lostchild

4 minutes ago, mommyloons2009 said:

I am leaving on Sunday.  I just went in to buy the basic package and it is gone.  Anyone else notice premium is the only thing available?  That is crazy and to pay over $200 dollars when I am in Bermuda for almost three days where I can use my travel pass.  I know they people say just unplug but I already have anxiety about that because of some things at home.  

OMG, they changed it.  You can't get basic anymore.  And on top of that, you can't get Premium for 3 or 4 devices for 1 person anymore!   You can get Premium for 1 device or 2 devices and that's it.   Also getting 2 devices, the discount is not as much as before, just slightly cheaper.

16 hours ago, librarylady19 said:

I have to say I'm impressed by your culinary inquisitiveness. We love trying local foods, and drinks, as well and find the best souvenirs are often in the local markets & stores. So many people gravitate to familiar places (think McD's, Subway, etc.) or only eat on the cruise ship. Trying the local cuisine is a huge part of travel.  Our first trip to Belgium was mostly for the beer and chocolate and from that we discovered our favorite country anywhere with wonderful people, architecture, and yes, food & beer😀

Totally agree with most everything.   @love2crews. has mad skill on posting food pics.   We do, however, try to visit McD if we have not been to one in that country.   They always have some "special" items that is not available in the US.   We do that for all the states we visited in the US as well.  Some states, like Hawaii, has special items too.

For Belgium, most people think of their chocolate, but we remember Ghent's cuberdon candy (little nose).   Because they should be eaten fresh within a week or so for the best taste, you can't really try the real thing except there.   I don't like candy normally, but I tried one and they tasted so amazing, so we have to get a bag.   Then we heard the tale of the 2 brothers, we have to also buy another bag from the other brother's stand.   Then we ran out and have to go buy some more.   In the end, we ate like 4 bags of candies in 2 days LOL.   We are taking the same cruise as OP on June 25, and we will be at Amsterdam a week before.   So, we are currently thinking of a day trip to Ghent to do a candy run LOL.

I am actually very excited about this anytime dining.   I really dislike set timing for dining.   6pm is too early and 9pm is too late.   This is great, we eat when we want to eat!   I don't mind if we have to wait a bit as we wait everywhere else including Disneyland dining LOL.    

2 hours ago, love2crews. said:

Tomorrow we're taking the train from Warnemünde to Berlin.

 

Has anyone done this before?  Any insight?  Are there snacks/drinks, is it scenic, comfortable?  Any pics?

 

I'm a major planner/researcher and haven't had much luck finding any good info about it.

Heh I am waiting for your report LOL.   We didn't book that because I saw the train ride was 2 to 3 hours and I think each way?   That could be 5 to 6 hours roundtrip on train.. just seem like a lot of train for us.   We book the tour to the Duke castle because my wife loves Bridgerton especially the Duke in it LOL.   

BTW, the Discover Estonia tour you were on, was it a cruise tour or independent one you booked?   Thank you for all the posting and pictures.   They are amazing.  I love the food pictures since I am a foodie.   And all the information you posted are very valuable too from internet speed to no food at buffet between 11 to 12 on shore days.   

2 hours ago, prmssk said:

Generally, no as most hotspots can only share a cellular connection, not a wi-fi connection.  But there are some exceptions to this depending on the device you are using and what you have set up.  It does not work with iPhones.

Yes no iPhone could do wifi sharing on hotspot, but ALL Pixel phones since 2018 could do it.   I think new Samsung phones could do it as well.   Windows 10 and 11 could also share wifi hotspot.   

Is it a Zojirushi one?   We can't live without our Zojirushi rice cooker and water boiler LOL.   Those 2 items are stock appliances in houses of every single relative we got.   We got them from Amazon though, not Japan.

11 hours ago, jelayne said:

That presumes that you only drink alcohol.  We also drink the specialty coffees from Al Bacio, premium juice, bottled water, I drink a soda or 2 a day and DH gets the smoothies from the spa cafe.

I used alcohol to indicate the amount of "liquid" you have to drink just to break even with $149 per day pricing.   Alcohol is the most expensive and least amount you get per glass.   Now if you get into cheaper drinks like water, soda, and juice, coffee, etc... you will have to drink even more than a gallon... probably closer to 3 to 5 gallons of liquid per day just to break even the $149 pricing.

And with the zero proof non-alcoholic package priced at $30, you could just get that and now you have $149-$30=$119 left for just buying alcohol per day with unlimited coffee, juice, water, etc...

If you are a suite guest, I think they have afternoon tea at the Retreat Lounge.   

Well, I was hoping that they will add the zero proof non-alcoholic package to the 50% off sales, but I guess not.  I am actually kind of excited about not getting a drink package this time around.   Now I can drink the drinks in the mini bar LOL.   I don't think the soda/water price in the mini bar is that much higher than getting them from the bar when you don't have a drink package.

14 minutes ago, lx200gps said:

We're currently on the Equinox steaming south towards Aruba. Per the Maitre-d at Sushi on 5, the "deductible" is currently $50 for those of us who have a multi-night Dining Package. Anything we eat beyond the $50 is chargeable. We'll be confirming that tomorrow when we eat there for the first time this trip.

$50 Canadian $ or US $?

Not taking it on to a cruise, but we have this one for pain relief:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BVVMJZP7?

You can plug it in to a power bank or adapter to the wall.   There are 2 settings, one for better skin and one for muscle recovery.  I use the muscle recovery one (850nm) and my wife uses both (ALL, 660nm+850nm).  Even though it is mostly for skin or muscle recovery, it also has heat and could get quite warm at Level 4.

