varoo

On 4/14/2020 at 2:19 PM, wwcruisers said:

I would think that it would be more of a problem to use THAT particular card again, for future cruises. That's one reason why we have always considered going to the CC companies to settle a dispute with the cruise line to be the 'nuclear option'.

We did not find that to be the case at all. 

We disputed a charge of over $5,000 with a major cruise line years ago and our credit card company got it all back for us.  We are still using that credit card to this day and have paid for many more cruises with it since then.

In the past, Celebrity and Royal Caribbean would routinely comp transfers between their ships for B2B passengers who were changing ships. 

They would even provide an overnight hotel stay, when that was necessary.

Many of us used their free transfers between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.

They even comped us an overnight hotel room in London after a transatlantic cruise, with ground transfers and meal vouchers included, when we were changing from a Celebrity ship to a Royal Caribbean ship.

Then they discontinued the policy several years ago.

I don't remember what year that happened., but maybe someone else will.

On 3/11/2020 at 12:04 PM, katrina915 said:

If they cancel, you get cash and not FCC, right? If so, could cause a huge cash flow issue for the cruiseline.

In years past whenever they canceled our cruise, they would return whatever cash we had already paid, and additionally give us FCC as compensation for the inconvenience and incentive to book with them again.

Surely the cruise lines carry insurance to protect themselves in emergency situations, but we don't know which circumstances would be covered and which would be excluded.

6 hours ago, pethi said:

Who's Arno? I know only a Belgian rockstar with that name...

He is a Celebrity celebrity.

No problem using a laptop with Windows either.

17 hours ago, lostchild said:

 

I don't think they enforce dress code even at the MDR.   I am pretty sure I saw a few guys wearing shorts and sandals on chic nights.   Not sure how they would enforce it... "Sir, you are not dressed chic enough, please go back to your room and change." 😄

It just seems to depend on who happens to be on duty at the entrance to the dining room at the time that you arrive and whether or not "they" happen to notice what you are wearing, or even care. 

That is why one guy wearing shorts may be seated while another one may be turned away.

These days it seems that most ship employees really don't care what you wear and they prefer to avoid confrontation.  But there are still some who are sticklers about enforcing the dress code.

In any case, it is no big deal and certainly nothing worth worrying about.

The very worst that could happen is that you may need to go back to your cabin, change clothes, then return and be seated five minutes later.

I have never seen anyone post about any woman being refused entry or asked to change clothes.

Is this discrimination? 😉

P.S.  I take that back.  On second thought, I do recall a woman once posted that she was denied entry to a Captain's Club happy hour because she was wearing sandals!! 

But that was a long time ago.

37 minutes ago, edgekid said:

We booked our March, 2020 Caribbean cruise thru an online agent. We want to cancel utilizing Celebrity's new Cruise with Confidence program where we'll get a future cruise credit. Can we cancel thru Celebrity directly or do we have to go through our T.A.?

 

The TA is the one to cancel it with the cruise line. 

When you use a TA, you are the client of the TA and the TA is the client of the cruise line.

On 3/3/2020 at 7:24 PM, Jim_Iain said:

Yes...  B2B's and Zenith's also invited.

 

As well as visiting travel agents and their guests, visiting entertainers, guests of officers, and likely some other categories that we have not yet encountered.

March 2 - NBC News

     Coronavirus prompts a dozen schools in Washington state to close

March 2 -  The Seattle Times

   As more coronavirus cases emerge, schools in Washington state are closing, cleaning and waiting

2 hours ago, actdir said:

I am not sure this would apply to you, but I will become Elite on our next cruise so I am Select now.  My husband is Classic.  I have a number of extra cruises that he did not go on because I escorted groups of residents from a lifecare community.  In talking with Celebrity, they upgraded him to Select, so he now also has 264 points? like I do.  Hope this helps.

This is a different situation.

Spouses living at the same address are given the same points and the same perks.

That does not apply to friends or other family members sharing a stateroom with you who reside at a different location.

On 2/27/2020 at 12:34 PM, pumpkin 11 said:

Hi Friends,

 

I'll be traveling with a family member who is a classic member but I am elite. We are on the Summit this May. It's been a while since I've been in this dilemma and I know the CC program has gone through quite a few iterations over the years. I know it used to be that anyone in the room could come along to the breakfast / happy hr in the sky lounge, but I am not sure if the rule still stands as they seem to be checking cards at the entrance these days? Thank you 🙂

Yes, it is still as you describe.

