RichC, we have been on one Celebrity cruise, approx 4 years ago and also experienced the wait staff at the end of line wanting to take you to a table. Depending, it can be a really nice thing if you need the assistance. As I remember, Celebrity seemed to be an older, slightly more upscale customer as compared to some of the other lines.
Peter I. - We took maybe 6 or 7 trips with Celebrity (Meridian, Horizon) when we lived in Maryland since it left from Baltimore & it was real convenient to travel to Bermuda. They were OK except but I always felt they were on the stuffy side for my taste compared to RCI or Princess. The food & entertainment might have been comparable to Princess and it was nice to have a cruise ship located close by home.
Living in Florida I miss not being able to travel back to Bermuda without having to fly back north to get there. At this point I'd travel on any line to cruise back to Bermuda - even Costa which I hate. It's one of the best ports we've been to. (cleaner, nicer people, close to the US coast, sleep overnight on the ship, clean beaches everywhere)
Some of you may remember my comment for prior posts but here goes: I'll never forget the comment made to me by a Celebrity phone person when I asked about the two Semi Casual evenings in addition to the two formal evenings and what was the expected dress for men. I was told that that meant men should at minimum wear a sports jacket or suit. When I asked what would happen if I showed up at the dining room dressed in a button short sleeve sports shirt or without a jacket, she informed me that I could be turned away at the door. When I mentioned that I wore a suit and tie 5 days a week at work and was looking for a little more casual attire as I had experienced on prior RCI cruises, she went on to say that Celebrity was a cut above RCI and left it at that..Of course, they are part of the same company and that was way inappropriated of her. Have not gone back since that cruise.
Celebrity is definitely a stuffier type of cruise line compared to Princess. At least on Princess I can wear only my dress shirt & dress pants without a jacket to dine in the main dining room. Being retired and on vacation is no time to get formal for us. If they had a trip to Bermuda from Florida I would have to consider them again but since they don't they're not even in consideration for a cruise. We had enough of dressing when we worked & today I've given up all formal clothing & wear only shorts & my Dockers or jeans during the cooler months.
Originally posted by peter l:
Some of you may remember my comment for prior posts but here goes: I'll never forget the comment made to me by a Celebrity phone person when I asked about the two Semi Casual evenings in addition to the two formal evenings and what was the expected dress for men. I was told that that meant men should at minimum wear a sports jacket or suit. When I asked what would happen if I showed up at the dining room dressed in a button short sleeve sports shirt or without a jacket, she informed me that I could be turned away at the door. When I mentioned that I wore a suit and tie 5 days a week at work and was looking for a little more casual attire as I had experienced on prior RCI cruises, she went on to say that Celebrity was a cut above RCI and left it at that..Of course, they are part of the same company and that was way inappropriated of her. Have not gone back since that cruise.
Peterl
I don't think the Celebrity response was inappropriate at all. On formal nights jackets and ties are required. Just because you wear them 5 days a week does not mean Celebrity should change their rules. All the other nights are Smart Casual - no jackets or ties required. There are other options on Celebrity so that you can avoid going to the main DR on formal nights.
While I agree that Celebrity, or any cruise line, has the right to set and enforce any dress code they desire, if I found out that an employee of mine talked to a customer with the tone that Peter was talked to, they would be out of a job. There were much more diplomatic ways to handle that conversation.
Originally posted by peter l:
Some of you may remember my comment for prior posts but here goes: I'll never forget the comment made to me by a Celebrity phone person when I asked about the two Semi Casual evenings in addition to the two formal evenings and what was the expected dress for men. I was told that that meant men should at minimum wear a sports jacket or suit. When I asked what would happen if I showed up at the dining room dressed in a button short sleeve sports shirt or without a jacket, she informed me that I could be turned away at the door. When I mentioned that I wore a suit and tie 5 days a week at work and was looking for a little more casual attire as I had experienced on prior RCI cruises, she went on to say that Celebrity was a cut above RCI and left it at that..Of course, they are part of the same company and that was way inappropriated of her. Have not gone back since that cruise.
Peterl
I don't think the Celebrity response was inappropriate at all. On formal nights jackets and ties are required. Just because you wear them 5 days a week does not mean Celebrity should change their rules. All the other nights are Smart Casual - no jackets or ties required. There are other options on Celebrity so that you can avoid going to the main DR on formal nights.
And that is probably why Princess prefers not to address the question at all about formal dress. They have their suggested dress requirements & if someone doesn't follow them to the letter nothing is usually said.(within reason) The last thing they want to do is turn away future business in this economy.
Moonie, I think you misread my post. The two evenings I referred to were not the formal ones, but two evenings that required a jacket be worn.Sooooooooooooo, what this meant was 2 formal evenings (that I always wear a tux or suit and tie) and two that required a jacket be worn to be admitted to the dining room...I do think this was a little over done...Perhaps they have come done a step since I cruised with them, but the person I spoke with was way out of line in tone and condecending as well.
We have no problem dressing up on a cruise. My wife and I love doing it. We are finding that more and more lines are getting too relax on the dress code. We have notice on Princess several people not wearing the proper outfit and do not like it one bit. We are in shorts or what ever all day and love getting dress up at night. We do the same thing at home. We go out to a nice restaurant where we have to dress up. We do not like it when a cruise line does not enforce their own policy.
Plus our daughter works in customer relation and the abuse she gets from customers is awful. She works for a hotel chain and it's awful what some people says to her because she is just following the rules of the chain. It's not her fault about the policy. We all know when we book any cruise what the dress code is and must abide by it. We have told the head person on one of the Princess ships that some people were not dress as per the standard code for that night and they went over and advise the people about it. Lots of people will try pushing their luck to see if they can get around these rules and hope no one question it. There are lots of other places to eat if one does not want to dress up with the proper dress code. I have friends who refuse to dress up and they know they can not eat in the main dinning room and have no issues with it.
Linear Mode
