Live: Dec 22 2023 Solstice 12 Night Thailand & Vietnam Holiday Cruise!

[mahdnc]

52 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Just curious what your general impression was of Ethiopia air?

 

We flew Singapore air for both routes and would definitely fly them again over Delta, American, etc.  All of the general seats were extended for legroom and they kept the lavatories clean for the long flight.

 

 

I was favorably impressed with Ethiopian Airlines.  They appear to be a very professionally run company.  It's my first time that I have flown on them, and I admit that I was apprehensive when I first booked our return flights with them about a year ago. 

 

Also in the back of my mind was the 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 outside of Addis Ababa which, along with a previous Lion Air crash, ended up famously grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft for a couple of years.  The well known root cause was the aircraft's faulty stabilization software but Ethiopian Airline's flight crew performance was also faulted by investigative parties outside of the airline.  So there's that.

 

But I can only judge based on what I have seen.  The whole customer experience was excellent.  At no point did I feel like I was flying in a 3rd world country's airline, which I actually was.  Nothing weird like seeing live caged chickens in the aircraft or tents being used as terminals.  We were in a Boeing 787 aircraft with nothing broken in it that make you question their maintenance.  The airport and terminal was bright and new-ish.  Flight attendants were very professional. Ethiopian Airlines has an app although it could not display your boarding pass (so there's one inadequacy).  Flights pretty much took off on time and arrived on time.  The only significant thing that I thought was sub-par was the length of time it took to get our bags from baggage claim--about 2 hours.

 

If you stripped all of the Ethiopian Airline's logos and hid the ethnicity of the passengers and crew, I would have mistaken the whole experience for a USA flagged airline.  I realize that there are better airlines in the world than the USA carriers, but that is the standard to which I am accustomed.

 

One measurement of an airline's quality is how they handle problems.  Well, they left one of our bags back in Africa when we took off for Chicago.  I filed a missing bag report at O'Hare Airport and 30 hrs later I received a telephone call from Ethiopian Airlines asking me to confirm my home address because the bag was sent to Chicago and they were going to deliver it to our house.  That's pretty good (as an unnecessary side story, the most impressive lost bag experience I had was with Delta in 2016--the previous time we had a lost bag.  They had a Delta agent looking for us at baggage claim in Santiago, Chile to tell me that one of our bags didn't make it on the plane--this was before I could even figure out on my own that it was lost).

 

So I would fly with Ethiopian Airlines again, but I wouldn't necessarily seek them out first.  If we were flying to Africa again, it is likely I would have to fly an African carrier if a connection was required, I would be fine with Ethiopian Airlines.  On the other hand the airline you flew, Singapore Airlines, is well known for years as being one of the best run airlines in the world and they are famous for providing an awesome flying experience  That is an airline that I would seek out preferentially over any USA carrier if given the opportunity.

[Arubamoose]

23 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

I would add that the Singapore airport is the nicest airport I have ever been in.  They have butterflies,  waterfalls, and it is very scenic and clean.  My only regret is that I did not have more time to spend there.  It is the Disneyland of airports but a step above.  I would not mind a long layover there and I do not like layovers ...

 

We are doing the Millie in 2025 and will book one overnight at the airport as we get off and then head to Singapore proper before our cruise.  Everything I've read about it makes me excited to stay overnight!

[Miaminice]

8 hours ago, Arubamoose said:

 

We are doing the Millie in 2025 and will book one overnight at the airport as we get off and then head to Singapore proper before our cruise.  Everything I've read about it makes me excited to stay overnight!

if you haven’t been to Singapore before, I highly recommend staying in Singapore itself. Yes, the airport is the nicest I know - but Singapore is also one of the nicest cities I know. Don’t miss it. The hawkers, the food, the architecture, the Marina Bay area… just fascinating.

A Grab (no uber) into town is just around $20, so the transfer should not be a factor.

[CarolCough]

We're staying on Sentosa island for two nights and visiting Universal Studios. There's so much to see and do! 

[Miaminice]

4 minutes ago, CarolCough said:

We're staying on Sentosa island for two nights and visiting Universal Studios. There's so much to see and do! 

👍 Nice, but not really Singapore either LOL

[CarolCough]

True ☺️ But it's been on my bucket list for years. Not long to go now! 

[mahdnc]

4 hours ago, CarolCough said:

True ☺️ But it's been on my bucket list for years. Not long to go now! 

