uktog

I am looking for pictures of the new bathrooms in the Deck 11 Aquaspa rooms and have looked everywhere - have I missed them? I have seen comments that the showers are lovely, would love to see them

You have to keep your nails well oiled when you have an everlasting polish on - not sure if X sell the pens ( would be surprised if they did not) but I have a great little brush pen from Nails Inc that apply each morning and night. Provided I remember to do this, my nails do not "pop" Some places do not tell you about this as they want you to come back more quickly for "repairs"

Yes you can - well the gel one I get you can, its by Nails Inc but I think they are all the same. It is really great as I can have my nails "pinker" normally and then go bright red to match a dress then back to pink for the day

I always get mine done - the "everlasting" before going on board - in fact I get them done every three weeks anyway.

They are wonderful - if you use the right basecoat you can "change your colour" for the night and then next morning, take it off with a non acetone wipe and bingo, you have the original everlasting polish still there

I find it worth its weight in gold as my nails cannot look chipped for work

Wow that is some wave Phil, thanks for posting it

It was $59.95 in August

Hi I have the book but have looked and cannot find the ISBN number on it anywhere. Maybe I am being dense though!!

It is a lovely coffee table book - too nice to take into my kitchen

It cost $59.95

on their website the glasses are $89 and shipping to Great Britian is $25.

 

That was why we started collectiing them on Eclipse and had hoped to get more this time when we had the car and no shipping problems. I doubt many on Eclipse Southampton sailings will want to buy at that shipping cost when they could carry them home

Now THERE'S a good point. Whatever, if I don't get the glasses I will be okay paying $15 for the tasting--even the Napa vineyards charge for tasting these days, so this price is one of the few things on board comparable to land prices.

The pours on the last few wine tasting we have done on board have been very small - doubt if we had 2 glasses of wine across the 5 glasses being tasted

Actually we want to buy two more of these sets. We had been planning to attend the seminar on board and had booked. Although we have sailed many times when this seminar has been offered, we can only use it to get the glasses when we are sailing out of Southampton and have the car as the distributor could not deliver to the UK

I do hope that we can get the glasses relatively easily or our first two sets are now a bit of a waste

Is the alcohol rule you mention regarding the 3 litre box of wine now an official Celebrity ruling?

 

 

From what I can see their terms and conditions still state 2 bottles per stateroom, albeit no size is given. There is another thread on the Celebrity roll call entitled Box wine - what was the verdict? which has differing views. Just looking for clarification before our sailing!

The official ruling in the terms and conditions is 2 bottles and whilst guests may report success with wine boxes, technically these could be confiscated. If you accept there is a risk you will lose the wine box then you can rely on the recent views of some passengers, if you want to stay 100% safe, stick to 2 bottles

The website has now been changed and there is no reference to receiving the glasses, it merely talks about the tasting sessions. Price remains the same as was appearing last week ie in UK money £10.20 including 15% service charge

Will be interesting to see what happens next

They offer (including glasses) for a price, you pay - now at that point there is no contract or obligation however under the contract law in many countries the rub is if the offerer accepts your offer - which happens when in this case the email of confirmation is sent out and the funds are taken from your credit card, at that point a binding sale has been made as advertised. However, the offeror can subsequently rescind that contract and the purchaser is entitled to a refund and compensation for any consequential loss. In this case, the consequential loss is zero so purchasers of what was advertised on line will get a refund and little else

What is concerning is if X knew it was a problem they should have stopped the confirmation emails, why not get other emails out at that stage to say actually that workshop is no longer available.

Worrying such a large organisation does not have access to website content writers who can remove something immediately the problem comes to light - it is nearly a week since this came to light and if I was to decide to book tonight from my cruise the price would be £10 or so.

There may also be some issues with Consumer Regulations in some countries if they try and reneg on the bookings some people have made that clearly showed in the confirmation that the glasses were included

If the site has a pricing error, I am really surprised they have not gone in and made a correction or taken the workshops off sale completely. Either, despite whate everyone says about X reading all of the boards, they actually do not or they are not expecting many people to book and expect all the booking to be honoured

I do hope we can get the glasses, we went last year and got two sets, all we could carry in the car and need to get two more sets this year to make up from using for dinners with two to using when another couple is round

Interesting, however they really should have changed their website first as there will be a lot of disappointed people otherwise

Great sounds like Dru and Melanie are going to be on board for our trip

Thank you Jo & Rob for your wonderful review and very handy tips. The seats in the MDR look very close, are they as close as they look. Being a larger lady, I was hoping that they are not

Looking forward to hearing more from you.

I am afraid in the MDR there is very little space between seats and between tables

 

Live from Celebrity Eclipse – Day 3 Second Sea Day

 

To see our latest Day 3 video please click the link below

 

 

Terry thanks for your kind comments and to answer your question, no we are not using a big tripod and most of the shots are hand held. Rob does have a mini table top tripod which we use for family shots.

 

Internet use onboard

The ship has Wi-Fi throughout so you can go online in any public area or in your cabin. Last night we had some issues trying to log on. For some reason we couldn’t get onto the guest Wi-Fi and instead the crew log in appeared. We called guest services (about 10.15pm) and we had an IT guy arrive at our cabin within 5 minutes! He was in our cabin for about 30 minutes trying to sort the problem out and finally got us back on the passenger log in. At one point the crew wi-fi rate came up at $0.19 a minute (but we couldn’t access it).

 

Unfortunately this morning we had exactly the same problem with Rob’s Mac although we could log on with my PC! It makes a change for my PC to beat Rob’s Mac! Rob went to the iLounge this morning and fortunately they were able to sort the problem in minutes. We bought the $99.95 package on the first day which was for 208 minutes ($0.48 rate/min). If you go over your minutes you will be charged the same rate as your package.

