Tiggertastic

Hi

were coming in the day before cruise and staying 2 nights after. Please recommend to us hotels and things to do. We’ve never been to Tampa and coming from U.K. usually sail from Miami or FLL but doing something new.

 thanks in advance 

Hi everyone

in England we have the NHS App that shows both vaccines and our booster. The celebrity App at check in pre travel asks us to provide the front and back of the covid vaccine card. We don’t have a card.
 

one of us photographed each vaccine and uploaded photos, the other downloaded the covid pass and uploaded it to celebrity app.

2 weeks later, neither have been accepted 

any ideas on how to fix as all I got from celebrity was a ‘not sure’.

thanks

13 hours ago, Redtravel said:

Crews may not be fully vaccinated.  Question was asked on another cruise line forum. If everyone on the ship must be vaccinated, why the need for masks or social distancing?  Guests must be vaccinated. Crew may not be vaccinated yet. The crew comes from many countries that haven’t had vaccines.  That means everyone on the ship must wear masks and distance.  

Masks and social distancing are also still needed when vaccinated for a few reasons

- it takes 2 weeks from 2nd vaccine for the antibody level to be reached

- vaccines do not prevent getting covid, they only lesson the symptoms

- you can still get covid and pass it on if vaccinated

so even if 100% are vaccinated, test are still needed to prevent a spread from one to another

On 3/30/2021 at 12:52 PM, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

My guess is they were able to secure vaccines through the government for SXM departures but couldn’t in the UK. Many of the UK only cruises across several lines do not have a vaccine requirement. 

Maybe they did the same for Greece. A bit tone deaf since Greece was seeing a second peak in cases at 97% of their first peak and having barely 5% of their population vaccinated the day those cruises were announced.

 

So MSC being the first to sail a U.K. only cruise as you say isn’t insisting on 2 vaccines. However that’s because they wouldn’t be able to fill the restricted cabins. U.K. is currently on cohorts 9 invitation first vaccine and cohorts 1-3 2nd. 
 

Instead MSC want a full pcr negative certificate dated in 72 hours of embarkation for those who have not had 2 vaccines and 100% guests over the age of 2 will be swab tested at the pier and wait 2 hours for the results. 
 

it will have undertaken 6-8 cruises before silhouette sails, hopefully providing some learning. Again the U.K. vaccination timetable will have reached cohort 3-5 for 2nd at that stage. So if you’re over 70, work in healthcare or have clinical vulnerability, those are the only that truly would have had 2 doses. Not a fantastic scenario to fill a must be vaccinated cruise but we’d have lots of healthcare expertise on board if it was.

The U.K. is doing it’s vaccines 11-12 weeks apart, that has a massive bearing on the decision to be fully vaccinated or not. As the U.K. will also not allow vaccines to be paid for, due to the NHS system, then those from other countries won’t be on the list.

We were booked on this last year and have it booked this year. We’ve been to a few of these ports and they are great places.

Barcelona itself has one of the best hoho tours because it’s so spread out, the gaudi places especially the cathedral is a must see.

lisbon has so much to see

Don’t worry about the infinity, it’s a lovely ship, yes it’s smaller and doesn’t have the bells and whistles of the apex but it’s got a great atmosphere and feels homely.

Sadly too expensive for us as the flights from the U.K. add another £2k. Keeping my fingers crossed for the med in August 

20 hours ago, Tiggertastic said:

I’m nearer celebrating. So I got an email at the end of January giving me a voucher code for an fcc. It had no value on it but said if you want a refund to email the voucher code back to them which I did.

 

This week I got an email saying that they wanted me to give them my bank account number and sort code as ‘the payment was more than 12 months old they are no longer holding card details’. That’s not true, it’s not more than 12 months and as I paid by credit card I didn’t want to give me bank details by email.

 

I have to say the girl in finance was brilliant, I spoke to her and all she wanted was payment date and last 4 digits of card paid. She located the deposit and balance from one card and the excursions, meals, spa on another. 20 minutes later I got an email saying they’d processed a refund and we should get it in 7-10 days. Fingers crossed because if we do it means we got it between 110 and 120 days.

 

In comparison, celebrity cruises paid up in 5 days from cancel to money hitting the bank

 

ncl have made a right mess of it, they cancelled the cruise and within 48 hours issued an invoice saying we’d forfeited £2200 and getting £242 refund only on one cabin and giving us £500 and missing £1100 on another. 3 weeks later they’re saying they will sort it but who knows when?

 

so whilst MSC take forever, I can’t say they’ve been the worst 

 

 

And just like that the money for the MSC cruise hit our credit cards in 48 hours from the email. So that’s 105 days for us. 
 

we also got an fcc from ncl for part of the £2200 missing so we move forward a little at a time.

I’m nearer celebrating. So I got an email at the end of January giving me a voucher code for an fcc. It had no value on it but said if you want a refund to email the voucher code back to them which I did.

This week I got an email saying that they wanted me to give them my bank account number and sort code as ‘the payment was more than 12 months old they are no longer holding card details’. That’s not true, it’s not more than 12 months and as I paid by credit card I didn’t want to give me bank details by email.