 

If I may politely make a rebuttal on your behalf: I don't expect that you have to justify where you choose to go and whether it is the real Singapore or not.  I know people back here in the USA (who have never been to Hong Kong or Tokyo) make a trip to those places with time allocated to solely visit Disneyland at both cities.  The vice president of my employer has taken several extended land vacations to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  He doesn't understand why I saw Vietnam by cruise ship because it seems so superficial to him.

[CarolCough]

14 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

If I may politely make a rebuttal on your behalf: I don't expect that you have to justify where you choose to go and whether it is the real Singapore or not.  I know people back here in the USA (who have never been to Hong Kong or Tokyo) make a trip to those places with time allocated to solely visit Disneyland at both cities.  The vice president of my employer has taken several extended land vacations to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  He doesn't understand why I saw Vietnam by cruise ship because it seems so superficial to him.

Thank you ☺️ As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's the main thing. 

[Miaminice]

58 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

If I may politely make a rebuttal on your behalf: I don't expect that you have to justify where you choose to go and whether it is the real Singapore or not. 

 

Hi David, 

True!!! In my defense: if I had expected a justification* I would have not ended with LOL
I am sure @CarolCough understood how I meant it 🙂 

Merely saying that Singapore itself is such a fabulous and fascinating city which has soooo much to offer. 

*one that nobody has a right to expect... getting complicated here 🙂

[CarolCough]

8 minutes ago, Miaminice said:

 

Hi David, 

True!!! In my defense: if I had expected a justification* I would have not ended with LOL
I am sure @CarolCough understood how I meant it 🙂 

Merely saying that Singapore itself is such a fabulous and fascinating city which has soooo much to offer. 

*one that nobody has a right to expect... getting complicated here 🙂

 

Of course, Singapore is certainly amazing. 🤩 I'm so glad we've booked two nights, one for some fun on Sentosa Island and one to explore as much as we can of this beautiful city. It's been such a pleasure to read everyone's posts. (My cruise is on 27th)  Can't wait! 😍

Edited January 15 by CarolCough

[mahdnc]

20 minutes ago, Miaminice said:

 

Hi David, 

True!!! In my defense: if I had expected a justification* I would have not ended with LOL
I am sure @CarolCough understood how I meant it 🙂 

Merely saying that Singapore itself is such a fabulous and fascinating city which has soooo much to offer. 

*one that nobody has a right to expect... getting complicated here 🙂

 

Oliver,

 

I should have prefaced my remark by saying that having met you from our cruise, I know that you did not mean it in a mean-spirited way because I know you (and Birgit) are very nice people!   I just didn't want your remark to be taken the wrong way.  

 

I am sorry to imply that you were personally demanding justification.

[Miaminice]

12 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

Oliver,

 

I should have prefaced my remark by saying that having met you from our cruise, I know that you did not mean it in a mean-spirited way because I know you (and Birgit) are very nice people!   I just didn't want your remark to be taken the wrong way.  

 

I am sorry to imply that you were personally demanding justification.

 

All good! I know you know... 🙂 you know what I mean 🤣

[Newbury newbie]

Are we good now?!! 🙂

[mahdnc]

3 hours ago, Newbury newbie said:

Are we good now?!! 🙂

We are homies!

[Miaminice]

6 hours ago, Newbury newbie said:

Are we good now?!! 🙂

🙂 never been not good 🙂

 

[Arubamoose]

On 1/15/2024 at 1:03 AM, Miaminice said:

if you haven’t been to Singapore before, I highly recommend staying in Singapore itself. Yes, the airport is the nicest I know - but Singapore is also one of the nicest cities I know. Don’t miss it. The hawkers, the food, the architecture, the Marina Bay area… just fascinating.

A Grab (no uber) into town is just around $20, so the transfer should not be a factor.

 

 We have plans to stay three or four nights in Singapore.  We are IHG credit card people so we have hotel points and will stay in Clarke Quay.  I am excited about the hawker centers.  

 

We just figure after such a long flight it would be to our benefit to relax at the Changi airport before we hit the ground.

 

P.S. On your recommendations - I have already downloaded Grab! 

[Dr. Pam]

Hi MiamiNice and mahdnc😀

 

Many thanks to the both of you for such invaluable information! Although we have travelled through parts of Asia (10+yrs ago land based), we are very excited to explore more countries by ship.  I think that a cruise does provide an overview and insight, if we wish to do a future extensive land based vacation. 

