lorimay

We are on this cruise also. Like everyone else we are encountering very uneven food and service.  We went to Toscana the first night and had excellent food and service- the food was better than on the Marina last fall. The night we ate in Red Ginger, our favorite, the food was good but everything was over sauced. The lobster pad Thai was swimming in sauce. Service was good. We had a bad experience in Polo. We had a late reservation but showed up 20 minutes early and they still made it clear we were their last table for the night. Even though the dining room was clearing out the service was incredibly slow. Steaks and crab cake good. The worst was we were surrounded by food critics who insisted on loudly telling the waiter what the chef could do better. 
 

we have given up on the main dining room for dinner (breakfast is great)! Service is slow and it is clear the waiters are in training. Food is not any better than in the Terrace with much less choice. Terrace is great for lunch but has been outstanding for dinner. Asian night was good and so was last night’s Caribbean night. Lamb chops from the grill were outstanding. 

One funny story - a woman followed me into the guest laundry yesterday afternoon and then watched carefully as I put my laundry in and got the detergent. She asked if I had done laundry there before and supervised the machine settings on my washer. I started the washer and set my timer on my phone and as I left she was sitting on the arm of the sofa watching my laundry (the only machine in use) go round and round like it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. It takes all kinds!

Someone reported on the March 8 - 18 Riviera Roll Call yesterday that they had been in contact with someone in management on the Riviera. They were told that St. Kitts would be substituted for Martininque. Also that there will be 1000 passengers. I don't know how reliable that information is - I'm just reporting what was posted.

You can’t officially change rooms but we always just got extra keys and just physically had adults in one cabin and kids in the other. We trusted our kids and it always worked out great and the staff just didn’t care. 

58 minutes ago, Low Country Sandlapper said:

I’m considering booking a cruise in 2023.  Oceania looks intriguing to me, but it seems to be a bit more port-intensive than some lines.  From what I have read, Oceania ships offer many interesting and fun things to do on board.  If there is a port every day, how can one enjoy both what the port has to offer and still take advantage of the ship?

We did our first Oceania cruise last year. It was port intensive so we didn't spend a lot of time during the day, but we did skip one port and stayed on the ship. I have to say, depending on what cruise lines you are used to, that there is not a lot of "fun and interesting things to do on board" compared to other cruise lines. On our ship there were cooking classes (not free), art lessons, trivia once a day, port lecturer most days and then a ping pong or putting tournament in the afternoon. Evening there was music in the lounges and one production show and we found most passengers turned in early. I personally did not feel that there were nearly as many activities as on other larger cruise lines. You can find other things to do as the library is great, the pool areas very nice, go to the casino, go to tea, go to the gym. But I did not find there was action-packed list of things to do every day. So if you want to go on a port-intensive cruise you won't be missing out much of the daily activities on board.

10 hours ago, DeanoNorthPerth said:

Did you go with the upsell or keep the extended balcony?

We had no choice. We were "upgraded" because they said our cabin was unavailable. So we were supposed to be in a concierge cabin, but then we got the "upsell" to a PH for less than the original PH price, so we took it. It was a mistake for us. The extra room was nice but not necessary and our butler was completely inattentive and since the cabin attendant thought the butler was taking care of us with things like ice it was not a great experience. We didn't even see him the last three days of the cruise. We should have made a big fuss but that's just not us.

We were on the Marina in November and got the exact same message with an "upgrade" to concierge. We also had the extended balcony cabin. So they have been doing this for months.

We were in Rome last November over the Halloween/All Saints Day holiday and found that because it was a holiday weekend, many attractions that required reservations were fully booked or closed. So I would be concerned about Good Friday closings. For example, our hotel was directly across from the Pantheon and we were never able to get inside. We had assumed that we could just walk in (with a ticket of course) but all reservations were sold out for the entire long weekend.

I would say just make your plans and reservations way in advance.

