TeaBag

We got off Eclipse Nov 16 and we were offered 50% off the first night. I think this might have been offered only to AQ class but I don't know for sure. We went to Qsine and found it amazing. Tip: skip lunch on the day you go there!

we thought the afternoon snacks were mediocre so we told them not to bother. We just ordered 2 shrimp cocktails each afternoon. Odd layout for those dishes: four large shrimp on a bed of lettuce with a container of spicy dip on the side. But very yummy.

Thanks for the tip. The pita chips in our afternoon snacks were limp enough to tie in bows! One English man on our cruise called the offering "slurry"! Not very complimentary!

How do I find this threat you speak of ?

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1614683

To do this another time, go to the top right of this page and click on Roll Calls in the box entitled "More about Celebrity Cruises". This will take you to the Celebrity roll call page. Scroll down click on Eclipse. Click on Feb 8 thread.

I find this simpler than the new "Find you roll cal" l link at the top left of this page but you might not.

If you plan to use the Thallassotherapy pool (wonderful hot salt water pool) pack an old bathing suit. This pool tends to be hard on bathing suits. Rinse the suit immediately after.

Some free things you might enjoy:

Aqua Spa cafe at lunch (breakfast is served there too but you will enjoy Blu more). Don't miss the table side Meusli in Blu.

Wonderful hamburgers and fries at the pool side grill

If you miss breakfast in Blu (it ends at 9:30) try the waffles in the buffet

Zumba classes

Sea day brunch (not well advertised. Check the back of the daily in the restaurant section). It's only held once.

Crossword and Sudoku, also newspapers in the Guest Relations area.

Enjoy your cruise.

I hope your son makes the cruise, Mike and that you all have a wonderful time.

As for the generosity of Texed, I'm wishing we lived in Houston! Such a kind and generous offer. This is like a Merry Christmas thread compared to some that have been posted here lately.

Mine works fine on Mozilla.

We sailed on the Nov 3 sailing and we are still missing all the attention and good food. Loved Perry G too.

How are the free specialty coffees working out? I'm assuming one gets them in Bacio. Is that making it overly crowded? That's a benefit I'm really looking forward to.

Me too. I guess we are one of the lucky ones in that our next cruise works out the same in either the old points or the new:).

If you could manage with just carry-ons, I would go for it, if you are flying United all the way. If they get you in too late to make the connection they will put you on a later flight. Since you are being wise and flying the day before you cruise, I think it will work ok. I agree with others that your flight time may change between now and Feb. For our flight 10 days ago, we did not get an email regarding the changes, which I thought was bad. I found out because I was checking to see if the flight cost had gone down! We were scheduled to leave 30 mins earlier than originally booked so it would have been a mess if hadn't found out. Who knows, if you miss your connection in SFO, they might put you on a non stop flight to FLL skipping Houston altogether. Wouldn't that be nice?

That is an awesome cabin. Huge, huge deck.

OK, the mystery is killing me! I cannot for the life of me imagine what someone could do to muesli at tableside. Can someone please enlighten me? (hope I'm not taking the bait of some inside joke:confused:).

OK. They have this cart loaded with bowls of ingredients. They start off with a good spoonful of rolled oats that have been soaked in milk. Then they add the other ingredients as you tell them. There are bowls of granola, cranberries, raisins, pecans, yogurt, diced apple, bananas, and regular milk or skim. Did I miss anything? You tell them what you want and they add it to your bowl. You return to your table (the tables in Blu are too close together for them to make it table side if you are by the window, for instance, so you leave your seat to tell them what you want) and they mix it all up. Yummy. I always ordered a dish of fresh berries to go with it. How I miss it!

My husband is an early riser so he is one of the folks who stops in to the Elite breakfast as I waking. Then we are off to Blu for one of their wonderful breakfasts. We have done four cruises in Aqua, and I always love the table-side museli. When I try to replicate it at home it just isn't as tasty. Must be something about that cart!

Thank you. I was wondering what I was missing....now I know it is the cart and what about the cute server? To be honest, I bought all the ingredients to make it at home and still haven't had the time or the energy in the morning!

I'm with Jack and Happy cruiser. Go to both. DH likes the hot breakfast and I loved the table side Meusli in Blu, so we went there first and then next door to Tuscan for the Elite one. I thought it was much better than the Elite b'fast on Millennium.

I am looking to see an example of the daily planner for Celebrity. DH and I are leaving on Connie in February 2014 and I am just curious. What is the name of the restaurant (free) we can eat lunch at on embarkation day? We usually cruise Royal (Diamond) but we wanted to try Celebrity. I am also looking for a LIST of the dining facilities that do not have a fee onboard. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I think you mean Aqua Spa Cafe. It is not really a cafe, just an area near the spa. There is much better seating around it on the M class (Constellation) than on the S class so you should be able to find a table. The food is really good. You can order a hot dish as well as the cold ones that are laid out.

Other free dining places are the MDR, poolside grill ( really good hamburgers and fries, hot dogs etc, buffet. I haven't been on the Connie for a while so I forget the name of the buffet. Enjoy your cruise.

