AlbertaCruisers

They have not taken temperatures since the restart. Our first cruise since the restart was August 2021 and we have done a number since and never had our temperature taken. There used to be a questionnaire with a lot of health questions that opened in the app around 1:00 the day before boarding, you did that in the app and then at the ship they asked you if there were any changes. For our cruise on September 3 on the Infinity all the paper work suggested that still existed but there was no longer a place for it in check in in the app, we didn't get asked to do it and we didn't get asked anything at boarding. The questions in the App are now if you have your first two COVID vaccines, if you have your COVID booster and if you will be X months pregnant before the cruise. On the September 3 sailing (before the testing changes), they scanned our express pass, scanned our passport, look at our vaccine confirmation and looked at our test result and we were walking onboard. We are cruising on October 24 and all of the notices we get still suggest the health questionnaire will open in the app before boarding, but the space for it still isn't there, so I think that is just a left over that they haven't fixed in the emails they are sending out.

I prefer a red eye if you get there in time to have some day left. We normally get to Florida around noon after our red eye through Toronto. We check in, get lunch, head to the beach or the pool for a while, do a decent supper and then go to bed early. I normally go to bed around 8 pm local time and I wake up feeling great the next day. I try to sleep as much as possible on the red eye and the next flight. I like it better than losing the whole day to travel.

From Edmonton, it used to be that our best option was American Airlines here to Houston and then Houston to San Juan, but a red eye was involved.

Funny, I should have taken a screen shot, it is now gone. I think the Edge was just before the Apex by a few days.

There is a timeline on the page below. It shows Apex as 11/12, which I believe means it is expected to go live on Apex on Nov 12. https://www.celebritycruises.com/ca/things-to-do-onboard/onboard-packages/internet-and-phone-packages

I have used a TA in the past and never had great service and never really saw a reason for them when I could deal with everything myself when I wanted. I did have a vacation planner through Celebrity, who was amazing, but if for some reason he wasn't available I could still call. He left during the pandemic and is no longer there. Before the pandemic I could call, almost never had wait times and always got amazing service. Now, what a mess. Wait times were huge but I was still getting good service a while ago. I called this weekend, and a lady picked up really quickly (less than 2 minute hold), but it was clear that she had no idea what she was doing. She took down all my information and then had to place me on a brief hold to look into the changes. It quickly became apparent that she had no idea what she was doing and she was getting in touch with someone else when I was on hold. I was moving a refundable deposit cruise made onboard to a different cruise, which I have done many times before. I had to tell her that I did not have to pay the $100 change fee because I had a refundable deposit, she fought me on it and I had to ask her to confirm with "someone else" (which I assumed would be the person she was putting me on hold to talk to), and then she came back and confirmed I was right. She then fought me on losing my OBC for booking onboard and I had to ask her to confirm with someone else and again she confirmed I was right and I got to keep that OBC. Finally she wanted me to pay the rest of the regular deposit, again she fought me on that and said I was wrong, and once she confirmed with someone else she came back to confirm my $200 deposit for booking onboard was all I had to pay until final payment. In the end, everything was done correctly and I have the correct invoice, but it still took over 1 hour to move 1 cruise, which is ridiculous. It may have been less painful to wait on hold for 1 hour (while doing other things) and get someone that knew what they were doing and took the normal approx 5 minutes to get it done! Edit: With the service issues, I worry that someone doing this alone, that doesn't know the deals and how things work may miss out.

My experience has been varied, even on the same ship. I normally have to work a bit each day (but we cruise at least 6 weeks a year, so I'm ok with that). We were on Equinox once and had pretty solid internet (even streamed a hockey game) and then the next time I found it very spotty and slow. I normally try and work in my room, as I don't want to find a space that is quiet and private. I try to only use VPN when absolutely necessary, as I find it painfully slow most of the time. I can connect to VPN no problem (as someone else mentioned, if you have two factor authentication, I borrow my husbands wifi to connect and then he can have it back), but the connection becomes laggy and even slower. On our last cruise on the Infinity, trying to open word documents from the cloud was pretty delayed and slow, and generally makes the process painful. If you can get what you need and work offline and then email or send things after, it isn't as bad. I would just suggest being prepared to either try and go somewhere to find a better connection or be flexible in how you plan to work. I'm so excited for the new internet, but it doesn't look like I will be on a ship that has it until after May 2023. I was hoping for a faster roll out, but I found the estimated timeline on their website and it misses the ships I'm sailing soon. Edit: Also, I suggest you make sure you have the premium wifi, if you haven't already. The surf wifi that comes for free with the booking will not be sufficient to get onto VPN or really to do much work.

