dcbiker97

My experience mirror’s @chemmo   It will be ship and butler dependent on whether it’s allowed as the official policy is just room service items. We

never requested any special meals unless we were in the PH.  In the past, we have had  Indian food and a Mexican fajita buffet. I chose those items as they were readily available in the buffet and didn’t require extensive staff time.  

7 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

 

It makes sense for provisioning.  Less items to stock.

Totally agree. Makes sense from a provisioning standpoint.  Although somehow, they picked my 4 least favorite menus. 🙂
 

Just pulling away from the dock now.  The demographics changed significantly on this cruise to a much younger and local Miami crowd. I had expected this given the cruise is a Friday to Monday. Lots of groups of friends getting away for a long weekend. 

7 minutes ago, GilbyJoe said:

Did you get the 2 bottles of alcohol on both your cruises?

How was turn around handled for b2b?

Yes. We got 2 bottles each cruise. I asked for Macallan (not on the precruise list) and it was provided both cruises.  The room also comes with a bottle of Veuve Cliquot.  I packed accordingly and will be bring all of that home. 
 

B2B was extremely simple. We showed up at 9 in the Retreat lounge. Sat for a few minutes in the terminal before going through facial recognition. We were back in board by 9:45. 

17 minutes ago, chemmo said:

So pleased to read your review. We are on Reflection next year in the same area. 
 

Usually I enjoy the lighter Tuscan Elite breakfast but as we are opposite ends of the ship I have been looking at the Spa cafe menus…Could you have a look and see if the actual food looks appealing? I know I can get room service but as I am often awake before the rest of the family I often prefer to go out.

Enjoy your cruise, I will keep following your posts…

 

The Spa Cafe offerings has been looking like every other Celebrity cruise. I didn’t see any new things.   

Here is something else. I’ve never seen more roving bar staff. We stay in the Solarium and at one point I counted 4 different ones constantly roaming.  In past cruises we’d only occasionally see 1 in there.  

Hi all. I figured I would share some observations. We are on turnaround day for a b2b cruise on Reflection, which is doing the 3 and 4 night cruises out of Port Everglades.  
 
To provide some background, we are experienced Celebrity cruisers (and will reach Zenith in March 2025) and are staying in our favorite suite on Reflection, the Signature suite.  We wanted a quick week away and these cruises fit the bill. 
 

We love the S class and prefer to sail on them over Edge class, which has Beyond doing summer Caribbean runs. 
 

I won’t go into too much detail but here are some initial observations:

-The crew have all been top notch and are exactly the same as we’d come to expect.  

-We have eaten in all the specialty restaurants and Luminae and all of the food has been spot on and better than some previous cruises.
 

-We just saw the menus for the 2nd leg and they are only seeming to do 4 day rotations in Luminae, not the full 14 day rotation. So tonight’s menu is the same as when we boarded on Monday. 
 

-Because it is after Labor Day, the number of children has been minimal. 
 

-Folks are having a great time and we haven't witnessed any behavior that would be associated with a booze cruise (of course that could be vastly different depending on passenger mix)

-On the port days, they only have pool towels available at the kiosk right outside the solarium.  You don’t have to sign them out and they simply hand them to you. They are doing that to limit the towels that go to Cococay to the yellow beach towels.  The gray towels reappeared in their normal locations after lunch. 
 

-We haven’t been to any shows, but we are glad to see that Celebrity put back on board a steel drum player. That’s been nice to listen to outside in the evening.

-From what we’ve been told, the vast majority of passengers are new to Celebrity and want to get a feel for the brand. 
 

Any questions? I’ll post other observations over the next couple of days.  

6 hours ago, Stu UK said:

We sail in a PH on Ascent next month. Do the in suite spirits / wine get replaced if consumed?  Also wondering when entertaining guests in PH suite (all who will be Retreat guests with premium drinks package) will butler provide extra wine etc?

Our experience has been somewhat different than @chemmo but I chalk that up to different ships and butlers, not “official policy.”  When we’ve thrown parties in a RS or PH cold appetizers were complimentary and the butler brought in wine and prosecco at no charge to us.  We didn’t ask for spirits, as  I assumed there’d be a charge. But we’ve always gotten free wine. It’s best to ask the butler what they can do since it seems to be ship dependent. 

20 minutes ago, Sascol said:

In other words, pick 3 o’clock, but show up at noon?

Yes. Pick the latest time the system allows, (which saves the earlier places for folks where it matters )and you can board generally around 11ish.  

The 5 senses menu comes with wine pairing and is extra. All of the food is also on the regular menu.  You can do the same but a la carte and ask the sommelier to provide wines that fit within your beverage package for each course.  We just ate in Muranos tonight and it was outstanding as always. 

I’d never rely on that assumption. In almost every instance it will be a no.  You should make alternative arrangements. 

