E mail from New CEO Lisa. Pillow chocs to come back! (3 Threads Merged)

[TeaBag]

Scales are adjusted one way or the other by little things. The chocolates coming back tips the scale back towards "Modern Luxury"....a tiny bit.

 

And if I voice my displeasure, even if a little, the least I can do is voice my gladness that chocolates are back. The SO will be pleased and when she's happy I feel much better.

Nice post. "If Mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy"

[Redtravel]

I love chocolate. Thanks for bringing it back. Last week on the Eclipse, my only negative encounter was with 2 staff officers that I met on an elevator. When I asked what they did, they told me that they provided all the nice amenities in the cabins. My response was..." so you're the guys who took away the chocolates at night." Their response was.."just doing what we were told to do." Not even saying that they were sorry. Granted a piece of chocolate isn't enough to stop me from cruising with Celebrity. It just seemed like the trend is more cutbacks and higher prices. I wanted to rebook the same cruise for next year while on the ship. I was blown away when I was told that the same cruise 2016 would cost us more than $2000 above what we had paid for the 2015....same category C2 Even a ocean view cabin was a lot more than what I paid for the C2 this year. I could handle a small increase. The increase so large that I doubt it will ever drop to 2015 prices. I will miss the Eclipse and the chocolates. I have already made alternate plans for next year.

[need2bespoiled]

SNIP

 

Then you have an issue of milk chocolate vs. dark. Travel a lot in Australia and dark chocolate is hard to find, but here in the US more adults eat dark than light/milk.

 

SNIP

 

Seriously? I eat Dark chocolate and love it, but if you think that more adults eat Dark Chocolate, I think you're mistaken. Go to the candy section of any gas station or convenience store and look and see what the proportion of dark to milk chocolate is. It is roughly 99% to none.

 

Chocolates won't make or break my cruise, but some nights they make me smile, especially on the nights when I come back from the casino after loosing and need to cheer up. Or other times after I bring them home and want a reminder of my cruise. It's really a nice reminder of great times.

 

Happy sailing,

Jenna

[villauk]

Celebrity have obviously heard about the Cadbury's ban and have stockpiled :rolleyes: :p!

[Project_gal]

Errr ... what email (asks Elite level UK member)? Non-delivery is probably down to my slow broadband :rolleyes:

 

Ditto - but my broadband is not slow!

 

Oh dear! my other half is not going to be happy. I do not eat the chocolates or Oreos [spelling]. In our suite we were lucky enough to get the biscuits every night and he loved having them both. Just an example of how you cannot please everyone all of the time.

 

Me, I would have been happy just to have received the email at one of the many addresses Celebrity use for me but I got nothing.

Edited February 6, 2015 by Project_gal

[upwarduk]

Not sure why, but I have had 2 emails from Celebrity, 1st last night and 2nd this morning.

This is the addition for UK Members:

 

 

The new CEO has this to say:

 

We welcome the revitalised Celebrity Eclipse back to the UK in May. For those of you already booked on our special Taste of Modern Luxury two-night sailing , there will be an opportunity to meet you face to face as I will be onboard hosting a Captain's Club cocktail reception with Jo Rzymowska, UK and Ireland Managing Director.

 

I also recently had an email from Celebrity promoting the above mentioned cruise:

 

 

Great British Chefs will be joining us on board!

 

'Through our partnership with Great British Chefs, Michelin-starred chefs Adam Simmonds and Robert Thompson will be joining us on board Celebrity Eclipse from the 7-9 May 2015

for our all-inclusive 2 night Taste of 'Modern Luxury.'

 

Obviously the 2 day taster cruise ( which was a late addition) hasn't yet sold out.

Edited February 6, 2015 by upwarduk

[steamboats]

No email for German Captain´s Club members...:o!

 

Maybe either we don´t get any chocolate or they still need some time to translate it...:rolleyes:

 

steamboats

[Project_gal]

Not sure why, but I have had 2 emails from Celebrity, 1st last night and 2nd this morning.

 

So you got mine!

[laslomas]

Still waiting for my email. I logged into Captains Club and checked my profile on there and the box is checked asking for news and promotional emails. Thinking about it, I don't remember ever getting email from Capt.Club. Checked my junk folder too. Guess I will have to contact them to ask them to look at my settings, no saying what little gems I have been missing!

[jerrymanos]

I know that some people believe that chocolates are not very important, but in my case, they're currently significant. While on board I hardly ever ate the chocolates because X always fed me very well. I would stash them and bring them home. Then I would have one every few weeks for a snack as an enjoyable reminder of the great cruising experience. My last cruise was with X in June, so....... no chocolates. My cruise before that was with Cunard last January. A couple of months ago I found my stash of chocolates from Cunard. They still tasted good. It started me thinking about booking another cruise. I now have a cruise scheduled in April on the Queen Victoria.

 

I'm not saying that the chocolates are the only reason that I booked with Cunard this time, but it was the chocolates that precipitated the idea to look for another cruise. Reading Cruise Critic and eating Cunard chocolates are fun ways to happily anticipate my 19 day upcoming cruise.

 

So, in my case, Cunard is getting their money's worth in advertising by including the chocolates on my pillow at night.

 

Jerry of Jerry and Lady Kathryn

[terrierjohn]

There are quite a lot of cynical posts on this thread, personally I applaud the return of the chocolates as an indication of Celebrity's committment to customer service, but equally I agree with most of the sentiment in the CEO's letter.

There is no doubt in my mind that Celebrity's service is well ahead of the other 2 main stream lines I regularly sail on, and I do not feel that standards have slipped very much in my 8 years on Celebrity. But my recent experience is only on Eclipse in the UK which I understand regularly tops the satisfaction lists within the group, so maybe I have been lucky.

