Athravan

The Dallas stations are reporting she informed the ship due to her temperature had changed. Still should never had boarded, period.

Her temperature has not changed, she did not self-inform. The CDC tracked her down after they decided everyone should go into quarantine. They should have told her not to travel in the first place, and quarantined people from the start, but there we go, lots of mistakes being made at the moment.

The fact is even if she does have ebola, which is unlikely, she is not yet showing any fever which means she is not contagious and if she is now quarantined to her room there should be no danger to anyone else on the ship, but travelling in such a way was a very stupid idea for a healthcare worker who had handled samples.

The Belize coast guard is not allowing the ship to dock or its passengers to disembark, although the unidentified woman is being monitored and has not shown symptoms, according to State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. She was identified through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s effort to track everyone who came into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who died Oct. 8 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital after infecting at least two nurses who have been identified and are being treated.

 

"The employee has been self-monitoring, including daily temperature checks, since Oct. 6, and has not had a fever or demonstrated any symptoms of illness," Psaki said in a statement. "It has been 19 days since the passenger may have processed the since deceased patient’s fluid samples."

I booked my photo package in advance with http://mycruisephotos.com/

I was told it was at least 20% cheaper to book online OR book on the first day/two but this is my first trip with Celebrity (sailing in 13 days!) so I can't confirm that yet.

Sorry this may not be helpful but I know you can pre-book packages if that interests you, and you can look up the prices for your sailing on http://www.mycruisephotos.com/ but it only gives package prices not individual prices.

I have just paid $200 for an 10 night sailing for unlimited photos in print and a CD.

I love my dog and I hate leaving her behind but I cannot imagine the amount of stress both she, other dogs and passengers would come under on a cruise. The cabins are not large enough, even a dog park area would not allow me to take her off the leash and give her the exercise she needs, she would be extremely confused by the sights/smells of a new port every day even from the shop, and she would be upset and bark every time she heard people walking past the cabin door. I certainly wouldn't be able to leave her in the cabin unattended, so how would I have any time to get off the ship or even just to go to restaurants?

I wouldn't take my dog, and I wouldn't go to a dog-friendly cruise because of all the above, I think it would be extremely unfair on your average dog to bring them along.

I am of course fine with the occasional service dog because they are trained from a very young age so it's very different for them to your average pet.

Google "Motioneaze" and see if that's worth a try. You don't ingest it, you apply it to the skin (behind the ears). It sounds like it shouldn't work (because it's 100% natural) but honest to God I get the worst travel sickness ever and it worked miracles.

Still only 14 here too - both of us are still working & we have to leave our cat with a family member so probably be a while before we can arrange anything longer. I think even when we're retired I would always want a cat which will probably limit us to 2 weeks anyway. Luckily have a family member I leave her with where she is happy for a bit, but I wouldn't want to leave her there too long.

I can't take ginger because I have an autoimmune condition that leads to low platelets so I can't take anything that thins the blood even slightly, but what I recently discovered was a little bottle of oil called "motioneaze" which - and this seems really weird - you dab 2 drops behind your ears and it immediately stops any motion sickness. I have no idea how it works, it seemed like a long shot to me but I recently took it on a 7 hour drive during which I usually get extremely motion sick and it worked really well. Whether that was just the placebo effect I don't know but I'll be trying it on my cruise next month too.

Just another option. It's pretty inexpensive, was about £5 for a small bottle.

I have been to Santorini twice. I have a problem with heights so I didn't take the cable car and not fit enough to walk up the stairs. The first time we took a boat directly from the ship to Oia (highly recommend this if you want to avoid the cable cars/donkeys/stairs). The excursion included a coach tour then from Oia which included all the views. This was with Thomson and 8 years ago so not sure what excursions are offered now.

The second time I just walked around a little bit at the dock and then sat down and enjoyed the scenery, watched the donkeys and had a chat with a few people whilst my husband went up in the cable car and took a lot of pics then walked down the stairs. I had already seen the views from the Oia trip anyway. We got off the ship on the first tender (I believe was around 8am, we are early risers anyway), and he had to queue for around 10 minutes. By the time he was coming back down (around noon), there was a 1-2 hour queue for the cable car. This was in the middle of the peak season though so pretty busy. He said the queue coming down was just as bad which is why he went down the stairs but even going down you need to be reasonabley fit.

I love to read reviews, good or bad. Every bad review I've read I think about it, put myself in that situation and 90% of the time I think "well if that happened to me it wouldn't make me enjoy the vacation less", 10% of the time I do read something that makes me a little but worried but then I think - nothing is guaranteed, no matter where you go or who you go with, something can always happen, that's just life. It's your mindset that counts. Short of an accident/health problem, I am always sure I will enjoy my vacation no matter what. Sometimes reading some bad reviews makes me grateful for being such an easy going person and always having a great time no matter where I go with my husband.

I'm sure you'll have a great time.

Thanks all, everyone has been very helpful. Maybe we will try out a specialty restaurant on the formal night after all, I'll try and tempt him!

As for the internet package comment, I suppose I could spent my OBC on internet if that's permitted, good idea - but we don't need a big one, the laptop is mostly for storing photos on at the end of each day and a little bit of photo editing maybe if my husband wants to. We also take some movies on it to watch. The ipads we both use for reading, as well as writing emails but we can do that offline and then just need 1 minute to send it, which we can do at wifi points on shore anyway. Overall even though we take & use a lot of technology in our lives, we don't need the internet to get good use out of it :).

Couple of simple questions I haven't found answers yet in my reading.

