skatelady

I'd love to but it will be a struggle to get my husband to agree to that long a flight again. Prior to this trip 8 hours was his max. I'd also like to see other areas of the Pacific, he keeps saying NO!!!!!!!!

I would have liked a few more days but hindsight is 20/20. We saw a fair bit but there is lots to do. Many people really enjoyed the Blue Mountains, we didn't have time for that,

We did the trans pacific last year, spent 3 days in Sydney before we boarded. We used our MasterCard for everything, did not use cash at all.

Thanks for posting this, I have been looking for some new authors. Lots of interesting recommendations. You might like Louise Penny, she has a very popular series about a chief inspector in the Quebec Surete. They take place in rural Quebec and always keep you guessing. I have been reading in order, my hold with Libby for the next one started 19th in line, I'm up to 10 and still have an estimated 20 weeks. No French required to read them 🙂

For myself I prefer the ports on the Connie cruise. We have sailed her several times and really enjoy the ship but it has been a few years. We just got off Equinox this month. Great crew, we heard no food complaints, ship was in pretty good shape. It is a tough call to decide between them.

I have thought a few times that there was a price drop and then realized I was comparing an ad for base price to the all in price I had paid. Just something to keep in mind.

Computer systems are wonderful, aren't they? I always book with flights be Celebrity. When I book the flights I always get a confirmation, though it is never clear if baggage is included, they could improve that. I also get multiple notifications of changes, the last one to say our flight home was landing 2 minutes later than scheduled when we booked.

I always got the email and then suddenly didn’t (have never sent an email to anyone at Celebrity). I have been unable to register again. I stumbled across the thread 'Captains Club power up points' and started following it. People are very good about posting the links for new opportunities and I get notifications when new posts are added so I don't miss them. Just an example of how helpful Cruise Critic is.

Our first day we asked for 2 bottles of water and were given 2 - 16 oz cans, they charged us 5.90 each. We learned after that to just ask for 2 water and they gave us the included San Benedeto cans. I found it difficult to know if you were being charged for something as they always wanted you to sign, even if it was for something included in your beverage package. We cruise Celebrity more, they only have you sign if it isn't included in your package.

I think you will love the ship. We sailed on her the beginning of November and it is now my favorite ship. It was our first Pinnacle class.

I keep ours too. On our b2b in the spring I asked about keeping them. They had to take them but told me I could go to guest relations in a few days and they would give them back. I did go and they did give them to me.

People often say the app is not always correct, and I know from experience that is true.. We spent 30 nights on Eclipse in April/May and this menu looks very familiar. If this menu is correct and they they have made changes it looks like they went back to the prior menus.

When I saw this post - 6 hrs 20 min - I was in my living room west of Toronto and thought that's odd. During the flight that left Toronto at 7:30 pm it came to mind and I didn't sleep a wink thinking Flight Ease had booked wrong flights and I hadn't noticed. I was really happy to see the HAL reps at the airport and our names on the shuttle list. Even happier to be on board!

We were supposed to dock at 7:00. We were still out in the bay at 9:00 and no one knew when the fog would lift so I started working on changing flights. We moved from a 2:00 flight to an 8:00 flight. I think it was about 5:00 when we finally docked. Luckily the flight was delayed for a couple of hours so we made that one. We've never had this issue from Ft Lauderdale or Miami.

I swore we will never cruise from Tampa again. Cruise ending in January cost an extra $1,000 to change our flights home. Fog in Tampa, we sat in the bay for hours waiting for the Port to reopen. The only help from flights by Celebrity was giving us the airline phone number to change flights and the ship phone to use for the call.

We had a few days in Rome prior to a bus trip. The meal I remember most was a neighborhood mom and pop pizzeria. We were out for a walk and passed it, decided to give it a try. It wasn't fancy, they only had a few tables but great pizza and the house red was a few euro a litre. We enjoyed it too. DH, born in Italy, likes to say they keep the best wine for themselves and export the rest. We were in Italy about two weeks and only ordered house red. We were never disappointed but we also aren't connoisseurs.

