kwokpot

MOST still do. Celebrity doesn't have the fob tech and uses key cards, with mobile phone access on the E-Class ships.

Thank you for spending the time from your vacation to makes these informative posts. I know it will be very valuable to others who will be sailing on the Luminosa.

More likely all aboard is 4 and sailaway is 5

The Chihuly Glass Museum and Adjacent Space Needle is a must see.

I think everyone is saying the same thing but in a different way.

No, I didn't have a thermal suite pass when I sailed the Splendor. But in the locker room was a small complementary sauna which I used daily. There was also a strange steam shower which basically was an individual stall shower that had steam capability.

I confirmed it with at the spa desk when I 1st sailed the Mardi Gras. It isn't apparent since the locker rooms are hidden away. Here is a photo of the free sauna on the MardiGras. On the Celebration they have smartly put some frosting on the glass door since it's located exactly where the rear door of the women's locker room is so when someone exits the ladies locker room you can see right into it from the co-ed sauna.

The locker rooms on Excel class ships are on the lower level of the spa where the treatment rooms are. You enter the Spa and to the left you proceed down the stairs then a little ways down the corridor on the left are the mens and women's spa locker rooms. Inside the locker rooms are small lockers, individual stall showers, toilets, sinks. There's a rear exit in both locker rooms that lead to the coed standalone sauna and also to the thermal suite entrance which requires a keycard to open the door to the thermal suite. As I said earlier both the spa locker rooms and the standalone sauna are available for all passengers to use.

Yes, if I have a spa cabin and/or the ship has at least a free sauna I use it every day. I enjoy going to the gym every afternoon and afterwards using the steam, sauna and other heated facilities to relax and prepare for dinner. TBH I'm less of a fan of hot tubs/whirlpools but if I do enter them it's for 5-10 mins rather than hours as some people do. For me a whirlpool is a short term treatment space and not a substitute for a lounger.

The Excel Class Spas do have a whirlpool but it's a small rectangle that holds about 4-5 people. It's in the center of the actual thermal suite. The other rooms in the thermal suite are two steam rooms that are quite large and a combo Salt room & Infrared sauna. If you haven't experienced an infrared sauna they are different from a traditional swedish sauna. People complain that they're not hot enough but that's because they're using it incorrectly. Infrared saunas work just like those infrared space heaters you can buy for your house.And just like those heaters they work differently than a space heater that has a fan that blows hot air around. With the infrared sauna there are multiple infrared heaters built into the walls around the seating bench. In order to feel the heat you MUST sit right in front one of those heaters so the infrared radiates heat all over your back and those all over your body. If yo don't sit in front of one on the heaters the Salt room isn't going to be that hot. If you prefer the old fashioned sauna there is a small co-ed swedish sauna that's located outside of the thermal suite and behind the men's and women's spa locker rooms, which means everyone has acess to this one swedish sauna even if you don't have a thermal suite pass. Back to inside the thermal suite. You'll find the heated tile loungers, and some non-heated lounge chairs. There's an open experience showers that has changing colored lights and different water temperatures and sprays. There's a water fountain and a whole wall of towels. That's about it. Is it huge, no. Does it do the job, yes.

No worries. I wrote a strongly worded response on that thread about a TA who said that they didn't like the Edge because they had to use their iPhone every night to make dinner reservations. I have never heard of that being the case on any Celebrity ship nor has it been my personal experience..

That's not what I'm asking. There's an implication that you can use the phone app to do it each night while on the cruise. That's what I'm asking about. Making pre-cruise reservations using the cruise planner has been available for years, but you couldn't use the phone app each night to make on the fly reservations, which now people are implying you can.

