RoofingPrincess

Between our butler, Kim, and Ann in the Concierge Lounge, we were spoilt rotten!

Kim was so personable, and we loved her afternoon visits with the tea cart. She noticed our preferences very quickly, and one time when we weren't there even left a plate of our favorites, then stopped back later to see if we were back yet and offered us our favorite hot chocolate.

On the very first day, Ann summoned a spa rep down to Michael's when we mentioned going up there to make reservations, and on another day hopped on her phone to make another ressie for us. She booked a shore excursion for us, followed up with us afterward, and when we mentioned an issue got on the phone on our behalf.

Thanks, Norris! I'm doing a transatlantic with 7 consecutive sea days and want an "excursion" to break things up. I've heard they fill up fast and imagine that might be even more the case on a transatlantic, so I'll book in advance.

Is this automatically added, like the service charge for drinks?

Yes

We were on the Reflection in October - never saw any tables on the Lawn. We were not up there every evening but did have an Alcove one day and stayed there till about 8 - no people or tables on the lawn. Went to the sunset bar a few nights and again nothing on the lawn. Ate at the LCG and again no one on the lawn.

 

Sound like a great idea, wish they had done it on our sailing.

I've been looking at booking an Alcove, but the website is confusing. It says 9 am to 9 pm in one place but duration 2 hours in another. And when I choose a date it comes up as 3 am.

$149 is fine for the whole day but not for two hours...

Is Luminae open for lunch on boarding day? Sure would be nice to have a sit down lunch...

If anyone has Thursday from Navigator, it's the only one I'm missing!

You can make a rather serviceable floating device from a pair of long pants. Take them off, zip them up, tie a knot near the ankles, grasp near the waist, take a deep breath, stick your head inside the waist band and exhale. Repeat. After a few minutes, you will have inflated your floating device. Put a leg under each arm. You may need to add air.

Saw that episode of myth busters. It actually worked quite well.

Back when I was in high school, it was taught as, if I recall correctly, part of the Water Safety Instructor certification course. Either that or Lifeguard training, I took them both fairly close together.

I remember the good ole days when an AQ cabin went for $1800 on an eastbound TA on the Equinox ( 2012 )

Total, or per person? We just booked AQ on the westbound TA on Silhouette in 2016 for $1800 pp. No 123go perks but we did get OBC for booking while on the Summit.

Do you mean length of cruise or true sea days, when no port call is made? Because I have never heard of a cruise where the number of consecutive sea days went into double digits, not even the world tours.

The longest cruise I've taken is a 14-day transatlantic. It was a northern route that should have had no more than two consecutive sea days, but weather rerouted us and turned it I to four in a row with a missed port call.

Interesting. I relayed these comments on Aqua Class having to dine in Blu to my travel agent, and she double-checked with Celebrity before getting back to me. She said "if you pick Select dining you will have access to both, and my clients have done this."

Saw this one last night while I was looking for things to do in Barbados. Scroll down to "Tropical Pathways" - it does Flower Forest, Bathsheba, and Harrison's Cave. "Treasures of Barbados" at the bottom also includes both of the sites you want.

http://www.glorytours.org/halfdaytourpage.html

Don't know anything about the tour company but they're rated 4 out of 5 "stars" on TripAdvisor.

If you are Diamond Level with Royal you would qualify for Celebrity's Elite program after your first cruise.

Actually, you can sign up for the Captain's Club before your first cruise with Celebrity. One of the questions in the enrollment process is whether you've cruised before, and how many times. They didn't ask which line, but gave me Elite status immediately based on my answer. So either they have a great computer system which found me right away in the RCCL system (yeah, right, we know IT is not a strong point for RCI) or they're not picky about who you sailed with in the past or even verifying your cruise history.

And with that membership, our TA was able to get us a one-level automatic upgrade when we booked.

I don't mind prepaying gratuities. Paying them now means my onboard bill won't be as high.

Daily limit would a policy of your bank; check with them.

And yes, it's the same PIN as you use in the states.

