ohiojohn

yes you can book with Viking, then have you TA grab the reservation. Today I booked another cruise with Viking and then sent the booking number to my TA. Although, it was a weekend the TA responded immediately. We booked the Viking Homelands cruise and used the special promo for booked cruises which expires tomorrow, I believe. I got through to Viking immediately, no waiting, and spoke to a very knowledgeable Viking agent.

I use very simple earplugs from Amazon. Mack's Soft Moldable Silicone Putty Ear Plugs - Kids Size, 6 Pair - Comfortable Small Earplugs for Swimming, Bathing,Travel, Loud Events and Flying | Made in USA now I could get the Bose, but between my sleep apnea dental device and a chin harness to keep my month shut, along with my sleep apnea mask and tubing someone may mistake me as an alien.

We were in a Magic Carpet Suite 10178, for the Dec 10 sailing of the Ascent. YES, we CAN confirm there was a lot of creaking. We both wear ear plugs to bed so not a big issue for us. But we were surprised for a new ship that creaking was occurring. We have been on the Apex 2x and do not remember any creaking. The Apex rooms were in the exact location of the Ascent room we booked. Now for a real positive, The Magic Carpet on the Ascent was so quiet you never knew it was moving, however on the Apex you knew when it was moving because of the noise. For us this was not an issue on all three sailings.

We also spent a lot of time planning and booking for this Hawaii cruise. I had just booked an AirB&B in Vancouver for 3 days. Got a great air rate to Vancouver using air miles. A few weeks ago I booked the return trip from HNL to home, actually booked it at the 330 day period. Glad I booked refundable air. Car rental in Honolulu for three days at a great Black Friday rate, will now need cancelling. So now the fun begins tomorrow unwinding all the reservations. But our replacement cruise is wonderful. At the end of the day we just did not see the allure for the Hawaii cruise especially adding 2 more sea days. The only money I will lose is the $200 for using Booking at Sea Future Certificates and around $78 for cruise insurance. When final payment was due I up the limits on the cruise insurance. Glad I kept the limits very low when first booking the cruise. This is a great tip from Steve.

nope my cruise was on Sep 20 2024 Vancouver to Honolulu 13 days. Looks like your second day was affected also for your May 2024. Although I am guessing the second day was affected as the day is just cruising past the Island of Kauai.

Apologize if I mislead you about Venice. The correct port is Chioggia. I should have identified the stop as Venice(Chioggia).

So an update from my previous post above. After I reread the changes this morning to my Hawaii cruise it turns out the 2 days in Maui are cancelled due to the fires. This is understandable, however we are receiving basically 2 sea days. But 1 sea day is now advertised as a sail by the beautiful island of Kauai. I will not unload or vent how disappoint this is. Celebrity had several months to fix this, but yet we get 2 sea days. So, today I booked a cruise to replace my Celebrity Hawaii cruise on my new favorite cruise line. Lucky for me I only had $200 invested for the Hawaii cruise. The new cruise is 15 days from Greece to Rome with 11 stops and 3 days in Venice in early October. I only have one Celebrity cruise left which is on the Ascent Dec 10.

From a long time Celebrity cruiser, in my heart I believe the old Celebrity would have done some small gesture. I believe Celebrity DOES NOT owe them anything, but I will leave you with this. Last month we took a cruise from Montreal to Fort Lauderdale on our new primary cruise provider. The cruise was going to be late into Port Everglades by 4 hours. This screwed up many flights as you can imagine. This cruise was only the 2nd time over 25 cruises I used the cruise carrier's Air. We were automatically rebooked on a direct flight at 5pm. The cruise carrier allowed us to stay in our rooms to 10am and breakfast was open to 10am. We were off the ship at 12:30pm. When we got home I noticed a nice e-mail from the cruise carrier owning up to the delay and we should call a special number if we were impacted. I was not impacted so I did not call. This gesture was very positive. Today, I booked another non Celebrity cruise, and today Celebrity notified me of a change in our Vancouver to Hawaii next September on the Edge. We have the Ascent booked on Dec 10 2024 and after the Hawaii cruise, no more Celebrity. Both of our last 2 Celebrity cruises are booked in the retreat. Sorry for the long comment.

