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I would argue the NCL breakaway plus ships atrium would be a close competitor for the atrium being an awful music venue! They don’t even have enough chairs and are constantly setting up and folding down hundreds of folding chairs for every activity/event. And they use this for most of the daytime programs and night time music/dancing. Totally bizarre design choice. Thank you so much for sharing your trip with us!!

I really feel bad for the room attendants having to try to make this whole thing work. They already work so hard and it is a very physically demanding job. Then to have to try to fill the role of the butler, even if their cabin load was slightly reduced. And depending on the ship and what section they have, they may have multiple classes of cabins and they have to remember what to do for what cabin. If they had actually pooled the sky suite butlers it might have worked out. But eliminating them and saying your room attendant will do it now is absolutely a downgrade.

I don’t think so on this one, other than of course the onboard venues are different depending on the class of ship. And if you go on an Edge class ship you will probably pay significantly more for the exact same itinerary.

Currently on Eclipse and it is a La carte

I keep thinking X is going to price themselves out but they seem to have no trouble filling the retreat. I wonder long term though, I think many will find what you did. Currently looking at Australia/New Zealand for 2025. I can get an owners suite on Princess for 1/2 of the cost of a magic carpet sky suite on X. A little more than 1/3 the cost of a Celebrity suite). That includes princess premier (WiFi, drinks, gratuities, photo package, 2x &specialty dining). For double the price Celebrity includes drinks and WiFi. Wouldn’t have a butler either way so the only reason to pay double for X would be the retreat lounge/restaurant/sun deck. While I would certainly pay more for that, 100% more is a really big ask. Granted the Edge is much newer than the Crown Princess.

According to celebrity it is now a “retreat team” and they provide the same service. In practice you have lost the butler and can request anything you need from your room steward or the concierge in Michael’s. And if you want beverages for the mini fridge you should get them in Michael’s/Retreat lounge and bring them yourself. Currently on Eclipse and have heard from multiple people who are in sky suites and has no idea about the change and they were definitely not thrilled with it.

I agree with others about 2-3 days before is when it is pulled from the website and I think the TA portal also. If there are still cabins available I’ve definitely heard of people getting one 24 hours or day off but you definitely have to call and I think the phone agent had to jump through a couple hoops.

We didn’t get ours for a very long time after sailing on Bliss in October. I submitted a missing points form and they posted them the next day. If it’s been over a week I would do the form.

I usually look through the menus for Luminae and MDR as soon as I connect to ships WiFi. There is always one or two nights both Luminae and MDR menus don’t excite me and I will book specialty those nights onboard. I do like Tuscan and went quite a few times on Constellation.

Nope. You just show up and take a seat and enjoy. As long as you are there more than 5 or 10 mins in advance you should be fine. I’ve never had a problem getting a seat to any show on celebrity.

Currently on my 4th Celebrity cruise . All 4 in RS (2 on Solstice, 1 Connie & currently on Eclipse) & all since November 2021. Overall I have not noticed a big difference in service, but I also realize being in an upper suite probably makes a difference. My butler (who is fabulous and I have had before) said that they now only have 2 butlers onboard (down from I believe 4 or 5 on my first cruise a year ago). I assume this does not include the Head Butler that oversees the sky suites. Luminae is very similar in service, although it seems like I am not interacting nearly as much with the assistant waiters as I have on previous cruises. We have 2 fabulous concierges in Michael's Club. On my last Solstice cruise we only had 1 but I have had 2 on all other cruises. Michael's is staffed from 8am-8pm daily (where there were limited concierge hours this summer due to only one concierge). Most of the time in Michaels it is just the concierge and a bartender and maybe one server. On previous cruises there were more servers in Michaels most of the time. Service at the bars has been good, it feels like less bartenders/servers but they are managing to keep up. I have never felt ignored at any of the bars I have visited. Specialty dining has been good so far, service at Sushi on 5 has felt a little slower than on my last cruise. My room attendant has been fabulous as they always are. The biggest difference I have noticed is that on my first couple Celebrity cruises it seemed that several of the hotel officers made a point to know my name and interacted throughout the cruise. The last two cruises I have not spoken with a single one (not that I need to). Crew is great about recognizing me and using my name at the venues that I frequent.

That would be my guess as well. If they press my socks and underwear it will be difficult to go back home where I highly doubt my laundry person will do that for me (considering my laundry person at home is me). I would only do the wash and press if you have a lot of dress clothes to do. You may do better to send those a La carte for pressing only if you are bringing them onboard clean

So this is a tough choice. Just to weigh in on HAL. They have 4 production shows (step one dance company) which will repeat on both cruises and like celebrity the guest entertainers may or may not repeat. HAL leans very heavily on the music walk for evening entertainment. Not sure what ship you are on, but these venues will feel very repetitive from one cruise to the next. As I recall the performers have a pre approved list of a couple hundred songs that they mix into different sets. Celebrity has a much wider array of entertainment even if they do repeat sets. I’m assuming the dates/itineraries don’t work to do 14 on HAL and then a B2B on Celebrity? That would just be too perfect

Galapagos regulations require that every ship has 2 unique itineraries so as to minimize the impact to each site. While I haven’t been yet, my understanding is it doesn’t make a huge impact which one you pick as they are all similar and you will see the same or very similar wild live and have the same or very similar activities. If someone has been and thinks one is better than the other please correct me as I’d love to know your thoughts!

