rj59

Things are constantly changing, but the general direction is towards normalcy. The cruise lines are very slow to change, and with local areas having their own complicated and changing rules, it makes it difficult for them to update CS, their websites, and the app. Fortunately simple competitive pressure got them to push the testing beyond 7 days, after HAL and Princess did the same. It was the same long, wait-and-see process that was involved in dropping masking, and allowing passengers to touch serving spoons (gasp!), so some people will freak out, some will want them to move faster, but we're moving in the right direction finally. They've also had the CDC to shift responsibility to for some time, so now they have to make and live with their own rules. Now what I really want to see is the smiling faces of all crew and to make their lives easier--it was nice to see some on Solstice a few weeks ago unmasked on the pool deck.

There are more options now that they offer a no perks rate. The soda package for $9 a day pre-cruise and soda/espresso for $15/day pre-cruise are good options, although they brag about all the Coke varieties they have now, but I found in practice on Solstice that they only had Coke Zero and Sprite Zero as my no-sugar options. I didn't have perks or a package, but the drinks server at dinner always gave me a Sprite Zero without charge, maybe because I spoke some Indonesian to her and was nice. You also have the option to bring aboard drinks--if you're going to Alaska, Ketchikan and Juneau have grocery stores where you can bring aboard 2L bottles in port, and I get Coke Zero 2L bottles in all Mexico ports at OXO convenience stores. Then I just fill glasses with ice at the buffet and have drinks in my room, or fill a 20oz empty Coke bottle and carry it around the ship. I actually don't like having wifi on a cruise, since it leads to ignoring the beauty of the ship and interacting through activities, and speeds seem to have diminished significantly with so many ships back in service and at high occupancy.

I'm also going on Soltice twice in October, after my first cruise on her to Alaska a few weeks ago. Staff is very aggressive about getting you to upgrade to a package or your current one, even baristas and dining room drinks servers. The weird pricing also tries to encourage you to upgrade, so many cocktails, beers, and wines are priced about the magic $9 price point, and the app and bar menus have only a very limited price list, so it was confusing and stressful for me. I didn't have AI, and when buying individual drinks I had to sign a slip asking for an extra tip, which also is uncomfortable for me. At the same time, their pre-cruise non-alcoholic package prices are quite good, $9 for soda and $15 for soda/coffee, so I'll probably do those on my upcoming cruises, especially since they allow me to use $100 of OBC pre-cruise. I found the Blu/Luminae helped keep the dining room unpacked, so I always had a window seat and good service. They have a nice buffet layout, but it doesn't connect with the pool deck, which on other lines has dining tables, but not on Solstice, so at peak times the buffet and after outside get completely full, so I used a plastic tray I brought and took food elsewhere. The Sky lounge was my favorite part of the ship, with lots of good view seating. The other thing I really liked was a buffet station that has a different special each night, which included ramen, crepes, and multiple flavors of creme brulee. Finally, I booked 4 Mexico cruises on Solstice and what I really like is that they vary the itinerary, so some include Ensenada, Catalina, and San Diego, instead of the usual Cabo/PV/Mazatlan trip, and in April I'm doing a coastal on them as well.

I bought 4 bottles of rum for $52 on my last cruise, they might enjoy that more.

I yielded to temptation on Solstice, but it wasn't a good experience and felt like car buying. First, they input a lot of numbers and came out with double what I found on their own website. I showed it to them and they said 'we can match that' and they input codes and finagled numbers to come out with what I had. Then the brochure clearly says '$100 credit per cabin' for booking onboard, but they told me I was only eligible for $50 as a solo cruiser, but they would 'send in a request to a supervisor' to see if the $100 could be approved, the equivalent of 'let me talk to my manager' for a car salesman. Then my other surprise was that I couldn't use OBC towards a new cruise, which was my reason for doing it in the first place. Finally, as soon as I got home I saw the price had dropped even more, so I would have been much better off booking at home or through a TA after the cruise, instead of yielding to enthusiasm on the cruise. That's especially true on Celebrity/RC, because their pricing and promotions change so constantly and are so complicated with various codes and discounts that it's best to have patience and get an idea for pricing trends, or to have a TA to get a good deal and negotiate a reduction if the price drops.

Two things that are important for BinaxNOW. First is to make sure you're able to have a device showing you taking the test on a table, so a phone/tablet has to be propped forward or have someone hold it the entire time (a laptop/chromebook is much easier). The second is to make sure they get your name right--both proctors I had (from India and the Philippines) didn't understand a middle name, so one objected when I didn't list my middle name on registration, and a second input my middle name in test results as my last name.

