Italian Geography 101 for Celebrity Cruises UK

Venice paints a vivid picture

Please take a look at the image alongside. It’s very attractive; I especially like the lovely warm glow it has. In fact, I’d be very pleased if I’d taken it myself.

It came from Celebrity Cruises UK on their Twitter feed (@CelebrityUK) – I’m following them. So far, so good, but then they rather spoiled it by adding the following text to the image: “A city built by Italy’s best architects. Venice paints a vivid picture”.

I was a bit confused by this as the last time I saw this bridge, it was in Florence. I wasn’t the only one to think so as several others made the same point. I’m pleased to say that @CelebrityUK replied, agreeing that it was indeed in Florence.

Now we just wait for a Venice picture….

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Celebrity 2017 itineraries

We all look forward to the publication of the itineraries in March or April, either on-line or in a brochure. However, in the last couple of years Celebrity Cruises have broken the mould somewhat by publishing their itineraries at this time of year, and they’ve done the same this year. Here’s a link to a “2017 Cruises” page on the Celebrity Cruises website.

Celebrity Eclipse will be doing various cruises from Southampton from April through to the end of October, and Celebrity Reflection, Celebrity Constellation and Celebrity Equinox will be offering cruises from various ports in the Mediterranean, again from late April/early May until late October/early November. Celebrity Silhouette will also be in Europe, based in Amsterdam for Baltic cruises in late spring and summer and moving to the Mediterranean in September for a short season until early November.

As for North America, the details I can see suggest that Celebrity Infinity, Celebrity Millennium and Celebrity Solstice will be spending the summer and early autumn in the waters of Alaska, British Columbia and Washington state, while Celebrity Summit will be shuttling back and forwards between New Jersey and Bermuda.

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Dress Code Changes…..

Celebrity Cruises are to change their dress code. Here’s what they say in the FAQ section on their website:-

For sailings departing December 4, 2015, and beyond, Formal Night gets a modern luxury reboot. Say goodbye to Formal Night, and hello to Evening Chic. It’s your time to shine—your way. Get glamorous. Get chic. Be sophisticated.

Now, on up to two nights on every cruise, Evening Chic activities are being introduced, and Evening Chic attire is replacing Formal attire. While dressier than Smart Casual, Evening Chic is intended to be less dressy than Formal attire.

Women should feel comfortable wearing:

• A cocktail dress
• Skirt, pants or designer jeans with an elegant top

Men should feel comfortable wearing:

• Pants or designer jeans with a dress shirt, button-down shirt or sweater
• Optional sport coat or blazer

This was announced yesterday (9 November) on their website and picked up by Cruise Critic, where there have been some negative comments. I’ll be honest, I don’t think this is such a terrible step – I feel fairly certain that it won’t be the end of civilisation as we know it.

I won’t bother going through all the lines and document all their dress codes, but it is interesting that many of the premium and luxury lines already don’t require formal evening wear. Here’s what I’ve gleaned:-

• Oceania Cruises simply says that they offer a “country club casual ambience; tuxedos and gowns are never required”;
• Azamara Club Cruises says “we encourage guests to follow a ‘resort casual’ dress code, following good taste and common sense“. Going on, they do say that in some of their special restaurants, “many guests enjoy dressing up. Formal evening wear (tuxedoes and gowns) is not expected. We recommend that men bring a sport coat or suit…. For women, dining attire includes dresses, skirts, blouses with pants and capris and other appropriate attire“. Azamara is of course part of the Royal Caribbean group along with Celebrity, but the Azamara advice reads as if it’s been in place for a while and isn’t new;
• Regent Seven seas says “the recommended onboard dress in the evenings is Elegant Casual….. including skirt, or slacks with blouse or sweater, pant suit or dress for ladies; slacks and collared shirt for gentlemen Sports jackets are optional“. They do go on to say that “on sailings of 16 nights or more, Formal or Semi-formal attire is optional… guests are welcome to dress as per the Elegant Casual dress code or opt for a more formal choice of clothing including gowns and cocktail dresses for ladies, tuxedos, dinner jackets or dark suits for gentlemen“. So they do still suggest formal wear, but don’t require it;
• Crystal Cruises is similar. The principal evening dress code is “Crystal Casual”, which for men is defined as open collar shirt, collared polo shirt, button-down shirt/dress shirt (no ties required), dress pants or “European smart trousers” (what are these, I wonder?) and sport coat. Then they have “Black Tie Optional” evenings, on which they ask that “at least a jacket be worn by men for dinner“.
• And finally, Seabourn follows the same pattern: Elegant Casual most of the time, and with the occasional formal night on which men are asked to wear either a dinner suit or a “slacks and jacket”, and ladies an evening gown or other formal attire “in the restaurant”. They do use the word “required”, but they also say “Dress in other dining venues is Elegant Casual“.