We had some problems with Verifly when we did our European trip/cruise in November. All the other information was easy to put in, but the app refused to accept my husband's negative covid test. We did the BinaxNOW tests at home on the day before the flight. My information was accepted just fine. My husband's information kept coming up with an error. So when we checked in they would not use his Verifly information, had to show the hard copy. It really was not a huge issue, but I wouldn't count on Verifly saving time at check in.

10 hours ago, HBDave said:

I'll share the one of the benefits that I found to be of value. We were in Concierge Class and had Select Dinning. On multiple occasions we went for dinner and there was a long line. People in front of us were given pagers and ask to come back later. When we got to the hostess. We were immediately welcomed by our names and escorted to a table. This was on a full ship, so in today's environment with ships sailing less than full, it may not be as of much value. 

We have cruised concierge class and have had this exact same experience with select dining several times. I made this comment on a different thread and was promptly slapped down by one of the “old timers” saying that it just wasn’t true. Not the same old timer who just told you you didn’t know what you were talking about. However I think the ones who refuse to believe our stories generally cruise in suites and just can’t believe that people who don’t pay as much as they do actually get some perks too. 

Are there enrichment programs or port talks every day on the Caribbean cruises?

1 hour ago, Dick Barton said:

the 48 hour Rule abt Testing for USA origin cruises seems incorrect!----we have emails from Oceania confirming that we can test on a Wednesday for a Saturday Boarding in Miami----so 72 hours prior--which allows us to fly in from Canada Wednesday and spend Thursday and Friday at a Miami hotel.

Here's the official chart from Oceania. According to the chart, the emails you received from Oceania contradict their chart.

We were on Infinity right before the pandemic shut down in 2020. It's an older ship and it shows. Very clean, but it's tired. It was not "revolutionized" like the Summit at that time and I don't believe it has been since. We had gone on Summit just a few months prior to our Infinity cruise. After seeing the difference, I would not book a cruise on Infinity again. I know it's a matter of personal taste, but with so many newer, more modern ships out there I don't want to pay that much money for an older ship with "classic" decor.

Or you could use the eMed proctored self-test kits. You can use your phone or a laptop. Very easy to do and we did them in November from hotels in both Rome and Venice. The results are accepted by the cruiselines and the airlines. There is peace of mind knowing that you don't have to go out looking for a test. But we had traveling companions that had no trouble finding an antigen test at a pharmacy in Rome. They were testing everywhere. Results back in less than 30 minutes and they did not make an appointment in advance.

We did a cruise this fall that had a similar itinerary to the 8-night but ours started in Rome and ended in Venice. Dubrovnik was incredible and very easy to do a self-tour in the old town (and walk the old town walls). Really magical. Missed Kotor because it was closed due to covid restrictions. Had a private tour in Corfu and was really, really underwhelmed. Off-season there (I don't know if May is consider in season or not) mostly everything is closed. Some nice views, that's about it. Corfu Town is another old city with nice restaurants though. From Naples it's very easy to get to Pompeii - and it's definitely worth the trip. So much bigger than you can imagine.

I know your trip is a year away, but beware that in Rome at the Vatican many of the areas are closed due to covid. So none of the shortcut passages from Vatican Museum (Sistine Chapel) to St. Peters are open. But you can still do tours that get you to the front of the line. However, everything else was open and so much to do. We decided to do two separate cruises - Rome to Venice last year, Barcelona to Rome this year so we could take it all in. 

We are pretty active people, but it was exhausting with a "can't miss" port of call every day of the cruise. Something to think about.

8 hours ago, JaneStarr said:

Just to clarify, were you able to move value of canceled cruise fare to a new cruise w/o waiting for the FCC or how did that work?

Thanks

I’d like to know that too. We are supposed to go on Equinox on January 21. I’d like to move it to the March 4 sailing - same ship, same itinerary. Willing to pay any difference in price. Called the TA Today and he said no way to apply FCC to the new cruise because FCC would take too long to come in. Then called Celebrity and they verified what TA said. So how do you do it?

