mahdnc

Good point--you are right. I had it in my head that you paid the fee as soon as you reserved your flight.

I am looking at the brochure now and it appears that they had an intern update it with the latest changes:

Presumably this is not refundable and it may help address people who book to hold the flight and then cancel before final payment. Or maybe Celebrity is trying to recover the loss in revenue from cutting Zeniths-who-book-The-Retreat a break.

Yesterday, I found this flyer published by Celebrity: Flights by Celebrity Flyer It contained one single lonely FAQ:

Yes, I noticed that new fee as well.

I wonder if the price adjustment will be made for Zenith passengers who are booked in The Retreat after final payment deadline has passed.

From the Celebrity flyer: "We are making this change as a direct result of your feedback that some of the most valuable loyalty benefits, like premium drinks and Wi-Fi, already come with The Retreat" The flyer says that "if clients already have a Retreat booking, you can expect a call from Celebrity by April 17th to discuss options for price adjustment"

Here is the official flyer including FAQs on the subject published by Celebrity: link

Their dogs are so cute though!

I got a prescription for the first time specifically for our Galapagos cruise. It worked well as Xpedition rocked a lot and i had no problems. There was a young woman that we met onboard that was really seasick. She knew she would get seasick, but decided it was the price of admission for the trip. I lent her one of my patches and she was instantly cured. She thought it was a miracle. But the patch wears off after three days and so the miracle was over after three days upon which she became seasick again. But I’m pretty sure she will get her own prescription before her next cruise. So she’s a patch convert as am I.

We did the 11 night Quito package that was built around the Nov 18 2023 Xpedition sailing (Southern Loop). Here is the link to the “Live” report. I tried to pack it with information useful to people trying to plan a Galapagos trip with Celebrity. As I have gotten older, I’ve become more motion sick prone. I used the prescription ear patch with much success for the Xpedition trip and she rocked a lot during our cruise. But it sounds like you are quite experienced with the subject. I like your trips that you have planned especially Alaska. I’m not a big fan of the Smokeys as I loved being above tree line and so the Sierra Nevada is my passion. At least it was when I was younger and enjoyed the life of backpacking. My wife and I are hoping to do a big national park trip to Alaska one day. I’ve even decided to ditch a cruise so we can spend more time at Katmai, Lake Clark, Denali, Kenai Fjords, and Wrangell St Elias. I would really like to get up to Gates of the Arctic but I’m not sure if we will have the time for it. i hope you find the info on my Galapagos report somewhat useful. If you have any questions, just post them on the thread.

We originally booked on Xploration for exactly the reasons you cited (cost and onboard experience). And I think those are still great reasons. I ended up changing to Xpedition because I was fearful of getting seasick and so I wanted a bigger boat (but we couldn't afford to go on the biggest boat--Flora). Xpedition also has an unique advantage because she is built to carry 100 passengers but is only permitted to carry 48--less than half of her true capacity. So the public spaces on Xpedition are quite generously sized for the number of passengers she is allowed to carry. You are also saving quite a bit of money by going "cruise only". We had a few passengers on our Xpedition sailing that bought only the cruise through Celebrity and made independent arrangement for everything else. It worked out quite well for them. When June rolls around next year, you are going to have a fantastic time. Celebrity does an excellent job.

I liked reading that (according to Ferry Watcher) doghog has spots!.

We took an Xpedition sailing last Nov and did not hear any chatter about Xploration being phased out. We saw Xploration several times and met some of her passengers. They seemed to enjoy the ship. When Flora was built in 2019, Celebrity transferred Xpedition's 100 passenger permit to Flora. Celebrity also planned on transferring Xperience's 48 passenger permit and Xploration's 16 passenger permit to Xpedition and then sell/dispose of Xperience and Xploration. However the Ecuadorian government did not allow the combining of permits. So Xpedition is permitted for 48 passenger (Xperience was sold) and Celebrity retained Xploration which is where we are today. That was all pre-COVID, I don't know if anything has changed today that would allow Celebrity to merge Xploration's permit with Xpedition. I am sure that Celebrity would still like to do that because it is certainly cheaper to operate 2 ships instead of 3 (with the permitted passenger capacity staying the same). When the Galapagos sailings were restarted after COVID in the 2nd half of 2021, it was a phased restart among the 3 Celebrity ships. However there was a delay in getting Xploration started up which forced the cancellation of 4 sailings. Here is a link to the thread on that subject and you can see the compensation that Celebrity offered to the affected Xploration passengers. Xploration anchored at Baltra, Nov 18 2023

During our New Zealand cruise out of Sydney a few years ago, we did not need any AUD because we did everything with mobile pay--taxis, restaurants, stores, vending machines, etc. However we stayed the entire time in Sydney. It could be different outside of Sydney. When we got to New Zealand, there were two times that we needed NZD. We needed cash to buy ice cream in the tiny town of Havelock (we rented a car at Picton and drove around). I am pretty sure we ended up getting the ice cream for free because we did not have cash, could not find an ATM in the very small town, and USD was totally useless to the vendor even if I offered to overpay in USD (no local banks could change it out for the vendor). The second time was in Napier. We had prepaid for a really nice farm tour, but the skeet shooting added option required cash. The owner of the farm took me to a bank ATM in Napier on the way back to the port.

When we took our NZ cruise out of Sydney (and we also stayed at the Marriott), we did not have to tip the porters at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. You should be able to change USD into NZD onboard the ship from Guest Relations if you want to do it there.

I see! Is it fair to say that Celebrity has stopped offering dining packages for every possible length (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 nights, etc)?

SIN is an impressive airport. Good point about no domestic flights! We stayed five nights at the JW Marriott in Singapore in December. It was nice. I’m curious to see what impracticalities you found there. The buildings were not originally supposed to be a hotel. They were supposed to be residences (and there are residential units there). Perhaps that might explain some things like the long and narrow check in lobby on the ground floor. The location of the hotel is nice as are the views…

Welcome back to Celebrity. Yes, you will be able to make reservations at any one of the specialty dining restaurants on Apex before final payment. If the sailing is too far in advance, your online Cruise Planner will not show anything yet. For holiday sailings, it can take up to 90 days in advance of the cruise before specialty dining reservations are available (often at an elevated price compared to non holiday sailings). I may be wrong about there 90 days, but it’s somewhere in that vicinity. Also Celebrity has limited the types of multiple night specialty dining packages available for sale. For our 14 and 17 night upcoming cruises, there are only 3 night and unlimited (every night) packages available. Celebrity used to offer 4 night, 5 night, etc packages, but they stopped doing that. I believe this is true for all sailings.

Nice photos and review. We stayed at the Marriott the last time we visited Sydney before our New Zealand cruise (Solstice). Very nice hotel. I've enjoyed your posts. Have a terrific cruise.

Looks like you are staying at the Shangri-La. How do you like it?

Although we’ve not been to French Polynesia, everywhere we’ve visited, snorkeling gear has always been provided by the shore excursion outfitter. Same thing when we book independently.

I also like the new USA passport format.

I understand. Bringing all your luggage with you when you get on the ship is a real pain, so I would think those people that are willing to subject themselves to it, do it for a good (and personal) reason--so I am willing to roll with it. Hand searches are done off line so as to not hold things up.

As a Zenith, I thought you and your luggage were brought on board like this, Ruth: