Cruise 2024 - The Anniversary Cruise - Part 1 - Shoving Off

OK, so I've been goofing off all morning instead of writing. I'm sitting on our old fashioned balcony of the aging Celebrity Eclipse high on the eleventh deck doing nothing but playing solitaire on my tablet and watching the mild-mannered ocean slowly drift by.

The Celebrity Eclipse at Port Everglades, Ft Lauderdale, FL

Ilse and I arrived at Port Everglades in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, yesterday, Monday, November 25th, 2024, with plenty of time to spare to board the Celebrity Eclipse. We are taking our ninth cruise, again in the Caribbean but this time to the southern chain of the Lesser Antilles, celebrating both our sixtieth anniversary and my eighty-second birthday. It will be a ten day cruise, which for us is the perfect duration. 

After the usual security checks and mandatory shuffling about, we are soon in our 11th deck cabin dropping off our carry-on luggage and changing clothes. We are quickly up on deck checking out the food courts. The upper deck buffet is usually the best place to grab a quick hamburger and French fries, or just about anything else they can think of. The Eclipse has such a variety of food available they even have large sections dedicated just to UK and Asian tastes. Our British friends call it the "Piggery."

Adios Ft Lauderdale!

We sailed past the high-rise condos alongside the Stranahan River, main cut on our way out to the Atlantic Ocean in the late afternoon sun. We had been delayed for about an hour as the ship's public address system kept calling for Michael somebody to please come to the customer service desk. Apparently Michael finally made it and we were underway. 

We noticed the huge Bon Voyage banner was missing from the 15th floor balcony of one of the high-rise apartments that I wanted to incorporate in my video. Funny how some of the minute details from past voyages are hard to forget.

Everyone we meet is typically excited as we all explore the ship and try to figure out where the dining rooms are. We catch a few of the entertainers performing around the ship and are excited by their talents. This will be a good cruise as Celebrity prides itself with its on-board entertainment and a real ship's band. We hit the bed early, but not until catching the first show. It has been a fast, occasionally tense week. Any time you have a passport involved, it usually is.

Port Everglades fades into the sunset

Day 2

This is our first morning on board, known in the industry as Day 2. It is a quiet, postcard type of day all cruise companies want in their advertising. Ilse pointed out a Brown Booby, flying low against the almost calm seas. It is the only bird we see for several hours. We are on the starboard, the right side of the ship and we are aft, or toward the stern, the rear of the ship. We usually reserve a cabin well forward but this cruise was pretty well sold out early so we were glad to get any cabin as long as it wasn't near the elevators. We find later the elevators run length-wise rather than across the ship, and they have their own alcove so the passengers on this ship are not inconvenienced by late night elevator traffic and noise. There are no elevators aft, or toward the stern so we have no worries about noise.

Since we headed out the Mallory Channel between Freeport and the cluster of "private islands" during our first night at sea, we got to watch the last of the island nation slip out of sight over the horizon from our starboard balcony cabin. It turns out not to be the end of the Bahamas after all as five hours later the Turks and Caicos islands, or cays, are due west of us. We are toodling, and I really mean foot dragging, or inner tube paddling, toodling. I could keep up with the cruise ship with my old pontoon boat and its top speed wasn't quite eighteen miles an hour. We left Ft Lauderdale yesterday twenty hours ago and we are still in the Bahamas. After our turn around yesterday, Monday, I thought the Captain might have to speed it up a bit to make Tortola by Thursday morning, but apparently not. Oh, did I forget to mention we turned around and headed back to the pier about thirty minutes after leaving Port Everglades? We didn't have to go all the way back to the dock because we were met by a big, fast boat of some kind that quickly disappeared to the other side of the ship. Soon afterward, the Eclipse once again did a full turn and headed back toward the open sea. By then it was the dark, open sea, away from preposterously illuminated east coast of Florida.

The Captain came on the ship's loudspeakers and apologized for a medical emergency as one of the passengers had to be evacuated from the ship. We think that's what he said. His heavy Greek accent over a loudspeaker mounted hundreds of feet away did nothing to clarify his message. He might have said they slowed the boat down so Michael and his wife could come on board for the Thanksgiving dinner as they missed the boat in Ft. Lauderdale, but then again, who knows?

At any rate, we are not speeding. This is our sixth trip down the outside of the Bahamas toward San Juan, and by far the slowest. It is also by far the smoothest outbound leg we've ever had from Florida. The weather is perfect with mild winds and partly cloudy skies.

We anxiously boarded the Eclipse, a sister ship of the Millennium we sailed on three years ago, in Ft Lauderdale, hoping nothing drastic has changed since we last sailed with Celebrity Cruises. We picked a Solstice Class ship because we loved the Millennium when we sailed on her just after the pandemic in 2021. The huge, newer Celebrity Beyond was berthed next to us and we were convinced then and there that the Eclipse is big enough.

