kwokpot

Remember waaay back before the Internet there were two travel rating companies, AAA and Mobil Travel Guides? Forbes publication's travel department bought the rights to Mobil Travel Guides annual hotel ratings.

No worries, all good. I have a BAD habit of making definitive statements in my attempts to be helpful so I was curious if I was actually wrong in what I said. I also get things wrong too.

Which ship and how did you make reservations? I wasn't talking about special Captains Club events nor activities. I've been on all E-Class ships, and M & S class ships since the restart. How would one make a reservation for a show in the main theater, The Club, or the top lounge on M & S class ships?

Just to expand on this there are no entertainment on any Celebrity Ship fleetwide that take reservations.

The Points Guy may have originally written by just the founder but now it has become a general travel advice website/blog with multiple people contributing articles about their travel experiences. They have recently stepped up their cruiseline industry coverage.

We're planning on trying Holland America next year. As you may or may not remember we travel almost exclusively on casino comps and we recently got a comped cruise certificate for Holland America. We are very interested in seeing how they are but only plan on sailing their newest ship.

We were on the Luminosa 30 Day TP last September/October and I have to say the food all over the ship was excellent! What was most amazing and something I haven't seen on other cruiselines is how they mixed up the dinner menus so that it almost never repeated the EXACT same menu. Of course there were repeated entrees on many nights but it wasn't the same mix of entrees and starters which is why the dinner menus never seemed to be exactly the same. Like your cruise there were dinner entrees that I haven't seen on regular Caribbean itineraries. We had an lobster entree once every week for four weeks. We were on a Celebrity cruise last year from LA and there was no lobster on any of the seven nights. The food was definitely one of the highlights of our Luminosa cruise. Oh and the Japan ports were great, lol.

109 cruises over 7 lines. RCL-32 Carnival-27 Celebrity-26 NCL-17 Princess-3 MSC-2 Virgin-2

Sorry, I misstated some of the facts and events.

They are substantially altering the ship to be able to traverse the Panama Canal. Although the ship itself is narrow enough the lifeboats are what's causing the problem. On almost all other cruiseships the lifeboats hang above an open deck WITHIN the ship, and when needed there's a mechanism that lowers them out over the edge of the ship. In Virgin's case the lifeboats permanently hang too far OUTSIDE of the ship itself, making the ship wider than it actually is. What needs to be done now is the deck where the lifeboats will hang hang must be altered so that there's room to accommodate the lifeboats within the ship, and new lifeboats mechanisms must be installed. This could mean a reduction in the number of cabins.

I have not seen razors and shave cream available on any E-Class men's locker room. The lavatory area is tiny and there's barely enough room for anything there. Usually the only amenity is body lotion and most of the time it isn't available.

What hasn't been mentioned that's very important to know is the potential places to eat dinner when you have Your Time Dining on Excel-Class ships. So here you go. On the Celebration when you choose Your Time Dining you will have several places that you can have dinner. The MDR, Cucina Del Capitano Specialty Restaurant, and ChiBang Specialty Restaurant, and Guy's Pig and Anchor Smokehouse Specialty Restaurant. I call the three listed restaurants Specialty Lite Restaurants to differentiate them from the Steakhouse, Rudi's, Bonsai, and Emeril's. To make matter more confusing you are allowed one free dinner visit per cruise at Chibang and Cucina. Any additional dinners at either place will cost you an $8/pp cover charge. Pig and Anchor is unlimited visits with no Cover and no reservations are taken, it's first come first serve, so you don't use the app and just go to the restaurant desk. Cucina is Italian but on the Excel Class ships it's a different menu from the rest of the Carnival fleet, so if you're doing your online research only look at reviews from the Mardi Gras, Celebration, and Jubilee. Chibang is a combo Asian and Mexican. Funny thing is there are NO fusion dishes;there's Asian dishes and then there are Mexican dishes. The three specialty Lite restaurants are open for lunch and are complementary, and opening hours vary.

Wow, customized for the Xpedition. That's nice!