I understand about booking pre-cruise through the Cruise planner which I've done myself for years;I'm specifically talking about using the app while on board your cruise. During last Fall when the E-Class ships started going to all Select Anytime dining (I actually started one of the earlier threads about it on the October 26th sailing of the Beyond) it was never discussed that one can make a reservation onboard, each night, using the app. It was never told to us (rather to my parents) on the Beyond that this was one way to make dinner reservations. All they kept saying is just to come whenever you want to eat. The option to use that app to make a reservation was never discussed by any of the dining room hosts of the four dining rooms on the Beyond nor did guest services discuss this option when going to inquire why the ship went full anytime dining. The Beyond is the flagship so if this functionality was available 9n the flagship last October, when did it become available? Is it fleetwide? For which restaurants?

So are you saying you were able to make nightly reservations in one of the four MDRs every night? When did this start? And more importantly why isn't this discussed anywhere, either here on CC or more importantly on the ship? We were on the Beyond in October and Solstice in February and we weren't able to do this nor did anyone on either ship imply that you can.

I was on the Solstice in February and that ability wasn't on the app.

@Jim_Iain Can you check something out? Just to confirm Celebrity didn't add some new mobile app functionality for nightly MDR reservations on the app? On another thread there's a TA telling a client that that's how one needs to make a MDR reservations on the Edge. Thanks!

I was responding to another thread that implied one must use the Celebrity app to make nightly MDR reservations on an E-Class ship. My last E-Class sailing was in October on the Beyond and there's never ever been this functionality. I do have an upcoming sailing in July on the Apex and I looking on the app this button shows up? Is this new? Can you actually use the app to make MDR reservations each night while on the ship?

I don't understand this comment. That's not how you make dining room reservations on ANY Celebrity ship. Carnival yes, but NEVER Celebrity. The Celebrity app doesn't have that functionality. Either you make pre-cruise MDR reservations via the Cruise Planner on a computer or you just walk-up to any dining room when you want to eat. OR you have your TA make pre-cruise reservations. But the Celebrity app doesn't allow you to do that either pre-cruise or while on the cruise. The TA was confusing Carnival which requires same evening MDR dinner reservations, using the phone app,there's no pre-cruise all cruise dining reservations,it's all done same day. Terrible TA giving BAD advice!

Whoever is telling you this is giving you wrong information and I wouldn't trust anything else they tell you about Celebrity.

You're on the ship now? I don't remember any E-Class ship having this technology.

I think you hit it on the head. This is the defining aspect of a Carnival cruise. EVERYONE, from employees to guests, are there to have a fun and enjoyable experience. You will never find another cruiseline where deck parties are routinely packed and well attended (although Virgin Voyages' Scarlett Night Deck party is stealing that title from Carnival!). I also love that in GENERAL, Carnival guests aren't constantly complaining about everything, which is the norm on Celebrity,especially from their seasoned cruisers. Having said all that not everyone who goes on a cruise vacation wants Carnival's definition of FUN. And that's where knowing what you're booking and understanding what each cruise line represents becomes important.

We did a reverse cruise in Oct. 2018 on Royal from Seattle making two stops in Hawaii, Honolulu and Maui, then proceeding to Fiji,Vanuatu,New Caledonia, and ending in Sydney. It was an enjoyable cruise and we actually enjoyed the Hawaii stops the most (besides Sydney) since we had great weather in both Maui and Honolulu.Was it our best cruise? No, for that part of the word our cruise from and around New Zealand to Sydney was much more fascinating. Also a Hawaii cruise with more Hawaiian Islands stops was again more memorable.

That's fine. I'm sighting personal experience. As to cold to me, temps in the 50s is cold on a cruiseship is cold. As reference I keep the heat in my home at 68 degrees the winter, spring and AC at 75 degrees in the summer.

One point that you bring up that hasn't been emphasized is the difference in the amount of kids on a Carnival vs Celebrity. Since NONE of Celebrity's ships have the bells and whistles that kids and teens would enjoy there's naturally going to be less of them on ANY Celebrity cruise. That difference alone will account for a different cruise experience on a Carnival vs Celebrity cruise.

Well said!