One thing about the newer ships that we don't like is the typical income maximizing philosophy that the entire cruising industry is stuffing up everyone's agenda: More passengers per ship means more revenue in a shorter market cycle. It also means far more people trying to dine, exercise, drink, or just co-exist in a confined, encapsulated environment. We chatted with passengers who have cruised the newer line of bigger ships that Nostradamus has apparently prophesied to be the financial salvation of the cruise industry. Not one of them liked the new pseudo balconies that are standard on the Celebrity Apex class ships! The new balconies are not real balconies, but simply an extension of the room with a huge powered picture window that drops halfway down on the glass wall facing the ocean.

On the other hand, while the majority of loyal, veteran passengers prefer smaller ships and better service, the great, susceptible masses just don't seem to care. Drink, play in the pool, drink some more, and pretend they don't have a care in the world. They love the bragging rights about being on the biggest or newest ship, no matter how uncomfortable or unaffordable it really is. It used to be called the Emperor’s Clothes syndrome, I have no idea what they call it now.

Canapes in the afternoon - Nice touch

Apparently, most passenger can not entertain themselves for seven hours much less seven days, so the cruise lines have figured out how to do it for them. Mickey Arinson and Knut Kloster understood a long time ago that the mainstream population will gleefully go into hock simply to be entertained. Their resulting cruise empires have turned weekend gambling getaways from Miami Beach into a world-wide, mega billion dollar industry.

My wife and I are old school, we still read. My wife is a convert to the ebooks as are most of the passengers lounging around the pool. Cellphones and tablets are everywhere. USB charging stations are now far more important in the cabin than reading lamps. I still lug around paper books, though. I even brought a hard-cover book I've been trying to reread for months. We still listen to music without videos. We love good entertainment and love the onboard, if not somewhat truncated, musical and Broadway shows. We do not care about glass blowing or the politics of old Rhodesia, have never played scattergories or any "team sport" on a cruise ship. I'm not on a ship to take a final test to see how much I learned about any text book subject. We did sit through a karaoke show one time to help a friend, but that's about it. We were impressed in one on-line video we watched about the Eclipse's supposedly outstanding library. Well, maybe once upon a time, before the shelf's went empty, but today, it's mostly open-aired display of wooden shelving. The few books available are well worn.

Well, how about the other intangibles? The areas where Celebrity had out-shown its competitors when we sailed on the Millennium were often sadly diluted or even non-existent. A ten day WiFi package for the two of us is the same amount I pay for over five months coverage at home. Even as addicted to it as we are it is not a smart choice for us. For a supposedly up-scale cruise line, nickel and diming the passengers beyond covering the price, not just the actual cost of the cruise itself, has become a science, not just an art form. It is perpetual to the point of being oppressive. There are no free enhancement sessions or classes: they all have a sales hook. 

While we still laugh about the old days when the purser was not allowed to show a passenger's tally until it was slipped under the cabin door on the last night of the cruise, it was never the astonishing, often astronomical shock it is today, even if you can go on line at any time to see it. Having free unlimited coffee with breakfast, but being charged five dollars a cup for coffee with dinner is absurd. Six dollars and fifty cents for a small bottle of water is equally dickish, and unfortunately is a sign of worse charges to come.

Pallet after pallet of bottled water is loaded at Ft Lauderdale.
At $6.50 each they would remain unsold on land.

On-board guest services, formerly known as the Concierge, has always been a fine line between accommodating customer complaints and deflecting those who try to manipulate the service. The staff is trained to maintain the corporate profile as well as the corporate bottom line. But lately, I find they are more of an extension of the corporation's marketing arm. Pullman's famous bedbug letter has become the backbone of desk responses, although they do their best to fulfill most requests, including some really bizarre ones.

When we sailed earlier this year on the Island Princess, my travel agent mentioned Princess Cruises offered military rewards for veterans, all I had to do was present my DD-214–every veteran has one–and my customer profile was updated within a day without question. The customer service on the Island Princess also helped us resolve an issue that involved a hotel, a shuttle bus driver, and a handful of port people with an issue we assumed to be a lost cause. We had an overlooked tablet returned to us from a hotel after two days of effort, excellent service! I can't say as much about Celebrity. After an unpleasant encounter with one of the staff at the desk, I was brusquely informed they had nothing to do updating my customer profile. According to the service desk, that was my travel agent's job. Next! 

How about our first breakfast in the main dinner room where my wife's omelet was simply a fast-food pre-mix. We were quietly informed by the wait staff to next time ask for "fresh eggs." Not as bad as the horrible experience we suffered several years ago on NCL that extinguished our desire to ever cruise with them again, but if Celebrity isn't careful, they will get the same reputation for bland, barely edible food. Forcing the average cruiser to pay extra money for the specialty restaurants just for palatable food is not a good business plan. We sailed four cruises on NCL in the past, but their loss of value, mainly, but not exclusively, in the dining room, has removed them from our choice of cruise lines.

