terrydtx

From about day 10 forward on those TA's the lettuce and other fresh veggies and fruits start getting a little wilty.

I bet you didn't complain either, LOL On the Equinox last year some of the premium wines were not available but the Luminae sommelier brought us some marvelous wines not listed as being by the glass and poured our glasses and left the bottle for us to finish, she told us she was including the whole bottle in our premium package. On our 10 night cruise this happened about 3 times. I never complained either.

Same thing happened to us on our one and last RCL cruise. Carnival, NCL and Royal are for families with young kids whose parents think the ship is a babysitter and it's OK to let them run amuck unsupervised for 7 days.

Since the Rotterdam is the supposed to be the latest and greatest ship in HAL's fleet and if one's opinion that the food was not great on board, I think it is fare to say HAL's MDR food has gone downhill. Even if that is the only HAL cruise one has been on since COVID. Or are you saying one must cruise on every HAL ship before they can justify making a statement about the food quality going downhill? You are correct my TA will not steer me to a cuisse line she thinks I will not like, that is why she has been my TA for over 15 years. We did a Haven Cruise on the NCL's Breakaway pre Covid, against her suggestion, and for us it was one and done with NCL. I do not need to sail in the Haven on every NCL ship to say the food and service was terrible, but I know we will never do it again.

Luminae promotes the Moroccan Chicken as one of his restaurant's signature dishes, it was bad enough that I would not eat in his restaurant if given the opportunity. The night I ordered it on the Equinox, our waiter told me that he had many complaints that night about the entree. I am sure Boulud would not be happy at all with how Celebrity is cooking his recipes.

My sister and BIL returned from an NCL Hawaii cruise on June 6th. My Bil tested positive the day they got home on the 6th, they got off the ship on the 5th and took the redeye home that night. My BIL started getting symptoms on the overnight flight to Chicago from Honolulu so no doubt he got Covid on the cruise ship. Our 11year old Niece also came home from the cruise with Covid but out of their group of 9 family members on the cruise they were the only ones with the virus, so far. My sister has been negative the whole time as well. All of the adults were vaccinated and boosted and the children were all vaccinated but not boosted and all tested negative to board the ship on May 29th.

Thank you for the update, looks like we do not need to pre load anything into Verify.

Our observation and preferred dining time in Luminae, never had to wait for a table either.

Our Son and DIL both work in entirely separate sections of the company, he got it first and she got it the next day. After calling their supervisors today, they found that Covid is running rampant in their offices, the company is now going to reevaluate their decision to return to the office for employees. Must have been a "Typhoid Mary" running around the offices last week infecting so many, LOL

Flying into a country is not the same as entering by sea on a cruise ship.

My son and his wife both work for a huge insurance company that returned to their offices last week after 2 years of working at home. He called us last night and they both have Covid after being vaccinated and boosted for work. The only place they could have been infected was being back in the office. So the virus can get us anywhere, not just cruise ships. BTW they are both doing OK with just mild symptoms.

The first early season Europe cruises in April did testing because Spain required cruise ships that disembarked or stopped in any Spanish ports had to test passengers before they boarded the ship. There was a time that Italy had a similar requirement, this may have changed since then. This was reported in several Live from Threads on the early Silhouette cruises from the UK and TA.

My ONLY negative with the Luminae, the Daniel Boulud Moroccan chicken was so dry and over cooked. For us Luminae is more than just the food, which we really enjoyed, it more about having a fine dining experience more like one in a fine dining land restaurant, with exceptional service. We have never been impressed with the MDR on any cruise line. For us the MDR is more like eating in a banquet hall while Luminae and even Blu is more like fine dining. Before we sailed in our first suite on Celebrity, we had been in Aqua class only because of access to Blu to not have to dine in the MDR.

I also agree and most passengers would probably agree, it is not nearly as stressful to test before boarding as having to test before flying home.

