karmamule

Whenever we've had suites with dedicated attention from an individual then we've always tipped well. With the switch to a team service model we'll only tip an individual who stands out by repeated or "above and beyond" service, we won't tip for every individual act they do for us.

Carnival has had that 15 drink limit for a while now, so I'm not surprised to see them bring it over to Princess. If only they'd bring over Guy's Burger too.

We booked on the Sun Princess for November 2024 a few weeks ago and the Premium package was a no-brainer for us. We both like our cocktails and beers, we both are techies who love our phones and tablets so the included wifi is very useful, I definitely see us using the delivery anywhere on ship feature, we'll appreciate the included specialty dining meals, and having crew tips also covered all combined together for ~80/person/day felt well worth it. I feel sympathy for those with cruises coming up who are now facing reduced free dining options. Yet another sign that all cruise lines are looking for ways to wring more money out of us, it's just a question of who is doing it in the least objectionable way. Because of our initial booking choices we're insulated from this (unlike the recent Celebrity changes). It'll be interesting to see how each of our cruises will go.

We've never felt like we wanted to invest in one cruise line and have enjoyed sailing on several. They're all in cost-cutting mode these days, with some like Celebrity being more ham-fisted than others. While cruise lines have the "right" to change some features of an upcoming/paid-for cruise it doesn't sit well. Having said that, our bottom line is how much fun each particular cruise turns out to be. We were going to be in one of the more unique deluxe grand yacht club suites on MSC and, after having fully paid, they moved us to another cabin that seemed much less desirable, and we were not happy and said we would be far less likely to cruise MSC in the future. However, as many here also found true, the YC is a great deal for the money and we still had a fantastic time. Since then we've been on Celebrity and Virgin for the first time each but did book another MSC cruise for next year. Yes they annoyed us greatly but the 'bang for the buck' is still compelling Our cruise this fall will be the second on Celebrity, this time in an Aqua Sky Suite on the Summit, and similar to MSC I'm annoyed at the change but will take a 'wait and see' attitude on what the actual experience is like. If it does dilute the experience then we have lots of alternatives like MSC YC again, Virgin and its delicious food with no kids and no specialty restaurant fees or perhaps our first time on Princess on the Sun Princess next year will feel like a better deal. There's lots of competition and anytime Celebrity pulls this sort of thing they risk falling behind other cruise lines in how enjoyable a cruise with them is, and whether or not the $$$ feel worth it.

Magnetic wall hooks

It's so wonderful having all these Summit threads popping up, it's an abundance of riches for those of us waiting for our turn later this year or next. I hope you and your family have an enjoyable and *relaxing* time. Bermuda is one of the best places for that!

71 days to go until our 11 days on the Summit in October. Thanks so much for this, it was great to have such a thorough preview, especially one that captures the spirit of cruising like this.

Putting my recent bid into moveup standard format in case anyone is ingesting that to spreadsheet or something: Ship: Summit Length of Cruise: 11 nights Cruise Sail Date: 10/02/2023 Date email offer received: n/a Captain’s Club Tier: Classic Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: Direct Current Cabin: Aqua class 1100 Bid? Yes/No: Yes If YES - Bidding Details: Cabin Category: Sky Suite, Aqua Sky Suite, Celebrity Suite, Royal Suite Bid Offer:$1000pp, $1000pp, $1250pp, $1500pp Notification Date: 07/19/2023 Accepted / Rejected: Aqua Sky Suite accepted General Comments (offer details, etc.) Cruise initially showed all Retreat sold out, but then noticed many Retreat cabins became available. Went directly to moveup site (no e-mail received) and entered 4 bids on July 5th. Bid for Aqua Sky Suite accepted 75 days out from cruise. Website list price for an Aqua Sky Suite for this cruise would have been $10k more than our original Aqua cabin. Bid for Sky Suite was max possible and for Aqua Sky Suite was slightly below max.

I was at the top of the range so definitely supports your idea. The price difference between our original room and the room bid on was $10k, so having the top of the bid range be only $1kpp surprised me. But, yeah, like you said, it's a mystery! 😁

Thanks! I'm really surprised that they accepted it 75 days out from the cruise. Bids getting accepted that far in advance don't seem very common.

We're on the October 2 Canada/New England sailing on the Summit out of Boston in an Aqua class cabin. For the last few months the retreat was looking almost completely sold out. Then a couple weeks ago I noticed a whole bunch of retreat cabins of all categories were showing as available. I hadn't received an-email but went to the moveup site to enter your reservation number and name to see if you could bid on an upgrade and I could put in bids for Sky Suite, Aqua Sky Suite, Celebrity Suite, or Royal Suite. I went ahead and did that, putting in $1k pp for SS and Aqua SS (both max/strong bids), $1250pp on Celebrity, and $1500pp for Royal. Who knows, maybe we'd get a nice surprise a few days before we sailed. I saw a charge for a little over $2k on my Amex from Celebrity today, and at first thought it must be a billing mistake. Much to my delight I went to our bid page and our Aqua Sky Suite bid had BEEN ACCEPTED, and our new room is showing on the Celebrity app already. Absolutely flabbergasted but delighted. I just checked our cruise and they still show Aqua Sky Suites as available, but if I were to upgrade it at the current price it would be about $10k more rather than the $2k of our bid, so I'm feeling quite happy right now.

