Celebrity pricing for Brits

[Waihekean]

There seems a lot of confusion out there and this is my take on it.

 

The most important thing to know is if the cruise line will allow non American residents to book with them. Celebrity is one of the few that will allow this and has been offering fantastic discounts. Personally had three price drops and have just booked a new cruise for 2013 at the same price as an American customer for early fare, which is even lower then my currrent fare after price drops and only half the fare of comparable cruises.

Note: Carnival, Crystal & Norwegian will also allow non resident bookings.

 

 

Nobody will offer you these price drops. You will have to research every week yourself and keep track of all the current pricings. Best thing to do is enrol for e-mail alerts, like here on Cruise Critic and your favorite cruise line sites. Then you will pick up the promotions, check then the prices on the cruise lines web site and if dropped, go for it or upgrade!

 

Enroll and book with one of the discount TA's that specialise in cruising and last minute cruise deals. When I found out here on the Celebrity forum from someone's post that there was a "Wave Promotion" and price drops were allowed for existing bookings, I e-mailed my TA in America and next morning received my adjusted fare. Just like that!

 

There is no sense crying over spilt milk when it says new bookings only. From this particular thread it seems some people do not understand that you can not take advantage from every promotion. That is why it so important to keep an eagle eye out on the pricing and to start out with the most suitable TA and the most suitable cruise line (especially the non residents).

 

It all comes down to to buy the cruise at a price and in a way you are comfortable with and any price drop or upgrade that comes along is a bonus:)

[frontrow487]

Frontrow We are booked on this cruise and I haven't found a price drop anywhere?

 

Outside still seems to be £799 and it is the only wine cruise not included in the inside to balcony offer.

Hello Jo - look foward to meeting you !

My point was would you have booked an o/s for £799 if you could have booked an i/s for £699 and been upgraded to a balcony ?Celebrity say the 13th is not included but it is shown on the offer on the website and I presume they would have to honour the fact it was advertised.

Any way Im sure we will have a great time !

[Jade13]

 

This is not the first time. On Azamara we paid full brochure price for an o/s and other passengers were in balconies with $1000 OBC

 

 

 

As a UK passenger did you receive "Included Air" on Azamara. Are you sure the $1,000.00 OBC was from Azamara and not the travel agent? US passengers also often have a $500.00 per person Choice Air "Credit" which is instead of the "Free" (really included) air, so you need to know the total numbers to know if US passengers really received a $1,000.00 better deal, which they may have or may have not. I agree that Azamara pricing can be confusing.

[emptynest1958]

We have used the website described by Waihekean to book a number of NCL cruises at prices far below those quoted in Australia. The only reason we didn't use them for an upcoming Celebrity cruise was that, unusually, there was a special offer on an Australian website which was reasonable.

[hillsprint]

We are on our first cruise with Celeb, but our second booking, due to having to cancel a cruise last year.

 

Last year I booked through a UK on-line TA who specialises in cruises. We booked in April for a September cruise on the Solstice and got a fairly good deal. I asked about price drops and was told because I had got this "deal" I wouldn't get any drops. By the time we cancelled in July the price hadn't dropped, so I didn't have the opportunity to challenge their policy.

 

This year we booked directly with Celeb, and got our own PCS, Flavia, who told me that no problem if there was a price drop for our 1C we would get it. The price we got in December for our May cruise was good, but then the price of the Sky Suite dropped to be only £100 more so I rang Celeb to see if I could take one of those. Initially I couldn't get hold of my PCS and ended up with another sale person, and was told no the price was for New Bookings only. However, I knew from what others were posting here that I should keep trying. Got hold of Flavia the next morning and in the blink of an eye it was all sorted :D

 

So I think for UK folk keep trying and maybe in the long run it might be better to book direct.

[genian_travels]

I would also advocate booking with Celebrity direct over a TA. When booking a trip on the Eclipse, various cruise clubs were offering deals cheaper than Celebrity, but when I asked about honouring price drops they all replied they would "see what they could do" but couldn't guarantee anything, yet when I called Celebrity, my cruise consultant said it would be no problem, so I decided to play it safe.

 

We booked a guaranteed balcony and had been assigned a 1C cabin. A week after final payment, the price was dropped by £500 for the pair of us so I rang the guy I booked with and asked if there was anything they could do. I wasn't optimistic, but was hoping I'd get a token OBC. My consultant was brilliant - he made a few calls and gave us the option of either being refunded the £500 but we would be moved to a 2D cabin, or we could get a free upgrade to a C1 cabin in Concierge on the back of the ship. We opted for the upgrade as it was a £1800 saving on what we would have paid for the CC cabin.