As a note, I did recently book one cruise with the 60% off and it was with the all included perks. So, to the extent the classic drinks, surf wifi and prepaid tips are useful to you, maybe ask them for a quote on the 60% price and see how it works out. When comparing pricing, remember that on the free cruise you pay the taxes and in many cases will not get any of the perks. Edit - also, if you have cruised recently and played, you can also ask them to look at your past play. I was able to get the 60% off price and they took more off because of my past play.

Yeah, I see the wording on the first page now as well, my guess is that is a mistake. I think they are referring to the new shoreside phone hours of Blue Chip Club, but it is very badly set out. I would be extremely surprised if they start closing onboard casinos at 8 pm, that would lose tons of revenue. This is confusing and is hopefully incorrect:

If this is what the Original Poster was referring to, this seems clear to me to be the hours to call for offers, not the hours of the casino on the ship.

9 to 8 Eastern is the new phone hours for Blue Chip Club. I wonder if that is the confusion.

This was an Aqua class balcony in July.

Our flight through Toronto on July 29 to Fort Lauderdale on Westjet had exactly this happening. This was the first time I had seen it but they had one Westjet lady walking through the boarding area and bringing people up to show her that their carry on fit in the sizing device. Almost none of the hard sided bags did (even though they would have been fine in the overhead bins, as some were smaller than mine and mine fits in the overhead bin with no issue) and then she made the people check them, but I do believe they were checking them for free.

I asked about Retreat and it wasn’t an upgrade I could get. All they could do was offer a casino price, which was a 40% discount from what I could book at otherwise, but it did include all perks.

I think it depends on what you paid for the upgrade. We have a comped cruise and paid $10 each per day for Aqua, no perks. If you pay the casino rate and get a discount, then I understand the perks are included in many cases.

I'm pretty sure they do not keep your vaccine certificate, as I have had to upload it on every cruise since the restart (except for the first one when they didn't have that option yet). For our September 3 sailing on the Infinity, we uploaded ours at check in, it had just gotten approved, and as noted above, sometime in early August, the check in section changed and the part with the vaccine upload is now gone. It looks like they have removed it at some point and, I guess, you will just show it now at port. It is too bad as it was much faster at check in since they started the upload process. Our first cruise last August, they had to take pictures and check dates of both shots, etc. Since then, they just change name and quickly look at the certificate, as the one guy said he could see in our account that our vaccine upload had been approved.

The Canadian site changed even more. In the overview section it now has self test wording.

I was charged $10 per day for mine that I booked onboard. After the cruise I called Blue Chip about the booking, I didn't ask to remove the charge (so I don't know if they could), but I was in a regular veranda and I asked that since I already paid the additional fee could I upgrade to Aqua, and they upgraded me to Aqua without paying anything else (before I have had to pay a $10 per person per day fee to upgrade to aqua).

The 8 days or less wording is on the Celebrity Canadian site but different wording in the US site - very weird.

For example, on deck 12, 2105 has the biggest balcony, and then 2109 has the next biggest. 2107 and 2111 are smaller but still bigger than flat balconies.

I had a similar unsolicited call yesterday. Before the pandemic I had a guy, Sean, called a Celebrity Vacation Planner that I dealt with directly. I was able to email or call him whenever I needed anything with my direct bookings through him and he could deal with it, without me having to call the main line. It was really helpful to email him to get things done with no hassle and no wait on hold. Last year I tried to contact him with no response (no bounce back from emails and when I called, I forget, but it said the extension was invalid or something), so I figured out he likely was not there anymore. I'm not sure how I ended up connected with him in the first place. Yesterday I received a call from a new Celebrity Vacation Planner and she said she is my replacement for Sean, as he is no longer with Celebrity. She seemed nice enough and after our call she sent me an email with her contact information (she had my email address and I did not provide it to her). I understand it is the same thing, for any direct Celebrity bookings that I make through her (or if I book on board), she can do everything for me instead of me calling the main line. The problem is, I don't think she can help with any of my existing direct bookings, but I will ask the first time I need anything on any of them.

Happy Birthday!

Have a great cruise!

I bought air tags to use in our luggage. My plan is to not actually track them all the time, and to only use them if needed. I think you could drive yourself crazy if you were also checking on them. There was a story (maybe on these boards) where someone said it sometimes takes awhile to update, so they thought their bags were in a different airport and then it finally updated and the bags were on the plane with them. I think I will wait until we are at the baggage claim waiting for the bags to look, as that is really the only time it matters and you can do anything about it (i.e. going and talking to them about the missing bag). My intention with the air tags is just to hopefully have an idea where are bags are, if there is an issue, but I hope to not have to use them ("knock on wood"). For the bags you are checking in, you will want to turn over the option that sends you a message letting you know the air tags are not with you!

I find that check in opens just after midnight Eastern on the date noted (usually 2 or 3 minutes after). So, I'm in the Mountain time zone and can usually check in around 10:03 pm the night before the official check in day.