The industry has stripped down the costs so tightly the on-board jobs are no longer appealing the Europeans who dominated the food services before the COVID pandemic. While the reduced incentives for crews is still attractive for some southeastern Asian nationalities, the majority of staff are younger, most having less than three years experience as the pandemic forced many career staff and crew into retirement or other off-ship careers. The industry is squeezing the hired help as hard as it squeezes its customers. I couldn’t help but look up Royal Caribbean’s SEC filings just to get a handle on today’s cruising business. So if you’re interested, in 2023, the CEO of RCCL - RCCL is the parent company of Celebrity Cruises - earned $17,216,276 as opposed to the average RCCL employee who earned $18,073 for a CEO Ratio of 953:1. The S&P 500 average is 268 to 1. Makes that bottle of water mean so much more, doesn’t it?

We were glad to see some things haven’t changed. The Eclipse actually has an on-ship band, as did the Island Princess, and that is a defiant stand against an industry practice of cheap, canned musical scores instead of real musicians while singers and performers do little more than strobe-lighted karaoke. Watching live shows is a pleasure we have come to love while cruising. We have seen some great performances at sea. We've seen a few bummers as well, but not many. We know these costs are above what other cruise lines expend for entertainment, but I am willing to pay the cost up front rather than watch my credit card balance balloon on a daily basis.

The first show we catch on the Eclipse is one I recommend for just about anyone, the Rebels, and here I contradict myself. They brought their own music, but seeing the complexity of the show I know why. Don't be fooled by the hard rock attire and show-like posturing–the act is an homage to Rock and Roll–the opening number is the overture from Phantom of the Opera. Outstanding performance.

Dinner is nice as we have a reserved table in the main dining room and the food is good. The service is outstanding as we have the same wait staff as the first night and they already have taken notes about our foibles and fancies. Of course I start with my French Onion soup, the one single item I measure every cruise by. It passes with flying colors. 

We get to hear the assorted staff gather at our table and sing "Happy anniversary to you," - it was our 60th -  as they delivered a piece of chocolate cake with a straw-berry stuck in the frosting. We celebrated our  50th on a different cruise line that did not leave us with pleasant memories, so we were thrilled Celebrity once again made the experience memorable.  This piece of cruising remains basically unchanged from when we started cruising almost fifty years ago. Well, almost unchanged. Back then, coffee was included with your dessert, now it is a five dollar per cup add-on. It is good, but it ain't Starbucks.

Happy 60th Anniversary! Whee! 

There have been so many generations of cost cutters stripping what ever program is left over from the last "analysis" that soon we will have to pay a gangplank service charge just to get on or off the ship. The pandemic almost bankrupted the cruise industry, but they forget they weren't alone.

The cheapness doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth, and I have a feeling it is going to get worse. It won't get better because it was better before. Obviously the executives didn't like it. At the current charge of $5.00 a cup for plain coffee, I figure I drink at least fifteen dollars worth at breakfast and wonder how long it will take before some astronomically rewarded executive figures out how to offload the cost onto my room charge.

I predicted the money master executives would kill the golden goose if they got worse, but they got worse and the geese still trample each other to get on board.

Next: Honk! Honk!  Tortola https://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2024/12/cruise-2024-anniversary-cruise-part-2.html

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PS: To Anonymous, who left the comment "Well, this doesn't make me want to cruise, ever again. Glad you had a good time!" 

Ilse and I have been cruising for many years, and while not the extensive sailors as some, we know what we love and what we miss about cruising. Many of the the inexperienced newcomers to cruising are caught unprepared for the the charges incurred on today's cruises, even after prepaying for very expensive drink and WiFi packages and off-shore excursions. 

It is an exciting adventure and a wonderful way to vacation and make new friends, but times, they have been a-changing for quite a while now.

While cruising is the only way we know to sail the high seas, seeing natural vistas and sights that can not be found anywhere else, we have met people who skipped out on leaving gratuities for the ship's staff because they had run out of cash. We obviously love to sail on cruises, but I won't write sales copy for any cruise line. I have an agreement with them: I pay them for their services and they let me cruise on their ships. They are free too impress me anyway they want, and I am free to write about it as long as I document everything. Nothing I write is fabricated.

I'm sorry you no longer want to cruise again after reading my blog. I just want my readers to know how we found this really enjoyable, once in a lifetime cruise to be as memorable as any we have taken before, you just haven't read that far yet. Hopefully I can entice you to read more. I'm sure you will enjoy our call on  Barbados 

George