Edge - SO Disconnected and disappointing!

[Chefwoody]

Earlier I started what usually is my "happy" topic thread related to our cruise(s).  We're (I have 8 family members in 4 cabins - ours being a suite) on day two of our family cruise and the events of the day have forced me to change tones and vent my TOTAL frustration with Celebrity as a brand/company.  We started planning this trip when they were laying Edge's keel.  I've followed every part of the build and her first full year of sailing (much via CC) and have been chatting up the family for a full year.  We literally could not wait to plan our first full family trip together.  Our experience with Princess and Regent has been easy and flawless.  But Edge was a "must try".  This is when the story changed.  Celebrity as a "set things up" company SUCKS!!.  Sounds so bad, but sadly so true.  At no time have we had ANY CONFIDENCE with the uncertain answers to questions posed to their help desk (via land or online).  I also had the assistance of my long time travel agent who openly stated Celebrity had the worst customer service she'd ever experienced.  On one call she was told YES on the next call she was told NO to the same question.  Many times we were told we'd have to address issues on the ship as they could not answer (basic) questions on their behalf.  

  So in advance I will tell all that the crew & staff onboard have been exceptional!.  Faced with questions they cannot answer they do their best.  

  I teach at a culinary school.. so to me the food thing counts.  I'm not a food snob but I count consistency and service as a rule.  When I cook or am in charge of a meal (as on this cruise with the Chefs Table) I'm accountable and it matters.  To set this issue with Celebrity up further.. I wanted to treat my whole (extended) family to a cruise.  Could I do it on one reservation and on credit card?!!! NO!!!!.  That meant that all excursions and "pay for meals" had to be dealt with through Celebrities worthless and HUGELY time consuming system by each of my family members.  Which of course so far has failed!.  So way back in June we as a family got on our individual computers and tried to grab the coveted Chef's Table dinner reservation.  Stated to be a ONE TIME event with limited reservations.  Four out of seven of us received confirmations.  All remaining efforts received stalled responses until timed out - meaning no affirmation that the "Table" was full.  Calls to customer service gave multiple conflicting answers.  YES or NO Celebrity!!!.  We have our two year old grand daughter for the first vacation (which of course we wanted to be the best ever) and we asked if a crib was available - answer YES.  Well guess what, YES means they have an infant crib available which can handle up to a 3 month old!,.  THEY WERE TOLD A TWO YEAR OLD!.  ARE YOU GUYS ON ROBO CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE??!.  We met one other couple with the same problem.  We BUILT a mock bed/crib out of spare mattress's and some pillows.  SO GHETTO!.  BUT.. Lucy our room gal and our butler (Arsim) made it happen and she's sleeping.. well .. like a baby :). 

  My wife & I had confirmation.  My oldest son (traveling single) and my youngest son's girl friend (but not him) as well.  My wife and I decided to pass ours to our middle son & wife while we baby sat our grand baby (looked forward to it actually).  Months in the making we had it all planned out.  BUT NOoooo!.  Today we all received confirmation cards that had totally different dates and times for the Chefs Table.  Supposedly a one time cruise event.  One even had 12/22 that is the day we pull back into Fort Lauderdale.  And none had tonight which was our originally scheduled night and was stated so on ALL of our Celebrity phone reservation apps.  Off to the main office I went.  They took a look at all of our different date confirmation cards (the type they send to your room to confirm all your events) and shook their heads.  Thank God they aren't all crazy I thought.  They see what I see. BUT WHY ONLY HERE AND WHY ONLY NOW!!!.  

  A gal named Mars and the suite consierge (sp?) folks took my case to "court" and as of now (10pm) we've moved all of our reservations around and found one day that works to get my most important family into my most impressive culinary event (I hope).  Thanks to all the SHIP representatives ON Celebrity.  OMG..!! Celebrity corporate... PULL YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR A@@"S!!.  Fix this thing you think works.  Get your ship & office/customer service people on the SAME page.  Perhaps contact Princess Cruise line or Regent on how to do that... because I will be sailing with them again.  And the $25K I spent here will happily go there.  However... as to the ship itself. Edge is wonderful and its crew great as well...if it were managed by an actually professional company I might reconsider.  

  When one considers a vacation for the family, one does not want to stress after paying the bill.  DO YOU HEAR ME CELEBRITY!!??. FIX IT!!!