 

We are very excited to board the Solstice after 2 nights in Hong Kong trying to recover from jet lag.  We hope that we have chosen the correct flights to minimize sleep deprivation (I do not do well with time changes 🙃.) We are on Air Canada from YYC- YVR early Friday evening our time and then YVR to HKG leaving at midnight and arriving in Hong Kong, a day and a half later (13+ hour flight although in lay down flat seats) We arrive Sunday morning at 5:30 am Hong Kong time.....so hopefully we will achieve some ZZZZZZ's on our way over. Thank you to mahdnc for JW Marriott recommendation.  We are Platinum Elite with a few points that we are using for our stays in Hong Kong (JW Marriott), Bangkok (St. Regis) and Singapore (JW Marriott) for a total of 10 nights...built up over PANDEMIC and happy to use! Points are now depleted thanks to reserving  an extra room for our son (graduating from MED....proud parents😁) for all of our stays.  We are thrilled to enjoy this adventure with DS before he enters the residency grind!

 

I am very appreciative to you both for directing us to some amazing private tour guides, some of which we have engaged for our time.  Because of your reviews, we are downloading WHATSAPP, GRAB, and making sure that we have local currency (and USD of course) on hand for the different countries. We are currently looking at e-Sim cards for all of us....we have elderly parents that we need to stay in touch with.  Our Canadian cellular carriers charge "highway robbery fees" for travel abroad. We want to keep our same phone numbers and have voice and cellular. THoughts?

 

Thank you once again.  I will not be doing a live of live-ish review, but I will certainly post my thoughts and reviews of our adventure.....trying to play it forward.

 

Happy and Safe Travels,

 

Pam

[mahdnc]

8 minutes ago, Dr. Pam said:

Hi MiamiNice and mahdnc😀

 

Many thanks to the both of you for such invaluable information! Although we have travelled through parts of Asia (10+yrs ago land based), we are very excited to explore more countries by ship.  I think that a cruise does provide an overview and insight, if we wish to do a future extensive land based vacation. 

 

We are very excited to board the Solstice after 2 nights in Hong Kong trying to recover from jet lag.  We hope that we have chosen the correct flights to minimize sleep deprivation (I do not do well with time changes 🙃.) We are on Air Canada from YYC- YVR early Friday evening our time and then YVR to HKG leaving at midnight and arriving in Hong Kong, a day and a half later (13+ hour flight although in lay down flat seats) We arrive Sunday morning at 5:30 am Hong Kong time.....so hopefully we will achieve some ZZZZZZ's on our way over. Thank you to mahdnc for JW Marriott recommendation.  We are Platinum Elite with a few points that we are using for our stays in Hong Kong (JW Marriott), Bangkok (St. Regis) and Singapore (JW Marriott) for a total of 10 nights...built up over PANDEMIC and happy to use! Points are now depleted thanks to reserving  an extra room for our son (graduating from MED....proud parents😁) for all of our stays.  We are thrilled to enjoy this adventure with DS before he enters the residency grind!

 

I am very appreciative to you both for directing us to some amazing private tour guides, some of which we have engaged for our time.  Because of your reviews, we are downloading WHATSAPP, GRAB, and making sure that we have local currency (and USD of course) on hand for the different countries. We are currently looking at e-Sim cards for all of us....we have elderly parents that we need to stay in touch with.  Our Canadian cellular carriers charge "highway robbery fees" for travel abroad. We want to keep our same phone numbers and have voice and cellular. THoughts?

 

Thank you once again.  I will not be doing a live of live-ish review, but I will certainly post my thoughts and reviews of our adventure.....trying to play it forward.

 

Happy and Safe Travels,

 

Pam

 

Dr. Pam,

 

Thank you for your kind words and it is good to know that the two reviews are helping you with awesome upcoming trip.

 

If you are flying in lay flat seats, then you should be good to go for your over-the-water flight to Hong Kong.  We flew business for the first time ever during our trip back to the USA from Hong Kong.  Let's just say, I now understand the attraction of business class.

 

Like you, I also emptied out our Marriott points to book our hotels.  Because we stayed there, I know from personal experience that you will be very pleased with St Regis Bangkok and JW Marriott Singapore.  I have some tips for those hotels. 

 

When we were checking into the JW Marriott Singapore, I asked the front desk agent if we could get a room facing Marina Bay, she said she could do that (and we would still have the same category room) and she changed our room assignment.  I was very happy with the view which includes the cruise ship pier.  The Executive Lounge is amazing and spacious.  I have never seen so many employees dedicated to such an area.

