First (and Probably Last) Cruise with Celebrity - Impressions from the Summit 12/19

[Hydrokitty]

Last Dance: Thank you for the good advice. We always take set dining in the MDR because DH is diabetic...as I said, I'm not a firm vegetarian, I just prefer to eat plant based...but I will take your advice and speak to my waiter....in every other aspect my cruise was wonderful and I can't wait for the next one!

[We-R-Off]

My parents (50's) and I (mid-20's) sailed with Celebrity on the Summit this past week (12/19-12/26) to the Caribbean. We have previously sailed with Carnival, Norwegian, and Princess. This was our 5th cruise overall and the first with Celebrity. I thought I'd post on our overall dissatisfaction to help others in their cruise research and to get feedback on whether our perspectives are unreasonable or atypical for Celebrity.

 

Negatives:

1. Dining Service and Selection

My family is vegetarian and this was indicated as such on our meal preferences at time of booking. From the very beginning of the cruise, we were surprised by the lackluster options.

 

Main Dining Room (MDR) - In the MDR, the vegetarian menu only featured 2 entrees on a given day - compared to 8 for other passengers (4 everyday classics, and 4 selections for the day). On all our other cruises, we at least had 4 choices to choose from. On our first time trying the MDR, our family was hoping to have a vegetarian pasta dish of some kind, as a pasta dish with meat was featured on the menu and vegetarian pasta was on the room service menu. They refused to accommodate the request and instead told us to special order for a subsequent day - which we were reluctant to do given the service level. On another day, rather stupidly, the 'vegetarian menu' was missing the pasta dish labeled as vegetarian from the main menu!

 

Buffet - My family often felt a game was being played at the buffet. When returning from a day at shore around 4:30 PM, the only food options open would be the pasta bar and pizza bar - nothing else. This led to long lines and subpar service. At the pizza station for example, given the small 10" or so diameter of the pizza, given mini-slices were picked up faster than they could be made. Why couldn't the diameter be larger and more reasonable? To reduce Celebrity's food costs? Similarly, the wait for garlic bread was often over 30 minutes. In one instance, after being told 7 minutes until the next garlic bread serving, I decided to wait and then was told that garlic bread was not their priority and not to wait - quite rude for something my family is 'addicted' to. In another case (on another day with another crewmember), my father kept on being told a next serving of garlic bread was coming out in 3 minutes repeatedly, and whenever he went back there was none. He decided to wait 30 minutes until they finally brought it out, and of course they burned it such that it was inedible. On another note, the ice cream station decided to close unannounced from around 4:45 to 5:30 PM everyday - right when people were coming back onboard and would appreciate a refresher. Such a long break in service should be mentioned in the daily program - we saw countless people going back and confused given the advertised hours. Of course their for-pay Gelateria never had such 'breaks' from what we could tell.

 

In terms of other food options, not much thought was put into the buffet for lunch and dinner - especially for vegetarians across from the daily pasta, pizza, salad, and sometimes an Indian curry and rice. There would be cheese, etc. for nachos without the nachos themselves. For dessert at dinner on Christmas Eve there were only cupcakes. Really - cupcakes on a holiday cruise, and on Christmas Eve of all days? The one thing we did love about the buffet was the unlimited complimentary fruit punch and lemonade - as there was often nothing but water outside of breakfast on our previous cruises. The family was satisfied with the breakfast service overall.

 

Room Service - For Concierge class, our 'afternoon savories' were advertised in-room daily. My family found these on the first evening of the cruise and nearly started eating the mini-sandwiches before I stopped them and decided to check with the stateroom attendant. Turns out that they were not vegetarian, as clearly indicated in our profile, and that the stateroom attendant was not informed of this restriction whatsoever. Another miss by Celebrity. In addition, why is premium orange juice available complimentary for breakfast via room-service but at a charge in the main buffet? Seemed like a game.

 

2. Double the Pricing without the Value

Compared to our previous cruises, we felt the pricing on Celebrity on-board was significantly higher, while providing equivalent or inferior value in return. Here are some examples that irked us:

 

1. Bingo cards are often around $20 on most cruises. Why was the minimum entry $39?

2. Family photographs (boarding, dinners, etc.) are often around $20. These were priced at a 50% premium at $30 on Celebrity.

3. Drink packages were overpriced. (Yes, there's an entire thread on this, but I thought it was worth mentioning again.) On Carnival and others, a non-alcoholic premium package for sodas, juices, and mocktails often went for around $12/day. Why was this priced at an 80% premium on Celebrity at $22/day? I'm aware it included more (e.g. Vitamin Water), but we couldn't justify the splurge as we had on previous cruises.

4. The Gelateria offered scoops of Gelato starting at $4 if I recall right. This seemed like the most under-utilized public area of the ship, given the unwillingness of most to cough up given the ice cream station in the buffet area (when that managed to stay open at least...)

