AstoriaPreppy

🙄 peak NCL

All great points, and I'm not here to judge any Carnival-cheerleading. I think their specialty restaurants often exceed NCL's (at a fraction of the price point)! I will say that I've done the Edge, and it was basically astounding. Celebrity really worked to design a class that is transformative from other ships in ways I didn't expect, and I highly recommend.

Countering opinion for @KmomChicago, because we've had very different NCL experiences. We've never encountered a particular joyous bartender on NCL (we've done multiple sailings). Especially now that 80% of the passengers have a beverage package, it seems more than not they're just frantically trying to crank out drinks as fast as possible. NCL is famously the line that started installing queues with ropes and stanchions at some of their bars to facilitate ordering. On our Anthem sailing out of NJ earlier this year, we had great service from the bar staff, who remembered names and orders, and would stop to say hi. Also, NCL's specialty dining v. Royals isn't nearly as black/white in our experience. We've had some great experience, and some really poor experiences at NCL specialty dining (that ended up being comped). None at Royal that went quite as off the rails. Lots of the Oasis/Quantum class surcharge dining is very good, and pricing is often more reasonable than comparable venues on NCL. I'd also say that Jamie's Italian on Royal Caribbean far exceeds La Cucina on every level. Re: the "vibe," I would agree that Royal passengers tend to be a little full of themselves (and also willing to give you an unsolicited TED talk about Crown and Anchor benefits almost to a fault). This can also vary by ship/season. It also depends a lot on your personal perspective: is putting on pants for a sit-down dinner taking you out of vacation mode vibes? Lots of NCL cruisers would say yes, other lines less so, but that's important to keep in mind. Ultimately, we're not evangelists for any line, as we've sailed Carnival, Royal, Princess, and Celebrity and NCL since the shutdown. There's things we enjoy/don't about each line, which is why we hop around.

Did you happen to notice any Peloton bikes in the gym? I know NCL tried this a few years ago and pulled them (internet connectivity issues), and I wasn't sure if the brand was exclusive to Celebrity now.

If you're ordering bolognese with shrimp in any context, you might be part of the problem? 🤣

Mojitos are a huge PITA to make for bartenders, so it's probably a streamlining choice. TBH, it seems the direction NCL is going in, operations-wise, especially 60%+ of their passengers are sailing with the beverage package included.

This is going to stink for anyone on sailings longer than 7 nights who expects any sort of variety that isn't an additional expense. Getting served .25 cents worth of "make your own" pasta as an acceptable MDR dinner on a mass market cruise line is almost laughable... I'm half expecting them to roll out a cart with Top Ramen in different flavors as a "customizable soup bar" as their next innovation.

Royal Caribbean has offered show reservations on Oasis class ships since inception, including licensed musicals, ice shows, and aqua shows. Smaller ships in the line generally don’t, just as NCL doesn’t offer show reservations on Jewel class. Celebrity does not have show reservations for any class of ship.

Am I the only one that is aware that you just have to close the folding doors to your infinite verandah to keep your AC/heat on in the rest of the room? How would they expect anyone to use the verandah otherwise? There is literally a switch in the track of the folding doors that activates the HVAC system in the larger room when the IV is open. This remains one of those Cruise Critic rumors that will not die, like squatters overtaking Labadee during the pandemic and burning it to the ground.

The air does not shut down on an infinite verandah if you close the folding doors behind you.

If you feel personally attacked, I apologize. That wasn’t my intention, and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. That said, suggesting you need to use a physical space to know if it is functional isn’t demeaning your mental capacity, much as I’d suggest one need to use a phone or car first to know if it meets your needs. I’m curious to know if people who are anti-infinite balcony are also anti-hull balconies as were found on older ships, as technically they’re inside the ship’s structure in the same way.

