Sign of the times: Celebrity pulls cruise ship from Europe for 2010

"Sue Mullen" wrote in message
...


Tom K wrote:
"Charles" wrote in message
d...
In article , Tom K
wrote:

I don't think Europe is going to bring the repeat business that the
Caribbean does.
I am an Elite Celebrity Captain's Club member yet I have not been on
Celebrity in a few years because they dropped many Caribbean sailings
and the dropped Bermuda. Hopefully next year I will be back on a
Celebrity cruise. I would like to go on the Solstice.

I haven't either, for the same reason. For this year's Viking sailing,
we couldn't find a Celebrity sailing that was reasonably priced and fit
our 7 day requirement from Florida... they're trying to focus on long
sailings... they think they're in Oceania's league, but they're not.

The Solstice does a 7 day out of Fort Lauderdale, San Juan, St. Kitss and
St Maarten.

The 3 criteria were reasonable, Florida and 7 days... it missed on the
first criteria. for our week, HAL was much cheaper. And it had a reduced
single suplement for some categories.

We were on the ship and loved it, but because we had some health issues
didn't get to do it justice. I am trying to talk Kevin into doing the
Solstice in Jan instead of the Grandeur.

Tom, Charles, any interest in late Jan?

Too close to Vikings for me. How about you going on the Vikings sailing in
Dec with us instead?

--Tom

Tom K wrote:
"Sue Mullen" wrote in message
...

Tom K wrote:
"Charles" wrote in message
d...
In article , Tom K
wrote:

I don't think Europe is going to bring the repeat business that the
Caribbean does.
I am an Elite Celebrity Captain's Club member yet I have not been on
Celebrity in a few years because they dropped many Caribbean sailings
and the dropped Bermuda. Hopefully next year I will be back on a
Celebrity cruise. I would like to go on the Solstice.
I haven't either, for the same reason. For this year's Viking sailing,
we couldn't find a Celebrity sailing that was reasonably priced and fit
our 7 day requirement from Florida... they're trying to focus on long
sailings... they think they're in Oceania's league, but they're not.
The Solstice does a 7 day out of Fort Lauderdale, San Juan, St. Kitss and
St Maarten.

The 3 criteria were reasonable, Florida and 7 days... it missed on the
first criteria. for our week, HAL was much cheaper. And it had a reduced
single suplement for some categories.

We were on the ship and loved it, but because we had some health issues
didn't get to do it justice. I am trying to talk Kevin into doing the
Solstice in Jan instead of the Grandeur.

Tom, Charles, any interest in late Jan?

Too close to Vikings for me. How about you going on the Vikings sailing in
Dec with us instead?

December just doesn't work for us. We do a big thanksging dinner with
family from out of town and my son often stays for a week afterwards.
Maybe once Kevin retires we will get someone else to make thanksgiving
and we will be able t join the Vikings.

sue

On 5/5/2009 8:00 AM, George Leppla wrote:

I recently priced a 14 day Med cruise where the airfare was going to be
more expensive than the cruise. No sale.

Ouch. I was able to get mine for "only" 50% of the price of my
Summit Med cruise.

Bill

Sue Mullen wrote:



Tom K wrote:
"Sue Mullen" wrote in message
...

Tom K wrote:
"Charles" wrote in message
d...
In article , Tom K
wrote:

I don't think Europe is going to bring the repeat business that the
Caribbean does.
I am an Elite Celebrity Captain's Club member yet I have not been on
Celebrity in a few years because they dropped many Caribbean sailings
and the dropped Bermuda. Hopefully next year I will be back on a
Celebrity cruise. I would like to go on the Solstice.
I haven't either, for the same reason. For this year's Viking sailing,
we couldn't find a Celebrity sailing that was reasonably priced and fit
our 7 day requirement from Florida... they're trying to focus on long
sailings... they think they're in Oceania's league, but they're not.
The Solstice does a 7 day out of Fort Lauderdale, San Juan, St. Kitss and
St Maarten.

The 3 criteria were reasonable, Florida and 7 days... it missed on the
first criteria. for our week, HAL was much cheaper. And it had a reduced
single suplement for some categories.

We were on the ship and loved it, but because we had some health issues
didn't get to do it justice. I am trying to talk Kevin into doing the
Solstice in Jan instead of the Grandeur.

Tom, Charles, any interest in late Jan?

Too close to Vikings for me. How about you going on the Vikings sailing in
Dec with us instead?

December just doesn't work for us. We do a big thanksging dinner with
family from out of town and my son often stays for a week afterwards.
Maybe once Kevin retires we will get someone else to make thanksgiving
and we will be able t join the Vikings.

When our grandson was christened in October of 1995, my DIL told us -
you can come to us for Thanksgiving this year (and at the time we only
got one day off for the day of Thanksgiving, so it would have meant
driving from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, eating dinner and driving back
to be at work on Friday), Bob said, we are going to be in Bermuda for
Thanksgiving and the Virgin Islands for Christmas. This was news to
me and I thought he was joking. But a couple of days later, he asked
if I had made the reservations yet. We didn't go away at Christmas
until after we were both retired in 2000, but from 1995 until 2003, we
were always traveling at Thanksgiving. After that our oldest daughter
took over the Thanksgiving gig for the most part although twice we
went to our third daughters' inlaws for Thanksgiving. We were even at
our son's for one Thanksgiving although by that time he had moved to
Charleston SC and we were traveling on our boat.

