Verona Gal

The overhang above the cabins on deck 12 is the only overhang. The cabins on deck 11 will have some shade from this overhang but not as much or for as long a period during the day as those on deck 12.

Hi!

Would you do Reflection 2150? Is the balcony super dark and tunnel like? What's your favorite Aqua class cabin on reflection?

We were just on Reflection in 2151 on the port side. The equivalent is 2148 on the starboard side. The cabin you are asking about is just aft of these cabins. It has a deeper balcony than what we had, but not so deep that it would be dark. I would not hesitate to book either 2150 or 2153!

We discovered that our cabin and the other forward facing slant cabins, except for 2150 and 2153, on deck 12 of Reflection have a significant drawback. There is a constant wind blowing from the ship ventilation system that dumps onto these balconies. There is also a constant low roar inside the cabin from the ventilation running overhead. Our cabin attendant sheepishly confirmed that the ventilation from inside the ship is exhausted on these balconies. This was a slight "ick" problem most of the time, but when steak cooking demonstrations were being conducted in the grand foyer the smell was overpowering on our balcony.

The wind may not bother anyone on a warm weather cruise, but if it were chilly outside, the constant strong breeze could make the balcony uncomfortable.

Rick and his film crew are on the Reflection working on his next cruise show. He is blogging from the ship daily. Check it out at blog.ricksteves.com.

DH and I are fans of his travel philosophy. We have used his books to travel extensively on our own in Europe, staying in quaint back door hotels and eating in restaurants far from the tourist areas. We have also taken eight of his fantastic group tours.

Our first tour with his company was a bit of a learning experience because each group member is only allowed one carry on bag plus a day bag for luggage. Since the first tour, we embraced this traveling light approach with gusto and now never carry more than one carry on bag each no matter how long the trip and never check luggage. We even follow this approach on cruises with formal wear requirements. We have found that this way of traveling has greatly enhanced our enjoyment of each trip.

I wonder if he is on the cruise with only one carry on bag!

We took this tour two years ago. It was a very long (more than 8 hours) day with not much time at the site. Celebrity literature stated that we would have two hours at the site but we only had 45 minutes including the only bathroom break of the day. It was certainly not worth the money or the time. We complained and received a full refund.

Last year, when we were on the West Carib cruise, the ship stayed overnight so there was more time for the excursion. They even had one with a night visit to the site. It might be worth it if your ship is staying overnight.

Luvcrusn: I was able to find a UTube video of stateroom 2153 next door at cruisedeckplans.com. It looks like we both lucked into a great cabin.

Nantahala Cruiser - thanks for the info. I searched this forum but did not find anything about these particular staterooms. I think we will try the one on the hump since it has a bigger balcony. Hopefully there will be enough shade.

By the way, my husband and I paddled whitewater canoes for more than 35 years and spent several weeks each summer paddling the Nanty and camping at Lost Mine Campground. Unfortunately we have had to give up paddling so we switched to much larger boats (cruise ships).

Luvcrusn: We are sailing on the 14 night Reflection cruise from 3-17 November. We had hoped to do a back to back on the 17 November cruise but there are no aqua class staterooms on deck 12 under the overhang available. I need the shade on the balcony!

Do these cabins on the Reflection have the big overhang above them? Also is the window washer parked next to either of them? We have sailed on all the Solstice class ships except the Reflection and are familiar with their layout but since the Reflection has an extra deck we are confused especially since Captains Club told us that the overhang is above deck 11. That would mean the cabins on deck 12 are above the overhang!!!

I tried to use the info on the S Class Cabin sticky but I cannot find up to date info. All the spreadsheets on the attachment seem to be from 2012 or earlier. Is there a new way to find this info?

After my third call to the Captains Club about the new website they took pity on me and gave me the address for the old website. This works on IE; not sure about other browsers.

Here is the address

http://www.celebritycruises.com/?celebrityWR=oldsite

Hope this helps!

