publicpersona

In prep for a cruise, I researched and booked complex international travel (on other sites) in a total of about 20 minutes. Then I went to the Celebrity site and tried to book a simple shore excursion. Three hours later, still no joy. The usual "We are putting the finishing touches on your cruise", to showing random available excursions. Then showing some as available but then in checkout saying "one or more was not available" and this happened despite choosing half dozen different available ones. Of course, forcing me to login again and again and again. But my favorite was when I finally got something to stick in the cart and going through payment, I got an error message saying "Your shopping cart has rolled away." I'm not making this up.

On a short 3nt Caribbean cruise, the number of people who dress in special attire will be very, very low. I used to enjoy taking two tux jackets and really dress for formal/chic night. But as travel became more of a hassle, and getting more expensive to check bags, we just don't do it at all anymore. I wear a decent shirt and chinos to dinner just about every night, so my definition of preparing for chic night is to stick a tie in the suitcase. Never more than that anymore. That said, if you want to, or you particularly want to have photos made dressed up, then go ahead. You do you. But put away all feelings of obligation to do so .. most everyone has.

Yeah, there is no equivalent email in advance for Concierge that I've ever seen. Just this in the stateroom (as of last November on Summit)..

I was talking about just asking the room steward when he or she came by the first afternoon. And again, to be clear, I'm talking about a minor change such as nonallergenic or an extra pillow.

You can always ask. If there are feather pillows on the bed, you can surely get foam instead. Or get extra pillows. You may not be able to get Swedish Isotonic or some such pillows.

There are two pretty good videos on YT about the Concierge benefits with the conclusion they are not all that. My spousal unit likes the first day lunch, but that is noteworthy only because that's the only benefit worth mentioning. You can ask the stateroom attendant for a different pillow, but I've been able to do that in a plain old veranda too. We don't eat much of the little canapés delivered every day. You have to ask for the bottle of cheap wine now, and it is really, really not great. We are already Elite Plus and will never go beyond that, so the points are not that big an incentive. On average (i.e., not every case), Concierge may be better locations than Veranda, although on S class there are some right under the Oceanview. Sometimes you can find price anomalies where Concierge Gty is cheaper than Veranda Gty, or even ocean view gty. Then it is a no brainer.

So the direct train Termini to Civitavecchia is not the best option? Wow, I'm learning a lot today. Just to confirm, you'd recommend the one in yellow below, and that I should purchase ticket in advance if I'm doing this one?

You are exactly right! Thanks so much!

We just now booked a cruise out of Civitavecchia leaving August 17th and was about to book a pre-cruise hotel near Roma Termini. But in checking the availability of direct train on that morning, the earliest Trenitalia is showing me in late in the day. Am I correct in assuming that means the train option isn't going to work out for me?

Three reasons we prefer S class over E: "Main dining room" service on E is a hot mess. The logistics of feeding so many people who want variable dining times is already complicated enough without throwing in the complication of having "different" restaurants. But other than decor, they aren't different at all. It's the same galley and the same menu (yes, I know they pretend they are different, but it doesn't matter which one you order from). On Apex a few weeks ago, we showed up as early as 5:30 PM only to be told there was a 30-45 minute wait. Sky Lounge The "infinite balcony" is neither infinite nor a balcony.

Now that you can pay just the difference for drinks above the Easy Plus package level, I'd do that rather than a premium package. This is especially true for Ocean Cay time where no premium drinks are available on the island.

If you mean, can you use onboard credit to pay for specialty restaurants, yes you can. Generally, anything that would be charged to your onboard account can use onboard credit. If you want to continue this topic, I'd suggest starting another thread.

This is something that perplexes me. For many cruises across multiple lines, I've uploaded my (recent) passport photo. A passport photo is the gold standard for security photos and is used for facial recognition. Nevertheless, the port agent has always insisted on taking a new one, sometimes saying "You can't take a picture of a picture". No, I didn't do that at all. The photo snapped at the terminal always was a little blurry with a background of a crowd of people, yet that was OK. When I posted about this on CC, someone that said they were a port agent said she could "tell I was trying to get away with a passport photo". Get away with what? It's my image and is perfection for the purpose of visually identifying someone. So my most recent cruise a couple weeks ago I (unintentionally) took a selfie in a bad light with a harsh shadow. I wasn't looking straight at the camera but rather down and to the right. My chin was slightly out of frame. I uploaded it and it was accepted with no reshoot necessary. There's probably a reasonable explanation here. Possibly the metadata of the image must be the same day as the upload or something like that.

If you feel the need, cash. Other than that, the crew are taught to be polite and appear appreciative of whatever you do, so you can't go by that. I say that because inevitably in one of these threads someone who believes the crew actually wants and has room to keep some worthless tchotchke will argue "I brought a rock with 'Ohio' painted on it and our stateroom attendant loved it!".

I’ve been on 70+ cruises and having a make-up muster for those that missed the first day drill is pretty much standard procedure. For cruises that sail away late in the evening (for example, out of San Juan at 10 PM), the muster is the next day for everyone (no, it does not need to be completed before sail away). Let me turn the tables on you. On what cruise lines have you found inferior muster drill procedures in the last year? Right. Three times you’ve claimed best in the industry. I’ve switched to counting how many times you’ve dropped that you had a butler.