neminem

On 12/21/2022 at 10:40 AM, jagoffee said:

You might be confusing Celebrity’s Internet with Oceania’s internet.  What you state is exactly how they did it in our recent Oceania cruise.  Just turns off the streaming blocking.

Streaming, and a ridiculous number of other sites/things, including, bizarrely, the css for this forum (not the rest of it, but it meant it took about 5 minutes to load a page due to the timeout, and then the page loaded super-broken. That was true for about half the internet. Was seriously annoying. Weirdly, I experienced this all week on the internet on the Solstice, but had not experienced it previously on either the Summit or Millenium.)

As far as multiple devices though... modern versions of Windows also have a hotspot function, if your phone doesn't (or if, as in my case, your phone can only hotspot data, but not off of wifi for some reason.) When I wanted to use both my phone and computer, I turned on my computer's "mobile hotspot" and connected to it. Only time it was annoying was when, once, I wanted to run a script on my computer in the room, and then wanted to leave and go use my phone elsewhere on the ship. 

I would treat my room like a hotel room - if I had something super valuable, I might put it in the safe, or at the very least, in my luggage rather than being out and extremely visible, but I've never seriously considered the possibility of an employee jacking an old laptop. It'd have to be an employee, since your room is locked. I would treat the pool deck like... a public place. Sure, there are cameras, but it'd still be super easy for someone (a guest) to just walk by and grab someone else's wallet they left sitting, ripe for the yoinking, so why chance it?

Dunno about the evening whale watch, but it is ludicrously easy to get to Mendenhall yourself, for probably a lot cheaper. We did that on our most recent cruise (the one we took this June, that was supposed to have been June of 2020). Was about $40 a person for round trip transportation to Mendenhall. Bus picks you up right outside the cruise dock; once you're there, everything's walkable, then the bus back to town is every half hour, right by where it dropped people off.

Personally I always upgrade my drinks, cause I enjoy walking around drinking cocktails all the time + whatever wine I want at dinner, and I've always gotten the classic package included, so the upgrade price has always made sense for me. If you only enjoy fancy cocktails or more expensive wine occasionally, you can also just pay the difference for each drink, which would also go to your OBC, though. You can also use it on upgraded meals. (Celebrity's basic dinners are great, but the upgraded ones are even better!)

And yeah, I've never had a problem with the speed of basic "included" wifi. More of a pain that you only get one device connected per person at a time, so I just have my computer set up to act as a repeater to my phone, so if I'm using my computer, my phone can connect to my computer's wifi, then my computer is connected to the ship's wifi. 😄

Our Alaska cruise last June on the Millenium, had zero Zacapa rum as well, I was disappointed (also very little decent American whiskey). Really hope our cruise on the Solstice next week does better in that regard, at least in terms of Zacapa! Kinda given up on bourbon at this point. Really hope they at least have some Buffalo Trace somewhere, sometimes, though (unlike the Millenium) - one of my favorite whiskeys, really punches way above its price range.

1 minute ago, late2cruisin said:

Actually, this changed a few years ago. If you have the Classic package and you order something over $9.00, you pay the difference plus gratuity on the difference (just like it has always been for the premium package.)

Oh! That is big news, a few years ago, though? I swear nobody ever told my wife that the cruise we took a couple months ago to Alaska, when I upgraded mine immediately because I thought that was the case, but nobody ever told my wife that, and she stayed under the limit the whole cruise? Haha. I guess we'll have to ask next time?

Just making sure you know that even if it's over the package limit, that means something very different and much better if you have the premium package! The classic package, it's a hard cutoff, you can either get it or you can't (mostly can't). I always upgrade mine if the ticket came with the classic one - once you upgrade, it's a soft limit, you just pay the difference. Last cruise, I paid $5 for a full pour of $300 a bottle scotch on multiple occasions, no regrets. D 

On an earlier cruise, we were already booked in a balcony. We bid the minimum on a couple upgrades and didn't get them and were fine with that. On our most recent previous cruise, we were in an inside, bid just slightly more than the minimum, and got an upgrade to a balcony :). Have another cruise in December, will see if that works again, haha. 