Eh, but the spaces on the Edge are almost always better than the spaces they’ve replaced on older ships. Edge took lots of venues that didn’t work/were tired, and turned them on their head. Compare Quasar and The Club: Quasar was always an odd space/location, which the line eventually hacked part of off to make a future cruise sales office. It just didn’t work. The Club is completely different; rethought and restyled. As a nightclub it’s a multi-deck, tiered venue like something you’d find in NY/Vegas, with plenty of seating, an expansive dance floor, and a huge bar (all much better than prior Celebrity nightclub spaces). The venue also doubles as a cabaret-style performance space, with smaller, more intimate shows throughout the cruise… something that absolutely would not be possible in Quasar. For comparison to the older ships, those iffy (at best) small shows featuring the production cast singers that used to take place in the Sky Lounge have now been expanded moved to a much more functional and innovative venue, and the quality has increased exponentially. Oddly, we found Edge to feel very non-crowded, even when sailing full. The design of the ship spreads people out, and unlike Oasis (or even Solstice) class ships, there’s an expanse of glass/ocean views throughout the ship that seems to decrease that mega ship claustrophobia vibe. I’ve always said Oasis was like being in a mall in NJ. Edge feels very different.

Absolutely have not heard any of those analogies, but that’s not the point: you need to physically experience a space to make a judgment, not look at it through photos/indirectly. We ended up liking the infinite verandah much more than anticipated, after being very “eh” at the photos. You can tell you don’t like the bedspread in a photo, but vibes from photo tours don’t cut it.

Knowing if a living space is habitable/functional requires use, not your gut feeling if it’s putrid. I’ve found lot of cruisers have ideal staterooms that are… interesting choices. There are Princess cruisers who will go to the mat insisting that the line’s balcony staterooms are the best at sea. I on the other hand prefer a sofa/seating area in a standard stateroom and a closet with a door (not nonsensical semi-private dressing area).

In this case, you’re attributing your issues with the infinite balcony to caustic sea air, when it easily could have been something in the room (sensor, button, etc). That maintenance was able to resolve the issue makes me think it might not have been sea air, corrosion, and design flaws, but maybe something more benign. I’d guess Royal Caribbean cruisers might be more open to innovation? The line has been aggressive in trying new designs on ships for the last ~23 years or so in a way other cruise lines haven’t. They’ve conditioned their customers to expect new things, and outside of their attempt at rotational dining they’ve been pretty successful at it. That said, I’d love to go back to a 1999 cruise critic board and see people busting out pickaxes and torches for ice skating rinks and horizontal atriums on cruise ships.

Is this a thing? Or just baseless speculation? I’m getting cruise critic user “labadee has been overrun by pirates” vibes by comments like these. (narrator voice: Labadee has not been overrun by pirates).

TBH, the Cruise Critic user screeds against the infinite veranda cabins remains one of the most confusing things I’ve ever seen on this site. We sailed on the Edge in Europe in 2019, and found the infinite veranda stateroom one of the best standard staterooms on any cruise line we’ve ever sailed (20+ cruises). There is so. much. space! The bathroom is huge for a non-suite! The IV was a completely usable space when closed, and when opened was… a balcony! Unless one member of your stateroom needs complete darkness in the early morning while the other member of your party wants to be on the balcony starting at 5 am, you’ll be fine. (A bigger question I’d ask is who exactly are these randos with completely different sleep schedules from their partners, but I digress). Anecdotally, we’ve talked to a lot of cruisers on other Celebrity sailings since then, and almost to a person they loved the infinite veranda staterooms, so I just have to assume CC users are vocal outliers. Maybe it’s just social people who hang out at the martini bar and like chatting? No clue, but the griping you find here doesn’t seem to be replicated in the real world. We also loved the larger Edge, which has incredibly innovative and well-designed spaces that aren’t like other Celebrity ships. We always found the Solstice class to be a bit inward-facing (huge atrium, etc) compared to the Millennium class. Edge worked extra hard to expand the ocean views, outdoor spaces, and walls of glass throughout the ship. One side of the buffet is just like a huge wall of windows… it’s incredibly impressive. While we love some features of the Equinox, the staterooms are just fine. We did love the lawn on the Equinox… living in NY and not having a backyard, it reminded us of spending the day in sheep meadow in Central Park, and we spent hours up there.

