slei15

Boarded Edge today with Drinks and More. 4 bottles of wine waiting in the cabin for us and the steward asked if we had premium plus/D&M and said she would keep the minibar full for us. Will check out the casino tomorrow. 

5 hours ago, sidari said:

From Summer 2020 Deck 12 Aurea suites on the Meraviglia Class and plus ships will become Aurea Grand Suites which will no doubt increase in price likely due to their size, so glad we have one already booked ... 😀

I saw that too...Take care of 12007 for us next week...we are in it in March!

A simple google search will pull up the same FAQ document I posted on the RCCL creative site, which is unprotected and publicly available when going to the document from the search page. If it was not publicly available information, I would not have posted it. The information was provided to agents as a tool to share the news with our clients. No, you all may not be my clients, however; the reason CC likes to have agents on the boards is to be able to provide assistance and correct information to members without the need to get a sales pitch with it. I apologize if I have offended anybody by posting publicly available information. If it was non public, marked confidential or for my eyes only, it would not have been posted. In the real world I am also a CPA working with SEC reporting. I am well aware of what type of information is safe to share and what not to. 

23 minutes ago, BellKat said:

Waiving the fee for sales is one thing - waiving it forever is totally another. The original post was from yesterday and we were not officially notified until 9:22 this morning (Pacific time). 

Based on the timing, I am guessing the OP heard the news on the Trade Webinar yesterday afternoon that X hosted for TA's.  They generally don't send their e-mail communications until the day after they are verbally discussed in webinars, etc. 

1 hour ago, BellKat said:

This was an email to travel agents - not sure you should have posted this. I was going to copy it and leave out a couple of things that are for travel agent eyes only

There wasn't anything in it that you would not be able to say to a client aside from the will it affect my commission, but it doesn't give any details about commission that would be an issue to see that question...If I happened to have had any clients booked under this, I would have simply forwarded them the e-mail and FAQ's along with a quote to re-price at the current rate if it were beneficial to them to do so.

1 hour ago, BellKat said:

Well, a cruise line does it again! Travel agents are the last to know. We didn’t receive their email until this morning and reading posts I see they stopped the process on November 27. What??

They announced with the Black Friday sale that they were waiving the fee for that sale, and then said the same thing for the subsequent sale...It wasn't announced at the time that they were doing away with it altogether, however; they effectively stopped it by waiving it for those current sales and deciding not to put it back.

Just got an official e-mail from Celebrity about this...

1 minute ago, vatofla2009 said:

We cruise in 32 days and mom fell and broke shoulder and hip, has dementia and has probable lung cancer. She is 81. Not sure that I will have to cancel but wonder if I have options this close to cruising. 

I have yet to find an insurance company that will cover you if the insurance is purchased after final payment, unless you booked the cruise within the last 14-21 days. Allianz is 14 days from booking, Travelex is 21 days from booking. 

You are able to select which guests from the reservation you want the onboard account to cover when you register the credit card.  The OBC will attach to the reservation number, so it will offset any charges against the accounts of the people covered when you register. As far as the keys go, no, you won't likely be able to access all 3 with one key, but you can always leave the connecting doors propped. As long as the reservations are linked, your sister should be able to book things for her kids, but I can't promise that. If not, you can always do it together while you sit at lunch in the buffet once you board.

They do hold back a few of the "prime times" for booking on the ship. Otherwise, nobody would book on impulse once on board! That said, I would go to the restaurant immediately on boarding to try and secure one if you know when you want to go.

The more OBC you use pre-cruise, the more of your cash they get onboard when you decide to spend money on the ship!! I always leave myself enough OBC to cover items I know I will do on the ship that I can't do with OBC in advance (ie grats for the 3rd and 4th passengers, shopping for Grey Goose if I am running low at home).

There is no deadline to post a report.  Granted, with all of the changes constantly happening, it may be out of date, but if you still want to share the info, why not post it!

Had you previously used any onboard credit to pre-book anything?  If so, make sure none of your items were cancelled on you. When they cancel an item, the OBC used is automatically credited back. Otherwise, no, it is highly uncommon for them to randomly add additional credit without a reason.

3 hours ago, emmas gran said:

slei 15 --I just get fed up with US being to do things we cannot and when you post a client has it applied to an imminent cruise it just gets me a little irate for all the reasons I stated. We had to chase MSC for our vouchers in the UK and didn't get them for about 10/14 days.

No apology is necessary.