 

I doubt a TA would have bothered to make the effort...

[buzzybuzzbuzz]

We are booked on Solstice in September and I have spent the last 2 days fighting with my TA. I would save money by cancelling and re-booking, but why should I lose my deposit.

 

I pointed out to my TA that if this is Celebrity policy then people will not book early and they will then be struggling to fill cruises.

 

I have been told Celebrity heve been inundated with similar complaints and are being dealt with on a case by case basis. This hardly fills me with confidence, I am now waiting until Tuesday as it is a Bank Holiday on Monday in the UK.

 

Surprise, surprise Celebrity have raised the price again over the weekend, having promissed to look into it over the weekend.

 

I have however had some partial success as I have been upgraded but would still have saved money by cancelling and re-booking. I have told my T/A that I am disgusted by Celebs shoddy trading practices, you either have a price guarantee policy which you honour or clearly state buyer beware!:rolleyes:

[KillerP]

The same two tiered pricing system also applies to Aussies. It seems that we are subsidising the Americans. Happy to help out!!

[Waihekean]

The same two tiered pricing system also applies to Aussies. It seems that we are subsidising the Americans. Happy to help out!!

 

Difference is Celebrity will allow direct bookings or through American TA from Oz and UK pax, so no need to pay the higher prices, they are one of the few where you can pay the American fares.:D

[Fixit2010]

The only way this will ever change is if many people band together and hound the top brass in the UK at Celebrity to make it fair.

 

Single voices will get washed aside and nothing will change

[Lyn Mc]

We have sent many letters to Celebrity/RCCL head office, many in praise but a couple re the unfair pricing structure they have depending on where you happen to live! We did say that we wouldn't ever book early again but when my Mum wanted to go on the August Iceland cruise we relented and actually booked on our Silhouette cruise in November 2011. When we got back we transferred our booking to our usual online travel agent - BIG MISTAKE it would seem from some of your posts, we should have stayed with X at least some of you seem to have fared much better when booking through X.

 

Have to say though that it seems to be a sign of the times. We go on Cunard on Friday for a short 5 day cruise. MY DH booked this as a Xmas pressie, we have a Balcony, just a couple of weeks ago they were selling Princess Grill for~£100 each less than my husband had paid and Queens Grill for the same price he paid. We then got a call from our TA who asked if we wanted to upgrade for £125 each to PG - youi can imagine what he said - BUT at least they offered - never ever had an offer to pay for an upgrade from Celebrity!!

 

To cut a very long story short, we fell into the 'new bookings only' category when the massive reductions came out for our August cruise over the bank holiday weekend, we rang our travel agent but no can do, we rang Celebrity but no - 'new bookings only'. However, we could not find this stated anywhere, it was only when we phoned we got told this! So, we bit the bullet, cancelled, lost our deposits and then rebooked a CC guarantee.

 

We had the new C3 cabin number later the same day!! even with losing our deposits we are saving over £300 and getting a better cabin. Still leaves a bitter taste though and I don't care who we cruise with in the future, we will choose a 'likely' cruise and then WE WAIT..............

 

I am sure it will all seem worth it when we board the Eclipse for the 5th time in August!!

 

Lyn

[jveevers]

Difference is Celebrity will allow direct bookings or through American TA from Oz and UK pax, so no need to pay the higher prices, they are one of the few where you can pay the American fares.:D

 

 

Hey Waihekean, you referring to which american TA that you can book Celebrity from Oz? Is that the .........to...o.com ?

Cheers Bro

[reilly1]

As said in my previous post, my TA could not get us an upgrade, even though the price of our A1 balcony on Celebrity Silhouette had dropped by a huge amount. He was told that the new prices were for new bookings only. I emailed them directly, voicing my concerns that loyal, early booking customers were being treated unfairly etc. etc. Guess what! We have been upgraded to a super Aqua Class cabin on deck 11, with all the accompanying perks - very happy! So go ahead, have a go yourselves. It worked for me with just one email.

 

Colleen:):D

[leylander]

As said in my previous post, my TA could not get us an upgrade, even though the price of our A1 balcony on Celebrity Silhouette had dropped by a huge amount. He was told that the new prices were for new bookings only. I emailed them directly, voicing my concerns that loyal, early booking customers were being treated unfairly etc. etc. Guess what! We have been upgraded to a super Aqua Class cabin on deck 11, with all the accompanying perks - very happy! So go ahead, have a go yourselves. It worked for me with just one email.

