not impressed with Celebrity

[Tiffany's mom]

We are new to Celebrity but not new to cruising. Most of our cruises are with Princess. We have cruised since the 80's so we have lots of experience.

 

We have two cruises booked for this year on Celebrity It seem I have to keeping checking our booking on-line to see it has be changed.

 

Check today and noticed that the tour we booked and paid for was missing. After calling Celebrity (the first call was disconnected) so I called and waited again. Finally got the right department to be told that tour had been canceled. No notice was sent. They had credited our credit card. We do not check our credit statement every day, so this is not a notice of a canceled tour. This is not the way to do business.

 

The other cruise, a port was canceled. It was 11 months away. So we get to stay in Sydney harbor for a another day. We were staying 2 days before the cruise, now we have another day. Not happy about the extra day. Can not change the air as we used miles and flights are very hard to get. Our agent called 3 times to get the right dinning time. It is finally showing the right time.

 

The web-site is hard to use. So far Celebrity has not impressed me. Hope things get better.

[4774Papa]

We are new to Celebrity but not new to cruising. Most of our cruises are with Princess. We have cruised since the 80's so we have lots of experience.

 

We have two cruises booked for this year on Celebrity It seem I have to keeping checking our booking on-line to see it has be changed.

 

Check today and noticed that the tour we booked and paid for was missing. After calling Celebrity (the first call was disconnected) so I called and waited again. Finally got the right department to be told that tour had been canceled. No notice was sent. They had credited our credit card. We do not check our credit statement every day' date=' so this is not a notice of a canceled tour. This is not the way to do business.

 

The other cruise, a port was canceled. It was 11 months away. So we get to stay in Sydney harbor for a another day. We were staying 2 days before the cruise, now we have another day. Not happy about the extra day. Can not change the air as we used miles and flights are very hard to get. Our agent called 3 times to get the right dinning time. It is finally showing the right time.

 

The web-site is hard to use. So far Celebrity has not impressed me. Hope things get better.[/quote']

Sorry you had the problem with your excursion. X should have notified you. We had an excursion cancelled on our first X cruise and were not notified until the morning of the excursion, but they arranged for us to take our second choice. Other than that we have had no such problems with X.

 

As for the port cancellation, we have never had that happen, but it is usually for a good reason. The fact that it is 11 months away give you a chance to cancel or stick with the cruise.

 

I see you use a TA. We don't and have had no problems with dining times, etc.

 

Suggest you enjoy the cruise and determine if you like X or not.

 

We are fond of X and have five cruises booked, next one in Australia.

[sanjoseca]

Well, I hope that the high count posters on here will be nice to you. So many times posters will not believe, or try to blame OP for the issues.

 

Celebrity is awful when it comes to communicating. A couple of months ago Celebrity cancelled two ports on our cruise....I had to find out by checking my reservation. There was zero notice to me or my Travel Agent. Poor business practices in my opinion.

[Lois R]

Sorry you have had so many issues:(

 

To be honest with you, many of us also have issues with the their

website and have complained to X about it so please don't feel

alone in that arena. I would never blame you for having problems

with it:eek:...and they do need to upgrade the website.

 

The onboard service is awesome though:D...so I hope your shipboard

experience is wonderful.

[Orator]

Can most certainly understand your frustration. Somehow they don't focus on cruises that they believe are too far away. I had thaat type of problem with Choice Air. I'm crazy about checking times and discovered a time change in my May flight from Rome. The flight was leaving several hours earlier than scheduled and they added another stop over. Called Choice Air to discuss the situation and they weren't even aware of the schedule change. Told me that they really don't focus on changes until closer to the date. They switched me to a more expensive flight without additional charge. Somehow these things usually work out in the end, but can be frustrating along the way. Hopefully, your preboarding experience will improve. I know that you will be happy once you board the ship. Staff is great!

[SkystheLimit]

Sorry you have had so many issues:(

 

To be honest with you, many of us also have issues with the their

website and have complained to X about it so please don't feel

alone in that arena. I would never blame you for having problems

with it:eek:...and they do need to upgrade the website.

 

The onboard service is awesome though:D...so I hope your shipboard

experience is wonderful.

 

Agree with Lois completely. The disconnect between Miami(website, customer service, etc.) and the ship is perplexing. For us the shipboard experience has been wonderful. Hope it will be for you as well.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Well, I agree with the OP. Celebrity's communication skills are not the greatest. They made a MAJOR change on our upcoming itinerary--switched ports to different days. Did I hear about it from Celebrity? Nope. Neither did my travel agent. Heard about it on Cruise Critic (thank God for Cruise Critic!)

