kathynorth

What a great idea! Wish we had thought of this!

They promote the drink package perk, but I believe you can swap that for the gratuities or the $300 per stateroom OBC.

Captain Kate just made my day! Thanks to the OP for sharing!

We did the same. Our focus will be relaxing on ship or at a beach via ship transportation.

My DH and I use the same email address for Captain's Club. DH registered and received a reply email with link to the webinar. When I registered I didn't receive a reply email with link. I then registered again and plugged in a different email in the form and then received a reply email with link sent to the 2nd email. I think this might mean you need to use 2 separate emails to both get the points. I guess I'll find out when the points are posted for the Oct 15th webinar.

Interesting. I registered and received an Oct 15th webinar date. I didn't realize there were multiple dates and times for this presentation.

We did the 13 night Galapagos/MP tour in Aug 2016 on Xpedition and had a great time. One thing I realized during my research phase is that many Galapagos cruises from other companies are actually 3 or 4 night cruises that are sometimes connected to create a 7 night cruise. Day 1 of the cruise is arrival, getting settled in the cabin and sailing out to the islands from Baltra. Last day of the cruise is heading off ship and to the airport. This means that on the Xpedition cruise we had 6 full days of 2-3x/day excursions. On trips that were 3+4 combined there was a day in the middle where some passengers disembark and new passengers arrive. This is pretty much a lost day for the people on the 7 day schedule. So yes, some cruises may be cheaper and seem similar, but be sure to know what you are booking. The MP tour portion really was a 5* trip. Lots of people on our cruise took tours before or after the cruise and they all raved about the great time they had. However, I think the real difference between our Celebrity tour and the other independent companies was the level of hotel accommodations and restaurant choices that. If staying at 5* hotels isn't important then considering other independent tour groups may make sense. I'd like to also mention that the Celebrity tour guides were excellent throughout our trip: Quito, Galapagos and Peru. Every one of them were well informed and right on top of everything. It really was a relaxing vacation for us, even though we had never traveled in SA before, nor had to juggle this many flights within a single trip. Regarding flights, someone on one of these CC boards once suggested to research the cost of Choice Air flights as a round trip and also as 2 separate flights. We did this and found it worked best for us to use a Choice Air flight from our home to Quito, but booked directly with an airline for our flight from Lima to home. Whatever you decide, you're in for a treat!

Thanks for the suggestion!

We've noticed that within the past couple of years once the sommelier establishes your wine preferences refills were typically managed by the waitstaff. On our last cruise we had a waiter who had just moved from Oceania to Celebrity who continued to be attentive throughout our cruise. We rarely had an empty glass.

Booking concierge or aqua was a bigger deal when we were chasing points. Now not so important, but we do enjoy the little perks mentioned in the above posts when there is a small difference in cost. We've stayed in a range of veranda cabins, concierge, and aqua over the years on both M and S class ships. If concierge is less than $100 pp difference from veranda then that's what we book. If aqua is less than $100 pp difference from concierge then we book aqua. When staying in aqua we tend to just eat our meals at Blu as my DH is a big Blu fan. It's also great to be able to pop into Persian Gardens according to our schedule. If we book veranda or concierge then we book a couple of nights in specialty restaurants. However, on our last 2 cruises (2 different ships) we found our meals in MDR to be more than satisfactory and ended up not booking any specialty restaurants at all during those trips. My point is that no matter what you decide you'll likely have a great trip!

I was able to locate a recent Captain's Club email that showed my prior point total. I did receive my PowerUp Points. I still don't see anything posted to show where the extra points came from, but I'll accept the points!

How do you know you received your points? Were the PowerUp Points posted as a separate item in your cruise history or did you write down your # of points prior to this week and compare the # pts you have now to what was posted last week? I didn't have the foresight to write down my # and don't see anything posted saying PowerUp Points.

Today's was super easy. I've picked up 5 CC points since the start, so why not participate. I can understand why some people may have been uncomfortable about the 2nd social media post. People can pick and choose which tasks to complete. I think it's smart of Celebrity to keep past cruisers thinking of their product in a positive light.

I'm predicting short trips 4-5 days out of Florida ports that go to Coco Cay or Labadee. Very controlled sailings, beginning in Feb 2021. Another option is for the overseas cruises to begin spring 2021.

We went to Blue Bay last Dec. I found out when the ship tour was departing and we made sure we jumped in a cab before then. While on the cab line I asked if anyone else was interested in going to Blue Bay and recruited 2 other couples to share the ride. We each paid $8 for the 20 min cab ride to Blue Bay, then another $8 for entry. Since we arrived before the cruise tour group we have plenty of loungers and palapas to choose from at that time of day. People who came later seemed to wander about looking for empty loungers. The water, beach, and bathrooms were clean, but bring your own towels. We didn't buy any food, so I can only say there was a restaurant and lots of people were buying food to take back to their loungers. Several servers circulated taking drink orders. There were outside showers to rinse off your feet. We asked our drop off cab driver to pick us up at 2 and he was waiting for us at the gate when we wanted to leave for our $8 pp return trip. Our overall $24pp trip was a much better deal than the ship tour to Blue Bay. IMO this was a nice and inexpensive beach day and we'll likely return on future trips.