Anyone with Premium Pass Experience?

[Saturngrl]

Has anyone sailed with the Premium Pass? We are Elite sailing Concierge on the Reflection.  It appears the only benefits of Premium Pass is priority boarding after suites, plus a separate baggage area after disembarkation.  I am not interested in upgrading internet, nor reserved seats for shows.  

 

We have done The Key on Royal and love the benefits it brings, especially the disembarkation day breakfast in the MDR.  It doesn't seem like Premium Pass offers nearly as much as The Key. 

 

Your thoughts? 

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 hour ago, Saturngrl said:

Has anyone sailed with the Premium Pass? We are Elite sailing Concierge on the Reflection.  It appears the only benefits of Premium Pass is priority boarding after suites, plus a separate baggage area after disembarkation.  I am not interested in upgrading internet, nor reserved seats for shows.  

 

We have done The Key on Royal and love the benefits it brings, especially the disembarkation day breakfast in the MDR.  It doesn't seem like Premium Pass offers nearly as much as The Key. 

 

Your thoughts? 

 

I don't think you need it.  I have sailed 144 nights on X post-pandemic, other than in 2021 when many governments had terminal building capacity limits, embarkation windows were not enforced.  I can recall 6 sailings where they weren't boarding yet, we're sitting with around 100-200 others.  As soon as they announce they can board, a mass hoard rushes to the gangway.  I'll even share my 5 ports, FLL, Miami, Rome/Civitavecchia, Vancouver and L.A/San Pedro, and San Deigo. Also, if one wants a discounted paid upgrade, this is your best strategy...Make a bee-line for the guest services, regardless of one's opinion of this process, it is a fact the early bird get the worm when it comes to onboard paid upgrades

[jelayne]

If you are Elite and in a Concierge cabin the benefit to the pass is minimal.  
As for priority boarding, with assigned arrival times the majority of the time passengers arrive go through checkin and board.

Unless boarding is delayed for some reason or you arrive before boarding starts rarely is there a wait. 

[conquesodor]

1 hour ago, Saturngrl said:

We have done The Key on Royal and love the benefits it brings, especially the disembarkation day breakfast in the MDR.  It doesn't seem like Premium Pass offers nearly as much as The Key. 

I agree that The Key is a much better value and I'm disappointed that Premium Pass offers so little.

 

[Straughn]

I used it once, in Tampa, last March. As soon as I got to the shoreside person checking boarding passes and showed her my Premium confirmation, she called another lady over. I was immediately taken past all the folks waiting in line to a separate check in counter. Once checkin was completed, I was escorted to the escalator, where the person there stopped the line waiting to go up and let me go on ahead. On the ship I enjoyed the lunch in the MDR (I was in Aqua) and when I went to my cabin around 1-ish, my luggage was already outside. 

 

As for disembarkation, that was a perk for me. I drive and passengers who don’t have flights to make are often given later disembarkation times. I was off the ship and in my car by 8:10. Before someone reminds me about self disembarkation, I know I can do that, but I prefer not to. 

[StopTheWorld]

We had it on a recent sailing on Apex. We were in a Concierge cabin. When we purchased it, it was cheaper than buying the 2-device  WiFi upgrade on its own. 
We took advantage of the free room service a few times; got priority disembarkation; the MDR lunch on embarkation day was included anyway for Concierge class. The big bonus for us was the reserved seating in the theatre. For all the shows we went to you would have struggled to get 2 seats together 15 mins before the show started. Having the reserved seats was great! They released them to non-premium pass customers 5 mins before the show started. 
Would I buy again? Yes. I have it booked for 2 upcoming cruises. 

[leaveitallbehind]

10 hours ago, conquesodor said:

I agree that The Key is a much better value and I'm disappointed that Premium Pass offers so little.

 

35+ sailings on RCCL. I would never purchase the Key either. Nothing of any real value IMO for the $ per person per day cost. 20+ on Celebrity.  Ditto Premium Pass.  JMO and no reflection on anyone else's opinion.

Edited July 20 by leaveitallbehind

[mysticbluebmw]

We just used it a couple of weeks ago on Ascent. It wasn’t really worth the price, in my opinion, at least for us. At check-in, we approached the counter, and a helper asked for our info, and when she saw we had premium, she escorted us the area with retreat passengers where we sat on couches and had hors d'oeuvre while checking in. We sat for about 5-10 minutes and then were allowed to board. Our luggage, however, didn’t arrive at our stateroom until well after 5pm, so no benefit there. And out stateroom wasn’t ready any earlier than everybody else’s. This was out of Barcelona.

 

It was okay for priority tender, in that we didn’t have to get a tender ticket, but probably didn’t save much time there. We still had to wait 20 minutes for the next tender, and would have been able to get that one anyway, if we had got tickets. The WiFi is definitely the best part of it, though I didn’t need 2 devices for just me, nor did my wife. The reserved seating was okay, but we never really needed it. We got the same seats for 6 out of 7 nights (top of the theater not close at all - but easy exit), there were better seats to be had if we wanted them that were available to everyone. They dropped the rope at 10 minutes before show every night, with probably only 4 of us sitting there. The theater was so big, it only got somewhat full on 1 or 2 nights. 

 

Priority disembarkation would be nice if you had to get off first thing to make a flight and didn’t want to carry your bags off with you, otherwise, no benefit there.

[DaKahuna]

12 hours ago, Saturngrl said:

We have done The Key on Royal and love the benefits it brings, especially the disembarkation day breakfast in the MDR. 

 

I thought the MDR was open for breakfast for all passengers on Celebrity?   remember the last time we sailed in Concierge we had breakfast in the MDR before we left the ship. 

 

 

[Sussex Cruiser]

I'm not sure why everyone is saying "It's not like Royal"... this isn't Royal... this is Celebrity, a completely different brand, with different packages and different perks.

[Saturngrl]

On 7/19/2024 at 11:28 PM, DaKahuna said:

 

I thought the MDR was open for breakfast for all passengers on Celebrity?   remember the last time we sailed in Concierge we had breakfast in the MDR before we left the ship. 

 

 

Yes they do have breakfast in the MDR on disembarkation day.  I had forgotten that detail.  Thank you, everyone for your input.  I think I will try to Move Up to a sky suite from Prime Concierge when the option becomes available.  Otherwise, current pricing has the Premium pass at $464 for an 8 night cruise...not sure that the benefits will be worth it.  

[Rick&Jeannie]

On 7/21/2024 at 4:27 AM, Sussex Cruiser said:

I'm not sure why everyone is saying "It's not like Royal"... this isn't Royal... this is Celebrity, a completely different brand, with different packages and different perks.

I (for one) welcome the comparisons.  Not having done much sailing on either X or RCCL I am always looking to learn about differences in offerings...