Just make sure you let your bank know when and where you're going! And make sure you know what (if any) fees and charges they have for foreign transactions. I keep a small money market account at Capital One Bank because of the lack of fees; I also like the idea that it's not the account my direct deposit, direct mortgage payment, etc are linked to. That way if something goes awry and the Cap One account gets hacked, they only have access to a small amount of my money and I don't have to deal with changing all those automatic transactions to a new account.

OK, I'm confused. It seems like some of you are saying that if you have an Aqua Class cabin, you can't eat in the MDR? But on my reservation, it shows that my dining is "Celebrity Select Dining", which I understand is X's version of Anytime, My Time, etc Dining. And because we chose that, we had to prepay our gratuities.

I thought Blu was an option, not a requirement, when you book Aqua Class.

BTW, does anyone know where Blu is located on the Summit? I've pored over the deck plans but haven't found it...

http://www.princess.com/excursion/exDetails.do?tourCode=SLU-110 has both Rum and Caribelle.

Dresses at Caribelle are $60+ http://www.caribellebatikstkitts.com/caribelle_clothing.asp

Keith, what do you consider downtown? Google Maps has walking directions that say it's 23 minutes to walk to Parliament.

Is the chocolate tour worth $18 per person?? Do we get chocolate to taste?

We took this tour in January (it was only $15 back then).

He starts out by having you taste three different sugars (and yes, there is a difference!) so you can see how much better the local sugar, which he uses in his product, tastes.

You get to taste cacao beans from several different sources.

We tasted samples of all of his product line. They're all amazing, but the rum caramel bar uses Mount Gay rum and is truly fantastic.

He showed us the entire process from bean to melted chocolate, but not the pouring of the bars. He wasn't roasting beans that day, but turned the roaster on so we could see how it worked.

He only makes dark chocolate. No dairy involved.

We were allowed to purchase as much chocolate as we wanted for $5/bar; the bars sell for $7-12 in gift shops around the island and at the airport, and for $6-8 plus shipping online.

We enjoyed it so much that we want to go again on our next cruise in November. We're hoping to get enough people to sign up that they'll schedule a tour for us, since our ship docks on a day when regular tours are not on the calendar.

In January, we took an island tour with Lawrence of Antigua. He gave us a very informative tour and took us to a lot of interesting places. http://www.lawrenceofantigua.com

On Radiance class ships like the Brilliance, we've often found the Champagne Bar to be a nice quiet place to sit and chat.

Actually I just looked at a website and they list cheapest per day. Wow, there are some cruises for about $30 per day, on RCI. Category K L M N on Serenade 16 nighter in April. That sounds very cheap.

Yes, but that 16-nighter is an eastbound repositioning cruise from New Orleans to Barcelona. Then you have to either pay for airfare to get back, or hang around Europe until the westbound repositioning cruises in the fall.

The very next sailing on Serenade is an 11-night Med cruise starting at $2099. That's $191/night.

My experience on a number of other RCCL ships, which does not include the Liberty, is that the buffet is the only place open for lunch on embarkation day.

Just got back from a cruise that stopped there. We booked an island tour through Sweeny's Safari Tours. Hit a few points of interest around the island, spent an hour on our own in Christiansted, toured the Cruzan Rum factory (interesting, and good samples at the end!) then back to this ship. $40 pp plus $5 admission for the rum factory. http://www.gotostcroix.com/guided-island-tours/sweenys-safari-tours

I was told by the waiter that for "My time dining" they leave the basket on the table, because of the varied seating times. We've only used "My time" for the past couple years, so I'm not sure it this is correct.

Not on the ships I've been on. The assistant waiter still brought the bread around in MTD. And I agree, there's simply no room on many tables for a bread basket, and it would be wasteful to throw away the bread sitting on the table at the end of a seating (but it would have to be done).

Yes. Every RCCL ship I have been on has had saunas and steam rooms in the locker room area at the fitness center. And the Radiance class ships have, for an extra charge, the Thermal Suite area with co-ed sauna, steam, aroma, and heated tile loungers.