Summit 3/21/05 cruise officially "ON HOLD" by Celebrity

[i-m-ed]

Ok, I booked this cruise and my in-laws decided they wanted to come along. I called the TA to book their room and was told that the cruise is "on hold" and no more rooms could be booked. He couldn't tell me why it was put on hold but said it he believes it may be pulled out for routine maintenance.

 

Does anyone have any further information on this? i.e. should I be looking for another cruise? I hope not as this is the only >10 day cruise in this time frame from from any line and it's the only time I / we can go.

[kayakfam]

I understand the Summit IS scheduled for some type of maintenance early in 2005 - maybe February?? I am not sure, but maybe your cruise is the first one after dry-dock and now the powers that be are thinking it might take longer? It is puzzling. . . Good luck.

 

Debbie

Summit(11 night) Dec '03 & Summit (10 night) October 2004!!

[BocaRoo]

i-m-ed, thanks for posting this information! I was going to call Celebrity to pay our deposit as we're booked on this sailing, which resulted in my calling the Captain's Club for more information. According to the Marge the professional and helpful rep with whom I spoke, the 3/21, 4/1 and 4/11 sailings are in "Code Red" status. She suspected there might be a change in ports or there could be some other reason for the hold.

 

Marge advised me to call on 5/8 when my deposit is due to find out if the "code red" has been lifted and not to pay the deposit until that time.

 

Let's hope everything works out for these sailings!

 

Jill

[angelpug]

I'm booked on the Summit 3/21 cruise, and I've heard nothing.

 

This same thing happened to me last year for my Galaxy 3/26 cruise. We were on code red for over a month while they decided if they wanted to bring the Galaxy back to Baltimore. In the end, everything worked out.

 

I've been watching the 3/21 cruise for over a month now, and it seems to be selling out fast. When I booked our CS, we had a choice of any of the 8 available...now there's only 3 left! Hopefully they're just trying to decided on an itinerary.

 

Let's all keep each other informed!

 

Jaime

 

Until We're on the Summit

 

[angelpug]

I just checked with my TA. She said not to worry, that our sailing has been "pulled" for a Revenue Check. The Revenue Dept. will pull certain cruises, and do a complete check on everything. She said everything should be back to normal soon.

 

I hope she's right. She's never steered me in the wrong direction!

 

Take Care,

Jaime

 

Until We're on the Summit

 

[Millenium]

Thanks also for this information. We booked on this cruise a few months ago. This was the only one that worked for us over the Easter break. I booked a corner FV cabin and was so looking forward to it.

 

Please let me know if you hear anything.

[angelpug]

Hi Millennium!

Head on over to the Roll Call board, and join us. Jill (Miamiroo) started us a roll call thread last night. We can hang out over there, and worry about the state of our cruise there!!

 

So far 5 of us have signed up for the CC Party. Did you get a chance to sign up before we were redlined?

 

We would have LOVED one of the FV rooms, but by the time we returned form the Galaxy on the 6th, they were all gone. This cruise is filling up FAST! So with 3 of us in the room, we went for the CS.

 

Hope to see you on the Roll Call board!

Jaime

 

Until We're on the Summit

 

[i-m-ed]

I so wanted a FV room but alas Millenium beat me to it. The best room I could get, other than a suite, was a Cat 2A. I'm amazed at how quickly this ship is filling up myself. I booked my March Serenade cruise in July and pretty much had pick of the ship when it came to room choices.

 

This and one out of Galveston are the only two >10 day cruises that work for us over Easter break. Almost a year out and I'm already experiencing anxiety over this vacation!!

 

Let's hope Jaime is right and this is only the Revenue Dept. playing with my mind.

[Millenium]

Sorry I beat you to the FV cabin. When I booked, I think it was in January, there were several FVs left and 3-4 corner FVs. The corner ones didn't last much longer. But the other FVs were available for a couple months longer and then all of a sudden disappeared 1-2 months ago. I sure hope this cruise isn't changed much.

[i-m-ed]

I wouldn't mind seeing a port or two added to the itinerary

 

Millenium, I was definately gunning for the aft FV. We had an aft on Serenade last month and I spent some time looking at the afts on Constellation while we were docked in Peurto Rico.

 

Unfortunately I plan my vacations around my kids spring break and their school couldn't tell us when or how long next years is until 3 weeks ago.

[Millenium]

I agree that changing a couple of ports might be nice. I do like the idea of more days at sea. It seeems you don't get enough time to enjoy the ship.

 

Too bad about the late notice on your school vacation. I was lucky our school puts it out way in advance. The FV cabins are nice. I sailed with a famly reunion group last year on the Millenium and my sister had a non-corner FV. Even the non-corner balcony was huge. And even the bedroom area of the FV seemed bigger than our whole regular cabin, without adding on the living area.

[LMKohler]

The 3/21/05 cruise must be an 11 day cruise. We are on the Summit 3/15/05 which is just before yours and ours is the 10 day cruise to the Southern Caribbean.

 

I had not heard that Summit would be going to dry dock "early next year".

 

Lucy

[LMKohler]

This cruise is probably selling out fast because it is during Easter week and probably spring break for a great many people (which is why we ARE NOT going on this cruise).

 

Lucy

[BB5953]

Okay I am worried. I am going on my honeymoon on the Summit 4/1/05. Do you all think I should change my plans? We are taking 30 people to the keys and then driving up to get on the Summit. I can't wait too long if I need to change all of those plans. Advice anyone?

 

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[i-m-ed]

I called Celebrity and spoke with someone yesterday and was told the cruise was pulled by the Revenue dept. The person I spoke with said that many Europeans are starting to cruise leading to more TA's taking more blocks of rooms to sell and thereby showing the ship to be fuller than it actually is, when this happens she says the Revenue Dept. does an audit to see if they can free up rooms.

