leehal

One of the reasons we chose Aqua Class was that we could dine in Blu without having to Black Tie or wear a suit. The dress code has changed since our first cruise, but we still chose Aqua. I dress smartly for work, I'm on holiday. Jeans a nice shirt and a sports jacket are about as far as I go.

Personal preference obviously [emoji6]

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Oh yeah, I can agree with the children thing, our med cruise was still a great holiday, but there were just too many kids for the ship to properly handle really. They started hanging around in massive (20+) groups as well, and messing around, leaving rubbish everywhere, knocking on peoples cabin doors late at night.. it just went on and on. There were a great deal of people on the ship (The indy) who were in inside cabins, which they had got a very cheap last minute deal on, so the cruse unfortunately attracted the sort of people who it normally wouldn't, especially as it included drinks packages.

 

It was particularly irritating, because for them, the holiday was a cheap boozy one, whereas for some of us, it still cost full price of 8000+ for the family.

 

Kids are great, you expect them on a cruise of course, but the ones on the ship I sailed to Norway with were all well behaved and nice. The ones on the indy to the med were just the opposite.

 

And I didn't frequent the bars after 10pm particularly, but the drinking is definitely more of a problem with many British people, especially when the drinks are included.

 

And you don't have to tell me about the horrible habit of British people wearing football shirts on holiday- Im a massive football fan and a season ticket holder, but those shirts have no place on adults outside of the matches themselves.

 

I would never travel carnival, maybe some folks love it, but its definitely not the line for us! So we are trying celebrity, not from the UK, for those reasons. Definitely no more Southampton for us.

Was your Med cruise during school term time or holidays?

We booked after the summer holidays with a view to hopefully having a quiet time. When we did the Norwegian cruise last year I think I spotted about 5 kids in total.

The problem is that there are badly behaved drunks and badly behaved children/poor parenting skills.

I'm sure this can happen whether drinks or included for adults or whether it's the school holidays or not.

I'm quite offended by the insistence of people to avoid Southampton as a departure point, I've had more issues with drunken people from other countries when I've been abroad rather than British people. So easy to tag us all as Chavs I guess.

Anyway, I'm cruising from Southampton in September I have a drinks package and I will drink a lot. I won't get rowdy or loud. It's all down to individuals, wherever they are from.

With regards children, we've chosen to travel outside of the school holiday period in the hope of fewer children being on board. Nothing against kids (I used to be one), we have kids/grandkids, it would just be nice to have relax a little without too many disturbances.

Have fun wherever you are off to on your cruise.

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I've noticed that the canapés have greatly improved. No longer a couple of stale chips and some guacamole dip. They are getting more creative. We asked that they be delivered every afternoon, and in most cases ate them all.

I am sure I read on here you can ask for shrimp/prawn cocktail instead, will try it out in September and see what happens!

Thanks everyone, I should have thought about Topcashback.

I am happy with the deal we have, paying less than we have this year and free wifi added into the deal.

Thanks for your help, with the uncertainty with regards the £ at the moment we have booked direct.

Free upgrade, wifi, classic drinks and $500 OBC. Same room as our cruise in September and works out cheaper than we paid last time with the 123 Go offer that was on at the time when we booked on board.

We have booked our previous 2 cruises directly with Celebrity.

Having read the forum more, there seems to be more people booking through a TA rather than directly. Are these people based outside of the UK?

I spent an hour or so trawling TA websites yesterday for offers and couldn't find anything better than booking direct, they were exactly the same offer.

Am I missing something?

We are thinking of booking this cruise next for next June, very surprised by the charge for the bus ride in the container ports.

Our last cruise was to Norway and we were at a container port for one of the stops and the bus ride to town was free. Were you able to walk at all?

Not overly bothered about the fee, maybe just the principle!

I have a Travelex Cash Passport which you can top up with cash, works like a credit card.

Relatively small fee, might be of use if you don't want a credit card which you can go into debt with.

Lots of other ones available if you search the net.

We are relatively new to booking cruises as well.we booked a April 2017 cruise.the original invoice showed a $450 OBC but online it shows no OBC but everything else is correct. We called our rep who of course was someone different than we booked cruise with and he said on his end it shows $450 OBC. Says that as long as it shows on his end we are ok. HMMM? I don't know about you but me I'm not so comfortable. I like everything to be correct. If our rep drops off the face of the earth the next person wouldn't know anything about OBC. What would you do call the rep and make him show it correctly online?That's what I think we need to do.

As far as a TA if you are in US do you really get that many extra perks over what get booking directly with Celebrity? If it's an extra $25 or $50 OBC I'm not sure it's worth it.

We are on version 14 of our booking confirmation, they finally got the OBC right, I almost feel like getting it framed!