But yeah, surely if you're willing to pay "anything", just ask them how much the upgrade will cost, then pay that much? MoveUp is for people like us, who would be willing to pay a little more, but not a lot more. 😄 

I've never had a problem with the basic wifi in terms of speed, honestly. (I mean, occasionally it just stopped working for a bit, but I'd guess the ship lost connection, so premium wifi would've, too.) I wouldn't watch Netflix on it, but for uploading some pictures to Facebook? Are you uploading hundreds of them at a time? Haha. 

Btw, though, our last cruise was a Celebrity cruise from Vancouver to Alaska, we did lose internet for a bit due to the remoteness 😄. Most of the time, it was up, though, and I felt like the basic was fine for, well, basic use. I'd call uploading a few pictures to a website, pretty basic use? (It is one device per person at a time, though - or you can set up your computer as a wifi repeater, haha.)

Recently, I've only cruised with Celebrity. I went on one 2-week cruise ages ago with HAL - thoughts on that, though it was ages ago: their buffet was decent, the poolside burgers were fantastic, the appetizers and entrees at the MDR were fantastic, desserts at the MDR (and buffet) were lackluster by comparison (though the MDR did serve a great cheese course, which I enjoyed doing as a "dessert"). If I recall, they also had a pretty solid breakfast in the MDR some days. The one upgraded dinner we tried, their steakhouse, was legitimately one of the best meals we've had, anywhere. The one upgraded lunch we tried, at their pan-Asian restaurant, was also quite good. I'd love to go on another HAL cruise sometime, though, that was ages ago!

By comparison, Celebrity: also has a pretty decent buffet, again, nothing to write home about for the most part (funny enough, the Indian food, especially the Indian food at breakfast, were the surprise winners.) Poolside burgers are just burgers. Appetizers and entrees at the MDR also quite good, desserts at the MDR also quite good (though funny enough, a much more lackluster cheese course!). Breakfast at the MDR just a boring subset of the same food at the buffet. We've only tried one upgraded dinner restaurant, Tuscan Grille (fancy Italian pasta and steak), but it's been consistently so good, we've done it one night on every cruise we've been on with them (so three times so far 😄). Again, legitimately some of the best food we've had. I also tried their sushi (a la carte) for lunch last cruise, it was... mediocre. 

On our last cruise (not on the Constellation, but another Millennium-class ship), a decent amount of the buffet was the same every day, but some also changed. Funny enough, their Indian food at the buffet ended up being the surprise winner, buffet-wise. We would probably have gone a little crazy if we'd only eaten at the buffet, though? I'm confused why you would want to avoid the MDR - Tuscan Grille is exceptionally good, but honestly, so is the MDR food. Far and away the best "free" food on the ship. 

No idea about your questions about the dining packages, but I can confirm that Sushi on 5 is a la carte, also pretty mediocre compared to sushi you can get in LA! (Good cocktails, though.) And that Tuscan Grille and Qsine are the only upgrade dinner restaurants on a Millennium-class ship. Tuscan Grille is still one of the best restaurants we've eaten at, but again, so is the MDR food, so we generally eat at one upgraded restaurant one night, and the MDR the rest of the cruise (and are always sad about missing the MDR menu the night we do the upgraded dinner, because that's also where all the creativity and most of the daily change goes!)

You know you can show up any time the MDR is open and ask for a table, right? 🙂 (You might have to wait a little while if it's right during the dinner rush, but they'll give you a buzzer and you can take it to a bar!)

For dinner, we generally order 3 courses: 2 appetizers each (that's one course), a main each (often with an extra meat and/or side of something in the middle - that's the second course), then dessert. 😛  (One exception so far, the upgrade Italian restaurant, Tuscan Grille, specifically has four courses baked in - appetizer, *pasta*, main, dessert, so obviously four courses are ordered there. 😛)

For lunch, we try to eat lighter, since dinner is always so good! (Well, that and most port days, we'd be eating lunch on shore, anyway.)

Funny reading this thread - from a year ago, but living in California, sometimes you don't realize you're spoiled! Does Kerns not exist everywhere in the US? In California, it's everywhere (their guava nectar, while very sugary, is pretty solid.) The POG juice on Celebrity is the even sweeter and more processed-tasting stuff from a concentrate, but it's still not bad. Honestly, it's hard to make a bad POG juice, haha. 

