AstoriaPreppy

Of course they did! TBH, nothing will beat them having a screaming-loud 20 minute FaceTime call, without headphones, in the Sunset Bar on our scenic cruising day in Prince William Sound. An actual *chef's kiss* of obliviousness. Same. Cruise lines have a lot of leeway in how they handle criminal manners, but the fact that they referred it to the Feds tells me they took it very seriously.

This is really awful, and I'm glad there are repercussions, especially for an employee on a work visa whose likely first reaction is not to make waves. Also assuming we can expect a "you won't BELIEVE what WE just learned happened on OUR CRUISE!?" video in the next few days from that pair of obnoxious You Tubers on this sailing 🤮

Eh, I'm sure she'd be happy to tell you that the media makes it clear that NYC is actually just a dystopian burning pit of despair these days too 😂

I will say, walking past this line was *great* for reconnecting with the cruisers who vanished into quarantine after contracting COVID on the cruise. Lots of "where have you been the last three days!?" etc.

Usually the only thing that surprises me is when it's a dog/cat in the stroller.

If you actually read the reports of sheltering in place in Mazatlan, they seem to all be from Canadian media/wire services, and specifically one or two Canadian families. Other than the airport getting shut down so cartel members couldn't escape by air, I can't find any reports from American/European tourists about having to shelter in place.

In both Akureri and Isafjdour, we used Europcar. In both instances we used port or port-adjacent locations. In Akureri, they have a shipping container at the port that works as the rental counter... but no one was there when we arrived, so we had to call and wait a few minutes for someone to come over. In Isafjdour, the location was in a hotel a block or two from the tender pier. Again, very easy but had to wait a few minutes for someone to come over. We got off early enough in both places that the slight amount of waiting wasn't an issue. In Reykjavick, there was a 2+ hour line for taxis at disembarkation, so we walked to the Europcar about 30 minutes from the port, dragging our bags. Ended up being well worth the walk.

Thought 2023 had an overnight at the start of the second leg, but it's 2024... deleted my comment!

We did the NJ-Iceland leg of the sailing this year. Most of the Celebrity shore excursions were not worth the price in Canada. Halifax and St. Johns were very walkable, with a lot of the excursions just being a ride with a guide to a location that was walkable/quick taxi ride from the ship. Qaqortoq was tiny. The cruise ship excursions were mostly wandering the town with a guide, or visiting someone's home. They're not really set up for tourism like a typical port. Iceland was a bit different. The excursions were plentiful, and generally well packaged, but were limited in scope. For example: in Akureyri, instead of taking a town tour and stopping at Godafoss, we rented a car and drove to Godafoss, saw the steam vents and thermal features at Hervir, and finished out at Dettifoss. This cost less money than an excursion, and maximized our time. Also, there's lot of different thoughts on doing this as a B2B, but we really enjoyed spending a few days post cruise in Reykjavik with a rental car, which gave us the ability to do the south coast (which this cruise skips entirely).

Sinaloa has been classified as do not travel for... years now? And the State Dept. explicitly carves out tourist areas in Mazatlan as not being banned for federal employees. The same thing happens on Las Vegas Boulevard!

Also highly recommend the SkyTrain. Literally takes you from the airport terminal to a block from the cruise terminal. The absolutely best public transportation to any cruise port in North America, and possibly the world.

Online, our sailing is only offering a ~$700 pp excursion to Magdalena island... and it looks like all of the other providers in the area aren't offered that day, or are already sold out. To be honest, I'm somewhat surprised at the general lack of excursions offered for this sailing? Outside of Ushuaia and Montevideo, we've only got 6 or 7 excursion options in each port. We've booked stuff for every stop already, but I'm curious to know if more will be offered onboard.

That makes a lot of sense.

When Celebrity "revolutionized" the Summit and Millennium, they went far beyond the typical cruise ship refit. They completely transformed several public rooms, including the Rendezvous lounge, the buffet, and the MDR. Most importantly, they gutted every stateroom down to the wall studs and totally redesigned them... it's pretty extraordinary. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the ship.

Q: Did you book this excursion online, or onboard? We're on the 23 March sailing, and there's zero Peninsula Valdes excursions... but lots of dino museum and Welsh teatime. Maybe it's a shoulder season thing since we're essentially the last cruise of the season for Patagonia sailings?

You can absolutely get massages, facials, etc in the spa on Day 1, while the ship is still in port and post-departure. These are available for booking both online before your cruise, and at the spa in person, usually at a significant discount. Not every esthetician is giving spa tours!

Looking forward to people starting to wax nostalgic for the good ol' days on this thread, instead of realizing that culture moves forward. Caviar? Men in suits? Cheese trolleys? It's like we're playing the $100,000 Pyramid, and the category is "classy things from the 70s." I'm surprised someone hasn't mentioned the lack of a proper ballroom dancefloor onboard modern ships yet. 😂 There's a reason Lutèce is just a memory, but Le Bernardin packs them in. Times change.

BTW, the photo you saw is likely the office/desk of the Captain's Club representative, which is the equivalent of the Crown and Anchor rep on Royal Caribbean cruises.

Glad to see that some reports on CC of Celebrity moving to a gruel-based buffet for dinner may have been blown slightly out of proportion. This looks... completely reasonable?

I think you're getting confused with your personal feelings, v. how the industry is segmented and marketed. If you call a random TA and ask for a premium cruise line, they are going to know it's Celebrity, Holland America, or Princess... not whatever your hot take is. (please, feel free to google this) In the industry, luxury cruise lines are specifically Viking Ocean, Seabourn, Regent Seven Seas, Azamara, Silversea and Oceania.

Cruise line categories are *very* well-defined in the industry, not some sort of willy-nilly vibes thing: Mass Market: Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian (making a play for premium with their new ships), Disney (priced as a premium product) Premium: Celebrity, Holland America, Princess

Forget the glaciers... this is the content I'm actually here for 🦀 🙏

TBH, I think the *best* way to see Japan on a first visit may be on a cruise? So much of the nation is port cities that are incredibly accessible... you almost never run into the European/Med thing of being in a huge industrial port with nothing walkable, or a hour away from anything good. The one exception is the "new" cruise port in Yokohama that Celebrity uses (it's not the downtown one). It's in an industrial/car storage island that isn't walkable to anything, and public transportation there is not great.

You absolutely do not need to take a bullet train from Osaka to Kyoto. You can take a regular commuter train for a fraction of the price. One thing I've discovered as a westerner is that Japan is VERY tourist friendly, especially from cruise ports, with easily accessible public transportation and signage in Japanese/English almost everywhere. You almost never need to take a taxi if you don't want to. In this case, there's an elevated subway station about two blocks from the Tempozan cruise ship dock (where you'll likely dock in Osaka), that can get you to Osaka station with a transfer. Once you're there, it's about 45 minutes to downtown Kyoto. I've linked to the Japan Transit Planner which I've found invaluable to figuring out the transit situation in the country. It breaks down each leg of the trip, and how much the total cost/time is. I'd also suggest you start reading up on Japan travel tips: IC cards, where to get cash, takkyubin luggage delivery, etc etc. https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/

Also, curious to know if Celebrity has done anything special (outside of a speaker or two). From my experience, the cultural enrichment, special food/bev, destination parties stuff on these longer unique itineraries is more Princess/HAL territory and not something Celebrity does.