madat

I did a South Pacific cruise on Fairstar (Sitmar Cruises) as a solo traveller in the early 1980's, and shared a 4-berth, inside cabin with 3 other guys who were also travelling solo. The cruise line matched us up, based on gender and age (I think). I do remember my cabin mates were a motley crew and our cabin was cramped, but we were all young and only used the cabin for sleeping. At the time, it was a common and cost-effective option for cruising solo, at least on Fairstar ("The Fun Ship"!). Ah, those were the days 🙂

In no particular order. our favourite things about Celebrity are... 1) Good-sized cabins and suites; 2) Friendly crew and great service; 3) The size, the layout and the ambience of the S-class ships suits us perfectly; 4) Celebrity's commitment to diversity, inclusion and accessibility; 5) We really enjoy our visits to Murano, the Martini Bar and the Ensemble Lounge; 6) The Retreat and all of the perks that come with a suite.

Unlike other bars, there are no opening times listed on the App, so I'm guessing it may well be the same as your experience on Equinox. Shame. I got excited for a minute, thinking there was finally something being added to the X offering rather than being diminished. Oh well.

I can't find any mention of The Whiskey House on the X website and the Solstice deck plan shows this space as The Lawn Club Shop. It's only on the App that it's shown as The Whiskey House. Interesting.

I've updated my X app today and have noticed a bar I've not heard of before, The Whiskey House, on deck 15 near the hot glass show. Is this new or have I just missed this in the past?

I've just updated the X app and have noticed that in the Dining section for my cruise in 2024, the room service menu for suites has disappeared. Hopefully they're updating the options, as the previous selections were pretty ordinary.

TYSM chemmo. So nice to hear the TP was your best ever! We're really looking forward to all of the sea days.

Thank you chemmo! Everything you have written has answered all of my questions perfectly. We are booked on a sailing from Honolulu to Sydney which includes 11 sea days, so we will have plenty of time to enjoy the PH indulgences. This will be our 3rd cruise on the Solstice, but our first in a suite. Thank you too, Mary Lou, for sharing your experiences. I feel much more relaxed about waiting to make reservations with the SSC.

We have booked a PH on the Solstice next year and this will be our first time in a suite with X. This has been a really helpful thread with lots of good information. Thank you! I'm hoping someone might please elaborate a bit more on how the unlimited, speciality dining works for the upper suites? Our cruise is for 17 nights. Can we expect to dine in any restaurant, at any time, with relatively short notice (e.g. the day before)? Or do we still need to make a reservation well in advance to guarantee our preferences? I'm a bit concerned that waiting for the Shoreside Concierge to make contact a few weeks out may mean we miss out on our first preferences? If I do make a reservation online, will the usual surcharge be automatically waived? Related to all of that - is there an expanded room service menu for upper suites? The website indicates that in-suite dining is available for breakfast, lunch and dinner, yet the room service menu for Suites on the App seems a bit limited. Not that we would go hungry! Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

We travelled by train from Waterloo to Southampton the night before, but like the OP, were a bit conflicted when we were planning this. When you don't get to visit London often, it can be hard to give up a night in the capital. We stayed at the Novotel in Southampton and were glad we did, as it made for a very easy and stress-free embarkation day. Waking up to this view in the morning was a nice consolation!

Not at all. Marriage Licence + Processing Fee + Nuptials at Sea package + Cake + Champagne + Salon services (haircuts) = approx $4,000 USD. This was in 2019. Surprisingly, we can still access our online account, which is where I've just accessed the above details! We had 9 people in our party (7 guests). The photo package was additional. We didn't pay for a formal reception. Instead, we booked a table for 9 people at Murano's and paid the usual surcharge for a speciality restaurant. We were allocated a semi-private room, surrounded by wine cabinets, and the staff went out of their way to make our evening very, very special.

