Disappointed with Celebrity Silhouette Jan 26/18 - Feb4/18

Will be on the Silhouette in a few weeks and hoping for a good cruise. We were on the Equinox for the President’s cruise and was not impressed with her as she has destroyed the true Celebrity brand we have grown to love and was very selective with whom she spoke. Like every other company, her bonus is probably based on the bottom line so the more cuts she makes the better it is for her. I sincerely hope the management wakes up soon and does something about the situation.

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We had a situation a couple of years ago where we got ragged towel after ragged towel. I finally asked for a housekeeping supervisor and addressed it. At the time, he said he had ordered new towels but they had been delayed for some reason. My guess is someone in accounting figure hey could get a couple of extra months out of them and save a lot of money. We did have much better towels for the remainder of that cruise.

In 2013, we had ragged towels on Solstice and sheets so thin my elbow went through when I turned over. I used the Contact Michael email address that was available at the time and got a nice phone call in return. I miss that email address and team.

April 2020, 12 night ultimate Caribbean, Silhouette.

I too felt slightly discouraged after having read these posts about the Silhouette, and we’re to sail on her in June! I hope we won’t have threadbare linens, and I truly hope Celebrity will have replaced the rude MDR hostesses and improved the MDR flow before we board. Since we had a fabulous MDR hostess, wait staff & stateroom attendant last year on Reflection, we know what the current Celebrity experience can and should be.

Regardless, Silhouette is a beautiful ship. We had an imperfect but still wonderful cruise on her in 2013, and we’ll board in June with open minds (and backup plans lol):cool::cool:. I will also post an honest assessment on these boards after our cruise. BTW I send sincere thanks to the OP and all the others who make time to post balanced reviews on CC:)

We had a great cruise on Solstice last summer in Alaska and sail Silhouette in a couple of weeks. I know before I get onboard that the experience won't be the same as it was 10 - 15 years ago. But we still cruise to get away and relax. For the most part, we love Celebrity's crew.

 

Like so many things, it's about expectations. I'll write an honest review when we return. I can comfortably say that no matter what happens in the next two years before you sail, that Celebrity should still be a step up from Carnival. I hope you can start looking forward to your cruise again!

My experience with Celebrity dates back only 12 years, and I’ve not sailed other lines, but I agree with your post. IMO some change is good. After all, we’re all changing too. If specific changes cause Celebrity to lose market share, they’ll surely revisit their decisions. I appreciate some of the things they still provide, such as limited smoking, limited announcements, cloth towels in restrooms and at least some live music.

Since we’re to board Silhouette in June, I look forward to your review! I hope you have a wonderful cruise:)

I too felt slightly discouraged after having read these posts about the Silhouette, and we’re to sail on her in June! I hope we won’t have threadbare linens, and I truly hope Celebrity will have replaced the rude MDR hostesses and improved the MDR flow before we board. Since we had a fabulous MDR hostess, wait staff & stateroom attendant last year on Reflection, we know what the current Celebrity experience can and should be.

 

Regardless, Silhouette is a beautiful ship. We had an imperfect but still wonderful cruise on her in 2013, and we’ll board in June with open minds (and backup plans lol):cool::cool:. I will also post an honest assessment on these boards after our cruise. BTW I send sincere thanks to the OP and all the others who make time to post balanced reviews on CC:)

I should have mentioned in my first post but I hadn’t really gotten into the MDR select dining issue too much as it was the first time it seemed messed up quite a bit. Our cruise in 2017 was on Silhouette and we didn’t have any trouble at all with hostesses and MDR. Very friendly and we got a great table for 2 every night (a bit early but not bad). Didn’t notice the towels. Everything was like the normal Celebrity cruises we were used to. So for us something odd happened with Silhouette and the dining aspect. I would think they can get that fixed fairly fast if they get bad surveys.

We were also on this cruise and had a terrible experience with Select Dining. We have never needed to make reservations before for a party of two and we are happy to have a pager for 10-20 minutes. Well, Silhouette certainly changed our minds!! I have read that a large number of people got bumped from Early to Select and this caused the problem. The wait times were much longer so we started going earlier and earlier and still had long waits. And the hostess would quote us a wait of "20 minutes" and it would be 50 minutes. The issue for us was that we were told the pager only worked nearby....Passport, Martini, Ensemble. Well, we would have rather been in the Sky Lounge watching the sunset. The waiters were so incredibly rushed that it totally spoiled a nice, relaxing dining experience when all around you the staff are racing and clearing tables and setting them back up and banging plates together in the service area in a desperate attempt to keep things on track. One night the host did say they had set up Cellar Masters with some complimentary champagne for those of us waiting. Nice thought but we had a beverage package and Cellar Masters is gloomy.