Travelling on Eclipse in Oct, first time with Celebrity

1) Do I need UK, EU or USA plug adapters?

2) How many plug sockets are available in a room? We have a lot of devices and my husband carries an arsenal of technology with him. 2 ipads, a laptop, 2 phones, camera charger etc. Would we benefit from bringing an extension lead (is this permitted?)

3) I would like to small amounts tip frequently. Is there a preferred currency on board? I will have Euro and £s on me but the small denominations are coins - will this be fine? I can change some into $ before leaving if necessary though, would just like to know what they prefer/find easiest.

4) I've heard mention of ordering from the MDR for room service. We would like to do this on the 2 formal nights since we do not want to take formalwear - but don't want to look out of place either so we'll just take a quiet relaxing evening. Who is the easiest person to speak to, can we order from room service or do we need to speak to our cabin attendant, or to the MDR themselves?

5) We have $300 on board credit due but we have already prebooked and pre-paid for drinks packages and all the excursions we want & I am pretty sure we pre-paid our tips too. We won't spend anymore on drinks because the package covers everything we would want, and we don't want to eat in specialty restaurants. What else is there to spend our OBC on, can we spend it in the stores on board? how about the casino? and what happens if we don't spend it all, does it just disappear?

Thanks very much if anyone can answer any of the above!

Mixed reviews don't bother me, because I know from experience that I'm a "glass half full" type of person and I'm much more likely to look on the positive side of things.. so as long as there are some good positive reviews coming through, I figure I'll be okay. Most negative things are entirely subjective; like food. I've never not enjoyed the food on a cruise ship because I have very simple food tastes and it's all luxury compared to what I eat at home.

If something important to me has consistently bad reviews and no one is saying much positive at all then it would definitely influence me.

Even if they didn't influence me, I find reviews super helpful, regardless of negative or positive, I always enjoy reading them.

There's a good list of general message board acronym's in the FAQ here as well

http://cruiseforums.cruisecritic.com/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_acronyms

Have a fantastic time, I'm sure it'll the first of many :D

We got married at 23 and went on our honeymoon on a 3 week cruise and it was the best thing ever - but all our family and friends thought we were crazy and said we'd hate it, pfft, it was the best holiday of my life.

Since then, we've been on 5 more cruises, with another scheduled for Oct. We are now in our 30s, and still on the lower end of the demographic. I still struggle with new friends and colleagues to share the excitement of a cruise because invariably someone will say "wow, aren't those full of old people?" I just try to educate them and tell them why I enjoy it, and fortunately after listening to me for a bit most people keep an open mind.. or at the very least, accept that I like something different to them.

Don't let negative people spoil your excitement :D You will have an amazing honeymoon. Warning though.. there will be one down side... you will become addicted to cruising!

The last 2 times I sailed from Southampton (not with celebrity though), they tried these staggered boardings. I just arrived early as usual, the terminals were never that busy but I was prepared to wait if they were.

Southampton terminal isn't that big and I think they just try to pre-empt any crowds by spreading it out a bit but they won't turn you away.

What does repo mean? I see this all the time and have yet to understand it

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In the context of cruising it usually means a repositioning cruise, where the cruise ends in a different place to where it started (one way cruises), because the cruise is going to a different schedule/area.

She was lovely and doing a great job, but it was just too personal and she even got to the point of greeting or parting with some passengers with a hug.

A staff member hugging someone unsolicited to say hi or bye in any situation is just weird, but I would be incredibly uncomfortable if I got a hug for going to the toilet.

Thanks for the review!

Looking forward to reading more!

Taken from the Caribbean Princess in the Norwegian Fjords:

Lots and lots of seabirds, more off the coast of Portugal, Spain and Morroco but plenty everywhere. Lots of sealife in the form of fish and an absolute ton of jellies in most places (beaches and swimming areas usually made safe with netting so don't worry about that). Seals and Turtles only really off the coast of Turkey I think. Dolphins and whales - maybe if lucky from the cruise ship! Most ports also have some sort of sealife trip and small boats have very good chances of whales/dolphins due to using local fishing boats as spotters throughout the day. Use a glass bottom boat and you also have chance of stingrays, octopus, lobster and maybe even sharks.

If you have an itinerary I could help a bit more detail, am a big nature enthusiast and bird watcher :)

If you are talking about the exchange rate, $125.60 is £75.60 right now so it would cost £1.50 more to book in advance assuming that your credit card offers market rates and no fee for foreign charges. Currency wise it's going to be a couple of quid either way depending on how your bank handles it. If you had the $'s in cash so there was no worry about bank charges you'd save £1.50 at those rates by booking on board based on current mid market rates.

The food is important to me from the point of view of not needing to cook, of having lots of options, of it being a decent quality and service, but if I wanted the finest restaurants I'd leave my apartment and walk around the city. Cruising is about the ultimate style of relaxing whilst travelling for me. I expect the food to be decent but it's not the most important thing.

Buying alcohol in supermarkets in the UK depends on their licensing from the local council. Some are granted 24 hour licensing, but not others - depending on the council and the venue size usually. If you do a google map directions for the route you should be able to find the closest supermarkets and then find out what hours they sell alcohol, I'm guessing a lot of really big superstores will be 24 hours. I know that my small local Tesco sells from 11am, but my large local Asda sells from 10am.

I'm sure a taxi driver will have no problem stopping somewhere on a meter. I also purchased 2 bottles wine for someone on my roll call last time as they were flying in with hand baggage only and could not buy it and we gave it to them at the terminal and they paid us the money back - you might find a kind soul on your roll call willing to do the same if you're looking for something specific.