I just finished my first Celebrity cruise, after being Elite on Princess. Specialty dining is much more expensive, but they have a la carte sushi with ramen and other things, and I believe some of the restaurants have a cheaper lunch menu. Le Petit Chef also has animated chefs on your dishes before serving the actual food, which you might find worth the novelty factor. I found drinks are mostly more expensive than on Princess, both for cocktails and beer, since they want to encourage people to upgrade to premium packages, and basic espresso drinks were $5. On the other hand, they allowed two bottles of wine per person to be brought onboard, and they don't have restrictions on bringing soft drinks on board. Things I found cheaper on Celebrity were pre-purchased non-alcoholic package, with $9/day for soda and $15 for coffee/soda, and what I also really liked is that they allowed me to use some OBC ahead of time to purchase a package. I found that everyone on the ship goes into hard sell mode the first few days of the cruise for those who don't have all-included or some sort of package, as well as pushing specialty dining, which I've never had on Princess. After spending $5/day for elite internet on Princess, I couldn't bring myself to buy internet on Celebrity at their prices, even with a 25% discount for loyalty benefits (my RC status transferred to Celebrity, a nice touch). Most of my cruises have been on HAL and Princess, since Celebrity has never been able to compete on price for me as a solo cheapskate, but I found 4 Mexico cruises on Solstice that beat any price for a solo inside, and a deal on Apex in March. Other things I found that Celebrity does better: a great app (unlike the Princess nightmare), a spacious buffet with things I like like Indian food and even a special one evening with 5 flavors of freshly-torched creme brulee, a covered solarium for cold weather with it's own cafe, forward-view Sky Lounge (I hate that most Princess ships lack a free forward viewing area), and a bit of a younger crowd than Princess, without the fleet of mobility scooters parked outside the dining room every evening. As a West Coast cruiser, it's nice to have a Celebrity presence in Mexico and 3 ships in Alaska now.

Give them time. They took the first step ahead of Carnival by dropping testing for 6 days or less, then Carnival upped them by dropping it altogether for vaccinated, so they'll be next to follow Carnival in order to stay competitive. That's especially true since Princess and HAL dropped testing for most cruises, so Celebrity will have to follow that, but it's terribly confusing, especially since Celebrity complicated everything unnecessarily to saying LA is somehow safer than Florida and thus doesn't require vaccination. Fortunately, with Alaska season winding down and Caribbean hurricane season about to start, they should hopefully figure it out soon, especially since I have 5 Celebrity cruises booked from Oct-Apr and am really sick of emed online testing.

It's on the tv and your app. The tv is a bit tricky to navigate, and it's a bit tricky to find on the app-- you go through making a reservation, click on the dining room, and there should be a menu button. They're also posted outside of dining rooms for lunch and dinner, so it's easy to check. One guy called CS and said he's sight-impaired so they sent him a pdf file of the week's menu. Sometimes menu items are also duplicated in the buffet, so sometimes I check out items or sample a little glass of cold soups or other items. On Majestic, some of the MDR desserts were in the buffet in smaller portions, but that didn't happen on Discovery for some reason, with more just cutting up cakes and pies, perhaps because of high passenger loads.

It's an absolutely gorgeous ship, with lighter and more modern colors and design than older ships. I sailed on it to Alaska in July, and at times it felt a little too crowded, particularly at peak times in the buffet and at production shows, where there were no seats to be had at both early and late shows. I wouldn't expect a full ship on an October coastal trip, though, and with better weather than Alaska, more people should be outside. The coastal trips are also port-intensive, with few sea days, so I like to visit Gigi's pizzeria for lunch on those days. The other surprise about Discovery is that the public laundries on each floor are absolutely free, so on my 5-night Cabo trip on Discovery in November I'm just bringing a backpack. The other cool thing to try is the small aft pool, which goes right to the edge of the ship, so I and other people went in there early in the morning just to enjoy the view and experience. The other recommendation is to be up early and in a high outside spot to sail under the Golden Gate bridge.

Just got off the Soltice. If you want to get the best view of Dawe's Glacier, I'd recommend going to a front viewing area, either inside or outside, since we spent quite a bit of time facing directly at the glacier, and then did only a slow turn, but not a 360, so those on port side balconies didn't get a direct view of the glaciers. I went between the Sky Lounge and the top viewing deck, and then to the sides as we made our turn. There were plenty of thin blankets, and the solarium towels are longer and maybe thicker, but long johns and a thermal coat are much more effective, along with a warm hat and gloves and a comfortable cloth face mask. They let people out on the bow helo pad, but it can get really cold there. They arrive very early for Endicott Arm, before 5, so after the turn around the Sky Lounge was fairly empty, and I had a nice front-facing lounger with the excellent narration and hot chocolate and views of both sides. The problem I found with balconies is that you can't sit outside and hear the narration on your tv, but you can hear it in the Sky Lounge and the buffet on the way in, before it fills with people.

