Ahlo

Avoid MDR first. Stop the attendants talking with, promoting foods to and greeting you before the tables so as to avoid their saliva spraying overhead. Saliva/aerosol is the main means of virus transmission. Viruses, if any, passed from the big spoons at the buffet to our hands can be eliminated by washing hands but the viruses from the saliva of the attendants cannot. For me, MDR is more riskier than buffet from the view point of Covid-19 viruses transmission. Viruses embedded in food are unlikely to cause respiratory Covid-19.

We stayed at the Grand Central Shanghai, it was excellent.

 

It was our first Celebrity cruise and overall we were impressed and would certainly cruise again with them. I understand Millenium is to undergo major refit, however for now she is doing just fine.

 

We embarked in HK for our Vietnam cruise and did the back to back embark on the ship when we returned in for our 2nd cruise.

 

Things to note:

 

Disembarkation in Beijing and Shanghai was a bunfight. Probably the worst organization I have seen on any of my 100 plus cruises.

 

Fog is apparently to be expected this time of year and will disrupt your travel plans.

I was in the same cruise too.

Apart from the Port Authority to be blamed, Celebrity should take some reponsibility for the “Bunflight”. Celebrity had little or no staff to monitor the traffic flow of the queues. There were many “Jump queues” and arguments among members of different priority groups.

Totally agree. Lots of the better discounted rates do not appear until after final payment. Usually you have no way to do any upgrades because your paid prices were inflated by your prepaid perks.

Are there many cabs at the port?

The tricky point is "a 3rd country". In our case, is JAPAN as regarded "a 3rd country" or "a 1st country"? Of course CHINA is the 2nd country.

If your itinerary is same as mine (Nagasaki, Japan - Shanghai, China - Okinawa , Japan), I think we should need a visa even we stay on the ship because in our case Shanghai is not a transit point in this fragment of itinerary. The ship comes from and return to Japan. The 24-hr direct transit policy does not apply.