Celebrity World Cruise Mash-Up

Seems like I got way too much time on my hands. :) I retired two years ago and the DW retires in two years. The promo material I get from Viking on their world cruise got me thinking about a big trip once the DW retires. Viking's is 141 days and starts at $50,000 per person. Seeing that I wondered what I could do with Celebrity and how long it would take to do it in four or five segments.

Check out my attachment and let me know your thoughts. Any suggestions. Other options/routes I didn't consider? I routed it going west to get the extra hour in the day when moving from time zone to time zone. How about going east? Benefits there I'm not seeing.

I like my mash-up rather than a traditional since it spreads the event out which helps to avoid cruise burnout and spaces out the cost. My total cost is slightly over $26,000 per person including airfare. Only 7 days shorter than Viking and mine is truly around the world. Their's is Miami to London. I used current published rates and cruise dates...knowing that will change.

Hope I can get the spreadsheet to attach.

All for now,

Cheers

Tom

Celebrity Cruises.xls

WOW, what a trip! :D What cabin category have you choosed?

Have you thought of Australia/NZ? SA is also very nice...

I priced it at current Celebrity Veranda rates....so I could compare apples-to-apples with Viking (They are all veranda). Would be some savings if we went with ocean view on some legs where the weather is not quite veranda weather.

I looked briefly at Australia and NZ. Kinda hit a deade nd on setting up b2b repositioning type cruises. I think also I had to go east around the globe to make it sort of work. I'm going to try it later and will post what I figure out.

cheers!

Interesting concept.

This is actually the way we book our cruises, since we have taken quite a few 25-30+ day trips but spaced over time. Don't think we could abide by 100+ days in one gulp, but if we did it would definitely be the Azamara world cruise which is incredible.

Very cool. Will sail Cunard when we do our world cruise but this is a nice alternative

Looks like a great itinerary. Your segment 3 has the wrong dates though. Singapore to Abu Dhabi leaves Apr 7 2018 and Abu Dhabi to Rome on Apr 22. I'm sure you would have found this out before you booked.:) I say, go for it!

What a trip that would be!

I noticed that you did not include the gratuities of $13.50pp per day or the port fees. Not sure if there are visa or passport fees required on this itinerary but that could be a hidden expense.

Hope you go and enjoy this incredible trip.

We are planning to retire in 2020 and want to do an extended cruise in 2021. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice but Celebrity does not currently do world cruises. SO we will try to book b2bwb2b2b to get a 70 to 100 day cruise. CELEBRITY currently does not publish the sequence of the cruises of each ship so it is difficult to plan a cruise. Same ship and same room is a must. Hopefully Celebrity will make booking longer cruises easier when we get ready to book.

We currently have 7 shorter cruises booked in the next week years and are looking forward to longer cruises on Celebrity in the future .

Bob

We are planning to retire in 2020 and want to do an extended cruise in 2021. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice but Celebrity does not currently do world cruises. SO we will try to book b2bwb2b2b to get a 70 to 100 day cruise. CELEBRITY currently does not publish the sequence of the cruises of each ship so it is difficult to plan a cruise. Same ship and same room is a must. Hopefully Celebrity will make booking longer cruises easier when we get ready to book.

 

We currently have 7 shorter cruises booked in the next week years and are looking forward to longer cruises on Celebrity in the future .

 

Bob

If you want to see the itineraries for a particular ship you can to a search using a date range (eg, May, 2017 - Sept 2017) and then select a ship. You get the sailing for that ship in date order,

Keep in mind that Viking also includes a lot more in their pricing ... from their site:

Buying a World Cruise is complicated enough without having to worry about the details, so we are eliminating all the work by including:

•Business Class air – from select gateway cities

•Ground transfers to and from the ship

•All gratuities and service fees

•Our Silver Spirits beverage package including virtually all drinks on board

•Free laundry services, both self-service launderettes and full-service laundry

•All onboard medical services

•One excursion in each port of call

•Dining in all restaurants (except The Kitchen Table)

•Free unlimited Wi-Fi

Plus, book by May 31st and receive:

•$2,000 Shipboard Credit, good toward any optional excursions

•$750 Spa Services Credit

•$750 Shop Credit, good in any of our onboard boutiques

That's over a $22,500 value for each guest.

-----------------

Have you checked out HAL's world cruises? Those are segmented but can be booked as one full cruise too and they give you a lot of nice perks.

Looks like a great itinerary. Your segment 3 has the wrong dates though. Singapore to Abu Dhabi leaves Apr 7 2018 and Abu Dhabi to Rome on Apr 22. I'm sure you would have found this out before you booked.:) I say, go for it!

thanks... will check it out

thanks... will check it out

I'm not as on the ball about sailing dates as it would seem!:D We are booked on these two sailings and that is how I know.

What a trip that would be!

 

I noticed that you did not include the gratuities of $13.50pp per day or the port fees. Not sure if there are visa or passport fees required on this itinerary but that could be a hidden expense.

 

Hope you go and enjoy this incredible trip.

thanks

I think the big negative, and for me it's a huge negative, would be the very long flights. When I look at your proposed itinerary, all I see are super long flights that will add up to thousands of dollars. If you take an all in one world cruise, it's two flights, one to the port of embarkation and one to get home. And when I see a flight to Singapore that's probably close to 15 hours long, I just have to say no.

yep, no there is the downside of three RT flights with my scheme. Price really wasn't too bad..see lines 22, 23, and 24 on the spreadsheet. But, there still is the length of flights challenge as you pointed out.

I can handle the flights in exchange for the lower price compared to the complete world cruise guys. Plus I like the idea to space it out over two years.

thanks for the input.

