DaKahuna

I quite agree with is why I also ask my fellow CC members who are cruising with us to share the comments, pictures, observations, experiences, etc.. Not everyone see everything the same way and the more observations that are provided the better those that follow can learn from them.

The last time my wife came over she flew ANA. She could not say enough about how better the food was on the ANA flight vs what we had on United, although she did like the lay flat seats in United Polaris Business.

I chose the Liquid IV as it’s available at Costco and was easy just to pick up a bag of the individual packets. I have them and the 4C Tea to Go sugar free Half and Half packets that I carry for a little added flavor to the bottled water.

My wife only wanted a banana for her breakfast so instead of waiting for Luminae to open I went up to the Oceanview Cafe. There appeared to be a very nice selection of food and it looked appealing. Just for the sake of comparison, I picked up a plate of two Eggs Benedict, without the sauce, the same as I always order them. It was nice to be able to tell the person making my plate I wanted double ham. I found was that the English muffin was not toasted, but I am sure if I wanted to I could have ordered my muffin toasted as there was a cook preparing toast in the same place. I found that the food cooled a lot faster than I expected but it was still very tasty. I also had some of the cornbeef hash and bacon. Both were good. The Oceanview Cafe was a little crowded but not horrible and there was plenty of seats available. Since it was crowded and i did not want to impede the flow of traffic I did not take pictures. Since we do not have a shore excursion planned for tomorrow, I’ll see if I can make my way up to OVC again and take some pictures after the gangway opens and the crowds thin out. We do plan to go ashore tomorrow but more at our own pace as we will be in Osaka the 5th and 6th, and our shore excursion is on the 6th.

The service has been amazing. I do miss having a butler though. Fortunately Cafe al Bacio is an only down one floor but it is in the middle of the ship. I am most please with the availability of my favorite rum, Ron Zacapa 23, on this cruise. i have seen it at ever bar I have looked at. What ever the supply issues of 2022 - 2023 were they seem to have been overcome. After posting this i later went by Cafe al Bacio and saw a whole tray full of them, all with the Meringue on top of them. My solution has been to remove the Meringue use a fork to scrape the lemon filling off the bottom of it, set it aside and then eat the good part. We are making our approach to Kobe, where we are expect to dock at 0800. We have a muster time of 0900 in the Theater on Deck 4 for our Kyoto Fushimi Inari Tanisha and Temples tour. I just hope my legs and knees are up to all the steps we will be doing after an 105 minute bus ride. Having studied quite a bit about the feudal history of Japan I completely understand why castles and temples are at the top of hills/mountains but that does not make the climb any easier on this else bones.

in our room tonight we found another interesting information sheet regarding all the customs and immigration checks we are going to be going through. It is very nice to be kept informed.

This afternoon was just a lazy day. Dropped my DW off at the SPA for her appointment. Went to the casino and contributed once again to Celebrity’s bottom line. Then went to the Retreat Lounge to wait for my wife to finish. Afterwards we came back to the room and waited until we felt like going to dinner. Dinner was in Luminae again tonight. We both enjoy eating there and tonight waited a little later than normal in hopes that the early diners would be done and we could get a window seat — worked out in our favor. I had a pre-appetizer Bourbon and Peaches — if you like drinks that are little on the sweet side or the flavor of peaches you will like this I missed pictures of the Amuse-bouche, seared tuna with a chili like oil and a celanto & parsley mix, and appetizers — French onion soup for her, shrimp cocktail (with extra horseradish) and the chilled lobster salad for myself. They had an off menu chef’s special of teriyaki salmon with sticky rice which my DW had. She paired it with the Reisling from our Food and Wine pairing earlier today: While I had the fennel crusted grilled lamp chops, which was not a bone in chop but more like a tenderloin cut. And I paired this with a red blend that I have had on other cruises. For dessert she went with the Buttermilk Penna Cotta And I had the Daniel Boulud Raspberry pistachio vacherin. Notice, this is the first time I have had with where it was not rectangular shaped. When I mentioned this to our waiter, he smiled and asked me how many Celebrity cruises I had been on!

Has not been a problem for us. We usually spend more time on the balcony than we have done so far this cruise. This cruise is very port Intensive so do not anticipate spending more than an hour or two a day outside on the balcony. It just so happened we saw some nice skies, that I posted pictures of earlier, and stepped out. Quite by accident I decided to take pictures looking upward when I looked and realize there was not a balcony above us at all. I had no idea that was the case until I decided to look up. Always happy to try a new drink. It was a little to ‘peachy sweet” for my taste. I’ll still to my rum old fashioned and sidecars. Can’t wait for 5/5. I see a few spicy margaritas in my future.

