kennetro

We went in March of 2014. Weather was great, water was warm & had about 1 hour of rain during the entire trip. Go & enjoy. You will love it.

Hi Mark & Stuart. It's good to hear from you. We are Ken & Ray, and the other two guys we'll be traveling with are Rick & Chris (from the CA Bay Area). We met them on a Rome to Miami Transatlantic cruise 3 years ago, & sailed again with them to the Galapagos Islands just last year. We were also on a British Isles / Ireland cruise a little over a year ago. We stopped in Glasgow, Inverness & Edinburgh, and truly fell in love with Scotland! Such a beautiful country & the people were incredibly nice. We definitely hope to go back to Scotland some day. We're not sure exactly what we'll be doing in each port in Norway yet, but I'm working on that. Will run it by you once we make some decisions. We're also continuing on the Eclipse, doing the Ireland/Iceland 12-night cruise after this one. It's got a very active roll call & the private tours were filling up fast, so I booked all those first. Now I'm researching the Norwegian ports.... ...& of course we're always up for suggestions too! :-) Stay in touch!

Ken

Don't give up Cublet. It always happens when you least expect it. :-)

We've (both couples) decided to take a pass on the 2 night cruise, as we were in Le Havre just last year. Instead, we're getting off in Southampton & have planned two "day trips" out of there. ...Then we will return for the Ireland/Iceland jaunt...

So sorry to hear this. We became acquainted with him & Mary on the QM2 in 2003, and were thrilled when they asked us to join them at their (private) dining table. What a lovely couple. He was such a wonderful gentleman & will be certainly be missed. Our thoughts & prayers go to Mary....

Too funny, Cublet!

Thanks for clearing that up. I had never in my life heard of that tradition of saying "Rabbits" 3 times. I must admit I had been scratching my head regarding your post for almost a month now! Thanks for clearing it up for me! LOL

.....but, thanks to our wonderful Supreme Court's decision on marriage last week here in the U.S., I'm hearing a LOT of people suddenly screaming "Husband" these days! :-)

Looking forward to meeting any other 'family' that might be joining us on this cruise.... We're two guys from Dallas, being joined by two more guys from the Bay Area, CA.

Hi John & Bill,

Thanks for the recommendation of the Grand Harbour. I checked with them yesterday & they are already "sold out" for our dates. (I'll bet one of the lines has booked them for the last night of one of their Land Excursions or something.)

Currently, we're holding two sets of reservations. One is at the Novotel Hotel on Quay & the other is at the White Star Tavern, which looks kind of fun & kitchy. The Novotel might be closer to the dock, but the White Star is centrally located downtown & has more restaurants, pubs, etc. around it. We'll probably make our final decision this weekend, so we can cancel the other reservation.

Of course we'd like tip "tip a few" with you. Will chat as time grows nearer!

Thanks!

Just found out from my TA that the 2 day cruise in between is to Le Havre & is being sold in the UK as a "2-Night Taste of Modern Luxury". ...but the price on it is practically double what the cruises on either side of it are listed as.... Looks like we'll just layover for a couple of nights in the Southampton area.... (Gee, thanks, Celebrity!)

No prob at all!

Interesting that some agents are selling those 2 days. Wish I could find one. It sure would be better than the hassle of disembarking & re-boarding. :-)

No, we booked direct with Celebrity. They were offering one of their "deals" while we were onboard the Summit last year. ...If we put down a $100 deposit on a cruise, they would give us a $300 OBC on that current cruise. ....Which was a no-brainer for us. Of course we got the 10% Elite discount & the 1-2-3 Go offer as well, so we were satisfied with that.

We're looking at spending a few days in London on the front end, & hoping to take in as much theatre as possible... but a lot of that depends on what kind of flight arrangements we can get. Will come home immediately afterwards though, cuz we're usually so homesick for our "babies" (large male Weimaraners) at that point & 26 - 27 nights 'out' is about our limit.

Have you booked any excursions / tours yet?

K

Hi guys,

I think there are going to be more of ‘us’ on this cruise than you think. 

We are Ken & Ray (61 & 67) from Dallas, TX & we booked this cruise several months ago. (But we’ve been on two major trips since we booked this one, so I have yet to even begin researching & organizing for this trip. I feel so ‘behind’!) Glad to see we already have a Roll call going, though.

We will also be traveling with two other great guys, “Rick & Chris” from Northern California. We met them 3 years ago on a transatlantic crossing from Rome to Miami, & enjoyed being with them so much that we also traveled with them to The Galapagos Islands & Machu Picchu last year (also on Celebrity).