I agree with not scheduling a flight before 11am, yes it can be done but sh_t happens. I just got off the Viking Star today Oct 24. Today was a Tuesday with only Viking and a Princess 3,000+ passengers in port Everglades. I used Viking Air and had a 11:31 Delta flight to LGA then on to Columbus Ohio. These flights made for a very long travel day to get home with a 3.5 layover at LGA. This was doable as we would use the Delta Sky Lounge, and the Viking promotion included air at no cost. One last item we probably have over 20 cruises disembarking at Port Everglades, so I know the port and FLL well. Of these 20+ cruises sh_t never happened to me. But this cruise it did, yes it did. The cruise started from Montreal and ended 15 days later at Fort Lauderdale. Nothing but great things to report on this cruise, HOWEVER……. ON Monday late morning we noticed the ship throttled back going very slowly, maybe 4 knots from 16 knots. Monday was the day before disembarkation. The captain made on announcement that we lost an engine and we will arrive late. He also mentioned that passengers with Viking Air would also be re-routed automatically, and for independent travelers they should not arrange a flight leaving before 4pm at FLL or MIA. So for the first time I did not have control of the situation because I used Viking Air, and my travel agent could not help when I used Viking Air. About 4 hours later we noticed the ship was back at 16-17 knots. I have an app that shows me this, called Marine Traffic. So the ship docked around 11:30am, cleared quickly and independent travelers could disembark around noon. Viking told us we could stay in our rooms till 10am, which was the same time Breakfast ended. Typically we would have to get up early to eat and be out of the room by 8am. Now back to Viking Air, they routed us on a direct Southwest flight leaving at 5pm, repeat a direct flight. Sorry for the long post, but wanted to provide a lot of data so individuals can understand anything can happen. But for us everything ended as a better positive than negative. Btw after getting our bags there was no immigration to go through, we just walked out of the terminal. I guess we were on cameras using facial recognition, but just my guess. Summary, a fantastic cruise, loved Montreal and Quebec City, food was great, ate at Manfredis 2x and ate at the Chefs table 4x, booked another cruise while on this cruise.

I also have not observed prices coming down for my next two cruises after considering OBC and Gratuities. I compared my booked cruises as of yesterday’s pricing to today’s pricing. Both cruises are in the retreat booked into a MC. As most have indicated they did not expect a fair reduction in price and now we have proof. For us the primary issue has always been TRUST. We have lost trust in Celebrity and its product. Tuesday, we board a 15 day Viking ocean cruise, which could have been Celebrities 23rd booking from us.

Thanks great job, very funny, still have a smile on my face

https://www.yelp.com/biz/olive-and-sea-no-title open now, we will be there for a Dec 9 stay, for a cruise on Dec 10.

We always thought the promotional material was a waste of money until……….. About a year ago we went on our first Viking Ocean cruise to Iceland and Norway cruise. Since this cruise we are continually receiving Viking promotional material. Well last week we found an attractive cruise from one of the many mailings we get, sometimes several in one week. Within one day of reading the material we booked a cruise. Kinda, not in our nature to book a cruise within 60 days of sailing. However, this was an easy cruise to get to and had free air and a promotional code of ACU23. You really do not know the amount of the full promotional amount by stateroom, until you enter the code into the fake booking. Once we entered the code realized the nice reduction,I then researched the air possibilities. The cruise leaves from Montreal and ends in Fort Lauderdale, on the Star Oct 10. We will fly in one day early. Many of the optional tours are already fully booked, however we were able to get all the included tours with no problem. Summary, I guess the mailings work from Vikings point of view.

There is a new restaurant at the Hilton Marina, which required an expansion to the existing Hotel. The hotel is open and looks very nice.