Does anyone ever leave cash on the table (or hand cash as a tip) in one of the dining rooms? We were on a non-Celebrity cruise recently. A group of four women sitting at a table nearby all got out their purses and each left cash at the table as they got up to leave. Gratuities were not included on this cruise line, but were taken out automatically like Celebrity. I had never seen that before. Just wondering if this is common practice and I've just never noticed.

We did our first Oceania cruise in November after mostly sailing Celebrity in recent years. In some ways it was an upgrade but it definitely was not all i expected it to be. The crowd was much older than I expected- more in line with Holland America. The food was very good in the specialty restaurants but we found the grand dining room food and service not of the same quality. The terrace buffet had some excellent items but limited choices. For example, the salad bar consisted of lettuce, tomatoes, chopped cucumbers and shredded carrots every day. Smaller ship, less choice. The service was generally fantastic everywhere but we had a really disappointing experience with our butler and for us never again a penthouse suite.  Since the service is great everywhere and everyone is treated the same and we didn’t find any benefit from the executive lounge, we didn’t see much reason to upgrade. On Celebrity higher class cabins/suites get privileges. On Oceania you only get earlier/more specialty restaurant reservations.
 

But we really missed the activities and entertainment that you get on Celebrity. Daily trivia once a day in late afternoon so if you were on an excursion you missed it. Port enrichment talk once a day, good lecturer, but 30 to 45 minutes and always in a hurry. Other than ping pong and  putting tournaments that was about it during the day. You just didn’t see many people out and about at night. We don’t drink and aren’t big partiers but were a little bored. 
 

So for us the food was much better than Celebrity, service was great in most areas (but we’ve never had bad service on Celebrity) and the activities were definitely lacking. I would say it’s an upgrade but I would not really categorize our experience as being on a luxury cruise line. 

If you are stuck in Groundhog day, so am I. I've already checked in for my January cruise, but I received 3 sets of 2 emails (one for me, one for my husband) before check in and then received another set this week after chek in. I have provided photos of both of our vax cards at check in and filled out the form twice - but stopped once I realized the form had already saved my info. A little annoying.

We got one for our November 2 cruise on Marina. Upgrade from veranda to PH suite.

Social distancing? On our recent Marina cruise there was lot of social distancing in the elevators and in the empty Grand Dining Room, but the specialty restaurants were completely full and basically no social distancing. I don't think there were any shared tables (tables put together with random diners) but there were many larger groups and of course lots of couples. I find social distancing is a nice marketing term but is applied however it is convenient for the business.

4 minutes ago, PacnGoNow said:

So, if you need a covid test to return within 48 hours to return to the US, why wasn’t the ship test okay?  Why do you have to immediately return to the US? The cruiselines rule for a free test?

How did you do the BinaxNow ag card proctored from your hotel in Europe?  
Just used wifi at the hotel and you can get an English speaking proctor?

 

This is very helpful for our trip coming up, but I think it will be drastically different in a month with Omicron and new rules, restrictions and quarantines.

ughhhh…

 

Our flight from Venice was over 48 hours from the time we took the test on the ship. So that's why we needed an additional test. The airline and US government require a test within 48 hours of departure.

Yes, we used a laptop with hotel wifi to connect to emed.com. Proctors (all English speaking but in Philippines or India) were available 24 hours a day. You could also use your phone just as easily to complete the test.

Other than closing down all together, I don't know how the rules and restrictions could change much in Italy. Masks were required everywhere indoors and also outdoors at museums and cultural sites. So masks at the Colloseum and Pompeii. And all excursions from the ship had to be ship's excursions in Italy. Montenegro was closed all together to ships. Croatia and Greece were "on your own" ports. Masks were required indoors everywhere on the ship except in your stateroom.

On our recent cruise on Marina (first time on Oceania) my husband brought a sports jacket but ended up wearing it only one night. There were some people that dressed up a little, especially in Polo and in Jacques, but for the most part I saw a lot of women in black pants and nice tops. Very few skirts or dresses. Men were mostly in chinos or slightly dressier pants and polos or dress shirts with no jackets.But you wouldn't have felt out of place with a jacket on. There was no special dress code at Terrace Grill - during the day we saw many people in shorts (the weather was very nice most of the time), jeans, and sweats. There was no one checking dress code at the door of Terrace any time, day or night. 

