4supermom

We have cruised on both Celebrity Edge (Beyond’s sister ship) and Scarlet Lady and have upcoming cruises on Beyond and Valiant Lady.  Celebrity is by far our preferred cruise line but we truly enjoyed the wonderful food on Scarlet Lady. We typically cruise in a Celebrity Suite on Celebrity and were and will be in a Brilliant Suite on Virgin.  We felt there was a lack of storage space both in the suite and in the bathroom on Virgin although I have read they are trying to add more in cabin storage.  We are looking forward to our cruise on Valiant Lady for the ports we haven’t been to and the B2B TA. Hoping that I don’t need sweaters because I’m not sure where I would put them, but the ability to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo makes up for any potential problems.

Just got off the second leg of our B2B. No COVID retesting if you do not leave the terminal. Not worth popping home to check mail if we needed to retest. Entire process took about an hour. You need passport, vaccination card & band. They will reactivate the existing band for the 2nd cruise. 

Cruising is definitely back if you  and Edward are cruising and blogging again.  I have definitely missed reading your blogs.  Would love to get together for a drink after you disembark and before you fly back to Chicago if the timing works. We don’t board our much rescheduled Virgin Voyages cruise until December 10.  

We typically book starboard side because of the smoke issue but booked port side on Edge because of the Magic Carpet.  There have been complaints about noise and vibrations on the starboard side suites likely due to the tracks from the Magic Carpet.  We never had issues with smoke on the port side and I’m very sensitive to the smell of smoke.

Paul,

Topping the escargot at Le Grand Bistro on Edge is tough. Definitely following along.  I love reading your blogs and the timing of this one makes a great distraction from the craziness of our two part move. 

Shari

I agree that the Martini Bar is much too small. There are about 40 seats at the Martini Bar on the S class ships & 13 on Edge.  We too love to socialize at the Martini Bar & it is very difficult to do so on Edge. Had a few discussions with Peter about it.  It will definitely be something I put in the survey so hopefully it will be changed on Apex.  

Definitely agree this configuration is better for a hotel

Didn’t want to tell you about Peter being at The Martini Bar, I wanted it to be a surprise.  I did tell him that you were going to be on the ship so he could keep an eye out for you and Edward.  He is supervising a lot more rather than bar tending.  Johannes is really nice,,too.

Vince and Gede up at the retreat bar get to know drink preferences very quickly.  Carlos in the retreat lounge took great care of us.

No chair lift for the hot tub or the pool on the retreat sun deck that I noticed.  We heard a number of complaints about leaking tubs in the sky suites. We had no issue in our CS, not sure if aiming the shower head mostly straight down helped.

They appeared to be a true coffee table height, so not ideal for room service but certainly better than the tiny round table currently there

The tables were grey wood like (not sure if they are wood as we saw them in passing) square coffee tables with a leg in each corner, not a square block. Priscilla was very excited when she saw them.

Crusingxpert We just disembarked this morning.  Our Celebrity Suite still had a rocking chair but they were gone from all the sky suites.  The rocking chairs and the very small round table are being replaced with a cocktail table. We saw them being carried down the corridor yesterday.

RCCL once thought my make up mirror was a hot plate. I’d brought it on half a dozen cruises before that one

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Peter joined the ship at the Martini bar!

 

 

 

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Please say hi to Peter from Shari & Jeff. Belated happy anniversary to you & Edward.

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They posted this on FaceBook yesterday:

To our Joe's Jewelry family,

THANK YOU for the phone message and emails. We are all doing fine here in sunny St.Maarten after Hurricane Irma.

Although we got hit by the strongest hurricane in history, the island will bounce back stronger and better!

We look forward to welcoming you all back with a cold bottle of champagne for our 38th anniversary!!!

Love,

Joe's

Just got back from Silhouette last night. We were supposed to dock in Stockholm at 9:00 on June 18 and overnight there. Due to gale force winds, we didn't start transiting the archipelago until 14:00 finally docking in Stockholm shortly after 19:00. We watched some of the transit from our balcony (it was still cool and rainy) and the channel is extremely narrow. Much too dangerous for a large ship in strong winds.

Luminae is wonderful! I will warn you, though, the portion sizes are huge. You can ask for a half portion. I can't imagine anyone finishing the mascarpone & strawberry stuffed french toast for brunch - it's 4 slices of bread. Items are truly made to order. For breakfast they peel and grate the potatoes for the hash browns only when someone orders them so it does take slightly longer for your food to arrive.

We were on Equinox in July and we tendered to the small harbor downtown. No need for shuttle buses.

We took the X80 bus into Athens last week. We were the only passengers on the 8AM bus and there was only 1 additional passenger on our return to the ship. It is not a short walk from Terminal B to the bus stop. We were able to buy tickets at a ticket booth opposite the terminal building. The bus stops just past the exit gate, opposite the yellow church and behind the bus stop for the HOHO buses. In the pictures, the ticket booth is just to the left of the large, red E12 sign.

True & Co. has 2 options for purchasing their bras. After going through their questions to get an idea of your size you can either purchase the bras directly OR use their try at home option. You can pick up to 5 of the bras they suggest and try them for free at home. Once you've tried them on, go back online and let them know which , if any, you are keeping. Tell them what you didn't like about the bras that didn't work well - it helps them with new suggestions in "your shop". shipping is free in both directions. They will then charge you for whatever you keep.

Beachpeachy, sorry but there is no cheesecake recipe in the book.

Beverly Kaye, there is also no recipe for lemon cream ravioli.

We found it useful to have our cellphones. We used them to contact our RIL drivers when we were finished at a particular site. We were never under any time pressure to meet them at X time at Y place.

We had such great experiences with Rome in Limo 2 years ago on our transatlantic cruise we had our son & daughter-in-law use them on their honeymoon cruise. Just finished booking a tour of Herculaneum and the Amalfi coast for our cruise this year. Really looking forward to it. Jany & the drivers make it a magical experience.