Mrdell

1 hour ago, nyyhoneybee said:

Will the kids hate it? They will be 12, 11, 8, 7 & almost 3. 

 

This is for my oldest daughter's birthday and she chose it but I'm now second guessing myself. 

I would seriously reconsider… Beyond is definitely not geared to this age group. Have you considered checking the itineraries of NCL … Beyond is a beautiful ship but I think children would enjoy a cruise that has more fun things to do … just my opinion 

Sailing on Beyond now and we were given one also.

2 hours ago, keesar said:

I am happy you found Starlink as being dependable.  On our cruise in the Caribbean, FaceTime did not perform well even on the Premium Plan.  Even emails with photos were not consistent.  It may be due to the ship's location.

Could be…. The interesting thing is that on Beyond, every room has a Wi-Fi repeater in it…. No matter where you are on the ship the signal is full strength! Maybe that’s why the performance is a bit better… just a guess.

20 minutes ago, ByThePond said:

I tried doing a search but could find an answer. 
 

On another cruise line, I was able to use Apple iMessage on the free guest wifi (without using any internet package). Does this also work on Celebrity, and specifically on Equinox. 
 

I DO have “free minutes” with Elite but would rather not use them to iMessage family at home if not necessary. 

I don’t believe that this is possible on Celebrity…. I have had success myself doing this on NCL most of the time…. Sometimes messages would not go through but for the most part it was pretty dependable….. I must say that the new satellite internet on Celebrity ( I believe Starlink) is really dependable and quite fast… fast enough to stream YouTube and do FaceTime.

2 hours ago, paulh84 said:

It says if you do not pick a sail date within 1 year the deposit is refunded.

The agent we spoke to said that the expiration date is six months… not sure if this is new also.

1 hour ago, dogsdogs said:

Just a heads up on booking a future cruise deposit on board.  We are just off a B2B on Reflection over Christmas and NYE.  On the second cruise, we visited the Next Cruise office and were told that as of 1/1/24, your deposit on a "book later" cruise is no longer refundable.  We didn't know or we could have done it on the first leg of the B2B when it was refundable.  We left without doing it.

Very true… we are on Beyond and visited the Next Cruise Desk and was told that our deposit for a book later cruise is not refundable… we decided to not do it also.

2 hours ago, JDPCruisers said:

I do wonder of it is a location or more widespread beyond the IV cabins? Not sure I can get a sense of that from the report on here. 

It’s really strange that some cabins are perfect and others are terrible…. We were keeping our fingers crossed that we would be okay because of all the reports…. Really not fair that you should prepare for your vacation thinking of this noise issue.

52 minutes ago, Moby Jones said:

Currently aboard Beyond. I've seen a few posts on social media about creaking, banging and popping noises aboard the latest two E class XL ships Beyond and Ascent. 

We didn't hear anything over the first two nights, but last night we experienced a lot of creaking in our Sky Suite at the rear of deck 11. The creaking is from all around the verandah door and window area. We also had popping and banging noises from the walls. 

This morning we've noticed a lot of creaking all around the ship. From deck 4 to 16, bow to stern. The seas today are a little rougher and this really does seem to make a difference. 

Interestingly we've not had anything like this aboard cruises on Apex..... 

So unfortunate! This should not be swept under the rug. We are currently on Beyond also…. Seventh floor aft and our room is super quiet… sorry to hear of your experience.

4 minutes ago, CruiseRQA said:

I wonder if that fee would have been covered by travel medical insurance??

I’m guessing that it probably would be. Most insurance companies would pay as long as proper documentation is provided.

1 minute ago, BobbM81 said:

I can only speak to Apple but I can’t see how an android device would have an issue. I know Android’s can cast 

Having an iPad and an iPhone, this is incredibly good news!! Souds a little bit easier than fishing HDMI cables in the back of the TV.... although I've done this many times 😊.... Is there a pop up menu to enable casting?

25 minutes ago, BobbM81 said:

There was a cast option on our Beyond cruise in March. It took about 5 minutes of lagging before it would load but worked great. 

Would you happen to know if casting is enabled for both Apple products and Android devices?

2 hours ago, Hilaurennn said:

Hi everyone, I have a few more questions please!!

 

1. Celebrity formal nights - What exactly are these? Is it just compulsory formal dining? And how formal are we talking? Is everyone super fancy? 

 

2. WiFi - We are not going to go with the WiFi package. Can you still access your TV with WiFi? I'm guessing you may be able to watch Netflix and things but do you have to pay? 

Talking of TV, do you have access to prime, Netflix and can you screencast from your phone? 

 

Thanks!

You will be able to watch TV but only the stations that are supplied by the ship. Without WiFi you will not have access to Netflix, Prime, or any other streaming service. From past experience there really isn’t much decent programming to keep you entertained provided from the ships stations.

