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Everything posted by Jim_Iain
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Diffence - There has been many comments about Celebrity's Commitment to the environment by shifting from plastic to Aluminum cans of water and then back to plastic. Ponant has a much better approach - They give all passengers a nice travel water bottle and have filling locations with chilled water, room temperature and sparkling. Also in your room they provide bottled waters that come from dames source. To assure freshness they are dated.
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Lunch - Tuesday 9/12 Hot food ordered from menu. Salad, cold cuts, cheese and desert are self serve at buffet. Beef Pomntier
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I sent mine to usreservations@ponant.com with the requested proof of status. Make sure you reference the name of your Club as opposed to Cruise Line Name - e.g. Captain's Club by Celebrity
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Technology Differences - Internet Speeds - Le Bellot definitely doesn't have StarLink and the internet is similar as Celebrity pre-StarLink. Ponant Celebrity TV- Both have nice Samsung TV's but the one on Ponant is much larger than those in Sky Suite and below. They are the same size as CS and above. While Celebrity has their ports unlocked the ones on Ponant are locked down and haven't been able to hack into turning it off but only tired for a couple minutes. They do use HDMI 1 so easy just to unplug the ships connection and plug in your HDMI Device. I tried to see if I could stream YouTube Tv and I can pull up a program but not enough bandwidth to watch a show. This morning I tried out connecting to Zoom and had no problem at all.
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Internet has been discussed here, some saying it is terrible and others say it is ok. Silicon Valley time. Speeds a bit slow and definitely Le Bellot does not have StarLink yet. I tried Zoom on my iPhone and was able to connect but of course wasn’t having a meeting. I tried to stream YouTube TV on my phone but could load but too choppy to watch. I also tried to use the extra HDMI ports but they have them locked. I could however unplug the ships HDMI and connect my pc I warn you, I’m a techie and always playing with technology. I have a Plex server on pc and can watch stored movies, tv shows etc.
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We hope to explore all of it. But only have 5 hours.
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Last night we lost lost an hour and will be the only time zone change. We arrive in Mackinac at 1:00 today.
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I will be posting Menus and Dinner here on Ponant board. Iain had the Pate I chose the octopus- incredible and cooked to perfection. For mains Iain had the pasta and I had the soft shell crab. We both thought our entree’s were so so. One thing I wasn’t prepared for is they also wanted our desert orders at the same time as you order your main meal. I think I caused some confusion by asking the waiter if I could change the desert when he delivered our entrees. He came back and sat our deserts next to our dinner. The Maitre’d stopped by and asked if we had wanted our desert with our dinner. We all laughed and I said I think I confused the waiter. He apologized and said he would talk with the waiter.
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Differences - Embarkation is a reminder of the past. Unlike Celebrity and many of the other lines that have switched to a virtual Muster, Ponant still has a live drill. All passenger first met in the Theater for a 30 minutes briefing followed by instructions to return to you cabin and retrieve you life jackets. There were staff in the hallway to make sure it was properly put on and they you met at one of the 2 muster stations - We had the main dining room. The drill took an additional 20 minutes
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Embarkation was a breeze and very efficient - Pier side they did security scans of you suitcases but was a bit surprised at the relaxed security of boarding. We were told just to carry our hand luggage that wasn't scanned and then on board just told to walk thought the metal detector with our bags and even though ringing didn't pat us down. Oh well no pirates aboard
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Thanks much Embarkation was easy, efficient and was surprised by how friendly the staff are. We departed a little early and as you know the long briefings and safety drill were conducted - It was 7:30 before the were done with all that and the briefing on the Excursions for today.