 

As for their alleged website, I don't think you'll find any fans here.

 

So, why do I continue to cruise with Celebrity? The on board experience is light years better. It's kind of like you're dealing with two different companies. Strange but true.

[Hapytocruise]

Re Web site - What is even stranger the Royal Carribean web site seems much better??? how can that be when they have the same parent company:confused:

[Roguekidd]

Your story made me check my reservation as I am travelling from sydney on the oct 23rd solstice cruise. We haven't lost a port but they have altered the schedule. We now have 3 days at sea instead of two at the end of the trip. Call me silly but for some reason the idea of 3 sea days in a row is making me think of cancelling.

For what it's worth we also were not informed via email of changes to our itinerary. Bad service.

[SMSACE6]

I personally have only one Celebrity cruise in my cruise history, and it happened ten year ago, and was an excellent cruise. I have not been back on Celebrity since then, only because I cruise either solo (cant affort X, solo) or with friends on Carnival (sorry).

 

However.....my parents sail exclusively with Celebrity. They are in their 80;s and have problems dealing with computers and the internet, so I do all their computer related work, ie researching itineraries, pre registering their info before cruises etc. Yes....I can only say, for a cruise line that I still look up to and hope to sail again some day; the website sucks big time!

 

Even this week, my parents booked a cruise, and was told it was on 48hr hold, yet less than 24hrs later, Celebrity had lost their booking. The stateroom was no longer available, and their only option was to book a higher category, and yes more money!

 

So OP, I do hear you, but I also hope that when your cruise actually happens that you will be as impressed with Celebrity as I was way back on my Celebrity cruise. It was very nice. The website is bad, but I think the cruise line actually is excellent (even though I have not been on in awhile) just my parents love it, as well as other family members.

 

Have a great cruise:)

[swedish weave]

I seem to remember a thread when the new boss took over Celebrity that said the website problems would be top priority. Am I confused, or haven't the problems been fixed.

[Lois R]

I seem to remember a thread when the new boss took over Celebrity that said the website problems would be top priority. Am I confused, or haven't the problems been fixed.

 

Hi there...you are not confused and the problems have NOT been

fixed.

[dkjretired]

Well, I hope that the high count posters on here will be nice to you. So many times posters will not believe, or try to blame OP for the issues.

 

Celebrity is awful when it comes to communicating. A couple of months ago Celebrity cancelled two ports on our cruise....I had to find out by checking my reservation. There was zero notice to me or my Travel Agent. Poor business practices in my opinion.

 

Guess you got proven wrong. Most of us so called "high count posters" realize that Celebrity's stateside customer service is horrible and we have been saying that for many years. As a matter of fact, on of the higher ups was quoted on this board saying they were aware of this problem and working to correct it. Fortunately once you get on board things get a lot better.

[6andy6]

Right, let's blame it on the travel agents and not Celebrity. Sorry, it's Celebrity that's not notifying everyone. Some travel agents did get notified. And luckily their clients shared that information with the rest of us on the cruise via Cruise Critic.

 

Opps. Meant to be an open view site yet very snappy if someone doesnt have your opinion. Sorry I didn't know this was an agree with Linda fan club...

 

I was taught to be open minded and not to always 'blame'others unless you have proof. Now I have presented proof that I have indeed, always been advised of changes since booking.

 

Now I am either an aberration OR more likely I am what happens more often than not. And if that's the case where does it leave the rest of the thread? Cracks often appear in any imperfect large organisation and things 'don't happen'.

 

Does it warrant the 'not impressed' motif? If that was the case we could equally apply the same commentary to this forum and the IT and website issues it has been having....but like that I just attribute it to temporary cracks in the system that like anywhere, always require attention. :o

 

I hope you find peace.......

[ariawoman]

Celebrity has a horrible website.

 

Fortunately, Celebrity on board is a wonderful product. Try not to let it discourage you - but I will say - if you approach it thinking you'll hate it, you will, so please try to keep an open mind.

 

As others have mentioned, the agents stateside aren't typically very good, unfortunately, and often times we CCers know more of what's going on than they do.

 

That's why it's great that this site exists!

[ghstudio]

I seem to remember a thread when the new boss took over Celebrity that said the website problems would be top priority. Am I confused, or haven't the problems been fixed.

 

He said it...and as far as we've seen it was just lip service. To date there have been no improvements to hq customer facing problems at all....and reports of poor experiences on various ships seem to have increased....

[The Mommy]

Added to their poor communiaction and awful web site problems Celebrity is also very poor on the transfers for us British fans. We face poor flight patterns and arrangements, overnight stays which are not necessary and appalling road transfer arrangements.

