Stem to Stern

I have not researched this. Can you share what the cost was for upgrading MSC's WiFi that is included with the YC experience?

Thank you! It sure does not compare to your travels. I hope I make it to the tip of South America in the future. But it will be fun to experience another line irregardless of whether or not the line and/or the ship is similar or comparable to Celebrity.

Good morning!☀️ One more sleep until cruise day! 😅 Let’s get a few of those posts that I mentioned yesterday out of the way. Thank you for all the comments.🙏🙏🙏 About us DH and I are not influencers or loyalists. We enjoy a relaxing cruise vacation once or twice a year sandwiched in between our full-time work schedules. We have mostly cruised Celebrity, but we have ventured out of our comfort zone a couple of times. My personal cruise bucket list is long and includes a wide variety of cruise lines and experiences. I can’t think of too many cruises I would not consider. These will be our 12th and 13th cruises together as a couple. 🚢🥰👍 Prior to meeting 11 years ago, DH had just two polar opposite cruising experiences under his belt. The first was on a Royal Caribbean mega-ship with his family celebrating his parents’ milestone anniversary. The second was a week-long vacation sailing around Belize on an eight-passenger catamaran. 🤩 Prior to our first cruise together I sailed on Majesty OTS, Norwegian Pearl, Celebrity Summit and Freedom OTS all in the Caribbean. I love all that is cruise- and ship-related. 🚢😍 Fast forward to 2014. I booked DH and myself on our first cruise together, a 5-night sailing to Key West and Cozumel on Celebrity Constellation in one of the five fairly-new-at-the-time aft-facing Aqua class staterooms. Thus began a fever fueled by a brand that succeeded at creating an on board experience that captivated us. 😁 It was on this first sailing together that we fell in love with all things Celebrity including: the Blu dining experience; the new friends made on board; the hard-working crew’s professionalism, smiling faces, and “ My pleasure” replies; the serenity of the solarium; and the new port experiences. 😍 Oh, and let’s not forget about those magic room cards that when waved at any bar procured deliciously devilish martinis and any other adult beverages we desired. 🍺 A couple of cruises later I surprised DH by upgrading our Silhouette booking to our first ever suite, a corner aft Sky Suite. After embarking I escorted him directly to the suite and he was elated. Night after night for seven nights sporting our bow ties and sport jackets we sauntered into Luminae smiling like two Cheshire cats preparing to lap up some cream. 😻 Never again did a future cruise booking conversation not include DH’s question to me, “Are we in a suite?” My usual reply was, “Not this time, honey. The numbers just weren’t working.” 😆 A couple of cruises later I booked… (Do you see a pattern here? I book the cruise. ✅ DH asks, “When are we going?”) 😂 DH Anyway, early in 2017 the numbers worked, but in a slightly different way. I found a Crystal cruise that turned out to be a bit of a pricing error due to overlapping promotions advertised on a major online agency’s website. Crystal?!? You read it right. Two working-for-a- living, young-at-heart guys booked on the 6-star Crystal Serenity. Will this experience be too stuffy for us? The Crystal cruise could not have come at a better time for us. Just weeks before our November sailing our Florida home along with several Caribbean islands suffered significant hurricane damage. Thankfully our place was still livable and everything was repairable. 😅 Crystal kept us updated pre-cruise as they worked to find new ports of call to replace the original itinerary’s ravaged and closed ports. During a challenging year, we were still able to run away and relax for a few days. 🌴☀️ We found the Crystal experience just about perfect. From the moment we boarded the ship we encountered a delightful and diverse group of fellow passengers. The ship was traditional, spacious, impeccably tidy, and gorgeous. Our somewhat “cozy” verandah stateroom was the most beautiful jewel box of an accommodation. The “All-Exclusive” experience meant not having to show our magic room cards to order a drink because nearly everything was included for everyone on board. We found one-class cruising rather classy. We were Crystalized! 😉 Walking her full promenade one last time on disembarkation morning was really depressing. I did not want to disembark Crystal Serenity.🥲 Of all our cruises, DH has this one stuck in his head. When conversations among friends turn to cruising, Crystal is the first word out of his mouth. 🙄🤣🤣 We went back to Celebrity for a few memory-making cruises (only one of which was in The Retreat — after all we are just working folk.) 😆 In 2018 Captain Kate steered Equinox toward the beautiful ABC islands (love those!!) granting us 10 nights of cruising bliss. In 2019 we planned my first trip across the pond for a wonderful 12-night Western Med sailing. 2021 brought our first post-Covid return to the sea. DH and I were the first non-B2B passengers to embark on day 1. We received a personal escort up the gangway from the retreat manager herself. Once on board she reminded us that we could now remove our face coverings. How special did we feel? Did I already mention the Cheshire cats analogy? 😻 This cruise prematurely culminated on the final night with a second encounter with retreat manager. Unfortunately this time she tracked us down to escort us to…drum roll, please…quarantine!! We were identified as “close contacts.” 😱🥲 We spent the final night of our wonderful return-to-cruising cruise completely dumbfounded. We were stuck in our suite waiting for further communication from guest relations and medical. We ate our final Luminae meal hunched over our little coffee table in front of the television, a meal I washed down with the better part of a bottle of 2019 Conundrum. 🍷😉 That was a stressful evening spent deducing who we came in close contact with and waiting for test results. I felt like I was in one of those quarantine nightmares I had read about on Cruise Critic. Thankfully our situation only lasted one night unlike many others. 😷😩 Nevertheless we were still grateful to be back at sea. After calling Captain’s Club post-cruise, X accommodated us (very fairly I will add) for the quarantine situation. In hindsight this blip of bad luck had an overall positive impression of Celebrity on us. 😊 As an added bonus we met a wonderful couple during this cruise that became friends and cruise buddies. They will be joining us on the Summit segment of our side-by-side. 😊 Until she suggests otherwise, I will refer to the female half of this couple as “my new cruise buddy.” Like myself she may have a slight addiction to booking cruises, but we work quite well together. We continually bounce travel ideas off each other and compare notes. Admittedly we have had little to zero success talking each other off the ledge. 🤪 Have I mentioned that one of my favorite phrases is, “Book it!!!” 🤩 Last year DH and I returned to Connie, the ship where it all began for us. Our flight to Venice was scheduled to depart on the Wednesday afternoon when Hurricane Ian was forecasted to arrive. Yes, another darn hurricane! Fortunately on the Sunday prior to our departure, DH worked his telephone manner magic and got our flight changed to the day prior to Ian’s arrival. With the additional night available at our VRBO we spent five fantastic nights pre-cruise in Venice before embarking on an incredible ten-night sojourn around the Greek Isles and Turkey. We were lucky enough to only lose one tree during Ian, but our nearby coastal communities were devastated. Grand Canal - Venice - a magical place. One more December 2022 cruise, our first with Azamara, brings us to the present. It has been nearly a year since we have been on a cruise ship. The long wait is almost over. 😅

