phoenix_dream

As are Alaska cruises (although that season is soon ending) and New England/Canada cruises - our sailing on the latter has been unavailable for bookings 3+ weeks out from sailing.

I sympathize. DH has similar issues. If you're near him in the morning you would think he is sick but after about an hour or so it's much better. It is definitely true that many people cough for many reasons other than Covid. Unfortunately there are also some people who just don't give a hoot about others. A couple of cruises ago was sitting in Blu next to a table of 6. The woman directly across from me had watery eyes, kept blowing her nose, and was saying to her tablemate that she thought she was getting a cold. The woman next to her tablemate who also had watery eyes and a stuffy nose was talking about how she was "feeling better", that the medicine had helped. I couldn't believe in these Covid days that they would be so inconsiderate of others, not report their symptoms, and have the unmitigated gall to freely talk about it right next to us. Not sure what they had but fortunately we didn't catch it. I did speak to the Maitre d' afterwards to report what was going on but they are obviously in a very tough position. I asked that at the very least he try to seat them in a corner away from others (and warn his servers to be careful). He did the first night but at breakfast they were back to sitting mid-restaurant infecting who knows who with who knows what. Ugh!

Yikes. Boarding in a couple of weeks. But this is what I expected when they have a ship at virtually full capacity. At least if I had to quarantine in my own cabin that would be WAAAY better than being moved to a smaller ocean view cabin with no balcony!

You're wrong. They only did this on M class ships. They have, however, apparently stopped stocking the library with new books so the selection on most ships is pretty slim.

You're correct - hard to know for sure unless they tell you

We are thinking of doing this on our cruise in a couple of weeks. Can you tell me how far from the port you catch the trolley. And do you recommend the 4 hour tour? Thanks so much.

Congratulations! We were surprised by having the honor on our last cruise on Eclipse. We were stunned, as we hadn't been top cruisers since years and years ago pre-Royal Caribbean days, even though we have sailed 65 (or is it 66?) times. I admit I am a bit jealous - we got the nice flowers and a bottle of wine but no specialty dinner. As much as I love Celebrity, one of my pet peeves is their consistent inconsistency with things like this. They should have corporate-wide policies for how to handle these things. But enough of my moaning and groaning - we had lovely flowers and nice wine and we enjoyed every minute of it.

I hear you, but I confess I have mixed feelings. Now that they have removed vaccine requirements, there will undoubtedly be people boarding with a negative test, then coming down with Covid, and being unvaccinated are much more likely to require hospital care which would then involve ships changing itineraries, cancelling ports, etc.. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that for all our sakes.

Sounds like a quarantine area to me. It seems that the days of the Captain announcing that there are cases onboard has ended. I guess in some respects that's a good thing - in point of fact there will always be at least some people onboard with it, knowingly or not. If the Captain suddenly asks for masking in the casino and theater then you know it's ramping up. If he/she asks for masking everywhere then it is getting pretty bad.

thank you for the input. Sorry you had to go through that. I'm hoping that with the new vaccine and testing changes effective in September, maybe they have changed the quarantining process as well. I guess we'll have to see what happens the next couple of weeks.

This definitely seems to be misleading, as I don't think you get the perks in bold. I agree that you should check out the price to pay for Royal - given the perks and OBC and benefits it might be worth just paying outright

Thanks for the input. The fact that there were doors shut off on deck three is concerning as that is one area they would quarantine folks, and those are all ocean view or inside. But we don't know if that was for crew or passengers. But I appreciate the feedback.

So this post has gotten a lot of views but no responses. I'll give it one more try. Surely someone has sailed in the last couple of weeks and can comment on current quarantine procedures? Even if you personally have not gotten quarantined, I would think most would be aware of what was happening on your sailing? For example, the Summit references talked about many meals being delivered to cabins (much more than the norm), noticing many trays left outside cabin doors, or seeing attendants deliver them. It would be very encouraging if we could find out that people would now be able to quarantine in their own cabins. I know the possibility of having to move has caused some people to cancel their cruises, or not book, at least according to posts on these boards. And it certainly has caused a lot of stress for many of us who choose to cruise and would intend to be good citizen passengers and report as required.