The tipping point came on the last Evening Chic night when we were seated at the same time as the two tops on either side of us. We ordered the same things and both other tables had their entrees (lobster, of course) served, eaten and were waiting for their plates to be cleared yet we had not received our entrees. People may say to catch your waiter's eye. You have no idea how fast everyone was moving! This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I said "Let's leave." Of course the minute we stand up suddenly two waiters want to know what is wrong. I explained we'd waited longer than was acceptable for our dinner. There was nothing I wanted them to do at that point. Perhaps our over cooked lobster had been overlooked and was waiting for us under a heat lamp; no thanks. The ambiance was gone at that point.

I am not a complaining person but I felt this needed some explanation so we went down to Guest Services. A very nice young man asked us how he could help us; I explained what had happened. He asked if we had spoken to the Maitre D'. Are you kidding? He was nowhere in sight. I certainly wasn't going to beat my way through the angry mob at the hostess stand and demand he be sent over. The Guest Services man did call a MDR manager and he did come down....he explained the difficulties they have when the entire MDR fills up with people the minute they open. Well, you need to understand how to run a restaurant. You cannot seat everyone who shows up the minute the place opens; the kitchen can't accommodate that number nor can the wait staff. He said something about the next (last) night but I said we'd already decided to go to Sushi on 5. He said he would like us to be his guests. We enjoyed a very delicious meal that next night. (And, no, we did not order the entire menu; our bill would have been around $20 total for both of us as we had negotiated a 50% discount.)

We are Elite Plus with Celebrity and I'm hoping this cruise was just an anomaly. But it scared us enough that I got on the internet and made dining reservations for every night of our April Reflection cruise!

Not the same ship, but our Millie cruise in December was disappointing enough that I am literally writing this from my balcony onboard the Oasis of the Seas. In fact, I wrote about our experience both in my survey and on Facebook. On FB, X publicly said they would contact me to discuss further. Well guess what, they never did. I followed up again and they still never even returned my call. I cancelled all X future cruises and am now looking to find my new cruise line. Not 100% sure it will be RC (so many kid activities and we do not have children). That all said, I really wish X would start listening to all these issues and fix them. So many of us have top statuses and only book top suites and do not want to leave...but nothing is making me/us want to stay either.

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April 2020, 12 night ultimate Caribbean, Silhouette.

Don't get discouraged, Keys. Most of the complaints are first world problems and easily resolved.

The Solstice class ships are beautiful, including Silhouette. I noticed select dining in the MDR was disorganized, but it didn't stop me from booking Silhouette for March 2019. I booked for the itinerary, the ABC islands plus Cayman Islands. My husband likes Select dining, so I will probably keep that. Otherwise, the cruise was fine.

If anything isn't up to snuff in your cabin, just tell your cabin steward. They want to please you. They clean and freshen up your cabin twice a day and leave little chocolates on your pillows. I have never met a cabin steward I didn't like.

I joined Cruise Critic before my first cruise and was put off by some of the comments, too. Turned out that once you're on board, the critics are few and far between. Mostly everyone is on the ship to relax and have a good time.

We were also on this cruise and had a terrible experience with Select Dining. We have never needed to make reservations before for a party of two and we are happy to have a pager for 10-20 minutes. Well, Silhouette certainly changed our minds!! I have read that a large number of people got bumped from Early to Select and this caused the problem. The wait times were much longer so we started going earlier and earlier and still had long waits. And the hostess would quote us a wait of "20 minutes" and it would be 50 minutes. The issue for us was that we were told the pager only worked nearby....Passport, Martini, Ensemble. Well, we would have rather been in the Sky Lounge watching the sunset. The waiters were so incredibly rushed that it totally spoiled a nice, relaxing dining experience when all around you the staff are racing and clearing tables and setting them back up and banging plates together in the service area in a desperate attempt to keep things on track. One night the host did say they had set up Cellar Masters with some complimentary champagne for those of us waiting. Nice thought but we had a beverage package and Cellar Masters is gloomy.

 

The tipping point came on the last Evening Chic night when we were seated at the same time as the two tops on either side of us. We ordered the same things and both other tables had their entrees (lobster, of course) served, eaten and were waiting for their plates to be cleared yet we had not received our entrees. People may say to catch your waiter's eye. You have no idea how fast everyone was moving! This was the straw that broke the camel's back and I said "Let's leave." Of course the minute we stand up suddenly two waiters want to know what is wrong. I explained we'd waited longer than was acceptable for our dinner. There was nothing I wanted them to do at that point. Perhaps our over cooked lobster had been overlooked and was waiting for us under a heat lamp; no thanks. The ambiance was gone at that point.

