ExArkie

In a vain effort to wrestle this back to the topic, let me first say that I never knew that the elevator dings indicated its direction of travel. Good to know. Not specific to M/S class or to any ship, really, but if the elevator is going up and people have been waiting on it, do not get on and push the button for a lower floor. Some elevators will cancel the original direction and take the direction indicated by the first button pushed.

We just recently booked a 2025 transatlantic in a sky suite after they stopped including daily service charges in Retreat bookings. I signed up for the Celebrity card for the 30,000 points (advertisement on the app), which translates to $300 OBC. Combined with OBC from our travel agent, that would be enough “free money” to cover gratuities. I will spend enough on the card to get another small pot of OBC because I expect gratuities to increase again before our trip. There is no other reason to have the card, considering Celebrity Retreat has essentially priced itself out of our comfort zone, excluding a few deals like the one we booked, so we will not be frequenting the line in the future (this will be our third sailing with them). Extra Captain’s Club points would be meaningless to me. Other benefits mentioned in this thread (e.g., insurance) are covered adequately by other cards I already have.

@Lynnewob Thank you for that comparison. Azamara ran a “flash sale” earlier this year and we booked a 9-day westbound transatlantic in Club Continent Suite at a price for two of us that is close to (a little below) the best price per person we’ve obtained in QG for a 7-day TA. It is also well below half the usual Azamara price for that cabin, too. It will be our first time on their ship after several QM2 crossings, so I am thankful for your cogent comparison of the two.

Recharging all at once could be a measurable draw on ship's power...

From my experience, which includes seven or so cruise lines so is obviously a limited sample, NCL is the only one that specifies daily service charges (a.k.a., gratuities) must be paid with refundable OBC only and cannot be paid with nonrefundable OBC. We have been on NCL a couple of times; using nonrefundable OBC for daily service charges was not a problem eight years ago, but was forbidden last summer.

Years ago, I worked at one of the federal agencies housed on the Capitol Mall. Going out at lunch, it looked like the entire city was at a convention because everyone was wearing a lanyard. I prefer not to wear one, either, but I have pockets in everything I would wear in public.

Seems to be some variation here (I know Celebrity IT isn’t consistent…how shocking), since was also able to “reset” my new password to the same as the old one. Wonder what the determining factor is in whether that works?

I have an Android phone. After enabling wi-fi calling and using it once, I have been able to send and receive texts on wi-fi when off the cellular network.

My account also shows an “available” OBC that is not tied to a particular reservation. It looks the same as the first one on your list and comes from linking my AARP number to my HAL account. To apply it to a specific reservation, just book a new cruise and it will be automatically applied (at least in theory). No option to apply it to an existing reservation. That expiration date is related to the time you linked the accounts. Also, the $50 is the smallest amount of OBC one could get with AARP membership. Longer trips are given more OBC. I think our 15-day transpacific qualified for $200. I don’t know about your second OBC item, but with an expiration date for booking and sailing, is it possibly related to credit from a cancelled cruise? If so, I think that would also be applied when booking anew cruise and not applied to an existing reservation.

My experience was different. Prior to the upgrade bidding process, every free upgrade I received (there were several) was when I had a cabin number assigned. Some were a few months prior to sailing, often at or just after the final payment due date. My last Cunard trip was December 2022, so I have no expectation any of my experience is relevant after the bid for upgrades program was launched shortly thereafter.

"Mudbugs" - a term used when I was a child

My wife was also on the SS United States, late in 1958 or early 1959 (she was three years old), returning from Germany at the end of her father's posting there.

Because I hate not knowing things (I’m working on better acceptance of my ignorance, but it is difficult), I ran a search on the code. The only pertinent hits appear to relate to FCC from Global Suspension certificates. While these do not explain your particular issue, and I am fairly certain I don’t understand the explanations, these two links are what I found that offer any explanation:

And, as you imply, but did not specifically state, Q4 and higher all have a shower separate from the bath.

