cyntil8ing

This summer, we stayed at The Clermont, Charing Cross. Lovely historic hotel, steps to Charing Cross and Embankment stations, and easy walk across the bridge to Waterloo station, great rooms, comfortable king beds, great buffet breakfast (included),  mini-bar (also included) for about $275/night (before taxes) via Priceline. I dithered for months reading reviews and looking at airbnbs. We couldn't have been happier with our choice.

Thanks for this. Hope some others will post too.
 

i  just booked Harmony for next summer. It will be our first time on any Oasis class ship. 

Just booked for August 18th. We've never booked so far in advance before. Good thing I have two other cruises beforehand to keep me from going crazy. We did Europe on Pride this summer and had a fantastic time. 

I agree though about all the sea days! Five in a row at the beginning. I'll have to get Cheers.

My son's school schedule for 24/25 isn't out yet, but I hope they continue with the post Labor Day start, or we will be canceling.

I am so sorry for your loss. Like @Drazil65above, I too have been through this. My mom passed in July 2017 and we cruised for Christmas that December. My parents were married 53 years.

My dad was seeing a grief counselor, so the holidays and the cruise were topics of discussion for weeks. For the cruise, he brought along a photo and the stuffed bear he bought for Mom when she was in the hospital. My dad was always a pretty emotional guy, both good and bad, so we could usually read him pretty easily. We completely followed his lead. We never tried to pull him along into activities, or push him to do anything if he was resistant. At the same time, we didn't leave a lot of down time for him. He shared a cabin with my son, so he was never really alone. There were ups and downs, but overall I'd say it was successful.

My advice is to keep expectations as low as possible and be very patient. Good luck!

Sorry, but this question has been nagging me for days. Do you use the same password on all of your accounts? Because I cannot imagine how multiple banks and multiple credit cards were all hit at the same time. Did you recently install any software based on a call from Microsoft? Did a household employee suddenly disappear? Did a family member recently seem to come into some money? Are the police involved? 

I am sorry this happened to you and sorry you had to cancel. I'm really interested in how it occurred, because the usual ways wouldn't involve multiple banks and credit card issuers.

We have had kids in one booking, mom and dad in another. Our son was stopped trying to get off the ship ahead of us. Once we said he was ours, it was not an issue.

Teens 16 and over can use the fitness center and Solarium on their own, and the spa with a guardian. 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/the-spa

23 minutes ago, PTC DAWG said:

All it takes is one kid I a group to say something isn’t “cool”..and that’s it ,it’s not cool. I can hear one now, that stuff is for little kids. 

Honestly, one of the fun things about taking teens cruising for Christmas is it allows them to be little kids again. They looked forward to doing some of the ship's activities, caroling, cookie decorating, gingerbread house making, coloring, and yes, even visiting Santa! It was almost like having my babies back for a moment or two.

I was sad the oldest didn't want to cruise this Christmas, but instead my husband and I will be going by ourselves the week before. This is the first time that's happened since 2015!

My kids were 16 and 13 when we took them on Edge for Christmas in 2019. They had a great time! They've been on about a dozen Celebrity cruises, along with another dozen on Carnival and RCCL.

They're used to entertaining themselves and most importantly, they still like hanging out with us. They love the ports, the food, the shows, the live music around the ship, the silent disco and occasionally trivia. They use the app and always find something to add to their schedule. I've never heard them say "I'm bored". My son discovered the teen clubs this summer and really enjoyed himself, but neither of them have ever been into the kids clubs.

Here's our photo album from that cruise -- happy, smiling faces. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/hU893tVRehasGiXh7

Did you see/read/hear anything about a Vueve Clicquot Dinner? We board in five weeks, but I think our occupancy may be even lower than yours. There are hundreds of cabins still available. I am saving some OBC to do this, but am afraid there won’t be enough interest for it to run.

And I think timing a cruise for Election week was very smart! Years ago, my husband was a candidate in a school board race, and we booked a cruise the weekend after the election. It was great having it to look forward to during those final campaign weeks.

Wash your hands. It’s the right thing to do.

It’s easier when you only have two.

Love that song! My family calls it Wash Your Hands or Die. It used to be played at the muster drill.

You’re comparing ocean view to inside.

But maybe book two cabins? We’ve booked dad and son in one and mom and daughter in another. Sometimes close by, other time on entirely different decks. 

23 hours ago, Lialovestotravel said:

Hope you enjoy the review & have a great trip.  Highly recommend spending a day in OSJ before the cruise if you can.  Loved the Millennium and the southern Caribbean!

Thanks. This is our 5th time leaving from San Juan, not to mention a handful of port stop days. We love Puerto Rico and when we can, leave San Juan, with past stays in Fajardo and Ponce. Next time we have extra days, we will head west to Rincon, or maybe really east to Vieques. This trip we are time limited, so just coming in the day before and staying in Condado area. We have a reservation at one of my favorites, Jose Enrique, for dinner. 