 

Colleen:):D

 

Hi, hope you, or anyone else on the site don't mind me asking, but what email adress did you use? The only adress I can find is the Captains club adress - is that the one you use?

[scotlanders]

So unfair

[reilly1]

Hi, hope you, or anyone else on the site don't mind me asking, but what email adress did you use? The only adress I can find is the Captains club adress - is that the one you use?

 

I went right to the bottom of the Home Page under Customer Services, Contact Us and sent the email. I got an automated reply within a few hours and the upgrade phonecall after about a week. Worth trying. Worse case scenario is that you remain in the same cabin.

[leylander]

I went right to the bottom of the Home Page under Customer Services, Contact Us and sent the email. I got an automated reply within a few hours and the upgrade phonecall after about a week. Worth trying. Worse case scenario is that you remain in the same cabin.

 

The only address I can see there [can't see the customer services link you mention], is the Captains club address. Think I'll try that. thanks for the info.

[Adammara]

I heard this morning that Celebrity UK has now been forced to set up a new department to deal with all the pricing complaints received from their recent cut price sale. Their existing sales agents have been unable to cope with all the complaints and sales calls.

 

Richard

[Jenna109]

It is difficult to know what to do. ie book early or wait for a bargain. For once this year we have got it right:D

Celebrity New England cruise booked July 2011 for Sept 2012 has risen in price by over £1000 each!

Celebrity South American cruise booked Oct. 2011 for march 2013 has just started rising and is £500 each more than we paid.

P&O to med. late booking saved half of listed price. Those who booked this cruise at full price must feel really angry. I would!

 

We are lucky as we are retired and so can book late deals so we are following the rule - flying to America we book in advance. Sailing from England wait for a late deal

 

Americans have the same problem in reverse. However, one thing that I feel is very unfair is that Americans can cancel and get their deposit back.

[timetravellers]

I sent an email to Celebrity after being told I would have to pay £250+ each to upgrade from Concierge to Sky Suite.

The Sky Suite was being advertised for less than we had paid for our Concierge.

They came back with a no as it was new bookings only. Can't see where it said that so I don't know how we are supposed to know.

It has ruined the anticipation of the cruise a bit as we feel cheated and ripped off.

Interested in that US website. Will definitely consider that next time unless it is an unusual cruise which will sell out like our Antarctica one has.

[reilly1]

I sent an email to Celebrity after being told I would have to pay £250+ each to upgrade from Concierge to Sky Suite.

The Sky Suite was being advertised for less than we had paid for our Concierge.

They came back with a no as it was new bookings only. Can't see where it said that so I don't know how we are supposed to know.

It has ruined the anticipation of the cruise a bit as we feel cheated and ripped off.

Interested in that US website. Will definitely consider that next time unless it is an unusual cruise which will sell out like our Antarctica one has.

 

I am sorry it has not worked out for you. We were upgraded on Wednesday from A1 to Aquaclass on the strength of an email complaint. However, last night, our Cruise Ticket Booklet appeared online and we were able to request Luggage Tags. I am wondering if Celebrity have decided to issue everyone with documentation to discourage any more complaints/requests for upgrades. The Cruise Ticket Booklet is normally closer to the sail date. We are not sailing until 5th July.

[ali-ali-oh]

I am sorry it has not worked out for you. We were upgraded on Wednesday from A1 to Aquaclass on the strength of an email complaint. However, last night, our Cruise Ticket Booklet appeared online and we were able to request Luggage Tags. I am wondering if Celebrity have decided to issue everyone with documentation to discourage any more complaints/requests for upgrades. The Cruise Ticket Booklet is normally closer to the sail date. We are not sailing until 5th July.

 

We received ours over a month before our cruise in mid April and we don't cruise until June, so I think it's probably just a coinicidence that you've got it now/made a complaint/been upgradraded.

[Chunky2219]

It's a pity that CC doesn't allow us to post TA details.

 

Ours has been truly magnificent in dealing with Celebrity. Two whacking great price drops for the price of a phone call plus a trouble free cabin swap when we spotted on the excellent Solstice spreadsheet that the one we had chosen might get some noise from the deck above.

 

I got a call out of the blue last week about an available upgrade with another line we are booked with at a truly remarkable price, so we took it.

 

It might be the largest cruise bureau in the UK, but if not, it comes close and they are located in the North of England.

.

.

[buffery]

Very interesting can you give another clue to who the company is !

[Bluebury]

Are they based in The Lake District? Finding good TA that is prepared to work like that for their customers would be great. Thanks. If not the Lake District then please give some clues