mahdnc

The fee is per order (or per delivery as you put it), not per person. We ordered room service with a fee twice during our recently completed Solstice cruise.

We just completed a 12 night cruise on Solstice over Christmas and NYE. We had two uses for our Captains Club benefits: Free laundry (my wife and I used it 3-4 times) and the three $5 casino match plays per person (won four Blackjack hands and lost two for a gain of $20 on the coupons and a net gain of $50 on the bet itself—this time). We didn’t use our priority tendering benefit this time because we were with a larger group. And we always forget to get our free tiny scoop of gelato…

Room service is complimentary for continental breakfast. Everything else incurs a $9.95 fee for non-suite passengers. This is true across the fleet.

We had an extension cord confiscated at Sydney when we boarded Solstice for our Great Barrier Reef sailing in Jan 2018. We were given this paper receipt in the process and got our cord back At the end of the cruise at the cruise terminal.

My wife has been using a CPAP during our last 12 Celebrity cruise including on Xpedition to the Galapagos. We’ve always received our Celebrity supplied extension cord and distilled water without fail.

Talk to the Captains Club/Concierge on board your ship and they will make sure that your loyalty status is set correctly for the second leg of your B2B

One other thing about Virginia, her specialty is food tours, but she is quite capable of giving tours that cover Hong Kong's tourist attractions. For our private tour, I asked for a mix of both.

Virginia has her own company whimsically named, "Humid With A Chance of Fishballs". Here is her website: https://humidwithachanceoffishballs.com/ While we were in Hong Kong (and after we were finished with our tour with her), I was looking through Lonely Planet's Hong Kong guide book and found that her tours were mentioned twice. My wife and I were extremely impressed with her both as a person and as a guide. She is highly intelligent and has excellent communication skills.

I do not understand your comment (the word, "between"). I believe your sailing does this: Thailand - Vietnam (4 ports) - Hong Kong.

We actually made a trip back to SIN to see the Jewel (I have that posted later in the thread). While there, we saw signs advertising luggage storage. There was a fee associated with it, but it was very cheap for the first 3 hours (I think that was the length) to encourage you to drop off your luggage and and to shop at the land side of the airport. If you look at the airport website, you will find this: https://www.changiairport.com/en/airport-guide/facilities-and-services/baggage-storage.html It appears that there are multiple locations to store your bags both on the secure-side and land-side of the airport.

Well, our bag that was left behind in Africa by the airline has just been delivered to us and Daisy approves. The only problem is that they severely bent up our Captain's Club luggage tag! Oh well. The important thing is that all the bags are home.

Here are the menus used for our two business class flights 1. HKG-ADD (brief stop at BKK) 2, ADD-ORD (brief stop at FCO)

I am pointless.