[youwash]

I hope the Chef's Table lives up to your expectations and all goes well for the rest of your cruise. Celebrity is well known for a much better experience on board versus dealing with shore based personnel or the website. 

[Cdresser]

At least you have Arsim looking out for you, he is fantastic. I hope all gets straightened out for the Chef's Table.

[Pushka]

Did you link all the reservations in the cruise planner? That way I think one person can do all the bookings. That’s what I saw when I made a dinner reservation where it states Do you want to add another reservation to this reservation. 
 

 

[Chefwoody]

Puska: We tried to link the bookings in the beginning (online) but failed.  Originally I wanted to simply put down my credit card and let the family book their excursions, specialty meals etc.. as time went on.  But no, it couldn't be that easy.  Then there was the rush to get 8 people seated together.  Because "management" and I are in a suite, we had options they didn't.

  Whenever things got messy I'd call in - wait about 45 minutes - and speak to a Celebrity rep who seemed to fumble through it about as poorly as I had and would usually end up apologizing and saying I'd need to take care of it on the ship.

[Chefwoody]

I think the thing for Celebrity (the company) to understand here is that next time I'm thinking about finding a relaxing vacation for myself & management or the whole family, my memories of the stress trying to make this cruise work will forever point me to other companies.  The ship herself is nice!.  Amazing, no.  As a new concept (on many levels) I'm ok with that.  But how fast they address things is key.  They've spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get us to upgrade "stuff".  Cabin upgrade "auctions" were emailed to all of us prior to sailing.  For $59 a day per person I could upgrade the rest of my family to "some" suite class privileges... like use of the over crowded Retreat Sun deck.  Hanging chairs (badly in need of repair) hang over a tiny pool that so far has had most every lounge chair claimed (mostly by books, flip flops or hat - but no actual people) before 10am.  Winds on this trip so far have been enormous!.  The main pool area has been too windy to sit at much less swim in. The Retreat pool (suite guests only) while up top and in front of the ship had modest wind protection.  Worked for awhile anyway.

  Having no Chefs table last night we were far too late to find any dining times within reason at any of the ship restaurants.  The room service menu is quite slim - so off to the food court to eat with the crew we went.   It was fine... I'm just brooding.  Sorry.

  The gym on the ship is nicely appointed and surprisingly popular.  Not something we've seen on our other cruises ... film at 11

[chemmo]

 

I hope you can put your disappointments/annoyances behind you and enjoy the rest of your cruise...

 

As to future cruises...each of us has our ‘priority list’ of things important to us, hopefully by the end of your cruise you will know if Celebrity is a good ‘fit’ for you...

[verizon]

The retreat suite manager always take care 110% of the HIGH END Suites guests.

I don't know why your cruise was so stressful.

I think you approach the wrong person on the ship.

I always go  to Mr Dolis the Food and Beverage Director on Edge with no problem with my reservations.

[Bo1953]

I Am so sorry for the issues encountered.

 

I can only add that in our recent sailing with 13 (family and friends) including a five (5) yo, we had no issues like you are experiencing.

 

Our TA was able to, deftly, effectively and efficiently, handle all dining reservations including Specialty. They also handled X billing me for one of the specialty dining venues without any issues that I Am aware of.. If there were any issues I was notified immediately and worked to figure out what would work.

 

The only challenge was I 'allowed' one (1) dining room to seat us all at one table and that was a mistake after requesting tables of seven (7) and six (6). Too many people for proper service with a full dining venue. None of us were happy, to be sure. My fault, so I took everyone out for cocktails afterwards at the Martini Bar.

 

It is a good thing that you have found assistance through your Concierge and hopefully your sailing does not turn out like you went to a 'ghetto' for a cruise...

 

Please let us know how you enjoy the food aboard. We had some great hits and some misses, yet overall good +.

 

bon appetit and bon voyage

[PTC DAWG]

On the bright side, the 2 year old won’t remember a thing. 🙂

Edited December 17, 2019 by PTC DAWG

[bEwAbG]

If you were working with a travel agent, why didn't you make them do this work?  Some of this stuff like linking reservations and getting proper info about cribs falls squarely in their domain.  That's not to excuse Celebrity, but I think you might explore using a different TA next time. 

 

I've always felt that X's main problem is that their operations are too decentralized and each ship is given too much autonomy.  It should be a consistent experience on every sailing.  Otherwise, the phone agents are using written info to relay expectations that may be different in practice.  It's stressful for the cruiser.

