MamaFej

I probably should not have quoted you for that post. I had not been aware that more casual dress would be permitted on our expedition. Once my dear TA friend told me about the amazing deal he was offered for Antartica and would we like to come along, I started looking at the Silversea board, and became nervous about the whole "Men must wear jackets after 6pm" thing, regardless of whether the night was designated "formal." I posted what I did just in case others found themselves similarly wondering.

We are those dreaded middle class people who have gotten lucky and cruised in suites three times on paid upgrades. Each time, the delightful butler asked us what we'd like in the mini fridge, and made sure we had Coke Zero, Sprite Zero, water, and an occasional Newcastle beer. I didn't know that wasn't suposed to be the case until reading it here lately. All three acted like it was part of the service. We have asked our steward to empty the fridge in regular cabins so we could put stuff in ourselves. They've always put the mini bar chargeable stuff under the bed.

The last time I spoke with Iain, we were on the stairs of the Summit. I'm glad he wasn't rolling: that would have been dangerous!

A bit of information for those considering Silversea for Expedition cruising: evenings are not formal. Some folks wore the same things to dinner that they'd worn on land in Antarctica (minus outerwear, of course). We dressed the way we do for dinner on Smart Casual nights for dinner, and a little nice the evening we had dinner in La Dame. I'd been very nervous about what I'd read about the formality, and SS did not make it easy to find that information, so I was very grateful to the posters on the SS forum who explained the much moe casual atmosphere on the expeditions.

Does that explain your love for Iain? 😜

🤣 I'd be willing to settle for Grand PooBah.😜 Nonetheless, I'm glad I got the match with Azamara when I did.

Thanks for that, Jim. It is interesting that Discoverer Plus on Azamara equates to the highest level, even though it was previously equal to Elite Plus on Celebrity. We made sure to get an Azamara cruise in (actually two: B2B) before the official split, as we had thought we might lean toward small ship cruising in retirement. Spoiler alert: we like it! X's Elite Plus is equivalent to the second highest level. We hit Elite Plus right before the official split, so we made Discoverer Plus on Azamara, too. In the extremely unlikely event we could ever find a Ponant cruise we could afford, we will match to Azamara. Thanks so much for the link!

I imagine you can find some fantastic charities that align with your values. You might want to check Charity Navigator (dot) org which will give you an excellent idea of how well they use donations.

I will not be surpriesed if they start offering Onboard "Specials" for formerly included Alfredo's at the fabulous price of 50% Off (ooo, aaah!) to regenerate demand.

We did it sitting side by side, both logged in. Hubby canceled on his tablet, I refreshed my page to be sure the OBC had landed, then I rebooked. We have a couple more cruises to do today, and hopefully we will continue to evade having any sold out from under us.

Thanks for that perspective. We've done M & S Class on Celebrity, not E. Our largest ship has been Royal Class on Princess. We have discovered, since the restart, that we really like the smaller ships. Docking closer to the things we want to see (sometimes hours closer) and having more overnights is a real plus for us. The smaller ships just seem to suit us well for other reasons, as well. I don't imagine we will ever do a mega ship, unless we have grandkids (doubtful at this point) and travel with them. We did mostly RV travel when our kids were younger, taking them to 49 states and a few territories and provinces that way. The National Parks Pass is a huge bang for the buck! I'm writing this from our motor home in a valley nestled into the San Jacinto mountains at the moment. We did nearly burn out our brakes coming down to your hometown one day. Okay, that's a bit of an exaggerration, but not a huge one.

I'm going to need to go look for Charla's review. We've never done the Caribbean, and it's not a high priority, but I do appreciate my fellow Gen-Xer's point of view. Her budget is WAY bigger than mine, however, her perspective is intriguing and her writing style is fun. Thanks to everyone who shares their experiences and alternatives to X. We are cruising newbies compared to most folks here, but we have sailed quite a bit in recent years, and on Celebrity more than with anyone else We have more days booked with them than anyone else. Nonetheless, I am becoming disillusioned, like many others.

Linda, it is so nice to see you. I was wondering about you, as I have not seen any posts by you in a while. Maybe I have just not been in the right threads. Anyway, I'm glad you're still around here. ------- We now return you to your regularly scheduled Jim and Iain aficionado thread.

