Honolulu Blue

Princess has more ships than Celebrity. Yes, Celebrity has plenty of nice and new ships, but so does the competition. Virgin's oldest ship is only 3 years old. Food and service quality are highly subjective and even more highly situational. Celebrity might be best, but the other guys are pretty good too. VV is privately held and I don't have any idea about their overall financial position. RCG is better off than CCL, true, but they've got a ton of debt that needs to be dealt with sometime, somehow.

I probably won't ask about the dry dock when I'm onboard, but maybe I'll hear things. No promises, but if I find out something, I'll relay it here. Current condition should be easier, though I won't get to every part of the ship. I'll give a report on it. Remind me.

I don't agree and much more important, their rivals don't agree and are actively attempting to make sure that it's never true. I like the Celebrity brand, what I've seen of it, but to assign them a commanding lead over Princess, HAL, VV, and others, is a stretch, IMHO. Thanks for sharing this. I thought her new position sounded awfully vague, as if she or RCG wanted her to stick around until X date for whatever reason, but not in a clear operational role. Her announced retirement date makes everything make sense to me. P.S. I'm quite interested to see what and when the arrangements for the President's cruise change. We'll see what happens.

A few people have mentioned the IT team. I know at least one thing they're going to have to change, and fairly soon...

Thanks for sharing. I wonder if LHB will take charge of LLP's highly responsive staff. I also wonder if all the backlash for X's numerous dining changes starting a few months ago caused her to accept this new position. We'll probably never know.

You should soon receive a refund for the port charges, unless they want to say that the charges for an extra 24 hours in Coz is the same or more than Roatan PLUS Costa Maya. If they were to go that route, I'd expect more dirty words from your fellow passengers. I'm not quite sure how they'll handle the onboard excursions that were bought for the canceled ports. They could refund the payment method or give OBC. Watch for it if it applies to you. Thank you for your kind words! And thank you also for the heads up on the food and service!! It's one of Princess' 80s themed cruises, so that should get rid of some of the grumpy oldsters - hopefully to not be replaced by younger grumps.

Some random comments from someone who's going out right after you guys come back: * I'm sorry you've had these cancellations. I've had over 20 cruises and only one port cancellation while at sea (Nassau, due to high winds). I had another cruise where one port was dropped pre-cruise to be replaced with another one; the same cruise had a bunch of ports switched around due to high winds/slower travel times/extra fuel consumption. * I'm sorry you have such rude, impatient... passengers on your cruise. I expect better from Princess. I hope none of them are doing the B2B thing. * Our cruise only goes to Cozumel and Progreso, so we should be OK on winds. I've been to Coz quite a few times and a little bored with it - though I've never done an overnight there. Progreso would be new for me if we get there. 🙏

I first want to say that I enjoyed your post above and related to a lot of it. The little slice above I have a story about... Since the restart, I've cruised on ships with 300 passengers (the first one) to 3000 passengers (the last one), all on mainstream lines, and have enjoyed them all for what they provided. Enjoy your cruise around Japan! Don't worry about us.

I keep all my e-mails related to all my cruises I keep most of the papers and pieces of plastic involved with my cruises I have a folder on my computer with my older photos; Google takes care of the newer ones Most of the cruise lines I've sailed with have some details of my cruises that are available when I log in

I'm sure you have. Well, if you ever decide to go slumming, just let me know. 😊 BTW, I've only had interiors for these music charters. I prefer at least a porthole for every other cruise.

I'm looking forward to our meeting also. Let me know if you and the better half would like a tour of my basic interior room on deck 2. I'll get rid of the rats before you come. 🤣

I successfully made the booking on the 70s Rock and Romance Cruise. They had 10 single-class cabins available for me to book, so I took one. The price was as expected. I'm looking forward to finally getting on this cruise after being unsuccessful way back in 2020. I'm looking forward to all the good music that will be provided for me. I'm looking forward to finally meeting @George C, who's been so invaluable to me as I've made my musical journey

It's quite all right. You're the normal one. I'm the strange one. 🙃

Ditto. As for the original question in the title of this post, I thought it was an interesting twist on another thread here and good for me to think about. But since I'm a cruise sampler, there are relatively few things that I always do, and even fewer that others don't try. One thing I thought of immediately I responded above. Here's an attempt at others: I do almost all my breakfasts at the buffet, but then again, lots of people do I do most of my dinners at the buffet That's all I can think of now. I might come back to this thread if I think of any others.