I love her also. This will be my third time. I will keep smiling and I will keep my glass half full. Although we are likely priced out of The Retreat after this, we are going to enjoy every moment. 😆😎😉

I wouldn’t miss it! Thank you for following along!🥰🙏😘

Thanks. I will try to post as many pics as I can come up with. I will be shooting and posting with the new Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max. Apparently the cameras have many new features and capabilities that I have yet to learn. Both of us recently upgraded our ancient iPhone 7 models.

Booked Excursion: POP29 Exploring Isabel de Torres Mountain & Puerto Plata City 4 hrs - $59pp I have no idea what time the excursion starts. I guess I will find out when I see the tickets in our suite on Saturday.

Ah, yes. Great to have you on the roll call and here. Looking forward to meeting you both at our Cruise Critic Meet & Greet on Sunday, December 17 at 5:00pm in Cellar Masters. If you see us around before then, stop and say hello. By the way we really enjoyed our dinners in Blu last time we were on board Celebrity Summit. We are looking forward to it as well.

Hi Susan. Thanks for following. The weather will be a bit better tomorrow. Our cool fronts often only last for a day. Is your true departure time from Port Everglades 3:30 on Saturday? Maybe our paths will cross on the water? Bon Voyage to you as well.

Summit has been receiving some stellar reviews. We had a great experience on her last time. We are super-excited to be going back.

Thanks Bonnie. I will see what I can uncover regarding the GF situation in the Yacht Club on board Seascape.

It will be great to have you along, John.