I've sailed Aqua Class on S class ships many times and had very little, if any, issues. One time we were underneath the pool area right where the band played. We could hear the music but it was not that big a deal and it never played really late. You might encounter some minor noise if underneath the buffet, or minor noise in the morning of moving deck chairs if underneath the pool deck. As far as being beneath the pool area, it depends on the cruise as well. We've been on cold weather cruises (Alaska, Norway) where the pool area was rarely if ever used and there wasn't music playing so being underneath that area was no big deal at all. On hot weather cruises with a lot of sea days you might have more music playing and of course more people near the pool. Best to check the sticky with specific cabin info on noise in a particular cabin.

I've read some comments (I think on these boards) about people no longer needing to move to a quarantine section, but rather were allowed to stay in their cabins for quarantine if positive for Covid. I think the ship mentioned was the Summit. Is this happening on other ships and other sailings, or did they just happen to do that because the ship was so full they didn't have enough quarantine cabins available? Can people who have been quarantined in the past few weeks comment on this? Or those who have sailed recently and know for a fact what the situation is? I respectfully ask that people only comment on very recent experiences please. I know there were occasional situations in the past where people were allowed to stay in the own cabins but this was not the norm. I am trying to determine if this is a change in procedure correlated to the revised sailing rules or just a one-off experience.

I was going to post the same thing. DH, for example, looks healthy and fit but has arthritis in his knees and on some days no way can he do many stairs. Someone who themselves need a walker or scooter you would think would realize this. And lack of consideration works both ways. I’ve literally had scooters or wheelchairs run right into me or over my feet particularly in elevators when people try to fit in where there just isn’t room, or without waiting for me to try to make room. I sympathize with the difficulty of finding enough space on the not so big elevators. If everyone would be a little more patient and considerate wouldn’t everyone’s life be better, right.

9 cruises since restart and brought them on each one. No issues

Thanks for the response

Thank you for your detailed postings. We are boarding in a couple weeks and so looking forward to it. Our last Summit cruise was in January 2020 shortly before the big shutdown. I don't remember seeing this info so forgive me if I missed it. Do you recall the maitre d' and hostess names in Blu? We sail Celebrity a lot and love to check back in with some of our staff friends.

Could I top it? Yes, but my fingers would get tired typing. 66 on Celebrity and 73 overall. Other lines Carnival (ugh!), Royal, Norwegian (the Norway), Princess. Just about every Caribbean island you can think of and ports in Mexico, California, Alaska, Canada, England, and Norway.

It's not necessarily just Edge class ships. On an upcoming cruise of mine on Summit, which is by now sold out, the few suites that were left were selling at outrageous prices, albeit slightly less than this. Supply and demand. As long as they can get people to pay those prices the rest of us peons (said tongue in cheek🙂) will need to sail in our standard balconies or AQ cabins. And it really depends on the sailing as well, not just the ship. I booked a B2B in a Royal Suite in March which was roughly half what I would have paid for a Sky Suite on the aforementioned Summit cruise.

I would prefer we not be giving Celebrity free marketing data regarding what some people might be willing to pay. I don't see any good coming of it (meaning the data, not the internet itself).

So wrong! You get personalized service onboard from your host, as well as your room steward. You get entry into Luminae restaurant for breakfast and dinner, as well as a wonderful lunch on embarkation day. You get access to the Retreat Lounge which includes drinks and snacks at certain times. On new or revolutionized ships you get access to the Retreat Deck as well. You get priority embarkation, as well as priority disembarkation and priority tendering. On elegant chic nights you get preferred seating in the theater. You get premium drinks and premium internet included. You get upgraded toiletries and robes. And there's probably more but it isn't coming to mind. All in all, hardly nothing.

Maybe they prefer you don’t but I’ve seen them there many times

For some it is. I worked 30+ years for an insurance company and believe me they make a lot of money from people buying insurance they don't really need, or more than they need. People need to evaluate if it's right for them and not just purchase blindly.