 

I understand that Celebrity is a business and without capitalism, many of us wouldn't be taking a cruise to begin with. However, it just seemed a bit much. We ended up spending the least we have on any cruise on-board because of these differences.

 

3. Safety Drill

Out of all the cruises we've been on, the safety drill on the Summit seemed to be an effort by the crew to just 'check the box'. The lounge for our Muster Station was so packed that no one could hear the start (or end) of the announcements regarding the safety drill. The TV screen was not readily visible to most of the people at the Muster Station. In our previous cruises, we lined up on a deck in an orderly fashion. In addition, when a fellow cruiser accidentally pushed the elevator emergency call button on the last evening of our cruise, it returned a busy signal. Quite comforting...

 

4. Mandatory Prepaid Gratuities & Concierge Class

This was the first cruise where we had no choice but to prepay gratuities given the only dining option available - the Celebrity Select anytime dining. We've had anytime dining on all our other cruises without this requirement. The gratuity was higher at $13.45/day given our stateroom in the Concierge class. Despite the advertising that adjustments were possible with gratuities on Celebrity's website FAQs, the Summit program very clearly stated that no adjustments were possible for those that had prepaid. We would have liked for once to at least reallocate our gratuities given the service level we experienced for dining. Perhaps the service level we experienced was in part due to some staff (e.g. for Select in the MDR) being aware no adjustments were possible - exactly defeating the purpose of a gratuity?

 

Regarding Concierge Class, the differentiation was hard to find value in other than for 'semi-elite' branding. We still waited once over 20 minutes for the MDR at a peak dining time despite the 'preference' supposedly awarded. We never came across the widely advertised pillow menu and only found out about our options by asking the stateroom attendant. Nothing readily obvious for how the shoe shine service worked. We nearly took the pocket-sized binoculars as a gift before deciding to clarify with our stateroom attendant who indicated they were for use during the cruise only. Really seemed like a waste overall, and certainly not worth an increased daily gratuity for.

 

5. Misleading Price Guarantees / False Advertising

Onboard Lowest Authorized Price Guarantee - The shops onboard widely advertise a lowest authorized price / best price guarantee for everything they sell, without any apparent disclaimers. When buying a piece of jewelry under $25 early on in our cruise, we inquired how that worked and we were informed to just bring in any proof from an authorized retailer - even on our phone - and they would have no issues doing an adjustment. A few days later, when we wanted to buy a couple of more of the same item for gifts, I was ready with a screenshot from an authorized online retailer showing a discount on the order of 25%. As soon as we tried to make use of the guarantee, the sales associate was quick to come up with an excuse: no internet pricing or proof on any kind was to be honored. My family felt we were getting the run-around at this point, so we asked for a written copy of where that limitation was stated, as it clearly wasn't in all their advertising. It took a call to a manager and a few minutes of waiting before they could find a pocket-sized card stating the limitation. When asked how one reasonably was to make use of the guarantee, we were told to walk into a shop and take a picture of the item/UPC with the price. What are the chances of finding the same item and taking a picture to prove the lower price in front of a shop owner? Please don't have a guarantee if it's unreasonable to make use of it.

 

Celebrity's 48-Hour Best Price Guarantee - Celebrity on its website advertises a 48-hour guarantee after final payment on either promotions or the price paid for the cruise, regardless of the travel agent you booked with. We saw an offer advertising more OBC, so we filled out the form. No confirmation was received of the request after submittal, and a week passed with no update. On calling Celebrity, at first we were given the run-around and told to call our TA (who had nothing to do with the guarantee), then told to allow 48-hours from the time of form submission for a response (which had way passed), after which we were put on hold and informed the request had been denied (what a surprise). We're not as upset on the denial as we are about the lack of communication on the request, and clear terms stating how the policy worked. Seemed like another advertising tactic that was not honored.

 

Positives:

To be fair and balanced, there were some outstanding parts of our cruise that we enjoyed as follows:

 

1. Evening Entertainment

My family thoroughly enjoyed the evening entertainment. The Celebrity Summit dancers were overall fantastic, as were their Hollywood-style shows. The magic show of the cruise, iMagic, was a modern take on magic using prevalent technology. The a cappella group, Blue Jupiter, was highly unconventional for a cruise and quite interesting to see.

 

2. Room layout, organization, and maintenance

The amount of storage space in our stateroom was unparalleled, simply put. The layout of the room was such that the third bed could be fully in place and there was just enough space for someone to squeeze by into the balcony. On some previous cruises, the sofa bed went wall-to-wall such that the balcony became useless except for evenings. In addition, the shower was the largest we've seen of all our cruises. We could relax and unwind in the shower comfortably just like at home. For once our stateroom was nearly maintenance-free except for the mini-bar fridge not cooling that properly.

