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A quick view from our hotel room before we head off to breakfast. Our room is on the Executive level with access to breakfast in the Executive Lounge which is what we will check out today. I believe those booked in penthouse and royal suites get rooms on this level. We also could go down the Botanica restaurant in the lobby for breakfast.

We made it to Quito! Customs at the airport was pretty straight forward. You just follow the crowd off the plane and entered the line for international passengers. The line moves a bit slow - we probably spent about 20 minutes waiting. Note, I couldn't not find any restrooms until after we got through this line so plan accordingly. After you speak with a customs agent, you continue to baggage claim and collect your luggage. As you exit baggage claim, all of your bags need to put through a scanner. Just beyond those scanners, you will see a sea of people with signs. The Celebrity signs were really obvious. A porter will take your luggage from there. There were 4 other people cruising on the Xpedition from our Delta flight from Atlanta and 2 cruising on the Flora on Sunday. Once they had gathered all of this, we took a comfortable coach bus to the hotel which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. The roads are windy as you climb and descend. There were some neat views that I expect are pretty spectacular in the daylight. At the JW Marriott, we were welcomed with a warm cloth and a delicious hot fruit drink with cinnamon. The Flora guests who had come in a day before their tour package started were escorted to the front desk to check in. Those of us on the Xpedition were brought to Celebrity's desk where our keys and water bottles were ready for us. There is a water bottle refilling station in the lobby of the hotel. A bellhop loads all the luggage from the bus on a cart and stops by each room so you can claim yours. The hotel rooms are really nice and the hotel looks beautiful although we haven't spent much time exploring yet. It has been a long day. I'll end it here with the paperwork we received and a photo of the water bottle.

I’ve enjoyed many live threads and thought this cruise would be of interest to a number of people and so a good chance to start my own thread. I’ll be honest up front and say this is a jam-packed itinerary, with two ports scheduled for most days so I don’t know how well I’ll be able to keep up. But feel free to follow along on what I expect will be a once in a lifetime trip for us. My husband will be joining me on this trip. We have really gotten into birding in the last few years and the pandemic gave me a lot of time to really improve my photography hobby. We chose the Xpedition because it is a ship built for about 100 passengers but since the introduction of the Flora in order to stay under Galapagos limits, it is now limited to 48 passengers. We really liked the idea of more space per passenger. As of this morning, there were still five cabins available so I don't expect this to be a full ship. It is also cheaper than the Flora for what we understand is essentially the same Galapagos experience. We booked the 10 day land/cruise tour which includes two nights in Quito, transportation between Quito and the Galapagos, the 7 night cruise on the Xpedition, and one more night in Quito afterwards. When we booked there was a Flights on Us promotion and so for the first time, we also booked our flights through the cruise line. As I type this, we have left Atlanta where we had a 3.5 hour layover after our short flight from our home airport and are headed to Quito with an arrival time shortly after 8:00 p.m. (which currently matches up with Eastern Time in the US - Ecuador does not observe daylight savings time.) I understand that tomorrow is a full day tour of Quito including a stop at the equator plus dinner at a nice restaurant in Quito. Saturday we fly to Baltra and board the Xpedition. At the end of the cruise, we fly back to Quito where we have booked a full day private birding excursion before we board our flight to go home very late on November 19. Here is the route, the cruise will take (the Northern Loop) although I anticipate the stops on Genovesa Island and Vicente Rock Point on Isabela Island may be substituted. There have been cases of the avian influenza discovered in those locations and last I heard, the Galapagos National Park Authority had temporarily closed those sites. I’m a bit disappointed we may miss Genovesa Island as everything I have read says it is a top spot for birders but the health of the birds is far more important. I’ll end this first post here. See you in Quito.

The engine control room on the behind the scenes tour does include a few video screens of the actual engine room but that is as close as you will get. It’s an interesting tour that we really enjoyed.

In my experience, people's patterns (even the same ship in the same part of the world back to back can have two different experiences on each leg of the journey). So it might take some trial and error to figure out the least busy times on your specific sailings but generally we have had better luck either very early or very late.

The back is stepped meaning that if you are standing at your railing, those in decks above you can look down on you. The portion of the balcony closer to your cabin is covered so there is privacy there. If they have a musician playing at the Sunset Bar, you likely will hear it on your balcony. A pro is that the balconies are much deeper than a side balcony. I personally love the wake view so enjoy the aft balconies.

Have a great cruise!

By the bathroom

Most of the cabins have a notch on the deck plans. The widest part is where the bed is.

The schedule I saw said it would be announced "the week of" November 6 not necessarily exactly on November 6. The e-mail I received earlier today mentioned a big announcement tomorrow.

Although, I think this is often true, I learned several days into my last cruise (on the Eclipse), they actually opened the MDR for lunch most port days as well. And I was on the Constellation in 2021 and they opened the MDR for both port days. I think the Constellation was an exception because being a restart cruise, they expected more people to stay on the ship. I'm not sure why they decided to open the MDR on our Eclipse cruise. So check the paper Celebrity Today if you are interested in an MDR lunch even on a port day.

