NutsAboutGolf

Give us your top five pros and top five cons; that's a great summarized balanced review

Just googled my model:

Meh, 6 days, no Maui and no Kauai is a no for me. It's not that difficult to visit all the islands by land. Get a hotel in Oahu your entire stay, one day keep your bags in the Oahu hotel room, take the first flight out to Maui (for example), rent a car at the airport, drive around, and take the last flight back to Oahu. Repeat for the other islands you want to visit

It is pretty rare to find a battery-less corded electric toothbrush; most models should last a sailing or two. My Sonicare made it 10 nights (brush at least 3 times a day on cruises) without needing a recharge, I'm sure it could have lasted longer

If you have the glass cup charger, it can look like a drinking glass when off its charging base so be sure to always keep the glass on the base so the stateroom attendant doesn't accidentally grab it. I cleaned mine and left it upside down to dry, it was accidentally taken by the stateroom attendant and he never found it. Not a huge deal, lesson learned

WaterPik. FYI, its NOT a floss replacement but rather a companion; one of my best friends is a dentist and Waterpik's replacing flossing is a huge trigger for her (lol)

Are you sure you're not thinking of another cruise line? I've never seen one on X

Per sailing, there's generally one comedian show and one magic show with all the rest being some form of a musical

The freshly baked cookie reportedly was better and while food is subjective, a freshly baked cookie will be softer than a room-temperature cookie. Ironically, they removed the fresh cookie due to the nickel and dimeing outrage. It would have turned things from a negative to a positive if they still offered them but for free. Even including the labor each cookie can't cost X more than a quarter meaning it would only cost X a few thousand at most X has never been known for their complimentary baked goods, the most raved-about dessert of all time on any cruise ship is the Carnival chocolate melting cake, go figure. X's free cookies are too hard and are almost flavorless aside from one subtle but odd flavor that figuratively and literally, left a bad taste in my mouth. X;s free peanut butter cookies, both the regular and the low-sugar, are much better than all of their other cookie flavors

Your story reminds us why we should all buy Airtags or a similar tracking device as it's your greatest odds of recovering lost/misplaced bags. It's money well spent to avoid situations like this as you know exactly where your bag is In 2019 out of Seattle, my valeted bag didn't make it to my home airport. Filed a claim with Celebrity which left a lot to be desired. Tried to file a travel insurance claim with my credit card but unless Celebrity or the airline admits they lost it (which they won't) travel insurance will be denied as delayed/lost baggage valet service is a 3rd party. It's reported some travel insurance policies will let you include luggage valet yet you have to let them know the valet is 3rd party independent of the cruise line/airline. For my 2019 lost bag, after reaching out to the Exec Office one week later which was turnaround day, the Exec Office emailed me that they found my bag and would ship it to me. I asked what happened and they said they were not sure but were happy to find it for me. Two days after receiving the baggage, I received an update from my celebrity lost bag claim which was they still hadn't found it yet (lol)

Mainly because I don't like their free chocolate chip cookies I would have tried the fee cookie. It was the equinox and made the gelato cone waffle iron. The outrage on here was vanilla compared to the Equinox social media page where folks post a lot more impulsively and there's less moderation

Yet those are "positive critics" who disingenuously omit the negative truths in the interest of receiving free cruises later Just also pointing out that "cookiegate" outrage wasn't here on the boards, it was on social media groups. X hadn't yet publically responded to negative criticism of the new fees or cutbacks since the restart but did so thanks to cookiegate. While addressing cookiegate, they also responded to the MDR food and I give X credit for reversing some of their MDR cutbacks

Good read on that. Yet some of the best drink service on the ship are the buffet drink wait staff. It can take you 10 minutes to find an open table and perhaps another 10 minutes for it to be bussed and cleaned but during that time there’s good odds you’ve already been asked twice if you’d like a drink

Purely positive (and purely negative) critics are “flawed logic” as you’ll never know if they are intentionally hiding the truth. With “positive critic” cruise bloggers, one should be extra careful because the popular ones are often given free cruises. They’ll even double down in bending the truth by saying something like “disclaimer, yeah the cruise line gave me a free cruise but it wasn’t really free, I had to pay for business class airfare for two on my own”. They’re still going to hide the negatives in hopes they continue to receive free future cruises

Like most of travel, they used occupancy based dynamic pricing. This is why often a SV is more than AQ. Some of the cheaper sailings as repos including TAs/PTs, the Mexican west coast and sailings that include Puerto Rico

It actually caused me pain to see someone considering to continue stay on the ship vs seeing Singapore. You won’t even remember the last day from any other day on the ship, you will remember Singapore. So much to see, do and eat, they have street food that’s Michelin starred, several items for $10 USD or less. The airport has early baggage drop for most airlines (research yours) and the MBS casino has free (unless they changed it) luggage storage even if you drop off your luggage and immediately leave without gambling

Most sailings are close to full capacity so they no longer need to attempt to fill ship with gamblers. Generally if you look at available stateroom inventory on BCC sailing offers, you’ll see they’re not yet full

Email them as their email is in their signature; you’re not allowed to recommend TAs on this site

You have a great point, I’m just mentioning that often, if one is willing to consider a land based location in Asia, they can have superior food and accommodation at a cheaper price. Of course do your research vs blindly booking something. Bangkok has some cheap eats including street food, restaurant food for $3 USD for a bottle of water and a thai food dish like pad Thai and Michelin star restaurants that are cheaper than most ill also mention that Cancun/playa del Carmen all inclusives are usually the cheapest “Caribbean” land based option

It’s quite the oxymoron as this site is called cruise CRITIC. Perhaps someone should launch a “celebrity is always perfect and can never do anything wrong” type of website

The dedicated ones which sort of look like separate toilets are becoming extinct due to the add on to any toilet versions which can weigh as little as a pound

I think the better question to ask is not when the ship will start boarding but rather what time does the terminal open

You should ask if they actually ordered it, if yes what the charge is and which ship. In the past, the answer was no and we have one datapoint that the reflection is not charging a fee

“Should I carry on or porter check my bidet?”

My opinion is that there is nothing wrong with that yet am pointing out those who think the pricing will level off or inevitably decrease should rethink their views based on those earning calls. In 2023, carnival elevated their food quality and selection while RCI and X (idk about SS, I don’t follow them) decreased theirs Two questionable short live food additions gave off “royalization” vibe which were the MDR dinner double cheeseburger and the for a few cookie replacing one the free ones (free ones were still available at the buffet but not everyone realized that)