My favorite "juice" at breakfast when I'm cruising with an included drinks package, which I've gotten super-spoiled about at this point... is bloody mary mix and gin 😛. (And extra hot sauce. Maybe a slice of bacon?)

Our first cruise to the Caribbean, we spent a whole week in San Juan before the cruise, since I figured, it was a pain to get to, might as well take full advantage. I'd totally do that again. (Maybe not a full week, but at least a few days.)

We haven't been to Jamaica yet, but that's another island that seems like it deserves more than one afternoon - it's on my list.

edit:

10 minutes ago, wowzz said:

But not Antigua,  Barbados,  St Lucia, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Jamaica,Trinidad and Tobago, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis etc. 

Man, you need to check out your geography and your history! 

I mean... I know what you're trying to say (that Spanish isn't the primary language everywhere - though honestly, English was widely spoken pretty much everywhere we went, anyway) - but Spanish is useful almost anywhere. It's useful in the US! Heck, I remember one of the funniest attempts at communication, was when we were in a little shop in Venice, the shopkeep spoke no English, and neither of us spoke any Italian. Turns out the shopkeep spoke just enough Spanish to get by... and so does my wife. So they could both converse in Spanish just enough that she could ask about the prices, etc. Was fun to watch.

I'm just annoyed I got this email yesterday basically implying it was the sale of the century on shore excursions, which would have been extremely well-received, since Alaska shore excursions are expensive. Then I click through, and for my Alaska cruise, there is exactly one single shore excursion that's on sale (and not a particularly good one). That's a joke!

Thanks for the responses, both of you! I figured I'd take the shuttle, seemed easier, since it comes every half hour, and I don't have to figure out how to call a cab - and I definitely wouldn't want to pay the full cost of the rafting trip including transportation and then not use the provided transportation, I was hoping there was someone who'd just do the rafting trip without all the transportation. That said, I definitely was planning on doing the east glacier trail, since that seemed like by far the best view. And I wasn't necessarily expecting a lot of white water (I can get plenty of that in California), but I was expecting a better, or at least substantially different, viewpoint from the water. If it'd end up being just a lot of suburbia anyway, then that sounds even more like I could save the money, skip it, and just have more of a leisurely time walking.

Glaciers: significantly better than Icy Strait? I'll also be in Icy Strait, I heard that was some of the best whale watching, and also didn't seem to be that much else to do there that would be particularly convenient... though I'm looking now, and it looks like we could get a whale watching tour plus shuttle to/from Mendelhall in Juneau for about the same price as just the whale watching in Icy Strait, so that's pretty tempting. (But then the question is, what should we do at Icy Strait?)

Yes, those are the trails I'm referring to, for sure - I got there via Thrillist, but I just checked, and yes, those trail names all line up with the official brochure you linked.    No idea where they put in for the rafting, though, since all the tours I could find (including the official ship one - presumably all basically the same under the hood) just say something along the lines of including "transport to Mendenhall Glacier", no more specific than that.

Might be a moot point, though, since if you add up all the hiking, that's several hours of hiking, so I might not even have time anyway, if I wanted to do all the trails. 😄

I've had it on my bucket list to visit Alaska for ages, and I'm finally going to be checking that off, next spring - just snagged a particularly juicy deal on a Celebrity cruise for the last week of May. I'm researching excursions now, and one that jumps up at me as being particularly fun is the Mendelhall rafting trip. One issue: I also see that the Mendelhall glacier area itself has a huge number of very cool-looking hiking trails, and it seems entirely silly to take a half hour ride from the cruise terminal just to raft back down immediately, and miss everything else there is to see there, when we'll be in Juneau for 12 hours! So I was wondering if anyone knew of any tour companies that either provided morning transportation before an afternoon rafting trip, or that did just the rafting portion by itself and let you make your own travel arrangements? I couldn't find any in a quick search, but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist, so I figured I'd ask if anyone had heard of anything like that? Thanks!

