gcornell

Hope it works out. I went to Fiji for a week years ago. It was my first vacation ever, out of 100+ all over the world, that it rained every single minute of our trip except for a few hours before we left for home.

Where’s the fun in that? That means we can’t judge, shame and top it off with a bit of virtue signaling. Boring! I’m going back to the tipping threads. 🤪

If you haven’t already, check out the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. In addition, to dozens of perks worth hundreds of $ a year, each card includes $20,000 of trip insurance which if you travel a few times a year, easily pays for itself. Since this is SS and many trips run over that, I have a card for my wife as well and that doubles our insurance to $40,000.

Got it. So it was just a PSA complaining about being around potentially sick people.

Unfortunately, humans get sick. Haven’t we all been coughing and sneezing for thousands of years? Are we actually expecting someone to stay in their cabin for each little bug now?

Why crowd source speculation. Just call Celebrity and get their official answer.

Every day I say to myself I’m done reading tipping threads yet here I am. It’s more effective than my morning pre workout coffee.

It’s worth a shot to also contact vendors directly. Most have very similar programs as the cruises do. I was curious for our Alaska cruise 2 years ago and easily found the exact same excursions on my own but wasn’t worth doing separately as they were almost the same price. I seem to recall some had availability as they blocked off a portion for non cruise guests.

Unfortunately not that I have found. In addition, in Alaska the cruise lines take up the majority of the local operators capacity so independent booking is hard. The excursions that usually have space on board are the basic walking/bus tours sometimes. Best to keep checking daily for cancellations.

Where’s the fun in that? Having facts prior to judging is against the rules of Internet forums. 😜

Could be but without having information it seems silly to jump to the worst conclusion. I guess I’m a glass half full person.

Thousands are laid off very day from well run and profitable companies and the unemployment rate is extremely low which indicates, to me, the job market is strong and operating efficiently. Companies have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

To each their own, but I seems a lot easier to let them handle it plus it removes the risk of missing someone.

Absolutely. If I pay more I expect my paper cut takes priority over an inside cabin passenger with a heart attack. 🤪 Joking of course.

I book everything very early to get best choice of cabins, flights, seats, excursions and hotel availability. Then I set up alerts or check back regularly for repricing. In all my years, flights have never gone lower after booking close to a year out but cruises and hotel rooms I usually get about 30% lower before final payment/travel.

Just wanted to update this. I have now repriced for the 5th time saving another $1,400 today alone for a total savings of $5,300.

Excursions can now be booked as soon as you make a deposit which can be years in advance. Keep in mind they may change so keep an eye out.

I’m in NY and did this last summer. 4 passengers. Each voucher is good for a sedan or very large SUV. You decide. Not sure if it holds 5 but Blacklane has a good chat option so I bet you can check that quick. We removed the transfer from one of the bookings and took the credit. The voucher is one per cabin.

I tip once for good service. Not twice.

FREE? Not likely. Most likely that suite cost her a lot of money

100% agree but unfortunately many make virtue signaling a sport.

Don’t forget I need 2 cabins.

Glad you had a great time. I really wanted to do SS Japan next year but the timing doesn’t work out with the kids school schedule so went with celebrity as they go in July and SS doesn’t. The one good thing is it’s well over $20k less so that helps.

I’ve done a bunch of SS cruises, with my kids (sorry lol) and doing our first Celebrity July 25 so can’t compare yet. Like many lines SS, is slowly cutting back while still charging a fortune. Sure the excursions are “included” but they recently made a huge cut back on the included excursions whereby most are simple walking tours from the pier or similar. They select excursions are the better ones and cost has increased dramatically. If you were to go, choose the most basic fare without the extras is my advice.

Sorry to hear that. Frustrating. I booked through an outside TA. I’ve emailed him 3 times and got a repricing within an hour or so. I think he does it online without any calls.