My dad, who is 94, went with us on a Christmas cruise on the Anthem of the Seas this past Christmas. He is mobility challenged but at the time wasn't ready to use any mobility assistance devices besides a cane. It didn't work out well. He was so exhausted just walking to and back from the buffet and dining rooms that at dinner time he kept falling asleep mid-bite. The cruise ended on NYE, and we had asked him if he still wanted to go to Atlantic City, NJ (The cruise was from Bayonne,NJ, so no flying was involved) for one night to celebrate NYE. He wanted to go, and we tried to minimize walking from his hotel room to the restaurant. Three days later he was at a regularly scheduled doctors appointment and he fell asleep while the doctor was examining him. The doctor recommended he go to a hospital for a full checkup. He was admitted into the hospital and they literally did every test under the sun. The good news is there was nothing was wrong with him. The doctors kept saying, well, he's 94. In the hospital he was complaining to the doctors that on the cruise he had to walk back and forth from his room to have his meals. And then he had to do the same on NYE in Atlantic City. Mind you, it was my dad's idea to go on the Christmas cruise and my parents treated the whole family. In hindsight we should have gotten him a wheelchair or scooter. My mom and dad did use wheelchair assistance getting on and off the ship.

Tan? I have never seen a tan keyholder, it has always been grey. We were on the Solstice in Feb. '22 and it was gray. Last month on the Ascent is grey. I get them on every sailing and they are always grey. Very odd. What color was the tote bag?

ALL the mainstream cruiselines, Royal, Celebrity, NCL, Carnival, MSC, Princess counts fully comped cruises in their loyalty programs and any benefits that comes with your status you receive on fully comped casino cruises on all those lines.

The Virgin Thermal Suites are in no comparison to those found on NCL. Two things stand out. First is the Co-ed changing rooms. Once you past the reception desk you'll come to a hallway with individual changing rooms on one side (similar to try-on rooms in clothing stores) and the other side has individual shower stalls. Past those and you'll find a locker section for you personal items and clothes. I don't understand for the life of me why they didn't REVERSE the placement of these things and have you walk directly into a locker area. Anyway I thought I wouldn't like this unusual arrangement but it in practice it was OK. It definitely saves alot of space instead of two single sex changing/shower rooms. The second major change from all other thermal suites is the absence of individual heated tile loungers and in its place are slabs of heated stone platforms. So instead of lying down on your own heated lounger you have to find a space to lay totally horizontally flat on a heated stone surface. I think it's a terrible idea. It's not comfortable and you're at the mercy of where and how others are laying down. The Thermal suite is beautiful to look at, but not particularly practical in use.

If you don't already know the jogging track spans decks 15 and 16, meaning two sections of it are on an incline and decline. It's probably the most inventive cruiseship running track and it traverses different parts of the ship.

That might be the answer!

Yes, we've also never been invited to any of that either. Isn't that tied with Zenith status though?

In the OP's situation if they are they same room type it makes it easier to have the ship officially switch rooms. In my situation last year on the Solstice it was a bit more complicated. I was traveling with my sister and her husband. I had a casino complementary Veranda which I had my sister as the 2nd occupant. My husband had a casino complimentary Concierge Class room that included a classic beverage package and free wifi, and my husband added my BIL to his room. So I needed to switch cabins with my BIL. Given the cabins types and benefits were different and the benefits are assigned to the individual that was initially booked in the cabin, we couldn't have the ship officially switch two passengers. So we ended up just getting extra keys for me and my BIL to use to get in and out of our new cabins, but use our original key cards for all other transactions.

Thank you for your thorough response. What you wrote is what I had thought is Celebrity's general policy. The accompanying card says Welcome home and the guests first names printed on the face of the card and inside is a message addressed to who I assume is the main guest welcoming them to the Solstice. I couldn't tell from the photo who it's from. It's the current sailing on the Solstice. My initial question to OP was if they were in Retreat Class and they said no, which is why I asked follow-up questions. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a wonderful gesture and as I said previously it's nice to see this being done when we all are somewhat down on Celebrity for their cost cutting measures and changes. It's just that we've never received a gift in this manner that wasn't due to the cabin type gifts, Captains Club status gifts, or maiden voyage gifts The gifts that accompany cabin types generally don't have your name printed on the card face. Not being Zenith Level I don't know how personalized those gifts are.

The responses so far show that there is indeed personalized Welcome Back gifts (that are non cabin or CC related benefits) given by the Hotel Director and there doesn't seem, at least on the surface, a pattern or qualification to receive such gifts. It's a very nice gesture especially when we are concerned about Celebrity diluting their brand with various cutbacks. We've taken eight Celebrity cruises since the pandemic, sailing on every E-Class ship in the fleet, and haven't received such a welcome back gift so I was curious how pervasive this practice was.

Are you Zenith level?

I asked that and there was no response to my question. I don't think it's an inappropriate question to ask on a Celebrity specific social media forum how they came to this gift that they choose to share with the forum.