I could not find the information for the fees on the Celebrity website. I did not call Celebrity because I find the information from cruise critic customers wonderful and up to date. I went through a bunch of threads before posting to try to find the answer myself, but nothing was recent.

 

I appreciate those who took the time to answer my question.

Absolutely, the whole point of the forum for people to help, I often use it as a knowledge base. If people didn't ask I would never be off the phone to Celebrity as their website is horrendous.

We booked direct due to a lack of experience. We booked our first cruise on a whim when our planned holiday fell through, our next trip was booked on board. We got a decent deal and apart from the technical website issues and numerous attempts to get our OBC correct we are happy.

I still wouldn't know which TA to use to be honest, mainly because I haven't researched it. If we cruise more we might.

I do get the impression that perks are better in the USA when using a TA though.

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With regards adjusted balances, I only paid the figure from the original booking statement. An outstanding balance showed after payment but this was adjusted to zero after a couple of days. I would check and see if you can have the 2nd payment refunded if you think you have over paid.

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I had the same issue, website said my check in was 100% complete for me and 90% for my wife which meant I couldn't print off my Xpress pass.

I rang the helpdesk, they said they couldn't see an issue, I tried again 30 minutes later and it worked. To me there was an issue or it was just coincidence that after trying off and on for a week I was able to print off within 30 minutes of speaking to Celebrity ;)

It always amazes me how much people seem to panic over these things.

We had a trip to New York booked when 9/11 happened, not once did it cross our minds to cancel and we travelled a few months later.

Living in the UK we have had terrorist attacks in the past (IRA etc) and have a constant threat of an Isis related attack (or similar), it wouldn't stop me leading a normal live. Then again I believe in fate.

I always wash my hands in the toilets immediately outside the buffet to avoid using the gel, made my hands crack on the last cruise, not sure if that was combined with the cold weather or just the gel.

Sounds like this outbreak might have been brought on board if it started on day 3?

Sounds like a good idea to me.

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That is interesting, my hubby uses his ecig also and is somewhat dismayed that he will have to stand among the smokers to use it. The reason he switched (5 years ago now) was to quit smoking and now he will be forced to inhale smoke unless he only uses it in the cabin. It seems rather unfair and discriminatory as the vapor is non toxic, water based steam and has no smell, much like a boiling kettle. Can't see why he cannot use it in any outside area. Ho hum

I have to disagree, there is a growing market in the sale of non factory made vapor refills which means could contain anything. There is also very little research done into whether the vapor is harmless.

I would prefer to be nowhere near anyone smoking either cigarettes or ecigs, it is a choice to smoke either of these and being treat as a smoker is the price you have to pay to continue to do so.

In the UK these are generally considered to be the same as cigarettes and as such have identical smoking bans in public places etc.

The food isn't free though! We didn't eat there, but it did look nice. It was the first sailing with this bar on our last cruise, having to pay confused some people.

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A follow up on this, email from Special Needs:-

Thank you for contacting us with this request. Kindly be advised you can bring your heating pad onboard with you as long as it is automatic shut off, and it states it on the packaging as well.

I have now ordered a 110v one from America. Thanks for the help people.

We are sailing on Eclipse in 3 weeks.

We dont have a drinks package and Im now wondering if weve made

a big mistake booking this cruise.

 

Weve only sailed Celebrity once before and it was the chair hogs which were

the major irritation.

 

Ive bought a 7 bottle wine package, at vast expense, and will be very disappointed if we have poor service.

 

Oh dear, wish I hadnt opened this thread!

 

Jen

Jen,

I wouldn't worry, people are making specific reference to a cruise last year to Norway and saying it was a booze cruise, I was on that cruise and was surprised how quiet the bars were all over the ship. I did not see any drunken behaviour or people being loud at any point.

My sister in law just came back from the recent taster cruise on the Eclipse and that was by all accounts a booze frenzy, so much so that I was worried about our trip on the Eclipse this coming September. We prefer a quiet night and were worried that the Norway trip being quiet was just a one off.

If you like a drink I would consider buying a drinks package, it doesn't take long to spend more than they cost per day, without getting drunk! I am sure there is a spreadsheet on here that you can download to do a quick check against how much you may spend including soft drinks, coffees etc

I did write a long paragraph about different nationalities being drunk, from my past experiences drunk British are in no way the worse nation from a behavioural point of view.

Enjoy your cruise.

One each.

Wow, very generous!

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How many vouchers do you get to use?

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Am I right in thinking that with Captains Club members benefits you are eligible for complimentary gelato from the place near Café Al Bacio?

I've been thinking about the heat pad I already own and its 240v so it won't work properly, might look at importing a one from the USA thats 110v and already has a suitable plug on it too if I get the go ahead from Special Needs.