Is Celebrity slipping?

jacketwatch · December 13, 2005

I just talked to a friend of mine today at the gym who is a devoted Celebrity cruiser. He and his wife did a repositioning cruise from Alaska to Florida last Sept. and he felt the quality of food and service had slipped noticably. He wrote them a letter upon his return which received a lukewarm, thats too bad reply. However what intrigued me was that he said apparently X has a new CEO who supposedly while directing RCCL led it on a downward path. Well I do believe the head sets the tone. Any ideas?

JoeyandDavid · December 13, 2005

all i can tell you from my limited expierence jacketwatch is that they made us feel terriffic .. we have 2 more booked as I type... there are a lot of reasons people dont have a good time. And with out know which ship he sailed it woudl be hard to comment further. I will say that I have heard and READ glowing remarks about a few of the most recent sailings upon some of the Century Class ships. Did your gym buddy tell you which ship they were on ?

jacketwatch · December 13, 2005

I forgot actually but I will see him tomorrow. Could be just a hiccup so to speak. My "red flag" goes up when I hear of this in conjunction with new leadership because I think the tone for operations stems from the top. Is the new CEO trying to save money by cutting corners and thus one sees a subsequent decline in services? Normally I would let this one pass but it comes from someone who had been cruising exclusively with them for over 60 vacations. Hmmmm. We'll see. Gotta go! Later. :cool:

Mebert · December 14, 2005

Don't let the service on Celebrity slip too far before I sail the line!

jacketwatch · December 14, 2005

:cool: Actually I'm hoping for the same thing. :cool:

DaCruzNut · December 14, 2005

Gee, I hope it's not true....it's my favorite line.....

Shari2 · December 14, 2005

Hi Jacketwatch...

I've been on three Celebrity cruises. One was on the "Zenith's" inaugural cruise, which was wonderful, and twice on the "Infinity." Both "Infinity" cruises were two weeks. One was a Panama Canal cruise, and the most recent was last December, round trip from San Diego to Hawaii.

All of the onboard services were great, the room steward and waiter were excellent, and the food and entertainment was great. I did notice a slight drop in the quality of food since the "Zenith" cruise which was in 1993, but it's still better than most of the mass market ships. I have heard some people who have been on Crystal lines, and they really like Celebrity. I have a review on the "Infinity" in the review section if you care to read it.

I've heard some people say that there can be a difference in a repositioning cruise since a lot of times many of the staff are going home and their mind is on that, but I don't know how much truth is in that.

No matter what ship you're on once in awhile they will have an "off day" kind of cruise. I sure hope that things aren't "slipping" because Celebrity has always been my favorite... even with being on the "Infinity" when the "pods" failed and losing three days of my cruise and being evacuated to Acapulco and flown home from there. Long story. I try not to talk about it anymore. lol

jacketwatch · December 18, 2005

:cool: Hi guys. Joey and David: I spoke with my friend last noc. The ship in question is the Summit, which they had previously taken 3 times. I saw the letter they sent to X about their issues. It was well written IMHO and was not a rant or anything like that. Rather it listed point by point the issues they had which included pressue at a particular bar ("the end of the earth" I think) to buy drinks, even though they had barely begun to consume the ones they already had, the waiter at the main seating table serving the entrees and only then telling my friend what he ordered was not available. ( this would burn me too!), :angry: being served date nut bread at tea and arguing with them and even English pasengers it was a scone! Also the waiter seemed to pay far more attention to those at the table who spoke his native language vs. others who did not :angry: They also said the steward told them to leave the room so he could clean it. Not too nice I would say. What bugged me was X's reply. It was polite but offered nothing substantive, not even a bottle of wine for their next cruise. Actions speak louder than words. Hopefully this was a hiccup and not a sign of things to come. However for a couple who had used them so many times before I think its an unexcusable mistake to aplogize w/o any sort of concession. JM2C :cool:

JoeyandDavid · December 18, 2005

Oh wow, That indeed is interesting jacketwatch, it appears that the summit is having some personnel problems. I do know that Celebrity is in the process of revamping that whole " end of the ..." thing, because of all the complaints.

We have the Millennium scheduled for October, and Jtutak will sail her this week so we will wait and see how he reacts to service.. I certainly hope it is an isolated case It could be very well true that the summit does have some personnel problems.

Lisa63 · December 18, 2005

I'll fill you in on our experiences on Infinity in about two months. I feelbadly that your friends encountered these problems, but I'm glad they reported them. I hope they mentioned it while onboard, too.

We had only one problem with our only Celebrity cruise so far. As we were disembarking, our pre-arranged bus transportation to the airport left without us, even though we disembarked at the designated time. Celebrity was not helpful at all in getting us to the airport, and we were left on our own. A letter to the company after we got home didn't even generate a response. BTW -- this cruise was 10 years ago, so I certainly hope Celebrity isn't slipping...