3 hours ago, love2crews. said:

I'm not tech savvy at all.  I know there is a way to test wifi/internet speed.  I will happily do that if someone can instruct me how. 

If you are on a browser on computer, phone, or tablet, just google "speed test" then just click the "Run Speed Test" in the box on top and it will tell you.   The test takes about 10 seconds to run and will give you download and upload speed in Mbps.   For cruises, anything over 3 Mbps is "useable".   I read some blogs that people tested speed on Apex and the latest ones were around 5 Mbps download.

18 hours ago, 1025cruise said:

No need for the birth certificate with a passport. While a letter might not be needed, it doesn’t hurt to have it.

I think the birth certificate is still needed to prove that OP is one of the parents of the minor.   Not sure about letter of consent, although when my wife took our son out of the country, we did get a notarized letter saying that I gave consent for them to leave the country just to be safe.   Don't think it was ever looked it.

1 minute ago, librarylady19 said:

Is this the basic or the premium internet?

We booked premium wi-fi with the Flash Sales saving.   Since OP is in the IC suite, I am sure she also got the premium wi-fi.   I already did some research on Apex wi-fi before I book and Apex supposed to have Starlink.  The speed originally was over 15 Mbps when they first launch it but later on limited it to about 4 or 5 Mbps but that's still plenty fast for what we need to do.   We are just checking up on our online business not streaming video or anything.

4 hours ago, love2crews. said:

Finally caught up with posting now!

 

Wifi has been impeccable, even on sea days.  Haven't had any issues using our phones or accessing the internet on my computer.

This is great news for us.  I know a lot of people could leave their phone/computer behind on vacation, but for us, my wife still needs to work on vacation.  Without internet, we can't go on vacation.  

If you are booking this weekend, even with the current inflated drink package pricing, you will still come out ahead if you book cruise only and book the drink/tip/wifi separately.   AI only includes classic and basic wifi and if you book premium wifi and premium drink package, it is still cheaper not doing AI.  AI is a rip off this weekend for sure.

1 minute ago, neverlaysup said:

That is when the sale ends. The issue at hand is that yesterday with the 50% off sale, the premium beverage package was showing $109.00 and on sale for $53.99. Today, the price MAGICALLY changed to $149.00 and on sale for $73.99. Now perhaps Celebrity had been planning to jack the prices and it was supposed to happen in conjunction with this sale but they messed up and started the sale at one price and then changed it mid sale. I am curious to see what the beverage package price becomes when this sale ends.

That's what I mean.  The inflated price will last until the sales ends.    They could just blame it on IT and MAGICALLY fix it after sales end.   They can't have a drink package priced at $149 a day.   That's 37% increase in pricing for drinks.  Not to mention, most people can't drink that much liquid per day.  If drink is between $10 to $17, you would have to drink 9 to 15 drinks per day.   That's between half gallon to 1 gallon of alcoholic drinks per day.   

3 minutes ago, neverlaysup said:

I just logged into my cruise planner and they are still showing $149.00 so it appears they are NOT back to yesterdays pricing. 

Just look up on top to the right.  It shows when the price will roll back.  Look for the banner:

Price Rollback In: 05D ...

54 minutes ago, mrgabriel said:

 

I don't think this group will be any more difficult to sail with than 1,100 children!

That's every single Disney cruise any time of the year LOL.   

5 hours ago, JLS07 said:

This is absolutely 100% not true.

 

You can have as many devices as you purchased logged in at a time.  We bought 3 logins on one account over spring break and didn't have any issues until I need to be logged in to both my phone and computer (work issues) at the same time.  Then my wife and daughter were down to one login.  But the issue was if they tried to switch devices sometimes it would kick me off instead.  So for about 4 hours one day it was annoying, the rest of the trip was zero problem at all.  All three of us were online at the same time without any issues.

 

I am planning on doing this exact way over the summer on our two cruises.

How do you log in with the 3 devices 1 person plan?  Do they give you one user ID and one passcode for all 3 or you get 3 different passcodes?

1 hour ago, NMTraveller said:

I will check the excursion prices on Monday.  They are still muffed up.  Some way underpriced,  some way overpriced,  and some right priced.

I saw that yesterday!   Some tour shows $300+ but when you actually click and open it, it would be $68.   Others shows $68 on the search page but when clicked open it would be $198.    I just ignored the search front page pricing and follow the inside actual pricing.   That's the price you get when you add to cart anyway.  I think they may have messed up because some of the tours I book were very reasonable after the 35% off.   I wonder if the tour operators agreed to this price discount or Celebrity's cut is more than 35% off and they just not profit much from it.

Book all my excursions and saved $500.  Just want to thank OP again for starting this thread.   So far saved close to $800 on our cruise.  Now if they will have 50% off on Zero Proof drink package....

I think they realized that it is too cheap and all those people who booked AI were cancelling because it is cheaper to re-book basic and just add all the drinks and wifi with the % off.   They don't know how to fix that.  They can't change the 50% off because it was already out there.   So the only thing they could do not is to blame it on the IT guy and said the $149 was a mistake and it will be magically fixed after the sales ends.

While you are at Amsterdam, you can visit the roof top bar at the W hotel.  Anyone can go up there and you don't have to be a guest of the hotel.   The view up there, outside by the pool area, is great.   It was one of the stops of our small group tour last time we were there.

Watching this thread, as we will be on the same cruise on 6/25.   Currently trying to book excursions taking advantages of the 35% sales.