32 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

When connected to a wifi network either at home or anywhere else your provider will be listed as "Verizon WiFi" and any calls you make or receive will be via wifi, not your cellular connection.

 

I know most of us have unlimited voice calling time on cellular now but I still find using WiFi calling at home transparent so leave it enabled all the time.

 

At times one the ship I will notice that my carrier doesn't indicate the WiFi version.  I presume wifi bandwidth is not suitable to support calling.  At times if I reboot my phone it will re-enable.

 

In addition to wifi calling you will be able to send/receive SMS texts as well.  iMessage and WhatsApp texts will work with just wifi (don't need WiFi Calling).

Sounds good! I will be sailing on Beyond which I believe has pretty good service because of Starlink so hopefully all should be fairly smooth. 😊

7 minutes ago, Charles4515 said:

Your home address should be entered for WiFi calling. Verizon’s network can determine you are not at home. In your case out to sea if you call 911. You should enable it WiFi calling at home. 

Thank you for this info... I just went through all the settings to enable WiFi calling at home and entered my home address. Everything was accepted and looks like I'm good to go! Thank You!!

4 minutes ago, paulh84 said:

 

That's the physical location that gets passed to 911 if you had an emergency. Typically that would be your home address. If this is your first time setting up WiFi calling you will run into some issues since the initial setup needs access to the Verizon network. 

Thank you so Much!!

3 minutes ago, markeb said:

Just put in your home address. Don’t use 911 on the ship though. It will probably ring your local dispatch at home…

Thank you so much!!

On 12/31/2023 at 5:11 PM, Charles4515 said:

Just a heads up if have your phone in Airplane mode with wifi on and buy a wifi package you can do WiFi calling where you won't get charged for calls. Wifi calling does need to be enabled ahead of time. 

I have a question if anyone can answer…. I have Verizon as a Cell phone provider and when I enable WiFi calling on my iPhone a window appears to enter an address for 911 emergency services and then to change the address if switching locations….. Not sure what to do seeing as we are out to sea? Does anyone else see this prompt? Thanks 

2 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

I believe it may depend on the cabin class you are in.     All the upper suites I've been in CS, RS and PH the TV's are fixed to the wall.    I have however always been able to get my hand in back and put an HDMI extender in to make it easier to plug my HDMI device in.

 

A RS was especially hard and I had the Butler call IT who came up and installed it for me.  

 

Unlike some of the older Samsung the ones I've experience on Edge Class have the ports in about 9" from the right edge of the TV.   

 

Last month I brought along a pair of Long Forecepts and they helped. 

 

Thanks so much!! Very helpful! …. I also am taking a universal remote (Samsung programming)  to hopefully switch imputs. 😊

Just wondering if anyone can tell me if the televisions in the Beyond staterooms can be pulled out slightly to access the HDMI ports…. I wanted to play some videos if we were resting a little in our cabin…. Thank you 

17 minutes ago, Cruise a holic said:

Maybe I shouldn't sail with that company- Who knows!  We love cruising but the prices are now obscene.

So unfortunate that their website and customer support is lacking…. We did end up cruising with them, and I must say we really had a very nice time. The ship was beautiful and being a “people person “ we enjoyed talking to the many people that were on board from Europe on our sailing. The theatre shows were not quite as good as Celebrity but in my opinion not a deal breaker.

2 hours ago, Cruise a holic said:

We cannot locate a good TA for MSC.  Also, we tried filling out the form for getting reciprocity from celebrity we are Elite plus.  The form asks for the Canptains club ID card- don't have one.

Same problem here… Our TA refused to deal with them telling us the wait time on hold was unbearable, and a few times final payments were processed twice with long delays to reverse charges to customers credit cards!

5 minutes ago, jelayne said:

Of course putting wine in your checked luggage can delay the delivery of your luggage until you go to security to allow them to open and inspect the contents.  .

Very true… so glad you mentioned that…. I’ll be happy with the two allowed carry on bottles!

Doing our first Celebrity cruise in quite some time and was wondering if guests are still allowed to bring on two one liter bottles of wine when boarding as before. ….Also, if allowed, would that be two one liter bottles per person or per cabin. Thanks so much!

On 4/12/2023 at 3:25 PM, oceanbeau10 said:

We were on the Beyond last week, and there was "no noise" in our cabin, 7299.  We absolutely loved the infinite veranda!!!!  Some nights we slept with the window down, it felt great hearing the ocean!  Infinite veranda is our favorite!

Thanks so much for the info… we have cabin 7297 booked (right next door) and we were getting a little nervous hearing about this noise issue!

3 hours ago, UKstages said:

 

they don't have to have an iPhone, but they do have to have an apple device that supports FaceTime. it could be a computer or tablet (iPad) or a phone.

That should work fine!! As long as they have an Apple device you should have no problem!