kwokpot

This isn't meant as a slight to your wife but as a first generation Chinese American my immigrant parents, despite have come to America in 1956, seem like many Asian immigrants very set in their ways when it comes to food. My parents still won't eat white chicken meat or turkey since there's less taste than dark meat. I 100% agree that rice, for instance, is never prepared properly on a cruiseship but that doesn't mean I can't eat rice prepared differently or eat something else entirely. The same can be said about so many cuisines. There are many ways to prepare things. Just look at American Barbeque. There's dry, there's vinegar based, there's tomato sauced based, etc. So just because one 'grows up' with vinegar based barbeque shouldn't mean that you refuse to eat any other type of barbecue. Most of what Americans call Italian food is American Italian food. Even moreso with American Chinese food. You can go on with every type of cuisine. My point in this is if one is so fussy in eating habits that you can only enjoy food that's only cooked exactly the way you want it to be leads to alot of unhappiness and missed opportunities to experience food cooked DIFFERENTLY than your own expectations.

This is the same for ALL E-Class ships. There's no other location for Gelato.

Yes, Deck 5. It's also the same deck for debarkation. They have self assist gather at Eden and then they lead everyone out through Eden Cafe to the outdoor deck, then forward outside on Deck 5 to the checkout staff.

Felt it here in Center City, Philadelphia. It was scary as Sh*t!

On the cruiselines mentioned, 100% yes. Even on Princess complementary cruises count towards your loyalty status. I cannot comment whether currently Princess honors loyalty status benefits on casino comped cruises since we haven't sailed with them in a long time. That's why it's disappointing that VV doesn't. We will be on our third V sailing this November, the SL TA, and all three will be fully comped casino cruises either via 3rd party or VV directly. And actually we JUST received this morning an offer from VV for a free cruise in a sea Terrace, 7 days or shorter on Caribbean or Europe sailings before November 30th. I think we may book the Resilient Lady out of Portsmouth in September since we have a Royal comped cruise beginning of October from Southampton.

Absolutely not true. On Carnival, Celebrity, Royal, NCL, and MSC you get ALL benefits of your loyalty club status on casino discounted and/or fully complementary sailings.

Just South of Volcanos National Park is Punalu'u Black Sand Beach where you can see the giant sea turtles.

The Chain of Craters drive is a must do/see. You drive literally to the edge of the Big Island.

We are doing a similar itinerary five days later albeit on Royal Caribbean. Unfortunately our altered itinerary only has an overnight in Kailua-Kona with no stops in Hilo. We have been to Hilo many times where we ventured to Volcano's National Park. So I'll be curious to see where you end up visiting when you venture out in Kailua-Kona. I just finalized a Turo rental where we only plan to rent a car for the first day of the overnight.

While there aren't locker rooms associated with the Fitness Center the Spa locker rooms are located within the Spa on Deck 14. From the Fitness Center go down the circular staircase then proceed down the hallway on your left and then turn right and you'll see the locker rooms on the left. The locker rooms are available for all passengers to use, regardless whether or not you have a spa treatment, Aquaclass, or Spa pass. Within the locker rooms are individual lockers with self setting locks, three individual showers, toilet, and a small vanity area with two sinks. There are no free saunas within the locker rooms;those are all in the thermal suite area which is extra charge and accessed through a door in the locker room with a key card.

This is one of those situations where overthinking something causes undue stress that's over the top and unwarranted. As others have suggested there's really a handful of solutions to your concern: 1) Choose a different itinerary such as the one we took last year in July on the Apex that was return from Rotterdam. 2) Go on this cruise and not worry about things you can't control. 3) Don't go.

I'm not aware of any hard drive you can connect directly to a TV to watch downloaded movies. A TV isn't a computer nor can you operate apps directly from a hard drive without a computer or tablet, you need software to run the apps. Now if you mean connecting a TV streaming device like a Chromecast, Roku, or Apple TV, that's a totally different story, but a streaming device isn't called a hard drive.