So that’s it. I think Azamara say it best: “….following good taste and common sense“. I would be perfectly happy cruising in an environment where that was followed.

Off course, I also recognise that there are lines where the Formal Night will continue. P&O, obviously, and (probably to an even greater degree) Cunard. You pay your money and take your choice….. I think we might be heading back to celebrity in a year or so.

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New ships for Celebrity

There’s been an announcement that Celebrity are ordering two new ships. (Well, actually, it’s the Royal Caribbean parent company which has made the order, to deliver to their Celebrity Cruises brand.) Here’s a link to the official announcement.

There are several interesting points in this announcement. First, that these ships are not following Royal Caribbean’s mania for size – indeed, at 117,000 tons they’re actually a smidgen smaller than the Solstice class, which ranged from 121,000 tons (the first three of the class) to about 125,000 tons (the last two). Passenger numbers are about the same, perhaps 100 more, but we don’t know yet if that figure of 2,900 guests is lower-berths only or full capacity. Secondly, these are the first new ships for Celebrity not built by Jos. Meyer at Papenburg – you have to go back to the Millennium class of more than ten years ago to find the last order not at Meyer Werft. (Indeed, the ships before that, the Century class, were built at Meyer’s.)

Finally, I’m not sure how a 117,000 ton ship will be able to deliver ‘small ship itineraries’. I can’t see it sailing up the Guadalquivir into Seville, for example, which is what small ships can do – larger ships, e.g. the Grand Princess class, at 110,000 tons a bit smaller than these new Celebrity ships, have to berth at Cadiz when they call at ‘Seville’. But we shall see.

(And how can something new, about which we know nothing, be ‘iconic’? Grrrr….)

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New Years Resolution:

Don’t make an early booking for a cruise when the brochures are published in the spring!

Over the break I received an email from P&O – “Book now for complimentary on board spending” – which promised lots of additional on-board credit. The phrase used was “Book your next holiday by 28 February 2014 and enjoy complimentary on board spending money in addition to our Select Price benefits”.  Just for the hell of it, I logged in to the P&O website and ran through a booking for the cruise we’ve already booked, 14 nights on Azura to the Baltic on 29 June (A418); and there it was, an additional £150 each OBC, in addition to the usual Select benefit choice (free travel, free parking, or some OBC). Hold on! I said to myself – one way of financing this generous giveaway would be for the base price to have risen (unlikely, but that’s how the maths could work). But not so – the price for our cabin might have risen a bit but no more than £50 per person, so at worst there’s still an extra £100 each that we’re not getting. I know, I know; we must have been happy at the time we booked, and we have got the cabin of our choice – but still….

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The Perils of being an early booker

I did a post earlier this year about our to-ing and fro-ing over next year’s cruise. We were intent on doing a Mediterranean fly-cruise but eventually booked on a Baltic cruise from Southampton. (You can read all those to-ings and fro-ings here.) One of things that put us off a fly-cruise – or specifically, a Celebrity fly-cruise – was the cost of drinks on Celebrity ships. Then barely a week after we booked on Azura, Celebrity announced that they were providing the standard drinks package free of charge for Mediterranean fly-cruises. Gnashing teeth? – you could have heard them in the Med. Now it turns out that the offers are even better. Not only are Celebrity offering the free drinks package on Med cruises for next year, there’s a second benefit available: either some on-board spend, or paid-for gratuities. Here’s a link to the page detailing the offers.

Of course, one way of funding generous offers would be by increasing the basic cabin price. However I’ve checked the current prices for the same cabin and cruise that I priced up in the spring, and they’re pretty much the same – maybe £50 per person higher, but no more than that.

I think that if I’d booked a Celebrity cruise for next year before these benefits were included, I’d be seriously unhappy now. Increasingly the moral is: wait until the end of the year; don’t book at the first opportunity.

