Frustrated

[Sloop-JohnB]

As a recently retired Travel Agent, my experience has been that traditional dining sells out first. My readings on these boards would tend to confirm that, although I certainly haven't done a scientific study of the issue.

 

TO FOREVER AT SEA,

 

I don't doubt you... but we rarely seem to see such postings, in the months since I've been here (and I visit daily)... more often than not the postings are for folks who have been turned away from Select Dining... because they are fully booked.

 

As I understand it (also having checked it while aboard the Solstice just 2 weeks ago)... Select Dining is a much smaller venue (upstairs in the Grand Epernay), and most of the tables are set just for 2 persons. So understandable that those spots would go quicker.

 

Infact, I've seen others here advise Cruisers on Celebrity, that if they "could possibly" want Select to book it and then look into switching later on (particularly so if one is booking months or a year in advance)... And there is almost always a "Wait List" for Select...

 

And when we went to check out our table when we sailed recently with the Solstice... I'd say a good lot of the Questions that the Maitre D' was fielding was for those hoping to switch to Select ("Any vacancies yet?")

 

On our recent cruise, as well, we discovered there was a whole section at the back of the Dining Room in the Late Seating that wasn't used at all... although it was for the Early Seating (it was the last spot cleaned up at night... as there was no rush for the turn-over)

 

Cheers!

[sarahc78]

Hey Sarah, not that I didn't believe you but I went to the Celebrity site myself and put in reservations and you are right - Traditional Dining is coming up as sold out. That cannot be correct.

 

I think something must be wrong with the system.

 

 

Ok so it isnt just me LOL I went into July and it still says unavailable.

 

Is it something w/ the system? Or do you think they just want to collect that $?

 

If it is the system I am screwed until they fix it I guess :o

[ForeverAtSea]

When I was trying to book I was on one of the sites that shows you how many and which rooms are available (taht way I could pick and choose the best cabin for which ever sailing I decided to go w/).

 

I mentioned to the rep. that each of these sailings had a TON of rooms in different categories still open and she responded "yes most of these sailings are not at half capacity yet" :confused:

 

Aha. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

I know the site you mean, and I have found it to be very reliable. It seems to be tapped into Celebrity's inventory, although I don't know how that could be. But I do know, if I book a cabin, it disappears from that site immediately, so I have come to rely on it when choosing cabins, and I have never been misled yet.

 

I had looked at two of the Summit cruises in May, and they were very well booked, but I didn't look at all of them. I did do two dummy bookings to test the dining availability on two cruises, and both did say SELECT only. However, the system only required the standard deposit to be paid, and not the gratuities, so I don't understand how the CVP wanted you to prepay the gratuities before final payment, as the system is not asking for that. :confused:

 

Actually, the reason I was checking on how you determined the capacity is that I've noticed that many people on CC use the website that gives price drop alerts and also shows a "%" under the heading that says "categories", and they misread that to mean that the percentage figure indicates the percentage of cabins that have been sold, when that is not the case. The percentage figure shows the percentage of categories that are still available, and does not refer to the percentage of individual cabins that are available. For example, if there were twenty categories of cabins on the ship, and there was one room left in each category, then the percentage under the CATEGORIES header would show 100%, when, in fact, the ship could be almost sold out. And the inverse is true, of course.

[CruisingChick]

Sarah, you do not pay for gratuities until final payment. You only put down deposit now of $250 per person. So I don't think it's that.

 

I think it has to be something with the system. Didn't Summit just get "soslticized". Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

If there is going to be a problem with getting traditional late dining on M Class ships after they are solsticized we are going to have a very big problem.

 

Okay, I just went to try to book Summit October 6, 2012 New England/Canada cruise that we do every year and it's not giving me the options for Traditional dining either, so something is very wrong here.

[sarahc78]

Aha. Curiouser and curiouser.

 

I know the site you mean, and I have found it to be very reliable. It seems to be tapped into Celebrity's inventory, although I don't know how that could be. But I do know, if I book a cabin, it disappears from that site immediately, so I have come to rely on it when choosing cabins, and I have never been misled yet.

