JackE

13 minutes ago, Stem to Stern said:

I know right?!?
 

***Confession Spoiler Alert***

 

I have five more bookings before then, but none of them are in The Retreat or the Yacht Club.
 

I need to book YC before my three years runs out on my MSC Voyagers Club Diamond status match.  Otherwise we will have to have DH do the status match if we ever go back to YC again.  We did not match him intentionally for this purpose.😉

 

I also need to get back in YC because we missed Ocean Cay in December when it was so windy that the port was closed.  We did a nice drive-by though.🤣 

You have me in total suspense! Give, give, give! Which ships/cruise line???

9 hours ago, Stem to Stern said:

Sorry, John.  But my reply to you turned into a long-ish ramble.

 

Reading John’s comment and reading along here with the perspective of @FamilyAtSea.travel and other commenters is triggering memories of tranquil times in the Top Sail lounge on board MSC Seascape last December.
 

One mid-morning at sea comes to mind when a fellow passenger struck up a conversation with me.  We ended up chatting at great length about our shared passion for cruising and how her experiences have evolved over the years from family vacations with ther children on Royal Caribbean ships to empty nest getaways with just her husband in the Yacht Club.  
 

It is astounding how a conversation between two strangers can unfold and carry on at such great length when passengers are treated to the TSL’s plush comfort, commanding forward view, and great service.  Oh, and yes, the waitperson just kept bringing us the fresh cups of coffee continuously.  While sitting there chatting with my new friend I nearly forgot I was on a 5,000+ passenger ship.😉

 

I have a couple of other random comments/chime-ins/ramblings regarding the above conversation so far.  
 

Yes, I would agree that I never found the pool deck in the YC to be crowded.

 

I have not been wrapped up in the Butlergate discussion, but I get that one just expects to receive everything they signed up for with the suite booking.  Personally, I do not make extensive use of their services.  
 

Although it was nice to have The Retreat Concierge offer to call the Luminae Maitre D to alert him that we were thinking of heading there, that was about the extent of it.  
 

The MSC Butler Experience was a whole other world for me.  Just as one example, for our ship-sponsored excursion she escorted us from TSL all the way to the meeting point in the port area in Puerto Plata.  My jaw was on the pier as we walked with her.  Others have reported their butlers to be non-existent, so YMMV.
 

The fact that The Retreat is not a self-contained enclave is irrelevant to me because I find Celebrity’s vessels easy to navigate and I enjoy wandering through all of the gorgeous venues throughout the ships.😍

 

Do I have to sail in The Retreat to sail on Celebrity?  No.  

Is it Yacht Club or nothing on MSC?  You bet your Salted Caramel Espresso Martini it’s gonna be YC.

 

For perspective, my tastes of the suite-life have been served in small bites but I have savored each and every morsel.  I have not yet sailed on an Edge-class vessel, but I will soon.  I will be In a Sunset Verandah on Beyond because The Retreat prices were stratospheric.  I am looking forward to the multiple main dining room concept.

 

My Short List of Suite Caribbean Indulgences

- 2016 Silhouette S1 Corner Aft Sky Suite

- 2021 Equinox S2 Aft Sky Suite

- 2023 Summit S1 Sky Suite

- 2023 MSC Seascape YC Interior

- 2026 Silhouette SS Sky Suite
 

Food remains a subjective topic.  For me the busy YC Restaurant was just okay.  I found the food and service lackluster.  I have a great appreciation for the overall Luminae experience.  The Luminae team is top-notch.  The restaurant is intimate and drop-dead gorgeous.  I enjoy Luminae’s culinary offerings even if I do have to read the words “Pigs Feet Carpaccio” on the menu and brown sauces are in abundance.  For my husband and I The Retreat is an infrequent treat, so when we have access to The Retreat amenities on a sailing it is unlikely that we are going to skip included meals at Luminae in favor of for-fee specialty dining.  In December our friends in an Aquaclass Sky Suite joined us for most of our meals in Luminae and we all perused and selected from the Blu and Main Dining Room menus if the Luminae offerings were unappealing.

 

My inaugural suite experience on Silhouette featured the pre-revolutionized Michael’s Club.  Rich, dark woods and plush, velvety seating really did speak “club” when you walked in.  There was a gorgeous, three-sided wrap-around bar with a generous number of barstools.  And let’s lament for a moment the full-sized, self-serve coolers along the wall that were stocked with non-alcoholic beverages and a nice variety of bottled beers.

