BytownMatt

Looks like the Eclipse will be doing similar Northern Europe itineraries in 2025.

Pretty certain that the Silhouette (Solstice class) will be there this week. Not sure about 2025.

You can select your arrival time at the terminal (30 min time slots) when the check in process opens online which is normally 45 days before sailing.

From what others have said on this forum, that is sometimes a sign that your pending bid was successful but I have seen it work both ways for me. Twice last year one of my bids was greyed out as pending for an extended period before being switched to "not upgraded". Hope it works out for you.

Likewise for me - even managed to get it when I booked my first B2B using two different TAs (wouldn't recommend doing that though...).

Thanks for the excellent live review and safe travels home. Sounds like it was a successful escape from winter!

Pretty sure it has been deck 4 on each of my E class cruises. Might be some variations depending on the port.

Agreed and in my case that was 5 or 6 times over about 130 nights at sea/dinners. Not bad in my view.

Would point out that on a recent cruise on the Edge, there were a couple of nights when the 4 MDRs had separate lines for those with reservations and those without. This was the first time I had seen this on an E-class ship. Once seated, one could see many empty seats in the restaurant(s), so it would seem the issue was one of staff capacity, not seating capacity. Long waits (45 min +) to be seated for dinner on Celebrity are rare but do happen from time to time (maybe 5 or 6 times over 11 cruises for me) with all or almost all of those being on "evening chic" nights.

I looked into similar itineraries a while back. Celebrity options were limited. I think Apex is the only Celebrity ship currently sailing out of the UK? In terms of somewhat similar itineraries, the Silhouette has one sailing from Rotterdam to Barcelona in August 2024 and Apex has one sailing in the reverse direction from Barcelona to Southampton in April 2025. I ended up making a booking with Holland America on the Nieuw Statendam from Dover to Barcelona for September 2025 ("14-Day Around The Iberian Peninsula").

Yes it is multiplied by 2 for solo - so if you bid $200 per person as a solo cruiser, you would pay $400 if your bid is successful.

I took these in Dubai and Sydney recently on Celebrity cruises. In one case, the Celebrity excursion price was on sale and cheaper than what the operator was offering online (a bit surprising). Agree with others that they are a good way to get an overview of a new city, especially if they cover large areas. One caveat is that I found both of them to be slower routes than advertised. If I had actually hopped off and waited for another bus I might have missed getting back to the ship on time on turnaround day. Luckily I had more time to see the cities apart from the bus experience.

Presumably earlier (unscheduled) drydock time to resolve whatever the issue is, but this is obviously speculation based on the posts in this topic and the absence of information from Celebrity.

If it is a stabilizer issue, I can't imagine that Celebrity would carry on with a less than optimal sailing experience for passengers for over a year, but I guess time will tell...

For what it's worth, when I was on the Apex and Beyond last year, a number of the beers listed on the Craft Social menu(s) were not available. That said, I was always able to find a decent beer and I enjoyed having a drink there.