I guess booking the retreat now is out of the question, you certainly do not know the product you are purchasing. What is that phase "catching a falling knife"

In all honesty, how do you book a future SS cabin with a high non refundable deposit NOT knowing what your actually product and service will be for SS cabin. Best to book a lower cost AQ cabin with the lower non returnable deposit, then decide to use the move up if the value is apparent. But to me the worse part is losing trust, I simple do not trust the product and service I purchased will exist in the future. I can not honesty advise friends and grown kids that Celebrity will delivery the product or service you paid for.

We have followed this thread with interest as we have 2 Celebrity cruises booked. We are on the Ascent in December and the Edge to Hawaii in Sep 2024, both in the Magic Carpet. My wife is also Asthmatic. The Ascent being a new ship with only a few cruises at that point, we will probably pay the final deposit towards the end of this August. Now the Hawaii cruise only has a $200 deposit at risk. When this thread began, I went to the Library to take out a few Hawaii travel books. The books were returned, but I noticed Amazon Prime Day had one of the travel books discounted. Yep that book arrives tomorrow. So why is this important, after 25+ Celebrity cruises we are realizing a land visit versus a one day cruise stop gives us varying degrees of immersion into the sites and cultures of local people when staying multiply days. Last year we did a Viking cruise to Iceland and Norway. We arrived Reykjavik 6 days before the cruise and thoroughly enjoyed visiting Iceland, great people and just beautiful majestic sites, and NO rain for the 6 days while we were there. Companies must earn a profit to stay in business, they do not owe us anything. If you want that product go for it. I must say pushing us out of our comfort zone has had good results. We are thoroughly enjoying researching and planning for a land vacation in Hawaii. Yes, I might add allowing vaping in Casinos on Celebrity has reduced the need to want the product Celebrity is now offering. Also, we can not be sad or mad with Celebrity's business model change, yesterday we had a birth of another grandchild, so yesterday was a great day. edited: I just copied and pasted this post and sent it to Celebrity. I am now at 3 sent emails voicing my displeasure about allowing Vaping.

Nervous is not knowing if your stateroom will reek of Vaping. We have a Sep 20 2024 Hawaii cruise with only $200 invested for a suite. All this week I have been researching land vacations in Hawaii. The rudder is broken at the top. I retired from a company that instilled the culture “We want society and our valued customers to want us to exist”. Think about the importance of that statement and the culture it breeds. Then think about Celebrity culture.

I sent my email. I suggested they change the phase Modern Luxury to Modern Health Suicide. Although, it is a while to final payment, I indicated Vaping is a bridge too far for us. Will an 8 week test next be in Blu? Come to Blu we’re we provide a Healthy food alternative with clean refreshing Vaping.

Talk about suffering, our last 2 Apex cruises were in the same MS suite. This December we will be in the same exact MS suite on the Ascent. Then Sep 2024, yep same MS suite on the Edge to Hawaii. What is the probability of getting the same exact MS suite. When I mention the same exact suite I mean same floor and 3rd MS from the front.

We were on the Apex sailing 1-14-23. Yes the internet was very fast, we were in the retreat so got the better internet.

One last observation about the high internet speeds last week on the Apex. A few days before the cruise I counted around 150 open veranda staterooms for our cruise. So maybe the potential internet load was reduced by less users on the ship.

We were in a Magic Carpet Suite 10172 on the Apex last week. We also were in this same room one year ago. Once you enter from the hallway you are still about 20 feet till your stateroom door. In this 20 feet (approx) hallway there is an inside stateroom sharing the small hallway. The MC I believe may move 2x per day, really never an issue for us. The balcony is large having 2 full lounges and 2 chairs with a very small table. Having the stateroom set back from the main hallway reduces any noise of stateroom doors slamming shut in the main hallway. There is no obstruction looking out from this balcony, however at night when the MC is on level 12, it does throw off light into the side distance of the ocean thus preventing you from seeing some stars. This light does not illuminate the balcony at all.

We were on a Celebrity excursion to Nevis last week while on the Apex. At the rear of the large excursion boat a crew member caught a fish. He said Celebrity gives him TOP dollar for catching Tilapia for Luminae. AND of course I am kidding.....

We were in the Retreat last week on the Apex. Now the internet speed can move around a lot but here is a screen shot when I checked the speed because it seemed to be running real fast.