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smtcan

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  • Posts

    2,518
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About Me

  • Location
    Ontario, Canada
  • Interests
    Reading, Beading, Walking, Talking
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Celebrity
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Wherever I am going next

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smtcan's Achievements

Cool Cruiser

Cool Cruiser (2/15)

  1. I was surprised when we took the ‘speed’ boat. Surely it returns to Fira for its next trip, so I wonder why it didn’t take passengers. When we took the bus back, we found a bar with a view of the queue for the cable car and kept an eye out for a less crowded time. Husband suggests that the boat people have a deal with Fira to make sure everyone has a chance to spend money there!
  2. We were on Silhouette recently and it was definitely seat yourself. We commented that no one ever asked to see our cards, which was surprising. We have been asked for them on previous cruises until we were recognized as regulars. We also never saw the captains’ club host there.
  3. We have done both directions several times. Each has benefits. East bound we arrive in Europe without jet lag and don’t spend the first day or two of our holiday recovering. West bound gives longer days and a relaxing few days after a busy touring holiday. I suspect that anyone who has to go back to work immediately after their trip would prefer this option, but we are retired so that doesn’t concern us.
  4. Book your own pre cruise stay. We found Tokyo very easy to navigate on our own using public transport. Cruise line pre and post stays never seem to represent good value because they are priced per person while hotels are priced per room. Be prepared for very small rooms in Japanese hotels, and I am not referring to capsule hotels. TripAdvisor gives room sizes as well as hotel names in local language, very handy to print and show to taxi drivers.
  5. We priced Cambodia (Siem Reap) as a ship tour and found we could book hotel and flights from Hong Kong at the end of our cruise for close to a week for less money. This even included breakfast and airport pickup and drop off in a tuktuk, which was interesting because an English speaking woman came with the driver. Two of us with two suitcases filled the passenger area, so the woman had to perch on the suitcases. Luckily it wasn’t far. The local people were very friendly and food and drink very reasonable.
  6. That was what I thought was the case. Also salaried employees are not part of the pool.
  7. I recall a few years ago we cruised with friends who removed their gratuities. We were in the dining room before them one evening and our waiter quietly asked us if he had done something wrong for Mr. —— to cause him to remove the gratuities. The staff are obviously aware and concerned about this, but I would suspect that there is more involved when staff are fired.
  8. If you don't visit the beauty salon, you are not tipping those people. They are not part of the tipping pool and like bar tenders their tips are added to the bills of customers. I am not really sure how the casino staff are paid, because like you I never go there, but they are not part of the gratuity pool. If higher wages were paid to remove the need for auto tipping, prices would rise to compensate.
  9. All inclusive never makes sense for us. We have friends who would never cruise without a drink package and that is their choice. We always factor gratuities into the cost of our cruise and pay them up front unless we have a lot of OBC. On our last cruise we had $800 OBC which covered our gratuities and left us a bit extra. With Happy Hour drinks and included lattes we had very little need for extra drinks. At the end of the cruise we were trying to find ways to spend the last few dollars. We have never disembarked with an unmanageable bill - we would not take a cruise if it took us to our financial limit.
  10. Celebrity became our line of choice because of their limit on smoking. I don’t frequent the casino, but I am afraid vaping and eventually smoking will spread around the ship. If vaping is allowed in one area which has no signage, surely vapers would assume it is acceptable in all areas without signage. Removing signage is NOT the answer. If vaping is a problem on our upcoming cruise it will be our last one on Celebrity.
  11. I don’t agree. All inclusive has little value for us. We are very moderate drinkers and get 240 mins each of wifi as Elite+. We pay the gratuities and come out way ahead of AI.
  12. We took several Asian cruises pre Covid and enjoyed them all. We always added a land component since the flights are long and expensive so we wanted to see as much as possible. We really liked sailing out of Singapore and stayed there a week pre cruise. After cruising to Hong Kong we flew to Siem Reap Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and other temples. We also enjoyed Halong Bay where we had a day long junk cruise. Another time we had two stops in Philippines - Manilla was not a great experience, but island hopping in Boracay made up for that. China is a country I am glad to have visited, but given the current political climate I wouldn't return. We took a Transpacific cruise from Vancouver to Yokohama and spent two weeks touring Japan independently. Asia is so different and each country has its own flavour. I don't think you can go wrong with any itinerary choice.
  13. Same here. We stopped cruising Celebrity for the brief time it was all inclusive and were very pleased when cruise only returned.
  14. We definitely benefitted from the conversion of points. We cruise either inside on a port intensive cruise, or balcony if we have sea days. After the conversion of points we were Elite and a couple of cruises took us to Elite+. I doubt if we would have reached this level entirely under the present system. We will never reach Zenith, even if on board spending was included, so it would not be an issue for us, but I believe cruise lines make most of their profit from spending on the ship, so maybe they will move in that direction.
  15. The app worked for us on Silhouette, but we didn’t get notifications (on iPhones), so it wasn’t really helpful. I was told that notifications worked on Android.
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