We stayed at Rydges Sydney Harbor in April for a few nights before our cruise. It was recommended by someone on our roll call. Quite a few of the roll call stayed there, we had a meet and greet in their lobby bar. HOHO bus was down the street, we wheeled our luggage to the ship. It is in The Rocks, as people have mentioned lots to see and plenty of restaurants. We walked to the opera house for a tour. We were happy with our stay there. Someone on our roll call noticed that you can join Rydges loyalty program for a discount even if it's your first time in their hotels. Slight issue, I have tried to unsubscribe from their emails since I don't see us in that part of the world anytime soon but they keep coming. Delete always works.

I always check rates whenever they announce a new sale. I have had good luck with changing cabins. On a single cruise I moved from obstructed balcony to a sunset verandah and saved $600, keeping the same benefits. That was a score! More relevant to this thread, when we did our back to back I booked the two legs about 9 months apart. The cabin from the first leg was not available. When doing a mock booking for a sale I found the first leg cabin available again and was able to move. We appreciated not having to move.

We did Sydney to Honolulu, Honolulu to Vancouver in April. You will be issed new cards for the second leg. You do have to scan off the ship even if you don't want to go ashore, they take your cards for the first leg and you use your new cards to get back on. We were absolutely allowed to go on shore on turnaround day. They will have a meeting for anyone doing B2B and explain it all. I keep the key cards from every cruise, they let me pick the cards from the first leg up at guest relations a few days into the second cruise.

It depends on where the OBC is from. If you log into your account and go to plan my cruise at the top of the page you might see an amount for OBC. You can use that now to book excursions. OBC from travel agents isn't usually posted to your account until after you board. I've had cruises where some was available before boarding, some where none was available. Some were a mix of Celebrity and TA OBC, some were just TA.

In the navigator app find book and manage flights. Start as if you haven't booked flights, it will bring up your booking. I booked seats with Air Canada yesterday, the seat numbers are showing on the HAL site today. Air Canada site was trying to charge USD for the seats, apparently I paid HAL in Cdn dollars but they paid AC in USD. I called AC and got the seats we wanted in CDN dollars.

13 Celebrity cruises, we rarely go to the production shows. Very tired of the cast screaming into their microphones. On our December 2022 cruise over Christmas we attended a show, same screaming as always. Christmas Eve the cast did a caroling show, took turns singing songs that reminded them of home. No screaming, just singing, who knew there were some wonderful voices in the cast.

We were told by the cruise director on our first HAL cruise about 10 years ago that if you give someone an additional tip they turn it in to go into the pot for distribution. In his words the crew know they do better when they all work together. Ten years is a long time and much might have changed.

We cruised out of Sydney in April and had stops in New Zealand, we needed visas for both countries. Both have apps you can download and are easy to complete. We did not have to have a medical exam. You do have to scan your passport and pay the fee. Customs in both countries wanted to see them. Check out their websites to make sure you have the latest information.

Longtime Celebrity cruiser with 3 HAL cruises on Zuiderdam and Nieuw Amsterdam. I booked a cruise in July for end of October on Nieuw Statendam, obstructed balcony. I didn't realize until I did some reading on cruise critic that obstructed balconies on Pinnacle class are fully obstructed. I had read about the club orange upgrade. I emailed my personal Cruise Consultant asking for the charge to upgrade. Someone else responded to the email, quoted $950 and told me they could only offer one specific cabin on the Port side (a mock booking shows cabins availble). We wanted starboard so we could see land sailing around Southern Italy. I called today and asked 1. Are PCC's real people, told yes. I wasn't sure because I've emailed her twice, no response the first time and someone else responded the second time. 2. Asked about Club orange. He quoted me $600. Asked if I do that can I upgrade to an unobstructed balcony starboard side. He said absolutely, we are now in 6049, paid 2/3 of the cost to upgrade and I get a tote bag! Sounds like breakfast and lunch will be easier too. Always good info shared on cruise critic!