You’ll hear lots of people say “food is subjective” on Cruise Critic, but the Princess coffee dispensers are almost horrifically bad by any discernible metric. Luckily, the new Princess ships (Royal class) have abolished the Nescafé-style coffee concentrate syrups in the buffet, in favor of the standard cruise ship buffet style grinder/brewer/dispenser machines. It’s a night and day change… the new coffee is actually consumable without loads of cream/sugar. The new Princess ships also have an espresso bar in the buffet, and the ocean medallion system makes it easy to order an americano/cappuccino/etc wherever you are on the ship. Re: food on Princess v. Celebrity: we prefer Celebrity MDR food, as it tends to be more creative in preparation/style than the Princess food, which is more basic. Celebrity tends to offer more international flavors and ingredients than Princess, but both are generally well-prepared. One MDR difference is that Princess no longer offers any traditional early/late assigned-time seating. You can select a designated time to dine each each night (and even which MDR), but you won’t automatically get the same table/dining team each evening.

There’s a bunch of stuff open on the ship on disembarkation day. The MDR and buffet will certainly be open for breakfast, as will Cafe al Bacio for specialty coffees. I believe there’s coffee service in the main showroom for those waiting to disembark?

From our experience on Celebrity, if you’re keeping your big bags with you overnight, you are expected to do self-walkoff early around 7-7:30 am. Group numbers start getting called after that, for passengers without large suitcases. You’ll likely have to be out of your stateroom by 8 am at the latest. There’s no hard rule against it, but it’s encouraged that people *not* be rolling off their big 50 lb bags during later numbered groups. This is done primarily for efficiency and not slowing down the exit of other passengers, taking up space on the elevators or in the buffet/lounges, etc. If you’re going to wait until later to disembark, I’d recommend tagging your bags the night before.

Surprised it took 16 minutes for someone to chime in with this 🙄 Personally, we love the infinite verandahs on the Edge class and haven’t had any of the issues other (exceedingly vocal) cruise critic members seem to have with the ships or staterooms. We found the rooms to be expansive, and easily the best-designed standard stateroom of any mass market/premium line currently sailing.

I'm willing to bet that the insane service cuts/price gouging happening at post-pandemic Disney theme parks will end up being a Harvard Business School case study in 10-15 years. History nerd here, and I'm pretty sure Queen Victoria/Prince Albert never set foot in Canada. I think your driver meant the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father. He lived in Kent House in downtown Quebec City (now the French consulate), and had a summer home by Montmorency Falls.

We did the identical excursion before on Royal in 2018, and the winery was... pretty bad. This portion of the excursion just seemed like an excuse to sell bottles of ice wine to tourists. On our excursion, we went to Vignoble Domaine L'Ange Gardien, which was not on Ile d'Orleans (despite the description at the time). The "vineyard" was small, more like a large suburban backyard. We packed into a small room, and got a five minute lecture about growing grapes. We sipped a few wines, and then were sent into the gift shop to buy. There were no tasting notes, or explanations of the varietals or wines, and the wines we tasted were pretty bad/overly sweet. As others have mentioned, the canyon portion of the trip was excellent, and we really enjoyed it!

These photos bring back great memories! The Fortress of Louisbourg is one of the better cruise ship excursions we've taken. It was almost like a Canadian Colonial Williamsburg, and we ended up buying a bottle of small batch, very boozy rum aged in oak barrels at the fortress.

So random... those acrobats didn't show up until the last evening of the NJ-Reykjavik trip, and definitely weren't in Life on the last voyage. We left the theater wondering if they'd been onboard the whole time (possible quarantine?)