Post #5 in this thread has a photo of the deck 11 overhang:

This thread came up in my search for "waitlist," so I thought I might add a small bit to the discussion. My wife and I received something from Cunard (I forget if it was a mailed brochure or an e-mail) regarding recently released sailings. In looking at options, we found a round trip TA (NYC-Southampton-NYC) in December 2025 that had a reasonably attractive Grills price, certainly the round trip price was significantly less than the two one-ways that made up the trip. Attempting a dummy QG booking on-line gave me error messages regarding nonavailability of the cabins, which I thought strange given they had them listed for sale. For PG, there was a P2 cabin offered near the front of the ship (definitely prefer P1, given that the sleeper sofa in P2 takes up too much floor space). I called and was told that all QG cabins were waitlisted. Playing around a bit, I identified at least nine QG cabins and several P1 cabins that were available for each of the one way routings. Our travel agent had no more luck than I in getting access to a waitlisted cabin. We booked the P2 cabin that was offered (they are now showing PG guarantee as the only cabin for sale) and were added to the waitlist. Evidently, we are #5 on the list, if anyone believes that means anything. It does appear to be relatively common practice to waitlist the longer trip and sell the shorter ones that comprise it.

My entirely selfish and somewhat mercenary preference is QV because the one time we sailed on her, we were upgraded to a Q4 (from PG). Our one sailing on QE, we were left in PG, although given a slight improvement in location within that category.

Just curious - I figure everything will be different by the time of our transpacific next Spring - you mentioned Chivas as included, even though it is not listed on the brochure referenced above. Evidently, it is a “many more” inclusion at the bottom. Are there any single malts available on either package? Our booking came with the Early Booking Bonus, so we have the Elite package. I was hoping for at least one single malt to be included.

I know it was autocorrected, but I really like the idea of “unplanned knowledge.”

In the following thread, Post #21 from January 6 this year says Eclipse dry dock is scheduled following the 2025 transatlantic.

To me “dance band” still means Benny Goodman…and I was in college in the ‘70s. I did a quick Internet search for “popular music” and “foxtrot” and got some interesting results, some of which were old songs (Doris Day is not going to be popular with the on board bands), and some were new. Several I had never heard of. I’d suggest running a similar search using your favorite dance and see what answers you get that the band might know. Another approach would be to talk to the band and let them know you’d like an occasional foxtrot, rumba, waltz, or whatever. They will probably do their best to give you something appropriate.

Agreed. I have sat through several webinars by various organizations (Amtrak Vacations does a good job…perhaps Celebrity should watch one or two of theirs) and conducted a few myself. The Celebrity versions always strike me as being done by a bunch of amateurs with little technical capability. Sort of like the old Mickey Rooney movies where “the kids” decide to put on a show. Fortunately, those movies had a crew of accomplished professionals actually “putting on the show,” so it was less painful than sitting through one of these webinars. Simple things would help, such as elevating the camera (really tired of looking up their noses), back away from the camera a bit so your head doesn’t fill the entire screen, use a lapel mic, reduce background noise, etc. Just do an Internet search on “conducting a webinar.” Definitely have a host who is more accomplished at conducting interviews.

Gee, I was hoping I could be the first person to be pedantic this time. I’ll have to be quicker in the future.

John Kenneth Galbraith: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

We did one transatlantic on Oceania Marina (PH3), six or seven on QM2 (PG or QG). The only good to very good food we had at dinner on Oceania was in the Asian restaurant, Red Ginger, and the shrimp/lobster grill in their buffet. Other specialties and the MDR were extremely disappointing (e.g., overwhelming anise flavor in bouillabaisse, cold and congealed Sauce Choron in the MDR, boiled beef served as osso bucco in the Italian restaurant). We have had a few average meals on QM2, but the quality has always been much higher than our one Oceania experience. Note that our Oceania trip was about a year after restart from the cruise industry shutdown, when staffing and training issues were especially acute. It is quite possible our experience was an anomaly due to those issues (and lack of quality control), but at their prices I am hesitant to give them another chance. Besides, we really only like ocean crossings - not port-to-port cruises - which is not the best use of Oceania's chosen focus on port-intensive trips.