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The OP does not have possession of the iPhone.

To me the only downside to booking your hotel through Celebrity is that you will not typically receive any award points from that hotel's loyalty program. That is not a deal breaker for many people.

The current Book Later flyer that is posted on Celebrity's trade website has language consistent with what you posted: I looked at the Book Later form that was included in the Jan 2 2024 issue of the Celebrity Today (Solstice, Singapore to Hong Kong) and the language is different. It has a 6 month expiration date for the loss of the bonus OBC and the loss of the deposit. Here is a link to it (see page 6): link. So that tells me that the new T&Cs language was adopted within the past two weeks. Thanks for pointing this out.

Effective Jun 1 of last year, the deposit requirement for suites through the Future Cruises Department is the same as booking online. In most cases 10% deposit is required. So the only benefit for booking onboard is the extra OBC. If you purchase a Book Later option for $100 pp and then use it later for a suite, you have to pay the difference for the higher suite deposit so that loophole is gone. For more information: link

The new policy says 48 hours "prior to the scheduled arrival time" and not 48 hours prior to the start of the excursion. It is curious language but it is quite clear.

It is a huge pity that Olympic Restaurant is long gone. You would have been very impressed.

I think the owner needs to get rid of that old phone and upgrade anyway.

I believe the canal priority system also favors bookings done way in advance. I think it’s the additional later bookings that are getting affected by the lowered canal transit quota.

Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding!

We are on the Summit canal sailing in April (westbound). I am not expecting our sailing to be affected by the drought measures that the canal authorities have effected. Right now it is affecting freight. Summit will almost certainly go through the old locks which use less water than the new larger locks.

The shorex cancellation policy has been recently updated (link). In general, you can cancel 48 hours before the ship is scheduled to arrive at that port in order to get a full refund. There are exceptions to this (medical illness, switching to a different shorex). There are some special shore excursions that require cancellation 30 days in advance. it is spelled out in the shorex cancellation FAQ in the link above.

Option 2 because of the overnight in Istanbul and the opportunity to see Athens by adding nights there before or after the cruise. I think Silhouette is the best ship of its class. She has more specialty restaurants to choose from than Equinox. As a bonus, Option 2 is longer by one night.

We took a Dec-Jan cruise in Solstice. Every night that we were in Blu, I ordered at least one course from the MDR menu. Also the Blu staff made sure I got breadsticks in our bread basket which aren’t normally served there.

My wife got me the one with the glass, too. We’ve just completed two extended cruises and I can tell you that the glass is a pain to pack! The time between charges is pretty good though.

Electric toothbrushes are definitely okay items to bring onboard. Floss, too.

Maui is great, but if it's been dropped it's not a reason to abandon the cruise. To me the only argument against doing a Hawaii cruise is that a land vacation there is better (in my opinion). It's definitely a great idea to tack on some post-cruise time there. You could even go to Maui.

Here is a Future Cruises Vacations FAQ flyer put out by Celebrity. It was issued in 2023 and is written for travel agents. There is language that is applicable to your question about group space: Q: Can my clients bookings made onboard with the Future Cruise Vacations team be moved into an existing group that I have? A: Yes, bookings made onboard may be combined with certain groups but now require a full deposit and the potential loss of your promotional offer and/or Onboard Credit offer.

That hadn't even occurred to me......

Sorry, I didn’t see this until now. The thirty day period that the previous poster mentioned is only true if you initially assign Celebrity to your Book Later option. In that instance when you eventually choose your cruise, the thirty day clock starts to transfer it to a TA. However a TA is assigned when you pay your $100 pp deposit to secure the Book Later option even though you haven’t chosen a sailing. Once the TA is assigned you’re pretty much stuck and there is no thirty day clock to perform a transfer. Again this is not true if you assigned it to Celebrity. Note that the TA that is automatically assigned by default to your Book Later option (when you put down your $100 pp deposit) is the TA that you used to book the cruise that you are currently on at the time. IF you decide that you want to assign a different TA than the default one to the Book Later option (or you want Celebrity to have it so you can exercise your thirty day option to shop for a TA), you must tell the Future Cruise Consultant this and they will have you sign a form attesting to it. It’s obviously a form that they will show your “current” TA if they protest and say that some mistake was made and that they should be assigned to the Book Later option. One last thing, if the cruise you’re currently on was booked by Celebrity and you put your $100 pp deposit down for Book Later, Celebrity will be automatically assigned to that booking. Then you have thirty days to find a TA when you select your actual cruise. So you’re good. As far as transferring your booking to a TA’s group space, I believe you may have to pay the deposit that is required under the Group which may be higher than $100 pp. Celebrity put out some instructions on this and I’ll have to find it. When I do, I’ll post it.

We’ll end up talking about PowerUp Points.

Game, set, and match!

We only cruised once a year, so it's not like I have been on a gazillion CC roll calls. But my observation before the COVID shutdown was the roll calls that were the most active were the fan favorites like the 14 night Caribbean sailings and the Transatlantics. Maybe the Transpacifics, too. Also roll calls seem a little different before the COVID shutdown and now.

Back when the Captains Club benefits were printed out onto a coupon sheet, there were two different types of sheets for Elite cruisers. A "normal" coupon sheet and a sheet for sailings of 12 nights or longer. If you look at the top corners of the back of the coupon sheet (from the links), you can see the distinction between the two. When I look at the actual coupons, the only difference was the insertion of a coupon for discounted laundry in addition to the free bag for the 12 nights or longer version (screen shot below).

I think they go by port time as well, so you shouldn’t miss it.