I do things a different way. I don't pack much, so it's not a big deal for me to unpack everything whenever. I'd rather do that than dig in my bags every time I need something or every time I need to put something away. But that's just me. Cruise ships can be chaotic in the first few hours, especially in certain locations. If you can avoid the elevators and the buffet area (easier said than done, I know 😆), then you'll avoid most of the chaos.

I've always gotten a mini chocolate on my pillow on all my Celebrity cruises even when I didn't have status (I still don't have any status worth talking about). Like this? (from the Millie in November)

I'm mostly posting this for my own interest, but y'all can follow along if you like. The article itself is at What it was like on board the first ever round-the-world passenger cruise | CNN . The article describes the world cruise two sisters of means took and their documentation of such. The experience impressed them at the time. And the documentation impressed me. In addition to diary entries, they had photos, news articles, and newsletters and memos from the ship. It makes me happy that I keep most of the ephemera that the ships on my cruises give to me and all the photos I take of the experience. I doubt that any of the cruises I took had or will have any historical significance such that any library will want to preserve what I have, but they're fun to look at occasionally. The article itself was nice, but the link to the collection was eye opening. Here it is: Eleanor Phelps’ Cruise Around the World – Digital Collections (sc.edu) What I found most interesting about the article and the collection (I've only gone from New York to Japan so far): The cruise was on the SS Laconia, one of Cunard's newest ships (at the time) The cruise was actually what we'd today call a full-ship charter by American Express, who handled most of the excursion and hotel arrangements It cost $2500 (I put it in a calculator and it said it would add up to about $43,500 today - sounds about right) It lasted 130 days There were between 400 and 450 passengers onboard The ship could hold about 2200 passengers when all the lower classes were full Based on all the news articles about the ship, its arrival in many ports was a Very Big Deal The excursions and the activity around them looked somewhat familiar There was at least one old style horse race onboard It was fun looking through everything, and I'll do some more later.

Following. I'm on the next Ruby sailing. No livestream for me, though I admire your ambition. Have a great trip!

It could've been worse - you could have bought 300 shares 3 years ago at about 52. THAT would have been a terrible investment.

Load up on the upside-down pineapple magnets, baseball bats, golf clubs, dance shoes, or seat pads - depending on the type of "swinging" you're talking about! 🙃

I'll defer to others about the answer for finding out about PARTIAL charters. For FULL charters, those are easier to find out about. If you're booked on a cruise and the cruise company decides to charter your ship, they will kick you off. You'll get a full refund and possibly some other perks for your inconvenience. Second, there's a nice (but not all-inclusive) list of full charters at Full Cruise Ship Charters (cruisetimetables.com) . Third, if you see a gap in the dates you're trying to book for a cruise ship that interests you, there's some chance that it's been chartered.

It will be charged at the time of purchase.

Jealous!!!! LLP never sent ME a letter for any of my cruises! Not even the charters!! 👿

OP, I wouldn't worry about obnoxious vloggers on your cruisers unless you're the type to worry about EVERY LITTLE THING that could ever possibly happen - no matter how unlikely. One personal vlogger story and then I'll exit stage left. I shared a cruise (not on Celebrity) a bit over a year ago with one of the more popular cruise vloggers. This wasn't a group cruise or anything on his announced schedule, and I only found out when midway through the cruise I stumbled upon his video saying he was on my ship @ our location. I looked for him a little after that, but never spotted him except at one of the shows in the main theater. He sat up front and had a distinct out-on-the-town outfit, so I THINK I spotted him, but I was up in the cheap seats, so I'm not absolutely sure. I didn't confront him and we both enjoyed the show separately.

I'll come to this quote a bit later, but I'd like to ask what defines a team? Is a husband and wife a team? Is hubby, wifey, and kiddos a team? I almost always compete alone, but I think it would be a little dull (if lucrative, for me 😈) to compete only against other singletons. Like @staceyglow I consider it a small victory when i barely lose to a big team. But only a small victory; I really want those Ships on a Stick! And how DO non-family teams divvy up a SOTS or a BOAR anyway?