 

Jo’s tip 17 – Make sure if you want a package you buy it on the first day as you get an extra 15% of minutes free!

 

The cheapest package (and worst value) is $24.95 for 38 minutes which is $0.65 per min and the most expensive (and best value) is $399.95 for 1666 minutes which is $0.24 per minute. The standard charge is $0.75 per minute so it is certainly worth considering a package. There are additional packages available but that gives you an idea.

 

Not sure about these internet prices, if they are correct, there has been a serious price hike in the last month. You used to get 237 minutes for $99.95, if they are applying a 15% bonus that should take you to 272 or 273 minutes and not 208 minutes posted above.

Other posters have commented that the Day One bonus can be 0 or 10% so do not expect 15%

As regards the photos what do the dailies advertise? I thought the photographers always stopped 15 minutes before each sitting, though they would take all in line at that stage so they could get the dining room shots (which we more often buy these days). The only area there used to be issues was at the foot of the stairs, where groups often had pre arranged times which would mean you could not get a shot there immediately on the time of choosing. Hopefully with two more formal nights, you will get a family shot, but with your photography skills you may be better at a self timed shot as the quality of the formal photos is not good, attention to detail is often lacking and most ouf the ones done of us last year were out of focus or had flash glare so we did not buy, but did our own one on a self timer beside the "fireplace" in the lounge on Deck 14 which is a great setting - the better ship ones by far are the informal ones they do against a white background some nights

Even in the USA, proper etiquette is to wait until everyone has finished the course to clear. And to wait until everyone is served to begin eating. Probably the same in the UK.

It is indeed the same in the UK but is a trend I have noted on Celebrity lately and one which we nip in the bud as soon as it happens first. I think the waiters who work hard on all the sittings are keen to get everyone in and out as quick as they can to increase their downtime. Also they may be doing fewer trips down the galley and therefore want to do faster service to avoid food going cold.

A quiet word to the maitre d solves this

I have also noticed in the last few trips the Asst waiter is not as attentive with dressings, seasonings etc but then if everyone is at different stages at each meal that is hardly surprising - they get out of the habit of trying to keep pace

Re your food allergy issue, do not try and discuss it with the waiters, they do not understand - and do not believe anything they tell you about the buffet, odds are it will be wrong. It may be your original waiter did understand and had been briefed, but as you changed table that message did not get passed on

Only take information from the maitre d or assistant maitre d about food content - the waiters only work second hand, there are books with illustrations and complete lists of all contents that the MD/AMD has, he brings it to us every night. All the dining room maitre d's also work up in the buffet at lunchtime so they will get to know you. We know all about this, we have to deal with nut allergies which would be fatal if any errors are made

Likewise. tell the Maitre d how you want meals served, we have had issues with this rushed service which is in part due to the fact many guests want speed. However make sure you tell them what you wish and as long as you are not so slow as to impact on their turn around for second service

I had the same concerns when I read of the lists being emailed around. I immediately thought that I hoped that I was not on the same cruise as anyone using such a list.

 

It is important to remember that your butler is there to make YOUR cruise great by doing what is important to YOU. You do this by requesting the services YOU feel are important and NOT what anyone else may have dreamt up. It you do not think of it yourself, does it actually matter to you? If you put unfair demands on your butler, not only may he have to neglect other suite guests but he will be totally unable to surprise you by doing the little things which you had never dreamt of and that can really make your cruise.

 

Sue

You are so right Sue.

And whilst handing the list over may be quick for some, less so with others, for example the butler will be clarifying things etc. On our last Celebrity embarkation we overheard our butler being detained for almost 45 minutes as he tried to address a long list of items and deal with social chat.

Rather than hand the list over, I would suggest verbally highlighting anything critical, exceptional and immediate when you first meet and pick up anything else at a later stage, but you may find the butler will have already anticipated your needs anyway and might he not feel a little put out by being handed a list which he might read into it that you do not trust him to anticipate your needs.

I think it is reasonably clear on the website what the butler will do and I am happy to wait for surprises, even after all our trips, they do indeed manage to do so.

I do however worry seriously about expectations that a butler will get items ready for a sailaway party on Day One when he has so much else to do. I think requests like that should be declined except where prior arrangements have been made through Head Office so that the butler can have the back up from other staff that he will require and have made arrangements with the catering team etc. I certainly have first hand experience of very poor service from a butler on Day one and we were about to raise it with Heike when we realised the bulter was having to ignore all his other suites as he was trying to look after one sailaway party for 25 people and another two for 12. I appreciate some may not agree with this sentiment, but I think there is a compromise through the cruiseline requiring prior arrangements to be made.

We will be sailing for the first time in a sky suite with a butler. On previous cruises, every time we had room service we would give the server $2 or $3. With a butler when you tip at the end of the cruise, are you also expected to give a gratuity every time? I would think not but what does everyone else do? Trish

Setting up meals for you is part of the butlers duties. If you do it regularly you may wish to give him a little extra at the end of the cruise but that is entirely up to you

I do worry about all these lists being handed to butlers. On a previous cruise our butler who was very good was just weighed down by requests from three othe suites for things we expected to do ourselves (for example go and get them cookies from the cafe twice a day). I think we should also be careful of the demands we make of the butlers for extras on embarkation day as this does impact on the service they can give others - after all the butler has over 12 suites to look after if each expect an hour of his time, no wonder some people post they never saw their butler on embarkation

Fridges do not have sensors, we often take part of the content out so we can cool meds and never had an issue