 

I am not a complaining person but I felt this needed some explanation so we went down to Guest Services. A very nice young man asked us how he could help us; I explained what had happened. He asked if we had spoken to the Maitre D'. Are you kidding? He was nowhere in sight. I certainly wasn't going to beat my way through the angry mob at the hostess stand and demand he be sent over. The Guest Services man did call a MDR manager and he did come down....he explained the difficulties they have when the entire MDR fills up with people the minute they open. Well, you need to understand how to run a restaurant. You cannot seat everyone who shows up the minute the place opens; the kitchen can't accommodate that number nor can the wait staff. He said something about the next (last) night but I said we'd already decided to go to Sushi on 5. He said he would like us to be his guests. We enjoyed a very delicious meal that next night. (And, no, we did not order the entire menu; our bill would have been around $20 total for both of us as we had negotiated a 50% discount.)

 

We are Elite Plus with Celebrity and I'm hoping this cruise was just an anomaly. But it scared us enough that I got on the internet and made dining reservations for every night of our April Reflection cruise!

The problem on these longer winter cruises where the majority of the passengers are 65+ is that they all want to eat at 6pm. This was a problem for us on our Silhouette cruise a few weeks back in Luminae. They would be nearly full to capacity by 6:30pm each night. The maitre’d told us that there would be a line forming outside of Luminae at 5:45. Meanwhile by 8pm the restaurant was nearly empty. The staff was overwhelmed by it all as on most cruises they normally get a steady stream of people that tends to peak around 7-8pm but is overall balanced. We normally like to eat at 6:30-7 but had to start shifting to 7:30 or later otherwise we wouldn’t be able to get our preferred server.

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We noticed the same phenomenon on Summit last summer. We often use the stairs instead of waiting for elevators, so we had the daily experience of trotting past people lined up outside Blu 20 minutes before they opened. A bit later, from our vantage point at a comfy table in the Rendezvous Lounge, we were astonished to see the occupants of all the window tables on the opposite side of the lounge rise as though controlled by one brain and walk out of the lounge together. DH and I checked our drinks. Yep, only one each. Didn’t drink several without realizing it;) Of course, they’d gone to form a queue outside the MDR. Thankfully, 6:00 is far too early for us, so we avoided the early bird queues.

So, our first Celebrity Cruise will be in 2020. A very nice Southern Caribbean itinerary. Reading your posts here makes me think it won't be much different than the Carnival experiences we've had to date. Not that they were bad, but we were hoping Celebrity would be a step up.

 

Now I'm depressed. Based on the negative comments here, it seems like we won't have the experience we were hoping for.

I can just about guarantee your Celebrity cruise will be better than a Carnival cruise.

We did a Silhouette cruise last March and doing a Equinox in a few weeks. We had a fantastic time last year. Everything was great. We found it much better than the Carnival ones we've been on.

Food was excellent. We did late dining, our waiter was top notch. Portions are not an issue for me as I can simply order more if I want.

I found the value to be very good. With the premium drink package costing nothing(our onboard credits paid for the upgrade), We spent next to nothing and enjoyed 7 the 7 days. I couldn't stay at a hotel in my hometown for 7 days, and eat and drink for what I paid for the trip.

I don't live in a tropical tourist destination either.

Excellent value.

We also were on the Jan 26 cruise and were not impressed with the lack of organization and communication, particularly regarding the Select Dining fiasco. We put a refundable deposit on a 2019 cruise but are seriously considering cancelling it due to high prices and declining value.

 

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Agree with you. The high seas are beyond the control of Celebrity, but the Dining Fiasco isn't. The attitude of the MDR manager and the hostesses was enough to ruin a fun evening.

Thanks for the feedback. Sounds very similar to what's going on at Royal Caribbean.

Cutback everywhere.

We will be on Silly in 2 days in a Royal Suite (first time trying this room). Was wondering what room you had. Worried about the room attendant now:o. My husband will be sad if the casino staff aren't friends. He spends a lot of time there!!

Yes, it was our attendant specifically that was the issue. My sister was in a standard veranda cabin and she had an amazing room attendant who could almost predict their needs before they asked for it. She came and introduced herself right after they got to the cabin and always addressed my sister and her husband by name. Our guy never introduced himself, never addressed us by name, and we always got a half-baked smile in the hallway. And it’s not like we really asked him for much above and beyond normal. We generally only ever asked him for the things that ran out or were missing in the cabin. We did have to report multiple maintenance issues to him (two drawers were off their track in the bathroom when we boarded, a light fixture fell out of the ceiling in the bathroom, the toilet was leaking water, our wine cooler wasn’t chilling) but he only passed those along to a maintenance person; he didn’t have to address them himself. The only “extra” thing we asked for was to add a cushion to the bed as it was very uncomfortable, and he took care of that with no issue. And twice we had get togethers (4 people) in the cabin that he and the butler together set up and broke down. We only ordered room service twice and the butler told us to call him when we were done with the dishes as he took care of that not the attendant. I don’t think we asked for a lot. What was odd too was he had just transferred to that ship for that cruise (according to the butler), so it wasn’t like he was worn out at the end of his contract.

