New propulsion problem on Millennium

[cruisestitch]

It really pains me to report in these problems...you can tell by my signature I've spent a year of my life sailing on this line, with many more cruises booked, and I won't be cancelling any of them because of this.

 

I write mostly so that whoever from Celebrity gets a feel for how this is being handled and can perhaps learn from it.

 

What would have made 99% of today's difficulties disappear would have been solved by better communication. Not the kind of assurances and reassurances that might constitute a "contract" but a simple;

 

Dear..

 

Please rank your preferences:

Anchorage

Vancouver

Seattle

 

Please describe your plans. Do you have a private post tour ?

Do you have a hotel booked in Anchorage? Etcetc

 

 

Followed by

 

Dear......

 

You will be transferred to ....

You are booked into hotel.....

The phone number of your local contact is....

 

Etcetera

 

We got none of this

[MicCanberra]

Communication failures are normally the reason for every situation becoming worse.:(

[susaraymond]

We were told to be in theatre by 7:30 am and held there until 9:30 am. We sure could have used the extra sleep or time to pack. The charter flight finally left at 11:50 with plenty of open seats. Our party of 8 made our own arrangements to fly home from Vancouver and are trusting that Celebrity will make up the cost.

 

However, It was a highly frustrating time, trying to get our family booked on the same charter and same hotel. I am disappointed that I was told three times that we had to go separately and nothing could be changed! We had no idea what hotel we were going to and we had no way to communicate as none of us had the ability to use our cell phones in Canada. Celebrity certainly did not have their act together on the ship. Lots of confusion and we are exhausted. We did get taken to a waterfront Fairmont in vancouver and were relieved to see that we would be in a beautiful hotel. One of our family has to get to London and the rest of us are flying home to 4 other cities.

 

It took us almost four years to pull this trip together with our six adult children and sadly, we will not have another

 

We have not been given anything official in regards to a credit or credit toward future sailings. They were able to charge our credit cards immediately, but will the credit our credit cards immediately?

[lovecruzin]

cruisestitch - given your increasing frustration you are doing a great job of giving facts and not being overly biased in your "reporting". You are really giving us a sense of how it is without sugar coating it or slamming Celebrity. I think we all read your updates and get a feeling for what you are experiencing and trust what you are saying...Thank You :)

 

Count me in the numbers of those who think X should comp your internet usage!

[susaraymond]

Cruise stitch, I agree. We love to cruise and wish this situation was handled with more respect. We could handle having to be flown to a different city. But, there was a lack of respect to keep our family together thru this ordeal.

 

Ultimately, one person in customer service finally made it happen about 1:30 am this morning after many attempts and standing in lines.

 

And we are pleased with our hotel in vancouver and how we have been treated in vancouver

[Guest Snorkelbunny]

If you notice almost every fare has gone up 25% in the last day in these markets due to these problems. 12000 customers is a lot of people in this small market.

 

Why celebrity did not work out special prices on their and RCl ships is beyond me. I am one of the many cancellations who will never cruise this line again because of the poor way they have handled this.

 

I was on the September 13th sailing and just rebooked for NCL Sun September 16th. Not exactly thrilled with the idea of "Freestyle Cruising", but we had next to zero flexibility in terms of vacay dates and hubby really, really wanted to cruise again before the long winter.

 

I'm not sure what the rate was prior to the Millennium announcement, but we definitely feel we got a good price. Hopefully others can find great deals too.

 

I'm just thankful for CruiseCritic as I found out last night about all of this due to the boards and otherwise would have known nothing until I got home from work this evening! At least I had a 24 hour head start in figuring out what the heck we were going to do:-)

[The_Big_M]

Guests in Alaska already will receive 100% FCC...just received email

 

I'm pleased to hear that!

[MicCanberra]

I was on the September 13th sailing and just rebooked for NCL Sun September 16th. Not exactly thrilled with the idea of "Freestyle Cruising", but we had next to zero flexibility in terms of vacay dates and hubby really, really wanted to cruise again before the long winter.

 

I'm not sure what the rate was prior to the Millennium announcement, but we definitely feel we got a good price. Hopefully others can find great deals too.

 

I'm just thankful for CruiseCritic as I found out last night about all of this due to the boards and otherwise would have known nothing until I got home from work this evening! At least I had a 24 hour head start in figuring out what the heck we were going to do:-)

I am sure you will still enjoy the cruise, Freestyle cruising is exactly the same as Select Dining.

