lorimay

No. They told us we could not get off.

We are on the second leg of our B2B on Beyond. This leg is the TA. First cruise started out great. Really enjoyed the ship and the ports. Then on the sea day, two days before changeover in Barcelona, I started feeling bad. I had a bad cough and progressively kept getting worse. Next day, Valencia, I canceled our excursion and went down to medical. As I suspected, I was positive for Covid. My husband had a few of the same symptoms but he tested negative. I was immediately returned to our infinite veranda stateroom and told I had to quarantine for 5 days. My husband was told he didn’t even need to wear a mask and was free to wander the ship. He was told to come back the next day for a test. We were both given a bag with a bottle of expectorant and some Tylenol and Advil. That was the start of a lot of miscommunication and mistakes. I understand that I took the risk of coming on this trip and catching Covid. We both tested negative before we boarded (self test). I knew this was a possibility. But I assumed that Celebrity had this protocol figured out and clearly the message isn’t getting through to everyone. We waited all day the first day for someone to tell us what was going to happen - like were they going to make us leave in Barcelona or let us continue. No communication at all. Finally late in the day we called guest services and they said we could stay on. We asked if we could get off since I would be missing all the Spanish ports and maybe getting out to see the last stop in Azores. We were told we could not get off in Barcelona. The Barcelona day was a mess. My husband went down and exchanged his room key. They refused to let him do mine. Then they sent someone up to the room to check me in - but he couldn’t understand that I was in quarantine and told me to go pick up my card at guest relations. Meanwhile no internet without the new card. No room service call and they were closed so I got no breakfast. Room service has been spotty. When they remember to call they are great - but a lot of times they forget to call. Since it takes over an hour for delivery, we sometimes call in ourselves. One lunch I ordered a club soda and the woman started arguing with me telling me I would have to pay for it. She refused to listen about quarantine. Then said she would call back. She didn’t and I didn’t get lunch - my husband went up and got me something from oceanview after we waited two hours. Meanwhile, after a couple of days I got a follow up call from the medical center. But no one ever followed up with my husband and, typical of him, he didn’t pursue it either. Big mistake. This morning he got a call demanding that he show up to a 3rd deck cabin to be tested because he had “close contact” with a Covid person. Really? It took you 4 days to figure that out after he tried to self report? Needless to say he’s positive and his quarantine starts today. Hopefully mine ends tomorrow. We are not particularly high maintenance people but I do feel like we are being ignored. Other than only periodic room service, housekeeping has called once. Medical office calls about every other day. No one else called. No information about refunds, services (they didn’t upgrade our internet or give us any on demand movies). BTW, the overall video experience is bad on this ship. No late run movies. Most of my Netflix shows can’t be played on my phone because I’m not using a VPN. News and sports channels ok but not much entertainment. The only good news is I felt so sick the last few days that I didn’t really want to go out. I just wish we could have quarantined in Barcelona and gone home. We missed all the ports and while sea days are great, I would have liked to be home instead of this. It’s not easy with two sick people in a small cabin 24 hours a day!

All four dining rooms have plenty of tables for two. They will also seat two at a table for four if necessary. The plus is that the tables for two are much farther apart than on M class so you don’t feel like you are eating with someone else!

I am currently on Beyond. This is not only a working vacation for me, but I am from an area directly affected by Hurricane Ian and am helping coordinate recovery at home as a volunteer with a couple of groups. We are just leaving VilleFranche. This is the slowest internet I have had the whole trip. I just did a spee test and got 107.46 mbps download and 3.32 mbps upload speeds. As I said, this is the slowest it has been. I have been doing zoom calls and microsoft team calls, plus emails from my computer and phone. Also streaming lots of videos. In my opinion, most of the time it's almost as fast as I have at home. No complaints here from someone who is working and enjoying a wonderful vacation at the same time.

Even if you are sitting at a table for 2 on the Summit you will be sitting with others because the tables are only inches apart. There’s no private conversations!

Wow. Thank you for this great and detailed information. It is greatly appreciated. Sounds like a great way to spend the day, see Nice and still get to the Villa Ephrussi.

