may be receptive to my arguments.

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Twitter worked for me, as I don't do Facebook. I got a prompt response, followed by several emails and phone calls.

I saw where the Celebrity CEO had an account, so I just tweeted her....

If all else fails, try another site.

I post a comment on FB Celebrity, regarding the denied cat upgrade. They deleted or hide it

I post a comment on FB Celebrity, regarding the denied cat upgrade. They deleted it!

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