 

Marina Bay Sands (left), skyscrapers from the Central Business District (center), and the cruise ship pier (in between the two) were visible from our room at JW Marriott Singapore.

 

When we checked into the St. Regis Bangkok, among the Welcome Gift choices was free breakfast.  Take the free breakfast, the food and venue were also amazing and paying for it is quite expensive!

 

One other tip--if your room reservations are award stays--constantly check Marriott's website for price reductions (favorable changes in the number of points needed).  Now that Marriott has changed to a dynamic pricing system, you should do a mock booking through your smartphone  Marriott app periodically to see if the price has dropped.  When I booked the JW Marriott Singapore for 5 nights, I originally paid 207,000 Bonvoy points.  My records show that through pricing fluctuation, I modified our reservation 13 times including on the evening we were waiting to board our flight to Singapore.  In the end, I was able to get our 5 night stay down to 177,000 points.

 

Same thing with our 5 night booking at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong.  I originally booked our 5 night stay with a whopping 424,000 points.  By the end of Nov 2023, the price slowly slid to 316,000 points.  I found that the award points for our St Regis Bangkok single night stay also fluctuated (got it for 42,000 points and I used a 35,000 point certificate from our Marriott AMEX card).

 

The nice thing is that Marriott makes it easy to modify your reservation to get the points back without having to resort to cancel/rebook.  All you have to do is go the "modify your existing reservation" route which also preserves the booking number.  It works best online with a desktop/laptop.  The mobile apps don't allow you to get your points back through modification (or I couldn't figure out how). 

 

By the way, Grab does not work in Hong Kong, but Uber does.

 

As far as international calling goes, we took the lazy and expensive route of adding an international plan through our existing carrier, Verizon Wireless.  I don't advise that for most people since it is definitely not a cost effective solution.  For us it cost $100 per person per month. Doing an e-sim with a foreign carrier is the significantly cheaper way to go, but I cannot give you the benefit of my experience there. 

 

David

[alyssamma]

On 1/15/2024 at 9:41 AM, mahdnc said:

 

If I may politely make a rebuttal on your behalf: I don't expect that you have to justify where you choose to go and whether it is the real Singapore or not.  I know people back here in the USA (who have never been to Hong Kong or Tokyo) make a trip to those places with time allocated to solely visit Disneyland at both cities.  The vice president of my employer has taken several extended land vacations to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.  He doesn't understand why I saw Vietnam by cruise ship because it seems so superficial to him.

Lol, I've been once to Japan and going to HK in Dec. Saw a good chunk of the former and will have 6 days in the latter. But in both cases Disney was/is on the list 😀

[mahdnc]

 

While on board Reflection on Jan 17, 2019 (almost exactly 5 years ago), I booked our Asia sailing with Future Cruise Consultant Mr. Sergi Popov (Ukraine) who is pictured above.  Originally it was to be a 14 night holiday cruise on Millennium sailing out of Hong Kong on Dec 20, 2020.  An interesting aspect of that year's itinerary was the double overnight stay (= 3 days) at Bangkok.  Since this was a booking for my family of 4, we reserved a nice FV cabin.

 

Of course we all know that Covid hit in early 2020 which eventually cancelled all cruises (Celebrity Cruises Suspension of Sailing).  We Lifted and Shifted to the 2021 holiday cruise on Solstice.  When they first came out, the Lift and Shift rules were quite strict and required that the new sailing be on the same ship (or same class of ship).  Since Solstice replaced Millennium for 2021, Celebrity made an exception to the "same ship" rule.  However we could not get into an FV cabin because the ones on Solstice were slated to be converted into suites, so Celebrity put us into two adjoining balcony cabins so now we have two bathrooms!

 

The new 2021 holiday sailing reduced Bangkok to a single overnight stay (2 days) and added a 5th sea day to keep it as a 14 night sailing.  By the time final payment was due, we decided to exercise our option to Lift and Shift and we moved it to the 2022 holiday sailing (all Asia cruises were of course later cancelled by Celebrity).

 

Unfortunately the 2022 holiday sailing had been chopped back to 11 nights by reducing three overnight ports to just single days each (Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore).  Also the sailing was reversed and we would be going from Singapore to Hong Kong.

 

I really thought that the 2022 cruise would actually sail because things were opening up that year and cruising had re-started in a big way.  In July 2022, Celebrity decided to cancel the entire Asia season because Asia (e.g. Hong Kong) was still not completely open. As a result, we were now booked on the holiday 2023 Solstice sailing.  That cruise, of course, sailed although it sailed with just my wife and me because our two kids were each in serious relationships and now had jobs which meant that we no longer fit in their busy schedules.