At the beginning of the cruise, visit the Captain's Club Host/ess together with your family member to explain your situation and your roommate should be given either a special card or sticker good for admission to all the Captain's Club events on the cruise  (e.g., the wine tasting, backstage tour, elegant tea, possibly a helipad sail-in or sail-out) as well as the CC breakfast and happy hour.

Your roommate is welcome to partake of the food and beverages that are served at those events.

But as  MEcruzr explained above, your roommate does not receive the elite perks that are loaded on your seapass card.

4 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

Leave your passport in your safe.

 

In the (unlikely) event of an emergency, security will go through your safe and get your passports as well as any medications they see and leave them with the port agent.

Excellent advice.

There are very few ports where you need to take your passport off the ship with you (e.g., St. Petersburg, Russia) and the ship will inform you when you need to do so.

At other ports, a photocopy of your main passport page works well for ID purposes, unless renting a motor vehicle, in which case you should bring your driver's license.

I would be foolish to risk having my passport, or even my driver's license, lost or stolen by taking it off the ship and carrying it around at a port where it is not needed as it would be a real hassle to get it replaced.

If the photocopy should be lost or stolen, I can quickly and easily replace it.

3 hours ago, masterscott said:

First time cruiser and whom has booked Select Dining and just want to clarify about SD. My understanding is you can just show up and be seated, may be a wait , but you can come at anytime. Why I am asking , is I see in my cruise planner an option to selected times each night. Do I have too or can I just show up once on boat when I wish knowing I may have to wait to be seated. Just the 2 of us BTW.

Either way is fine; whichever you prefer.

For nights when you know in advance that you will want to eat at a specific time, you can select a time in advance and for nights when you want to remain flexible, you can just show up whenever you feel like going, knowing that you may or may not have to wait to be seated.

9 hours ago, plettza said:

 

We'll be living on the edge on this trip.  We have a cruise scheduled onboard Ooseterdam from Seattle that very same day so our plan is to get outta Dodge as fast as possible and hit the road towards Seattle.  How we get to Seattle is still up in the air.  Thruway bus, plane, not yet really sure. 

We did something similar a number of years ago, and our best bet at that time turned out to be the Quick Shuttle (Quick Coach) which ran an express bus from the Canada Place pier directly down to SEA airport and the Seattle cruise piers. 

A lot of cruise passengers who disembark at Vancouver fly in and out of SEA.

The express bus picked us up right where we got off the first ship in Vancouver, at  Canada Place.  The only other stop it made along the way before Seattle was at the border crossing. 

Even though the Quick Shuttle cost more than the Bolt bus, it was a lot more convenient as it took passengers from one ship to the other with no other ground transportation needed.

We had briefly considered flying, but ruled that out as it would have necessitated additional ground transportation to transfer us and all our luggage at both ends.  Besides, small planes are often grounded or delayed due to weather or mechanical problems.

Important:  Regardless of how you ultimately decide to do the transfer, near the end of the first cruise  contact your next cruise line to let them know you are on your way to the ship, explain the circumstances and ask them to notify the Oosterdam to make sure they have your names on the passenger manifest. 

Take their contact telephone number and a cell phone along with you on the day of your transfer.

Just in case there should be an unexpected delay of any kind on that day, then follow up by calling them again directly to assure them that you really are coming, and have them double check to make sure that the ship is expecting you and that they have you listed on the final manifest. 

That way you can breathe easy, knowing that  you will still be allowed to board, even if you should get delayed beyond the regular requested boarding time.

(You probably already know this, but if you are not listed on the final manifest and just show up at the dock at the last minute, you can be denied boarding.)

Hopefully it will all go smoothly, and you will have a wonderful time on both your cruises.

As for early disembarkation from the first cruise, just talk to the people at Guest Relations on your Celebrity cruise a few days in advance of disembarkation, explain your situation, and ask them to give you luggage tags for early disembarkation, so that should not be a worry.   

If you are able to carry off all your own luggage, you can even self-disembark, if you prefer.

I would price out and compare the costs of various car rental location combinations for pick-up and drop off on the dates you want. 

Sometimes it is more cost effective to take a taxi to an off-airport location instead of renting at the airport.  We have saved hundreds of dollars doing that.

Generally off-airport location rental prices are lower, but if picking up and dropping off at two different locations, that can make a difference in the price too.

As Jim_Iain noted, we have also had the experience where the cost was higher to pick up a car at the airport, but not to drop it off there.

By all means do check out the cost of renting a car right at Canada Place, or nearby.

