canderson
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Posts posted by canderson
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7 minutes ago, C-Dragons said:
Though I found it heard to believe, there is no place to upload vaccine info in X's online check in. (I've recently completed two).
Earlier this summer X agents were calling passengers to ask if they would be willing to show their vaccination cards and if you said yes, they noted that in your reservation. Also, some TA's were calling their clients to ask this question, then notifying X.
Not scanned along with passport during online check-in?
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3 hours ago, Jeremiah1212 said:
This report was updated to clarify that St. Kitts does not have a capacity cap on cruise ships.
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This is one of the positive side effects of the way X handles B2B as two entirely separate cruises, and why I imagine you'll be asked to disembark on the turn for customs, then turn around and reboard.
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They' will probably assume based upon whether you upload your vacc info on the site.
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After more careful reading here, it appears that the pairing is an upcharge. Does anyone know the current going rate?
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Bringing this one back to the fore to get a question answered, if possible:
Just found that we were able to book in advance for a November cruise. Price was not $279. Rather, it was $139. Does that mean that the wine pairing is priced separately, or did I get a price break due to suite status, or ?
I note that it's very early, 5:30 on departure day, but it will be the 2nd half of our B2B, so that part won't be a problem.
Understanding that it's been a while since Constellation has sailed with pax, does anyone recall a fairly 'current' (as 'current' as anything could possibly be at this point) meeting place and venue for this event?
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1 hour ago, cruzfiend said:
Has anyone been contacted about their sailing to opt out? I just wonder if they need to have fewer passengers how do they achieve this?
It's my understanding that they've controlled availability to prevent any need for this. Even later sailings (holiday) where X hopes to achieve 100% aren't being booked at higher capacities yet ( per my TA).
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Getting the TV sets in cabins out of "hotel mode" so that you can do anything useful with them is a tricky business, and getting them back into that mode at the end of the cruise (vs. having IT come and do it) can be equally tricky. I would definitely bring my own BT speaker unless you a) have a real Samsung (I think that's still the brand du jour) remote control operational with that TV, b) the magic key sequence required to get to the configuration menu for the set, and c) the know-how to avoid mucking things up entirely!
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Don't know for sure what they're asking for, but do take a close look at your policy. Many exclude "pandemic" conditions (e.g., Allianz).
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If you had a folio balance at the end (like most of us do) you will of course have paid that off before you disembarked. I could imagine an event where your balance was $200 or more on the last morning, but you had not received an owed $200 OBC, or that due to some sort of glitch on your cruise, all PAX were awarded OBC (missed port call, etc.) but that it wasn't immediately credited to your folio. OBC must be spent before you leave the ship, but with a balance of >$200, you had already done that, and may therefore have paid more than you should have on the last morning.
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Having read through departure, one thing caught my attention - the comment about X not being responsible for land-based services.
In all of the cruises I've taken with Celebrity, if there was a serious shortcoming in the experience, it's always been the pier-side service that has been woefully lacking. Missing luggage after disembarkation (not X's fault - they don't hire those folks), lack of transportation (even when a paid transfer is purchased from X), people literally left out in the cold in Galveston (yes, it is actually possible in December) when refused re-entry to the building having cleared customs when that transportation failed to appear, etc etc etc.
Sorry, that doesn't cut it. Some of these non-X companies are hired directly by X to perform not all - but many of these services - and in their pretty blue shirts with Celebrity Cruises name badges, represent the customer-facing side of the company. It's ridiculous when lack of performance pier-side is capable of detracting from an otherwise great experience, and X needs to do a better job of insisting on performance and QC with their shore based service suppliers.
They need a handful of actual X company reps on the ground to expedite and facilitate and speak for the company when things go sideways. The lack of such personnel on the ground has ALWAYS been a PR problem for them. Were they to do this, they would probably also learn a few things about how well their customers are being served by the companies they hire. Amazed they still haven't sorted it.
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5 minutes ago, 12cruise2 said:
I did a bit of research on this and didn't find anything in writing that mentioned changes to the B2B requirement in May. . . . was it obscure, or?
Definitely not. It was being celebrated here at the time.
Here is where you'll want to go for 'fresh' information >> https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/cruise/covid19-operations-manual-cso.html
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3 minutes ago, 12cruise2 said:
Per the CDC, no cruiser was supposed to be allowed to cruise B2B to begin with--see page 32 of the 42-page CDC conditional order of sailing. We tried to book B2B on HAL and the rep said no, not until after 11/1/21. If X would have abided by the rules, these people wouldn't have been able to stay on in the first place.
That information is a bit out of date. Rules for B2B changed mid-May. You'll want to take the original CO and add to it changes made since it was issued.
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We used to get coupon books left in our cabin with all manner of stuff in them. That's where the two free laundry tickets could be found, internet coupons (don't need those), and a host of other goodies. Included were the two passes for Persian Gardens. Understand, we've been river cruising for quite a few years, so don't know the current ways of doing things on X.
Is Celebrity not supplying those booklets now?
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2 hours ago, the penguins said:
Thanks - all I know is that "the boss" says it works and if she happy then that's good enough for me. Geoff
As you can't argue with the boss, see if you can get her to fill the ice bucket, with ice, with water. That will speed up the necessary first step of turning the ice to water.
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It's the water evaporating that adds humidity to the air. Starting as ice and having it go from solid to liquid phase before going to gas phase just slows the process down.
In fact, though it is minor, the moisture that condenses on the outside of the extra cold bucket serves to remove a very small amount of humidity from the air - though it too will eventually evaporate.
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Send a copy (redacted, if you like) of your brokerage statement to shareholderbenefit@rccl.com
Include your booking number and contact information.