If this is something you hate then I am sorry, but I find it better than traditional dining. If you want to dine with the same people each evening then just set up a group (6-10 people) through the roll call and all arrive together each night. :D

[cruisestitch]

No Internet minutes used to speak of...we have 4G here in Ketchikan

 

Sitting on bus, going to transfer to a ferry and then to airport

 

Still NO information what hotel I will be at tonight and tomorrow

 

They never even asked if I needed one night or two

 

As I left the a Capella group were in Michaels Club , the singer was at the top if the steps where last night a melee nearly broke out

 

The weird normalcy made it actually hard to leave the ship. I would have enjoyed staying another night and getting some time to decompress.

[susaraymond]

Cruise stitch, I agree. We love to cruise and wish this situation was handled with more respect. There was a lack of respect to keep our family together thru this ordeal.

 

Ultimately, one person in customer service finally made it happen about 1:30 am this morning after many attempts and standing in lines.

 

And we are pleased with our hotel in vancouver and how we have been treated in vancouver

[MicCanberra]

No Internet minutes used to speak of...we have 4G here in Ketchikan

 

Sitting on bus, going to transfer to a ferry and then to airport

 

Still NO information what hotel I will be at tonight and tomorrow

 

They never even asked if I needed one night or two

 

As I left the a Capella group were in Michaels Club , the singer was at the top if the steps where last night a melee nearly broke out

 

The weird normalcy made it actually hard to leave the ship. I would have enjoyed staying another night and getting some time to decompress.

Have a safe journey and thanks again for keeping us apprised of the situation there.:D

[The_Big_M]

I would ask the question on the Princess and NCL boards. I would take Princess over NCL.

 

I support this suggestion.

[susaraymond]

We were told people would be around until 3:00 am to help get people settled into hotels. If you are going to vancouver, the weather is beautiful!

[The_Big_M]

Sadly, this is sounding more and more like our experience on the Century. Celebrity told everyone on board that they had to find their own hotel rooms; then they said they were providing busses for everyone to Barcelona and we had to find our own hotel rooms; when we got on the bus, we were told that celebrity had booked rooms, at their expense, for us for the night...somewhere in Barcelona and the driver would be told where to take us when he reached Barcelona.....if we wanted to get to the hotel that we had booked, we had to take a cab and celebrity wouldn't pay for it. We spent the night at the hilton which was fine...but inconsistent and wrong information abounded.

 

Sadly, some things never change. Celebrity just hasn't figured out "crisis management".

 

There's always a trade-off between the urgency of getting communications out, the time it take to distribute a message, and that work is carrying on in the meantime while the message is being distributed.

 

It can take time for everything to be organised and resolved, and sometimes complications come up along the way that mean the plans need to be modified. However, everyone understandably wants to know what the plan is as soon as possible. The two are in conflict.

[The_Big_M]

For those not yet on the ship, I agree, no points have been earned. For those who are on the current cruise, they have completed the cruise offered by Celebrity, albeit a far shorter one than originally planned. Since they completed their cruise, they have a reasonable position that they should get captain club points.

 

Hint, Hint Celebrity: some folks are trying to reach the elite level, and giving captain club points would be a "no cost" positive marketing response from celebrity that could turn a lemon into a sweeter peach.

 

They've checked in, so I'd expect that points would be earned for the current cruise.

[The_Big_M]

I will admit, I always (when I wasn't a member of the "Late Cruise Cancellation Club":rolleyes: thought a 25% FCC to cruise at a different time would be a pretty nice thing to have. Who knows, maybe if we were just driving an hour to cruise out of Galveston I would feel that way. Now that I've been granted admission to the exclusive club, I know the truth...there's really no financial compensation that can make up for the disappointment, the time you've spent planning, or the time that you have to spend to "un-book" everything and schedule something new.

 

I think it's reasonable. But cruise HQ sometimes are generous, and other times have a different view about what's reasonable for them.

[The_Big_M]

Celebrity continues to fail at communications

 

The twenty chartered planes dwindled to two

 

The 30 special personnel became in reality 14.

 

They have been unable to provide their own people passenger manifests so we could find out if our requests for different destinations were met.

 

We were told just after noon to expect new instructions and new luggage tags. They never came.

 

Rather than actually asking us where we needed to be, they decided that since not enough hotels in Anchorsge would give them discount price rooms that there were no rooms available. (Not true) So they began arbitrarily assigning people to flights to Vancouver or Seattle. they never stoppped to ask if perhaps people already had hotels independently, just booked them on a useless charter, promised that they would be reassigned to Anchorage charters and then announced that there are no seats on Anchorage charters. It's a failure to communicate.