Good point, just look at past Norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships that spreads rampant through whole ship that can result is huge numbers of passengers being sick and confined to their cabins. We were on a Norovirus from hell cruise about 10 years ago and it was not very pleasant. On that cruise it wasn't 1 or 2% who got sick, it was in the hundreds or more like 20%.

I know we will, we also are in the Retreat on the Reflection in August and looking forward to Luminae every night.

On the Equinox last August, the above also is what sold us for booking the Retreat on Celebrity for all future cruises. The food and Service in the Luminae on that cruise was exemplary and a huge plus to book suites. We did a dinner at both Murano and Tuscan Grill and while the food was awesome, we did not feel the service was as good as Luminae so for future cruises we will limit our specialty restaurant bookings. In the Luminae we were treated by all the staff like they appreciated our business and made us feel special, we just didn't get that same feeling at the SR. We will be on our first E Class ships in 2023, Apex, and 2024 Edge, so we hope the Luminae will be as good as the Equinox. After the Equinox cruise we came home and canceled 2 booked Oceania cruises and saved a bundle.

Enjoy your cruise, but I have a question about assigned boarding times How were they assigned when you checked in online? My wife and sister have already booked and paid for manicures and pedicures in the spa starting at 1:30pm on our embarkation day. By the time we get on the Oosterdam we will have been in Italy for 3 weeks and they tell me the nails have to be done. We have booked a private transport from Venice to Trieste that will have us at the cruise terminal around 11:00-11:30 am.

You will really enjoy the Signature Suite, it has so much more room and larger balcony. It is very easy to enjoy in suite dinning and room service breakfast with the added room. We are booked in SS for our August Oosterdam cruise.

Great advice on the water. I thought pre Covid that only the alcohol drinks counted in the 15 drink limit, has that changed to include specialty coffee and water now? I do not think we ever went over the 15 drink limit.

I will see how the food and service is for myself in August when we do a Celebrity and Hal Oosterdam cruise B2B. I am not expecting much food quality wise on the Oosterdam after reading recent posts from CC members currently on her. BTW I value my TA's opinion and never take them with a grain of salt I would trust her subjectivity more than HAL cheerleaders who probably have not taken a Celebrity cruise recently if ever.

We are booked on the August 21 Oosterdam cruise for 14 days. We were not notified until this past April that the departure port was being moved to Trieste and that our itinerary had dropped our port stop at Santorini and Sauda Crete. Santorini was replaced with a second stop in Mykonos and Crete was replaced with another sea day. Our cruise now has 5 sea days and both Santorini and Crete were the main reasons we booked this cruise. What was a really great itinerary when we booked last year now has been totally butchered by HAL. By the time we were notified of the changes it was too late for us to cancel the cruise as we had booked a very great business class airfare with HAL flight ease that covered the Oosterdam cruise and the Celebrity cruise from Rome that precedes it. It would have cost us about $1500pp to rebook our BC air directly if we canceled and we are a party of 4 on both cruises. We elected to not take the Celebrity shuttle for 2 hours with 40 plus strangers and booked a private transfer for all 4 of us from Venice to Trieste. It is not secret in this HAL forum about my extreme displeasure with HAL over the Oosterdam changes and customer service and that this will be our last cruise with HAL. I would not be too worried about the age or condition of the Oosterdam. She underwent a complete renovation I believe in 2019 before Covid hit so she will be in good shape. We cruised on the Nordam her sister ship in 2019 and she was also in great shape.

No confusion, the Rotterdam was her first post Covid HAL cruise and she found the food quality to be poorer quality than what it was on other HAL ships she had cruised on pre Covid. I believe that the Rotterdam cruise is the only HAL cruise she has done Post Covid.

We have solid Bamboo flooring in most of our house, it is so hard and scratch resistant and completely sustainable. Now I would never plant it in our yard. People say it can grow a foot a day and take over in weeks.

The HAL app shows the burgers and hot dogs from Dive-In are $4.95 per item on Room service.