 

The Retreat Lounge on board Equinox is particularly awkward and uninviting as can be determined from the pics previously posted here.  The L-shaped room consists of a long-ish corridor of seating followed by a sharp right turn toward the tiny bar area consisting of only four (maybe five) barstools, weird booth seating along the opposite wall, and silly little seating groupings plopped in the middle of the room.  I do not even think it matches the sub-standard of airport lounge ambiance.  Also, did Equinox’s lounge shrink during the revolution or was it always this small?  I definitely remember how cramped it seemed compared to Silhouette’s Michael’s Club.

 

More recently The Retreat Lounge on Summit offered a more spacious venue that better lended itself to larger gatherings such as the Officers’ Soirée which featured live music and meet-and-greet opportunities with the Master of the Vessel.  But the smallish chairs, large-screen television, and sterile color palette created a rather IKEA-meets-IBM vibe.  And there is no bar to belly-up to if that is your thing.  Plenty of nosh offerings.

 

As my cruising habits steer toward a more port-intensive number-of-hours-in-port approach, the suite life may become less and less of a consideration for me.  But as @mac_tlc seemed to allude to above, if one can jump on a 7 to 11 night Caribbean sailing from Port Everglades in The Retreat at an acceptable fare with flights not required well then sign me up.  See you in April 2026!😂

 

@Stem to Stern You better book a cruise between now and April 2026!  

Hello fellow gambling and cruise enthusiasts!

I was wondering about how different cruise lines handle the smoking/non-smoking policies. Perhaps we can share here what the current situation is on board cruise lines. Let's use this forum to share facts and not conjecture or desires.

I know that both Celebrity and Virgin both have non-smoking casinos across all ships. Anyone else? 

Thanks all for your input and expertise!

Thank you for a great review and chronicle! We are on the Apex to the fjords in August so this was extremely helpful and getting us very excited! 

16 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Traditional High end I would say Royal Hawaiian. 

That’s a beautiful hotel. I also like next door at the Outrigger Waikiki Beach resort, staying on the club level. Great breakfast and pu-pus in the afternoon. 

46 minutes ago, Fedic said:

We had 2 excursions that were wet landings.  Wore these Keen water shoes (no socks) for the landing and the walk:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T9TLQN9/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

In the excursion briefing the night before, they tell you if you should change or if the water shoes are fine for the walk.  Both times it was a beach walk and no issues with the Keen's.

Excellent recommendation. Just curious what you wore to hike around when water was not an issue? 

Thank you for taking us along! Love the adventures and the photos! Can't wait for the next one! 

Safe travels to you and Iain.

2 hours ago, kwokpot said:

 

The slot machines on the Ovation haven't been updated since the ship debuted back in 2016, so they are all old machines. Having said that although there weren't many of our favorite machines we enjoyed playing  the ones went on and out of $1,500 Freeplay we cashed out $1,877!!!. My husband vowed not to step into the casino again so he can bring that all home. I made sure I played all his Freeplay with him since I would hit 'cashout' after every bonus win or after every $20 or so of accumulated winnings. 

Congratulations on the big win! That’s awesome. Hide that money! How was the air in the casino? A lot of smoke? 

3 hours ago, Miaminice said:

 

Thank you!

 

I can only keep on recommending Rose! Since we posted about her quite a few people followed our recommendation and booked tours with her. They all came back raving abou the experience. She´s a gem!

 

About Hong Kong... we have been there many times so we don´t actually book a guide any more. However, when we booked a guide many years ago it was with www.hellohongkong.com.hk. It was a good tour, so we can recommend them. Otherwise you can try with toursbylocals.com.
As a hotel we can recommend The Kowloon Hotel. Very good location and reasonable rates.

In Nagasaki I would not do a tour at all. Nagasaki is extremely easy to do DIY. Take a taxi or tram to the Peace Museum and Peace Park, take a tram to Chinatown, walk trough Chinatown and up to Glover Gardens and you´ll have a great day. The ship is within just a few minutes walking distance from Glover Gardens. So really easy.

You can also do Hiroshima on your own. However, it is not as easy as Nagasaki. The iconic Hioshima Peace Memorial/Dome and the Museum are must sees. Then I also recommend seeing Myajima. Both can easily be done in one day. If you want to do it with a guide I can recommend trying toursbylocals.co or gowithguide.com (former triplelights).