I sail Carnival regularly (Diamond) and ever since they instituted the American table dining room service (no tablecloths, polished wood table top, water carafe on table) silverware IS NOT changed between starter and main course in the MDR. This was on the Mardi Gras, Celebration, Pride(32 days B2B), Luminosa(30 days)

When was this? And what do you mean by 'an offer'? Are you talking about a casino royale offer for a complementary cruise due to gambling status?

Based on those emails the WiFi package and drink package were part of whatever cruise booking you have and has nothing to do with the your BCC status. Sapphire benefits NEVER get an email confirmations like that nor are they considered add ons with order numbers like your emails show. Additionally the WiFi package from the Sapphire benefit is the premium Wi-Fi, not basic as the email confirmation shows. The emails clearly demonstrate that those two services are part of the cabin offer and not from your gambling status. That's why the both of you received these services.

Your post is unclear. Are both you AND your wife Sapphire?

You are partially correct. The standard toiletries are NOT branded Bigalow and are unnamed and made expressly for Celebrity. Bigelow toiletries are for cabins Concierge Class and above. The attached photos are the standard toiletries for all Celebrity ships (not sure about expedition)

The answer is yes, it's based on previous gambling experiences. When you say you didn't think you gambled enough to get any offers, what do you mean by that? In other words, how much did you think you spent gambling on previous cruises? $100, $200, $500 or more/per cruise? Also what type of cruise offer did you book? Was it a totally free cruise, or $X amount off, or another type of cruise offer? Your post doesn't give enough details to give any insight.

The Thermal suite, which costs extra, has two steam rooms and an infrared sauna salt room. It's located in the cloud nine spa on deck 5 but accessed through the Cloud9 main entrance on deck 6,across from the Fitness center (there's also a hidden elevator from Deck 17,where there are Spa cabins,right to Deck 5 outside of the Thermal suite entrance). In addition to the Thermal suite there's a free coed sauna,which is available for all guests to use, that's located behind the men's and women's spa locker rooms on Deck 5. Enter the Spa through the main entrance on Deck 6,proceed to your left past the reception desk and go down the stairs, then down the hallway on your left and then a little ways you'll see the locker rooms on your left. These locker rooms are available for all guests, regardless whether you have a treatment or not or a spa cabin. In both locker rooms you'll see a rear door. If you exit that door there will be a hallway where you'll find the free coed sauna. It's directly in front of the women's locker room rear exit and down the hall on the left from the men's locker room rear exit. The photo below shows the free coed sauna in the Mardi Gras.

What that says to me is there's a structural limitation in the design of the E-Class ships that limits the amount of traditional balcony cabins vs the IV cabins.

You have to sit DIRECTLY in front of the infrared panels so the heat radiates onto your back and THEN throughout your body. Most people don't know how to use an Infrared sauna.

Having said all the for the average Joe, so to speak, the BEST Credit cards to use on cruiseships are the AMEX Green and Chase Sapphire Reserve which gives 3X points on all travel charges, and the Chase Sapphire Preferred which is 2X point on travel. My husband uses the Sapphire Reserve or Amex Green on all of our cruises to pull out money (via room charges through the Slot machines or the Cashier) for slot play. It can vary from $2,000 to a high of $10,000 which gives use between 6,000-30,000 points for use for travel, usually for airfare or hotel stays. We transfer the points to the allowable airline and/or hotel partners.

That had to be the Icon of the Seas, the world's largest cruiseship. The other change from Celebrity is instead of folding room dividers they chose to use regular curtains to section off the space.

You talk as if everyone can get an AMEX Black card. It doesn't work that way. You have to be invited, and among the qualifications is spending at least $250,000-$500,000 in charges on AMEX cards. The annual fee for that card is $5,000 and the initiation fee is $10,000.

Your math seems off. Are you saying you earned over 21,000 points in the casino and only spent $400? That doesn't seem possible unless you had multiple large jackpots that gave you cash to play through to earn 21,000 points.