We'll be in Villefranche in October on the Celebrity Beyond. We are sceduled to be there from 7am to 6pm. We have never been to the French Riviera before. We have an interest in seeing the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, but I was wondering if we could do that and still have time in Nice. Or would we be better off doing the Nice, Monaco, Eze tour since it's our first visit to the area. Any suggestions would be great. Also, is a private tour better than just a taxi or public transportation if we do go to Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild? Thank you.

We did the Cosol tour in January. We saw a lot of the island but it was not one of my favorite tours. Our driver was fine, but not very communcative. He would answer questions but not point out too many things. The van made loud noises and the driver kept apologizing because he said it needed repairs. We even stopped for him to make a minor repair. First stop was the shop in the banana fields - where you felt you had to buy something. We did go to the waterfall and the mud baths which were both fun. For whatever reason, the original beach we were supposed to go to was cancelled and he took us to the city beach at Soufriere. It was not the nicest beach I have been to. We had to pay some kids for two chairs and an umbrella and then keep waving them off when they tried to earn more money. After about 90 minutes on the beach, the driver came back to get us with his two kids and they drove back with us to the port. We did get to see a lot of sights, but I really felt like the whole tour was just a little unprofessional. However, St. Lucia had just opened back up and you could see they desperately needed the tourist dollars so I felt bad about complaining. Based on my experience, I don't know if I could recommend them.

Also the FBC website with the "what's included" in the airfare is not always correct. For example, we booked with them for a one-way to Rome in October. There is a non-stop from MIA to FCO on ITA (old Alitalia). If we booked through FBC with tickets branded ITA it was half the cost of tickets branded Delta (same plane, just code sharing). However, the Delta flight (according to the FBC chart) supposedly got one free checked baggage and advanced seat selection. We booked Delta, thinking we could use miles to upgrade seats or at least pick seats in advance. Turns out not to be true - ITA says we can't get seats until we check in. Delta says they can't choose the seats. We are basically out of luck. And there's huge wait time to get through to FBC, Delta and ITA. Never again.

We have done several Mexican Riviera cruises. Cabo and Puerto Vallarta are just as charming as some of the Caribbean ports. Mazatlan is not. However, don't think that just because you take a ship's excursion you might not run into trouble. The last time we were in Cabo we took an excursion where you drive your own jeep in a convoy into the countryside and then to the beach. We were way out in the country on a dirt road when some men in a pickup truck forced the leader off the road and stopped the convoy. There was intense negotiation going on for quite a while but we were finally let go. Added a dimension of excitement to the excursion. As in most ports, if you stick to the tourist areas you should be fine - which is the same advice I would give if you were visiting Belize City, Puerta Plata (there's armed tourist police on every corner from the port to the main square) or Costa Maya (was on a ship's excursion there and had the tour bus stopped and searched by someone in a uniform with a machine gun). I think one of the big differences between Caribbean and Mexican Riviera ports is that in the Caribbean tourism is everything and a lot is done to not let the tourists see what real life is like. There's a lot of governmental control. In Mexico, tourism is important but the areas are not as regulated, which is why you see so many people begging on the beaches and there's a little bit of lawlessness wherever you go.

I had my travel agent (who probably won't be my travel agent for any more travel) reprice our B2B cruises in order to get the OBC that Celebrity was offering in the 60% off plus OBC sale. The cabin price was the same but he told me that supposedly we got $100 per person for the first cruise and $200 per person for the second cruise. However, I'm not seeing it connected to the reservations on the website or on the app. I asked him when it would show up and he said the first or second day of the cruise. Has anyone had the OBC from this sale show up on their account before the cruise? I'm just not trusting him on this and I don't want to lose those OBCs. Thanks.

We have done a few short cruises on Celebrity (and RCCL) because we live close to the FLL and MIA and it's a nice weekend getaway. Frankly, there was more "partying" on the 7-night Bermuda cruise out of Port Liberty we took in 2019 than we ever saw on a Celebrity short cruise and that was before almost everyone got Always Included. You definitely get more family groups and other groups on the Bermuda cruises than you do on Celebrity cruises in other destinations. Everyone talks about how Celebrity has more upscale clientele, but I don't care what cruise line you are on there are always those people that are going to get their money's worth out of their drink package. They only spoil your cruise if you let them. And it does happen on more upscale cruise lines as witnessed by the couple in the next cabin on our last Oceania cruise. The wife came back from shore and passed out halfway in and halfway out of her cabin and the next day a team in protective clothing had to come and deep clean the room.

