Lsimon

In the Caribbean the ships never take your passports, at least not for Citizen's of most countries including the USA. Passports are not an absolute requirement on Caribbean cruises for USA Citizens so not all passengers will even have them.

In Cruises in Europe and other areas of the world it depends on the requirements of the ports of call the ship is visiting. The ship inspects all passports on boarding and provides this information to authorities at ports of call. But authorities at some ports want to see the passports on their own, either due to their country's laws or as a spot check/audit of the cruise line's procedures. If the country has notified Celebrity that they will require direct inspection of passports then the cruise ship will collect all passports (usually at the initial boarding) to facilitate the process.

... I used my personal visa (and not the shipboard account) to purchase the watch...

How did you do that? In my experience the ship's stores only do charges to the shipboard account.

Hi All,

 

I'd like to purchase a watch on this upcoming cruise (Mar 28 Western Car. Celeb Constellation) and I am wondering if anyone has cruised recently on Constellation and is aware of when they had the best deals during the cruise.

 

This so much.

 

PK

There is usually some time during the later part of the cruise when they'll have a big sale with $10 watches or something like that. That's probably the best kind of watch to buy on a cruise since you know you're getting cheap stuff at a cheap price.

If you're thinking you can get a good deal on an expensive watch then be extremely familiar with the best prices for them at home before your cruise. You'll probably find that you'll be best off waiting until you get back home.

If you have your heart set on buying a nice watch on the cruise and price matters then ask the people at the shop when the best price and selection is. Ask them if you buy 'now' if you can get the price adjusted if they have a sale with a lower price later in the cruise. I know I've seen ads for watch "unveilings" and special events like that announced in the daily bulletin but never went nor paid too much attention.

I would not worry about this. Just stop by the Spa shortly after you board the ship and you should have no problem. You can also call the Cruise Enhancement department at Celebrity to see if they'll let you book this in advance.

re: "unmentionables"

...Perhaps because I'm older I resent the fact that Celebrity expects us to use their laundry service for those things.

Why?

Do you really think that the laundry staff have any special feelings about your underwear? It's just clothing and they're doing tons of clothing all day long for hundreds of customers including lots and lots of underwear. They don't care about yours and there is nothing to be embarrassed about by sending them to the laundry.

When you use the ship's laundry service, can you specify things like "dry on low" or "line dry"? ...

Yes. There is a special instruction section on the form where you can specify such things. I'm not sure if anyone believes that they'll actually follow such instructions but there is definitely a place to write them in.

I've never been to the ship's laundry but even so I seriously doubt that they do loads individually. Rather I suspect that they do huge loads of many passenger's items together in giant washing machines and dryers. I also doubt that they have much room to line dry items down in the low sub levels of the ship where the laundry is located.

I don't recall ever having items ruined by the ship's laundry but we tend to send safe items. If we have something delicate or which needs special treatment we'll generally send it in for dry cleaning rather than laundry as they offer both services.

Some people spend part of their evenings doing laundry in their bathroom sink and hoping things dry overnight while lying around their cabin.

Others just budget to do laundry on the ship and don't worry about it. I'm in this later group. The only thing we regularly do in the sink is rinsing salt water out of bathing suits when in the Caribbean.

I bank at a major US Bank (Chase) and they charge around a 4% premium from the prior day's spot index closing rate on foreign exchange. This is pretty common at major banks although some, possibly including mine, also add a fixed service charge for non-customers. If you use an ATM the exchange rate will likely be well under 1% plus any ATM fees that the machine adds on (typically a couple dollars) or that your bank adds on. The other benefit of using an ATM is that they tend to be more convenient than going into a bank.

I'd wait. You never know what could happen that might change things and I'd rather be sitting on my money in the bank than waiting days or weeks for a refund to get processed if you had to cancel or if Celebrity themselves cancelled.

Celebrity's CruiseCare insurance does not factor age into the pricing.

In the past we've cruise many times during the spring break time frame on cruises from both Ft. Lauderdale and San Juan and never had an issue with spring break party type crowds on the ships.

I think this is largely due to Celebrity's age policy which sets a minimum age of 21 for sailing without a parent or guardian.

Just a month ago one of the Specialty Waiters told me that tips are now POOLED

across the ship, and he said we get .001%, so he didn't give passengers a check to sign anymore just take their card number. He said that we used to pool within our restaurant but things have changed for the worse, our waiters are not happy but it is a policy change across the fleet.

Wow! I sure hope you have the figures wrong. .001% is one one-hundred-thousandth (1/100,000) of the tips. This means that if there were 3,000 passengers on board and each one tipped $300 the total tips would be $900,000 for the cruise and your waiter would only get $9 of that. Not much for a week or two of work. Did you meant to say that he gets a thousandth of the tips which would be 0.1% ? If not then I wonder who the other 99,999/100,000 of the tips go to?

Is there a way to get around the pooling of tips? I ask as we did tip our fav waiter, asst waiter and somm., but spaced out with our maitre d and would like to insure a double tip on our upcoming cruise.

If pooling is in fact mandatory then you can not get around it. When there is mandatory pooling the employees are subject to severe punishment, or even termination, for not putting tips into the pool. And of course they would earn a lot of disrespect and hatred from their fellow employees for cheating them. So it all depends on whether all the tips are in fact now pooled, or just those in excess of the prepaid, or basic daily, tips.