3 hours ago, fstuff1 said:

I'm doing a 28 day b2b and a few months.

I hear something about a lunch for b2b cruisers on embarkation day on the 2nd leg.

 

More info?

It is a sit-down and be served lunch, typically held in a section of the main dining room on embarkation day.  It is now commonly called the Concierge lunch, but there are several other categories of people who may be eating there as well.

You can ask to look over the menu at the entrance before deciding whether or not you want to be seated.  The menu there is very limited, but if you see anything on it that looks appealing,  you can just order one or two items from it and then go elsewhere on the ship for the rest of your meal, if you wish.

The people at the door may recognize you from the previous cruise and not even ask you to show any ID at all.  That has happened to us, when they just smiled and said welcome back.

I don't think it is just on the Edge.  The worst part is that we needed to let each message play all the way through, from beginning to end, before the delete key would work.  Many of those messages are quite long.

They should change it to let us delete it at any point, as soon as we determine that we don't want to hear any more of the message.

They have cut back on sending out fliers, so are leaving long voicemail messages instead.

We turn the ringer on the phone off when we don't want to be disturbed.  We keep it turned off at night, and often during the day as well.

The messages just go to voice mail so they don't disturb us , but the problem comes later, when we want to delete them.

If anyone knows a quick way to delete a message without needing to play the whole thing, please post and let us know.

On 2/18/2020 at 2:41 PM, luckyinpa said:

 

,,,,,,,,,,,,and if perchance u do see some class warfare on the ship, tell them you are so happy you are a lowly veranda so you dont have those stressful things to worry about. or you can be daring. one night try to run into luminae an tell us what happens. 😉 yea id love to see that story on CC

 

I have seen that happen several times, and think you would be disappointed because there really is no story and there is nothing daring about it.

The maitre d' (or whoever is at the Luminae entrance) would simply look at your sea pass card and politely redirect you to the appropriate dining room.

That used to occur  frequently on the M-class ships when Luminae was first created because the entrance to Luminae was previously the port side entrance to the main dining room on deck 4.  So many  passengers were accustomed to using it as their entrance to the main dining room.

The same thing happened with Blu on the M-class ships as it was also previously part of the main dining room, on deck 5.

But restricting certain public areas of the ship only to designated stateroom categories really is relatively new. 

When we first started cruising with Celebrity, the only differences were in the cabin category you booked. 

Once outside your cabin, all the public areas of the ship were available to all passengers.

😀

15 hours ago, 4774Papa said:

Regarding afternoon coffee or tea, Celebrity has pretty good coffee at the buffet.   It is Lavazza coffee and far better than what cruise lines like NCL serve.  

 

We also like their coffee.  One tip - if you occasionally get a cup of coffee from a machine in the buffet area that does not taste good,  just leave it and try to find a fresher cup from one of the other coffee machines. 

There are several of them in the buffet area, and they may get serviced at different times so occasionally the coffee in a particular machine may have been sitting there for a long time.

But whenever we have ordered coffee at the end of a meal in the dining room, it has just about always been good there.

Some coffee lovers like to make their own iced-coffee drinks with ice and ice-cream up at the buffet.

In addition to the free coffee, tea (hot and iced), lemonade, fruit juices and punch already mentioned, milk is also free (several different kinds),  and packets for hot chocolate that you mix yourself.

Many find the tap water from the bathroom perfectly fine to drink, while others prefer the filtered drinking water provided from dispensers up at the buffet.

Those who have a beverage package may use the package to get bottled water.

Also, you can ask your stateroom attendant for an ice bucket and water pitcher, and they will be refilled twice a day when they service the room, or at other times upon request.

When we first started cruising with Celebrity, they used to put an ice bucket and water pitcher into every stateroom automatically, but they found that some passengers were not using them, so they changed to providing them upon request.

Not only can you order whatever you want, and as much as you want, from the menu in the dining room, but you can ask to have it served in any order you want.   Sometimes we just order a lot of different appetizers and skip the entree, or ask them to bring two courses together. 

But it is easier to mix things up in the dining room if you have your own small table. 

When we dine with others at a large table, we try to order courses in the traditional order,  out of consideration for our table mates and for the waiters who needs to serve all of us.

By the way, if you know that you will want a second dessert (or a second of anything else), the waiters really prefer that you order both at the same time. 

That way they can pick up both with one trip and are spared needing to make a separate trip to the galley to get the second one.

Bo gave you some great advice, to enjoy yourself, have fun, relax, not worry, and also to let people know that you are a first time cruiser and feel free to ask questions. 