I am one of the "lucky" ones that have the newly designed site. I was trying to look for cruises for Europe this summer and the Caribbean this winter. After spending an hour trying to get the same information it would have taken me 15 minutes to get with the previous site I have given up. This redesign is just not as user friendly.

If you do a search, get results, and then look at one of the cruises from the results list you cannot go back to the results you left to look at another cruise on your list.

There is no easy way to see the prices for different cabin types in your search results; instead, you must start a booking to get the prices. The old site had a convenient box to click that would drop down a list of all category prices. The new site does show the starting price for the lowest category cabin in your results list but it would be nice if you at least specify in your search the cabin category you are interested in and have that show in your results list.

The old site would show if there were offers associated with each cruise on your list, the new site does not.

The new site also does not show the different cabin categories (e.g. A1 vs A2), it just shows different prices for different cabins. Have they eliminated the subcategories?

In your initial search criteria you cannot specify the ship; you must wait until you get your results list and then click "refine" to designate a ship.

There is one big improvement in the new site -- it appears that all the available cabins are shown when you book instead of just three. Hooray!

Hopefully Celebrity will continue to improve the site; at least they are trying!

We were on the Equinox in December and experienced this early vacate time. Since we are early risers this would not have been pleasant, but it would have been acceptable if breakfast in Blu were available by 6:00 AM. Since Blu only opened for breakfast at 6:30 there was no way to finish breakfast, return to the room for our bags and to brush our teeth, and still be out of the room by 7:00. Yes, we could have gone to Oceanview but when we looked it was a madhouse! Some people carried their bags down to Blu and did not return to their cabin but nobody was happy about it. Our stateroom attendant suggested we leave our bags in the room while we were at breakfast so we ate quickly, collected our bags and were out of the room by 7:30. While we were at breakfast he was able to make up the room except for the bathroom.

I hope Celebrity reconsiders this new policy. It certainly is an unpleasant way to end an otherwise excellent cruise.

Has anyone taken either of Celebrity's excursions to Tulum and if so what did you think of it? We are particularly interested in the travel time to and from the site and the quality of the guides.

DH and I were on the December 13 Constellation sailing in Aqua class. We have sailed in Aqua class 12 times on various ships and had just disembarked from the Equinox the day before our Constellation cruise. We have always enjoyed our experience in Blu, especially those on the Equinox with Adrian as MD. Based on our experience in Blu on the Constellation, if this were my first time in Aqua class, I would never do it again.

We had an experience similar to the Op's. We had very long wait times to be seated, although the hostess Tijuana assured us repeatedly that no suite guests were being seated in the restaurant. Although it appeared most of the servers were trying to provide good service, it appeared they were short handed since, unlike Blu on S class ships, they had to go down to deck three for every order. As a result, the time between ordering and being served was very long. The one wine steward was also having a hard time taking care of all the guests. Other problems included being seated at tables with dirty tablecloths, and tables not being bussed promptly, in one case for over an hour. On one morning we were seated next to an unbussed table and after fifteen minutes had to ask someone to take care of it.

Fortunately for us, on the last three days of the cruise, the Blu MD was ill, and a replacement was brought in from Ocean Liners. Although not all the problems were solved immediately, the wait times and service improved tremendously.

This experience will not keep me from sailing in Aqua class in the future, but I don't think we will be sailing on the Connie anytime soon.

We had an overnight stop in Istanbul two years ago. We took the ships two day excursion and loved it. We visited all the key sites and also had a cruise on the Bosporus. The guide was excellent. Although the Topkapi section of the excursion did not include a visit to the harem, he arranged for us to join the lunch there late so we would have time to do the harem on our own. Yes we did visit a carpet store, but it was actually interesting and they served refreshments. I seriously doubt we could have covered all these sites on our own in as efficient a manner.

DH and I were on this same cruise. It was the second leg of a back to back. During the first cruise we received as much bottled water as we wanted. It was replenished daily without our asking for it. Near the end of this first cruise, our cabin attendant advised us that on the cruise departing January 10 only two bottles of water would be provided for the whole cruise.

