Always Included- Elevate & Indulge Package

[gridirongrace]

HI! Is it worth upgrading to  the Elevate or  Indulge Package?  I was wondering it made sense to upgrade? Thanks for your thoughts? 

 

[naturelovergirl]

We upgraded to Elevate for our 2022 cruise.

It made sense for us because we wanted the premium drinks... and the extra OBC was nice.

[cruisestitch]

How often will you want a more expensive drink? How much would the difference be if you paid it as usual?  What would you use the OBC on? How much would those things cost? Do you need enhanced Wi-Fi? All these and more other thing is you need to consider and no one else can tell you if it is worth it or not because no one else knows your habits and needs.

[Pickels]

Agree, it' a personal choice!

[EllaDuChien]

I did it for one of the two cabins I have booked on our November 2022 cruise.  The OBC was actually more than the upgrade price so that was really a no brainer.

[HskrCrsr]

Celebrity provided their own estimate of the value:

 

For this example, they value the difference between AI and Elevate at about $30, and that's what they charge. But they value the difference between Elevate and Indulge as only $20 but charge $30 per person per day. (I saw some early examples where they charged less than this but I suspect it was a glitch in their system.)

 

The length of the cruise affects how much you would pay, and it also affects how much OBC you'd get, so the math may change a bit for longer cruises. Note that OBC caps out on 10-day cruises, so although you keep paying daily, the OBC stops growing.

 

For me, it makes more sense to just upgrade the drink package ($12 per person per day) if I want premium drinks, and perhaps to upgrade the wi-fi if needed, and just avoid the OBC issue altogether. Captain's Club members get discounts on the upgrades of these packages even if that discount is almost nothing.

[HskrCrsr]

I should have noted that your example is for a 6-night cruise. For the Indulge package, you'd be paying $360 but getting $300 in OBC. If you would use all the OBC (and note that half of that is earmarked for excursions), then you're only paying $60 for the drinks and wi-fi upgrade. At $10 per day, that is less than the drink upgrade alone, so if you were going to upgrade the drinks anyway, this might be a good decision. If neither drink or wi-fi upgrades were of interest to you, it does not look like a good purchase.

[Arizona Wildcat]

Just decide if it is worth it to you.  Definitely a personal decision.  A better deal on shorter cruises.  What would you use?

[HskrCrsr]

3 hours ago, gridirongrace said:

HI! Is it worth upgrading to  the Elevate or  Indulge Package?  I was wondering it made sense to upgrade? Thanks for your thoughts? 

 

 

I see you joined a few years ago, but as this is your first post - Welcome from a relative newbie!

 

Some here noted that this is a personal choice, but since you ask for thoughts I am more than willing to offer mine, as above. I assumed you were interested in factors that influence others in making this decision, alternatives, and more.

 

I wanted to ask if you are familiar with Always Included in general and just wanted thoughts on your specific cruise decision or if you wanted more general information, like pointers to the FAQ's, thoughts on whether the upgraded wi-fi is actually needed, etc.? 

[sofietucker]

Another point: you get these items already built in if you book a suite...

[gridirongrace]

I can't thank all of you enough! You are so kind in helping me try to make the best financial decision. I am going to check out a suite and being a captain's club member I will check out this option as well! Thank you all! 🙂

[HskrCrsr]

1 minute ago, gridirongrace said:

I can't thank all of you enough! You are so kind in helping me try to make the best financial decision. I am going to check out a suite and being a captain's club member I will check out this option as well! Thank you all! 🙂

 

If you are not already a Captain's Club member (https://www.celebritycruises.com/captains-club), you might be able to become one by registering for Power Up Points (https://www.celebritycruises.com/captains-club/tiers-and-benefits#power-up-points). There is a great thread going that may be useful for learning about the Power Up Point activities:

With these Power Up Points, you might be able to get Classic tier for Captain's Club and get some discounts or benefits before even sailing. I am not sure if this is possible but it's worth a shot.

[irvington]

Thanks, I'm curious about the wifi difference, and to some extent about the drinks difference. Given that we probably have to use ship's excursions, I think we will use any OBO, so I'm looking at the net number.

 

I'm not going to drink a ton and my traveling companion won't drink alcohol, and I'm not someone who orders top shelf Scotch. But if the wine by the glass is significantly better, or there are specialty coffees that are better, that's relevant to me - any insights?

 

on the Wi-fi speed, much as I shouldn't, I will need to access work and my VPN for email. I also know that I did some calls on what's app on my last cruise but it didn't always work (NCL). I certainly don't need to stream much, though I'm sure my companion would like to do some if possible - curious what the wi-fi differences are if anyone knows?  