They'll change, it's like a high school dance, everybody was waiting to take the first step. Celebrity/Royal took the first step, but now that Princess has gone for 7-night cruises, Celebrity will follow suit, since Royal will have to compete with Carnival. I also like the idea of simply accepting a home test for the unvaxxed, especially with Walgreen's no longer offering free tests and the online tests such a hassle, with mistakes, stress, cost, and test expiration dates. If people are scared, vulnerable, then they can continue to mask and distance, but it's really long past time to keep testing kids at the pier or requiring expensive PCR tests. It will also be nice to get on the ship finally with just the app and passports, instead of pulling out papers.

I just returned from my first Celebrity cruise too, after many on Princess. I asked the question at CS on the ship, but just realize they don't start showing gratuities until the second day of the cruise, and thereafter it shows up each afternoon. The other nice thing I found is Celebrity made their $100 OBC credit available before the cruise, so I bought a soda package for $9/day, and I could have used OBC to upgrade it to include espresso drinks, the package price $18/day or so, plus 20%. They're fairly aggressive about persuading people to buy drinks and dining packages on the ship, just like RC, especially for the minority who don't have all-inclusive. The other gotcha I found out was that their $100 deposit for a future cruise couldn't be taken out of OBC. I ended up with more OBC than I expected, so I ended up with 4 bottles of rum for $52 in my duffel back riding an electric bike from the pier in Seattle to my car, like the Skagway miners who had to carry 100 lb on their back to the Yukon.

On the bright side, Baja in October is pretty hot and has some hurricane risk. I’m bothered by the requirement to use the FCC by 2024, since RC dropped FCC expiration. I’m bummed to miss my Sept 1 sailing, but I feared that the first sailing would have problems, and a SF/Ensenada sailing isn’t exciting.

I’m berthed at the dock now, on Celebrity Soltice, away from the slide areas. We have to tender from the docked ship to another area. There are 2 other berths away from the affected dock, with Princess and HAL ships. So they can dock up to 3 ships now safely.

You can bring two bottles of wine aboard, and get free drinks at captain's circle and other events, and of course in ports. The same goes for soda--I usually get a 2L of Coke Zero at my first port. Visiting coffee shops in ports also is also nice, and the coffee available all over on the ship is Lavazza, so fine for me. My other way to get away from water blandness is to bring a little container of flavor enhancer, which is tastier to me than any cocktail or soda, and has zero calories, so I can use my calories where it gives me the most pleasure. I also got Covid on my last cruise, so I'm trying avoid crowded indoor venues like bars or Cafe Bacio when I leave on Solstice tomorrow, along with the irritation of waiting for orders when most of the ship gets unlimited drinks and will want to take advantage of it. I also remember what a depressing, dead wasteland most of the Alaskan ports were last September, so I'd like to save my alcohol/soda/coffee spending for ports. I commend Celebrity, though, for adopting a 'cruise-only' fare (and the current 100% solo supplement), since up until now I simply haven't been able to afford it as a solo passenger, but I already have 3 Solstice cruises booked through October (I added another today after seeing a $215 solo inside military fares from October to mid-November).

You must follow the rules! It's all right there in your cruise contract! I read pertinent passages aloud to scofflaws and rules offenders, when I'm not monitoring the dining room for dress code violations (alas, I can no longer patrol the hallways to ensure proper mask compliance). Seriously, though, my favorite follow the rules team member attacked me in 2020 for saying I'd never go on a cruise again if I had to stand in a group of people to listen to a safety drill--he said it's mandatory to assemble for a briefing by lifeboats by Maritime Law. I guess it wasn't part of the Rules, since RCI found a great alternative, my favorite post-Covid cruising change, followed closely by Royal and Celebrity asking you to stay in your cabin until debarkation time. Princess still makes everyone crowd in public venues, and Carnival just gets everyone into long lines winding around the ship, so people have time to get in a few last-minute fights.

I researched that question too, and specialty coffees also included some fancier frappe and other coffees, which you can see at the end of the Bacio menu online. I wouldn't think that alcoholic coffees would be included in the non-alcoholic package at either level. The Celebrity website has a menu for the Spa Cafe with fancy wellness juices and smoothies, which are part of the premium package--sort of like JambaJuice smoothies. The other confusion I haven't been able to find answered is are mocktails part of the classic non-alcoholic package, or require a premium? The only verbiage lists frozen mixed drinks as part of the premium, but neither mentions non-frozen non-alcoholic mocktails. I'm sort of tempted to just avoid all the confusion and just settle for urn coffee (especially since it's Lavazza), buy espresso in cold Alaskan ports, and get the soda package, especially since it supposedly contains Coke and Sprite Zero and non-caffeine Diet Coke and options for the evening. The other packages are simply too confusing, and I'm afraid Cafe Bacio will be swamped anyway with Alaska cold and rainy days next week, and I'm crowd-shy after getting Covid on my cruise last month.