 

We will be on Silly in 2 days in a Royal Suite (first time trying this room). Was wondering what room you had. Worried about the room attendant now:o. My husband will be sad if the casino staff aren't friends. He spends a lot of time there!!

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We will be on Silly in 2 days in a Royal Suite (first time trying this room). Was wondering what room you had. Worried about the room attendant now:o. My husband will be sad if the casino staff aren't friends. He spends a lot of time there!!

We were in cabin 1118. Our butler was Dharma, who was good but took a couple days to warm up; he was a bit reserved. The room attendant was Oscar (I think that was his name; I’ve already started to put him out of mind).

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For the past six or seven years DW and I have cruised on the Eclipse in December, always a B2B and sometimes a B2B2B. This year we had to switch to the Silhouette, a ship we've traveled on but not recently. It is disheartening to read so many negative experiences by so many experienced Celebrity cruisers who are paying good money for a premium cruise. This year the prices of an S1 cabin have risen so high that we booked an A1. Honestly, the product is not worth the cost and I sometimes wonder who is paying such outrageous prices for a suite. For a while I thought it was I, perhaps tired of the whole cruising experience after seventy or so. Now I can see that is not the case, as so many others are having the same difficulties. Luminae has disappointed us and we have twice walked out of Blu because of a complete lack of service. So what's left? We are now cherry picking cruises on a luxury line when we see prices that pretty much match Celebrity's for an equivalent suite. Actually, not an equivalent suite, as the new line is all inclusive-tours, booze, access to specialty restaurants and wonderful service plus magnificent bed linens that even I noted as being wonderful. I am surprised to learn how much I appreciate not having to pull out a card to prove my status in a bar. A small thing, I know, but a really nice benefit.

We won't cancel the December cruises just yet, but doing so is very possible and I don't think Celebrity will miss us. Not when they can market to new customers who think they are getting a quality product or at least a step up from what they are used to.

For the past six or seven years DW and I have cruised on the Eclipse in December, always a B2B and sometimes a B2B2B. .

We were on Silhouette last Thanksgiving. We loved it.

We will be on Silhouette again in 22 days and a wake up. I bet we love it again. :)

That all said, I really wish X would start listening to all these issues and fix them. So many of us have top statuses and only book top suites and do not want to leave...but nothing is making me/us want to stay either.

If you are booking only top suites on Celebrity, you surely have the wherewithal to book on true luxury lines.

We were on Silhouette last Thanksgiving. We loved it.

 

We will be on Silhouette again in 22 days and a wake up. I bet we love it again. :)

Do you typically book Suites or Aqua, or have you had great experiences in other cabins as well? We’re booked on her in June, so I’m happy to see that some people are having great experiences. This is not to say I doubt the reviews or comments written by those who’ve had negative experiences, particularly when the poster is someone who always seems to make every effort to post balanced reviews (such as wonderman3).

We were on Silhouette last Thanksgiving. We loved it.

 

We will be on Silhouette again in 22 days and a wake up. I bet we love it again. :)

DANG! We're going to miss you again????

DANG! We're going to miss you again????

Bummer! Again!

Maybe some day Host Anne. :)

Also disappointed: Feeling the same after our Dec cruise. The quality of the cruise is no longer something to cheer about. Thinking our May cruise may be our last. Does LLP not see the situation. It seems many loyal cruisers are expressing their dissatisfaction.

As someone who has cruised for over 25 years, I can tell you Celebrity is not alone in these disappointments. For a while, we did think it was only X or Y or Z, but you know what, they are all headed to see who can hit bottom first.

So a few years ago we gave up cruises, at least for some time. Have been doing small group land tours instead, and have been very happy. Maybe a bit more expensive, but most "excursions" are all included and usually maybe 50% of the meals. The "surprises" are usually on the positive side, not like negative for cruises. We leave for Japan in two weeks. It was initially going to be on Princess, but when comparing what we see and where we go, this was much better. We've been emailing our tour guide, back and forth, and she sounds so sweet and knowledgeable. We'll have four days in Tokyo instead of four hours. Those frustrated with cruises, like we were, might want to try it.

We were on Silhouette last Thanksgiving. We loved it.

 

We will be on Silhouette again in 22 days and a wake up. I bet we love it again. :)

Just disembarking this morning. Just need to say all was great. We loved the way Capt Peppas on his farewell announcement thanked us and also praised his crew. Have never heard that. Love this ship and plan to return. Room steward was Clifton and gotta say, all was spotless. Was seated for table for 2, without a wait,at various times at anytime dining. Just our experience 👍