CalTexCruiser

Thanks @Tom-n-Cheryl

Just curious, did staff react differently to the new upper suite indicator any differently than before?

2 hours ago, Lisah101 said:

Wow - Celebrity offers a nice perk for elites to get free drinks from 5-7 every day after embarkation and it seems like some people can't just say, wow, thanks for a great perk.  Instead it's just complaining that what they are getting is not enough, they want MORE.  It's a PERK, it's not any thing more than that.

 

Same thing with those people who received free veranda cabin offers, and complaining about charges  to upgrade to Aqua class.

We were on Discovery Mexican Riviera and the Internet was unusable--couldn't even download emails.

We have an ATT Wireless unlimited plan, so we get free cell service in Mexico (unlimited data, text, and call).  I tried hot spotting to my phone in port but even that was a challenge--not sure why.

How are the blackjack tables:  3:2 payout on $50 dollar table, and 6:5 otherwise?

Never been on a SB cruise but have an 18-day upcoming in 2024 on the Encore.

I'm wondering what a "crowded" Colonnade buffet looks like on the Encore.  If someone has a picture could you upload?  Trying to set my expectations appropriately.

We sail mainly suite class on the large mainline cruise ships so what I am picturing as a crowded buffet may not be what a crowded buffet looks like on a SB ship with 600 passengers.

2 hours ago, SHIP TRAVELER said:

I know several Blue Chip players (including myself) who have not received offers and do not understand why when what I consider non gamblers are getting them.  I am only ONYX in Blue Chip but that beats "I played $20 through a slot machine once on a cruise before the shut down".  Maybe the idea is to fill ships with bodies who will spend on drinks packages, specialty dining, and in the Spa based on their past cruise history.

Same here.  Onyx.  I have received only one offer in the last six months.

My daughter, who ran $ 10 through a slot machine for about 10 minutes back in 2019, has been getting non-stop continuous offers.

I wonder if they are trying to get younger people to try their product and hopefully become avid cruisers like us. 

We are elite and do not plan on buying any drink package for our upcoming comped cruise.  So definitely Celebrity will "lose" money on us, unless the casino manages to get some back.  LOL.

Seems like a solution looking for a problem...this may reduce lines at guest services, but they still need staff to process the hundreds or thousands of paper receipts this will generate.

A better solution...hire a competent IT person to program the app with a link called "Drink Voucher"--then when you go to the bar, click on said link and 4 short numeric codes will pop up for a Diamond member per day.  The bartender will just enter the numeric code into their system as each drink is ordered, and the numeric code will disappear from the app when consumed.

If someone doesn't want to use their drink voucher, just don't present the codes.

The weather forecast called for large waves during the Tasman sea crossing back to Sydney...I wonder how bad it was for those on board.

I can vouch for the Retreat employees having sharp memories when it comes to faces.

One time, on embarkation day, we got in the elevator to head to lunch, and a lady in uniform walked in.  Then she turned around and greeted us by name, Mr. & Mrs. CaltexCruiser--surprised the hell out of us.  She was the Retreat Manager.

On another occasion, as we were wandering around the Retreat Sundeck also on embarkation day, a Retreat Concierge walked by us and also referred to us by name (we had never seen her before and she was not carrying around any device that would have our pictures on it so she was doing it purely by memory).

So for those worried about unauthorized people in the Retreat, don't worry.

1 hour ago, canderson said:

Service over the ocean will always be a bit more of a challenge.  Again, these are LOW Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, and as a result, the distance they view to the horizon is very limited compared to the higher, MEDIUM Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites spread around the equator that have been used for this purpose.

 

With a limited horizon, LEO satellites over the ocean have no line-of-sight access to the ground stations that provide the terrestrial link for the service, and in such cases, messaging would have to occur between satellites (eating up bandwidth) to reach a ground station that can service the requests for data.  Without massive data servers in space <g>, all of these satellite comm systems rely upon links to ground based systems to complete the connection.  Only a small fraction of the current Starlink constellation have the new laser intersatellite communication capability that would make this possible.