Why do we keep choosing X - easy - its still the best onboard experience overall in our opinion.

Yes you can pick fault in a few areas but we are all different and as I said on balance its the best line we have tried so far in this price range.

[dkjretired]

Opps. Meant to be an open view site yet very snappy if someone doesnt have your opinion. Sorry I didn't know this was an agree with Linda fan club...

 

I was taught to be open minded and not to always 'blame'others unless you have proof. Now I have presented proof that I have indeed, always been advised of changes since booking.

 

Now I am either an aberration OR more likely I am what happens more often than not. And if that's the case where does it leave the rest of the thread? Cracks often appear in any imperfect large organisation and things 'don't happen'.

 

Does it warrant the 'not impressed' motif? If that was the case we could equally apply the same commentary to this forum and the IT and website issues it has been having....but like that I just attribute it to temporary cracks in the system that like anywhere, always require attention. :o

 

I hope you find peace.......

 

Andy:

 

I think the problem is their consistency or in some cases lack thereof....

[CruisinCadie]

To the OP,

 

Frankly, I'm surprised they cancelled your tour before the cruise started. On our last cruise, they kept advertising one of our choices up to about 2 days before the port, THEN cancelled it due to lack of interest. So we booked a similar, more expensive tour, which was fine.

 

The morning we were in that port, there was a bad traffic accident in the city, multiple cars, trucks, and a bus, and X had to cancel 2 tours because there was no way the wreck would be cleaned up until late in the day. Those people were all added to our tour, for no additional charge, and boy, you should have heard the complaining, I guess they'd have preferred to stay onboard (one of those industrial ports where there's nothing to see), rather than have a relaxing ride through beautiful countryside, entertaining tour guide and bus driver, a great meal, and an informative tour of a working hacienda.

 

But to get back to my original point, at least you have a chance to choose another tour, or even look into booking with an independent operator.

 

At any rate, enjoy your cruises.

 

Kathy

[jacketwatch]

We have cruised with X only twice but our service and overall experience on board was excellent so we do plan to return one day for the right itinerary and ship. In fact our med cruise last Oct. on the Equinox was the best we've ever had.

 

My experience with on line use has been OK save for the live on line chat help which seems about as fast as the pony express.

 

Our post cruise experience with CS has been spotty. Once it was terrible but by persisting up the ladder was resolved in an exemplary way. I wrote and nice letter about our last cruise which garnered a nice call from X to thank me so that was pretty considerate.

 

I do think your on board experience, like the others have said will be eye popping. :)

[Artemis]

OP, have you ever been to Sydney before? If not, you will end up happy for the extra time. It is an extraordinary place!

 

But that doesn't do anything to smooth over Celebrity's missteps.... It's a bummer you've experienced these problems, but as everyone says, once you're on board, I predict you'll love the Celebrity cruise experience!

[GeorgesGal]

As others have mentioned, the agents stateside aren't typically very good, unfortunately, and often times we CCers know more of what's going on than they do.

 

 

I agree with a previous poster who mentioned cracks in the (internet) system. I guess there are cracks in the vacation planner system as well. Personally, I have worked for about three years with one gal in Miami and she has been excellent!

 

So, let's not broad-brush everything/one.

 

Donna

[We're The Groupnors]

Sorry to hear your pre-cruise experience has not gone well, but rest assured the service will be excellent once you board! We are also experienced cruisers and used to spend our time almost equally between Princess and Celebrity. However, in recent years we pretty much stick to Celebrity as we feel the service on board is far superior to Princess. The last straw for us was our Princess Med cruise, when we splurged for a suite for a special birthday. The room steward was the worst we've had, and refused to do many things for us, even if they were his job, and complained nonstop about how busy he was. Any request we had that was beyond him making up our cabin was met with sighs, complaints and a generally bad attitude. Compare that to Celebrity where every staff member you meet will smile and greet you with at least a hello.

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Opps. Meant to be an open view site yet very snappy if someone doesnt have your opinion. Sorry I didn't know this was an agree with Linda fan club...

 

 

Wow, talk about snappy. Your experience is OK and mine is not? I think everyone's experience is valid.

[JLSPOOL]

The land based problems will slip from memory once you are in your cabin and dressing for dinner. By then, you'll need to keep a list of positives and negatives to report back to us about your cruise.

 

An extra day in Sydney will be more time to rest or tour.

 

Celebrity will do what they like with the difficult website but you'll be the lucky person cruising.

 

Enjoy.

 

JSP