Aw, thank you 🙂 We initially booked the cruise to celebrate our 20th anniversary of our relationship but when we found out that a legal, same sex marriage could now take place, we decided to take the plunge! As the Silhouette is registered in Malta, this is where our marriage was registered. We initially contacted The Wedding Experience through their website: https://theweddingexperience.com/celebrity-cruises Once we were registered, an online account was setup for us with a username and password. At any time we could access our account and send messages to our consultant, choose optional extras etc., upload documents, view our account and make payments. It was all very transparent and fairly straight forward. We were generally impressed with the responsiveness of our Wedding Experience consultant. Whilst she was based in Miami, we received all calls in Australia at appropriate times that allowed for the (big!) time difference, and everything ran smoothly. The most challenging part for us was organising all of the paperwork required by the Maltese government within fairly narrow timeframes. Our consultant was helpful and pro-active though, and It all worked out in the end. Again, we thought Blu was a lovely venue for our small ceremony. It was perfect for us 🙂

I was married at sea in 2019 by Captain George aboard the Silhouette. We had bad weather on the day and were offered to change the date to later in the cruise, but we went ahead as the date was important to us We had 7 guests and the ceremony was held in Blu. The area of the restaurant that was used for the ceremony was decked out beautifully, including roses scattered on the floor. We paid for the photo package (yes, I think it was around $1,000 USD) and were very happy with the prints we selected. This was despite not getting any outside shots - it was raining heavily and the seas were rough. Our photographer was very creative and did a great job - some of our favourite shots were taken during the ceremony and later at the entrance of Tuscan Grill. The on-board wedding co-ordinator was fabulous throughout our cruise. She was in contact with us from the moment we boarded and took care of everything with great efficiency. And our dinner reception in the private room at Murano's was an evening we will never forget. Our wedding was mid-afternoon and very private and intimate, and by no means were we anybody's "entertainment for the day". Our cabin steward, the on-board wedding organiser, and all of the crew we encountered throughout our cruise went out of their way to ensure we had a very memorable and unique wedding and honeymoon. We were spoiled throughout, with a bevvy of delightful surprises, including a private tour of the bridge, invitations to the helipad for special viewings, and lots of special attention. My husband and I were told we were the second, Australian, same-sex couple to be married aboard a Celebrity ship. Our claim to fame - LOL. I hope your experience is just as wonderful as ours.

Thank you DaKahuna (and others) for taking the time to share your cruise with us. I've really enjoyed following along. My DH and I have a B2B (23 nights) booked on the Millie next year, in the Retreat, and this thread has given us a good insight into what to expect. We've especially enjoyed your food porn. Yum! Safe travels to you all.

And of those three lift & shifts, one is not correct. The sailing departing 18th Oct 2024 is to Singapore, not round trip from Tokyo.

One of the alternatives X has offered in this letter is wrong - 18th October 2024 is the departure date of the 11 night NE Asia cruise from Tokyo (Yokohama) to Singapore, which I am booked on. Not the 12 night 'Best of Japan' cruise. Unless my cruise on 18th Oct 2024 has been changed too? Geez. What a balls up.

One reason might be that for many of us, tipping is not part of our culture the way it is in the U.S. I find the whole tipping conversation to be perplexing and given the number of threads about it, I'm clearly not the only one.

Sorry for dragging up such an old thread, but this was the only one I could find about the comfort of the sofa bed in a CS. We have a future B2B cruise booked in a CS on the Millie for 23 nights and I will be relying on the sofa bed to give me reprieve from a snoring partner. Can anyone comment on the comfort of the CS sofa beds on the Millie since she was revolutionised? TIA

Our experience at Barcelona airport mirrors the others - the longest queues we have ever experienced at an airport, ever (and we've been to lots of airports!). On the last occasion (2019) we arrived more than 3 hours early to the airport and still came close to missing our flight because of the queues. We were literally running to our gate whilst the final calls were being made. There's no way I would book a flight leaving before midday on disembarkation day, be it at Barcelona or anywhere else. Who needs that kind of stress after a relaxing cruise?!

That's interesting GC, thank you. I suspected I may have been walking around with blinkers on.

I've been on eight cruises in total, mostly with Celebrity and Princess. I have never seen a female cabin steward. Not once. Housekeeping staff in hotels tend to be mostly female but on cruise ships, they seem to be exclusively male. Why is it so? Or am I wrong? These ships are so big, maybe it's just been a coincidence that my stewards have always been males? Indeed, there seems to be a mix of genders employed across most other roles on a ship. Just curious, and this seems like a good place to ask!