OysterD

Your comparisons are getting more ludicrous by the day lol. 1. 90s speeds were 0.014mbs 2. If the equivalent price of one beer per day is going to break the bank, maybe cruising and being in the middle of the ocean away from mobile phone towers isn't right for you. 3. Use your phone when the ship is at port or close to land and use your roaming if abroad. If you don't want to pay for roaming, why not, presumably because its more than $8/day. Have you moaned at your network provider the same way you've moaned about Celebrity? I can tell you it costs more for Celebrity to provide Internet on a ship than it costs your mobile network provider to have you roaming abroad. 4. You're on a ship at sea, sharing one satellite internet connection with up to 4000 other people. Seriously what do you expect?

Could it be (and I've a vague recollection of seeing, hearing or reading this somewhere once) that the "specialty dining" which is not checked off for signature suites on that list is where you can order whatever you want from any specialty restaurant and have it delivered to your suite? That would make sense that it's only available for royal, Penthouse and Reflection suites as they are the ones which have a full dining table in the cabin. Signature suites don't have a dining table. However, "specialty restaurants" is checked off for a signature suite and I assume that means dining in the restaurants themselves versus having it delivered to your suite?

Day 6 - Katakolon (Olympia) We aren't really ones for booking ship excursions. Partly because we can normally do the same thing for a fraction of the cost and partly because we prefer doing things on our own schedule and not sitting on a crowded bus for hours on end. After leisurely tea and pastries for breakfast we wandered off the ship and walked the couple hundred yards from the port to a car rental place. Katakolon isn't very big. At all. Within 20 mins we had booked a teeny tiny Fiat, had the keys and were on our way to Olympia. I think it was either €45 or €50 for the day and we stuck €15 of petrol in the tank just before we brought it back. Much cheaper than any of the bus excursions to Olympia! There were only a couple of turns to make from the port to Olympia which the car rental place had pointed out and circled on a handy dandy map they gave us. Driving was easy although the speed limits made no sense. Generally when driving abroad I tend to go at the speed of the locals, but there were parts where we were sure the limit was 60kmh, I was doing maybe slightly above that, ahem, yet still being overtaken constantly! We made it to Olympia after maybe 45 mins, parked up and headed over to the main entrance of the ruins. Now I'll preface this by saying not everyone in our party is particularly enthralled by 'ruins', comments over the years have led to such historical artefacts being described as 'a pile of rubble'. When we saw the queue for tickets we decided to take the advice of the car rental lady and walk around the outskirts of the site one what started off as a very good road/path. We managed to get a reasonable view of some of the site plus the original running track with some brave souls down there attempting to run it (scorching sunshine and about 35c!). it was when we turned off the main road onto a dirt track that things went a little south. Now I pride myself on being pretty good at map reading and with Google maps satellite view open and the path around seemingly obvious, it should have been an easy leisurely walk. Until I thought we could take a short cut, through an olive tree grove, which didn't actually lead back to the path but ended at a rather steep precipice with a river at the bottom. Back we went. Then it turned out the path didn't have a bridge over the river as we expected, but went through the river. Still, all good fun and we certainly got our 10k steps in for the day. We'd asked at the car rental place for any recommendations for somewhere to get some good gyros for lunch, so once we got back to civilisation at Olympia we hunted the restaurant down and sat down for a much needed refreshment break! After a bit of souvenir shopping we headed back to the car, which had gotten up to gas mark 6 inside by this time, ran the ac for 5 mins before getting in and then drove back towards the port. Just 5 mins outside the port we had been told was a decent beach, so we took a detour there, had a swim in the sea and a couple of drinks at the beachside bar. Dropped the car off and crossed the road back to the ship...yes, the port really is that small! Dinner tonight was at Le Voyage, I guess I would say it was the Beyond equivalent of Murano, but we preferred this. Felt a bit less stuffy, bit less dark and gloomy and personally I'm not all that enamoured with the table side service in Murano, it's not the 70s. Food was great and the service was excellent. After dinner the silent disco was in full swing in the main foyer, we joined in for a bit then headed to the theatre to watch the Liars Club. Wasn't sure what to expect but it was actually pretty hilarious. Alejandro has a great sense of humour and kept everyone in stitches throughout. It was nice to see, at 11pm and not even for a production show, that the theatre was pretty much full. The entertainment throughout the whole cruise was great and the theatre was full every time we went. This was a stark contrast to last year on Reflection where most nights the theatre was less than half full, although admittedly we were sailing at just over 2/3 capacity then.