Itineraries Nothing Earth-shattering. (It is just an R & R cruise after all.) Seascape Sa Dec 9 - 6p - depart Miami Su Dec 10 - 7a-4p - Nassau Mo Dec 11 - at sea Tu Dec 12 - 10-5 - San Juan, PR We Dec 13 - 10-6 - Puerto Plata Th Dec 14 - at sea Fri Dec 15 - 8a-8p - Ocean Cay Sa Dec 16 - 7a - arrive Miami Summit Sa Dec 16 - 4pm - depart Miami Su Dec 17 - at sea Mo Dec 18 - 7-5 - Cozumel Tu Dec 19 - at sea We Dec 20 - 10-6 - Nassau Th Dec 21 - 7am - arrive Miami At the time of booking the initial Seascape itinerary had us departing Miami at 5pm, departing Nassau at 2pm, and departing Ocean Cay at 10pm. This minor itinerary adjustment is a small idiosyncrasy we haven’t previously encountered with Celebrity as far as I can remember. Our first day in Nassau has a forecasted high of only 80 degrees, so we may go for a walk to the John Watling’s Distillery just to warm up. We plan on having a walk around Old San Juan on our own. Puerto Plata and Ocean Cay are new for us. I booked an excursion for Puerto Plata through the MSC cruise planner. Their website did not permit me to use my available OBC, so I used a credit card. On Summit we have a decent OBC to burn, so I booked excursions in Cozumel and Nassau.

Hello from Florida! ☀️ I am Stem to Stern aka Paul. 😀 In just under 48 hours my DH and I are bringing our nearly yearlong cruise withdrawal to an end as we embark Celebrity Summit in Miami. But wait. This is only a 5-night cruise?!? That’s not long enough!! What can we do about this? Maybe a back-to-back? Maybe another ship? What is this Yacht Club that GenerationX was singing the praises of in a couple of her live trip reports earlier this year? 🤔😉 Let’s check it out…. My wish is that the board moderators will accept this Live on the Celebrity boards. It truly is meant to be a fair and balanced comparison of X’s currently evolving Retreat Sky Suite experience with one potential alternative. I promise to be fair without being overly critical unless an inferior experience on board either ship deserves to be called out for what it is. 😇 I am happy to answer any questions about either ship or either enclave experience. Just ask away. If anyone with prior experience on these ships cares to chime in, you are more than welcome to do so. The more the merrier. I will try to post a bunch of pics and try my best to keep this going as long as all of the on-board fun doesn’t get in the way. A few pre-boarding posts will follow this one including a rather lengthy “About Us” post and a financials post. Feel free to scroll on by these if you are not interested in our true-cruise-story or all the dollars and sense, but please come back on embarkation day (Saturday) and follow us to Miami for 7 nights of R & R in MSC Yacht Club on MSC Seascape followed by 5 more nights in The Retreat on Celebrity Summit. Sorry we are not going to fancier, more exotic locales. But hopefully we will all have fun just the same. 😁 Happy cruising!!🚢🤩🛟⚓️

Yikes! And that price does not include the additional 20% for gratuities. 🤪

Thank you for the bump. I rechecked my Silhouette sailing and now it is in fact bookable. Mine is only 35% off. But at least I have more dining choices to consider than Summit. Yay! Would you suggest I call it in so I can make my reservations ahead of time?

I noticed Iain was sporting a new baseball cap. It will coordinate well with your new shirts.🤪

A supplier issue ?!? Adding this to my packing list.

That is quite a shipload of OBC. Well played, Jim.

Me too. 😂😂😂😂

Thank you Susan. I was hoping for a bit of shade. I have never been on an Edge-class vessel, but I am not yet in a place where I would be willing to sail in an IV. I ended up choosing an SV on Deck 9 on Beyond and an SV on Deck 10 on Xcel. I made these bookings a bit blind as there were not a tremendous number of SVs to choose from, but I think I landed safely in the middle of any potential noise from above or below. By the way I will be cruising next week also, but not on Apex. I will be on MSC Seascape side-by-side with Celebrity Summit, but I see our itineraries do not remotely cross. It would have been fun to wave to each other.

Thank you so much for another of your informative threads. How was the indoor air temperature in the Yacht Club? I am trying to determine whether or not I will need to wear a sweater in the evenings later this month in Top Sail Lounge and the Yacht Club Restaurant on board Seascape.

Sorry for running off topic, but how were the room temperatures on board MSC? I am wondering if I should plan on long sleeves and a sweater in the evenings particularly in the Yacht Club. Thanks.

Thank you for the good reminder to beware of zooming scooters.

@Georgia_Peaches Safe travels home. Thanks for taking us along.