Knighton

Why is it that every new ship on every cruise line starts out with the same old boring itineraries?  I really want to try Virgin but Key West, anywhere in the Bahamas and anywhere in eastern mexico or elsewhere on a western caribbean itinerary is a total been there done that many times for me.  And I don't feel it's a good idea to go to the Dominican Republic just now, due to all the weird illnesses.  If Virgin is trying to be different and innovative, then how about going someplace different?  I'm not keen on paying twice as much for a cruise to the same old same old just because it's a new ship with new bells and whistles. 

American Airlines arena.  Trying not to spend a TON of money on a hotel, but I want to be safe, too.  I'm travelling alone.

Taking a cruise from Fort Lauderdale and flying in and out of FLL.  The day the ship returns there is a concert in Miami that evening that I'm going to.  Logistically what makes the most sense?  Just getting a hotel in Fort Lauderdale and uber or lyft to Miami and back for the concert only, or uber/lyft after the cruise to a hotel in Miami (hopefully close to the concert venue) then another back to FLL for the flight the next morning?  Thanks!

It would be SO awesome if it was a full charter.  I did the Star Trek cruise and they had the whole ship decorated like one of the star trek ships.  I'm sure this will be fun and if they ever rent out a whole ship for it I'm there!  Shady Pines of the Seas!

19 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

 

if you bought $500, you get $100 bonus chips.

when you get the chips, do they give you all $600 in promo chips?

or you get $500 regular chips  and $100 promo?

 

All promo chips.  That's what bothered me.

Princess is pretty good compared to Celebrity.

I'm having a bizarre experience with this deal.  Curious, Gerelmx, where did you find the exact details?  I looked high and low on the website and various emails I got and didn't see that.  Thanks for posting.  Now here's the weird part.  If you notice the sailings supposedly included on the 20 20 sale have a little flag on them that says "$20 deposit + 2 free perks".  Well, I found a 2 night cruise (yes I see now on the OP's listing that it's supposed to be for 4 nighters and longer) but nonetheless, the flag was on it.  Tried a mock booking and it didn't give me the perk option, so I sent an email to celebrity.  Right now I'm playing phone tag with someone who got my email and is having the celebrity IT dept looking into it.  Basically my point to them in the email was that it's false advertisement to put the flag that says it's part of the sale on the listing and not honor it.  

Heads up on the promo chips.  Bought a bunch of promo chips not happy with how they handle it at the table.  On the craps table, I put the promo chip on the line as well as for my odds, but when I won they did not replace the promo ones with a regular chip, they left it there.  Which means the only time you can get rid of them is if you lose them.  I've never been anywhere where promo chips aren't automatically replaced with playable chips you can go to the cage with when you win.

My plan charges me 5 cents for any texts I receive and 50 cents for anything I send.  Would I be able to text for free with the social wifi plan?  I don't use anything like facebook or any of the other social media platforms.  All I do is text and check email with my phone and if I text alot that could really add up!  Thanks!

39 minutes ago, jagoffee said:

So the credit card companies denies that they have any responsibility or control over the pending charges on your account?

Yeah.  When I called amex they claimed they were unable to get rid of them and I should call celebrity.  But they were more than happy to raise my credit limit....🙄

The daily hold messed my credit card up to the point that the holds added up until I had no credit left!  Which I didn't know until I was trying to disembark and it wouldn't let me.  Celebrity doesn't even get rid of the daily holds once you're paid up and disembark!  (I used a different card, not happy about that either!)  I called my credit card company when I tried to use the original card for something else and they informed me that I didn't have any credit left, and that Celebrity was who was taking it up with their holds.  Called Celebrity and the lady said unfortunately it takes at least 2 weeks for the holds to come off.  I would have had plenty of credit to pay the bill, but when they put a new hold for the total amount I owe every night and don't bother to rescind the previous one, it added up so much that screwed up my cards credit availability.  Others have mentioned using AMEX, but believe it or not, this was amex.

Well, needless to say I've learned my lesson.  🙂  It was very surprising and even a few days after the cruise the holds were still there (which I found out when I tried to use the card somewhere else).  I called my card company and they couldn't remove them, but verified that they were all from Celebrity, then called Celebrity and they said it could take as much as 10 business days for them to bother to clear the holds-she said they're pretty slow about it.  Which is dumb, since I am  paid in full.

