sollyman

If you decide to go down the ABP, route luggage is only taken off you and loaded onto vans for Celebrity cruises. For MSC its down to you to get your bags to the luggage drop off point at the terminal. There are trollies provided. MSC will not paythe port for a collection service.

Just another in the long line of Celebrity IT **** ups. From UK site. 12 nights Ascent Med cruise in Spring priced at £13745 for 2 persons incl £800 OBC. 12 night Scandinavian cruise from Southampton £10392 for 2 incl £800 OBC. Looks like the usual premium for new ship to me. The Southampton cruise is not that far out of line with last years suite pricing, although a newer ship. Was Silhouette. I had a 14 night cruise on Silhouette in a SS2 for booked for 2023 at £10800 for 2. We were so disappointed with our 2022 Silhouette cruise we cancelled it and have jumped ship to try MSC Yacht Club. We have only cruised suites on Celebrity and are now Elite+. Time will tell if we did the right thing.

Hello. Glad to hear embarkation went smoothly after your long difficult journey yesterday. We will be following your posts very closely as we are doing the same trip in YC at the end of September. It will be our first experience with MSC.... we have mainly cruised in the Retreat with Celebrity, and have Elite Plus status that MSC matched to Gold. We originally had a September Med cruised booked with Celebrity but decided to "jump ship" and give MSC Yacht Club a chance, even though it meant a lost deposit. We have gradually become a little disappointed with the Celebrity Retreat and prices have skyrocketed. The MSC cruise is a day longer and £3000 cheaper. The latest weather forecast seems to show the winds easing considerably from about 6. Lets hope things are not too bumpy for you. As newbies we will be very interested to hear your opinions on the Yacht Club and MSC experience. Enjoy your cruise.

GRBlizz I have just checked the deckplan and i think your cabin is probably under a carpeted seating area. Others will probably know better. If the next cabin nearer the aft is, or becomes, available id say witch to that. Nearer the aft the better to avoid OVC nosie id say.

GrbLizz There were many people on board in wheelchairs and they were always treated with respect. The only concern i would have with your cabin is the possibilty of noise from the OVC above. It depends on where exactly you are, i have not looked yet. We stayed in an S2 in 2023 once. Whilst there was some overhead noise it was not intrusive. Have you checked out the spreadsheet that shows comments on your cabin. Its a sticky at the top of the board. I appreciate needing an adapted cabin really cuts down your options. Whatever, go and enjoy yourselves, i am sure you will.

Hello hawkesbaynz We used to have a Laithwaites near us but it closed a few years ago. I have used Majestic quite a lot but recently have just used Waitrose during our weekly shop. I have just checked the the Waitrose website and they are selling Villa Antorini at £15.99 a bottle. i wish now I had taken more notice of the alternative Chianti at the start of the cruise. As I said it was perfectly fine for my taste. I have never been a fan of Villa Maria, much better Sauvignon Blancs out there. I mentioned we had flown to New Zealand. It was in 2000 and we flew 1st Class with Malaysian with a stop over in Kuala Lumpur. Believe it or not Villa Maria reserve was their best white wine choice. seems a long time ago now.

Hello Limpit I am sure you will have a great time. The corner cabins are great and i am sure the overhang will be welcome in the Carribean. Please set your expectations before boarding. Sometimes the the food is good somtimes it isnt. The wait staff are always exemplary. Have a great time.

An earler post about this cruise suggested that Silhouette sailed at 93% occupancy. In my opinion it was nowhere near that. We heard numbers of 2400, i think from Eddy then 2600 from the Hotel Director during a Q&A session. Our butler quoted 2540 later in the cruise and said the next cruise to the Baltic was about half of this, making a big difference to their tips. At these numbers capacity was between 72& and 78%. I have certainly been on Silhouette when it has been much busier. I repeat that having a number of youngsters onboard due to school holidays had no affect on our cruise whatsoever. Dress codes have been a hot topic on these boards recently. I did see a number or men queuing for the main restaurants in shorts on the first night. I did not see any hats. First nights have always been more relaxed to allow for late delivered luggage. Some people seem to take advantage of that. There was nobody in Luminae in shorts or a hat throughout the cruise. After the first night i did not see anyone trying to enter any of the restaurants in shorts or wearing a hat, at night. Many people have claimed that cruises from Southampton tend to be more "dressy". I have never agreed with this and have not even taken a jacket for a number of years. It occurred to me that very few people in Luminae had worn either DJ's, Tuxes or jackets on the first two Chic nights. We were always sitted in the front part of Luminae and I made a point of looking around on the 3rd Chic night. The restaurant was pretty full and i counted 2 men in DJ's, one in a white TUX and 2 wearing a jacket without tie. So much for european cruises being more dressy. Wear what you want to nobody else will care...within the dress code of course. Finally, disembarkation was by far the easiest we have ever experienced. Bags had to be ouside rooms by 10:00pm. It used to be 11:00pm. We put ours out about 8:00 and went for a leasurely dinner in Luminae and then to the theatre for the final production show at 10:30. When we returned to room at about 11:30 the bags had been picked up. We set our wake up call for 6:00 and went down to Luminae for an unrushed breakfast. Rooms were requested to be cleared by 8:00 and last departure from the ship was 8:30. Basically, everything has been brought forward by one hour from pre Covid times. We got back to the room at 7:45, picked up our hand luggage and headed off the ship. The only delay was waiting for a lift. Many people seemed to be riding up from lower floors to go down so 3 or 4 arrived full even though we were on deck twelve. We then allowed someone in a wheelchair to go before us. I guess we waited between 5 and 10 mins. After that down to deck 5 and strolled off the ship with no queues at all. Plenty of trolleys and bags were waiting to be picked up in the dedicated Suite/Zenith area. We were back at the car ready to depart by before 8:15. I apologise for the verbosity but i have read so much rubbish on these boards over the last couple of years I wanted to spell out what life is really like on board.

