My wife and I recently took our first Celebrity cruise, an 8-nt on the Equinox to the ABC islands, and it was lovely. We plan to take another.
Anyway, a couple questions.
We noticed very few servers walking around the upper decks for drink orders, we generally had to go to the Mast Bar, Pool Bar, or Sunset bar to order drinks. Is this typical? Or just low staff numbers? We were used to our previous DCL cruises where, at least in the adult area, people were regularly taking drink orders. Not a problem, just an observation. I gladly add a couple bucks if I don't have to get up to get a drink. When I go to the bar and a server grabs me a beer, I generally don't add anything above the auto gratuity.
Let me preface this by saying we did not get any drink packages, my wife and I will each have 2 drinks in the afternoon and a drink with dinner. Really hard to justify the $85 per person per day when you only have 3 drinks per day. There were 3 different days, where in the early afternoon a server would walk around with a tray of low-ball drinks saying "Drink of the day". I didn't see the drink published anywhere; not in the app, not on the paper schedule in the stateroom. So I always had to ask what it was. I asked if there was a deal or special, and got a different answer each time. The first day the server said 2-for-1, my wife didn't care for the drink so I just asked for one, and he asked for my room number which I gave to him. He wrote it on a post it note, and from what I can tell, we were never charged for this drink.
The second day, I asked if they were 2-for-1 and was told yes, asked for 2 and gave him my room number. 20 minutes later he finds me and says "Sorry, you don't have the drink package, these are only 2-for-1 with the drink package. Can I get your room card?" I then asked "If I had the drinks package, wouldn't these be included? and be 2-for-0? not 2-for-1?" He said, "well how about we do 3-for-2 since you don't have the drink package?" I was confused, gave him my card, and he returned, charging me for 2 drinks and bringing me a "free" third one.
These drinks were low-ball cocktails, smaller than most of the glasses served for full price drinks at the bar. Also, I am not much of a drinker so I don't know cocktails just by appearance, and they seemed annoyed when I asked what the drink was. And by the end of the cruise, we still had no idea what the drink of the day special/policy was.
So what exactly is the drink of the day on Celebrity? And what is the 'policy'/price? Again, we are used to DCL, so sorry if a dumb question. On DCL the drink of the day was clearly published in the app (formerly in the daily navigator as well), and was something like $5 instead of $8-$10, and it is usually premade in bigger batches for that day at the bar. We now make sunken treasures (we found that one as a DCL Drink of the day) at home and sit on the deck while the kids play in a blow-up pool when we are missing be on a cruise ship, haha.
The only other thing that was concerning, was with so few staff walking around to get drink orders, there were way too many people getting into pool with glass beer bottles, and glass cups from the bar (rather than the plastic ones usually offered in the pool area). I kept getting nervous about someone breaking a glass in or around the pool. If we, or someone else, said something to them and pointed at the sign, we often just got a strange look back from them and they ignored our concern.
Being a beer snob, I was pretty disappointed with the beer selection on the Equinox. Many of the listed beers were sold out or just not available, no Lauginitas IPA (listed at craft social), no Sam Adams (listed at Craft Social and Sunset Bar), Goose Island IPA (listed at craft social), etc. The only IPA they had was at the Mast Bar and it was a $14 Dogfish Head beer (90 Minute Double IPA). IPAs have become pretty popular and it would be nice to have 1 or 2 more options than what ultimately becomes a $16.80 (after 20% tip) twelve ounce beer.
We brought Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew on-board. We usually drank them for lunch in oceanview cafe, or out on the pool deck with a burger, pizza or something. It was funny how many people stopped us and asked where we got it from - the gas station back in FLL, haha. We only brought a 6 pack of each, maybe next time we should bring a 12-pack and offer to sell some of them haha. It is just so odd to me that in 2023 Coke and Pepsi are not allowed to co-exist. The majority of people prefer coke over pepsi, and I would argue nobody really likes mellow yello, they just take it because it is the closest thing to Mountain Dew that pepsi offers. It would be nice if places, stadiums, airports, cruise ships, could offer more than one brand and let the consumer decide. Most bars offer more than just AB-InBev products, and don't offer ONLY Bacardi, why cant soda be the same way?