All 4 of us are also booked on the Norwegian Fjords cruise immediately preceding this one. But for some weird reason there is a 2 day ‘gap’ between the cruises which, unfortunately, means we’ll have to disembark the Eclipse, find somewhere to go or something to do for 2 days, & then re-board the ship. Ugh.

Jostman, congrats on your first cruise. I’ll bet you’re going to love it. We took our first cruise in 2003 on the QM2, and have now been on somewhere between 15 & 20 all over the world. It’s an expensive habit to have (especially being retired!), but we dearly love it. ….& because we both traveled so much in our careers, we retired with almost 7 million airline miles ‘in the bank’! Our running joke is that we can fly First Class for free to anywhere in the world, at a moment’s notice. We just can’t afford to buy LUNCH once we get there!

Looks like we now have enough bodies to fill at least a small corner of the Martini Bar. :-)

We look forward to meeting you all!

Ken & Ray

Chester, we were the lucky ones for having had you on here. Thank you & God bless. See you soon!

Thank you Celebrity for your CIVIL & NON-CONFRONTATIONAL response. It is much appreciated.

But the Celebrity website is too vague, i.e., can I get Jack Daniels on the Classic package? They should itemize brand names.......

My understanding that its not a required on Celebrity either, but if you choose to eat in the MDR, you are "requested" to dress formally. If you don't want to dress formally there are many free or low cost options.

 

The issue are people who don't respect that and want to eat in the MDR and not dress formally. It just seems a shame that people who cant simply follow the rules pne or two nights put the staff in the position of turning them away and enforcing the rules, esp since they are tip dependent.

 

 

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Well said!!!

Are you staying in Québec an extra day? Because the walking tour and the falls by bus are too much to do for a single day.

No, we will be there two days. (sorry I failed to mention that.) We will walk the city the first day & then do the falls separately on the 2nd.

Thank you!

I'm not sure what ports you will be visiting, but we have already booked one for Corner Brook, Newfoundland. It is Marble Zip Tours. They have a nice website with all the info. ....& one of the "zips" is even over a waterfall!

marbleziptours.com/

Thank you "JP" for the wealth of information! We will be there in September & will follow your leads.

We also want to take the public bus on a day trip to Montmorency Falls, so we can't wait to read your blog on visiting the falls as well!

Thank you!!!

Boy, do I ever feel stupid! LOL (that's okay, I'm getting pretty used to feeling stupid at this stage of my life....) Thanks for pointing that little detail out, Kollegekreed!

Hey SportsCouple. I have tried to email you twice now, but both emails came back as undeliverable. Is the one you posted (a few messages up from this one) still valid? We're also in Dallas & are also cruise addicts. Just wanted to "e-introduce" ourselves & get acquainted! :-)

"kennetro"

(Ken & Ray)

Just lucky! We're about as middle class as middle class can be, however we both traveled extensively in our careers, never touched our miles, & retired with about 7-8 million airline miles & a ba-zillion Hilton points. Hence, we can fly anywhere in the world First Class anytime we want. We just can't afford to BUY LUNCH once we get there! LOL

We received the same invitation. Sounds like a really nice event in a great venue. Unfortunately, (yet also fortunately, I guess) we will be on board the Xpedition cruising the Galapagos on that date! Still would have loved to attend. Thank you Celebrity.

I had exactly the same experience two weeks ago! I called about a glitch in our Galapagos reservation, & held for a solid 45 minutes, only to be told, "I'm sorry Sir, I can't help you with that. You need to call our 'Galapagos' Customer Service number!" I was LIVID! I thanked her for taking 45 minutes out of my life & suggested that they might consider PUBLISHING the fact that there is a separate customer service number for Galapagos cruises!! Celebrity, you can do better!

I've been searching the exact same thing! So far, I've found only one tour bus for Lima. Unfortunately, it's not a hop-on-hop-off, but rather a straight-through 3-hour city tour, making only about 3 "photo op / bathroom" stops. Instead, I've mapped out the sights we want to see & will be doing much of our travel by cabs, I think....

Ray & I are not Aquafesters either. We are meeting 6 other friends from Dallas & Ft. Lauderdale in Rome & are all returning together. Sounds like a real festive crossing coming up! :-)

Ken

Hi guys,

No Aquafest ... Larry & I are traveling with 2 other couples (Stephen & Keith and Bill & Sam) who don't post on CruiseCritic. We're all from the Ft. Lauderdale area.

 

David

....and, though we are from Dallas, we are traveling with 5 more guys from FLL! Ya'll are certainly going to be well-represented, for sure! ....Looking forward to meeting you all.