On May 5, 9:36�pm, "Tom K" wrote:
"Charles" wrote in message

d...

In article , Tom K
wrote:

I don't think Europe is going to bring the repeat business that the
Caribbean does.

I am an Elite Celebrity Captain's Club member yet I have not been on
Celebrity in a few years because they dropped many Caribbean sailings
and the dropped Bermuda. Hopefully next year I will be back on a
Celebrity cruise. I would like to go on the Solstice.

I haven't either, for the same reason. �For this year's Viking sailing, we
couldn't find a Celebrity sailing that was reasonably priced and fit our 7
day requirement from Florida... they're trying to focus on long sailings....
they think they're in Oceania's league, but they're not.

--Tom

My Rep continuously said Celebrity is NOT a caribbean cruise line.
they are more yadda yadda WELL ya know something alot of the people
that sail STILL want CARIBBEAN
yea alot would like to see different islands ( Yea when Cuba Opens)
BUT they like WARM weather. some still nervous to go Over to europe
( although I think it was the best cruise!)
and now the Economy has played into it... it has hurt globally. and
way to many ships over there. Alaska too sooo they are changing
things up.
and where do they go? CARIBBEAN. OH but they are not a Caribbean
cruise line... Now I wonder what I will hear.... BERMUDA... the
problem everyone wants them to go there BUT no one wants to pay the
premium they charge so then it has to drop the prices really low and
it discourages the cruise line from coming back ( I say put them lower
in the beginning and then you will fill it)
Now we will also have HAL so there is going to be competition and that
is good

Susette
Cruise Outlets and Travel
833 Kings Hwy Woodbury, NJ 08096
800-853-9515 www.cruiseoutlets.com
Come sail with the Vikings when they go Dutch 6Dec09

"Susette" wrote in message
...

BERMUDA... the
problem everyone wants them to go there BUT no one wants to pay the
premium they charge so then it has to drop the prices really low and
it discourages the cruise line from coming back ( I say put them lower
in the beginning and then you will fill it)
Now we will also have HAL so there is going to be competition and that
is good

Susette
Cruise Outlets and Travel
833 Kings Hwy Woodbury, NJ 08096
800-853-9515 www.cruiseoutlets.com
Come sail with the Vikings when they go Dutch 6Dec09



Problem with Bermuda is the big ships can only go to the sucky King's Wharf.
Sure it's Bermuda, but it's like wanting to visit New York and being stuck
out at Kennedy Airport. You're nowhere near the good stuff.

We used to go to Bermuda twice a year (off season Spring and Fall) when the
Zenith was doing the good itinerary.

--Tom

On 5/5/09 12:13 PM, in article
, "Charles"
wrote:

I found this to be interesting. Celebrity has pulled the Solstice from
Europe in 2010 for the Caribbean.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruis...og&ak=66379025.
blog

Note that they had already decided to pull the Century from Europe. Century
cruises to the Baltic currently are as cheap as some Alaska cruises. While
it may be more attractive for US residents to cruise more closer to home,
won't the Caribbean market show the same price deterioriation that the
Alaska market currently does? So where's the beef?

In article ,
peter wrote:

Note that they had already decided to pull the Century from Europe. Century
cruises to the Baltic currently are as cheap as some Alaska cruises. While
it may be more attractive for US residents to cruise more closer to home,
won't the Caribbean market show the same price deterioriation that the
Alaska market currently does? So where's the beef?

My guess is the overhead is much less. I have a hard time believing
that the dockage fees, etc., are as high in (for instance)St. Martin as
they are in Harwich or elsewhere on the Continent. They may also be
planning on not fighting dollar devaluation that might be coming from
all the deficit spending.

--
"Distracting a politician from governing
is like distracting a bear from eating your baby."

--PJ O'Rourke

On 5/5/2009 6:13 AM, Charles wrote:
I found this to be interesting. Celebrity has pulled the Solstice from
Europe in 2010 for the Caribbean.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=66379025.blog

So I had not read the article until today but was surprised that
the big change here is that the 12 night Barcelona-Venice route
has been canceled for 2010. The shorter cruise (and much less
interesting itinerary, IMHO) that Solstice was supposed to do
will now be handled by Equinox (which was going to take over the
12 night Mediterranean cruise that Summit is doing this year,
with Summit going to NJ). Makes you wonder why they didn't just
move Equinox to the Caribbean and not mess with Solstice
(they're going to be identical, no?). That way they would not
have had to contact their Solstice customers who are being moved
to a different ship.

Bill

Why lose on 2 trans-atlantics and gamble on the spring and fall Europe,
wen you can bet on a sure thing in the Caribbean?

Gadget