We also stash them out of sight of the room steward - one cruise he saw the pile and incorrectly assumed we didn't want any more so stopped putting them out. Now we hide them every day so he thinks we're eating them! :D

We hide them too. I think there are squirrels back up the line somewhere.:D Hope to meet you on a cruise someday.

We are looking at the Celebrity Soltice. All the handicapped balcony cabins are sold out. Funny since the cruise is a year out. Only thing left is a handicapped concierge class cabin.

So for $300 I get a bottle of wine, a pillow menu and a upgraded room service menu, right?

Plus 2 extra tier points/day above a std balcony room, if you're into that.

I love the little chocolates! We're usually too stuffed to eat them at night (since we have to have pizza before going to bed every night - we are sooo bad) so we bring the pile home and enjoy them for weeks.

I do exactly the same with the chocolates! I metered out all the ones I saved from the 37 day Millennium cruise in April (DH doesn't eat them) and just replenished my supply on the Eclipse 2 weeks ago. Yum....it's those little chocolates that keep me coming back.:D

We sailed on Constellation's last cruise before drydock. It was great. No truth to the warning that they would be rolling up the carpets behind us as we left the ship.

We were in 1637 and never heard anything inside the cabin or on the balcony.

Thanks, I did read through the reviews & was a little surprised at how many were negative. Not sure if they were written by the sort who let any little problem ruin their cruise, or if things really were amiss.

I concur with Bev and travelberlin. We were on this cruise for the 37 days and it was our least enjoyable cruise because it was such a sick ship. Lots of people coughing without covering their mouths which was probably how I got the bug. I was sick with Bronchitis for 10 days, (mostly stayed in our stateroom) and had to go to the Dr on board. There was also Noro but we did not get that, thankfully. I think these things colored peoples' opinion of the cruise.

On the positive side, the sea was not rough. The food and service in Blu was outstanding. We were in the MDR for the first segment and that too, was wonderful. Our cabin stewards in AQ were the best we have ever had. Japan is amazing. Go for it, I think you will enjoy yourself.

I think people have forgotten to enjoy life as it is. The "what's in it for me?" type of thinking has gotten out of control. I was one who thanked Celebrity for the new Captains Club.

I'll start with something really small....

the 2 chocolates on the pillow at night. These are just given without any accumulated status. Not much? If there are 2800+ passengers on the ship, that is 5600 chocolates/night. On a 10 day cruise it is 56,000! Where do they even store all this and more important, what does it cost? It's another little Celebrity touch out of many that keeps us coming back. Thank you Celebrity for providing us with great cruises.

Welcome home Andy. I can't believe you are posting 10 mins after your arrival home!!! Such a dedicated host. You don't have a dog to pet?

I hope I don't get flamed for this....We were on the sailing before yours and we got #29. I totally agree with you on the bigger numbers. We had 2 carry ons which we kept with us and the usual computer case and shoulder bag etc, so we had to send the big suitcase down the night before.

(We usually self disembark). We were instructed to meet in the theatre which was the other end of the ship from our cabin. Since I hurt my back doing Zumba (great classes) we didn't think we should haul all our stuff down there so we waited in the two chairs on deck 11 overlooking the library. Quiet and comfy. However, the numbers were not proceding like we hoped. We were to be off at 9 and had booked a car for 10. When it got to 10 and we were still sitting in our chairs, they were only at #24!! We were afraid our car would be given away so we just went down in the elevator close to where we had waited and queued with all the rest of the people. It went really fast and yes, our #29 case was already there. I agree they need to change a few things.

So sorry your Mom was upset by all this and also about your broken case but I'm glad you had a great cruise. So did we.

Isn't it time to LOCK them all? I don't think that at this point, there is anything left unsaid, any opinion that has not been voiced. Perhaps these posters should channel their energies into a letter to Celebrity, the only entity that could really do something about it.

Great idea.

Piggeldy,

Thank you for sharing your Tuscan Grill experience. Did you have room service

breakfast was it warm and how was the coffee. We have had different experiences on different ships and enjoy having breakfast on the balcony.

Thanks

First of all, a big thank you Andy for taking time out of your cruise to post on CC. I hope you are enjoying it as much as we enjoyed the previous sailing.

To answer the question asked above, we had room service when we needed to be off the ship really early on the St Thomas day. It was 100% correct, hot and good and delivered on time. The only thing.....they put two breakfasts on one huge platter! (We did say the breakfast was for two). We managed by using the plate provided in the cabin for the aft snacks.

Thank you for starting a positive thread. I am, fortunately, in the happy category.....happy with the change, happy with the line and all it offers. The only thing I'm unhappy about is that 2 weeks ago I was on Eclipse and now I'm at home cooking and making my bed.

One thing I'm grateful for is that the tier levels in Celebrity are permanent once you achieve them. Just think what it would be like for all of us if they were like the hotels or airlines who reset their levels back to zero every Jan. For example, if you're 1K with United in 2013 and you don't fly 100,000 miles with them in 2014, you lose your 1K for 2015.

We all need to be thankful that we are able to cruise at all.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends to the south.