We are doing a b2b (3 and 4 night) next week, mainly because it fit our schedule, and we love the Signature Suite on Reflection. It is certainly a different set of folks on the cruise groups on the other site.  Most have never sailed Celebrity before and are either first timers or coming over from Carnival and RC.  On the first cruise, there are at least 5 slot pulls organized by 5 different people. That number is very different than I've ever seen on Celebrity, but probably common on those lines. I'm looking forward to just getting away....and the people watching will be amazing on this cruise.

I don't mind one Celebrity ship doing these short cruises. It gives people choices and this one fits for what we need. If I recall, several years back, we didn't even have a Celebrity ship in the Caribbean in the summertime. 

I can't think of any reason you wouldn't want to confirm with private parties. Are there any? Better to fix an issue now versus while on vacation. 

Don’t get your hopes up too much.  While they have been tasty, the ones I’ve had recently on multiple ships are more mayo than lobster. It’s more like lobster salad roll.  As usual with Celebrity, yours may be the other way around. 

I’ve never had a problem with adding in days on either end with FBC’s search tool.  Is there another limit you’re placing that could have an effect on the search results? Could also call as some folks on here prefer that anyway.  Just have the flights you want and give it to them that way. 

Royal Caribbean and Celebrity don’t share the same terms and conditions so what’s on Royal’s page isn’t applicable.  Here is the verbage from Celebrity’s:

https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/while-on-board#beverage-packages

30 minutes ago, styles27 said:

Found this…12 standard 17oz cans, bottles etc. 

Only thing I’m seeing with exact weight/amount that is allowed. 

 

Since you’re quoting AI as the source, it’s hard to know whether it’s current or the official policy or old info from a non celebrity website. I wouldn’t trust AI without knowing the source of the info.  The latest I’ve seen in official Celebrity policy is that you can bring what you can carry.  

 @cruisestitch Yes, that link provides information about the normal offering by Celebrity. I too have been wondering about the 3 and 4 day cruises if they'd offer luggage valet since I will be on one next week. I would think that the demand would be much smaller and may not make it profitable for the independent company providing the service. 

Our favorite excursions in Alaska were the Dawes glacier boat. It picks you up from the ship and then goes super close to the Glacier.  The other was a helicopter ride with a glacier landing. These two excursions were really pricey, but the experience was unparalleled.  

16 minutes ago, leaveitallbehind said:

Just to add to the discussion, in particular with closed loop cruises, ship time is typically based on the time at the departure / return port and is frequently maintained as that time during the cruise, regardless of ports of call time.  Ship time is always at the discretion of the Captain and, as explained to me, more often is maintained even in different ports of call time zones as it is easier and less confusing to maintain crew schedules on a fixed time than to adjust this for individual ports of call.  It is less impactful for passengers to be aware of ship time in port and monitor any difference for that short period of time in port.

 

Exceptions to this typically would be with cruises that spend more than one day in a port of call with a different time zone than the departure / return port.  An example would be east coast US to Bermuda cruises where the ship will spend 2-3 days in port.  En route and during the return the Captain will announce the time change to adjust to while in port and then for the return.

While this is true for some lines, it isn’t the case with Celebrity.  You’re correct that it’s at the discretion of the Captain. But Celebrity almost always moves the time the night before to reflect the port time.  
 

OP: In all likelihood, yes you’ll need to adjust your times when sailing Celebrity. They announce this in the Celebrity today. I can only think of one time in 30 cruises where the Captain didn’t change to the port time.  

Have a great time enjoy those beers!

16 minutes ago, canderson said:

It doesn't become an issue until you reach the brow of the ship, and the folks there are very much Celebrity employees.  Playing it straight with them has yielded consistently good results for us over many years.

 

The 'local' security people at the dock are confirming that you've got a Seapass and are looking for dangerous items, not 'contraband' like alcohol. 

I’ve also seen things over many years and the contractors look for supposed contraband. Some ports are way more observant than others.  But it does happen. I’ve seen them first hand pull aside folks for “contraband.”

2 hours ago, DingoMom said:

If you board with excess alcohol and they find it, it will be confiscated and NOT given back. Hoping someone can help with ‘declaring’ it when you board.

Thats not accurate.  I’ve done this before.  Agree with the other post that it depends on the cruise. Sometimes it may get through and sometimes they will hold it for you until the end of the cruise.  My thinking is that you should put it in your checked baggage and then if it’s flagged by Celebrity, you’d go to the naughty room and explain. If you put it in the carryon you would deal with contractors, not Celebrity personnel. 

If you don’t see any listed, it’s probably too early and haven’t been contracted for. 

8 hours ago, canderson said:

What cabin class were you in at the time?

We were either in the PH or RS. 

6 hours ago, canderson said:

Rumor has it that our mug shots are distributed around the ship.  Just for fun, I'm going to try to visually confirm on this next cruise.

They do have it. We once saw it laying on the counter at the Gelateria on Summit. It was actually opened to our mugshots.