 

A bit of digging along the lines described above would uncover the fact that Starlink isn't capable of being used for mid-ocean communications just yet, and that the original system is being used in parallel as needed.

 

This is a case where it's going to take a while for the full constellation build-out to bring the kind of service that one could hope for mid-ocean. 

 

Here's a snapshot taken just now.  Clicking on it will bring up a big enough image to make sense of it.  Note the little orange markers on land.  These are ground stations that provide the terrestrial links to 'the internet'.  Notice also the green hexagons, indicating where service could be expected to exist, and that none of these are present out in the ocean.

 

 

For any who doubt, here is Starlink's own maritime coverage map.  As you can see, only areas near shore are covered for the reasons explained above:

 

Thanks for the Starlink maps.  Glad to know that service will be in place for our Feb 2023 AU-NZ crossing on the Eclipse, assuming Starlink is installed in November on the Eclipse as set in Celebrity's current schedule.

This is the wave height map at 7am on Thurs.  Not sure when y'all are reaching the Azores but looks like the wave conditions will have calmed down relatively speaking by then.  Still not ideal since you really want to be in regions with blue shades...the darker blue the lower the waves.

Looking at the wave height map below for today at 5pm (not sure time zone), red is 28-ft waves, while dark blue is 0, and yellow is about 20-ft waves, it appears the captain could have taken a more southerly route (from Portugal) rather then going right through the heart of the bad sea.  Probably would have added a bit of sailing time so may not be feasible to meet the debarkation port time.

So how bad is the ship rocking...can people still walk around the ship?

And most importantly, is the casino open?

In any event, if the Eclipse timeline holds, we will get the new speedy WiFi for our Feb 2023 NZ cruise.

YAY (hopefully)

Having just spent a week on Princess' agonizingly slow-w-w-w-w-est ever "Best WiFi at Sea" on their newest ship, I look forward to faster Internet.

when I clicked on it just now, it said

3 hours ago, Tom-n-Cheryl said:

 

My youngest as well ... I think that Celebrity is trying to groom them to be gamblers. You're already a known/reliable entity. They need new blood !!

 

Tom

Yes indeed.

Quite an interesting strategy adopted by Celebrity's executive office: let's fill our ships with free casino offers to people who have no history of significant gambling.

Someone must have run the numbers and concluded that it's cheaper to hand out free rooms than to further discount rooms for sale.

What they may not account for is that once word of this gets out on social media (like this site and other sites), that may actually depress future sales as now more people are waiting for free offers for future sailings.  Who wants to pay for a room now if they'll get a freebie later?

LOL, I think Celebrity is using some random selection process to pick who gets offers.  My daughter set foot in Eclipse’s casino 3 years ago and played penny slots with us for 2 minutes, and has never set foot on a cruise since.

these days she is getting nonstop BCC comp offers but she has no interest in going

I get these offers less frequently even though I gamble much more, but I have already done a Caribbean cruise so not interested in any more even though “free”

On 10/13/2022 at 5:44 AM, njsmom said:

For more information, it's a July 2023 Alaskan cruise I'm considering, and the ships that work for us with timing are the Crown Princess and the Royal Princess. And then the brand new Discovery Princess. We could possibly do the Ruby Princess, but that skips Seattle or Vancouver and my husband would really like to visit that area before or after the cruise. But if the Ruby is the best of the ships, then that might be a good tradeoff. 

 

I read reviews on the ships, and the Crown has a lot of negative reviews. The Royal Princess has better reviews. Of course the Discovery is new, but some people don't like it, either. I don't like the itinerary as well, either.

 

So, thoughts on the Crown and the Royal are of most interest to me. The Royal isn't really what I consider older, having come out in 2012. But the Crown is from 2005. So I'm curious if it's still viable. 

So we've sailed on the Ruby and the Discovery.  The problem with the Ruby when we sailed back in Apr 2022 was that there was rust everywhere along the balconies.  Felt a bit rundown due to the rust.  But the interior of the ship was fine.

Discovery is nice and new and more modern decor and lighter colors, if you like that sort of thing.

