What are some things a Retreat Host can help with?

[Ken the cruiser]

We periodically book a sky suite when the price is too good to pass up. For us that means under $325 pp/day with all perks included. However, when it comes to butler services, we are at a loss with regards to what we can ask of them, other than maybe put a few beers in the cooler and make sure we have plenty of bottled water. Yes, we know they will serve us meals in our cabin. But, since we never eat meals in our cabin or on the veranda, that's not an item that interests us.

 

Which brings us to our question. What other practical things can we ask of our sky suite butler? I know they want to help. But at the same time, we have never had any of them list off a variety of things they can do for us either.

[TeeRick]

A few common things that suite guests use for butler services.

1) Breakfast order card left on door handle for next morning delivery.  Some use this in particular if they have an early excursion from the ship.

2) Leave your laundry in the bag in your cabin.  The butler will remove it and deliver the clean clothes usually the next day.

3) On Chic nights, meet your butler in the theatre and they will escort you to a seat in the suite reserve area.

4) The Butler and Retreat concierge are officially a part of Guest Services.  Anything that you might do requiring Guest Services- the butler and/or the Retreat concierge will take care of it and save you a trip and a wait in the line.  But not monetary exchanges or cash transactions.

5) Sign up for excursions on board or special events.  Again the Retreat concierge and/or butler.

Same with dining reservations at Specialty restaurants.

6) Arrange to meet privately with a Next Cruise agent on board.  Usually in the Retreat.

7) Special requests, room decorations, small parties for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.

 

[lv2cruisgrl]

My shoe broke last cruise and he got it fixed! Also it was our anniversary, he decorated our room, cake etc.

[Ken the cruiser]

13 minutes ago, TeeRick said:

A few common things that suite guests use for butler services.

1) Breakfast order card left on door handle for next morning delivery.  Some use this in particular if they have an early excursion from the ship.

2) Leave your laundry in the bag in your cabin.  The butler will remove it and deliver the clean clothes usually the next day.

3) On Chic nights, meet your butler in the theatre and they will escort you to a seat in the suite reserve area.

4) The Butler and Retreat concierge are officially a part of Guest Services.  Anything that you might do requiring Guest Services- the butler and/or the Retreat concierge will take care of it and save you a trip and a wait in the line.  But not monetary exchanges or cash transactions.

5) Sign up for excursions on board or special events.  Again the Retreat concierge and/or butler.

Same with dining reservations at Specialty restaurants.

6) Arrange to meet privately with a Next Cruise agent on board.  Usually in the Retreat.

7) Special requests, room decorations, small parties for special occasions like birthdays and anniversaries.

 

Thanks, Rick. We pretty much knew about most of those advertised items. Maybe on our Reflection cruise in a few weeks, we'll ask for a bowl of fruit to be brought to our room for us to periodically munch on during the day.

 

I remember our first butler back in Jan 2019 on the Reflection kept a fruit bowl full of tasty fruit. He also brought our laundry back with our shirts, blouses and other applicable items on hangers, which no butler since then has bothered to do.

[Treasure Hunter]

The retreat concierge prints out a NY Times crossword puzzle for my husband every morning. The Butler brings fruit bowl and other snacks like cheese and crackers and shrimp cocktail around 4 each day. 

[39august]

And you can specify "good" crackers with that cheese plate, no awful soda crackers. 

[Treasure Hunter]

It’s a variety. They all tasted pretty good. You can ask for anything you want.

[LGW59]

1 minute ago, Treasure Hunter said:

The retreat concierge prints out a NY Times crossword puzzle for my husband every morning. The Butler brings fruit bowl and other snacks like cheese and crackers and shrimp cocktail around 4 each day. 

We have breakfast in our suite every single day of the cruise, and we always do 12 days+.  Our first cruise with a butler was on NCL, he was PHENOMENAL!  We did ask what can we do to help in planning our requests, basically to eliminate the guess work.  From him we learned that we now give the butler on day 1, our menu for the daily breakfast, we type it out before we leave home and hand it to him.  It's pretty simple as we are creatures of habit and it alternates day 1 this, day 2 that, day 3 back to this etc.  We also let him/her know we like bread/cheese, fresh fruit and a bottle of wine in the room mid-day when we return to relax on the balcony, whether it just a sea day or return from a port day.  On occasion (just a few) we have met folks on-board and invited them to our room for cocktails, always let them know a day in advance if we plan to do so.  They have always been fantastic, have never had a bad butler experience.  They truly work so hard!

[kwokpot]

1 hour ago, TeeRick said:

2) Leave your laundry in the bag in your cabin.  The butler will remove it and deliver the clean clothes usually the next day.

Laundry service on the Apex and Edge were never next day, at least that's our experience.And if you handed in the laundry after 9:00am it was delivered on day 3!!!

[jelayne]

5 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Laundry service on the Apex and Edge were never next day, at least that's our experience.And if you handed in the laundry after 9:00am it was delivered on day 3!!!

Similar on the Edge 1st laundry took 2 days, 2nd 3 days.  But when I found a wine stain on a blouse our host picked it up in the morning and it was back that afternoon.

[Momma Rene]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks, Rick. We pretty much knew about most of those advertised items. Maybe on our Reflection cruise in a few weeks, we'll ask for a bowl of fruit to be brought to our room for us to periodically munch on during the day.

 

I remember our first butler back in Jan 2019 on the Reflection kept a fruit bowl full of tasty fruit. He also brought our laundry back with our shirts, blouses and other applicable items on hangers, which no butler since then has bothered to do.