I am moderately color blind and this is absolutely true. I have trouble distinguishing red from green (and a couple other color pairings) and that has NOTHING TO DO with seeing whether or not a shaded window is open or closed because that involves distinguishing light from dark, which is completely different and not affected by color blindness.

The one thought filling my mind as I read all this: I WANT TO BE ON A CRUISE NOW!!! 🤩

Happy Birthday, Bermuda is beautiful and I hope you have a wonderful time! We'll be on the Summit for our 2nd cruise with Celebrity this fall and are also excited that it's a "just drive directly to the ship" cruise for us too. We'll be in Aqua cabin 1100 just down the hallway from where you will be. Very much looking forward to hearing about your cruise experience. Bon Voyage!!!

It's a LONG way off but November 2024 we'll be doing a back-to-back with the first 7 days being on Icon of the Seas out of Miami then hop over to Ft. Lauderdale for 7 days on Sun Princess immediately after. Very much looking forward to that. I'm thinking the first 7 days will be non-stop activity and adventure on the gigantic Icon then the next 7 will be more about taking it easy and relaxing in the elegance of Sun Princess (Though it is still a big ship, same size as Carnival's Mardi Gras class of ships). We'll see how each leg lives up to that!

Booking on newer ships or ships freshly out of refurbishing raises the odds of issues leading to cancellation. We've been on 11 cruises and had 2 cancellations. The first was the NCL Prima because they ended up chartering the entire ship for the voyage we were on, and the second time was on Virgin Voyages because they decided to postpone the rollout of Resilient Lady until later in the year. Both turned out to be blessings in disguise because we replaced the NCL Prima trip with one on Celebrity Apex and had a fantastic time, and rebooked on the Valiant Lady for Virgin, and since they had given us a 200%(!!!) credit we were able to book the Massive Suite and again had a great time. Part of me hopes for another cruise cancellation to see what will happen next. 😄

We've been deliberately trying lots of different cruise lines in order to settle down to 1 or 2 favorites when I retire. One significant plus that Celebrity and Virgin shared was no smoking in the casino. We really dislike smoking in casinos, and while we can deal with it (by having our 'casino outfits' that absorb all the smell and limit that to one set of clothes) we really appreciate when we can relax in a smoke-free casino. If Celebrity makes this change fleetwide then that takes one significant plus from them and leaves it on the Virgin side alone. It's not in the 'deal breaker' category for us, but definitely a factor.

I found a workaround and that is to use the Shortcuts app to create a Home Screen shortcut and I can even assign one of my pics to be the icon! A bit more work but that little extra ability to customize makes it worth it. (See the CC Celebrity shortcut below)

p.s. Cute dog on your desktop! 😀

Yes I can retitle the shortcut I save, but then when I use it, it still just takes me to boards.cruisecritic.com rather than the specific board I was reading. As an example the specific celebrity forum's URL is "https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/16-celebrity-cruises/" but for some reason when I'm on that page and choose the Add to Home Screen option, it only has "https://boards.cruisecritic.com" as the link it's going to save.

So happy to hear you're having such a good time! Our first cruise on MSC was in the Yacht Club on Seaside and we loved it. Since then we've been in YC on the Meraviglia and the Seashore and have a 14-day trip next February on the Seascape. Can't wait for those and looking forward to hearing more about your experiences on the Seaside. Enjoy!

Thanks for taking a look into this! I have a "Cruise" screen on my iPhone and a folder for each cruise line. with (ideally) a link to the CC forum for each line in each folder.

I used to be able to add shortcuts to specific cruise line discussion forums on my iPhone home screens but now even if I'm on a specific site, for example the Celebrity cruise discussion forums, when I save i to the homescreen it is just a link to the main board listing page. I liked having shortcuts to specific cruise line discussion forums. Is there any way to do that or has some recent change made that impossible?

When we were on Valiant Lady earlier this year, we played an hour or two in the casino each day and never had any problems with smoke drifting in from that smoking area.

We like to arrive on the early side because of this. It's fun relaxing in that lounge knowing your embarkation is only a short time away. You can enjoy the snacks and maybe start up a conversation with some other YC guests. We keep an eye on the roll call for our cruise for the earliest arrival times people are getting and go for 15 minutes before that.