JeffT237

@wolfie11 Thank you, I figured there are other factors such as the tide and weather to take into account so there's probably not a definitive answer to exact location. More of a general location which you answered, thanks!

I will be sailing on the Celebrity Summit Northbound route late August this year. We chose this cruise because our schedule changed and opened up this week for the opportunity to book an Alaska cruise, we just booked and availability on the cabin type we wanted was limited on all lines. I'm aware of the pros and cons of the different itineraries and we have done Glacier Bay before, it was spectacular. Our scheduled departure time from Vancouver is at 4:00pm and barring anything unforeseen we should be sailing east of Vancouver Island and under the Lions Gate Bridge. To those of you who have done this route, with a forecasted sunset at around 8:00pm and a sunrise forecasted around 6:25am how far into the passage should we expect to be until we hit darkness, and will we be north of Vancouver Island at sunrise? I'm expecting most of the passage through the Seymour Narrows and Johnstone Strait will be in darkness, just trying to get an idea of what to expect. Thanks!

First off I am not a Princess loyalist. We leave in 2 weeks on a Royal Caribbean ship and our upcoming Alaska cruise is on Celebrity. Plenty of complaints on those boards as well, and many long term cruisers of those brands finding new cruise lines to sail with. We sailed twice with Princess in 2022, the first being the Crown to Alaska in May of 22 that had the propulsion and other issues. Many felt Princess was not transparent until right before we sailed and it led to a lot of angry passengers that said they were done with Princess. Many felt the Princess corporation handled it poorly and did not make it right initially. The issues with the Sun Princess are entirely worse as 2 cruises have already been cancelled with little notice. Princess cruisers and new cruisers will return. My point is this will be a bump in the road for Princess, they will continue to be the cruise line of choice for many loyalists. Familiartity, Status and perks go a long way to satisfy loyalists for all of the cruise lines. Word does spread fast but it is mostly click bait, read the headline and move on to the next controversy of the day. I'm not sure CC is really their target audience anyways. CC is a small group of the cruise world as almost 32 million sailed last year. Not that many members here. I think these days their target audience is younger newer cruisers who document their trip on social media and spend a lot on upsell items and experiences. Despite the Carnival "poop cruise", Costa Concordia's sinking, high prices, cutbacks on all lines and all of the issues with the early pandemic and passengers being stuck on board the industry has bounced back and is stronger than ever. Princess will be fine.

My apologies to those arguing over entertainment as I had not read the entire thread, @Vegamatic these are my opinions on Alaska. Scenery and excursions were more important than entertainment for us.

We did our first Alaska cruise in May of 2022 with Princess round trip out of Seattle, they too advertised it as the "inside passage" which we have found to be a very generic term that all of the cruise lines offer. We would not do another Seattle round trip, it felt like more open ocean sailing than sightseeing like we expected, shorter port times and we felt the necessary Victoria stop at night was a waste (we also got in late). I would agree for a first Alaska cruise we would include Glacier Bay, and a one way Northbound or Southbound to experience the true inside passage that travels east of Vancouver Island. In reading your post I'm assuming this is your first time planning an Alaskan cruise? I would do a ton of research online and on You Tube. We enjoyed our Seattle roundtrip but it is not exactly what we expected and we left a little disappointed. We did thoroughly enjoy Glacier Bay, we had a spectacular sunny day. We are sailing this August Northbound from Vancouver and we're hoping to get all of the experiences that we feel we missed on our last cruise to Alaska. Another thing to consider is excursions, they are expensive and the popular ones sell out quickly which means deciding on a cruise itinerary and booking early is important. 100% agree, loyalty status is important too many, but I think Alaska is the exception. I would go for the best itinerary that fits your needs.

Quote from the author's article: "$200-a-person supper club perfect for Instagram." This is such a main driver for upsells, social media and YouTube. Businesses know it and it's why IMO we'll continue to see more and more upsells. Many people like the concept of exclusivity, combine that with the ability to share it in real time and it becomes even more appealing for some. The fancier shakes not only on the Icon but Princess has them too, may taste good but they also look good on Instagram. Many are willing to pay for that. Upsells are easy for us, we know what we like and what our budget is and spend accordingly. We have no problem saying no to what we don't want and still have an enjoyable cruise, after all upsells are just choices not necessities.

I was thinking the same thing

We did the Chef's Table on our Wonder cruise last March, we really did enjoy it we were cruising with another couple who joined us and the other 2 couples who we were seated with were a lot of fun, it led to an enjoyable evening. The wine pairing is included, I don't think you'll have any trouble getting an entire group but on the Wonder it was limited to eight seats, might depend on the ship and the area they have the Chef's Table in as to how many total guests they can have per seating. You should be able to find the menu and wine selections online. We sail in 3 weeks and I just looked at our cruise planner and every night is available expect for Day 2.

Andy C was playing last year on our Wonder cruise as well, agree he was the star. Really enjoyed his performances and the Schooner Bar was always crowded when he entertained. I saw a recent You Tube video from the Icon and he was playing there.

We will be new Celebrity cruisers, Alaska in August on the Summit. We are really excited for this upcoming cruise. We are in our mid 50's and have cruised, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Princess, mostly Royal and mostly on the Oasis class lately. We also do land based travel, our last trip was Hawaii this past August. We always go for balconies and above, we'll be Aqua Class for this cruise, enjoy speciality dining including Chef's tables and have cruised with a drink package and without as we know how much we drink and what makes sense to us. We've enjoyed all of or cruises and have found that most of the experiences and offerings have been more similar than different. Of course demographics and amenities change due to the itinerary and class of ship and we've pretty much known what to expect even before boarding. I'm pretty confident we'll have a great Celebrity experience. There's no doubt the cruising experience has changed, however we're OK with the current format. To us the "nickel and diming" that goes on keeps the base fares low and lets us chose where and how to spend our travel dollars. Now being new to Celebrity we are not as impacted by the loss of services, we don't really know what we're missing other than what we've read. I am research heavy like most cruisers and I find it helpful but take it with a grain of salt. Most of what I see on CC or You Tube can be helpful but also I've found a lot of it embellished, or because of frustration over stated to put it mildly. Looking forward to completing our first Celebrity cruise, Happy Cruising all!

