MISTER 67

Celebrity does a good job with most of their salads at dinner in the MDR. As far as veggies, most dinners have just a couple of measly pieces and not enough to rave about.

Every cruise we have booked with Celebrity has been with the non-refundable deposit and we don’t take out insurance either. I know we are gambling but we live in Florida and only take cruises to the Caribbean as we refuse to fly. We are in our late 70s in good health and have seen enough of other parts of the world and are happy just being on a beautiful ship with good food, service and entertainment. Right now we are ahead of the game and down through the years Celebrity has been very fair as we have done well with some very nice on board spending money and future cruise credits along with some cabin upgrades at no extra costs. We might get burned one of these days but we refuse to pay a higher rate for a refundable deposit.

Trivia contests are a cheap way of entertaining passengers, sometimes they don’t even give out prizes.

We were on the Refection on the week before Easter and the ship was 400 over normal capacity due to kids on spring and Easter breaks. Those 400 kids for the most part were well behaved. BTW normal capacity is 2 people per cabin with extra passengers being 3 or 4 to a cabin usually in bunk beds or sofa sleepers.

We’ve been on 8 cruises since the startup with 4 with Celebrity, 2 on the Equinox, 1 on the Infinity and 1 on the Reflection, all have been excellent cruises with no complaints. Service, food and entertainment have been outstanding. We are booked again on the Equinox in July.

Spot on.

Has to be where the movie theater once was. Good move by HAL.

Service is comparable but Celebrity wins hands down when it comes to food and entertainment.

I was on the webcam when she was in the channel and there were plenty of horns and whistles from the condos when the Cole sailed by.

I corrected it on my post, that’s the USS New York. I was able to get a glimpse of the Cole as she was docking.

Opps, that’s the USS New York there, the Cole is docked right in front of her but the Beyond is blocking the view.

USS Cole docked at where HAL usually docks when they have 2 ships in port, just a short walk from the mid port garage.

Good morning from beautiful Southwest Florida. Thought I would come aboard and let all know that I was checking out the Port Everglades webcam this AM and just caught the USS Cole coming into port. Of course that was the Navy ship that was attacked by terrorists back in October of 2000 in Aden Yemen. All the sailors were out on deck standing at parade rest and waving to the people in the condos who were out blowing their air horns as they were welcoming the ship to the port. You could see where the ship was attacked as there is a big metal plate on the starboard side. I messed up and forgot to take a screen shot. Hope all are doing well.

We’ve sailed on Celebrity ships 4 times last year and so far once this year with another cruise on Equinox coming up besides 5 previous times. At this point in time Celebrity beats HAL in just about the whole cruise experience including food by a wide margin as well as entertainment. Service is about the same except Celebrity services the cabins twice a day with chocolate mints on the pillows every night. Celebrity also offers lobster at no extra charge as well as shrimp cocktail as an everyday appetizer. There is no comparison when it comes to the buffet, Celebrity has better buffet food and great variety plus they aren’t skimping on butter. We were on the New Amsterdam last December and you just about had to beg for butter and cream cheese. Right now the only thing I like better are the Vista and Signature class ships on HAL though the Equinox and her sister ships are excellent vessels as is the smaller Infinity.

You cant go wrong with any HAL Vista or Signature class ship, unfortunately the rest of the HAL product is lacking when it comes to food and entertainment.

This is not just a Celebrity problem, you see it everywhere, even in newspapers. You have to wonder how did some even graduate grammar school.

Things are looking a lot better but there are still quite a few homes that are waiting on new roofs. A lot of road signs are still missing. The Hampton Inn and Holliday Inn at exit 170 on I-75 still haven't opened. We haven't heard much about Sanibel, most of the the talk has been about Ft. Myers Beach as that place was just about destroyed and the word is that big money is going to rebuild Ft.Myers Beach and will see large luxury hotels and restaurants popping up everywhere replacing a lot of the seedy bars and beach stores that once populated FMB. It will wind up looking more like the beaches of Naples with places like the Ritz Carlton and Ruth Chris steakhouses.

We just returned from a cruise on the Reflection this morning and have sailed on the Equinox many times, we sailed on the Infinity last October and as veterans of 70 cruises we found the Infinity to be in great shape and as good as the Reflection and the Equinox. We loved that it had the older type promenade deck with deck chairs away from the crowds and sometimes loud music heard in other parts of the ships in the cruise industry, great place to read a good book as you experience the sights and sounds of the ocean. I we had one thing to complain about it would be the buffet is not as large as the bigger ships in the fleet and thus lacked the variety of those ships, not enough of a complaint as there was still plenty to eat and would not stop us from sailing on the Infinity again.

Just back from our cruise on the Refection, very nice cruise with no complaints except the ship was packed at 400 above capacity due to a lot of kids who for the most part were well behaved. We walked off this AM at 7:20 and in our car at 7:35, would have been earlier but we cruised from and returned to pier 29 which can be a pain in the neck as if you drive to the port you have to take a shuttle bus from the mid-port garage to pier 29. Made it back to Punta Gorda in pretty good time returning at 9:50. Thanks for the Bon Voyage wishes and welcome back comments. Back to work tomorrow with an 8AM tee time. Things are starting to get back to normal as quite a few snowbirds have made their migration north, by the end of April it will just be us locals and traffic will be bearable again and the restaurants will be not as crowded. Hard to believe we have been residents of Florida for 30 years now, seen lot of changes in those 30 years especially with traffic in the Naples-Bonita Springs-FT. Myers area where we lived for 17 years, when we moved in 1993 Interstate 75 in southwest Florida was only 2 lanes in each direction, it's now 3 lanes in each direction and word is we will soon see 4 lanes in each direction, not quite like Chicago but getting close. Hope everyone is doing well and in good health, one of these days I will start posting again on a daily basis.

Just the newer ones, Regal class.

We've sailed on the Caribbean Princess 10 times out of 69 cruises, #70 tomorrow on the Reflection.

This has to be a record, 17 toots so far from the NS. Drink packages will be increasing

Like I said all the other sites have sound like Miami, PC and Nassau. I don't remember this happening before.

Not getting any sound from the PE webcam, am I the only one. All the other webcams have sound. BTW, we are sailing out of PE tomorrow on the Reflection from the dreaded pier 29.