All of the eastern and southern Caribbean ports, including St. Kitts are AST (Atlantic Standard Time).

Celebrity ships to this area have always, in my experience, changed their ship time to AST after leaving Florida during time periods when Florida is on Standard Time - but confirm this once on board. When Florida is on daylight savings time (after March 13 in 2016) there is no time difference at all between Floridia's EDST (Eastern Daylight Savings Time and AST - the islands do not do daylight savings time).

If you are by chance sailing from San Juan Puerto Rico you are already on AST so there will be no time change.

If memory serves me correctly, don't the cabin doors also have a lever over catch (similar to a chain concept) to keep someone from opening the door more than a couple of inches when engaged?

Nope. Just checked photos from 2 S class ships and one M class ship and none of the doors had a slide, lever or chain lock. Just had the regular door latch "deadbolt"

Is that true!? :eek:

 

I have been denied to buy a package for both TA's, 2012 and 2014... Celebrity has just said: "NO - you can NOT buy a beverage package for a TA"

 

Or is it changed after 2014?

Did you try to buy one on the ship? The last TA I took was in December 2012 on the Silhouette and I bought a beverage package (Premium Non-alcoholic) on board. I recall them advertising all of the beverage packages on board including the packages that included alcohol.

...Also, why did the OP put it in the Celebrity board as it has nothing at all to do with Celebrity.

A lot of members here have fond memories of the older ships and like to hear follow up bits and updates about them from time to time for nostalgia's sake.

Article doesn't have all its facts straight. The article says

This is totally ridiculous as they clearly have ships anchored off the west coast on daily, or almost daily, basis during several months each year and regularly at other times of the year as well and these has been going on for decades.

I agree it is a shame this damage was done but it doesn't sound like it was the fault of the ship, the ship's captain nor the cruise line as they were directed to drop anchor there by the port authorities.

Our Equinox AQ cabin had a very small shelf at the top of the closet:

I've never done this in Miami, but hopefully it will work there. In Fort Lauderdale I've rented a car for the day from a rental company that has shuttles at the pier. Used car for both transportation and to carry luggage around when hanging out around the city and then dropped it off at the airport.

We were in one of those cabins once - 1601 in Equinox. Noise was noticeable but not much worse than that. I'd rather it was not there but would still consider the cabin due to the great location.

My question for the wine 'experts' commenting here is, how in the world can you know which variety X is using until you see the actual label?

 

I would venture to guess that each winery has at least three (3) varieties of various qualities of each wine they produce. If you know which it is before seeing the label name, bravo for you. There are a few wineries which only have one (1) product, I Am sure.

 

Please let me, at least, know how you know which vintage/type it is.

 

bon voyage and good drinking, if you are drinking...

If you are talking about the less expensive wine packages or the wine by the glass list then it is a pretty good assumption that the wines are the least expensive variety from the winery, if they have different versions, and a pretty recent vintage. If you are talking about a nicer bottle of wine from the list of bottled wines then the variety (such as a "reserve") will often be on the wine list and you can ask the wine steward to check the vintage or show you the bottle if that makes a difference to you.

I find it hard to imagine that someone would never take off a ring, even if only for reasons of sanitation, to wash and dry one's hands and to clean the ring. ...

I don't find that hard to believe at all. I take my wedding ring off very infrequently sometimes not for many months at a time. It is a basic gold band and not very wide. Doesn't interfere with hand washing or sanitation at all

It is extremely unlikely the room attendant took their rings. The consequences to the steward and the livelihood of that stewards family are just to great.

You're very naive. In my many years in business management I've seen cases where managers, even VP's, with good salaries and positions and years of tenure throw away their careers to steal amounts of money or merchandise that were inconsequential in relation to the impact on their career and lives.

There is no reason to believe that cabin stewards as a class of workers are any less honest than those in any other profession. But the fact is that people who commit crimes don't consider the the consequences of their actions the same way that us honest people do so it is illogical to presume that they'd think through things the same way you or I would.

Wow, this is terrible. Did they both leave them on the counter or were they taken from the safe?

Unless they had evidence that the room steward stole them, Celebrity will not accept responsibility. No business would without proof.

They could try filing a claim with their homeowners, or rental, insurance. Coverage is usually fairly limited if they haven't purchased a rider for this but they still should have some limited coverage which might be sufficient if they were just basic gold bands or cover part of the loss if they were more extensive than that.

Will anyone here disclose the 'profit margins' for the Company they work for?

I don't think so :rolleyes:

 

Our favorite Red is $39.00-$43.00 a bottle on the shelf here in Dallas, but when ordered at our favorite restaurant 3 blocks away, it is $$71.00.

 

Dinning on a cruise ship is no different. Why anyone would think it should be is beyond me.

Your favorite restaurant has very good wine prices, either that or your wine store prices are very high. Around Chicago a wine with a retail going rate of $40 would be over $100 and maybe even over $150 at some restaurants.

The availability of Wi-Fi on a ship is going to be dependant on the satellite signal which in turn will depend on what satellites in the system the ship subscribes to are within range of the ship given the ships current position and atmospheric conditions. So the availability of wi-fi on an atlantic crossing and at different spots across the pacific may be very different from time to time.