I am a very seasoned cruiser (42 cruises) and this has never happened before!  For some reason on my last cruise (Celebrity Infinity) I got a letter every single day saying my credit card didn't work.  I often have this problem just once on a cruise-my name is hyphenated but some cards only have the married name.  Anyway, on this cruise every day I had to go down and have them manually enter it, which did work.  However, what I found out from this experience is that every day a hold is automatically put on the credit card for whatever you have charged up to that point.  I get it, it's protection for them, but this time, the credit card I used didn't have as much of a credit balance and the multiple holds over 5 days added up to the point that they couldn't really charge the final bill!  An embarrassing turn of events since I didn't know until I tried to disembark and my card wouldn't let me off the ship, doubly bad because I was on a ships shore excursion that they had to make wait for us while I straightened that mess out.  Even calling the card company didn't help-they couldn't remove the holds and guest services didn't have the access to remove  them either.  I had to use another credit card that I really don't like using just to get things done.  Has anyone else ever had this experience?  I didn't realize that I had to have a ton of credit left on a card to cover basically double or triple what  the final bill ended up being since they kept putting holds on my existing credit!

We were on the Equinox last August and thought the hot glass show was really cool. However, it was pointed out during the show that there are a ton of people whose only reason to cruise was to be on the ships with the hot glass show and that they collector the pieces made there. Heck, the glass experts and the collector passengers seemed to know each other by name! I don't mean to sound snarky, but it seemed kinda convenient that even though the "auction" at the end for the pieces was supposedly random, the collectors seemed to be the ones always winning. Now that they're discontinuing the shows, I suppose these people will have to find other ways to fill up their collections. LOL.

yep, clearing the cache and cookies did the trick and I was able to still find the $10 cruise. There was only 1 ( 5 day Sensation Dec 9) and unfortunately I already have plans that week. Oh, well.

Still no luck-9:15 am this morning tried to log on (desktop computer) and I'm still getting the OOPS message. I'm able to log in on the phone, but it won't let me click through to my offers.

:(Got in far enough to see that I've got a casino offer for a cabin on a cruise for only $10 + taxes, but it wouldn't let me any farther. Now I can't even log in. I sure hope it's still there later....

Sorry. I looked hard at Florida Departures threads but everyone seems to have a hotel involved in their transfer and I don't know if this makes a difference. I'm going directly from FLL airport to Port of Miami. My usual private transfer service has stopped doing cruise transfers. 2 of us with 3 large suitcases. I'm willing to try Uber or Lyft, but is there another reliable but inexpensive private service (no sharing) anyone can recommend?

Thanks!

Here's the official state department info:

https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/cuba/index.htm

However, it doesn't really spell it out as far as cruises go. You could look at the new way Royal Caribbean is doing it as an example, already updated on their website, but that's them. Until NCL updates their page or announces that they won't be making changes, I would call them. And even that is opening a can of worms. Multiple people calling and gettting different agents at the same cruise line are sometimes getting completely different information.

The bad thing is it looks like each cruise line is going to do something different. Royal updated their cuba page and has made a few changes. There is still a way to do private tours under their new layout. Carnival has done nothing with their cuba page and someone called them and was told that Carnival does not plan on changing the way they are currently handling Cuba cruises. NCL also has said nothing and has changed nothing on their website. Has anyone tried calling them to see what's up?

The new sanctions could possibly mean that ship excursions to the Tropicana Night Club, which is owned by the Cuban government, will no longer be allowed. So glad I did that excursion in October before these new rules came out!

 

 

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Yes, the ship's excursion might no longer exist, but if there is still a way to get away on your own, then you could just take a cab there. It's more fun that way, anyway. Someone on another thread said they called Carnival and asked them what might change as far as stuff like getting off and going on your own and the agent said they knew about the rule changes but Carnival wasn't planning on making any changes to the way they've been doing things. So, every cruise line is playing it differently. Royal already rolled out their update. A little more strict, but there's still a way to do private tours.

There are still lots of Cuba cruises for sale on carnivals website. Beware their Cuba information page is out of date. Celebrat is correct about private tours still being ok under the support for cuban people provision. Hopefully carnival will update their page soon like RCL has.

Heads up new government rules took effect Nov 9. NCL site's Cuba page is now out of date. There are now different rules as to how you may get off the ship in Havana and for what reason. RCL posted their new info but since every cruise line is different I wouldn't go by them.

Unfortunately NCL hasn't updated it's websites Cuba FAQs to reflect the changes that went in effect Nov 9. RCL has the latest info up and there's a whole brouhaha on their board over how to interpret it. Hopefully NCL will update theirs soon. I would imagine it will be similar to what rcl is saying. Ive been offering my view on the rcl thread but I don't want to repeat that here in case NCL goes a different way.

On our cruise back in July, we were charged for the travel visa as we checked in for the cruise. So it would be hard not the be charged for the visa.

Yes but rcl is specifically mentioning this in their new FAQs so it must be something new.