 

Hope they get everything straightened out and you enjoy the rest of your trip.

[mrsgoggins]

How very frustrating for you, and I’m not at all surprised that you are disinclined to give Celebrity you business in future!  I hope the rest of your cruise goes smoothly for you all.

[blueboro]

I have always been able to link reservations and make dining for the entire group online.  Just did it last week for our party of 8 for the entire cruise with no issues.  I also paid for a family cruise with sons and their wives and simply put my credit card as the card to be charged on their online check in.  

[fragilek]

Hi hope things improve for you.  We had a cruise like that once read my isues if you want a laugh about how badly a cruise can go 

 Just a quick note I think your title is a bit misleading it doesn't appear to  really  be the ship that has let you down more the Celebrity booking system.  Or may be that's just me being hopeful as I sail on the Edge soon.

[Ma Bell]

3 hours ago, blueboro said:

I have always been able to link reservations and make dining for the entire group online.  Just did it last week for our party of 8 for the entire cruise with no issues.  I also paid for a family cruise with sons and their wives and simply put my credit card as the card to be charged on their online check in.  

Same here. Not a problem.

[bigbenboys]

Two things. In the past I have tried to link reservations together and failed. My TA took care of it. If I remember right. The chefs table price does not include the wine they suggest. Read the fine print. The price of the wine maybe higher than your Premium Beverage Package.

[airlink diva]

4 hours ago, blueboro said:

I have always been able to link reservations and make dining for the entire group online.  Just did it last week for our party of 8 for the entire cruise with no issues.  I also paid for a family cruise with sons and their wives and simply put my credit card as the card to be charged on their online check in.  

 

I also was going to say the same.  I booked my parents cabin along with mine cabin.  Their cabin while  it's in their name, my brother and I been paying  on it no issues 

 

[Pushka]

I checked again for Chefs Table and I can definitely add another booking to mine and it allows me to pay for them with different credit cards. Sadly I can’t book it as there is a conflict with a wanted excursion and it’s only offered once currently. 

[hcat]

I understanding there was a problem but not really  following most of it..

 

The lack of a proper crib or pack and play is a big miss on X's part.

 

We were disappointed not to get a booking on the EDGE Magic Carpet dinner...but would not let that ruin our cruise..

 

Not sure why OP could not use his credit card  for all the room accounts..

 

We had no issues with bookings on EDGE, even when a changed excursion time required last minute...sorry OP had such difficulty.

 

[VitaminSea53]

ChefWoody, As has been pointed out, your complaint is not with The Edge (as your title implies) but rather with the incompetence of your TA or Celebrity shore based reps. 

Furthermore, your general arrogance is on full display with your comment “The room service menu is quite slim - so off to the food court to eat with the crew we went.”

 

[jelayne]

1 hour ago, VitaminSea53 said:

 

Furthermore, your general arrogance is on full display with your comment “The room service menu is quite slim - so off to the food court to eat with the crew we went.”

 

Agree and “Lucy our room gal” seems arrogant as well.  

[JFontaine]

Not to gang up here, but this was a sad commentary for me to read:    "We BUILT a mock bed/crib out of spare mattress's and some pillows.  SO GHETTO!."  

 

If this attitude is on display on the ship you might have a harder time getting people to go out of their way to help you. 

[Bo1953]

11 minutes ago, JFontaine said:

Not to gang up here, but this was a sad commentary for me to read:    "We BUILT a mock bed/crib out of spare mattress's and some pillows.  SO GHETTO!."  

 

If this attitude is on display on the ship you might have a harder time getting people to go out of their way to help you. 

Thank you as I tried to steer clear of these statements, along with others for fear of being slapped on the wrist.... well, maybe not the wrists.. LOL

 

bon voyage

[PTC DAWG]

2 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

Thank you as I tried to steer clear of these statements, along with others for fear of being slapped on the wrist.... well, maybe not the wrists.. LOL

 

bon voyage

I saw that from you earlier..you always take the high road...and that's a good thing.  

 

Cruise on.  

[TeaBag]

2 hours ago, VitaminSea53 said:

ChefWoody, As has been pointed out, your complaint is not with The Edge (as your title implies) but rather with the incompetence of your TA or Celebrity shore based reps. 

Furthermore, your general arrogance is on full display with your comment “The room service menu is quite slim - so off to the food court to eat with the crew we went.”

 

When ChefWoody used the word crew, I took it to mean his party, not the people who work on the ship.