groryjm

We reuse one by refilling with wine when we go to the cvinima 😎🍷😎. It is still ok six months on . Far better than the plastic ones😉

technically Italy does not require testing for upto date fully vaxed. it is just Celebritys choice. To be honest from the point of protecting the crew I think it might stay a little longer

As testing is 2 days before we are testing at our local pharmacy before we fly. we didn't want to fly out too early and risk testing +ve in civi as it is only a 2 1/2 hr flight for us.

In a little under 94 hours we hope to be flying to Fiumicino Airport with the aim to board Celebrity Reflection the next morning in Civitavecchia. In this post pandemic age of testing and flight cancellations nothing is ever quite sure and I won’t say for certain we are going on a cruise until we are actually sitting in Michaels Club drink in hand. To give you a bit of background we have had 9 cruises cancelled in the pandemic and the three we managed last year were on a nearly empty Silhouette at 50% capacity. We cruised in May again on Silhouette but at nearer to 90% capacity. So the last four cruises we have taken have been in suites on a Revolutionised ship and from Southampton which is a mere 45 minutes’ drive from our home. In fact the last for cruise we took pre pandemic were also out of Southampton and also mostly on Silhouette. We haven’t actually flown to a cruise since 2016 and it is 7 years since our last time on board Reflection. Silly has become a close and familiar friend and with four cruises on her since her uplift this cruise is going to feel quite strange, especially without the wonderful Retreat sundeck. I stated earlier that we had had 9 cruises cancelled which if I am being strictly honest that is not quite true. In March 2020 I paid the balance for a cruise we had booked in July 2020 to St Petersburg. This cruise was a bucket list cruise and for my Gastrognome myself and my adult daughter. Being a 14 day cruise and with three in one cabin we had opted for a royal suite so as you can imagine not a cheap cruise. As the pandemic took hold the inevitable happened and this was our first of many cancellations. On the plus side however I took the FCC and with the offered 1.25% we were up £5k on the deal and as it has turned out a far better rate of interest than I would ever get leaving the money in our savings account 😎. Now we used up most of our FCCs on 2 cruises last summer and one in May this year. I paid separately for one of the cruises last year as it was a 30th anniversary present for my Gastrognome. I doubt I’ll top 7 days in a PH over a card and a bunch of flowers! Last year we realised we still had over £5k in FCCs to spend before the end of 2022 and with a cruise on Cunard booked for October that only left the summer to spend it. We found an Itinerary we liked out of Venice on Infinity and even if we booked the last available Royal suite we would not quite use all our FCCs. What else could I do but book that amazing back of the ship Penthouse. Then as the world changed first Venice was replaced with Ravenna and then to top it all our 10th cruise was cancelled and Infinity got sent to the Caribbean 🙄. Quite a tale of woe it might seem but a really a first world problem. So we booked this cruise on the Med aboard Reflection to fill the FCCs. Everything looked good and then the reason for choosing this cruise changed as we all discovered that the Grand bazaar and spice markets in Istanbul would be closed because of a religious festival during our overnight stop. ho hum said Pooh. Ok we could still enjoy the cruise but it was getting a little frustrating. Then last week our BA business class flights got cancelled! Another worrying couple of days and we eventually got a alternative flight sorted for the evening before sailing. We had hoped to spent the afternoon before sailing relaxing in a nice hotel in Civi but instead we now find we are spending the night before in an airport Hilton as we don’t arrive in FCO until nearly midnight. While checking our seats for our flights Monday afternoon, we had the front row on our original booking but can now only get to row 5, I noticed the wording “No checked-in bag - Your baggage allowance is different on your other flights”. Our return flight showed 2 x 32kg bags for each of us so yet more panic…. Are we destined to get to this cruise! So after two days of phoning I now have confirmation (in writing) that although it appeared the outward flights were rebooked without cabin baggage it has been corrected and we now have our allowance back…… I need a drink! Those of you who have followed my “live from’s“ before may remember that I have a passion for cocktails and like to do a countdown to our cruises. Rather like getting in training for a big event. So with 5 nights before we cruise I will make us a Division Bell. Alexandra at the World Class Bar introduced me to a Paper Plane last year and it soon became a favourite. This is similar and now my new fav, created in 2009 by Phil Ward at Mayahuel, New York City. 40ml Mezcal, 30ml Aperol, 20 Maraschino and 30ml lime. Hope to be on board in 111 hours 🍸🍹🍷🍺🥂🧉🥃🍾😎

When they introduced the revolution, upper suites got to keep the robes which could be embroidered with your initials. Apparently most guests left them on board as they were to big and heavy to pack and the embroidery was a problem as it did not survive washing. Early on after the pandemic they replaced the robes as a gift with PJs. We've got 6 pairs of the PJs now and are starting to think we'll leave them on board. Its like the grey Tote bags... how many does one need. They usually appear on the first chic night

When we were last on board, 7 weeks ago, the need for b2b cruisers to test between legs had been dropped. Has this now changed?

I could not agree more with @chemmo's post. Communication is absolutely the key. Most of the buttlers on Celebrity are not mind readers, though we have had a couple who were, but if you are clear as to your needs they will make you're holiday special. If things aren't the way you want they can't fix them if they don't know there is a problem.

We have cruised 4 times since the pandemic and since Silhouette was revolutionised. To be fair that has been in upper suites but all our "buttlers" have been great. We are sailing on Reflection in a couple of weeks. This will be our first cruise in a quite a few years not out of Southampton on Silly or Eclipse and 7 years since we were last on Reflection so I look forward to comparing the experience and will report back here in a "live from".

Jackie We are Brits and I have tried using the printed PDFs with the QR code without success both in April for Silhouette and this month for Reflection. In April there was only space for two photos and no mention of booster. Now the app allows 2 photos each for initial jabs and booster jabs. On both cruises I tried without success to use photos of the PDFs with QR codes and on both occasions have resubmitted using the little blue cards they gave us at the time of our jabs and that has worked. It will take a few days while the app shows pending as they are quite backed up. It isn't entirely necessary to pre submit the Vaccine records as they will check your records at the port anyway. For the day itself we carried printed PDFs of our UK COVID passes (the ones with a QR cade. Some people who had the same but only on a phone struggled at check in as the people at the port where photographing the proofs and mobile screens are quite small to display the PDFs.

We did a tour with her a few years ago and I have to reiterated how good a tour she gave👍