Impressions from Connie's Return Voyage

[LMHSRN]

14 hours ago, marieps said:

I certainly would not say anyone downplayed it.  There's no way those affected could have been moved as it was so widespread.  Perhaps corporate will respond to numerous comment cards.

Makes you wonder what water they prepared your meals with?  I'm sure then didn't use bottled water.  I would have been hesitant of even eating most food on the ship.  And then to give you a $100.00 FCC is crazy.  The problem is now, not in the future....

[marieps]

14 hours ago, CruisinNole said:

I wasn't aware that it was widespread. I overheard one person speaking about it and  not one word that most of the ship was affected. We didn't complain on a comment card or ask to speak to the hotel manager or any other officer. The word "compensation" never passed our lips. 

 

Nor ours.  They offered.  We didn't demand anything, although DW may have been asked to move.  Guest relations let us know there were several complaints.  I never said it was most of the ship, but it was clearly widespread throughout different areas of the ship.

[Mainecruiselover]

Can you explain how to get free use of the Persian Garden on port days? Thanks.

[FLCruiser97]

1 hour ago, Mainecruiselover said:

Can you explain how to get free use of the Persian Garden on port days? Thanks.

I think you have to be an Elite or above status.

[LadyBerard]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:35 PM, Northern Aurora said:

Interesting experiences.  Any other passengers from the "restart" cruise care to comment?

We just returned on the 12th from this first sailing.  My bar service was very good, made the drinks as I requested.  They could  have used more bartenders, especially at the pool bar on deck 10 and deck 11.

 

I  was not pleased with our dining room service.  The first two evenings, we ordered drinks when we arrived for our 6 p.m. dining time.  At 7:30, we still did  not have drinks.  One of my party finally had had it and wanted to know why and was not quiet about it.  Not the  way I would have handled it.  Anyway, it worked.  Nights 3, 4, and 5, we had numerous staff around us and had our drinks shortly after requesting  them.

 

I don't know if I'm just being  nitpicky, but I'm used to dining room waiter learning our names.  This never happened.  I am also used to someone pulling my chair our and placing  my napkin on my lap.  This did not happen either, but this did not ruin my cruise.  Just an observance.  I tossed it up to there being new wait staff and out of practice.

 

We all had a very good time.  

[zwallace]

On 11/12/2021 at 7:23 PM, RollWave said:

In our opinion this had a lot to do with the service issues that were experienced but it does not excuse the condition of the ship.

We were on Summit a month ago. Less than 300 passengers. While this was a very nice & relaxing experience we also felt it was fair to the crew too so they could get their feet under them.

 

[zwallace]

Just now, zwallace said:

 

How do you find out how many passengers are on your ship? We're on the 1/3/22 sailing and just curious to know hope many will be on this sailing. 

[Ken the cruiser]

11 minutes ago, zwallace said:

How do you find out how many passengers are on your ship? We're on the 1/3/22 sailing and just curious to know hope many will be on this sailing. 

We’ll be on the Dec 23 sailing which ends on Jan 3 and I’ll probably open a thread about our adventures on the cruise. If you ask me then during our cruise, I can find out for you around mid-cruise by going down to customer service and asking them.

[goofysmom99]

1 hour ago, LadyBerard said:

I am also used to someone pulling my chair our and placing  my napkin on my lap.  This did not happen either, but this did not ruin my cruise. 

They stopped the napkin placement when cruising restarted, across all the dining rooms.  Helping with your chair, though, should have occurred. 

[LadyBerard]

11 minutes ago, goofysmom99 said:

They stopped the napkin placement when cruising restarted, across all the dining rooms.  Helping with your chair, though, should have occurred. 

I didn't think of that.  That makes sense.

[RollWave]

1 hour ago, zwallace said:

How do you find out how many passengers are on your ship? We're on the 1/3/22 sailing and just curious to know hope many will be on this sailing. 

On our Summit sailing the lady who walked us onto the ship told us the number of passengers sailing. She also explained that all passengers sailing, except for two children, were vaccinated. The entire crew was also vaccinated. 

[zwallace]

32 minutes ago, RollWave said:

On our Summit sailing the lady who walked us onto the ship told us the number of passengers sailing. She also explained that all passengers sailing, except for two children, were vaccinated. The entire crew was also vaccinated. 

Thanks for the info!

[wrk2cruise]

1 hour ago, goofysmom99 said:

They stopped the napkin placement when cruising restarted, across all the dining rooms.  Helping with your chair, though, should have occurred. 

 

That has not been my experience.  Summit last 2 sailings had napkin placed in my lap nightly.

[baldilocks]

This is our first Celebrity cruise. We sure hope all these 'kinks' are worked out by the time we sail on our 11 day January 24th cruise. We would not like to be on a ship that is falling apart internally. Maybe we should have stuck to Royal for cruising where we are D+.

[Northern Aurora]

4 hours ago, LadyBerard said:

........

We all had a very good time.  

 

 

@LadyBerard:  Thank you for another perspective.

 

We were on the Millennium for two weeks in September.  Our MDR was Luminae, and my memory is that napkins were placed on our laps.

[Northern Aurora]

4 hours ago, zwallace said:

How do you find out how many passengers are on your ship? We're on the 1/3/22 sailing and just curious to know hope many will be on this sailing. 

 

 

On the sailing you will find different staff will likely provide different answers.  For example, the entertainment folks and bartenders will have a general idea, and can provide a "ball park" answer.  Folks like the Documentation Officer (who will know the exact number of revenue passengers), Hotel Director and Cruise Director are probably more accurate.

[Jim_Iain]

4 hours ago, zwallace said:

How do you find out how many passengers are on your ship? We're on the 1/3/22 sailing and just curious to know hope many will be on this sailing. 