Hello pennys mum I think you may have misunderstood my OP. the point iwas trying to make was there are no longer separate check in desks for Suites, Concierge, Aqua etc or for CC Levels and in my experience they were not necessary . There were no queues anywhere when we boarded. I did say that upper suites were probably handled differently, and you have confirmed this was the case. In any event our boarding could not have been quicker. I have to say i am amazed that you agree with everything else i have said. Everybody has different experiences and expectations, and I am quite happy for others to disagree. If there were only 4 positve cases in suites i wonder what the odds of being in a cabin directly between two of them. Your post made me think of other things i should have mentioned. I will do that in a new post.

GRBliz....we were in 2155. We always book aft suites on deck 12 so the noise obviosly does not bother us. You do here some scraping of chairs but not a lot. You do not hear any voices, i think the overhang helps with that. It is very quiet at night night. 2153 and 2155 accessed from a little lobby behind a door from the main corridor. Probably one of the reasons our breakfast card was missed. We did notice that they had put a new sigh on this door saying "cabins 2153-2155". Previously you had to look hard to find a sign on the corridor wall that was easily missed. The new sign seems to have been in response to our breakfast mishap. You have reminded me of one other thing i was going to mention....Covid. There was no mention of Covid onboard and no masking required. However, i do know there was. How do i know that? Before halfway in the cruise i noticed that the people in the corner suite next to us were having all their meals deliver to their room. A little table was set up right outside their door which often had the deep sleep sign on it. A few days later the same thing happened to the suite on the other side of us. Nothing was said to us at all and they were allowed to stay in their suites til the end of the cruise. One afternoon I passed our butler in the corridor just outside and he gestured to the suites either side of us and said "they are positve". I replied "I already guessed that" Later in the cruise if we heard them out on their balconies we moved our seats as far away as possible. So far we are fine.

Room Service We decided to have room service breakfast in Naples because we had an early start and hung our cards outside at around 11pm for delivery as near 7:30 as possible. At 7:40 my wife opened the door to find the card hanging there. Rather than causing a fuss we went up to OVC and grabbed pretty much what we had ordered and took it back to our room. Just as we were finishing the telephone rang. It was the Butler saying he was just bringing our breakfast. He had seen the card that we had left hanging on the door and rushed to correct things. I said thanks but no thanks we dont need two breakfasts. He reported the failure up the line and we later received a call from the suite manager, full of apologies. He eventually sent my wife a floral display. There are no longer any flowers or fruit in cabins. On the first night we asked the butler if they still served canapes. He said yes he would deliver them. Next night they were there and were truly appauling. We cancelled them immediately. Excursions We normally do not take Celebrity excursions but this time we had so much creditwe booked three. A full day to Pompeii and Sorrento Half day to an Etruscan town from Civitavechia Half day to Aix-en-Provence from Marseilles We thought they were all good but a little expensive. I think I have covered everything now but any quetions please ask.

The OVC It seems to be much the same as it was. Did not notice any cut backs. In fact the cheese offering has been improved out of all recognition. The pizza was surprisingly good too. The bar up there is very handy to take a drink back to the suite.

The Retreat The old Michaels Club has been given a facelift and is much better for it. Much brighter. Some have complained about uncomfortable seating, it was fine for us. The only problem was it was hardly used. We went in after dinner a few times the first week. The last twice we were the only people in there. Went in a few times during the day for coffee etc. never saw more than 10 people in there. I do believe it was better attended for pre dinner drinks. We never tried it. The day we went to try afternoon tea I think there were six other than us. The food is now laid out buffet style and you help yourself. One of the Butlers is there to make and deliver hot drinks. The food is pretty much identical to what is available in OVC. We much preferred the old days of the Butler and cart delivery to the Suite. We only received two invitations to events in the retreat, neither of which we attended. The Senior Officer's Soiree which was at a strange time and to a trivia quiz about the Silhouette on the last day. Again we did not bother. The outdoor retreat decks have very little shade and very pretty much unusable. We were invited to a sailaway party up there, I think in Naples, it was 36C. We were bombarded with messages from the two Retreat Concierges asking if there was anything they could do for us and asking us to call in at see them.

Entertainment I was suprised given the number of sea days that there were no Beyond the Podium speakers. I dont count Michelle Monro who has been doing the same talks out of Southampton for years. The Cruise Director stepped in to fill the gaps, and whilst he is a good speaker i did miss imput from others. I quite like Eddy as CD....others may differ. I have already mentioned the musicians onboard. The theatre shows were what they are ....comedian/singer on the first night, tribute acts to the Beatles and Elton John, a magician illusionist, three or four singers and a couple of productions shows. Strangely after the first couple of days when the shows were at 7:00 and 9:00 they were swtiched to 8:30 and 10:30. We went some of the shows after dinner at 10:30. Id say the theatre was between 15% and 25% full each time. Hard for the performers. I thought the singer/comedian on the first night we pretty good, we went before dinner to the 7:00 show. He had an audience of less than 10% and he had a hard time getting any response from the audience, even to relatively funny clean jokes. He gradually got more response and ten minutes from the end he said "I was only supposed to do 35 mins but you have hated me so much I am going to do another 10 mins to get my own back". That did get people behind him and he got warm applause at the end. It cant be easy playing to a virtually empty theatre with what audience there was tired after a days travel.

Just a quick note on Move-Up. I said i would never get invloved with this....but I did. Given the Covid situation i bid the maximum amount I could on both a Royal Suite and the Penthouse Suite. I was informed 48hrs before sailing both had been rejected. In retropect I am glad there were. We were perfectly happy where we were and I an more than £2000 better off.