JamieLogical

This is the best news I have heard in a while!!!! I am so excited!

Celebrity definitely accepts the Rapid NAAT test from Walgreens. I have used it several times.

Yep, this is a solo cruise to make up for returning early from my solo B2B in March.

Not necessarily. It just means you will be pulled aside and asked some follow-up questions.

Our local CVS stores don't do rapid testing, just PCR tests for which the results can take up to 72 hours.

Yeah, in addition to just being so busy and pre-occupied with work, I do think that this being my 8th cruise in under a year means it's all kind of muscle memory at this point. I think that I will put a lot more thought and planning into my next two cruises, since they are further apart and because they are itineraries I have never done before.

I won't be getting into FLL until 10:30-ish on Saturday night. I feel like it would be too tight a timeline, plus I don't want to fly all the way to FLL just to find out I am positive! Definitely prefer to get the test in before leaving home. Shouldn't be a problem. I am confident I will still be able to get a local appointment for Friday. I just think it's a bit odd that they are only booking appointments four days out when they used to book a full week out.

I second this! I haven't paid for a flight or a hotel room in years since getting my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

Trust and believe that I will never be forgetting my passport and cash again! What a debacle that was. I am happy to report that I did eventually get reimbursed for the cash I had left in my safe. Took some work and a back and forth with the Coordinator of Lost & Found Ship Support with Royal Caribbean corporate, but they eventually got it "refunded" to my credit card.

Ha! I am definitely looking forward to using my Premium Drinks Package to its fullest. I definitely need it after all of this stress and long hours at work! I should be able to do some live posting, because I am going to have to upgrade to the Premium Wifi. I am not going to be able to skip our on at least monitoring email and MS Teams for work next week.

I have used Flights by Celebrity several times now and I have always chosen my flights ahead of time and just called or booked those flights through the website. I have never relied on them to choose my flights for me. I suppose if you are used to using a travel agent, you would be disappointed with the service FBC offers. I mostly have booked through them for the slight discount, the assurance that I would be refunded for my flights if the cruise is canceled (I have only been using them since the restart and with COVID, you just never know!), and the assurance that they might be able to do something for me on my day of travel if things go sideways. I will say, when the airlines have changed some flight times on me, it has been annoying to have to call Celebrity and wait on hold and then have THEM contact the airlines for resolution, since I can't call the airlines directly. But I would have that same problem if I booked through any TA. Airlines are cancelling flights and changing times left and right, so this has happened to me more than once.

I have been completely swamped at work to the point where it has been occupying 90% of my thoughts day and night. I am set to cruise on the Equinox this Sunday and I am NOT prepared. It is so unlike me to not be obsessively thinking about and planning my cruises. I have done no packing... no shopping... no excursion planning... I even forgot what airline I was flying on and what hotel I had booked in Ft. Lauderdale! I did finally look up my hotel and flights and double-check my seat assignments over the weekend. And I started to at least together a packing list. Good thing I have cruises so much since the restart, that my packing list has become pretty standardizes, with only slight modifications for the length of the cruise. I still haven't been able to schedule my pre-cruise test, which has me a bit stressed. Walgreens used to allow you to schedule a week in advance, but right now only seems to allow you to schedule four days out. I initially checked on Friday and could only schedule through today. When I checked this morning, I could only schedule through Thursday. So I have actually put an appointment on my calendar for tomorrow to remind me to check again. I started self-isolating on Tuesday of last week, so hopefully there won't be any surprises with my test results! Have any of you had a cruise sneak up on you like this? I imagine that people who cruise frequently maybe don't put as much thought and planning into their sailings ahead of time? This was a last-minute cruise booking anyway. It's the make-up cruise for having had to cancel the second leg of my B2B back in March when my husband got shingles.

The OP hadn't missed a connection yet. She was concerned about trying to make a tight connection and was hoping to change her flights before that happened. It sounds like @RickT got good service on an actual missed connection.