I am available for $50 an hour if anyone wants to call and then I’ll place them on hold with obnoxious music 😂. I will say I usually do my own air

I was just going to say this is a fabulous reason to use a TA (at least a good TA). You never have to wait on hold. A quick call or email will solve it

The behind the scenes tour is wonderful and visits the bridge, engine control room, laundry, waste disposal area and kitchens. You are not able to go in the engine room but can see it on the cameras in the engine control room. It is about 2 or 2.5 hours and is well worth it if you are interested in how things work.

The only gift that I have gotten was the Behind the Scenes tour lanyard we had to wear, Amazing tour, I highly recommend,

I will say that I much prefer Cafe al Baccio to Starbucks. Love sitting in Cafe al Baccio and watching things go on in the atrium. The Starbucks is right next to the atrium (at least on Bliss it is), but is an enclosed area so you can't really sit and watch what is going on.

We are also Celebrity royal suite cruisers (on M and S class) and were very impressed with the Haven. We were in a category H5 on Bliss (2 bedroom suite with large balcony). It is about the same size overall or maybe a little smaller as a royal suite, but the layout is different. Living room is smaller as is the bedroom to make space for the 2nd bedroom. The 2nd bedroom is very small and we didn't find the bed particularly comfortable (it was just my mom and me and we found it much more comfortable to share the king). The dining table is much smaller, and the room between the bed and the wall on the far side of the master bedroom is very tight. The shower looks out onto the balcony which is fabulous (just don't let anyone use the balcony while you are showering!) The Haven restaurant is exceptional and we felt it was the specialty restaurant on the ship. In contrast to Luminae they have a large menu that does not change. Plenty of choices and the staff are wonderful. Fantastic views being so high up - and there is an outdoor dining area as well which we never used as it was October in Alaska but would be great for tropical places. You do not have an assigned server like Luminae, but the team is all wonderful. We loved our server from the first meal and just requested him every time he was available. We bought both the Free at Sea and FAS Plus upgrade - this got us 4 specialty meals per person, unlimited wifi, and the premium beverage package. We prepaid the service charge and walked off the ship with no onboard bill. One slight difference - on NCL you have to pay the tax on your drinks when in port. We had $100 pp onboard credit which covered this and the couple things we got in the gift shop. Specialty restaurants were mostly good, much more variety and options than on X. They are not included in the cabin, but the free at sea promotion includes 2 and you can upgrade to 2 more. We liked the Haven restaurant so much I don't think we even used all of our credits. The Haven never felt crowded - there is so much space. Even though it was sold out with 211 passengers there was no wait to be seated in the restaurant or for service. The only place that was routinely full was the bar stools in the Haven Lounge. When you leave the Haven you are on a ship with 4 thousand people. There are lots of spaces for people to go and we never really felt crowded, but I did notice much longer elevator waits than I have on X or HAL. Concierge was great and took good care of us. The butler was nice but we really didn't need anything from him (on X we usually rely on them to stock the mini bar and do laundry - neither are included on NCL). We did not miss having the mini bar included - we had a cabin right next to the Haven Lounge and could walk a grand total of 15 feet to a full bar any time we wanted. Very impressed with the crew throughout the ship. Absolutely top notch. Great service everywhere. As there are more people you absolutely need to go early to any shows/events. The Beatles, commedians, main stage shows, etc. Reservations are needed for the main shows. You will be escorted down and there is a reserved Haven area but you still do need a reservation. Not at all impressed with the dinner rolls/bread or deserts in the Haven, or elsewhere for that matter. Ice cream was great and Coco's (specialty desert restaurant) were wonderful as was the bread pudding in Q (specialty restaurant). Also the ice cream in the Haven restaurant was good. We were really impressed with the Haven - the space and perks were just wonderful. Have cancelled 3 Celebrity cruises and rebooked with NCL on the Bliss. I plan to stick to Bliss, Encore & Joy with the full haven area and horizon lounge but may branch out to other ships with Haven areas when we get more comfortable with NCL. Living Room: 2nd Bedroom/bathroom Main bedroom/bathroom Haven Breakfast: Haven Lunch: Haven Dinner: Haven Breakfast Buffet Haven Pool Haven Restaurant: Haven Sun Deck: Haven Observation Lounge:

Have sailed multiple lines and have always had the bed configuration request completely ignored until we told our cabin steward on the first day and they set it up for that night. The turnaround is so tight I am sure it is just easier to do them all the same (or they don't get the paperwork until too late). The one exception is on a Royal Suite booking with Celebrity where we requested the beds apart with the pre-cruise concierge and were surprised to actually find the beds apart when we got to the cabin at 11AM.

That doesn't surprise me at all, they seem to sell out virtually every cruise. Will have to call for a quote on one of my upcoming sailings.

Many of the non-refundable credits say you cannot use for gratuity or casino (shareholder benefits are a good example). I have always been able to use for the daily service charge on HAL regardless of what the official terms/policy says.

I have always gotten.a tote on all of my Neptune sailings (except 1 night cruises). I have a collection of them and use them to take lunch to work every day. My life would be empty without them, and I would not have lunch 5 days a week!

A sign you have a good agent!