 

We did Hiroshima on this cruise:

https://www.travelandcruise.net/travellove_en/Our-Trips/Celebrity-Millennium-Japan/celebrity-millennium-japan.html

 

The other Japan travelogues are:
https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2970853-celebrity-millennium-japan-10242023-liveish-report/

 

and

 

http://www.travelandcruise.net/travellove_en/Our-Trips/HAL-Westerdam-Japan-01/hal-westerdam-japan-01.html

 

Thank you so very much! 

Jack

Oliver, your live reports are outstanding. I have already booked a tour with your recommended guide in Osaka/Kyoto for a March 2026 cruise! And I have bookmarked Rose's information. You are a wealth of incredible knowledge! 

Do you have any advice for Hong Kong guide? What about Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

Jack

32 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

I'll let you know in a few days. Being in Hawaiian waters the casino wasn't open on any day until last night after departing Kona. We didn't go since we have 5 sea days until Vancouver. But we have $1,500 Freeplay to play through, so we do have some work to do to keep as much if it and hopefully exceed that amount!

Good luck! 👍

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

We are on the Ovation of the Seas following you to Vancouver albeit 3 days later. We are in a junior suite here which allows us only dinner (if space available) in the suites only restaurant, Coastal Kitchen. This is our first time dining in Coastal Kitchen and we are having a good experience here (although embarkation dinner was a disaster) with starters and entrees being a bit more straight forward than either Blu or Luminae. The filet mignon was outstanding, ribeye good but not great. Fish dishs good but not great ( fish is always hard to get perfect,but I think Celebrity does it better than some other cruiselines). Last night my husband ordered from the kids menu. Chicken noodle soup and spaghetti bolognese. Both were elevated preparations,large pieces of shredded chicken vs small, machine cut cubes and the bolognese sauce was made for adult palettes without a hint of jar sauce tastes.

Having said all that Blu and Luminae are far superior than our Coastal Kitchen experience on Royal Caribbean.

Somewhat off topic admittedly, but how do you guys like the casino on the Ovation OTS? 

54 minutes ago, Fedic said:

Day 9 continued:

 

            We finally made it back to the pier, and somehow on time, but I realized that if I got onto the bus to the Highlands, I would be locked into this excursion until after 3:30.  I wasn't feeling like I was going to be able to make it another 4 and a half hours in the sun, so I asked if it would be possible to return to the ship instead.  

            Fortunately, one of the tenders was at the pier and they were actually taking some other people back, so I headed that way.  I tried to talk my wife into continuing on without me, but she refused and came back with me (which was a very sweet thing.  Also, the credit card was probably maxed).

            We returned to the Flora before 11:30AM, and I debated going to Medical, but I was convinced that I was just dehydrated and could resolve my issue.  I finished the Gatorade, drank a Ginger Ale for the nausea, and continued drinking as much water as I could take.  For the next several hours, I slept and sipped water and started to feel better...  Until.  Look, this is a happy little travel blog, and I don't want to dip into the realm of TMI, but a certain pea soup scene from The Exorcist comes to mind (if that scene happened to go on for like 5 minutes straight).

            That was the turning point where I decided to give in and schedule an appointment with the doctors.  We spent the next 4 hours in Medical, where I was subjected to blood work, multiple EKGs, and several tests.  Finally, they decided I was probably just dehydrated, so I was given an IV with a bag of fluids and some Tylenol. 

 

 

            At 8:30PM, having missed the Departure Briefing and dinner, they told me to eat some chicken soup and see if I could keep it down and report back to Medical at 10:30PM to make sure I was feeling better.  My wife ran into Zarella, our waitress from Glamping and asked her about the soup.  When they brought it to the cabin at 9:15PM, I realized that chicken soup is not on the menu for the Flora.  And they didn't just open a can of Campbell's and heat it up.  No, I'm fairly certain they whipped up a batch of chicken soup from scratch just for me.

            Thankfully, I felt much better and when I reported back to Medical at 10:30, they checked me out and decided I was going to live.  They asked wifey if she had eaten anything, which she hadn't since lunch, so they called Boris (the Maitre D) and gave her the phone.  She said she would just order room service, which normally runs until 11PM, but apparently it stops earlier on the last day of the cruise.  Boris asked what she wanted and said he would take care of it.

