SRQbeachgirl

We (me and DH) sailed the Mardi Gras in July, 7-days, in an aft balcony. Cost was about $2,700 total, which did not include drinks. We will be sailing Celebrity Reflection in a Concierge Class extended balcony for 7 days on January 22. For the cruise only rate we paid about $1,700 total. Edit to add: Mardi Gras was Western Caribbean, X is Eastern.

We just bought a new car and she is very...shall we say, nit-picky...about leaving the key fob in the car. If we turn the car off and open the door she starts telling us we've left the key in the vehicle. I can just imagine her repeating that every few seconds for 7 days. 🤦‍♀️ It might stop at some point, but I'm a natural worrier and that's stress I don't need while on vacation.

We were looking at Park n Go, but they have just changed to valet only now and I have read that they leave your key in the car. You can no longer park in a space yourself and take your key with you. Several recent reviews have stated that cruisers have come back to their cars to find the battery dead because the electronic key fob tried to communicate with the car all week, which can drain the battery. Many repeat customers are not happy with the change to valet-only.

We loved the cabin location, balcony space, and the view, but the balcony was oppressively hot with zero shade or breeze. The only time we could spend on it was at night. We would not book it again as we like to spend time on our balcony during the day.

Sounds like bliss. I can't wait! But there might be more than a few Carnival cruisers who want to sail on Princess. 🙋‍♀️

There are no "built-in" chairs in the Deck 8 aft pool, but there are some lounge-type chairs that can be moved around in the pool. Even though anyone can use this area, it wasn't crowded most of the time during our cruise. We spent a lot of time there or at least looking down at it, since we had an aft balcony on Deck 10. The steps into the pool are SLICK. I slipped on them and saw two other people fall. Another guy broke his leg on them during our cruise.

We will be doing this itinerary on Reflection in a few weeks. Looking forward to your review!

We leave on our first Celebrity cruise in 34 days. I'm looking forward to fewer large, loud groups whose members can't seem to move about the ship unless accompanied by their entire herd.

We have a Behind the Scenes tour booked for our Celebrity cruise next month (Jan 2023).

Since my DH retired he pretty much lives in Tommy Bahama shirts and khaki shorts. You should have heard the grumbling when I told him he was going to have to put on pants for dinner on our upcoming Reflection cruise. 🤣

We have never changed to local time on any of our cruises. If we do on our upcoing Reflection cruise I am going to be so confused!

Hoping to hear from those who have parked in the Palm garage. We will be cruising on Celebrity out of Terminal 29 on Sunday 1/22. There will be four ships including ours using the Palm Garage that day. Our boarding time is 11am and we are driving from Sarasota that morning. I'm hoping to get some insight on what the typical conditions might be if we arrive around 10am. How early are we allowed to park? Do they have arriving cars line up somewhere until the departing cars leave, or are you stuck driving around Ft. Lauderdale waiting for the garage to open if you get there too early? Also, can anyone share experiences with the shuttle between Palm and T-29, both coming and going? Is it organized, chaos, or just organized chaos? TIA!

We are new empty-nesters and it suddenly dawned on us that we no longer have to book cruises during school breaks. Eureka! I had no idea how much less cruise fares can be during the off-season times. January and October - early November might become our favorite months.

Wow, these prizes sound pathetic. At least on Carnival they give out cold hard cash, and decent amounts, too. So do they not do Bingo at all? Or do they do both Bingo and Deal or No Deal?

And now you expect me to have to wait until January 22nd to get my hands around one of these beauties??? 🤤 I'm already enjoying this cruise and we haven't even boarded yet!

Oh my, I'm drooling! That burger looks amazing!

You had me at "warm cookie!" Mmmm... We have reservations for dinner at the Lawn Club, so I will definitely follow your suggestions! Thanks for the tips!

We will be on the Reflection next month, our first on Celebrity. I've seen so many good reviews about this class - can't wait to try it!

I'd go with Rudi's we really liked both, but we did the steakhouse twice and wished we had another night at Rudi's.

All 7-day Caribbean. We limit our cruises to ports out of Florida because we would rather not fly when we have multiple cruise ports within a short drive - one of the reasons we moved to Florida in the first place.

I have never considered Celebrity to be a luxury line, but as you said on par with Princess. We've been looking at Princess as well, but so far I'm seeing better prices on Celebrity for the itineraries I've searched.

With your age ranges, I would suggest looking at Carnival's two newest ships - Mardi Gras and Celebration. The Mardi Gras will be sailing out of Port Canaveral and Celebration out of Miami. They are sister ships, so the biggest difference between them will be itinerary and home port. The ships are beautiful (they're also HUGE) and have tons of dining and entertainment options. The Oasis class on RCI would also be an option, but you will likely get the biggest bang for your buck with Carnival.

We weren't in the Excel suite, but we were a couple doors down from one in an aft balcony on Deck 10 (on Mardis Gras). Didn't have any noise issues from below the entire week.

Our upcoming 7-day Reflection cruise is $1,000 less than our last 7-day Carnival cruise, in a similar cabin (granted it was on the Mardis Gras - one of Carnival's newest and biggest ships). Most of the cruises I have been pricing with Celebrity are very comparable with Carnival pricing for similar cabins (balcony), ship class, length, and itineraries. I'm willing to pay considerably more for Celebrity than Carnival but it doesn't look like I'll have to for a while.

Sure there will be enough people...like us who have cruised Carnival and RCI for years (and still will) but are ready for something a little calmer sometimes.