canderson

The occasional dinner on your own veranda, if the size and furnishings are suitable. Rumor has it that it's served by course as well. We definitely plan to try it.

Worried there might only be lutefisk for the appetizer every night? 😄

Beginning to remind me of the old Celebrity "Monogrammed PJ's, monogrammed robes, both or neither" questions! Always seemed to vary by ship/voyage.

It's a real thing. Used to be one of their main agricultural exports. But if one asks, don't give it your banking information 😏

Go online and do a mock booking for your cruise and see what's actually offered.

Is there a "door-to-door without air" option available for your sailing?

Yes, we recognize your name from many past posts in the X forums. I came to the same conclusion. Realizing that I was looking at rough parity between the price of an X Royal Suite vs. a comparable Silver Suite on SS Muse class, it seemed time to make the transition. Like you, we always found the food on X to be just fine, and as we confined our cruises to M and S class ships, we had more options on Luminae. We'd always order the lamb in phyllo when we spotted it on the main dining room menu. The Luminae MD was also very attentive. We noted that we missed the goat cheese soufflé from the old specialty restaurant (while on an M class ship) and surprise, it appeared on our table the next night, the recipe having been cribbed from an E class ship. One thing you'll discover as a pleasant surprise, if you're waiting for your first SS cruise, is that based upon the lists I've seen photo's here, their better wine by the bottle is priced at land-based retail, sometimes even a few bucks less!

One of the things we haven't heard about on SS and which we appreciate are the 3~4 piece string groups that often play on Celebrity ships. Nice way to spend some time on an at-sea day afternoon or before dinner. The Retreat lounge always seems to have that or string or piano or guitar soloists dropping by in the evenings. It's my impression that lately it's mostly either Jazz at Silver Note or vocalists on SS. Am I reading that right?

Counted five. Answered two and added one. No to separate gym or spa. That should be 4/5. Your last question is a "maybe". As RS guests on Solstice class, we have been guided to a separate exit/portal near the private lounge, but no idea if that is possible on Edge class, which we haven't sailed.

Dedicated restaurant and lounge, yes. Separate deck area as well on many of their ships. But there aren't nearly 596 guests (e.g., Muse class) in Celebrity's Retreat suites, either. We come from the same cruising background as @NanaChar although in Royal vs. Sky and will be equally interested in how our first SS experience will feel in comparison.

Not to mention passenger to crew ratio. Something like 1.4:1 on Silversea vs. 2.5:1 on Carnival. *Should* provide for much better service.

Also, when the X plan was overhauled to the current points system, there was a reasonably equitable retroactive conversion of nights to points made based upon all prior sailings with them.

That would be in line with the way RCG deals with it on their other brands using number of nights sailed and cabin class. On X, they split it at suite/non-suite. More points earned for the former. Wouldn't surprise me that, if SS goes that route, they make the split at ~Silver Suite and up. I'd note that Seabourn has a similarly stepped program based upon cabin class booked.

Good if reservations are often available 'day before', otherwise... I was able to get the 14 day rotations from the concierge in Michael's on Celebrity. Handed him a thumb drive, and voila!

580 of 596 is a really good benchmark for what to expect. Thanks for that. We've been a bit spoiled in that we have rarely had to wait for dinner in any venue when sailing with Celebrity provided we gave an hour or two of notice, max, but that's partly been a function of which cabins we've picked. They always seem to hold back a couple of tables in each venue. We'd thought it would be fun to spend a few nights in Silver Note to do the 'sorta tapas' thing, but if we're going to have long waits or closed out evenings, that'd be a non-starter. How far in advance can restaurant reservations be made? Do all venues, including Atlantide, take reservations? Does SS produce, on request, the menus for a voyage once onboard, or at least provide what will be available the next night to assist in decision making? We often wander a good bit based upon the night's offerings. Can you tell we're new at this?

Noting the smiley face... "NTS" (Not To Scale") comes to mind! So far, so good with air in Colorado.

We will be taking our first SS cruise on Dawn, and you bring up an interesting question. What is the seating capacity in Atlantide vs. the 596 pax double occupancy? Got the feeling that Atlantide was, more or less, the "main dining room" for Muse class ships. More specifically, if it's available, is there a capacity chart for all of the various dining venues?

Part love, part frustration here. It'll be our first experience with SS's air group. Love: If they deliver on it without changing it again (without notice to me or my TA), the itinerary they have finally chosen for us couldn't be improved upon at all. Would have been my own first choice. 787-9 in Polaris class from DEN to LHR. Sweet way to fly. Then with a decent time to turn around in LHR, a short first class TAP flight from LHR to Lisbon. Leaves late in the day DEN time which allows for dinner and then possibly some real sleep during the flight, and arrives late afternoon Lisbon time, so no need to figure out how to stay awake for an extra few hours after arrival. Unpack, have dinner, and crash. As I say, couldn't possibly have asked for better. Frustration: No direct phone connection unless it's a day-of emergency. We're accustomed to more direct contact than that. Going back and forth on hold while the folks answering the main number bounce questions back and forth to the air group is not only inefficient, it also leads to errors (remember the old kid's game "Telephone"?) No record locators available for flights 6 months out, ostensibly because "the flights might change". Locators don't change for changed flights, just changed airlines, and you can't get an itinerary like the one above - or anything even remotely resembling it - from any other airline out of DEN than UA. Previous itinerary 'discovered' on the my.SS website was just OK, but we'd take it. The frustration on this note comes from the fact that the itinerary changed (for the better, I'll grant) without any notification to either me or my TA. This could continue to happen right up until the day of departure for all I know. They need to up their communications practices in that regard. Because we're going in 4 days ahead instead of 3, they insist on a $150 pp 'deviation charge'. They knew from the beginning that we were going in 4 early, but their entire hotel/air system is geared to no more than 3 days early without other charges and complications starting to kick in. Not SS Air's fault, but it seems SS is unable to reserve their hotel for more than 3 nights at any price.

Looks like Silver Suites aren't too much more next year than this year. Looked at a few cruises, and the differences aren't huge for that cabin class, just everything above it. Our 16nt Lisbon to FLL this year in a Silver is only $100 less than the 14nt Lisbon to FLL next year. Yes, 2 nights shorter, but not a massive difference in price. OTOH: For those same two cruises in a Grand, the price is about $15,000 higher (for 2 pax) next year for the 2 nt shorter cruise!

I don't, but just like the bad rep that company Christmas parties have achieved over the years (and most of them are totally tame), the group cruise suffers similarly for the same reasons. All it takes is a few weird ones to make it a meme.

Ah, so the "Laundry/pressing inclusion -2" was commentary on not having it included with your cabin class on SS vs. Regent, not the quality of the laundry/pressing service?

@Lonedaddy The -2 on laundry and pressing because... ?? We will be leaning heavily upon that on Dawn in November, so any caveats you can supply are welcome.

Viking also plies the Duoro with four ships.

And for a couple of recent years, there weren't even any of those as a reason to get dressed up. The only up side from COVID-19 is that we saved a ton of money on tailoring and dry cleaning bills.