I have to say the girl in finance was brilliant, I spoke to her and all she wanted was payment date and last 4 digits of card paid. She located the deposit and balance from one card and the excursions, meals, spa on another. 20 minutes later I got an email saying they’d processed a refund and we should get it in 7-10 days. Fingers crossed because if we do it means we got it between 110 and 120 days.

In comparison, celebrity cruises paid up in 5 days from cancel to money hitting the bank

ncl have made a right mess of it, they cancelled the cruise and within 48 hours issued an invoice saying we’d forfeited £2200 and getting £242 refund only on one cabin and giving us £500 and missing £1100 on another. 3 weeks later they’re saying they will sort it but who knows when?

so whilst MSC take forever, I can’t say they’ve been the worst 

I spoke to MSC today as I’d never received my FCC. I was told they’re working on august 20 refunds right now, taking them by sail date. So that could mean another 4 months for me.

he told me to email to get my FCC sent as it’s sat on their system then email it back to the same email address to get my refund, arduous indeed.

Off to the credit card company we go
 

we’ve taken over 70 cruises, had 7 cancelled in the pandemic. Celebrity, Royal and NCL have been good with their FCC or refund processes. 
 

this was our first MSC booking and very likely our last

Maybe the Financial Times would be interested

So,far we’ve participated in 5 power up point exercises since june and have not received a single point awarded to our captains club. Is there somewhere specific to look for them? Can anyone give me a tip where to look? Or do I need to ring celebrity?

thanks

Is it ok on non formal nights for a man to wear jeans and a polo or jeans and a short sleeved shirt? Thanks

Thanks, I’ve booked and the package was easy. I upgraded it for £56 each for the week to premium. I then found out after taking the aurea package that i could have paid £245 each for premium and not booked aurea.

However I work for the nhs so I ended up getting 50% off both the cruise fare and aurea package so in the end we’ve paid £300 each for aurea so worked out very well indeed. 
 

39 minutes ago, GrJ Berkshire said:

I have said this before, but stand by it: Anyone who does not get vaccinated without medical reasons and cannot show a vaccination certificate will become "21st Century Lepers" unable to go anywhere or do anything be it travel, flights , cruises, restaurants, theatres, etc etc, other people will shun them!!!!

 

Lets get real who wants to mix with a covid-19 spreader..........

That’s patient choice and informed consent, more hermit than leper I’d suggest. I’m currently setting up covid vaccine clinics and we’ve run the numbers on eligibility by category priority for planning but we have no idea how many will say yes or no. Secondly there is no mention of any letter or certificate confirming vaccine given in the process for deliver. If we don’t do something at the time of vaccine, the dr surgery is going to get inundated with requests later. However we have no idea what an internationally accepted format would look like.

Thank you, I may have to reconsider that package, I don’t want a massage or the thermal spa so maybe better spending the £600 each on drinks as we go.

Hi all 

never been on MSC just booked with an Aurea package and it says included drinks. Can someone confirm which package it is please as I see there are 3, easy, premium and premium plus

thank you

I think it’s safe to,say all cruise lines comp things to guests and some are luckier than others.

We have had bridge tours, help deck sail always, wine etc

my favourite was the free upgrade from balcony to sky suite, some thin I’m unlikely to be able to do again

its great service by celebrity that keeps us coming back. What I don’t like are the people who purposely try to get something free and get pushy with it. one angry insisting on compensation for the smallest issue. 

Usually use A but so does NCL so you may need o check the Barcelona cruise port schedule 

We leave them in place and tip extra but we’ve seen a real mixture, I.e martini bar puts it in a ton to share, dining put it in their picket but could easily be instructed to turn it in. It’s never clear cut but we work on the basis of giving it to who we expected and if they have to share then they get a share of others too. 

Ok it depends if you’re US or not. We disembarked with 2 friends from US and we’re U.K. we had different lines for immigration, they were at the airport by 8.15am. We got there at 12 as we were only given 1 person the check non US.

next time we walked the bags off at 7am, we’re almost first through and made it fine 

On 10/24/2018 at 9:02 PM, MeMe4A&J said:

Thanks Phoenix_Dream for saying that about early flights.  BA backed our flight on disembarkation morning in Barcelona next month from 10:55am to 10:05am.  That 50 minutes is a big difference that early and we are definitely walking off but we do feel worried about a time crunch.

Don’t worry, we’ve made 10am flights no issue from Barcelona, we walk the bags off as there’s an elevator down in the terminal and being so early off the taxi line was non existent but you can pre book a car. We end up with time in the airport for breakfast. 

Us too, it’s the social event not the drinks. Maybe like the burgers, if everyone still turns up to the sky lounge to have the drinks, celebrity may consider it doesn’t work 

We found we have some travellers checks that we’ve had over 10 years but we’re really struggling to convert them, suggest you don’t go into purchasing now and use a card instead. We may try taking them on the ship and depositing some onto the bill 

18 😀

perfectly put. Watch the thread now get closed 

I rang to upgrade and the price was more with the 20% off than I get with just my platinum plus 10% - the guy at celebrity didn’t understand when I questioned how the 20% off is higher cost. In the end I said forget it

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