[suziewoods]

We leave Sydney on the Solstice on April 3rd bound for Hawaii so I wonder if the chocolates will be rolled out for our cruise?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Cruise Critic Forums mobile app

[ECCruise]

What specialty restaurants have been taken over? I was just on the Summit and didn't notice the specialty restaurants not being available to everyone that wanted to go there. Is this something new??

 

IMHO, the Captain's Club is a loyalty program.

 

All the specialty restaurants during the ~2 months of construction of Luminae. Luminae was not under construction when you were on Summit. Reservations are few and far between (or, in some cases, totally unavailable for certain days). There is much discussion on this on a couple of threads.

[MicCanberra]

personally I am glad they have returned, they may only be small and I do not need them but it shows they are willing to pick up the standards and also listen to their customers. For some it was a big deal when they took them away.:D

[deelastcre]

My husband received the email. I am not a happy camper because he does not pay for the Celebrity Cruises. I book and I pay. The chocolates are not a big thing with me, but I enjoy them when I return home and remember the sweet Celebrity Experience on my last cruise. Hopefully, they will upgrade the entertainment in the near future.

[Croooser]

She gave a great interview a few days ago, you can read it here

http://www.travelagentcentral.com/cruises/conversation-lisa-lutoff-perlo-celebrity-cruises-new-president-49962

 

I was lucky enough to meet Lisa when she was Director of Onboard Marketing for Celebrity quite a few years ago. I thought I remembered her saying she started with Celebrity as the regional sales manager, and have followed her career ever since. In my mind she was the obvious choice to succeed Dan Hanrahan wen he left, since she is the most well rounded executive in the business (with titles in Sales,Maritime, Hotel, and Launching, Designing Ships), glad Mr Fain finally reached the same conclusion.

 

So happy for her and can't see what ideas she uses to put her own mark on Celebrity

 

Thanks for posting this link - lots of good info there, unlike many of the "me first - my opinion is the only one that counts" posts on this thread.

[NLH Arizona]

I love chocolate. Thanks for bringing it back. Last week on the Eclipse, my only negative encounter was with 2 staff officers that I met on an elevator. When I asked what they did, they told me that they provided all the nice amenities in the cabins. My response was..." so you're the guys who took away the chocolates at night." Their response was.."just doing what we were told to do." Not even saying that they were sorry. Granted a piece of chocolate isn't enough to stop me from cruising with Celebrity. It just seemed like the trend is more cutbacks and higher prices. I wanted to rebook the same cruise for next year while on the ship. I was blown away when I was told that the same cruise 2016 would cost us more than $2000 above what we had paid for the 2015....same category C2 Even a ocean view cabin was a lot more than what I paid for the C2 this year. I could handle a small increase. The increase so large that I doubt it will ever drop to 2015 prices. I will miss the Eclipse and the chocolates. I have already made alternate plans for next year.

Sorry, but I feel that was totally disrespectful to the officers; I'm sure it wasn't their choice to take your chocolates away and they didn't feel they owe you an apology based on your comment to them. Possibly if you would have said, I really miss the nightly chocolates, they might have responded better to you; respect begets respect.

 

Sorry about the price increases for the cruises you wanted to book. I booked a 2017 cruise on my January cruise and it was only slightly more than the same (a couple hundred more) one in 2015.

Edited February 6, 2015 by NLH Arizona

[NLH Arizona]

All the specialty restaurants during the ~2 months of construction of Luminae. Luminae was not under construction when you were on Summit. Reservations are few and far between (or, in some cases, totally unavailable for certain days). There is much discussion on this on a couple of threads.

Well on the positive side, there are many cruise lines to choose from if you are disappointed.

[Queen of Oakville]

Well, I was feeling a little slighted for not having received the email. It just arrived in the inbox yesterday at 6:20pm. They must have rolled them out on status or location.

[TommyD3]

We are a family of 4 - all almost 2X Zenith. Only one of us received this email. Personally I have only received one survey request out of the last 4 cruises.

[Orator]

We are a family of 4 - all almost 2X Zenith. Only one of us received this email. Personally I have only received one survey request out of the last 4 cruises.

 

Also have not received the email. No survey received for my Silhouette January 18th cruise. Did receive survey for January 11th Silhouette.

[wwcruisers]

Don't know whether we've received an e-mail or not. I need to ask DH -- since he gets most of the correspondence from X. I applaud Ms. Lutoff-Perlo for reaching out to the Celebrity Faithful -- it's a good start! :cool:

[sandancer]

Errr ... what email (asks Elite level UK member)? Non-delivery is probably down to my slow broadband :rolleyes:

 

 

No It's not your slow broadband. Elite plus level UK member didn't get it either. So what's new?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Suzy Smith]

My husband received the email. I am not a happy camper because he does not pay for the Celebrity Cruises. I book and I pay. The chocolates are not a big thing with me, but I enjoy them when I return home and remember the sweet Celebrity Experience on my last cruise. Hopefully, they will upgrade the entertainment in the near future.

I am not a happy camper either. Celebrity don't have an email address for DH, as I book and pay for our cruises, so they used my email address to send the email about the chocolates to him!:confused:

I also hope they will upgrade the entertainment, it is much more important to me than one chocolate each day - well, two actually, as DH doesn't eat chocolate!:D:)

[NLH Arizona]

With all the negativity about either not getting the email or it being addressed to another in the household, I would suggest that Celebrity next time just post it on their website, instead of taking the time to try to email it to all their customers who have an email address with them. They are darned if they do, darned if they don't.