Anyway, a couple questions.
We noticed very few servers walking around the upper decks for drink orders, we generally had to go to the Mast Bar, Pool Bar, or Sunset bar to order drinks. Is this typical? Or just low staff numbers? We were used to our previous DCL cruises where, at least in the adult area, people were regularly taking drink orders. Not a problem, just an observation. I gladly add a couple bucks if I don't have to get up to get a drink. When I go to the bar and a server grabs me a beer, I generally don't add anything above the auto gratuity.
Let me preface this by saying we did not get any drink packages, my wife and I will each have 2 drinks in the afternoon and a drink with dinner. Really hard to justify the $85 per person per day when you only have 3 drinks per day. There were 3 different days, where in the early afternoon a server would walk around with a tray of low-ball drinks saying "Drink of the day". I didn't see the drink published anywhere; not in the app, not on the paper schedule in the stateroom. So I always had to ask what it was. I asked if there was a deal or special, and got a different answer each time. The first day the server said 2-for-1, my wife didn't care for the drink so I just asked for one, and he asked for my room number which I gave to him. He wrote it on a post it note, and from what I can tell, we were never charged for this drink.
The second day, I asked if they were 2-for-1 and was told yes, asked for 2 and gave him my room number. 20 minutes later he finds me and says "Sorry, you don't have the drink package, these are only 2-for-1 with the drink package. Can I get your room card?" I then asked "If I had the drinks package, wouldn't these be included? and be 2-for-0? not 2-for-1?" He said, "well how about we do 3-for-2 since you don't have the drink package?" I was confused, gave him my card, and he returned, charging me for 2 drinks and bringing me a "free" third one.
These drinks were low-ball cocktails, smaller than most of the glasses served for full price drinks at the bar. Also, I am not much of a drinker so I don't know cocktails just by appearance, and they seemed annoyed when I asked what the drink was. And by the end of the cruise, we still had no idea what the drink of the day special/policy was.
So what exactly is the drink of the day on Celebrity? And what is the 'policy'/price? Again, we are used to DCL, so sorry if a dumb question. On DCL the drink of the day was clearly published in the app (formerly in the daily navigator as well), and was something like $5 instead of $8-$10, and it is usually premade in bigger batches for that day at the bar. We now make sunken treasures (we found that one as a DCL Drink of the day) at home and sit on the deck while the kids play in a blow-up pool when we are missing be on a cruise ship, haha.
The only other thing that was concerning, was with so few staff walking around to get drink orders, there were way too many people getting into pool with glass beer bottles, and glass cups from the bar (rather than the plastic ones usually offered in the pool area). I kept getting nervous about someone breaking a glass in or around the pool. If we, or someone else, said something to them and pointed at the sign, we often just got a strange look back from them and they ignored our concern.
Being a beer snob, I was pretty disappointed with the beer selection on the Equinox. Many of the listed beers were sold out or just not available, no Lauginitas IPA (listed at craft social), no Sam Adams (listed at Craft Social and Sunset Bar), Goose Island IPA (listed at craft social), etc. The only IPA they had was at the Mast Bar and it was a $14 Dogfish Head beer (90 Minute Double IPA). IPAs have become pretty popular and it would be nice to have 1 or 2 more options than what ultimately becomes a $16.80 (after 20% tip) twelve ounce beer.
We brought Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew on-board. We usually drank them for lunch in oceanview cafe, or out on the pool deck with a burger, pizza or something. It was funny how many people stopped us and asked where we got it from - the gas station back in FLL, haha. We only brought a 6 pack of each, maybe next time we should bring a 12-pack and offer to sell some of them haha. It is just so odd to me that in 2023 Coke and Pepsi are not allowed to co-exist. The majority of people prefer coke over pepsi, and I would argue nobody really likes mellow yello, they just take it because it is the closest thing to Mountain Dew that pepsi offers. It would be nice if places, stadiums, airports, cruise ships, could offer more than one brand and let the consumer decide. Most bars offer more than just AB-InBev products, and don't offer ONLY Bacardi, why cant soda be the same way?