 

[zitsky]

8 hours ago, Dr. Pam said:

Hi MiamiNice and mahdnc😀

 

Many thanks to the both of you for such invaluable information! Although we have travelled through parts of Asia (10+yrs ago land based), we are very excited to explore more countries by ship.  I think that a cruise does provide an overview and insight, if we wish to do a future extensive land based vacation. 

 

We are very excited to board the Solstice after 2 nights in Hong Kong trying to recover from jet lag.  We hope that we have chosen the correct flights to minimize sleep deprivation (I do not do well with time changes 🙃.) We are on Air Canada from YYC- YVR early Friday evening our time and then YVR to HKG leaving at midnight and arriving in Hong Kong, a day and a half later (13+ hour flight although in lay down flat seats) We arrive Sunday morning at 5:30 am Hong Kong time.....so hopefully we will achieve some ZZZZZZ's on our way over. Thank you to mahdnc for JW Marriott recommendation.  We are Platinum Elite with a few points that we are using for our stays in Hong Kong (JW Marriott), Bangkok (St. Regis) and Singapore (JW Marriott) for a total of 10 nights...built up over PANDEMIC and happy to use! Points are now depleted thanks to reserving  an extra room for our son (graduating from MED....proud parents😁) for all of our stays.  We are thrilled to enjoy this adventure with DS before he enters the residency grind!

 

I am very appreciative to you both for directing us to some amazing private tour guides, some of which we have engaged for our time.  Because of your reviews, we are downloading WHATSAPP, GRAB, and making sure that we have local currency (and USD of course) on hand for the different countries. We are currently looking at e-Sim cards for all of us....we have elderly parents that we need to stay in touch with.  Our Canadian cellular carriers charge "highway robbery fees" for travel abroad. We want to keep our same phone numbers and have voice and cellular. THoughts?

 

Thank you once again.  I will not be doing a live of live-ish review, but I will certainly post my thoughts and reviews of our adventure.....trying to play it forward.

 

Happy and Safe Travels,

 

Pam

I stayed at the JW Marriott Hong Kong 15 years ago while in business school, but I still remember it.  I hope you will enjoy it.

[Dr. Pam]

18 hours ago, mahdnc said:

One other tip--if your room reservations are award stays--constantly check Marriott's website for price reductions (favorable changes in the number of points needed).  Now that Marriott has changed to a dynamic pricing system, you should do a mock booking through your smartphone  Marriott app periodically to see if the price has dropped.  When I booked the JW Marriott Singapore for 5 nights, I originally paid 207,000 Bonvoy points.  My records show that through pricing fluctuation, I modified our reservation 13 times including on the evening we were waiting to board our flight to Singapore.  In the end, I was able to get our 5 night stay down to 177,000 points.

I DID do this...thanks to one of your earlier posts and saved a considerable amount of points! YAY!😁Thank you!  CC is a great forum to learn from others who have gone before us.

[mahdnc]

On 12/29/2023 at 9:57 PM, Suzi66 said:

I know we are definitely doing the former, and have a free day as the second so if we don't have the second as part of our travels we will look at that.  I think I will try and do a live for the time we are away as well.

 

Suzanne, how did your Hong Kong to Singapore sailing go?  I want details!

[Suzi66]

12 hours ago, mahdnc said:

 

Suzanne, how did your Hong Kong to Singapore sailing go?  I want details!

Tomorrow afternoon I should have sometime to get things down and I should have some photos sorted from one computer/hard drive to this one.  Celebrity really needs to get the wording on their shore excursions sorted as some of them over both cruises were nothing like what we ended up getting. We only got back yesterday and then I went straight back to work.  Exhaustion plus.  I think I need a vacation to recover from the vacation.

[mahdnc]

8 hours ago, Suzi66 said:

Tomorrow afternoon I should have sometime to get things down and I should have some photos sorted from one computer/hard drive to this one.  Celebrity really needs to get the wording on their shore excursions sorted as some of them over both cruises were nothing like what we ended up getting. We only got back yesterday and then I went straight back to work.  Exhaustion plus.  I think I need a vacation to recover from the vacation.

 

Good morning, Suzanne.  I didn't realize that you had a second sailing.  How nice (and exhausting).  Well, when you recharge and recover, I would love to hear from you about both cruises.

 

David