 

Bizarrely, some perple who wanted Seattle were assigned the coveted Anchorage seats and are having to independently book flights down to Seattle!

 

I'm astonished at how bad this is.

 

Oh, and those of us scheduled to leave the ship at 6 for the bus to the ferry to the airport for the 9:30 pm flight aren't even being given a box lunch or a bottle of water to take along (not just us, that went on all day)

 

No word from the Captain for over two days.

 

Oh, and they never handed out comment forms

 

I'm really sorry to hear this. Usually, the first part of the incident is the hardest, but once it's going things improve.

 

There are some simple things there that should have occurred so it's very disappointing to read this.

[The_Big_M]

I agree with what you are saying but think the numbers are actually almost double that: 2,500 displaced from August 16th cruise, and 2,500 passenger for each of Aug. 23th and 30th Sept. 6th and Sept. 13th - so I think they're dealing with 12,000 passenger cancellations.

 

Yes, but those passengers are mostly travelling on a twin share basis, and some triples or quads. Therefore, it's likely back to about half that trying to change their reservations, so about 6,000 bookings.

 

Of course, still a lot to manage in any event!

[Shining Clem]

If the chartered planes are taking off from Ketchikan without all the seats occupied, then this chaos is costing Celebrity more money than it should. They will probably have to run additional charters to make up for the empty seats.

 

It's their own fault, as they seemed to be off to a good start in handling this mess, but now have fallen down on the job. Lots of us are watching, and will adjust future plans accordingly. Mr Clem has a quote he uses which might apply here:

"You (Celebrity) won't make that mistake on your next job."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

We have never gone on an extended trip without insurance, mostly on the basis of possible medical needs, especially med evacuation. But this event has shown the need to be even more aware of coverages. There is a separate insurance board here on CC. (go to Cruise/travel insurance, under forums)

 

We check the offerings before each trip, as policy coverages & conditions & companies can change quickly, buried in the fine print. There is also a web site which has a table of all the different company offerings, so you can compare the major coverages. (Sorry, forgot the name!) I do know that most companies will include pre-existing medical conditions if the policy is paid for within a couple of days or 1 week of the deposit.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Pay for Cruisestitches Internet? I think they ought to take her on immediately as a well paid consultant! The lady knows how to organize and communicate!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Best wishes and some sunshine (always helps everyones mood!) to all. Feel especially sorry for those who may not be Internet savvy - they may know how to email their families, etc. but probably have no idea where to look for hotel bookings, etc. "What's Orbitz, Trip Advisor?" Celebrity has to know there are some aboard who fall into this category.

[robtulipe]

I agree with what you are saying but think the numbers are actually almost double that: 2,500 displaced from August 16th cruise, and 2,500 passenger for each of Aug. 23th and 30th Sept. 6th and Sept. 13th - so I think they're dealing with 12,000 passenger cancellations.

Millie's passengers capacity is 1940 not 2500 which is the paxs # for RC's same gross tonnage Radiance class of ship. (actually 2501 paxs)

 

[frugaltravel]

I am one of the many cancellations who will never cruise this line again because of the poor way they have handled this.

 

Unfortunately most people have strong biases toward certain cruise lines, plus get major perks for having been a faithful past customer. It is VERY hard for such passengers to jump to another line, even when they have terrible experiences like many have on this sailing. The only thing that will wake up cruise lines is if people truly do start booking away from them. Unfortunately I seriously doubt it will ever happen.

[Flying is for Planes]

Millie's passengers capacity is 1940 not 2500 which is the paxs # for RC's same size Radiance class of ship.

 

 

http://www.celebritycruises.com/explore/ships/detail.do?shipCode=ML

 

Its 2158 when full

[MicCanberra]

Unfortunately most people have strong biases toward certain cruise lines, plus get major perks for having been a faithful past customer. It is VERY hard for such passengers to jump to another line, even when they have terrible experiences like many have on this sailing. The only thing that will wake up cruise lines is if people truly do start booking away from them. Unfortunately I seriously doubt it will ever happen.

Most likely just a hiatus from that particular class of ship for a while :D

[robtulipe]

There is also a web site which has a table of all the different company offerings, so you can compare the major coverages. (Sorry, forgot the name!) I do know that most companies will include pre-existing medical conditions if the policy is paid for within a couple of days or 1 week of the deposit.

 

http://www.insuremytrip.com/

[MicCanberra]

http://www.insuremytrip.com/

Cheers :D