We have no problems with older ships if well maintained but we try to book newer ships.

@JeremyK1956

So having stayed a week in S108 (the smaller of the 2 window suites) on the Discovery Princess, the following are my observations:

1) I like this suite...the online video does not do justice to how spacious the suite feels.  It may be smaller than S107, but it is still nice.  The bedroom size is fine...does not feel small at all, especially since the panoramic views give the entire suite a very roomy feel.

2) The 90 view out the front side of the suite is great.  I enjoy watching the ship pull into port.  We also had a fantastic view of Los Arcos when the ship anchored in Cabo.  

I thought that I might miss the balcony, but not a big deal.  It was very hot in Mexico anyway so I would not have used the balcony much.  And this suite would be excellent for cold weather sailings such as Alaska, Norwegian Fjords, etc.

3) Very quiet cabin.  There may be the occasional deck chair noise from the Sanctuary above, but those last a few seconds and is very rare.  

4) Love the proximity to the Retreat pool (and its bar).  I can literally walk a few steps whenever I feel like it to grab a cocktail.

5) Easy walk to the buffet...just head aft, walk down one deck to the main pool, and then to the buffet area.

6) It is a bit far to get to the Concierge Lounge, but we only go there to grab canned soft drinks...no reason for us to hang out there as our suite has a much nicer view anyway from our living room.

7) I'm used to Celebrity Retreat.  Princess' suite service does not really compare.  No butler.   Club Class dining is not at the level of a dedicated suite restaurant.  But as long as one sets expectations sufficiently low, I guess staying in a suite on Princess is ok.

1 hour ago, Matco said:

 Confirmed with Princess via chat that if I bid on a room and do not like the location I can just not pay the upgrade fee and keep my original cabin. That being said I placed bids for the penthouse, aft penthouse and owners suite just now, not going to get my hopes up because I waited basically a month to place them but not sure how many have already bid on them.   

That may be how it's supposed to work, but no one has yet reported on this yet.

When we won our bid, we were assigned the new suite even before payment was made; in fact, the upgrade fee shows up as a balance due and the due date was the original final payment date (i.e., a date in the past).

I believe you have 48 hours to pay, and if you don't pay, the upgrade is revoked and you are "supposed" to get back your original cabin.  But if someone else is upgraded to your now vacated original cabin in the meantime and paid the upgrade charge, then what happens?  Maybe they have a system in place to prevent that, but I would not trust Princess IT.

I'm green lane but my DW on same reservation is blue lane (we are within 2 days of sailing).

As best I can tell when I log into DW's account on the app, it shows she has not yet ordered her medallion even though both ours have been received.

The bar code on my phone shows green lane.  So if I go to the green lane, will they kick us out and force us to the blue lane?

14 minutes ago, RKSue said:

So they actually said your bid was not accepted?  Ive got 2 bids in and no rejection letter on either one. 

so two weeks before our sail date we received 6 rejection emails and 1 acceptance email.

it appears everyone else who got upgraded had the same experience...rejection emails sent on all bids except the one that was accepted.

CCL up to $ 7.60 today

I already got my $ 100 OBC...should I sell (bought at $ 7 last Friday) and re-purchase later if I book another cruise?

I'm thinking this stock may sink under $ 5 at some point.  It's a "dog with fleas" as Gordon Gekko would say.

36 minutes ago, SantaFeFan said:

I just purchased 100 shares for the first time because the price was so low this morning. Would someone explain the procedure to make the request? If with a TA, do I go through them or straight to Princess?

 

Thanks. 

 

guidelines are in the attached PDF

2021 US Annual Report - Shareholder Benefit - Final.pdf

When CCL dropped to $ 7 per share on Friday 9/30, I purchased 100 shares.

On 10/1, I submitted the trade confirmation by email to Princess for my 10/8 sailing.

I received the $ 100 shareholder OBC today 10/3.

So despite CCL's guidelines stating that the request for OBC should be filed no later than 4 weeks before sailing, I was able to get the OBC even though submitted within a week of sailing.