Newbury newbie

58 minutes ago, kiwimum said:

Just booked the cruise for Heroes tonight. Short 2 night to Ensenada in March 23, balcony room, everything covered, beverages, wifi, gratuity.  Looking forward to a short getaway.   

Hope you enjoy it! Well deserved!!

There’s a tremendous amount of kudos due to Celebrity here. The free mini-cruises for Heroes is great fro those that apply, great PR for X, and gets the all the hotel crew up and running again. Regards the latter, while I’m not saying they’ve had nothing to do while repositioning from Singapore, I’d like to think they’ve had some well deserved time off (in between deep cleaning, repairing and training exercises no doubt). A sort of thank you for recognising their personal risk of being in a high health risk area. 

19 hours ago, pilot said:

We have a pen in cabin on Edge. 

May be you have “The”pen!! Take care of it!

1 hour ago, Miaminice said:

All tours are happening. Celebrity is handing out masks at the gangway.

As always people are asked to wash and sanitize hands often.

 

We‘ll be on Millennium in 4 weeks. Taking precautions but not overly worried.

Slightly confused with your comments Miaminice! Are you on board now or not? We’ll be  embarking in 3 weeks, so you must be with us then or in 5 weeks (the next cruise?).

You’re comments are encouraging though.

Is anyone on this forum currently on Millie? I see it’s in Hong Kong today/tomorrow on an overnight stop. Can someone give first hand knowledge of what it’s like on the ground regarding the corona virus and the restrictive steps being taken?

We’re joining Millie in Hong Kong on 15th February for the trip to Singapore. Flying into HK on 13th February. While we feel for those caught up in this, we’d be devastated if Celebrity did something like cancel the HK embarkation. 
We’re happy to travel, just holding out that there’ll be a ship there to get on!

2 hours ago, helen haywood said:

In addition to the irritating issues you are having, I would wonder about how good some of the items would be.  Since people regularly ask the cabin steward to remove the contents of the minibar...and then they are fetched from under the bed to being put back in the fridge...possibly several times...  Personally I wouldn’t want to drink wine or eat snacks that had been refrigerated, warmed to room temperature, re-refrigerated...

You’ve got a good point there, Helen!

I knew about early check in but also thought BA didn’t subscribe. I now see that BA will operate early check-in from 12 hours before. So 11.15am might work out good for us. 

When we disembark Celebrity Millennium in Singapore in February we don’t fly out until 23.15 that evening. So leaving the ship at 9.00, say, we’re going to have quite a few hours to kill. One thing we’ll need to do is to store our luggage somewhere. I’m looking at possibly going to the airport first to store luggage there, then coming back into the city to do the HOHO and have dinner somewhere, before returning to airport late evening. Or, I have seen a bagbnb scheme where listed outlets within the city will take luggage in for the day. 
 

How much is a taxi from the port to the airport? That would be a consideration. 
 

Any advice on this?

3 hours ago, villauk said:

When we did the overnight in HK, on the second day, the actual time allowed off board was very tight (literally a couple of hours) as customs & immigration staff were onboard and were checking all paperwork. They actually delayed departure as they were requesting certain individuals to report to GS. Several tannoy announcements were made during the life drill stating we weren’t going anywhere until these pax had reported to the local authorities.

was this recently or some time ago?

59 minutes ago, intr3pid said:

We are in the same boat as the OP.  Well, no pun - just on different dates.  We will be in Halong Bay overnight on new year's eve and day.

 

Celebrity has a party planned on board, so we aren't interested in spending the night on the junk.  The Millie gets in at 12.00 noon and leaves the next evening at 10.00 PM.  We were thinking of doing the cruise on Dec 31 and then a Hanoi trip on Jan 1.

 

Celebrity does offer a boat cruise as an excursion on Dec 31, but can we instead find one on our own for Dec 31? 

I think you’ll be pushed to do a tour on 31st if you’re arriving at 12 noon. 

I’ve put this question on my roll call but had no response. So I’m reposting here.

