jconeil

This has been very enlightening for booze drinkers. Ordering by the label brand makes it easy to distinguish between better booze. Even I understand that now. But I rarely drink anything except wine and found the wine offered at the bars pretty bad. In Jan. on the Equinox, Berringers was found everywhere, but not much else, except other Calif. low quality wines. Asking for something else, I was told this was all they had. Very disappointing. However, in the dining room, I had a variety of nice selections due to an amazing sommelier. But, on our second b2b cruise, we had a different one who was meh. We even tried to move to the first sommelier's new area. I found the drink package would not be worth the money had I paid for it separately. It wouldn't have been much difference price wise ordering by the bottle and getting better wine.

Likewise, I was unable to log in to my Verizon acc't on the Equinox last Jan.

That was the first time I ever had any trouble while cruising. The tech guy I talked to said Verizon was blocking usage outside the US. I thought that ridiculous, but who is to say?

Just as an aside, we just got back from a road trip to the UK. I was able to log on in southern England and southern Ireland, but not in northern England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

We don't use Verizon for an international phone, just computers, so have no experience there. And no, I have not had the 3 hrs necessary to phone Verizon to find out why.

We are looking at Ocean Frontiers on the East End. They have a Wed. only 3 reef snorkel. This would involve a taxi about 30-40 min ride. Like you we are disappointed in the areas that are usually part of snorkel tours on the West end, aka Stingray City.

We have snorkeled off the beach at Eden Rock and it is very easy, but not great sightings of coral or fish.

DH likes to wear his tux, he knows he looks good! We don't dress down for dinner at any time anyway. We look forward to dinner and dancing on our cruises, and enjoy dressing for the occasion. It's nice to see men dressed classy and struttin their stuff. Golf shirts and khakis are so ho hum.

We joined in July 1994 before there was a fee, our number was like 13,700. The first CC card was paper, then a plastic one came, with our luggage tags with our CC # on them. We always get asked about the tags when a long term employee see's them. At the first change we recieved another card the said 'Founders Member' on it. then another with the loooong number. We have never been told of anything extra just because we signed up before it was popular to do so!:D

 

Still have both cards and posted a pic of them on the X FB page when this question was asked there a few months back.

I don't think we ever paid anything either. But it always seemed like a good deal, and it did encourage us to sail X.

As one of the posters above mentioned, if you become totally "loyal" to only Celebrity, you will be missing so many great itineraries! Princess has many of the cruises and destinations that people on this thread have said they'd like to do. I'm sure others do too.

 

If Celebrity (or any cruiseline) does not provide the travel experiences you wish to have, then go to another cruiseline that does. I can't imagine going to the same old places over and over instead of venturing to new places just because of "loyalty" to one line.

Ditto

We love X but the best itineraries we ever had were on sister RCI. The South Pacific out of Sydney....Vanuatu, Noumea, Vila, Ouvea, Isle of Pines, etc. A repositioning out of Galveston...Barcelona, Alexandria, Suez Canal, Jordan, Dubai, India, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, etc.

Now we are looking for a slow boat to China from NY.

Doesn't have to be X but that would be nice. Unfortunately X has a bunch of stick in the mud agents keeping the tried and true ports in constant play. HO HUM

We went to Australia last year cruised there and back and spent 6 weeks there. We left our cruising clothes in the Hotel in Sydney for the time we spent touring Australia and New Zealand. Picked the suitcase up and boarded the ship.(no charge).

There is no reason you can not do this and be dressed appropriately on Formal nights in the MDR.

We almost always have a 2-3 wk land trip before or after our cruise. Our fancy cruise clothes don't accompany us on our road trip. You can leave them in your hotel, sometimes for a small charge, or leave them at the airport in "left luggage". Clothes for our road trip take up one suitcase for both of us, and it is not a behemoth either, for obvious reasons.

When we are "just cruisin" we like to dress upscale, tux and all, and I get to bring more shoes.:)

Our first cruise was on the Galileo on one of her last cruises

out of New York. Now 61 cruises later still remember the first.

Still cruising (Chandris) Celebrity.:)

John & Beth

We also started our cruise travel on Chandris. The Galileo out of NYC to nowhere. It was a glorious sunny day on deck & I loved it so much I stayed all day. Didn't get a sunburn, but that night at dinner I had one sip of wine (true!) and promptly fainted away. I was told several waiters carried me out of the dining room and deposited me on a couch, where I came to. Needless to say, everyone on the ship, it seemed, stopped me the next day to see how I was doing :o

That experience did not stop our cruising. We sailed on the Britannis, I still have that tee. Also the Dolphin and Dolphin 4, the Meridien, Zenith, Horizon, Mercury, and later the Century. All of these were Caribbean cruises. The memories are of all Greek crew, wonderful food, baked Alaska had real flames and was a real show! Not to mention the unbelievable midnight buffets. I do also having to remember to step over the thresholds when entering/exiting a room. Lifeboat drills were on deck, always, regardless of the weather. Nice memories, but I like our fancy new ships now with luxuries never encountered on these old ships. Especially the size of the cabins and bathrooms!!!

Now we cruise all over the world and still encourage anyone to try cruising. It's a wonderful way to travel.

The smuggling of booze is best summed up by the fact that the people who do smuggle are just TOO DAMN CHEAP!You can justify it all you want but that is the bottom line!

Guilty as charged:D