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7 hours ago, AZjohn said:
Common sense would agree with this. But, yesterday the CDC "verbally" said the opposite without providing the data (wasn't that suppose to stop now?).
The more this goes on the more I simply can't understand. I just don't think this thought was generated from anti-vac folks but agree that it can/will be used by them (sadly IMHO).
Need the facts CDC!
Stop? Not ever, I'm afraid. There isn't sufficient data (yet) because....
The CDC stopped tracking every breakthrough case in the U.S. on May 1, focusing just on those that result in hospitalization or death, a move physicians and scientists are increasingly criticizing.
“They don’t have good real-time reporting,” Gottlieb said. “We need to fix this, and this can be fixed. I mean we can properly resource them and build out better capabilities there.”
Gottlieb expects the CDC to improve its tracking of the delta variant in the coming months.
“They’ll come out with a very good analysis of this delta wave, who is getting infected and how probably in about four months, maybe a little longer than that,” he said.
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Perhaps I did miss your point. Your "...and they do not need a test before they fly home." had me going in a rather different direction.
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On 7/25/2021 at 10:39 PM, Hlitner said:
So here is the irony and absolute idiocy of the CDC's policy. One can take a Celebrity Apex cruise in the Greek Islands where everyone onboard is vaccinated (and tested at embarkation) and everyone must have an antigen test (which they get onboard) before they can fly home to the USA. But put those same folks on a Celebrity ship in the Caribbean where not everyone is vaccinated and they do not need a test before they fly home. Perhaps there is somebody at the CDC who can explain the logic of that policy but I doubt it!
Hank
It's not logical, but it's understandable
The former is easy -- you're arriving at an international terminal and going through C&I with your passport in hand. You're clearly coming from a foreign country.
The latter is simply unenforceable. When you enter the front doors of a domestic airport, they have no way to prove where you've been.
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8 hours ago, HMR74 said:
... would source fresh entrees when in a local port to have one choice thats really different and local flavor. Perhaps they already do and I have not noticed it.
Part of the problem is coming up with *enough* of things to be prepared to serve to quite a few people, even in a restaurant as small as Luminae. They'd need a pretty large wholesaler if they were going to server very many people.
I do know that where a SMALL group is concerned, they provide excursions that include meals prepared by ship crew. Example - St. Maarten (I'm not clear where the dinner is actually served aboard ship) has an excursion with the following content:
One of the 'highlights' reads:
- Enjoy a private, island-inspired dinner created by our Celebrity Chef.
and in the tour description,
"Join our Celebrity Chef and head to the Simpson Bay Fish Market where you'll experience the hustle and bustle of everyday fisherman and your chef will purchase locally caught fish. With our Catch of the Day we head over to the Marigot Market. You'll stop here to taste Cane Juice with or without rum and your guide will explain the benefits of this very old product. A short walk over the market takes us to Olive and her fruit, vegetable, spices and rum stand. Here the chef can purchase his goodies to compliment your Chefs dinner!"
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2 hours ago, Straughn said:
Larger parties are usually put in the back room.
Anyone know what a Luminae looks like on M class? Your comment about a 'back room' on S class reminds me of the old wine room outside of what each M class ship once had as its only 'specialty dining' area, Ocean Liners, SS United States, etc. But those areas on M class are Qsine now, I think, and it doesn't look like that little room is there now. We surely did enjoy a number of nice dinners in that room with friends over the years. But back to the Q...
Is the M class Luminae configured with a 'back room'? I'm not seeing it on the current Constellation deck plan... just one open area. One gripe I have with X these days is that they use generic pictures for everything on their web site. If you pull up a dining room or a cabin class when viewing a particular ship 'page', what you see could come from any of the ship classes, are often very different in reality, looking nothing like the one you're about to sail.
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1 minute ago, HMR74 said:
they can and do move tables together--however, depending when you cruise, what will covid rules do to that.
Once concern I have that nobody has commented on yet since the restart is capacity in Luminae and Blu, because those tend to be fully booked on reduced capacity cruises.
There wouldn't be any reason to not put tables together that I can imagine. The MDR still supports 8 tops. I suppose that one approach would be to befriend others in our roll call that are suite guests and see if we can arrange a dinner or two together in order to get to know them. It's just a very different paradigm than we're accustomed to for dining on X ships.
I also had noticed that on reduced capacity cruises, one could see entire blocks of forward OV and similar cabins remaining open (on our cancelled Reflection cruise, there was actually a pattern on deck 3? where every other cabin was open, too), and that they were selling 'top down'. That would surely keep Luminae heavily booked in spite of any reduced capacity booking policies.
We have the option of eating where we like, and will be on a non-Rev M class (Constellation). All of our TA's kept blowing up, so we booked a B2B for this November. The original 'specialty restaurant' back in the day on Constellation was Ocean Liners, which we used to enjoy very much. It appears that Qsine has taken over that space. Am assuming Luminae will become our 'replacement' for that venue. So where DOES one go for goat cheese souffle these days???
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Haven't sailed with X since Luminae began, and although I've read through our 5 pages, still wondering about a couple of things.
First, when I look at the stock photos of a Luminae on the X site, it appears that the entire restaurant is set up in 2 tops. One of the things we do enjoy on our cruises is getting to know some of our fellow travelers, and much of this happens over the dinner table in the MDR. As we aren't traveling with friends on this cruise, that would seem to limit our options for interaction. Anyone able to comment upon this?
Passenger Selection
in Celebrity Cruises
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But no opportunity to scan along with passport data at ONLINE check-in? Seems they missed a bet there. I haven't gone through the 'new' online process yet (won't for another couple of months), so haven't seen the new form that gets filled out online. Only knew that scanning and uploading documents was part of the process.