 

On a down side she also admitted that revenue will put a hold on bookings while negotiating a potential charter of the ship as well. She told me I would be "compensated" if the ship were chartered. I asked in jest if I could get a back to back cruise for the same price as this one during the same time period if ours is cancelled and she laughed and said "highly unlikely". Oh well, it never hurts to ask. She did state that Celebrity was looking into discounting back to back cruises though.

 

In any event I'm scrambling to find an alternative >10 day booking for the same time period and am finding that there is nothing else out there nearly as nice as this cruise, we prefer port intensive itineraries.

 

If it's cancelled I might have to try a land based vacation in the Caribbean instead.

 

LMKohler, oops, I mean BB5953 it might not hurt to start looking at what else might be available but I wouldn't get too worked up yet, the lady I spoke with said everything should be cleared up by next Monday. I say this as I sit here in a half panic about my vacation, I guess I am a little O/C.

 

Good luck to all!!!

[LMKohler]

BB5953 -- I would wait. I still think it's to early to tell what is going on. And, even if they do something to the 3/21/05 cruise that doesn't mean yours will be effected.

 

I give you a lot of credit trying to tie together a wedding and cruise (I would get grey hair!!).

 

Lucy

[BB5953]

LMkohler - Thanks. I am getting grey hair and am very on edge. So you can imagine my reaction when I saw 3/21, 4/1 and 4/11 cruises were being put on hold. I am in complete panic mode. But in a previous post it said that everything should be fine by Monday so I will wait to see where the cards fall...

 

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[SeaGal]

I will be so disappointed if the 4/1/05 Summit cruise doesn’t work out. It is difficult to find the perfect 10-day cruise that fits into our spring break and this one is exactly what we want. We are even excited about the itinerary and we have booked a corner aft FV cabin.

 

We were on the 4/4/04 Millennium that was changed to the Infinity at the last minute and had a lot of anxiety about the Infinity not being out of dry dock in time. I really don’t want to go through that again. At least this is lots of advance warning and I have not booked my airfare (we try to use miles, which makes changes more complicated).

 

We will take a “wait and see†attitude and hope for the best. I really want to go on this cruise.

 

4/1/05 Summit 10-day

[BB5953]

SeaGal - Glad to see someone else planning on cruising with us. I am very excited and am trying to take the "don't worry until there is something to worry about" approach but it unfortunitly is not working.

 

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[birders]

The Summit dry dock begins January 16, 2005 (the day we disembark!). If you check the fleet calendar for Caribbean, January 2005, you'll see the gap. We had originally booked a 10-day which ended 1/17; the cruise disappeared from the calendar and came back as a 9-day, ending 1/16.

[angelpug]

I'm not worried yet! Lori, my TA says this happens all the time....it's just that being informed means we happen to know when it's happening ! Sometimes like now I'd rather not know!

 

I don't see them messing with the 3-21 sailing, just because it IS the holiday sailing, and so many ARE already booked.

 

What I am finding strange about the whole thing is it's the last three cruises on the books for Summit, and I'm wondering if they're about to do an itinerary change on it to start it's Summer 2005 season? So many questions out there. I'm just wondering what RCCL/Celebrity is planning on doing out of Baltimore next year for the Spring 2005 season which starts the end of March? This year as the Galaxy leaves forf Europe, the Granduer comes to take it's place. Next year the Galaxy is going to Galvaston, and will be doing almost the same exact itinerary as the Summit, and the Granduer is being based out of New Orleans....What's in Baltimore?

 

As y'all can tell, I've been all over the internet over the past 24 hours trying to read Celebrity's mind !

 

I have been looking at other cruises though, and if this one falls through becasue of a charter, I'll have to book with Princess (the only cruiseline with a 10 day in our time frame I'm even remotely interested in), and would have to use any cruise credit towards a cruise in 2006.

 

Two years in a row of waiting after I booked to see if I WILL be cruising is getting kinda hairy! Hopefully everyting will be back to normal soon, and our countdowns can get exciting again.

 

Take Care,

Jaime

 

Until We're on the Summit

 

[LMKohler]

How long is the typical drydock?

 

Jaime - my goodness -- I would get confused trying to keep track of these ships and dates, but you bring up an interesting scenario.

 

I'm keeping my fingers crossed about the March 11, 2005 sailing.

[i-m-ed]

Jaime,

Thanks for the heads up on the Princess cruise. I like it's itinerary but I like the Summit a little better. If the Summit is cancelled I think I'll be seriously looking at Princess.

[der93711]

Looks like the Jan 28 sailing of the Summit is also "Red Coded" I tried to get some answers from celebrity and they have no information as to why. They said could be sold out (don't believe that or dry doc, or repositioning or some kind of review. They promised to call me back later...not sure if I should hold my breath. Why would a ship be in dry doc for so long, and why then. This is the height of the season in the carribean?

 

RCCI Song of Norway 1982

RCCI Viking 1991

Princess Crown 12/93

Galaxy 11/98

Princess Crown 12/00

Summit 1/03

Summit 1/12/04

1/28/04 Summit again

[Millenium]

My TA said the May 7, 2005 canal cruise is blocked too.

 

The TA said they have no definite information yet. That it could be because Celebrity inventory control has determined that TAs have put down too many bulk deposits for blocks of cabins and the ship is oversold (which he said happened to the Inifity 12/5 sailing) or because Celebrity has chartered the ship but hasn't decided yet where to transfer the booked passengers. Hope its nothing serious and we find out soon.