I will be in a Celebrity Suite.  I did not know laundry was included.  Is there a charge for laundry?

[Ken the cruiser]

51 minutes ago, Momma Rene said:

I will be in a Celebrity Suite.  I did not know laundry was included.  Is there a charge for laundry?

Laundry is not included. We were Elite then and we each got 1 bag of laundry free with a maximum of 30 pieces per bag. Of course, now that we're Elite+, we each get 2 bags of laundry free. 

 

If you aren't at least Elite, there is a charge for a bag of laundry.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Ken the cruiser

[Denny01]

I guess we were lucky on various cruises, when we did get our laundry back the next day a few times….after being picked up early. But it does stipulate 2 days or so.

 

den

Edited January 16, 2022 by Denny01

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

2 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Thanks, Rick. We pretty much knew about most of those advertised items. Maybe on our Reflection cruise in a few weeks, we'll ask for a bowl of fruit to be brought to our room for us to periodically munch on during the day.

 

I remember our first butler back in Jan 2019 on the Reflection kept a fruit bowl full of tasty fruit. He also brought our laundry back with our shirts, blouses and other applicable items on hangers, which no butler since then has bothered to do.

 

Interesting.  My butlers have always brought the laundry back on hangers.  Granted, I haven't sailed since the great shutdown.

 

As for timing, if I put the laundry/dry cleaning out for pickup with the evening turndown, I get it back by the next afternoon.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Happy Cruiser 6143

[Ken the cruiser]

3 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

 

Interesting.  My butlers have always brought the laundry back on hangers.  Granted, I haven't sailed since the great shutdown.

 

If I might ask, what type of suite do you usually book?

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

17 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

If I might ask, what type of suite do you usually book?

 

I've sailed in every type of suite except for a Celebrity Suite.

[Ken the cruiser]

1 minute ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

I've sailed in every type of suite except for a Celebrity Suite.

Cool! Unfortunately, that has not been our experience on either the Edge (3 legs) or Constellation (1 leg) since cruising has started back up.

[kwokpot]

31 minutes ago, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

As for timing, if I put the laundry/dry cleaning out for pickup with the evening turndown, I get it back by the next afternoon.

I've done three Celebrity cruises since the restart, two in Aqua and one in Sky Suite (Edge, Summit, Apex). Sent laundry out on all three cruises and none of them came back the next day, so that's three different ships. And as I have noted on the Apex on two different laundries given to the Butler the laundry came back on the third day. I specifically asked the butler about it for the first laundry and he alerted me that if it isn't handed in before 9 am it's treated as if it was handed in the following day, hence it being returned on the third day since it takes two days. And on all three ships laundry was returned in the reusable white cloth laundry bags used to send them out. 

Edited January 16, 2022 by kwokpot

[jelayne]

On the Edge 1st bag of laundry (socks, DHs underwear, t-shirts and work out clothes) everything came back folded in the cloth bag.  2nd leg of cruise, same Host, DHs undershirts came back on hangers.  

[Jeremiah1212]

1 hour ago, Momma Rene said:

I will be in a Celebrity Suite.  I did not know laundry was included.  Is there a charge for laundry?

 

Laundry is only included with Royal Suite and above.

 

It's helpful to mention suite type and CC level for some of these items people mention because they are not necessarily suite amenities or apply to all suites.

[Momma Rene]

2 hours ago, lovrccl said:

My shoe broke last cruise and he got it fixed! Also it was our anniversary, he decorated our room, cake etc.

WOW!  That is amazing.

[Momma Rene]

7 minutes ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

Laundry is only included with Royal Suite and above.

 

It's helpful to mention suite type and CC level for some of these items people mention because they are not necessarily suite amenities or apply to all suites.

I am wondering if we will be offered a chance to upgrade from a Celebrity Suite to a Royal given so few people aboard our particular sailing.  There seem to be no suites higher than a Celebrity Suite currently available or perhaps they are blocked for an April sailing.

[Ken the cruiser]

17 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Cool! Unfortunately, that has not been our experience on either the Edge (3 legs) or Constellation (1 leg) since cruising has started back up.

BTW just for informational use only if you're interested. On our B3B on the Edge, we had to turn our laundry in at least 3 days prior to transition day; otherwise our laundry would be held over to the next leg and charged to that leg's account rather than on the leg it was submitted on. No big deal for us now as we are both Elite+. However, if you are only Elite that could cause some issues if your cruise legs are 10 or more days in length.

[Jeremiah1212]

6 minutes ago, Momma Rene said:

I am wondering if we will be offered a chance to upgrade from a Celebrity Suite to a Royal given so few people aboard our particular sailing.  There seem to be no suites higher than a Celebrity Suite currently available or perhaps they are blocked for an April sailing.

 

I've never seen them block upper suites. It wouldn't make sense given their cost. I do have my doubts that all suites are sold out on some of these cruises where people are being told they are. You can likely pay for a chance to upgrade but it will all come down to how much you are willing to spend once MoveUp bids open.

[verizon]

1 hour ago, Denny01 said:

I guess we were lucky on various cruises, when we did get our laundry back the next day a few times….after being picked up early. But it does stipulate 2 days or so.

 

den

 

1 hour ago, Denny01 said:

I guess we were lucky on various cruises, when we did get our laundry back the next day a few times….after being picked up early. But it does stipulate 2 days or so.

 

den

Yes they usually deliver the next day.I always not to put the sign at the door so they can access to the room if I ever take an afternoon nap.

I usually sent in before the chic night or 2nd. day after  so they don't need to rush for my laundry.

They usually come back in the hangers if its dry clean.