@Mark_UK So sorry to hear about what happened but I'm glad it seems to be sorted for now and they have another cruise booked, hope it goes well for them. I've no idea what a UK passport stolen in Greece might end up being used for, but my passport was stolen in the UK many years ago. My identity was stolen shortly after that with fraudulent loans taken out in my name. It might be worth having your parents monitor their credit reports for the next few years to make sure no surprising debt collection letters start turning up years from now.

Apologies, forgot to respond to this one... https://www.kotorboat-tours.com/index.php/en/speedboat-tours/tour-kotor-mamula-blue-cave-zanjice-beach-or-dobrec-army-base-our-lady-of-the-rock-perast-kotor They depart from the pier literally just a few mins walk from where the tender boats docked.

Day 5 - Corfu We booked our own excursion today - my friends had wanted to go scuba diving at some point on the cruise and having been to Corfu a couple of times before I thought the island must have some decent diving spots/diving schools. I've never dived before whereas my friends have but not for a while, so we booked a beginners 2 dive session for the day. We were picked up from the port in the morning and driven over to the dive school on the other side of the island. After kitting up and going through a briefing with an instructor (1 instructor for the 3 of us) we made or way across the beach and into the water. I'd been a little apprehensive beforehand but it was much better than I imagined. I had thought maybe our first dive would be 15 mins or so followed by a break of a couple hours but nope, almost an hour later we surfaced again. After a 20 min break the instructor asked if we were ready to go back out, which 2 of us declined as we were pretty tired after that first, longer than anticipated dive. For my first go ever, that was enough for me! We lay on the beach while my other friend went back down. A bit of beach time was much appreciated. Beyond docked next to her long lost cousin (Marella Explorer used to be Celebrity Galaxy many moons and paint jobs ago). Back to Blu for dinner tonight, shout out to our waiter, Willy, for his excellent service and wry sense of humour. After a couple of drinks we headed to The Club for the 80s night, which was more entertaining and interactive than we thought it would be. Mixture of trivia and music followed by a choreographed dance by the Club/Eden production cast morphing into a big ole disco. Very fun night!

Day 4 - Theatre & Le Petit Chef We love a bit of magic (who doesn't?!) so made our way to the theatre tonight to get front row seats for the evenings entertainment - Matt Johnson. I remembered seeing him on Britain's Got Talent a few years ago and believe the following year he appeared on the US version. Turns out front row seats (much like pausing the TV when watching magicians perform!) didn't really help figure out any of the tricks! Only explanation is it just has to be magic! Matt has a great stage presence, is charming and witty and the 45 min show left us wanting more. Which was handy because he was due to perform a slightly different show later in the week in the Club. After the show we walked over to Le Petit Chef to make use of night #2 of our 4 night dining package. Food was delicious and the light show was entertaining enough for a first time. Would we eat there again, maybe because the food was good, although obviously the visuals might get repetitive after a few times.

Thank you! It's been like a bad cold for me plus its sapped all the energy from me, which isn't ideal when you've got 2 weeks of work to catch up on. Hope you're feeling better now and enjoy your time on board, which I'm sure you will....she's a beautiful ship with a great crew!

Hope you managed to enjoy your cruise though! I think you're sadly right, it is just a risk of cruising these days and not much can be done about it, especially with ships sailing at or close to capacity.

Hope you're feeling better or at least on road to recovery by now! Absolutely loved the cruise and if we had to come down with covid, at least it was the day we got home and not the day we stepped foot onboard! We all noticed there was a lot more coughing and sneezing the last few nights actually... I remember we were waiting for the lift one evening and it arrived, doors opened, the sole person inside let out an almighty sneeze and got off, we stepped inside and jokingly tried to hold our breath until our floor! Maybe we should have waited for the next one hahah

Really?! We just got off Beyond last week, ate in Blu 6 nights and every night we ordered an extra starter and an extra main course for the table, we weren't charged anything. One night I asked for fries with my main course, it wasn't on the menu but they still brought me some out (I'd seen another table have some and thought good idea). Also the food quality was excellent each and every night, no different to how it was in Blu a year earlier on Reflection.