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Celebrity 2014 offers – now worldwide

Is that annoying or is that annoying? It’s less than two weeks since we booked our 14 night ex-Southampton P&O cruise for next year. We wanted to do a fly cruise with Celebrity but decided we couldn’t wait until they announced their ‘free drinks & cheap flights for 2014’ offer in January. This evening – August 1st 2013! – I’ve received the email announcing their ‘free drinks & cheap flights for 2014’ offer. Rats!

Anyway, for anyone who hasn’t got the email here’s the link to the relevant page on Celebrity’s UK website

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Our 2014 cruise

After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over fly-cruises, Celebrity or P&O, we’ve finally decided and made a booking – A418, Azura to the Baltic on 29 June. We’ve got one of our favourite C-deck balconies as well, so we’re happy. You can read the whole saga here.

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2014 Schedules – Celebrity

Celebrity Eclipse and Connie

In recent years Celebrity have made significant commitments to Europe during the summer, sometimes to criticisms from their american customer base that they are neglecting the Caribbean in summer. 2014 will be no exception: Celebrity will have no less than 6 ships in Europe for the summer season, their biggest commitment to Europe yet. These will be the Solstice-class ships Eclipse, Equinox, Reflection and Silhouette, and the Millennium-class ships Infinity and Constellation. They’ll have different bases during the summer, as follows:

• Eclipse will be based in Southampton as she was last year, and will be doing similar cruises again: 14 night cruises to the Baltic (5), the western Mediterranean (3), the Canaries (2) and Iceland and Norway (1); plus a number of shorter cruises to the Norwegian fjords and the Canaries. Her first cruise (8 nights to the fjords) will start on 2 May (I would have thought that was a bit early for that itinerary), and her last one will start on 30 October (9 nights to the Canary islands).

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Free drinks with Celebrity….

Celebrity Cruises UK have just announced a sale for cruises starting next year. There are free cabin upgrades – e.g. book an Ocean View, get a Balcony – and cheap flights to Barcelona and Rome for cruises on Celebrity Reflection and Celebrity Equinox. But the most startling offer is this: free ‘Classic Drinks’ package on ex-UK sailings on Celebrity Eclipse from Southampton and Celebrity Infinity from Harwich, next year.

Celebrity have been offering their drinks packages for a few years. There’s a plethora of them, covering (just) non-alcoholic drinks, or both non-alcoholic and alcoholic. The Classic Alcoholic package includes the following:-

• soft drink selections such as Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Fanta Orange and Coke Zero;
• fresh squeezed and bottled juices;
• Premium Coffees and Teas;
• Non-Premium Bottled Water; plus (now the interesting stuff)
• all beers up to $5 per serving; and
• spirits, cocktails and wines by the glass up to $8 per serving.

(Here’s a link to a page on the Celebrity site detailing the range of packages available.)

The cost of that is $50.60 per day, and I think there are gratuities to pay on top of that at a rate of 15% which makes a rather clumsy total of $58.19. The packages are ‘per person’, and you’re not allowed to buy drinks for two people on one package – i.e. if you and your spouse just have one package between you then only one person’s drinks can be bought with it. So in practice (unless one of you doesn’t drink) you need to buy a package each. Over the course of a 14-night cruise, that’s $1,416.80 for two people (plus gratuities). And, rather unbelievably, that’s what Celebrity are offering, for each of the first two people in a cabin, for free.

It’s hedged around with lots of T&Cs, of course – you can read the full list for all the offers here – but it does seem a remarkable deal. In fact, it makes me wonder what is happening to ex-UK cruise bookings for next year – we’ve recently seen P&O cancel several cruises for next year and (mostly) substitute them with shorter, cheaper cruises. (Alternatively, perhaps Celebrity have increased the cost of the basic cruise…)

To be honest I’m not sure about these drinks packages – they do seem to be an invitation to drink too much. I’m an enthusiastic drinker, especially of wine and malt whisky (probably excluded from the Classic package….) but I also like to have a few sober days during a longer cruise. The drinks packages don’t support this at all – if you buy one then you have to pay the full package price for each day, either for the whole cruise if it’s booked in advance, or for all the days remaining if it’s booked on board, so once you’ve bought it there’s a strong incentive to keep drinking, in order to get your money’s worth. I probably wouldn’t actually buy one myself. But if it’s free….

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