Except you can't actually do it through the Cruise Planner. I am well past final payment and less than two weeks from sailing and there is still no upgrade option in the Cruise Planner.

I have sailed twice in these balconies since the restart. I requested a lounger and was told none were available, but was provided foot stools.

What?!?! That's crazy. I have been on several Celebrity sailings since the restart out of FLL and MIA and both places they haven't even let me in the door without showing negative results at the entrance and then I had to show them again to the person who went over my health questionnaire.

We were booked on the Edge in January with an NRD rate and we changed it to the Equinox for a couple of weeks later before final payment and we were not charged the $100 Administration Fee for the change. I think Cruise Planners and customer service reps have some leeway with that. I always book with the NRD because I feel like paying the extra is the bigger gamble. It would be like betting against being able to take my cruise, which feels sad. If I pay $400 extra or whatever for the refundable deposit, then I am out that money when I make my cruise as planned (which is always my intent and the most likely scenario). If something catastrophic happens and I have to cancel and reschedule, I am out $100 and that seems like a less likely scenario anyway. Even, worst case, I can't reschedule and I am out the full deposit, it still seems like a better risk to take, because the odds of me cancelling my cruise AND not being able to reschedule are so much lower than the odds of me going as planned.

That weekend sale with the OBC was a huge boon for me on my upcoming Equinox sailing. I had purchased a deposit onboard the Summit in March... they were running a promo with that where if you booked by the end of March you got double OBC, so instead of $150 for a balcony on a 6-day sailing, I got $300 of OBC. Then that weekend sale with the elevate package included was running and I got another $300 in OBC plus premium drinks!

I just checked the timestamp on the photos for my last cruise in March. I have a photo from the porter area where my Uber dropped me at exactly 11:30am. I have a photo of the smiling crew waving me onboard at 11:39am.

I'm on the same sailing! I have sailed Celebrity several times since the restart and a few times out of Port Everglades. Check-in at the pier is SUPER quick, assuming you have done all of your online check-in already and completed the health questionnaire in the app within 24 hours of sailing. Here's what you will want to do. Show up at the specified time. A couple minutes early is okay, but if you show up too early, you may have to wait in line. Drop your luggage with the porter. Have you COVID test results, vaccine card, passport, and boarding pass in hand. You will be asked t show your test results and vaccine card immediately. You will then go upstairs and through security. You will have your boarding pass and passport scanned and may be asked to go over your health questionnaire questions again. You will go onboard and have your boarding pass scanned one last time. The whole thing takes 10-15 minutes tops. Once onboard, go to your stateroom, drop your carry-on there, and pick up your SeaPass. Watch the muster video on your stateroom TV. Go to your muster station to have your SeaPass scanned. Then just enjoy your cruise!

The Classic Package shown on the left side of this page is what is included: https://www.celebritycruises.com/things-to-do-onboard/onboard-packages/beverage-packages/compare-packages

I don't think there is any way to see it on Manage Reservation or in the cruise planner. I think you just have to trust that if you have the drinks and wifi, the tips are covered as well.

Nope! I have cruised 6 times since the restart and have three more scheduled this year (5/29, 9/2, and 12/18). I have self-isolated 10-14 days prior to each sailing to ensure I won't test positive on my pre-embarkation tests and hopefully minimize my risk of being quarantined onboard as well, since that would require exposure in the early days of the cruise itself in order to even have a possibility of testing positive sometime onboard. My longest cruise so far was a 14-day B2B and I definitely did have a little fear of testing positive sometime on the second leg.

I always tip the room steward at the end of the cruise by just leaving some cash behind in my cabin. I will also usually tip my favorite bartender or two at the end of a cruise. I do not tip as I go along. I was surprised that at the specialty restaurants on Celebrity, there is no slip to sign at the end with a chance to add an extra tip there. On NCL, we always had this option in the specialty restaurants and I did usually leave a bit of extra tip, as the included gratuity is only 20% and I generally leave larger tips than that for fine dining at land based restaurants.

Definitely the Millennium because of the refurb.