Alternatively, apparently, at least if you're traveling on the Celebrity Summit, you can just walk on with really obvious bottles of alcohol and they'll just let you(?!) I say this because I have now done this, twice. The first time was by accident - I checked a suitcase during initial boarding that had a bottle of craft spirits I'd picked up on the way from a local distillery, forgot it was there until I'd checked it, and figured they'd confiscate it, which they absolutely didn't do. Then yesterday, I picked up some more spirits in town, came back to the ship, very explicitly said "this bag contains alcohol, who do I give it to?", and was told to just take it with me. I'm not sure if they've stopped caring that much as a company, or if their employees just don't care enough to bother, or if they just figure (completely correctly in this case) that I have a drink package, so why would I drink my own, not-complimentary booze when the ship is full of their complimentary booze? But whatever the reason, I'm not complaining (less hassle for me!), but I am certainly solidly confused. 😄 

Heh. I've literally just stuck plastic minis (50ml) in my pocket and walked through security. Not even because I wanted to drink them (I had an unlimited drinks package; the minis went straight into my suitcase) - I just didn't feel like dealing with the hassle of picking them up at the end, and assumed (correctly) that they wouldn't have any way of checking. 😄  (I just like collecting minis.)

Nope - California requires you to visit a California DMV in person to get a replacement or even a temporary, which is super lame of them. They didn't used to even be open on Saturday, which was exceptionally lame. Now they're open on Saturday, which is generally awesome, but totally unhelpful in this specific instance, since they're only open until 5, and I touch down at the airport at 7:30. Oh well - I'll figure something out (that something might be suck it up and take crummy public transit to work for a week, and learn my lesson about always paying super close attention to my id. And be super jealous of cities that have decent public transit. Living in SoCal is awesome for a ton of reasons, but that is one not so great thing.)

Awesome! Thanks especially for that last answer, that was the one I was looking for especially, because it eliminates the confusion about both why it states that a second form of id is highly recommended, and also why it's only highly recommended rather than required. Perfect! (Why couldn't they just say that? :D)

(Now I can just skip to the part about worrying about how I'm going to get to work/to the dmv to replace my license when I get home, but at least I'll definitively have a great relaxing cruise first.)

Haha, awesome. I feel both sufficiently dumb, and more importantly, sufficiently relieved. That is plenty of agreement that I will not have a problem boarding. Thanks! You can stop telling me I was being unnecessarily paranoid now 😄. 

Thanks, that makes me feel a lot better (though I'm still worried about some first-line checkin guy who doesn't believe that, but at that point, if that is actually true, presumably their manager would be able to set them straight.) Just because I'm super paranoid, I don't suppose you have anything (preferably from Celebrity) explicitly stating that? If not, that's fine, your assertive statement is lowering my stress a lot already, but it would be nice. 

I need this cruise badly now, after the stress of today and discovering I'd misplaced my ID. >.> (Just glad I had my passport card on me, since I don't carry my actual passport around, and I discovered it when I went to give my ID to a bartender!)

I'm super confused, because I seem to be seeing all kinds of conflicting information. I booked a cruise months ago, and obviously had both a passport and a driver's license. I had both until last night, when, after already flying out of state on my way to the cruise in a few days, I lost my driver's license - and only my driver's license. I still have my passport. I also have a passport card, as well as a Global Entry card. Some official Celebrity information seems to indicate that if it's a closed loop (which it is, it's San Juan to San Juan), I don't need a passport but do need a "government issued photo ID", while other also-official Celebrity information seems to indicate that I need one or the other, and having both is just "suggested". A lot of questions have been asked about whether people need passports or not, but I have a passport, it's the "government issued photo ID" I don't have.

Or, the second question is... do I? It's also equally unclear whether having a Global Entry card and/or a passport card would count as "government issued photo ID" for the purposes of secondary verification - they are certainly government issued, and are both cards I can use as photo id for TSA purposes, but I'm worried whether they're "government issued photo ID" as far as cruises are concerned? I really don't want to get to the cruise port and learn I'm not allowed on, but I also can't really fly back to California at this point. I'd love some peace of mind - thanks! (That said I'm also going to call Celebrity tomorrow.)

Would be insane if cruises that end in a foreign country had fewer requirements than ones that don't, but I know bureaucracy doesn't always work on total logic.