Celebrity has now started doing short Caribbean and has the Reflection doing 3 and 4 night cruises all summer in 2024. The Beyond is doing the more traditional Caribbean cruises in summer of 2024. I wouldn't be surprised if the Beyond and Reflection did the same in summer of 2025. It is a bit surprising that a third ship would be in the Caribbean but won't the fifth Edge Class ship be coming out in 2025 which would be adding one more ship to the mix.

You'll be just fine. Celebrity's definition of Evening Chic even has a phrase that if you do not want to participate smart casual is acceptable. In my experience, there is a pretty wide variety of how dressed up people get on Evening Chic night.

Are you looking for a prime time appointment time on a sea day? If so, definitely book ahead of time - it will almost certainly be cheaper. If you are looking for an off-peak time or port day, you might get a better deal on board.

We were automatically seated by ourselves in May on the Eclipse each time we had breakfast or lunch in the MDR.

It looks like Celebrity has removed Kusadasi from their Feb-April 2024 Infinity cruises. Istanbul still is currently listed on some late April itineraries. Personally, I think any travel to that part of the world over the next couple years is going to be uncertain. Cruise lines are trying to guess how far the conflict in Israel will spread, how it will affect safety in other countries, what insurance companies will do, and whether passengers will feel safe enough to book these itineraries. I don't envy their position. We had a cruise on another line that embarked in Israel and had Egypt and Turkey ports scheduled for October 2024 that we just cancelled. We weren't interested in it turning into a Greek Isles cruise which I think is very possible.

Celebrity also removed classics earlier this year. There was an e-mail with a video this week about Celebrity bringing them back.

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here. These jobs do depend on a level of tipping just like servers at restaurants in the US but I see the auto gratuities as a restaurant that just decides to automatically add to the bill 20%. Some people will leave it at that and not tip extra. Others will sometimes tip more for really good service. Others yet, will always tip more. We will continue to pay the auto-gratuities. But with every raise in auto-gratuities, we are handing out less cash tips. It's taking more to impress us and make us feel that an additional tip is warranted. I suggest you do what feels comfortable to you based on your own thoughts about tipping and the actual service you receive.

I agree with others that I wouldn't trust a patch off Amazon without a lot more information including ingredient lists. If you are looking for an alternative, I use the ReliefBand. It goes a step further than just using acupressure like the SeaBands/PsiBands (which only worked so well for me) and combines acupressure with electric pulses. Recently, I saw a cheaper alternative brand on Amazon that appears to use the same technology that I haven't tried. I still bring Bonnie with me in case something were to happen to my ReliefBand or the seas got so bad I needed something more but can't remember that last time I needed the Bonnie.

I assume that's a typo for the sailing window for Caribbean, Bermuda, etc.? Late spring and summer of 2025 hasn't been released yet and Bermuda is a summer season usually plus there is usually the Reflection or another S class ship in the Caribbean pretty much year round..

And all adults in the cabin must upgrade if one does.

For most, your options are the buffet, Mast Grill, and for a fee Sushi on Five is often open. If you are in concierge class, the MDR should be open to you. If you are in the Retreat, Luminae will be open. We have been known to grab something at Mast Grill to avoid the craziness of the buffet.

Calm and sunny doesn't mean there wasn't an undercurrent or other circumstance you couldn't see. I've heard a few stories over the years even of the ship breaking free from the dock but never seen it myself. Considering how many ships on any given day are docking and how infrequent we hear of stories, I don't think it is all that common. On a related note, I did watch the Infinity get brand new mooring lines at a port last year which was kind of cool to see. They came in a coil on a pallet and using a lead line were thrown up to the line handlers on the ship and slowly uncoiled and pulled in from the dock.

Is this specific to Edge class ships (not sure who your comment is directed at)? On the Eclipse, reservations were absolutely helpful. There was often a wait for those without a reservation. For our future cruise on the Ascent, I'm debating whether we should make any reservations in advance or just show up when we are hungry.

If you are a huge fan of the music at Syd Norman's Pour House, there are significant issues with crowds. (We aren't so this wasn't an issue for us.) The Indulge Food Hall can also get crowded although we solved that by just staking out a table at lunch before they opened. And the pool space is a bit more split up with some of it down on the promenade deck (both port and starboard side) and then a much smaller pool area high up where you normally expect a pool area so it may take a bit more effort to find the quieter spaces but they do exist. Other than that, I found people spread out pretty well and there were lots of quiet spaces. The ship is designed with more public spaces than typical although each individual space is a bit smaller. So as long as everyone doesn't want to be in the same venue, there is no issue with space. The main MDR (Hudson's) is huge and absolutely amazing with wrap around aft views. I have yet to find a better MDR venue on any ship.