After that, we were taken back to our hotel where my wife and I tried to sleep some. We also turned in one of our vouchers for a meal. The restaurant was located in the older hotel building which required us to walk a little bit (and pass through security to get into the hotel itself). Then it was time to get back to ADD to catch our late evening flight to ORD. Addis Ababa Bole International Airport is a nice facility. The airport is modern, bright, and clean. Our gate was in Terminal 2 which was built in 2019. Terminal 1 takes care of the regional and domestic flights. It turns out that getting to our gate requires going through 3 security checkpoints: 1. A bag scan in order to get into the public side of the terminal (new to me). 2. A bag and body scan to get to the secured side of the terminal (like in the USA). 3. A bag and body scan to get from the secured side of the airport to our actual gate (new to me). When you get through that to the gate (A16, next two photos), you find yourself sitting in area devoid of shops and restaurants. I can't even remember if restrooms were accessible there. We were told that the first security checkpoint is to protect against terrorism at the airport itself. We were also told that the 3rd checkpoint is done for flights to the USA. In fact when I think about it, a security officer at the 2nd checkpoint was looking at my camera bag and asked me where I was flying to. When I said "USA", he immediately summoned his supervisor to look at my bag. So it looks like USA bound flights get extra attention. When I described the 3rd checkpoint to our Jordanian driver who took us home from O'Hare, he told me that the extra checkpoint at the gate for USA bound flights is common in foreign airports. I guess I haven't been in the right foreign airports until now. Even though ADD has a total of 11 gates spread out between two terminals, our flight was assigned to Gate 16. I don't understand that. Maybe the gate numbers are assigned by distance like the exit numbers are with the US interstate system (because we did walk a long way to get there, it seemed). The custom for waiting your turn to enter the body scanning machine (the one where you have to hold your hands over your head) is very different in Ethiopia. In the USA, you usually have to stand a few feet back from the scanner entrance and wait for the scanner chamber to empty and then to be summoned by the security officer to enter. Not in Ethiopia. I had several women rush right past me when it was my turn to go next. My wife who was in a different line said that she had the same thing happen to her. In fact in one instance I had two women (one in a burka) rush past me and both tried to go into the same body scanner booth at the same time. Maybe they never flown before. Another oddity to me was with the 3rd security checkpoint to enter the gate area. They split us up. One security line was for men and the other for women & children. It took me a while to realize that it was probably for cases where pat down searches and closer inspections might be required. Before we went to our gate, we spent some time at Ethiopian Airline's Cloud 9 Lounge. Nice name and it was very large although there were quite a lot of passengers there because Ethiopian Airlines has a heavy redeye flight schedule to international destinations. This lounge also had an area set aside to serve traditional Ethiopian coffee which was free but devoid of passengers. During the past four months we have been on two cruise trips that resulted in us visiting Ecuador, Vietnam, and Ethiopia. Each of those countries have unequivocally asserted that they grow the best coffee beans in the world (and why) and hence make the best coffee. We will be sailing on Summit in three months and I am sure we will hear the same claim when she calls on Cartagena, Columbia. Who's right? Boarding was pretty simple although Ethiopian Airlines has a paper boarding pass system (no smartphone option) and I was paranoid that I would lose the physical boarding pass or not be able to find it when it was time to pull it out (all those security checkpoints tend to scramble things for me). The Boeing 787 that was assigned to our flight had true lay flat seats in the Business Class section which was great although I actually didn't spend much time sleeping because I was binge watching an Amazon Prime Video series (The Terminal List) and managed to watch all eight shows comprising Season One before we landed. It is always amazing to see how the bad guys on TV and movies are such bad shots. That would be cool if it were true in real life. I think three meals were served to us on each of the two flights (at least in Business Class). It gets to the point where I really can't eat all that food and I found myself skipping courses. I know flight attendants work hard. Sitting at the front of the plane allowed me to watch the large army of flight attendants serving Business Class. They were very competent, efficient, and incredibly polite. It is impressive how they smile at each passenger and serve us like we are the most important passenger on the plane. It takes some real skill and character to do that in the middle of the night. There were a few times when I had to go to the restroom which was at the front of the plane--the same area where the flight attendants are seated. Each time I came bursting through the curtain, they would quickly stop talking which made me wonder what conversation I interrupted. The only thing that I didn't like was the option to eat the Ethiopian food. I didn't want to be impolite and decline the option, so I asked them to serve me some. The food is actually plated for you by the flight attendants (above photo). It turned out that I didn't like the food that much but I felt a lot of self imposed pressure to eat as much of it as I could so that when they retrieved my plate, it would look respectable. I haven't felt that kind of pressure since my first girl friend in high school baked a cake for me (because I don't like cakes either). We will save that story for another cruise.

Our final stop of the tour was the Addis Mercato--we were told that it is Africa's largest open air market. It is absolutely humongous--taking up several city blocks and it would be easy to get lost in it. We were hoping to stop and walk through the market but our tour guide seriously advised against it, citing security concerns. It didn't matter anyway because we were running behind schedule and needed to get back to our hotel to rest anyway. Our guide said that a few years ago, the market was truly an open air market. However the government insisted that building be erected, which made some of the market look very slum-like. While he was driving us slowly through the congested streets of the market, Teddy advised me to move my iPhone from sitting on my lap to a place in the center console--obviously concerned that someone would reach into our car and take it.

Our next stop was St George's Cathedral which has a very distinctive octagon shaped building. It is an Ethiopian Orthodox church. A deacon of the church was on hand to give us a tour of the church and its museum. The church has a lot of connection with Ethiopia's resistance to foreign colonization. Hence the church's museum ironically contains war artifacts.