There is no way currently to get an accurate count.   Generally the only way is to ask a crew member and even then it is a projection.    On one of our cruises we had over 200 no shows on sail date.   Much of it was caused by the Southwest problems.    Other's cancelled withing the 2 day rule and some either failed or reported they failed the covid tests.

 

If you have a good Celebrity Cruise Planner they may also give you an idea.    I was booking an almost sold out cruise for September 2022 and the travel planner who happen to control the particular ship said there were only 63 rooms left.   Of course that may change dramatically over time.

 

My understanding from the cruises I have been on in September and October was that they were aiming for 100% capacity by the Holiday Season.   The next problem is how are they going to fill all those rooms when almost all of the worldwide fleet from all carriers  in the Caribbean for the winter.

 

Once things are back to "normal" many would go to sites that show all available rooms and manually count the open cabins.

[canderson]

On 11/14/2021 at 6:43 PM, CruisinNole said:

I wasn't aware that it was widespread. I overheard one person speaking about it and  not one word that most of the ship was affected.

 

Indeed it turns out that it was widespread!  We were not impacted as we were early in the process described below - even before boarding, apparently.

 

It seems that the chemical used to purge the water system prior to the restart, which I can assure was thoroughly flushed long before we boarded, was corrosive to copper pipe, which is how the ship is plumbed for both hot and cold water.  After the use of that chemical and extensive flushing to clear it from all lines, it had left the inside of all of the pipes etched and still releasing some amount of material.  Once pax were aboard and running water again, some of that sediment appeared again.  After flushing again by pax and crew on the first cruise, the lines are now clear of any remaining sediment.  However, many of the copper fittings are showing signs of corrossion.  The ship was and remains actively engaged in replacing all copper pipes to cabins with PVC.  Each copper line is being 'paralleled' with PVC while the copper is left in place.  Once sections are complete, there will be a complete changeover of water feed from the copper to the new PVC to assure that there are no leak issues as appeared would be inevitable had the existing copper remained in use.

 

No one has discussed what went wrong with the flushing agent vs. copper pipe, but it certainly created a problem for those aboard and a HUGE problem for the maintenance crew who is working tirelessly to re-plumb us from stem to stern.

[marieps]

19 hours ago, Mainecruiselover said:

Can you explain how to get free use of the Persian Garden on port days? Thanks.

It's an Elite Plus benefit.  We went to the spa desk and made an appointment.  Sailing AQ it's included with the length of the cruise.

[marieps]

16 minutes ago, canderson said:

Indeed it turns out that it was widespread!  We were not impacted as we were early in the process described below - even before boarding, apparently.

 

It seems that the chemical used to purge the water system prior to the restart, which I can assure was thoroughly flushed long before we boarded, was corrosive to copper pipe, which is how the ship is plumbed for both hot and cold water.  After the use of that chemical and extensive flushing to clear it from all lines, it had left the inside of all of the pipes etched and still releasing some amount of material.  Once pax were aboard and running water again, some of that sediment appeared again.  After flushing again by pax and crew on the first cruise, the lines are now clear of any remaining sediment.  However, many of the copper fittings are showing signs of corrossion.  The ship was and remains actively engaged in replacing all copper pipes to cabins with PVC.  Each copper line is being 'paralleled' with PVC while the copper is left in place.  Once sections are complete, there will be a complete changeover of water feed from the copper to the new PVC to assure that there are no leak issues as appeared would be inevitable had the existing copper remained in use.

 

No one has discussed what went wrong with the flushing agent vs. copper pipe, but it certainly created a problem for those aboard and a HUGE problem for the maintenance crew who is working tirelessly to re-plumb us from stem to stern.

Earl, you have such great intel.  May I ask where you received it?  Such a detailed explanation.  Thanks for that.  

[canderson]

2 minutes ago, marieps said:

Earl, you have such great intel.  May I ask where you received it?  Such a detailed explanation.  Thanks for that.  

Directly from our new friend, the 'plumber' of Deck 6, port, stern quarter!  He's got a real talent for bending PVC, I can tell you.  It's going to be very tedious work for a while to come.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2021 by canderson

[marieps]

Just now, canderson said:

Directly from our new friend, the 'plumber' of Deck 6, port, stern quarter!

So funny, we were Deck 8 port forward, and GR claimed only our "quadrant" was affected.  We know from the situation on Deck 11 AQ cabins that's not the case.  Hope you're enjoying the B2B.

[C-Dragons]

13 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

There is no way currently to get an accurate count.   Generally the only way is to ask a crew member and even then it is a projection.    On one of our cruises we had over 200 no shows on sail date.   Much of it was caused by the Southwest problems.    Other's cancelled withing the 2 day rule and some either failed or reported they failed the covid tests.

 

Once things are back to "normal" many would go to sites that show all available rooms and manually count the open cabins.

The Cruise Director announced the total passenger count on the first night of our current Silhouette cruise. I'm sure she's got pretty good Intel. 😉

[susiesan]

1 hour ago, canderson said:

I

 

No one has discussed what went wrong with the flushing agent vs. copper pipe, but it certainly created a problem for those aboard and a HUGE problem for the maintenance crew who is working tirelessly to re-plumb us from stem to stern.

I hope they are saving all the used copper to sell after the ship is replumbed. That will help defray the cost of doing all the plumbing work. Copped is a valuable commodity these days.

[canderson]

4 hours ago, susiesan said:

I hope they are saving all the used copper to sell after the ship is replumbed. That will help defray the cost of doing all the plumbing work. Copped is a valuable commodity these days.

It would cost far more in labor to strip out than it's worth, even at today's price for copper.  As you can imagine, routing isn't trivial aboard.