 

I had looked at two of the Summit cruises in May, and they were very well booked, but I didn't look at all of them. I did do two dummy bookings to test the dining availability on two cruises, and both did say SELECT only. However, the system only required the standard deposit to be paid, and not the gratuities, so I don't understand how the CVP wanted you to prepay the gratuities before final payment, as the system is not asking for that. :confused:

 

Actually, the reason I was checking on how you determined the capacity is that I've noticed that many people on CC use the website that gives price drop alerts and also shows a "%" under the heading that says "categories", and they misread that to mean that the percentage figure indicates the percentage of cabins that have been sold, when that is not the case. The percentage figure shows the percentage of categories that are still available, and does not refer to the percentage of individual cabins that are available. For example, if there were twenty categories of cabins on the ship, and there was one room left in each category, then the percentage under the CATEGORIES header would show 100%, when, in fact, the ship could be almost sold out. And the inverse is true, of course.

 

 

Yea honestly I am not sure. I usually just go there when booking to decide on my room. I did notice there were a TON of rooms and when she kept telling me all those sailings were booked for traditional dining I was like hmmm that is weird. I could tell in her voice she was a bit confused as well.

 

I was on the phone w/ her for a good hour. I had her checking on a bunch of stuff, most importantly that if I booked I would be able to purchase the drink packages at the discounted price.

[Sloop-JohnB]

Hi Sarahc78,

 

Here is a thought...

 

I haven't sailed on the Summit, or AquaClass (so Blu is the MDR)

 

BUT... I seem to recall from other postings that Blu is infact ALL SELECT Dining as it is a venue where the food is truly "cooked to order".

 

So, Blu doesn't really operate like the regular MDRs do (but more like a Specialty Restaurant)

 

Although in the past, I believe reading that Cruisers chose Traditional Dining Times (Early or Late) and that those timeframes were when they were to show up on the first night. After that it was go whenever you chose.

 

Remember that there have been many postings in the past where Cruisers said they were confused by getting their info from Celebrity After Final Payment that gave them a "set time" to show up that first evening (Questioning Why that happened in that they thought that Blu was Select Dining). Lol, maybe just to confuse more folks, Celebrity has switched it around on the computers now (gotta love those Celebrity Computer Programming Folks)

 

Hopefully someone else can give you more info,

 

Cheers!

[sarahc78]

Sarah, you do not pay for gratuities until final payment. You only put down deposit now of $250 per person. So I don't think it's that.

 

I think it has to be something with the system. Didn't Summit just get "soslticized". Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

If there is going to be a problem with getting traditional late dining on M Class ships after they are solsticized we are going to have a very big problem.

 

Okay, I just went to try to book Summit October 6, 2012 New England/Canada cruise that we do every year and it's not giving me the options for Traditional dining either, so something is very wrong here.

See and I had no idea about that because I have never chose select dining I always do traditional. She told me she would need to collect $250 per person ($750) and then $80.50 per person for gratuities up front last night. She knew I was working w/ limited funds and was trying the best she could to help me, so I dont think it was an error per say on her part.

[ForeverAtSea]

Ok so it isnt just me LOL I went into July and it still says unavailable.

 

Is it something w/ the system? Or do you think they just want to collect that $?

 

If it is the system I am screwed until they fix it I guess :o

 

It wouldn't make sense though, as you wouldn't have to prepay the gratuities until final payment. Regardless of what the CVP might say, we all use the same software for booking, and that software doesn't require prepayment of the gratuities before final payment. I just checked.

 

And Celebrity has X number of spaces to fill at each traditional seating, and Y number of spaces available for select seating. How would it advance their administrative purposes to push people into select just to get their money a few days earlier?

 

For the moment, it seems to me that there must be some kind of glitch in the system.

 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over time, though.

 

If you haven't booked yet, I'd call in and try to book again. If the new CVP also tries to get you to prepay gratuities, I'd ask to speak to a supervisor and ask what is going on.

 

By the way, early this morning I booked a beverage package on a cruise that isn't at final payment yet, and the 10% discount is still being applied.