 

3. Service at Ports of Call

We were pleased by the iced towels and flavored water provided when returning to the ship at each port of call. In one case, we saw crewmembers going out with a stack of umbrellas all the way to the entrance to the ship area so that fellow passengers could minimize getting wet. This was a nice touch we haven't seen on our previous cruises, but perhaps this is standard for the Caribbean given competition.

 

Overall, we certainly did not have a horrible cruise, but neither did the cruise live up to our expectations. If we would do it again, we would certainly choose a competing cruise line given the concerns indicated. I hope this thorough review of our experience is useful.

 

 

I found your comments very surprising. We were on the Summit a few years ago & our last Celebrity cruise was last August.

 

My husband & I are vegetarians & on our previous 5 cruises have always found the vegetarian menu better than Princess or RCL. On our last Princess cruise, the food was AWFUL. They didn't have a seperate vegetarian menu. Were you given the Vegetarian Menu - not just the regular menu with the vegetarian dishes marked?

 

In addition, on the first day we told the MD that were were vegetarians & he would come to us each day to check we were accommodated. He told us that if we weren't able to find dishes suitable, we could check the menu the day before & order special dishes for the next day.

 

I always have an issue with food, that IMHO is not as hot as I like. After the first time I mention this, our food would come on super hot plates & the food always came extra hot. They couldn't have been more accommodating. I am wondering if they didn't give you the Vegetarian Menu. I would take both menus as I do eat some fish (my husband doesn't) & juggle beteen the two.

 

We found that in the Fountain cafe, we could find far more food options than our recent Princess cruise. I HATED the food on Princess & would probably not take another Princess cruise because of this.

 

My Time Dining on Celebrity is really great on Celebrity. On Princess it wasn't My Time. There were so many passengers dining early that we would have to wait for our preferred time slot & be paged when available. We did find that if we went at 19.30 we could easily get a table, be served promptly. However, this is not My Time it was Their Time. It was quicker than the set dining times & still more convenient for us.

 

I presume that gratuities have to be paid in advance because, your waiters could be different each evening, as the customer will dine at different time slots, thereby protecting that the waiters will get their gratuties.

 

We recently took the Princess soda package. We were dismayed to find that the soda was fountain fizzy drinks, which were awful. They offered to cancel it, but with 5 sea days there & back, we kept it. I drank regular soda most of the time because the coke etc was AWFUL.

 

I hope that this information was helpful & you will see Celebrity in better light.

 

We have 2 future cruises booked with Celebrity & although we liked the experience on Princess, we found the entertainment to be inferior to Celebrity & IMHO the food was incomparable.

[lisalovlee33]

To this day, I'm still unsure whats the benefits for booking a Concierge class. The canapes are terrible. The room size is the same as the balcony. I'm guessing the extra points? I was told you could also use the concierge host to make bookings of sorts while on land? But I still don't see the need.. book a restaurant? car? I don't get it. Can someone enlightened me. We've had CC a couple times only because it was the same price as a regular veranda and it gives more points.

Your review, my goodness, I really don't know what you expect. 4 vegetarian and 4 meat dishes at the MDR? Your refusal to pre-order baffles me too. You should consider Crystal.

Edited April 10, 2016 by lisalovlee33

[BratDet]

My first cruise was on Celebrity, I did Carnival once, but Princess ever since....

 

I find their food quite good!

 

My next cruise is on Summit, with the 4 perks. We have never bothered with any beverage package on Princess except for the coffee card.

 

I think if I was at the buffet and felt it was a two portion pizza day, I would just get two portions immediately. Problem solved.

 

Although I am not obsessed with garlic bread, cause skipping empty carbs helps keep me nutritionally balanced, so a Hoyer lift is not required to get me off the ship....I do understand being annoyed waiting for an item that is "coming", but never arrives! I enjoy the fresh cut fruit on Princess, and wanted the watermelon....none available, it's coming...it NEVER came that day...

 

I have sailed with a food allergy and on Carnival they KNEW of my allergy- I ordered German Chocolate cake and until I asked about it...was not told there were nuts in it...YIKES!

 

So, a negative review is appreciated cause it lets me know what might happen and I will plan to avoid it...if it might be a concern of mine...

 

I might do a "live from" thread this summer since we will have unlimited internet- woo hoo!

 

Bernadette

[Hydrokitty]

To this day, I'm still unsure whats the benefits for booking a Concierge class. The canapes are terrible. The room size is the same as the balcony. I'm guessing the extra points? I was told you could also use the concierge host to make bookings of sorts while on land? But I still don't see the need.. book a restaurant? car? I don't get it. Can someone enlightened me. We've had CC a couple times only because it was the same price as a regular veranda and it gives more points.