I think you added the 20% gratuity as a mistake, we just upgraded our Wi-Fi and there was no gratuity.

I will be a new Celebrity cruiser, our upcoming August cruise will be our first. We've sailed primarily Royal Caribbean, a couple of recent Princess and Carnival in the past. The complaining goes on on those boards too, but I'd say Royal leads the pack as far as complainers go (I'm sure this comment will make it back over there!), it has really gotten toxic over there. Celebrity seems pretty mild IMO so far. I'm really looking forward to our upcoming Celebrity cruise! I have no issues with negative reviews, I've posted one before. But some posters routinely have nothing but complaints about everything. I wonder why some of these cruisers still cruise.

This will be our first Celebrity cruise, we are on the Summit northbound to Alaska in August. Coming from the Royal Caribbean side I am familiar with the dynamic pricing and the need to check frequently for pre-cruise purchase price drops and how that process works. With Royal I have a pretty good idea of what the lowest price drop will be for most items I purchase. Is the $8.99 +20% about the lowest I could expect or have you seen it lower? Currently ours is offered at 5% off for $13.99 +20%. Thanks!

I have also received it as a firefighter in the past, and as others have said it's not always available. I am retired now so have not checked however our TA knows our history and C&A status and always just checks them all and get's us the best rate. It seems like his companies group rate with included perks always works out to the best price for us.

We recently booked our first cruise with Celebrity also on the Summit to Alaska for this upcoming August. Our TA got us the group rate that also included the classic drink package, basic Wi-Fi, gratuities and some OBC. Looking at the cruise planner I see I have the ability to upgrade the drink package and Wi-Fi to the premium. I also see on the planner the ability to purchase all levels of the drink packages and both Wi-Fi levels individually. When I did a mock booking for pricing I was given the option of cruise only or an all included rate that had the drink package and Wi-Fi.

Tipping threads are so last year, I think the masses have moved on to the quality of the food!

Yes I remember that, We had that $18.99 offer for our Ovation of the Seas Alaska cruise that was cancelled

I apologize for being lazy and only reading the article posted and letter from Royal. I didn't do my proper research of going back and looking at Australia's current Covid policies, previous cancelled or denied boardings from Covid, consult social media and YouTube for the true motive, and put the puzzle together to come up with the correct conclusion that this couple who planned and paid for a vacation showed up at the port and were denied boarding by Royal who came up with the transparent excuse of overselling a cruise to hide their true sinister motives. Shame on those passengers, they should get nothing from Royal.

How is this a Covid issue and Australia's Covid policies? Reading the letter and article it seems like Royal admitted what the issue was: "Royal Caribbean confirmed it had oversold its cruise in a statement to news.com.au." It does seem like light on the compensation for the impact of not being able to take the cruise they planned and paid for IMO. I think most of us who cruise and post on CC would be frustrated as well.

It's very inconsistent but in the past it's been 30-45 days in advance that they have become available to book in your cruise planner. My last few cruises they have all been different, one was right at 45 days, one was the 1st day of the month prior to my month of my sail date so my current March sailing on the Harmony should have opened Feb 1st which it did not. I still can not reserve any entertainment and I am exactly 30 days out. I would start checking regularly when your cruise is 45 days out.

Planning on taking the motor coach transfer to Anchorage, arranging flights home now. I just assumed that to make the early bus we'd have to do self disembarkation. Thanks all for answering, very helpful

Yeah, my bad I forgot the Panorama was in LA. Haven't kept up much with Carnival since our last cruise on the Magic several years ago out of Galveston. I think it was the Splendor that was here for a while when she was new. We did sail on the Discovery Princess last year on the California coastal cruise and enjoyed that cruise however the Discovery is not here full time. Back to Royal, hope they do put something new here!

I would love to see a newer ship in Los Angeles full time, as this is our home port. When we first started cruising in the 90s we only sailed from Los Angeles and Long Beach, but after our first Caribbean cruise on a newer ship in the early 2000s we've regularly flown to Galveston or the Florida ports. We like the newer ships and the Caribbean ports much better than the Pacific side of Mexico. Growing up in Southern California we have regularly taken trips to many of these areas, Mexico has changed a lot. But we'd consider returning to sailing from our home port on a newer ship, especially a Quantum class ship since we've yet to sail on one. There's a reason why we always have the older ships here, I think Carnival had one of their newest ships at the time here several years ago only to have it replaced by an older ship now.

Hello all, I just excitedly booked my first Celebrity cruise this morning and thought I'd browse the Celebrity boards to see what's up. Good to see the boards are no different than the Royal Caribbean and Princess boards who we normally cruise with so I can feel right at home! (sarcasm) A good dress code debate to start my cruise research is always the way to go, maybe I can be lucky enough to find a tipping thread next! Happy cruising all!

Can anyone please share any personal experiences with self disembarkation in Seward? Efficient and easy to get off? We have a 6:00am arrival time in September on the Celebrity Summit, 1st time Celebrity cruisers and 1st time Seward for us, just trying to plan our transfer to Anchorage. Thanks!