[HskrCrsr]

The drink package differences are shown here:

https://www.celebritycruises.com/content/dam/celebrity/pdf/beverage-package-flyer-optimized.pdf

 

My wife enjoys the better wines and does not want to be concerned about price, so she finds the Premium Beverage Package to be a good value just for the simplicity. You can upgrade just the drink package from Classic (provided in All Included) for $12 per person person, with a small (5-10%) Captain's Club discount possible once inside final payment. You can also just go with the classic package and pay the difference (plus gratuity) per drink if it costs more than the package allows. Menus with prices can be found in these threads if you search for them.

 

Wi-fi is a different story and I hope others will weigh in. For me and checking email, the standard Surf package is good enough. You can upgrade to Stream for $20 per person per day, although I think this is for a single device. Captain's Club discounts may apply here, too. Some tiers get free minutes of streaming access. If you need multiple devices, you can log out on one, then log in on another and still get by with a single device package.

 

Captain's Club discounts are shown here:

https://secure.viewer.zmags.com/publication/cc0ce13c#/cc0ce13c/2

 

My personal opinion on upgrading to Indulge or Elevate are:

In general, if Wi-Fi upgrade is not needed, Indulge is not a good investment.    
If Wi-Fi upgrade is not needed but drink upgrade is needed, Elevate may be good for cruises 10 (7) days and under.

If Wi-Fi and drink upgrades are wanted, Indulge is good for cruises 14 (10) days and under.
The days in parentheses are valid if Captain's Club discounts are included.

 

My choice has been to simply go with standard Always Included and just upgrade the drink package. Personal preferences and desire for simplicity will always factor in.

[HskrCrsr]

39 minutes ago, HskrCrsr said:

The drink package differences are shown here:

https://www.celebritycruises.com/content/dam/celebrity/pdf/beverage-package-flyer-optimized.pdf

 

My wife enjoys the better wines and does not want to be concerned about price, so she finds the Premium Beverage Package to be a good value just for the simplicity. You can upgrade just the drink package from Classic (provided in All Included) for $12 per person person, with a small (5-10%) Captain's Club discount possible once inside final payment. You can also just go with the classic package and pay the difference (plus gratuity) per drink if it costs more than the package allows. Menus with prices can be found in these threads if you search for them.

 

Wi-fi is a different story and I hope others will weigh in. For me and checking email, the standard Surf package is good enough. You can upgrade to Stream for $20 per person per day, although I think this is for a single device. Captain's Club discounts may apply here, too. Some tiers get free minutes of streaming access. If you need multiple devices, you can log out on one, then log in on another and still get by with a single device package.

 

Captain's Club discounts are shown here:

https://secure.viewer.zmags.com/publication/cc0ce13c#/cc0ce13c/2

 

My personal opinion on upgrading to Indulge or Elevate are:

In general, if Wi-Fi upgrade is not needed, Indulge is not a good investment.    
If Wi-Fi upgrade is not needed but drink upgrade is needed, Elevate may be good for cruises 10 (7) days and under.

If Wi-Fi and drink upgrades are wanted, Indulge is good for cruises 14 (10) days and under.
The days in parentheses are valid if Captain's Club discounts are included.

 

My choice has been to simply go with standard Always Included and just upgrade the drink package. Personal preferences and desire for simplicity will always factor in.

Sorry, that " $12 per person person" really should have been "$12 per person per day". Not sure how I managed that error.

[jelayne]

The included wi-fi is fine for most things we use it for, email, check in for flights, surfing web, reading the newspaper, FB, sending photos.  But it is not good for streaming.  
 

If you upgrade to Elevate or Indulge Another both parties have to upgrade.  However if you are want to upgrade just wi-fi or beverage  both parties are not required to upgrade, 1 person can upgrade, while the other  an stay with the included same with wi-ft.  
 

 

[timf2001]

Another factor is how much FCC you have to use.  In my case, a Veranda stateroom didn't use up all my credit but a Concierge stateroom would have required a couple hundred dollars extra, so instead I took the Elevate package for only about $40 over my credit (which the benefits more than make up for).

[AstoriaPreppy]

8 hours ago, irvington said:

on the Wi-fi speed, much as I shouldn't, I will need to access work and my VPN for email. I also know that I did some calls on what's app on my last cruise but it didn't always work (NCL).

Speaking from experience, the worst day of any Celebrity WiFi system is still exponentially better than any day on NCL WiFi.
 

We’ve found NCL WiFi to be largely non functional, booting us off randomly and only connecting sporadically. I think it’s likely that Celebrity’s base WiFi package would more than meet your needs. 

Edited April 28, 2021 by AstoriaPreppy

[ipeeinthepool]

It's going to be interesting to see how the Wifi performs when everyone has free Wifi.   I've found lots  of times when I was not able to stream with the old premium Wifi package.   I'm concerned the Wifi performance will be significantly degraded with a lot more users.  If the Wifi doesn't work very well, it will change the calculation on the benefits of all of these packages.

