kwokpot

When the Virgin Beach Club at Bimini was announced there were writeups that it would be a day to late night place, where at night, I assume after dinnertime, there would be a outdoor pool party/dance party with headliner DJ's and an experience similar to Scarlet Night Deck Party. Did those kinds of events ever actually happen? Did any of the top headliner DJ's ever spin at the Beach Club? Or were those events nixed due to the low occupancy levels?

If you search the forum you'll find many threads on what to look for on E-Class ships. But a quick recap of the things that are not found on the other classes of Celebrity ships are: *Eden Cafe for breakfast and lunch. The concept is sorta like a quick serve restaurant and is an alternative to the buffet, (Generally not open on port days). It's a limited menu for both meals but what they do serve is fresh and tasty. Of note is the brownies and cookies served during lunch that can only be found at the Eden Cafe and nowhere else on the ship. *Eden nooks and crannies along the spiral. Critics of the E-Class ships seem to imply there's no quiet places to sit and read, nap, or be away from the crowds. That is so far from the truth by looking at the seating spaces that line the walking ramp in Eden. These spaces face Aft and look out at that amazing multistory window wall.

Good but spicy.

There's no Thermal Suite on any Celebrity Ship with a water feature.

That's strange and doesn't sound correct. Comped cabins are ALWAYS just Port taxes and fees, and of course any other upgrade fees.

There's EXACTLY what you described albeit 30 mins away. https://www.americandream.com/

Ok, so I misspoke a bit. First of all, it's my husband who's the F1 aficionado, which is why I'm getting the facts mixed up. Anyway, he was having problems streaming the races through the F1TV app he pays for, so he did watch the races at the Landing, Hero's Tribute Lounge. This was back in April.

The proctored services are available 7 days a week.

So to counter all this negativity about the Pride I'll post a few pics of the great meal we had at the Steakhouse on the Pride. We ate there four times over the course of three cruises.

Why don't you just do self administered proctored tests? https://store.emed.com/s/category/covid19-athome-test-with-verified-lab-report-emed/0ZG8c000000LZXk?c__results_layout_state={}

What that means is you have early set dining, not Select Anytime Dining. When you board the ship there will be a card in your room with the assigned Dining room. You can speak to the Restaurant Hosts to see if you can schedule future nights in a different dining room.

Exactly. One of the additional menus not shown on the link above is an Italian Night where the menu was almost a carbon copy of La Cucina from the Mardi Gras, minus several things. Unfortunately most of the entrees wasn't as well prepared as on the Mardi Gras but I did have the grilled fish from that menu and that was good. The spaghetti Carbonara was very good. Don't get the lasagna.

It's done through the cruise planner, you're not checking in for the cruise. It should be under Dining, Complementary Dining.

Agree, but that area that they're located in is so tiny and not enough room. I usually take the dumbbells I need and go down one level where the ab crunch machine is located.

Yes, agreed, the gym hot tub would be always packed when I use the gym every afternoon. There's always some guy(and always a guy) that would kinda hold court and dominate every conversation. Kinda weird.

Nothing has been updated in the gym. Nothing. There were broken treadmills, ellipticals, and rowers. There's one elliptical where there's no bottom in the bottle holder which I remember was like that years ago, so that still the same. Edit: In the Locker room half of the lockers the electronic locks don't work. The steam and sauna worked fine and overall the locker room was always in clean condition. Showers were fine.

Mardi Gras's internet is actually pretty good. We had the premium plan and was able to stream the F1 races (although they do show that in the Landing).

I don't the OP necessarily meant glitzy in the pejorative sense.

You can go into the cruise planner and make advance dinner reservations for the whole cruise if you like.

Espresso based drinks are complementary (Excluding those with alcohol) as well as premium teas like those found at Cafe Al Bacio (Seems like Segundo Bacio doesn't carry the specialty teas). It's listed as the last Elite+ benefit on this brochure. https://secure.viewer.zmags.com/publication/a9b099b8#/a9b099b8/1

Yes, since the government is no longer paying for the tests it's become quite expensive, which is why many people were looking to the self administering proctored tests which are much less expensive and less of a hassle.

I agree with this and since my cruise isn't until Sept. 27th there could be a total elimination of pre-cruise testing for vaccinated guests. As per usual all the cruiselines make it difficult to follow what's going on. I understand the fluidity of all of this but as we all know it doesn't make things easy for what is supposed to be a holiday. I recently spent five weeks in Europe, 31 of those days on the Carnival Pride from May to June. To say the amount of forethought, and contingency planning was onerous was an understatement. This was all before testing was lifted to enter the US, so I planned for the worst case scenario and we were so relieved when the testing requirements were lifted while we were still overseas. In the end our five week European trip went off without a hitch; literally everything went according to plan and we had a wonderful time. My thoughts about Carnival in Europe and the Carnival Pride ship is a whole other can of worms, lol.

That benefit has been there for years and years. In the past it's been at the Tuscan Restaurant. Pre-pandemic it was a self-serve continental buffet, no hot food of any kind (And don't try to bring any hot food; once we did that and were admonished for carrying in hot oatmeal from the Spa Cafe). It included bread, pastries, fruit, cold cuts, pre-made smoothies, juices. A server would bring coffee, espresso based drinks, and tea. Now post pandemic it seems to be a served affair.

We currently travel almost exclusively on casino comps for all our cruises on all lines. The December Apex cruise was our first as Elite+. The one employee I didn't think of discussing this issue on either ship is the Crown and Anchor Ambassador(?). Our next Celebrity cruise will be on the Beyond in October. We'll be in AQ but with only one drink package from my husband's BCC status. If everyone is saying the coffee benefits should apply everywhere I'll be ecstatic about that and will inquire further. But as I recounted it wasn't for the lack of inquiring and clarification about this new benefit(for us)and on two different ships, with multiple staff. Thanks for letting us know what the benefit should be.