karmamule

Now that you mention it we had that problem one night too and used a towel the same way. We mentioned it to the butler the next day and he had someone come look at it and they fixed things so we didn't need to resort to using the towel anymore.

I'm sorry to hear you've had all that hitting you. That sort of possibility is one reason why I'm retiring as young as I am (62). I'll be giving up some of the swankier things (e.g. suites will be a rare exception rather than the rule) in order to afford it but we'll still live comfortably and, more importantly, I'm more likely to have more healthy years ahead of me than if I retired in my late 60s. On the other side of the anecdote coin I have friends who are retired and going strong and absolutely loving life. One of the key reasons I'm looking forward to it is the chance to dive more deeply into some hobbies and activities I just haven't had time for in the past couple decades. We're also looking to get a dog which we didn't want to do while both of us were working. I'm certainly not wishing my life away, we have lots of day-to-day joys, but I'm more than ready to finish the day-to-day office grind.

We were in an Edge Villa and had zero noise. The balcony was also absolutely private and felt like you were in your own world. We loved it!

Congrats on both your retirements, that's great! Mine is next year and it cannot get here soon enough. We'll be in an Aqua Sky Suite this October on the Summit and, if still of interest, will report back here on how that went.

We've been on those 3 lines and would rate them the same as you. (MSC's MDR has a few terrible clunkers but overall I was pleasantly surprised.) We'll be on the Summit this October and it'll be interesting to compare that to our first time on Celebrity on the Apex.

This perfectly sums up why I'm on cruisecritic despite the amount of "complaining" posts. It helps me set expectations for what I'll be experiencing and reduce the chances I get disappointed. Forewarned is forearmed and I'm more likely to come away feeling "that was better than I thought it would be!" which is a much more enjoyable feeling than the reverse. In any case I know I will have a marvelous cruise regardless because, well, even the worst cruise is infinitely better than the weekly work grind.

Mostly what I've heard is people are notified within a week of the cruise. Things can vary widely though. We found out 75 days before our cruise.

Ooo we'll be on the same cruise in early October. Any info/impressions you can share will be much appreciated!

How much did that annoy you, if at all?

That's much clearer than the other video, thanks! It's a bit of an eyesore that I would resent immensely if I had paid a lot for the room, and not mind so much if I had found a good deal.

This rather shaky video on youtube claims to be of Solstice room 2118 and I couldn't see any pole? Where is the video you saw the pole in? UPDATE: At 22 seconds in maybe there's a pole against the wall? It's so shaky and fleeting that it's hard to tell.

For our second cruise on Celebrity (on the Summit this fall) we were lucky enough to get upgraded from Aqua to Aqua Sky Suite so we're looking forward to comparing the two. We were in an Edge Villa on our first Celebrity cruise on the Apex and that was an outstanding experience. With unlimited specialty dining (including our faves Eden and Le Grand Bistro) we never got around to eating dinner at either Luminae or Blu. OP good luck on getting an Edge Villa!

If you look at my post I explicitly said I was referring to ships within a cruise line. The op was comparing across two cruise lines and yes Celebrity is more expensive than Princess in general, at least for the pricings I've done. When I said that I was thinking of the skyhigh prices on Icon of the Seas because it'll be the newest/biggest royal ship vs older Oasis class or earlier ships.

Our 1 and 2 are the same as yours, but we'd put Rooftop Grill as #3. We ate there twice on our Apex cruise and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was tempted to make Eden 1, 2, and 3 because it was that good but didn't want to shortchange the other 2 from getting mentioned. 🙂

In my experience the price differences between older ships and newer ships within a cruise line have grown more extreme in the last few years. We booked a suite on Icon of the Seas for next year and it was more expensive than any Celebrity cruise we've booked. I looked at older RCL ships for the same sort of length/itinerary and they would have been WAY WAY less. itinerary can still be a big factor too of course: the prices we were seeing on Summit were significantly higher than what we saw on Apex in the Caribbean because our Summit cruise was one of a handful out of Boston vs the well-served Caribbean itineraries with lots of competition.

It does in the sense that RCL subdivides suites into the Sky and Star tiers and only Star tier had the genie/butler/personal attendant, and Sky suites were served by the general team. Celebrity had some tiered benefits for suites (e.g. unlimited specialty dining for Royal or up) but all suites shared a personal attendant vs team until now. They now mirror RCL more closely in that only a certain type of suite gets a personal attendant and others are serviced by a team.

Same here. The only time we had a gripe was when the pandemic was still going strong and they decided the cabin I'd booked would be reserved for COVID isolation and moved us to a different cabin. Still had a great time on the cruise. Another time I decided to spring for an upgrade from what I originally booked and the process to change my reservation was very easy and went well.

I was able to bid on an upgrade a little under 90 days out from our cruise and it was accepted about 75 days before. (This is for an October cruise)

We'll be on the Summit for the first time out of Boston in October and are looking forward to it. Any and all info/experiences you have on the Summit and the various stops is much appreciated, thank you!

If you have an app on your phone for the credit card you used to make the bid then be sure you are allowing notifications/alerts for that. Oftentimes the first indicator you've won a bid is the arrival of a charge on your credit card. I got a pop-up for the amount of my bid on my phone and that's how I knew I'd had my bid accepted! The e-mail didn't arrive until a few days later, although I was able to go to the bids page and see it had been accepted after seeing that charge.

We've been in the Haven on Joy and YC on Meraviglia too. While our Joy experience was more consistently good than the OPs we'd still agree with the overall conclusion that YC is better and definitely DEFINITELY a far better value. (We typically see Haven prices consistently several thousand more than the equivalent MSC/YC prices) @Morgsmom, to give you some good things to look forward to: In general we thought YC dinner was better than Haven restaurant dinner but the Haven desserts were really tasty. Breakfast in the Haven restaurant was always delicious. We also liked the specialty restaurants on Joy more than those on MSC. (Food Republic and Q were favorites) We also REALLY liked having a (close-to) 24-7 food option with The Local restaurant on the Joy. The food was nothing special but at 2am it's great to have a real restaurant with menu rather than just a pizzeria. We had the premium beverage package on the Joy and got our money's worth from Starbucks alone 😁. The District Brew House has a great selection of beers and was a favorite stop of ours as well. If money weren't a factor we'd probably be just as tempted to go on the NCL Joy again as we would the Meraviglia, but at current prices we'd choose the Meraviglia any time. (And would probably plow the difference into the casino, but that's a whole other topic 😉)

When cruising in warmer weather I'd love to be able to wear shorts to dinner for comfort's sake, but don't in order to meet the dress code. I'm very happy our next cruise will be on the Summit in cooler weather (Canada / New England) so wearing pants will be the norm for us and our comfort and dress code will be in alignment! 🙂 Thanks for reporting back on your experience.

Oh we're going on the Summit this fall and that has it, so I assumed all older ships did, but I suppose it is a post-revolutionized thing?

You'll also have access to the Retreat sun deck and get priority embarkation/debarkation.

Ah ok, so the spread of it was the other way around. Thanks!