I will say that the man standing at Guest Relations in his bathrobe and slippers the day we embarked looked like a fool.

1 hour ago, Snit13 said:

Do any of you have recent experience with foreign travel and testing?  I know it is rather early in the game but we are scheduled on a Viking River Cruise in August 2022.  We are scheduled to fly from Tampa to Budapest, Hungary and join a Viking cruise 2 days later.  We sail to Amsterdam and are scheduled to be there for 5 nights before joining Celebrity Apex for another cruise.  At the end of the Celebrity cruise we fly back to Tampa the following day.

 

How, when, where do we comply with testing requirements if we get to cruise and testing 

requriements are still in place?

 

There was a time when you could call Captain's Club and get a correct answer, but in recent years since Celebrity has placed call centers off shore.

I can tell you what we did a couple of weeks ago for our non-Celebrity Mediterranean/Adriatic cruise.

We used the BinaxNOW monitored test to test before we flew to Rome. Accepted by American Airlines (they even sell on their website). Had the negative results on phone and printed out. American and some other airlines recommend the Verifly app so it saves their agents time. You upload all the docs ahead of time. I was able to use the Verifly app to upload my vax card and negative test so I was all good (just had to show the app) but my husband's covid test would not upload. So at the counter at MIA he had show his vax card and agent said it was "one or the other" so he didn't have to show his negative test. We did not have to show it for the JFK to Rome link. However, we talked to other people who had to show proof of vax and negative tests several times and we believe the counter agent should have asked for both.

We had several days pre-cruise in Rome. It would have been easy to get an antigen test near the hotel (most large pharmacies offer them) but we had a six-pack of Binax tests. We took another test the day before the cruise in our hotel room. Very easy and we did not print it out that time - had it on the Navica app and a screenshot of the certificate.

Our cruiseline required their rapid antigen test at the port (free of charge) so that was taken care of. We took the one in the hotel because if we got to the ship and were positive, if we didn't have proof we were negative within 48 hours before they would not have given a refund or paid for quarantine.

The ship scheduled rapid antigen tests on the last day so that if we would have left immediately after the cruise we would have had a valid test. It is required by the US that you have a negative test within 48 hours before flying.

We stayed in Venice a couple of days so took our final test from the hotel. Online results (screenshot) was accepted by Iberia Airlines for the return trip.

We had to show our vax card many, many times during our trip, but other than airlines and cruise ships no one required a negative test if you had your vax card.

I know it sounds very complicated. But bottom line - do-it-yourself tests are easy and worked wherever we were. Never had to worry about finding a testing place. The airlines and the cruiselines will provide you with all the requirements for whatever testing you need and will most likely give you test you can use to fly home if there isn't a delay.

The paperwork was difficult. Passenger locator forms for Italy, Greece and Spain (we changed planes in Madrid), all of which were never even looked at. The US attestation form required for re-entry to the US was also never looked at. Lots of bureaucracy for nothing.

I recently overheard a conversation between two fellow passengers on my non-Celebrity cruise. One woman said she had been a ship's doctor on Carnival for many years. She commented that it was a tough job, but that situations were either really easy or really terrible. She said that cruises in the Caribbean were easy - anything serious happens and you offload the patient at the nearest island or by helicopter. But she said trans-Pacific cruises were the worst because you were responsible for the patient when the nearest hospital was three days or more away. I had never thought about that risk before.

11 hours ago, mimbecky said:

How difficult is this from somewhere like Rome?  We will be there before our May cruise and I will have my ipad.  I imagine time zone issues?  Or internet issues?  I wish Celebrity would just do it as you board.

I just did the emed binaxNow tests from both Rome and Venice before and after my cruise a week ago. The proctors are in India or Philippines and are available 24 hours. No issues at all doing tests from another country. Really a simple process and results were accepted everywhere.