Reviews…How Much Do They Influence What You Buy?

In this age of the internet, we can access reviews on everything from hoovers, cars, insurance companies, employers, restaurants, but I think the most reviewed and read is definitely holidays, particularly hotels and cruises. Whilst a useful tool to help you decide, do we rely on them too much?

Often over the years, when I have proposed a particular option to a customer, having asked all the questions and matched something perfectly to their requirements, I get the response ‘Well i really liked that option, but it has had some bad reviews’.

Only this week I was speaking to a lovely lady looking for a cruise for her honeymoon, wanting something of a good standard, doing Iceland and Scandinavia. I offered a lovely Itinerary on Celebrity Eclipse, to which she replied ‘Oh yes I saw that cruise and liked the look of it, but read the reviews and saw that the ship is more of a booze cruise’. Really?? Of course that is not the case, Celebrity is not that kind of product, but the ship had recently done a 2 night mini cruise, and if you read my blog a few weeks back, these can be seen as party cruises and really not a true indication of a ‘proper’ cruise. When I went to check the reviews, this indeed was the case and the first 2 reviews were done by people that had been on the mini cruise and my customer read those and dismissed this ship. had she read on further, she would have a very different opinion. Take a look.

Have previously been on the same mini cruise on Eclipse two years ago and recommended it for a friends birthday after having a great time. What a mistake. It was like a completely different cruise and would not recommend it at all.

From start to finish it was chaos, overcrowded with large groups of Hen and stag parties, half and hour wait to get drinks even tho we had a drinks package, which had not been registered on our card, hour queue at customer relations desk to resolve issue, overheard one persons comment on pool deck, this is like a floating Weatherspoons!!! I couldn’t agree more.

No knives, forks and cups available on food deck, no breakfast left on second day, queues in coffee cafe, queues everywhere.

Rude staff who seemed to not want to be there, bar staff putting anything in cocktails.

No beds available on pool deck due to overcrowding.

All in all a terrible experience never to be repeated, what has happened to Celebrity in twoyears???

This was a review of the 2 nighter. Below, a longer cruise.

Well, we have just returned home after our wonderful 12-night Presidents Ireland and Iceland cruise aboard the Celebrity Eclipse. This was our 6th cruise and our 5th aboard the Eclipse.

Embarkation
As ever, embarkation was extremely efficient and easy. We parked up at the cruise terminal, handed over our bags and it was just a 3-4 min walk into the terminal. As we had a Concierge Class stateroom this time (Stateroom 1067), we had a dedicated line for embarkation but it actually made no difference as there were no long lines. We took time in the terminal to upgrade our drinks package from Classic to Premium ($11.80 each per day) and were on board within 12 minutes of walking into the terminal.

The Ship
It has now been a few years since the Eclipse was in dry dock, but we didn’t see any signs of wear and tear. Everywhere was bright, clean and fresh as ever. She remains a lovely ship.

Stateroom
Stateroom 1067 is on deck 10 forward port-side, just by the Forward elevators – a very convenient location. All balcony/concierge/aquaclass rooms are the same size. This is a concierge class stateroom so we had fresh fruit, canapes and a bottle of fizzy wine on embarkation day. Lots of storage, well laid out cabin.

As ever, what makes our cruise is the people we meet, and we met lots of lovely people. It was sad to have to say goodbye to them.

This was a Presidents cruise. It was hard to see what difference it made (standard, as ever, was good overall). We like towel animals but were told these are not seen now as being modern luxury. Instead we got a variety of different little gifts most evenings (lava salt, USB chargers/powerpacks, icepacks, lip balms etc). Whether these are now the standard offerings, whether they depend on whether you are in the Capt. Club or whether they were because it was a presidents cruise I cannot say but they were a nice touch.

Staff
As ever, staff on board were unfailingly superb, polite, friendly and helpful.