And I'm back. Apologies for the rather large pause between posts, unfortunately the 3 of us all came home from the cruise last Thurs with the unwanted gift of covid. Spent most of my time since then either in bed or on the sofa under a blanket, just starting to feel more human again now! So where were we... Day 4 - Dubrovnik Steps and more steps. So I've been to Dubrovnik a few times before, my friends haven't. We didn't organise any official tours or excursions, just planned to walk around the old town area, the walls and then catch the cable car and have lunch in the restaurant up there. We got off the ship and there were 2 options to get us to the old town area, a shuttle bus which was I think €14 or 15 each person or a cab for a flat fee of €18. We took the cab, which dropped us off right outside one of the main entrances through the walls. We found the main entrance to the walls and paid the roughly €34 (Somewhere around that amount anyway) entrance fee, which seemed a bit steep (excuse the pun) but we figured it must take a fair bit to maintain the walls and city so didn't mind it so much. Might not make the cover of 'Plumbers Monthly' (for the right reasons) but I guess if it works it works. Can't get enough of the red tiled roofs, such a beautiful contrast between the city and the (normally) blue skies and sea. The weather actually was just right for exploring the city. Partly cloudy with a brief shower and temps around 24c. If it had been scorching sun and in the 30s we wouldn't have walked nearly as far! After we finished walking the walls we had a wander through the city trying to find a bar built into the cliff side which we'd seen from up top. Sat down and had a much needed break (and beer) at Buza Bar while admiring the views out. Aside from the iconic red tiled roofs, if one photo could summarise the old town it would be this one. Steps. Literally thousands of them everywhere. After ascending a few hundred steps and heading out of the old town and heading to the cable car entrance we discovered it was closed because of high winds and they had no idea when/if it would open again that day. So we went back down a few hundred steps and found a little restaurant for some much needed lunch. After lunch we checked again and the cable car still wasn't running, by this time our legs were about to go on strike so we opted to catch a taxi back to the port. View from cabin while leaving port a few hours later. This bridge was one of my first memories of Dubrovnik when I drove into the city for the first time some 15yrs or so ago.

Day 3 Dinner in Blu, delicious as usual, followed by a few drinks and then into the Club for the karaoke with the band....no, I didn't sing. I wouldn't even normally sing in karaoke but I was surprised that most of the people who got up were actually really good, so there was no way I was going to try and follow them! A wander around the top decks before bed, the ship does look great all lit up at night.

Day 3 - Kotor So we had booked a 4hr speedboat tour taking in most of the sites and giving us an hour on a beach somewhere half way through the trip. We got off the tender and went straight to the tour boat which was only a few mins walk (Kotor isn't that big!). We explained and she told us she already knew as she had other guests from Beyond booked on our tour. She would start the tour half an hour early and finish it early so we would make the last tender back in plenty of time. Great! We went and had a wander around, got some drinks and headed back to the tour boat where we all got on and set off. You can justtt about see Beyond in the distance, this was a couple hundred metres out of the port. The scenery around here is stunning. A natural small island with a church, they must have had a dedicated congregation to attend services there! This island, just a stones throw from the other, is entirely man made, something to do with someone once seeing an image of Mary I think in a rock under the surface so the locals piled more and more rocks until they had made a small island, where another church was built! After 15 mins on the island we set off again and were taken to an old WW2 sub base which had been built into the side of the cliffs. Tour boat took us right inside! Next stop was a blue cave but it was partly cloudy by this time so not as blue as normal! We stopped here for a bit and had the chance to jump off and have a swim. Not the warmest, but after a min or two you soon got used to it! Next was the beach stop, I forgot to take any pics, was too busy having a beer and some food! Back to the port in plenty of time and back on the tender. One advantage of the smaller Ponant ships is they can get into much smaller ports! Overall, a great day out and I would definitely recommend taking a boat tour around the area, it's truly stunning!

Day 3 - Kotor, Montenegro So the ships departure today (its a tender port) had always shown as 7pm. But then a throw away comment made by Alejandro (cruise director) in the theatre the night before made us sit up in our seats. "Don't forget, the last tender back will be 5pm". Ermm, surely he's made a mistake we thought, we have a private tour booked from 1-5pm! We went and checked with guest services, and nope, it was correct, the port had changed the times at the last minute which meant the ship had to depart earlier. While understandable it was out of their control, it was annoying because a. If we hadn't been in the theatre and heard Alejandro we probably wouldn't have found out that the last tender was now earlier until we got off the ship in Kotor and saw the signs. Communicate please Celebrity! b. It was especially annoying because the next port after Kotor was Dubrovnik, which is about 30 miles away!! Not like the ship needs 14 hours to travel the 30 odd miles to the next port, but ah well. The frustration from the earlier day was somewhat relieved when I woke up and opened the blind to be greeted by this view... Tenders (3 X ones from the ship but helped out by some local boats) were already running so we headed down, got tickets and waited. And waited some more. Finally just after 11am we were called down. This is another win for Beyond (and all E class ships I imagine). Destination Gateway, the magic carpet and the massive ship tenders make for a much more seamless tendering process. And the gateway is large, bright and airy so you're not left standing in random corridors here there and everywhere like you are on S class ships. Although the boarding process was swift, there had been quite a wait as for some reason Beyond had moored a very long way from the dock at Kotor. The tender rides were probably 20-30 mins long.