We have been taken care of on previous cruises by this individual so he took care of us by putting more than a case of water in our closet at the end of the first cruise. The two bottle policy did indeed go into effect on the January 10 cruise but did not last long. According to our stateroom attendant, so many Aqua Class passengers complained that the policy was revoked on the second day.

I posted the same question on the board when we were booking our last cruise sometime in September. Celebrity responded on the board. They said that veterans are included in military rates and promotions despite what their website indicates. They also stated that they were working on the website and would clarify this when they implemented the fix. We were able to get the military rate with no problem.

We just got off a back to back on the Equinox. Both our travel agent and the Celebrity reps she double checked with advised us to just complete the online check in for the first cruise. They assured us that since the cruises are linked there was no need to complete the online check in for the second cruise. We followed their guidance and had no problems at all.

I just got off a back to back on the Equinox. There was no a cappella group on either leg. The musical entertainment was very disappointing compared to previous cruises on Equinox and other Celebrity ships.

Checked my Captains Club page - my sailing history is now blank as is the area where my status should be. Anyone else having this problem?

Hello Verona Gal, we are currently correcting the small print that we have on the bottom of our website. This offer is extended to all current and past military personnel, including all veterans and retired military.

Thank you Celebrity for clarifying the eligibility of veterans for this special and for military discounts. The fix to your website will be greatly appreciated.

The small print states that this offer is good only if you are currently serving in the military or are retired from the military. Veterans who did not stay in long enough to retire don't seem to qualify.

This is similar to the recent change in qualification for military rates. In the recent past, Celebrity allowed you to use a military rate if you are a veteran "with an honorable discharge serving a minimum of 2 years, or 6 months in an active war zone, in any of the United States service divisions...." This was reflected on the web site when you booked if you clicked on the "why we ask tab." Since the web site booking "improvement" only active duty and retirees are listed as qualifying for the military rate.

We love to cruise in Europe, but don't like to go to the same ports over and over again. We would love to see cruises that include lots of ports between Amsterdam or Southampton and Barcelona or Rome. There have been a few repositioning cruises like this, but nothing on a regular basis. Ports could include those in France, Monaco, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Cabin - 1509

Ship -Silhouette

Deck - 11

Class - AQ2

Area - Port

Bed near - bath

Quiet - Generally very quiet except late at night when there is a disco party in the Sky Lounge. We are generally good sleepers, but one night the music was so loud it kept us awake until 3:00 AM. We called about it twice but Guset Relations took no action. This did not happen every night but it was bad enough that I would avoid cabins in this area in the future.

Balcony view - Unobstructed to the side. The bridge is forward of this cabin and down one deck. Not a problem unless you want to take a picture in that direction.

Balcony size - normal

Wind a problem - no

Soot a problem - no

Problem/Comments - See above concerning noise.

We just finished basically the same cruise except ours was 13 nights instead of 12. We did Ravenna and Dubrovnik on our own using the ship shuttle. The other ports we used the ship excursions and were very happy we did.

This is a very port intensive cruise so we were off the ship every day except the one sea day by 9:00 AM and rarely returned until late afternoon. By the time our only sea day arrived we were very tired. It was wonderful to not have to deal with private tour arrangements and problems. We just showed up each morning and enjoyed excellent excursions arranged by Celebrity.

I know many cruisers don't have a high opinion of taking ship excursions, but we have had very good luck with them, while we have had some very mediocre days with private tours we set up.

Ship: Equinox

Cabin #: 1570

Deck #: 11

Class: Aqua

Area: Midship, starboard side

Bed near: Bath

Quiet: No noise from pool deck above except one day when someone cranked the band's amp up by mistake for a few seconds. We did notice that there was a significant amount of noise from the crashing bow wake below. This was much louder than on any previous cruise we have taken. We both liked it, but if you want peace and quiet go further aft.

Balcony View: There was a support pole for the overhang above that partially blocked the view. It was located about a fourth of the way from the aft edge of the balcony.

Balcony size: Normal

Wind a problem: No

Soot a problem: No

Problems/Comments: The carts used by the cabin attendants were parked directly outside the cabin door most of the day.