[HskrCrsr]

4 hours ago, ipeeinthepool said:

It's going to be interesting to see how the Wifi performs when everyone has free Wifi.   I've found lots  of times when I was not able to stream with the old premium Wifi package.   I'm concerned the Wifi performance will be significantly degraded with a lot more users.  If the Wifi doesn't work very well, it will change the calculation on the benefits of all of these packages.

 

Agreed - this will be interesting to see. While I do think the lines at the bars will be longer since AI allows almost everyone to get drinks, and some will now get drinks just because they can, I am of the opinion that this will not likely be the case for Wi-Fi. I think most of the passengers that want to disconnect while on vacation will still avoid Wi-Fi. Celebrity can easily upgrade their Wi-Fi infrastructure to support greater use, while they won't be so eager to upgrade the bartending infrastructure. My guess is Wi-Fi won't be too much affected. And I could be very, very wrong. 

[HskrCrsr]

4 hours ago, ipeeinthepool said:

It's going to be interesting to see how the Wifi performs when everyone has free Wifi.   I've found lots  of times when I was not able to stream with the old premium Wifi package.   I'm concerned the Wifi performance will be significantly degraded with a lot more users.  If the Wifi doesn't work very well, it will change the calculation on the benefits of all of these packages.

 

Yegads! It now occurs to me that to encourage social distancing at bars and lounges, they could implement mobile ordering. Everyone would be on their phones using the app to order drinks. Wi-fi and bars would both be overwhelmed. And the app has not been reliable anyway. Now I'm worried.

[Orator]

4 hours ago, ipeeinthepool said:

It's going to be interesting to see how the Wifi performs when everyone has free Wifi.   I've found lots  of times when I was not able to stream with the old premium Wifi package.   I'm concerned the Wifi performance will be significantly degraded with a lot more users.  If the Wifi doesn't work very well, it will change the calculation on the benefits of all of these packages.

Especially if they tell passengers that they don't to turn. it off.

We could also see a real slowdown of service at bars if everyone has a drink package. It is in Celebrity's financial interest to slow done the drinks so people will consume less. 

[AbbyCruiser45]

20 hours ago, irvington said:

Thanks, I'm curious about the wifi difference, and to some extent about the drinks difference. Given that we probably have to use ship's excursions, I think we will use any OBO, so I'm looking at the net number.

 

I'm not going to drink a ton and my traveling companion won't drink alcohol, and I'm not someone who orders top shelf Scotch. But if the wine by the glass is significantly better, or there are specialty coffees that are better, that's relevant to me - any insights?

 

on the Wi-fi speed, much as I shouldn't, I will need to access work and my VPN for email. I also know that I did some calls on what's app on my last cruise but it didn't always work (NCL). I certainly don't need to stream much, though I'm sure my companion would like to do some if possible - curious what the wi-fi differences are if anyone knows?  

If you're not streaming, the WiFi should be the same. From my understanding the difference in WiFi is that one will give you access to streaming sites and the other will not. I help my parents book their cruises and they have close to 10 booked over the next two years. Almost always, the Elevate package was worth it but the Indulge was not. I calculated by assuming they would be utilizing the amount of the OBC regardless and then if they would come out ahead if they upgraded to premium drinks on their own.

 

Considering those two things (and ignoring the potential of upgrading WiFi because they don't stream) then they either broke even or saved money with the Elevate (depending on length of cruise), but always lost money with the Indulge. 

[azbirdmom]

We are long time Princess cruisers but will be trying Celebrity.  I thought the Indulge package would be a good deal, especially since the net cost is less than $27 a day when I take into account the OBC that is part of the package.  I already know about the premium drink aspect of this package but my primary reason for upgrading was the explanation of the Wifi differences based on the descriptions I've copied below.

 

Xcelerate Stream Package
This package allows you to message and video chat on messenger services; browse the web; send emails and post on social media; video chat live; and stream your favorite videos, movies, music and shows. 
Learn More

 

Xcelerate Surf Package
This value-priced option gives you access to basic web functions—text on messenger services, web browsing, and email.
Learn More  > This value-priced package is for anyone who simply wants the ability to browse the web, send emails, and text on messenger services. You’ll stay connected through the basic functions of Wi-Fi, but won’t be able to stream videos, send or receive photos, or use technology such as FaceTime or Skype.

 

We probably can live without the streaming aspect of the Stream package, but the highlighted text concerned me.  We will use Wifi calling or possibly Whatsapp (voice only, no video).  And we will post pictures to Facebook and Facebook Messenger.  Will we need the Stream package to do these things or will the Surf package allow us to do this?

Edited May 18, 2021 by azbirdmom

[Esprit]

I was unsure to elevate particular as my wife doesn’t drink a lot. I do like Peroni beer and the wife prefers Champagne to Prosecco so I opted for it.

To my pleasant surprise we each got $150 OBC as a consequence of elevating. Very happy with my decision now.