[ForeverAtSea]

Sarah, you do not pay for gratuities until final payment. You only put down deposit now of $250 per person. So I don't think it's that.

 

I think it has to be something with the system. Didn't Summit just get "soslticized". Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

If there is going to be a problem with getting traditional late dining on M Class ships after they are solsticized we are going to have a very big problem.

 

Okay, I just went to try to book Summit October 6, 2012 New England/Canada cruise that we do every year and it's not giving me the options for Traditional dining either, so something is very wrong here.

 

My guess is that you're right,...it has something to do with the Solsticization and how the computer system is set up for booking dining times for the Summit.

[sarahc78]

Just got off the phone w/ the supervisor and it seems to be a computer glitch and they are working on it. He said they do have traditional dining available for almost all of the Summit sailings even if online it states otherwise.

[CruisingChick]

Just got off the phone w/ the supervisor and it seems to be a computer glitch and they are working on it. He said they do have traditional dining available for almost all of the Summit sailings even if online it states otherwise.

 

Thanks Sarah. I knew it had to be a glitch.

 

Does anyone know where Blu is located on Summit? Not sure I know where they would put another Dining Room.

[ForeverAtSea]

See and I had no idea about that because I have never chose select dining I always do traditional. She told me she would need to collect $250 per person ($750) and then $80.50 per person for gratuities up front last night. She knew I was working w/ limited funds and was trying the best she could to help me, so I dont think it was an error per say on her part.

 

Sarah, if the CVP was relatively new, she might have misunderstood what she was seeing on the screen. The prepaid gratuities show on the invoice but that is not the amount that has to be deposited. It's kind of a funny system that way.

 

Did you try to book with someone else and see if you could just pay the deposit? That is definitely what comes up when I make a booking on the Summit to Bermuda in May. Then you can go onto the Celebrity website and buy the beverage package yourself.

[Sloop-JohnB]

Hi Sarahc78,

 

I've also found that the quoted phrase "Gratuities upfront" is oftentimes misunderstood by folks when booking (and sometimes by Travel Agents). All it really means is you actually pay when you put thru FINAL PAYMENT (not when you book) vs when you are on the cruise... BUT a lot of people hear it (myself included) and assume that the way it is said, used, that I will have to pay those amounts when I book with my Down Payment.

 

As others have said, you don't... plain & simple.

 

All you have to put down is the downpayment if you are beyond the 75 Day Sailing Date (which is when FINAL PAYMENT is due)

 

So no worries... you'll be fine.

 

Cheers!

 

PS... If you are booking today in hopes to get onto the Beverage Packages Discount, I'd PHONE Celebrity with your Reservation Number... so they can do the Beverage Package purchase over the phone... don't spend anytime waiting for the Website to show your Booking so you can buy on-line. I've heard in the past, that Bookings sometimes don't show up on-line for quite awhile (days)

[sarahc78]

Thanks Sarah. I knew it had to be a glitch.

 

Does anyone know where Blu is located on Summit? Not sure I know where they would put another Dining Room.

I thought I saw somewhere on here that it was by the MDR.

 

I was able to get on Facebook this morning and saw the pictures. Wow they did a great job. She looks gorgeous!

Sarah, if the CVP was relatively new, she might have misunderstood what she was seeing on the screen. The prepaid gratuities show on the invoice but that is not the amount that has to be deposited. It's kind of a funny system that way.

 

Did you try to book with someone else and see if you could just pay the deposit? That is definitely what comes up when I make a booking on the Summit to Bermuda in May. Then you can go onto the Celebrity website and buy the beverage package yourself.

 

 

I am thinking I may just do that. It ends up being almost $100 in savings which would be great :D

[ForeverAtSea]

Thanks Sarah. I knew it had to be a glitch.

 

Does anyone know where Blu is located on Summit? Not sure I know where they would put another Dining Room.

 

Blu is located on Deck 5, and takes up about 3/4 of the window wall on the port side of the MDR on the upper level, and from what I can tell, there are 86 seats in Blu, as opposed to the 132 seats in Blu on Solstice class ships.