Here are a couple more photos from our trip to Entoto Park. Entoto Park This guy was staring at me as we were driving away from Entoto Park. My wife and I knew nothing about Ethiopia before this trip. Our guide, Teddy, tried to correct that. He was very proud of his country. He proudly informed us that Ethiopia is Africa's oldest independent country and that it has a population of 125 million people making it the second most populous country on the continent (Nigeria has more people). He pointed out that Ethiopia was one of the very few African countries that was able to resist and avoid European colonization during the late 1800's. Teddy mentioned that Ethiopian Airlines is Africa's largest airline and that it is run without government subsidy. He also pointed out that Addis Ababa is the headquarters for the African Union which was formed in 1999. Finally, he mentioned that China has been heavily investing in the country and funding many construction projects. Our guide also said that Ethiopia has many issues and challenges. For starters Ethiopia is a very poor country. The average income is a paltry $1,000-$2,000 USD which means most Ethiopians live in poverty. The literacy rate is very low--I think he said 50%. And finally Ethiopia has had civil unrest and armed conflict with neighboring countries. There has been a large civil war that ended most recently in Nov 2022, however there are still areas of the country that he cannot take tourists because of civil unrest. The civil war has been very bad for Ethiopia's economy and population. Teddy told me that in 2018 (before the civil war and maybe COVID) he was booked for tours for every day in January. This time he only has 2 days booked for the month (Jan 2024) and my wife and I were one of them. Wow. Ethiopia also has neighboring country problems. There have been hostilities with the country of Eritrea (shares a border with northern Ethiopia) who broke away from Ethiopia in 1993. There also have been constant conflicts with Somalia who share a border with Ethiopia to the east. Ethiopia is also under threat from terrorists from neighboring countries which explains the security measures that we saw (e.g. we had to pass through a security check to gain access to our hotel). I guess that explains the travel advisory that the US Department of State has issued for Ethiopia: link So now, I know a little more about the country than I did before we arrived.

It's too late, I have already stolen their PUPs.......

We got into our room at about 7:45 am. We had our city tour set to start at 9 am. The tour was set to be 3 hours long and we secured our guide via Tours by Locals although there were numerous opportunities to book a tour on the spot through the hotel. Our guide, Teddy, met us at our hotel lobby promptly at 9 am. Our first stop was at the National Museum of Ethiopia. While walking on the outdoor grounds of the museum, my wife almost got obliterated by some dead branches that suddenly broke off a palm tree and fell straight down onto the ground where she and our guide were standing. She was standing directly under the canopy of the palm tree when the branches fell. I was standing further away and saw the whole thing--including looking up at the palm tree when I heard the crackling noises before the branches let loose. Fortunately she only received a glancing blow off her shoulder and not a direct hit on the head which would have been bad. The museum's claim to fame is that it houses the archeological remains of the world famous "Lucy" although only the casts are on public display. Lucy was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia and her remains are estimated to be 3.2 million years old. The national museum itself was small. Moreover, the quality of the building and rooms were generally poor. The exhibits were very simple and dated. Many times were were simply reading posters that were attached to the walls. Our guide then drove us up to Entoto Park which is on the northern outskirts of the city. The park was around 9,800 ft above sea level. The park is elevated above Addis Ababa which gave us nice views of the city.

To answer your question directly: the1st batch of passengers (self walk off) were scheduled to disembark at 6:45 am. I am pretty sure that they got off on schedule. We walked by the debarkation "door" at 6:54 am and passengers were walking off. Ship's starboard exit point on Deck 5. Photo taken at 6:54 am. Here are the disembarkation instructions/schedule that was issued to us: link It is probably feasible to leave at 8am to catch an 11:30 am flight out of Hong Kong International Airport (HKG). However if it were me, I would be doing the self-walk off which requires you to take all your bags off the ship with you. The big advantage is that you will be first in line to get off the ship--6:45 am which allows you to beat the crowd and avoid lines at customs/immigration and getting a taxi (unless you decide on an Uber). You also get to skip the baggage claim area and the possible snafus of not being able to find all your bags. The ride from the pier to the airport is 25 miles long and will take at least 35 minutes and worse if there is heavy traffic (map). You also have to get through airport security. I remember HKG being fairly large and it involved having to catch a tram to get to our gate. But that is me, I am fairly risk intolerant when it comes to catching a plane. Hong Kong Airport is on the left, cruise ship pier is on the right.

I second that.