            We got back to the room and about 45 minutes later, there was a knock on the door and Boris himself delivered her order.   I think maybe he got someone out of bed to cook it.  Just incredible service from the Flora team.     

 

      

 

 

Final step count for Day 9:

 

Glad you felt better! What a relief! It's a good lesson for all of us to stay hydrated! Now enjoy the last bits of the trip in good health.

8 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 Thank you for your service and yes, that was a long time ago. 

 

 Unfortunately the weather prevented me from taking the pictures I had in mind as any plans I had to walk from the main gate to the NEX, via the road that goes past the hospital were blown away in the wind and the rain.  I did try to walk from the exchange up to the skeet and trap pits beyond the baseball field but by the time I got to the field the wind had become unbearable so i turned around.  

 

 Here are the few photo’s I did capture .. 

 

 This use to be the field house for the gym.  I don’t think it is used today. 

 The new gym/field house is in back to the Benny Decker Theater to the left of the baseball diamonds.

 

 

 

 These anchors have been there for as long as I can remember. 

 

 

Home of the Yokosuka Seahawks.  Watched a lot of softball at this place. 

 

 

 The thrift shop 

 

 

 The base theater — showing its

 

 

Our daughter started middle school here .

 

 

Another part of the school 

 

 

The food court — There is also a Baskin Robin, an American Cafe, and a Pizza Hut in the main Exchange building. 

 

Thank you for your service and the photos!

Fantastic photos!

Following! We are booked for the 10 night Inner Loop in December 2026! Have a great journey!

Following with great interest! We have the Best of Japan on the Millie booked for March 2026! Have a wonderful journey!

On 4/24/2024 at 10:39 PM, Jim_Iain said:

Even thought Ala Moana Park begins here --- I diverted to the Shopping Center.    Incredible shopping with a Rack, Macy, Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, Marshall as well as lots of food places and a beautiful mall.

 

 

When I go to the Ala Moana shopping center, I love getting a roasted pork Mana Pua, which is very similar to a bao bun. Thanks for taking us on your Honolulu journey! 

10 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Here is a link to a time lapse video I took from the back of our balcony was we crossed the Gatun Locks: link

 

I took the time lapse with my iPhone on a tripod.  A backpack of filled water bottles hung off the bottom of the center pole to provide weight for the tripod to prevent it from blowing over.

 

WOW! That was a fantastic video! You should get commission from Celebrity - everyone is going to want to experience this!

My upcoming cruise on the Apex in the Norwegian Fjords in August has disappeared. Maybe it's sold out??

Just now, JackE said:

I just heard a presentation from our company lawyers about AI - we were warned that whatever is generated by AI (including ChatGPT) is not copyrightable. The AI company owns it. I found that very interesting!

And looking forward to following along @mahdnc! Have a wonderful time!

1 hour ago, Galaxy2004 said:

@mahdnc ChatGPT is great for first drafts of marketing language, emails, procedures, briefs, etc. Use it regularly as a starting point. Does collect some bad data from time to time, so not perfect. 

I just heard a presentation from our company lawyers about AI - we were warned that whatever is generated by AI (including ChatGPT) is not copyrightable. The AI company owns it. I found that very interesting!

19 hours ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

Love your pictures. I really need to invest in new equipment…ie update my phone before our cruise to Alaska. I’m still working with an iphone 8+ from 2016 which was state of the art complete with a home button and everything. I simply dread the prospect of changing over to a new phone and have no idea how I will function without my beloved home button….seriously. But alas, I will repeat, your pictures are lovely. 

When I upgraded to an iPhone X (from a 7??) it didn't have the home button, and it was not terrible! You learn very quickly to swipe up (or down), and it becomes second nature. I now have a 14 Pro and I love it. Highly recommend.

You can do it! 

21 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

We had 

Sydney rock oysters, natural with lemon gf df uf. 

Crab slider, lemon mayo, pickles

Aperitivo plate - Jamon Serrano, chorizo pamplona, pickles, grissini

Hiramasa kingfish crudo, verjuice, basil gf df

Jenny had a Vegan Pasta with Spinach, Tomatoes and other things

 

Tiramisu

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent photos, Jim! They look like they were taken by a food stylist!

Just switched my Sky Suite reservation on December 1 from a 6 day sailing on Reflection to a 7 day sailing on Ascent for a lower price! They made us pay the change fee of $100 each, but it's still lower than the Reflection sailing. Thanks for the heads up!