[miched]

I only have so much $ right now and wanted to be able to book our room and take advantage of the beverage package discount going on through today. Unfortunately putting down the full deposit and the gratuities didnt leave me the funds to purchase the packages.

 

What I meant was I don't know why you should have to prepay gratuities for anytime dining. It is discrimination and insinuating that the passengers with it don't TIP.

 

 

 

.

[Gaynors]

With complete respect, can you please explain why you think this was "sly"? Was the booking made after final payment and you had to prepay the gratuities? Otherwise, Celebrity had nothing to gain by booking you into select dining and then moving you into traditional seating a week later.

No the booking was made before final payment, but telling me I was waitlisted for main seating and having the prepaid gratuities added to my reservation made more work for me. If I wasn't diligent (or my TA) they moved me to main seating but DID NOT automatically remove the prepaid gratuities, I had to call to make sure that it was removed. I would call that trying to be sly. As I stated earlier I wanted to use my OBC towards my gratuities which I can't do if I have to prepay them.

 

Are you saying that after you were confirmed in traditional seating, the prepaid gratuities were not removed as per your new booking confirmation, and that you had to call in to have them removed?

 

Yes.

 

Not questioning your conclusions, just trying to understand what is happening here, as several posters are now indicating that they are not being provided with traditional seating options when they book initially.

 

Hopefully, thanks to everyone this problem with the Summit will be resolved, then my inlaws who are waitlisted for main seating still may have a chance.

[lyndenfa]

Agreed.

 

--- --- ---

 

Hi SarahC78,

 

Having ALL the Traditional Dining spots "gone" so early in a cruise, sets off alarm bells for me...

 

Especially as it is my understanding that typically Select Dining sells out usually first

 

One of the ways this could happen is if there is a LARGE Group aboard who are using one of the Traditional Dining Seatings for their group... (thinking back to those American Girl Dolls Cruise)

 

Then everyone else wanting Traditional is booking up the "other" time slot.

 

You might want to GOOGLE to find out if there is / are group(s) scheduled for this cruise you are considering. Could also explain WHY they are discounting some of the cabins... hoping to fill them... (they've already made a TON OF PROFIT off the Group Booking which typically goes for a lot more than the regular rates)

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Cheers![/quote

 

Hello John. Can you tell me what you would type in to search for that on GOOGLE? Thanks. Lynne

[ForeverAtSea]

Hopefully, thanks to everyone this problem with the Summit will be resolved, then my inlaws who are waitlisted for main seating still may have a chance.

 

In that you were waitlisted and then received the seating you wanted, there is every chance that this was a bonafide case of them being fully booked, but then a space opened up. As you can see, the other similar issues on this thread are due to a computer glitch, which hopefully will be resolved soon.

 

Are you cross-referenced with your inlaws through the booking system? Usually when two bookings are cross-referenced, both will be moved into the waitlisted dining slot at the same time.

[Sloop-JohnB]

 

Agreed.

 

--- --- ---

 

Hi SarahC78,

 

Having ALL the Traditional Dining spots "gone" so early in a cruise, sets off alarm bells for me...

 

Especially as it is my understanding that typically Select Dining sells out usually first

 

One of the ways this could happen is if there is a LARGE Group aboard who are using one of the Traditional Dining Seatings for their group... (thinking back to those American Girl Dolls Cruise)

 

Then everyone else wanting Traditional is booking up the "other" time slot.

 

You might want to GOOGLE to find out if there is / are group(s) scheduled for this cruise you are considering. Could also explain WHY they are discounting some of the cabins... hoping to fill them... (they've already made a TON OF PROFIT off the Group Booking which typically goes for a lot more than the regular rates)

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Cheers!

 

Hello John. Can you tell me what you would type in to search for that on GOOGLE? Thanks. Lynne

 

TO LYNDENFA,

 

I learned this trick here on the CC CELEBRITY BOARD during the fall-out from the American Girl Cruise...

 

In your case, I'd GOOGLE - Celebrity Cruises Century April 5, 2012 -

 

Most cruises have some "groups" on them... the issue is more HOW BIG are these groups. You can usually dig around a bit more to get an idea of that.