Following along. We are doing (sort of) this cruise in six weeks. Our's starts in San Juan, but ends in Ft. Lauderdale on Christmas Eve.  I've done the Southern Caribbean on Summit a couple of times before, but this will be our first time on Millennium.

Cruise passengers always go through Customs and Immigration at the first US port after visiting a foreign port. We learned the hard way to look at itineraries carefully after taking a cruise where Key West was a stop at the end of the cruise instead of at the beginning. In the handful of times we've had to do it, the customs officers were onboard and we had to wait in a huge line that wrapped the length of the ship.

One would think in Miami, they'd have the process down to a science. Sorry it was such a mess.

I haven't done either yet, but just went through the same decision making process for our upcoming December cruise. We usually just walk to Junkanoo and have a great time, but this time we have some OBC to burn, so we booked an excursion. We ended up choosing Blue Lagoon. Mostly because of the video below. 

If you have onboard internet access and want to make/receive calls, before the cruise make sure wi-fi calling is enabled. If you have an iPhone, it's in the Phone settings.

Once onboard, put the phone into airplane mode. If you want to use the Celebrity app, connect to the ship's wi-fi. You do not have to have an internet package to do that.

On the top row of the app, click on the Ship icon. You'll see a screen like the following. Click on Dining.

At the top, select Main Dining

Select Blu Restaurant

Click on Menu. Scroll through days at the bottom.

33 minutes ago, canderson said:

Carnival does, after all, have a bit of a reputation as of late. 

I didn't say it was totally untrue, just that my personal experience is the opposite, which is why it amuses me.

I always get such a kick out of the number of mentions of fights when Carnival vs Celebrity comes up. The one and only brawl I have ever witnessed onboard was on Celebrity. It was in the upper level of the dining room on a Bermuda cruise. I thought for sure someone was going to get pitched over the railing. It took security forever to show up. That would not be the case on Carnival. 

That said, I've been on 15-ish of either line and honestly, they're not hugely different when comparing like-for-like (departure port, cruise length). Yes, Carnival has more active fun and an upbeat vibe with outgoing (and often loud) passengers, but there are tons of friendly folks on Celebrity too. The biggest difference is the number of children onboard. I like the energy kids bring, and honestly, their misbehavior bothers me less than badly behaved adults. I've seen more of that, yelling at crew especially, on Celebrity.

29 minutes ago, LB_NJ said:

 

Is this still true these days now that there is bidding?

Yes, of course. They will always sell you an upgrade as long as cabins are available. I assume once the MoveUp process begins, the cabins are no longer available.

We have a SS on our December cruise. Since it's DH's birthday, I've quietly had my TA check for a "surprise" RS upgrade. It came back as $7,500. Too much for me!

I made a MoveUp offer of significantly less than that, but still higher than the minimum (which was $800pp). I keep watching prices and availability daily. I'll have my TA check again if the price drops.

Maybe? We did it this summer.That day, I was pretty stressed about time management, and the only thing we got to do was go to the top of the Eiffel Tower (which required pre-planning a month ahead for tickets). No coffee at a nice little cafe, or lunch at a nice restaurant. Instead, we bought a baguette from a convenience store. That said, it was quite an experience, and looking back now, a few months later, I am glad we went. But no, I would not do it again on a second visit to Le Havre.

Review with more here, including our four days in London pre-cruise: 

28 minutes ago, cruise47 said:

Is it true that Carnival used paper plates and plastic forks and spoons in their buffet areas?

Is this a serious question? Plates and bowls are plastic. Silverware is rolled in cloth napkins.

Oh, but Guys Burgers are served on a metal plate with a paper liner. They're delicious!

I am not a buffet fan on any line, but I think Carnival is way ahead of Celebrity in choices for free dining -- Guy's Burgers, Carnival Deli, Blue Iguana Cantina, Pig & Anchor BBQ, Shaq's Chicken, Captain's Pasta Bar, Mongolian Wok, etc. Their pizza is very good and it's always available (almost 24 hours)! You didn't mention which ship, but I assume an older one. We haven't cruised anything newer than Carnival Vista (2017), so we haven't had Shaq's Chicken yet, but the others are prepared to order and served hot. The only time we visit Lido is for a quick breakfast.

We've been on over a dozen each on Celebrity and Carnival and are Elite/Platinum respectively. Our 12 day Europe cruise on Carnival Pride this summer was excellent. I joked that it felt very Celebrity-like as our fellow cruisers were generally older, there weren't tons of kids, and the ship's activity pretty much ended at midnight. We are coming back to Celebrity for our December cruise, but we'll continue to enjoy both. 

The final night of a cruise, we accidentally packed my son's shoes and set out the luggage. Thankfully, we had these for him to wear off the ship. He was too embarrassed to go to breakfast. By the time we got to the airport, he decided he was fashionable and didn't want to change.