To anyone who's been on these Junk boat tours - how much do they charge for a beer or glass of wine on board? In my brother's case this would be the deciding factor in whether to partake or not!!!!!!

29 minutes ago, dabear said:

We also just returned from an Azamara cruise to SE Asia. We arranged a private 6 hour (from Trip Advisor 4 hour trips don't cover the highlights) on the first day for a group of 10 Pax. it included pick up at the port, transfers to the dock where the Halong Bay ships depart , a good lunch, etc. It was highly rated in Tripadvisor. We used Halongbaytours.com

Do you recall how much you paid for this dabear?

Thanks to everyone who responded with info and advice. It’s all been most helpful.

phil

19 hours ago, Mark_T said:

 

In that case I'd suggest checking out one of the other roll-calls for this itinerary like the one I'm on for example:

 

 

Plenty of information and ideas there for all of the ports.

Great advice Mark_T, I’ve spent the last 2 days reading your roll call and got some good info. 

Not long for you now!!

23 minutes ago, NantahalaCruiser said:

Also recommend that you check with others on your roll call to see if there are any smaller groups renting a junk. Personally would not choose one of the trips with 30 or more passengers - such as offered through Celebrity. 

 

If you are not planning on going to Hanoi on the other day, then I recommend an overnight stay on Ha Long Bay since there is nothing much else to do there.

 

Either way, recommend you book something prior to your arrival.

 

We joined 7 other couples and rented an Indochina Junk for the overnight sail to Bai Tu Long Bay - the more distant, less crowded part of Ha Long Bay. They are an excellent company providing many diverse activities during the cruise and wonderful food & service.

 

Note that the independent sailings leave from a different dock than where the Millennium tenders dock - just a short van drive normally provided by the vendor of the junk cruise.

Thanks for your experience, but I specifically want a one day boat tour. Also Millennium doesn’t tender these days it docks at Tuan Chau, but I’m unsure just how much is around here. 

1 hour ago, jelayne said:

Also look at the Asia ports of call board.

 

Yes, good point jelayne, I’ll try that thanks.

1 hour ago, Mark_T said:

 

I would start by checking the roll-call thread for your cruise, there are usually many others arranging similar private trips there.

 

I am already part of the roll call for my sailing but that tends to be made up of others, like me, who have never been to Halong Bay. This post was put here to target those who’ve already been there and have first hand ‘done that’ experience.

We’ll have 2 days at Halong Bay, Vietnam, in February on Millie. On the first day we are looking to do a (same day) boat trip. Can we get such trips from where the ship moors? If not, where do they go from? Would we need to book this beforehand, or are there plenty of people touting for such trips?
Can anyone suggest any operators?

Do you know, I don’t quite see why people get so excited about this. “Free” perk or whatever you want to call it, you don’t get anything for free!! The cost will have been factored into the cruise fare. At least with this addition they are being more transparent.

Cellar Masters occupies a great area on the ships but I get the feeling that it’s too specialised (as a wine bar obviously) and under utilised as a result. Whenever I look in there’s never many in there. Would it be better used if fitted out as some other theme. Dare I say it, but would we be better served with an area decked out with a British Pub sort of thing. Like a bar to sit at and further seating around? What do others think?

How do you play the slots in the casino’s on Celebrity ships? Do you insert your Sea Pass card, where each go is charged to that? Or do you load credit to some other card, specifically for use on slots. 

Need to know now as my wife is threatening to let loose!!

Are X sailings through the the Panama Canal always made on Millennium Class ships? I tend to see Celebrity Infinity doing this route but never any Solstice ships. I often thought that it was down to size but recently saw NCL Bliss going through on You-Tube. Bliss looks bigger than Solstice class ships. 

1 hour ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

The casino will be open every day but will close when its near the port; for exact hours look up the Eclipse dailies

That’s a relief! I was getting concerned there!! 

We’re due on Eclipse in August departing Vancouver on the Alaska inside passage cruise. On this itinerary, is the ship generally within 12 miles of the shoreline? If so, does that mean that the casino doesn’t open?