 

In the case of American Girl as I recall they were numbering about 500 Pax in total (and that IMO is a significant group that impacts the other cruisers in their case 2300 others on that particular S-Class Ship)... and that certainly seemed to be what the REVIEWS that came in afterwards reflected.

 

Large Groups can and do impact a cruise, not only by their shear numbers, but also because they tend to end up monopolizing some venues... be it they end up filling up say one Traditional Dining Time, or mean that some facilties aren't available 24/7 or parts of the cruise to other passengers (Theatres, Night Clubs, etc)

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Cheers!

[ForeverAtSea]

 

 

 

TO LYNDENFA,

 

I learned this trick here on the CC CELEBRITY BOARD during the fall-out from the American Girl Cruise...

 

In your case, I'd GOOGLE - Celebrity Cruises Century April 5, 2012 -

 

Most cruises have some "groups" on them... the issue is more HOW BIG are these groups. You can usually dig around a bit more to get an idea of that.

 

In the case of American Girl as I recall they were numbering about 500 Pax in total (and that IMO is a significant group that impacts the other cruisers in their case 2300 others on that particular S-Class Ship)... and that certainly seemed to be what the REVIEWS that came in afterwards reflected.

 

Large Groups can and do impact a cruise, not only by their shear numbers, but also because they tend to end up monopolizing some venues... be it they end up filling up say one Traditional Dining Time, or mean that some facilties aren't available 24/7 or parts of the cruise to other passengers (Theatres, Night Clubs, etc)

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Cheers!

 

Googling the cruise ship and date will probably bring up thousands of travel agencies who are listing the cruise.

 

There is a website that gathers information about which groups are on a given cruise. You may find a link on the thread about the American Girls cruise, or if you post a separate thread asking for the link, someone will probably provide it quite quickly.

[Sloop-JohnB]

 

Googling the cruise ship and date will probably bring up thousands of travel agencies who are listing the cruise.

 

There is a website that gathers information about which groups are on a given cruise. You may find a link on the thread about the American Girls cruise, or if you post a separate thread asking for the link, someone will probably provide it quite quickly.

 

TO FOREVER AT SEA,

 

GOOGLING...

 

Well that is what the advice was back at Thanksgiving when the American Girls Cruise was... and it served me well... I was able to quickly locate which Groups would be on our sailing (all inconsequential... as they were quite small in size)

 

If you have further info on where this info could be found in one spot (and it was my understanding at the time that it wasn't available in one place because, Celebrity couldn't give out this info to anyone due to privacy issues)...

 

Then I suggest you just share that with us here... instead of us all chasing after another posting...

 

Cheers!

[ForeverAtSea]

TO FOREVER AT SEA,

 

GOOGLING...

 

Well that is what the advice was back at Thanksgiving when the American Girls Cruise was... and it served me well... I was able to quickly locate which Groups would be on our sailing (all inconsequential... as they were quite small in size)

 

If you have further info on where this info could be found in one spot (and it was my understanding at the time that it wasn't available in one place because, Celebrity couldn't give out this info to anyone due to privacy issues)...

 

Then I suggest you just share that with us here... instead of us all chasing after another posting...

 

Cheers!

 

My, aren't we snippy. I wasn't attacking you, I was just pointing out that simply googling the cruise ship and date would pull up pages and pages of travel agent listings as well as any helpful data. If you have time to weed through all that, fine. However, there are websites that provide information in a more convenient format. Here are a couple, although I don't think either of these are the ones I saw posted during the discussion about the American Girls cruise, when people were asking how they could find out about groups on their sailing.

 

http://www.ourpassportstamps.com/Isthereagrouponboard_.html

 

https://secure.shoretrips.com/ Click on "Find your Group".

 

I'll go and post a separate thread asking for websites that contain this sort of information.

[Christine Frances]

It's not uncommon for Traditional to sell out first. On our Solstice cruise April 2013 the early seating is already sold out. Our friends in Oz had to opt for late as they had closed the wait list. We will try and sort it out on the ship.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[msbptg]

I agree with Happy Cruiser. Use the OBC to pay tips.

 

Can you explain to me how this is done?? thanks Mark..