That is also a great way to meet people, and they will end up telling you even more than you ever wanted to know. 😁

On 2/13/2020 at 11:40 AM, luckyinpa said:

 

i better not see any non CC people at my sailaway lunch in the MDR. ill be checking the computer screen as everyone enters to be sure!  wondering if anyone else ever tried to crash the CC lunch ? 

 

Then be sure not to talk with the other people at the sailaway lunch in the MDR. 🤫

Maybe I should not be disillusioning you with this shocking fact, but at least the past half-dozen times we and our companions were seated for lunch in the MDR on sailaway day,  none of us were in CC. 😲

Several other categories of people are also eligible to have lunch in the MDR on sailaway days, and they were already having lunch there for years before Celebrity even decided to add Concierge Class.

11 hours ago, goofysmom99 said:

Just chiming in to say that probably no one remembers what you wore to dinner except maybe your spouse.  I have a cruising friend who wears lots of black (slacks and tops) and changes up her look with bright scarves, including a couple of them with sequins for dressy nights.  She takes a transatlantic with just a rollaboard! 😲 Insists people only see her from the waist up at dinner.  😉  I copy her plan with my rollaboard in case my checked bag doesn't make it.  And while I get her point, I definitely have a checked bag and bring more stuff - it's a vacation!  I will admit, though, I rarely remember what blouse/top someone wears (jewelry, yes).  

But even if you do remember, or if someone else remembers what you wore, so what.

There is nothing in the cruise contract that prohibits wearing the same thing more than once. 😁

Even Kate Middleton (future queen of England) repeats the same outfits.

We routinely take wrapped protein bars with us wherever we go as we occasionally miss meals, for one reason or another, and they serve as nutritious meal substitutes or supplements.  They come in a variety of different brands and flavors.

Have been doing this for years. 

Whenever asked if we have any food, we always declare them and have never had a problem with them anywhere.

30 minutes ago, emmas gran said:

Many times I put trainers (tennis shoes) on as directed by the invite to get there and find ladies in all sorts of open toed footwear!!

Just depends on who is working there that day and how strict they are about enforcing the rules, much like enforcement or lack of enforcement of dress code rules for the dining room.

But the major difference is that here it could be a safety issue.

11 hours ago, davekathy said:

We always enjoy the sail away from our balcony with a glass of wine. 🍷🍷 Less crowded and no issue with wind. 

..... and you have a comfortable seat with unobstructed view right by the railing for the sail away or sail in,

without needing to change shoes or climb up all those stairs,

and it is easy to grab a hat, or jacket, or sunglasses or sunblock or tissues or whatever as needed since you have everything (including the bathroom) close at hand.

We, and most cruise passengers we know, did go out to the helipad a few times when we first started cruising, but once the novelty wore off, we stopped going.

You can get essentially the same view from the front of the sky lounge, seated in a comfortable chair in temperature controlled comfort.

On some cruises they open the helipad to anyone who wants to go out there, so you don't need an invitation.

11 hours ago, NorthernLights45 said:

What have women REALLY been wearing for "Evening Chic" nights on Celebrity cruises in 2019 & 2020?

Just about anything and everything  You will likely see an entire range of style possibilities from one extreme to the other.  Lots of variety, with most passengers tending to dress somewhere in the middle.

As for shoes, it is usually the younger women who wear stilettos, while most female cruise passengers tend to choose more practical, comfortable shoes for an evening on a rocking cruise ship.

The mix of clothing styles seen in the dining rooms can change from hour to hour, especially in select dining as different people come and go throughout the evening, 

When Evening Chic was first introduced back in 2015,  it was described as an opportunity for people to dress to express their individuality, not for everyone to dress alike.

Hope you wear whatever makes you happy and comfortable.

Have a wonderful cruise!

2 hours ago, nyc2pdx said:

........... Do they allow ordering off the MDR menu?

You can order room service lunch or dinner from the MDR menu, but it will be delivered to you only during certain times while they are serving that meal in the MDR. 

If you ask your stateroom attendant (or butler, if you have one) for a copy of the MDR menu for the meal you want in advance, you can just mark the items you want on it, which is easier than trying to write out a list from memory.

There is no charge, (except for any items that may be marked as extra charge on the menu), although it is customary to tip for meals that are delivered to your room.

After the "revolution" our sky suite no longer had an inside table, so we needed to bring in the table from the balcony to eat inside, or else eat out on the balcony.