I am not a fan of the Hoppenized changes. No we have not tried the tub. Love the shower though. Have of not had to worry about slipping stepping in or out of the shower.

No it does not, in fact here are pictures looking upward from the balcony. Looking left Looking up Looking right and straight up from the balcony rail p.s. I had the bourbon and peaches tonight — no extra charge.

@Jim_Iain look what I found in the Retreat Lounge. Looked earlier at Cafe al Bacio but they did not have them.

The days prior to the cruises were nothing to write home about. Today has been beautify — partly cloudy skies and lovely weather — not glass smooth seas but very smooth riding. As I just posted on my live review —someone up above must be saying hello to us.

I had a nice laugh when I saw this as we were walking past Cellar Masters on Millennium this morning after breakfast.

The seas have been smooth and it almost appears as we are barely moving. Someone up above must be Celebrity fans .. As nice of an X as I remember seeing.

Color me jealous - Have not had any good photo opportunities from our balcony. We are in the Aqua Sky Suite next to the Penthouse on deck 6. The seas have been relative calm and we are traveling with the waves so it seems like we are hardly moving along at all. It’s bright and sunny outside but no interesting cloud formations begging to be photographed in sight. I am about to post a couple on my live review, one of which is interesting, IMHO>

Millennium is the same. People I have spoken with that are sailing in those cabins seem to like them but some have expressed concern about the impact of the outdoor theater that is up there.

My DW won $10 on one of the machines she did not do well on last cruise. As we were leaving a lady asked us if we had won on that machine, and I said yes. Can’t remember the name but it’s the $0.01 machine with the dollar bills on the starboard side of the ship. I plan to hit the Dragon Lights machine while she’s in the SPA in about an hour.

You and your wife should consider yourselves very luck to have experienced a green flash twice. I did had 7 years of shipboard life in the Navy and have been on around 40 cruises and in all that time, I have witnessed only one green flash and that was off the coast of Vietnam in 1972.

Celebrity is doing a must better job of keeping us informed about the ports we are visiting on this cruise than we have experienced in the past. This was waiting for us in our stateroom when we returned before lunch. This is the first time either of us can remember receiving this type of information.

We just finished the food and wine pairing and we thought it was done quite well. The sommelier conducting the event is from the MDR on deck 4 and did a good job of explaining everything. My wife was quite taken with the Riesling and I, which may be no surprise, favorited the Elegance Cabernet Sauvignon, which no longer falls under the premium package. The wines featured, with the exception of the Reisling were Kendel Jackson wines. Included both the Elegances that are exclusive to Celebrity. The food: The grape varietals I just noticed I did not get a picture of the Sauvignon Blanc .. Sorry. The event was held in Blu. I have read a lot of comments on CC about how close the tables are to each other in Blu but they did not see that way to us. We easily walked between the tables.

We just signed up for a sake tasting on 8th of May at 2 pm. The one today is sold out and they are only accepting a limited number of reservations for this one, so if you are interested ask your sommelier first chance you get.

Since I did not do it yesterday, let me post a few photo’s of our Aqua Sky Suite. We are in one of the Aqua Sky Suites next to the Penthouse Suite which is wider than our Sky Suite we were in on our last Millennium cruise. There is only a single door leading to the balcony but the balcony is much wider than a regular sky suite and has a two loungers, two chairs, a small table, as well as a bench seat. The chairs, table, and bench seat was all that would fit on our Sky Suite Balcony. The two round white foot stools are also new to us. In our last Sky Suite there was only the small brown table next to the couch. My biggest complaint about the revolutionized Sky Suites, including this one is the lack of storage — there are no shelves in the bathroom — only a long one under the sink. Two drawers in the one cabinet, along with a couple of shelves. Two cabinets to the left of the desk and a double cabinet under the TV (on the left, the right side is the mini-Fridge).

Following breakfast we walked deck 5 looking at all the shops while they were closed. My DW has plans of going back after they open on her own. we then spent a little time in the Casino where she proceeded to win $11.00 before cashing out. Then it was off to the lounge for a tea for her and diet soda for me. Here is the ‘continental breakfast’ offering in the Retreat Lounge. We just relaxed while we waited for the 1015 Beyond the Podium presentation. It was a very informative presentation. He mentioned he would be doing another later on in the cruise 45 minutes on ramen. I already have it added to my onboard schedule.