We completed our "World Cruise" about this time last year. Unlike you, we did it over a seven years with serveral other cruises in between and on a combination of Celebrity and Azamara [although our Azamara legs are now available on Celebrity ships] but it took 84days of cruising.

We have never added up the cost [which would be considerable because we did it in a combination of Celebrity, Royal and Penthouse suites]but it was well worth it.

If you are interested, our route was: Rome, Livorno [italy], Cartagena [spain], Agadir [Morocco], Lanzarote, Gran Canaria, Fort Lauderdale, Grand Cayman, Cartagena [Columbia], Panama Canal, Puntarenus [Costa Rica], Huatulco [Mexico], Acapulco, Cabo San Lucas, San Diego, Vancouver, Petropavlovsk [Russia], Yokohama, Shimizu [Japan], Kobe, Jeju Island [south Korea], Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ha Long Bay [Vietnam]. Danang [Vietnam], Ho Chi Minh City, Bangkok, Singapore, George Town [Malaysia], Cochin [india], Mumbai, Dubai, Suez Canal, Cairo, Athens

Those repositioning cruises really make b2b cruising take another dimension!

I love the way you have slotted your tours into segments! Only concern may be if nearer the time any of your cruises are chartered, I seem to remember the Japanese one has disappeared a couple of times but even then I am sure you could work in a contingency plan.

We flew to Hawaii for my retirement cruise, spent some time there and then cruised Solstice to Australia via Bora Bora, Tahiti and New Zealand. We thought we had planned well then...

We met a couple in Michael's Club who had

Land toured Canada

Last Alaskan cruise of the season

Vancouver (or Seattle, unsure which) to Hawaii cruise on Solstice

Hawaii cruise

Trans Pacific (our cruise)

Australia land tour (whilst Solstice did a couple of cruises)

Solstice (New Zealand) cruise

Fly home

I do have to say I loved the way they had managed to fit in land tours with cruising...

We are presently Bucket listing a mixture of places we have never seen and places we would love to return to....We have no regrets on the time and money spent on our trips and tours...

I think most of us here on CC regret the things we haven't done rather than the things we have!

Sincere best wishes on your retirement, tell your wife to hurry up and start hers, life is too short to wait!

Those repositioning cruises really make b2b cruising take another dimension!

 

I love the way you have slotted your tours into segments! Only concern may be if nearer the time any of your cruises are chartered, I seem to remember the Japanese one has disappeared a couple of times but even then I am sure you could work in a contingency plan.

 

We flew to Hawaii for my retirement cruise, spent some time there and then cruised Solstice to Australia via Bora Bora, Tahiti and New Zealand. We thought we had planned well then...

 

We met a couple in Michael's Club who had

 

Land toured Canada

Last Alaskan cruise of the season

Vancouver (or Seattle, unsure which) to Hawaii cruise on Solstice

Hawaii cruise

Trans Pacific (our cruise)

Australia land tour (whilst Solstice did a couple of cruises)

Solstice (New Zealand) cruise

Fly home

 

I do have to say I loved the way they had managed to fit in land tours with cruising...

 

We are presently Bucket listing a mixture of places we have never seen and places we would love to return to....We have no regrets on the time and money spent on our trips and tours...

 

I think most of us here on CC regret the things we haven't done rather than the things we have!

 

Sincere best wishes on your retirement, tell your wife to hurry up and start hers, life is too short to wait!

thanks for your reply.... didn't think yet about the chartering trip-wire. We just experienced our first situation as victims to a charter. Booked when I first was published, the AMS to BNC repositioning cruised. even had our D-Day excursion books only to have the trip chartered earlier this month. Already have another western med replacement books...but still not the same experience as our first choice. oh well..life goes on.

Cheers,

Tom

Just back from a month on Reflection where they had an officer question session. I posed the why no X WC question .He replied they have Connie now in Far East with a hard time selling those itins. and Connie too big to sell out. (I had said Connie would be perfect for a WC.} He gave the impression NEVER any WCs on Celebrity.Folks said just do B2B2B2B.......Back to Oceania I guess.

I would add the Antarctica portion to the trip. Having done a real Antarctica trip with 10 landing, I basically do not feel that Antarctica drive by cruises are worth it. However, since I do not see you doing an Antarctica cruise w landing, I guess that a drive by is marginally better than nothing and would greatly extend your cruising experience.

DON

Very interesting post.

I just want to reiterate some of zelker's points having done a Viking Homelands cruise a few weeks ago (which we were very happy with), mainly that there is at least one free excursion in each port of call plus laundry, all drinks, business flights and OBC. You really could do their cruise and not spend another penny. Your own itinerary will need quite a bit of extra spending; those excursions can sure add up!

Our Viking cruise was at the tail end of a repositioning and there were many (mostly Americans) on board who were doing the 50 days from Istanbul to Stockholm. We did speak to someone who - by day 36 - had signed up for the World cruise while on board.

Putting together your own itinerary sounds like more fun though :)

I would add the Antarctica portion to the trip. Having done a real Antarctica trip with 10 landing, I basically do not feel that Antarctica drive by cruises are worth it. However, since I do not see you doing an Antarctica cruise w landing, I guess that a drive by is marginally better than nothing and would greatly extend your cruising experience.

 

DON

Don,

Thanks for the contribution to the thread. Good point on Antarctica. I haven't drilled down into the itentiaries yet and as you added X does "scenic cruise" at the Antarctica "ports" they list....something to think about for those wanting to actually visit the continent.

Cheers,

Tom

i find this idea really intriguing. Talked with my husband last night and think we might like to do this at some point, too. interesting that we are also on your pacific Coastal cruise next May. We will have to see how your plans are progressing by then.