I wanted to circle back to talk about our time in Addis Abba. Our Ethiopian Airlines flight would take about 47 hours to get back home to Chicago from Hong Kong which included a 17 hr layover in Addis Ababa (ADD). We took this very time inefficient route home because we could get business class seats for 99,000 United miles per passenger. We also thought that it would be interesting to see Addis Ababa as we have never been to Africa before. If you have an Ethiopian Airlines layover in Addis Ababa that is at least 8 hours long but less than 24 hours long and if both connecting flights are international ones, Ethiopian Airlines will issue you a free voucher for a hotel stay along with ground transportation, meals, and visa (link for more information). As business class passengers, we had two choices for hotel. There is one located on the air-side of the airport (aka in-terminal hotel as indicated on the sign in the next photo below) which means you don't have to pass through immigration to get to it. The second one is located next to the airport. They are both operated under the name of Skylight Hotel. When we landed at ADD, we went to the Layover and Transfer Desk located not too far away from our arrival gate. Given a choice on which Skylight Hotel to be booked into, we opted for the hotel located outside of the airport since we had booked a tour of the city. We were both issued a voucher which also was stamped so we could get through immigration. Getting through Immigration was fairly easy with very little wait: Our passports were stamped when we processed through. Once we got to the airport lobby area, we saw an area to participate in an Ethiopian coffee ceremony which we skipped because we wanted to check into our hotel: Next to it was some type of ceremony being performed and filmed: Near the airport terminal front entrance we found a seating area to wait for our hotel shuttle: After about a 15 minute wait, our shuttle arrived: We took the five minute ride to the Skylight Hotel. The hotel consist of two separate buildings. This is a photo of the first phase building which was completed in 2019 (news link) A model of an Ethiopian Airlines jet sits proudly in the lobby: As business class passengers, we were assigned to the newly completed hotel expansion (news link) I don't have photos of the room (I was too tired). However suffice it to say that the rooms were modern, clean, well furnished, and had plenty of space for two people. It wasn't the Ritz Carlton and our window did not have a nice view, but it was more than adequate for us to spend our long layover in.

A few months ago, the sailing dates were not loading properly after specifying cruise line and ship. It seems to be ok now.

We arrived at ORD after 7 am on Jan 10--about half an hour behind schedule. My body felt like it was about 10 pm in the evening. Being in Business Class, we were among the first to get off the plane. With Global Entry's kiosk facial recognition system (no finger print or passport scan), getting through Immigration was very quick and easy. All we needed to do was claim our 3 checked bags and then we get to go home (1 hour ride) to see our dog. That's when we encountered the only real problem with our flight back to the USA--baggage claim. It was probably the worst baggage claim experience I have had so far. At 7:40 am, we arrived at baggage claim happy as clams (tired clams, but we were happy). We stood at the empty baggage claim carousel for what seemed like an eternity. Then the bags started to trickle in very slowly in small batches at a time.--as if there was a single small pickup truck that was off loading the bags from the plane. Although there was a large crowd of people gathered around the carousel, very few passengers pulled their bags off the rotating carousel and so the carousel slowly became overloaded. Because the feeding conveyor kept shutting down due to the carousel being overloaded, the baggage handlers asked the passengers crowding around the carousel to back away so they could begin pulling random bags off the carousel to create space and setting them on the floor. Now passengers had two places to hunt for their bags. There were still tons of passengers from our 787 aircraft crowded around the carousel (and also looking at the pile of bags that were put on the floor). Getting around and getting access to the bags on the floor or on the carousel was quite difficult. I was lined up at a prime spot by the carousel. There were several requests from passengers behind me asking if I could pull their bag off the carousel. No problem, except most of the time the response was, "oh, sorry, that isn't mine, could you please put it back?". The baggage claim process was so slow that a few passengers were worried that they would miss their connection at ORD. At 8:30 am (50 minutes after arriving at baggage claim), we got our first of three bags. At 8:55 am, we claimed our second bag and new bags were still arriving from the conveyor belt. At 9:30 am, we are told by the baggage claim supervisors that all the bags from our flight have been offloaded. That meant our 3rd bag was missing and we had to spend about 2 grueling hours at baggage claim to figure that out. Ethiopian Airline's app has bag tracking but it was not very good. You have to manually enter your flight number, date, and baggage tag number to get results. Their app suggested that our bags had arrived in Chicago. We had AirTags in each checked bag, but their location information was not that useful either because the bags had not been "seen" for a many hours. By the time we went to bed that evening, our AirTag location was updated and it showed our bag at the airport in Addis Ababa. Today at lunch time, we got a call from Ethiopian Airlines informing us that our missing bag was accidentally left behind in Africa but it had now arrived in Chicago and they wanted to confirm our home address so that they could deliver it us (in 24-48 hours). Good news. When I went to bed this evening, the AirTag showed our missing bag was indeed at ORD. Fortunately the missing bag was the least important bag of the three suitcases that we had checked.

Technically tips are included as part of the overall fare and there were no subtle hints or clues during the cruise tour that additional tipping was desired. If other people were tipping, it was done very discretely or I wasn't looking hard enough. One other problem was we did not know who we might feel inclined to tip (e.g. would we get dedicated service from one dining room waiter or from several?). Having said all that, in the end we tipped the four naturalists $50 each and we tipped our stateroom attendant $50 as well. I chose not to tip the dining room staff nor the bar staff--mainly because it was not clear where to draw the line as it seemed ridiculous to tip everyone on board. During the land part of the vacation, we tipped the people who handled our bags (driver and bellhop). We did not tip the guides. I do not know if the amount we tipped was above or below the average for our sailing.