I tested this morning, with Filipino proctors--my last ones were from India. I had a problem both times where they didn't understand the concept of a middle name--the first time the Indiana didn't want to accept it because I didn't put the middle name on my test registration, whereas it was on my ID. This morning the person evidently input my middle name as my last name, so my test results were sent with my first and middle name only. I called customer service, getting a Spanish-speaker this time, and I had to explain the concept of a middle name again until the problem was escalated, and an hour or so later I had a correct test result pdf. So the lessons are to make sure they get your name right, and the other thing I learned on my first try is that you need a device that can tilt to show the test on a table, which wasn't possible with my imac (without dangerous propping), so this time I used a Chromebook, which was much easier. If you plan to use a tablet or phone you need a way for it to point down at the test card on a surface while you use both hands to take the test. Finally, the Navica app isn't necessary at all, since you can go through the emed site.

It was developed for the Japanese market, thus the sushi and hot baths and bidets and lack of a pub or or Italian/pizza restaurant, as on other ships. I'll be on the Sept 1 sailings, and hope to find a good deal on the 7-night Mexico ones in 2023, since they visit Loreto and La Paz. I also prefer having a complete promenade, after being on the Majestic and Discovery several times, with their lackluster walking tracks. After being with 3400 passengers on Discovery last month, I also am hoping for a less crowded ship, or at least one where I can spend a lot of time outside and avoid getting covid again. The other big plus of Diamond is that it's sailing out of San Diego--it's the only port where I can to and from the airport. The only drawback is its history and thinking what life must have been like for a month in quarantine in Feb 2020 and for the 9 people who died.

If you're parking, you can stay in Long Beach too, which has more hotel options than San Pedro., or maybe try another interesting coastal spot, like Santa Monica or Redondo Beach. I've stayed in all those places and rented a bike to ride coastal paths along the beach. Then just drive to the port the next day. If you find a cheaper parking option in Long Beach, you can Uber to the port--I've even taken a public bus from San Pedro to Long Beach, biked the beach, and took another bus to Long Beach Airport.

He's not crazy if you're doing a long cruise full of bored people eager to chat and at a higher overall age group--Panama Canal, Hawaii, or an Alaska land/sea package. If you're going 7 nights, then just be extra careful until the last couple of days on the cruise, which is what I did and ended up getting covid, probably in a completely filled production show where I got there a half-hour early to get a good seat. It was on day 5 of 7, I tested negative on day 7, and didn't develop symptoms until 2 days after the cruise. The difficult part is to get a lot of cruisers to be smart and avoid others inside, so no sitting at group tables, no playing 'where are you folks from?', no taking bus transfers or excursions, dining and seeing shows at off-peak times, avoiding inside bars and small venues, and staying out of shops on ship and shore. That's what I usually do and have gone Covid-free for 7 cruises since last September, until I got cocky and let my guard down. It's much more challenging to stay safe as lines go up to high occupancy, but it requires awareness and sacrifice and smarts--the people trying not to breath in an elevator aren't at high risk of covid, but the people gabbing for 2 hours in a crowded restaurant are. Is trivia or a lame magician/singer worth quarantine?

With the sharing of Royal Caribbean and Celebrity status, one way to optimize points would be to add RC sailings, since it's probably a cheaper option. Having chased status on Princess, though, I can say I spent more than I'll ever get in return, especially since a lot of the benefits are tied to discounts or things I'd never use, like photos or spa treatments.

Rick Steves has some good videos and articles about how to travel light. One way is to get socks, undies, and shirts that wash and dry easily in a sink. I know that's a hard sell to a lot of cruise passengers, but he enforces a 1-bag policy on his tours, and even my always-overpacking sister managed an Italy tour with just a travel backpack. I've used a duffel with backstraps on my last 3 Alaska cruises and use the Uber app to rent an electric bike or scooter to get to the pier from a nearby neighborhood where I leave my car. When I fly I check the duffel and bring enough clothes in a carry-on Osprey backpack to survive lost luggage.

Princess ships are being diverted to Icy Strait Point and Sitka so far. I would think Sitka is the most likely option for Celebrity, since RCI helped fund a new dock there. It's also the biggest 'real' town with a non-tourist economy, unlike Skagway, so once you bus downtown there are interesting free things, like a seawalk to a totem pole park with bear sightings and a river that should be full of salmon now. Sitka also probably offers more opportunity to recoup excursion income, since there's not a lot of excursion infrastructure in ISP, other than the zipline and some kayaking and whale/bear watching trips. I saw there were going to be 5 ships or so in Skagway on my schedule stop in Skagway on Solstice, so I'd actually welcome an alternate port, since Juneau and Ketchikan are already overcrowded tourist spots.