Liz

Totally understand the frustration.  Goes right along with the different promotions for different regions, for instance, when the drink packages first changed, and the "All-in" promo including drinks in UK/Ireland was giving the Premium package, while in the US we could only get the Easy.  It is why RCL is trying to move to a singular structure now for all international operations, having a single quad-branded team for each region (RCCL, Celebrity, Azamara, and SilverSeas) that works in conjunction with Miami to ensure consistency across all brands and countries.  MSC needs to have better coordination between the regions to ensure equality.

4 hours ago, emmas gran said:

 

As the thread states it's UK and we CANNOT use against a booking already made as I have tried. It really is no good US people saying they have done this for themselves or clients we have been told NO and we were on the 28/10/19 sailing on Meraviglia so the first affected.

Apologies for the US hijack. I was responding to L2float about US from a few posts up. 

A client that was on the 11/23-11/30 seaside sailing received their voucher on 12/5 (US based). I called in that day to have it applied to their upcoming March sailing with final payment due 12/16. It was just applied this evening (6 days later), right in the nick of time to get final payment done. 

There is a reputable private company called Fly Cozumel that will fly you to Chichan Itza (about a 35 minute flight). It is quite expensive, but you get much more time at the ruins, and you beat the crowds there that are taking the bus ride. I had a client use them and absolutely love it.

For food tours in Cozumel, check out the cozumelchef.com for a private operator. She runs amazing local food tours and authentic Yucatanean cooking classes (at a local's house). $80/person for either and a great time!

One of my clients from the 11/23 Seaside sailing got their certificate this morning. They are slowly but surely sending.

Every cruise ship will have the sulfur smell at times on the top decks. This is due to the emissions of the engines. A lot of times it will depend on the direction of the ship and the winds as to how bad it really is. 

You don’t have to on MSC, however, if you do decide to buy something on your card or charge anything to your cabin it will take you forever to stand in line and settle your account on debarkation day. 

The celebrity paperwork is not set up to display the $25 deposit as being full.  I had a cruise earlier this year with the $25 deposit, and it still showed I owed another $450 for the 8 months until final payment was due. You can call back to confirm, but as long as your booking is there and shows the $25 per person you should be good.

26 minutes ago, landbc said:

My daughter felt like she did a lot more art/science/STEM type activities on the Summit. She just didn't care for it. She also like the staff better on the Summit. She never wanted to leave the Kids Club this Summer on the Summit, but she was done after about two hours on the Edge. We encouraged her to go back for a bit the second sea day, and we did a scavenger hunt with her, so day two was a bit better. But she did really love the giant Lite-Brite on the Edge. That was her favorite part.

Thanks! Assuming this was a Thanksgiving sailing...Were there a lot of kids on board? There were less than 20 in January when we went. 

2 hours ago, landbc said:

 

• My daughter hated the kids club. She loved the Summit this summer but hated the Edge. The activities and the staff were way better on the Summit. 

Can I ask what she hated about it? We are taking our two boys (10 & 7) on the Edge over Christmas and it is their first time on Celebrity (They have been on Royal, Carnival, NCL, and MSC). We have heard nothing but great things about their kids club, and speaking to the staff in January when we were on without kids, it sounded right up our boys alley which is why we booked it. Was it very activity/science/art oriented?

For Belize, I highly recommend cavetubing.bz.  They offer cavetubing, ziplining, and ATV rides, in any combination, or any of them individually.  I have used them twice and will be again in March. Very reasonable (cost dependent on season, in March we are paying $55/person for cave tubing and ziplining with lunch and transportation). 

In Costa Maya, we usually take the tram to the beach and head over to the Krazy Lobster. Good food, cheap drinks, and $20-30 for an hour long massage on the beach. Not the most sanitary massage ever, but can't beat the price! If you like water parks and ziplining, the Mayan Kingdom Adventure Park in Costa Maya is also great.  It is the one excursion that is actually cheaper to book through MSC than on your own.

You will usually have to call to make this happen after the fact. When you book online, it only allows you to combine the VC 5+ discounts with the escape to sea rate.  I honestly haven't booked one in a while, so I don't know if they have changed the policy to not allow it to be combined anymore, but when I am trying to do mock bookings, it shows that it cannot be combined with the All in, only the escape to sea.

5 hours ago, ocbaylady said:

Has anyone recently upgraded from easy to premium before sailing? Looking to do that before our July 2020 sailing just booked. Any info would be great! Price info would be appreciated as well. Thanks

$189 per person for a 7 day cruise. Call customer service or your travel agent to have it done.