Looking for a recommendation for a hotel in Rome in October. Last year we stayed at Albergo del Senato and it was wonderful. Can't say anything bad about this lovely hotel (except it was a holiday weekend and with the shutters open very loud out in the square). This year we only have an afternoon before heading the next day to Civitavecchia. We are planning to spend most of the afternoon at the Baths of Caracalla. I was wondering if there is a hotel similar to del Senato but closer to the area where the Baths are, or is it a mistake because that area isn't as nice? Thanks for any input.

No, they are the same as Celebrity. You can pay to add additional devices (one account per stateroom is included) and you can upgrade to faster internet. I was able to do whatsapp phone calls and even stream a couple of youtube videos, although they would stop and buffer a lot. I could get on most websites with standard but it was slow. When I upgraded for the last couple of days I was able to do zoom calls and much faster internet, including working on the shared google drive. I haven't been on Celebrity with an internet package recently but I think because Oceania allows whatsapp calls with standard internet it has a slight advantage.

I booked with FBC last week for an upcoming October cruise. ITA has a non-stop from MIA - FCO. Last week if I booked it as an ITA flight the cost was $50 one way. As a Delta code share operated by ITA it was $240. FBC said that if we booked Delta we got one extra bag and could reserve seats (plus the frequent flyer miles) so we booked that. Found out today that I can't book seats in advance for the flight. Delta says ITA has to do it and ITA says no seats until we show up at the gate. But the prices have gone way up - the ITA flight is now over $250 and the Delta $450. So apparently I paid extra for basically nothing. Not happy.

It's still the same - you have to upgrade to stream. I worked on our Caribbean cruise in March and did upgrade the last couple of days because I had to do a couple of zoom calls. But I could not do them from my cabin - had to go to one of the public rooms to get internet that was good enough, even with the upgrade, to zoom. The basic internet is free and does everything you want it to do except stream although it's slow. However, I hear Celebrity isn't much better -

We are on Beyond in October and we’re assigned late dining even though we request select. I called Captains club today to make sure I was on the wait list and was told the wait list doesn’t exist and there was nothing I could do. I guess I will keep calling until someone at least acknowledges there is a wait list.

I have to agree about the main dining room on O and we don’t do suites so I’m comparing to celebrity dining room. Good for breakfast but dinners were very disappointing. And you are restricted to one time in each specialty restaurant unless space available or you are in a suite. We ended up eating most of our evening meals in the buffet which has a wonderful outdoor area. The buffet is pretty limited and food was good but not mind blowing. However they have a grill with cooked to order steak, chops, fish, lobster etc that is excellent. And O life is incredibly difficult to figure out.

We did two Oceania cruises in the last year on the Marina in Europe and the Riviera in the Caribbean. Before that we had cruised only celebrity for the last few years. The pros on Oceania- service is very good and very personal. Food is great and the specialty restaurants are no charge. Cabins are nice with very nice bathrooms. We had a penthouse suite on one cruise and the amount of space was incredible. Smaller ships mean getting off for excursions very easy. We don’t drink alcohol so can’t comment on that but soft drinks are included including large bottles of sparkling water. Cons - the passengers are much older than the average Celebrity passenger. We felt very young and we are not! Also the passengers are a little more refined. Don’t expect much entertainment. You see the same string quartet and house band everywhere. The shows in the theater are at 9:30 at night and while the quality is good they are not big production shows. During the day there is great trivia and sometimes a lecture but otherwise a ping pong or putting tournament is it. Cooking and painting lessons are an up charge. Compared to Celebrity there was definitely a lack of “energy” on the ship. Itineraries are usually port intensive and smaller ships can get to more interesting places. We’re booked on two cruises on Beyond this October so it will be interesting to compare.

I was look at flights on FBC today for our upcoming cruise in October. For MIA to FCO I could choose the ITA non-stop flight for $50 (yes that's the correct price) or the exact same flight but labeled as Delta but operated by ITA, same flight, plane and itinerary for $200. If you looked at the details, the ITA flight did not allow seat selection in advance and only 1 checked bag and no carry ons. The Delta flight allowed advance seat selection, 1 checked bag and 2 carry ons. I also think you can get Delta Skymiles for the Delta flight but not the ITA branded flight.