abbydancer2003

ah, very different than a short term passport.

Yup. AFAIK, the US passport said nothing about emergency. Of course that was a long time ago too. In any case, happy that Mark's parents get a cruise.

We were on the Caribbean Princess for 10 days last month. For us the food was fine, but the ship felt very crowded. I think of the older Princess ships, it has the most number of passengers, and the other ship with the same layout holds about 500 less. Plus, because this was not a warm weather itinerary, everyone was indoors all the time. DH complained about the nickel and diming, but to be. honest, the main thing was the charge for room service (which we never use anyway) and to activate the app for food ordering (which we'd normally do, but we didn't bother this time).

We'll be on the Solstice in March-April-May, from Singapore-Sydney-Honolulu-Vancouver, so following. Our itinerary is different than yours, but I'll still enjoy this. Thank you

I just read all this, and I'm glad they were able get it worked out. I did get curious about the emergency passports not being accepted for the port stop? I had my passport stolen the afternoon before a 16 day cruise. We were in Buenos Aires and the first port stop was Falklands, which would have menat I couldn't join the cruise until midway into it. We'd worked with a local travel agent to book tours in BA, and she was great - she took us to the Embassy first thing in the morning, and by 11:30 I was on my way to the ship with a 1 year passport. And I just took a look at it - the only indication that it wasn't a regular passport was a not on the back page that it was issued to replace a stolen passport and couldn't be extended. But maybe that's just US. Anyway, I hope they have a great cruise.

I'm sure they didn't but I am very curious as to what they do that the butlers did and they do. It wasn't meant to be petty - it's a matter of actual curiousity. (And gives me some information for feedback about how I booked with a butler and got a room steward only, if that's the case).

I'm tempted, when they introduce themselves to politely ask what makes it different from being a room steward.

Yeah. I guess, if over time the suites go unsold, they'll either reduce the price so much that people will book again, feeling that the price now matches the overall service, or they'll restore the service level and hope people come back. Fortunately for them, most cabins aren't suites.

I'll do a live in January, so we can see if anything changes between now and then. I have X sky suites booked through mid 2025, with one more planned to book at the end of 2025, after that, we'll see. I'm pretty sure I can't get DH onto MSC.

For us, it will be very interesting. We're on the Apex in December, but on the Connie in January in the same aft Aqua Sky suite that you have on the Mille. I'll let you know if there's a difference.

It seems that the service level is varying between ships. Hopefully feedback from people will make the service closer to what it was by the time I get to the Edge in 2025. I hope everyone who notices a service drop puts it in their comments at the end of the cruise.

So you've had no contact from a "butler team"? Did your room steward explain the new role? And you had to go to Al Baccio yourself? (Actually I don't think I've ever had a butler do that for me) Thanks

We're on the Apex in December - so far nothing.

I've heard that before, but I didn't think it would change the size of the area, just the tables within the reserve class area. I could be wrong of course.

One more thing to mention on the reserve dining area. Most of the tables are in the section on the side of the entrance by the windows. There are, however, a couple of tables on the main dining side of the room. You can tell they're reserve because of the tableclothes.

Our waiter was Deri from Indonesia, and assistant was Dragan from Serbia. If you see Dragan. They were a great team and Dragan is one of the friendliest and warmest servers I've ever had.

The head of Reserve was Christian. I don't think I saw Amador, but I had the same excellent staff every night except one. The head of Restaurants was Neville S. (forget his last name). He remembered us from the Discovery either because of the pain I was about the Chef's Table (or maybe the commendation on the survey I gave him for working it out). He did ask us if we wanted the chef's table on the cruise, but we said not so soon.

We had a very modified itinerary (the resulting FCC just paid for most of our Sun Princess cruise in 2025). We missed 3 ports and spent a weekend in Boston. We had great service from the reserve dining team. You probably need, if the ship is full, to get to the theater no later than 30 minutes before the show. Note this is for production shows. I don't think other shows are a problem.

I'll follow. We were on the Hurricane cruise on the CB from Quebec to New York earlier this month. I'll be interested to hear your thoughts, etc. If you want to see the production shows get there early. Have a blast.

Correct, but once you hit Elite on Celebrity, you get Diamond on Royal, and that's where you stay. My interpretation of the call was that they are looking at closer synchronization. Ie, when you get to Elite Plus on X, you get to Diamond Plus on Royal. Probably won't happen before our Royal cruise, and it may be one time thing.

On the first paragraph above - they could potentially do what Princess did until they cancelled it during the pandemic. Since it was fairly easy to reach top level on Princess, they used to give you a little bit of OBC after reaching 20 cruises. The amount went up a little every 10 cruises, maxing at 100.00. This was one per cabin. On the status thing, it would be nice if Elite Plus got Diamond Plus - We're Elite Plus on X, and will do our first Royal cruise in December. The extra drink each day would be nice, so, although I doubt it, it would be great if something like that happens by December.

"We'd like you to remove OBC and gratuities from all included." Said noone ever. I'm just saying.

I also was going to suggest getting a hotel the night before. We do that a lot. we had a flight on American earlier this year, and the moved us to a later flight with a tight connection. We had a free change, so I changed us back to our original flight.

I was on the previous cruise, and while I had a good time, I probably won't sail this ship again unless it was an itinerary I couldn't get another way. The ship has a similar layout to the the Grand (and the dearly departed Star and Golden) it has about 500 more people than the Grand though. It also has about 100 more than the Ruby/Emerald/Crown. Our crew was great, no complaints there. However the ship always felt crowded. There was always a line for coffee at the IC and the only time we got seating was when we were in port. There was always a line at Guest Services, although calling them worked well (we had an issue with our shower temperature and they never really did fix it, although we did get a workaround). We did have one issue with service at Planks, and they offered us a free repeat, but since we had a Crown Grill reservation, I asked if they'd just take off the charge (old Plus Package) and the assistant manager said he would, but two days later, when I was at Guest services, they said he hadin't done it, so they did. I also don't like the size of the Wheelhouse dance floor, and on this cruise they had the good dance bands in the Piazza a lot of the time, which has a mosaic floor, and thus hazardous. And finally, to see a production show you had to get to the theater about 45 early. We still had a nice time, but I didn't love the ship.

Thanks for completing! I sail both lines so am interesting in your conclusions.