Even with very few people onboard in September 2021 on both Millennium and Majestic Princess a week or so later, WiFi in Alaska was very iffy. I agree with @phoenix_dream. I don't think it's fair to blame X on this one. I'm glad to see @Cruiser_Steven acknowledge this. I'm not piling on, I'm just confirming. We've had similar issues that far north in our RV. Perhaps as the Starlink network expands, this will improve. So far, there just is not enough demand at those lattitudes to provide great connectivity...yet.

Our first back was Millennium out of Seattle to Alaska. 600 passengers. 900 crew. Utterly amazing! It was a couple of days shy of B2B with a Princess cruise on a similar itinerary (using up those credits). That one was one week too late. We had a perfect day in Glacier Bay, but only made it to one port, as the weather made darn sure we couldn't dock. 70 knot winds and 10 meter + swells. Princess threw OBC at us every time we lost a port, plus gave us a 35% FCC. The ship was not crowded, but the shops were, as everyone had OBC to spend and they were selling all the Alaska merch (originally purchased for the 2020 season) at 75% off. The whole family got Alaska jackets for Christmas. Hey... those might come in handy in the Arctic before we board an expedition ship and get those nifty parkas.

That dream is actually for the Arctic. Polar bears, not penguins. Two of my kids are teachers with overlapping school years, so they we only have a small window in northern summer during which both are available. The third is still in college, and still undecided on a career. Hopefully, he will be able to get away from whatever it ends up being for that grand adventure.

Somehow, I think you'll be okay. If not, I'll do my very best to try to muster up some sympathy. 😉 Alas, I think I've had my last cruise with you and Iain (Summit for 2 last August/September). I hope you will love this new chapter!

Me, too. As travel was starting up in 2021, my dear friend and travel agent got us a killer deal to join him and his wife, as well as his cousin and her husband on a Winsdstar cruise in French Polynesia: 113 passengers on a ship designed for 300. It was pretty darn heavenly. Since then, we've done two Azamara, a Viking, and (another crazy "It's good to have a TA for a friend" deal) SilverSea expedition to Antarctica, with 174 passengers on a ship designed for 296, I think. My BIG dream at the moment is to take the three adult kids on an Arctic expedition in July of 2025 to celebrate Hubby's 60th, oldest's 30th, 2 Masters degrees and a Bachelor's degree. We figure we can't take the money we've worked so hard to save and invest with us when we die, so we may as well take our kids with us to spend it on awesome experiences making awesome memories while we are alive. I don't know if I can pull this off and still be able to travel much more with just the Hubby, but I'm working on it. There I go, off on a tangent, again.

I get it. After all, if I had a dollar for every "I'm going to be in a suite, what does a butler do?" posts, I might be able to afford to book a suite. I just think that improving comunication would benefit both passengers and X by generating goodwill and decreasing confusion and frustration.

That bone helps those of us who are canceling and rebooking. It helps X because more people will buy ShoreEx and Specialty dining than would have previously. and the WiFi upgrades are pure profit. I'm not saying everything is sunshine and roses, I'm still looking elsewhere for the future. I'm just saying that X were smart to get some of their customers saying nice things and being happy. They may have even prevented some cancelations.

I said something similar on another thread. Turning the conversation to a more positive tone is a wise investment.

This conversation reinforces my belief that Celebrity's comunication is dreadful. Why should it be so unclear who is responsible for what? Why should anyone in a suite go 9 days without seeing anyone from the Butler Team? Why should "I think the 2 butlers are..." even be a thing? I am not blaming the posters here for what they are saying. At all. Y'all are paying a pretty penny to be in Retreat. You should have a really good idea of what you can expcet onboard, and you certainly should have met members of the team before Day 9. I have a sneaking suspicion that a great deal of the negativity on message boards and social media about Celebrity could be avoided with decent communication.

Perceived value is such an important concept! Each of us has to decide what is valuable to us. That can, and should, change over time. I appreciate the folks with bigger budgets talking about their experiences and values. I appreciate folks like @poeticlicensed . I appreciate the folks with smaller budgets talking about what matters to them, and how they are making decisions. I think we can all learn from each other. That is why I am following a few of these "Alternatives to" threads.

Your English is fantastic. I'm sorry Princess is not responding to you.