Your review, my goodness, I really don't know what you expect. 4 vegetarian and 4 meat dishes at the MDR? Your refusal to pre-order baffles me too. You should consider Crystal.

 

lisalovlee: I have to agee...we took concierge on our first Celebrity cruise and while the fresh fruit was nice the canapes were dreadful. We did have early boarding and preferred disembarkation, whatever that is cause they misplaced DH's suitcase and we missed our excursion anyway! :D Just came back from our second and have our third and fourth booked. Next one is also concierge so I'll let you know if it's better.

[nacdcruiser]

To this day, I'm still unsure whats the benefits for booking a Concierge class. The canapes are terrible. The room size is the same as the balcony. I'm guessing the extra points? I was told you could also use the concierge host to make bookings of sorts while on land? But I still don't see the need.. book a restaurant? car? I don't get it. Can someone enlightened me. We've had CC a couple times only because it was the same price as a regular veranda and it gives more points.

 

You answered your own question.

 

We booked concierge on our Alaska cruise (as a guarantee) next month because our options to save money were to book a regular verandah guarantee (but with an obstructed view possibility). Should we want to select and choose a specific regular verandah cabin, the price was exactly the same as the concierge and were pretty sure we'd have been o.k. with any of the concierge choices. Didn't want to roll the dice to save a few bucks and spend a week in Alaska with a cabin we would regret.

 

Other lines charge a premium for higher decks and mid ship locations, so not a surprise to us.

 

Worked out well for us as we were quickly assigned a C2 (which was great) and moved to an even more perfect location for us. None of the other concierge things really matter to us, but we'll be grateful for them - terrible canapes & all.

 

John

[madgemonica]

We had an aft cabin in the fiords. Spectacular views.

[WrittenOnYourHeart]

My guess is the reason that most of the focus on your review is on the food/veggie aspect of it is that was what the majority of your review focused on. The other sections were tiny compared to the food.

[Lastdance]

lisalovlee: I have to agee...we took concierge on our first Celebrity cruise and while the fresh fruit was nice the canapes were dreadful. We did have early boarding and preferred disembarkation, whatever that is cause they misplaced DH's suitcase and we missed our excursion anyway! :D Just came back from our second and have our third and fourth booked. Next one is also concierge so I'll let you know if it's better.

 

 

If you don't enjoy the canapés you can ask for something else. Hopefully, you will enjoy your other cruises[emoji844]

 

Personally, there is way too much food available to eat anyway. I like concierge because of the hump and the points. For me it is about location, location, location. Also it helps to pay for a certain level and be bumped up with extra OBC . In the S class ships I love the Sky Deck, but of course this is my personal feeling after quite a few cruises. Having said that, I really love S1"s on S class ships the best, but I can't afford it on every cruise. It is always nice to have choices, but we are responsible for our own happiness...bad things do happen, but it is how we handle those experiences that is important. Just my opinion...

Edited April 10, 2016 by Lastdance

[paulajj]

What ship were you on that you had an Indian menu?

 

My husband is a vegan and LOVES Indian food but we've found we've had to offer suggestions of specific dishes (which they've been really accommodating about making for him, btw).

 

 

 

I checked with my friend. They said it was the staff vegetarian menu but everything on it you could get at the buffet.

[lisalovlee33]

Don't mean to hijack this post. Actually I remember one time a few years ago when we were in Concierge, the room service menu was a bit better than our friends who were in Aqua. I remembered we had some delicious chicken wings, and their TV room service does not. But on our last cruise last year, the room service menu was the generic fare you see in any other rooms.

[Hydrokitty]

If you don't enjoy the canapés you can ask for something else. Hopefully, you will enjoy your other cruises[emoji844]

 

Personally, there is way too much food available to eat anyway. I like concierge because of the hump and the points. For me it is about location, location, location. Also it helps to pay for a certain level and be bumped up with extra OBC . In the S class ships I love the Sky Deck, but of course this is my personal feeling after quite a few cruises. Having said that, I really love S1"s on S class ships the best, but I can't afford it on every cruise. It is always nice to have choices, but we are responsible for our own happiness...bad things do happen, but it is how we handle those experiences that is important. Just my opinion...

 

It never occurred to me to ask for other canapes...oh well...like you said, there is way too much food available on ocean cruises....I'm used to river cruises where only food available is breakfast, lunch and dinner with coffee tea, cocoa and cookies available 24/7. We had an aft cabin on this trip because concierge was sold out and we discovered the Sky Deck Lounge....that turned out to be my favorite day time spot on the ship....I just loved it up there....peaceful, comfortable and view was spectacular. I do have concierge on our October cruise but not on the Feb. one ....not too surprising it's the Caribbean/Mardi Gras cruise and concierge was already sold out....and you are so right....bad things happen and you can let it spoil your trip or come up with a new plan.....life threatening stuff excluded of course. :D