mahdnc

A year ago today we were sailing aboard Constellation as she was crossing the Atlantic to her winter home port of Tampa. We had an excellent cruise. The ship was in good shape for her age and the crew was fantastic. I would not hesitate to book a cruise on her again.

In 2021, Celebrity actually published a schedule for when each ship would be decorated for Christmas. Here is the link. They were all scheduled for the first sailing right after Thanksgiving. So if they keep to that schedule, you will miss it. However there is information in the brochure about what is done for Thanksgiving.

Nice pics. Enjoy your cruise!

Here is a chart showing PUP events by year to give you some idea of historical frequency. It does not include PUP events that were based on social media activity (there weren't that many of them). The event count did not take into account whether it was a measly 10 point event or the cherished 50 pointer--they were both counted as a single event. You can see that PUP events have really tapered off this year. I wouldn't be surprised if they disappeared altogether in 2024.

Nice!

Here are the MDR menus for Christmas/New Years during our Dec 2019 Solstice sailing. The menus are not enhanced because of the holidays and what you are looking at are menus before the recent cost savings cutbacks that have occurred this year: Dec 24, 2019 Solstice MDR menu, Dessert menu Dec 25, 2019 Solstice MDR menu, Dessert menu Dec 31, 2019 Solstice MDR menu, Dessert menu Jan 1, 2020 Solstice MDR menu, Dessert menu Solstice, Dec 31 2019, Near New Zealand on the Tasman Sea

Our next sailing is on Xpedition so I don't need to worry about the different dress code evenings!

Thank you. My preference is to wait as well. There is a general Celebrity Xpedition thread on the roll call forum that has grown sufficiently such that it has been chopped up into 4 different threads--Part 1 (420 pages), Part 2 (205 pages), Part 3 (200 pages), and Part 4 (currently at a paltry 13 pages). The big drawback is that it makes it less convenient to do a search.

We just got our cruise docs for next month's 11 night cruise tour on Xpedition. The Guest Ticket Booklet on page 7 (1st screenshot) says that our package includes the $100 pp entrance fee to the Galapagos as well as the INGALA Tourist Card Fee. The Park Entry Voucher was on page 26 (2nd screenshot). In case you are interested, here is a link to our Guest Ticket Booklet with any pages with private information removed (including the the Park Entry Voucher on page 26).

It is not uncommon for the points shown in an email to trail what is shown online because it is out of date. Perhaps you got bonus club points from a relatively recently completed cruise that qualified for a 2x CC points promotion?

As you know, that disparity (3 EC nights for extended sailings) has existed since EC language was introduced.

I have had more success emailing in the shareholder OBC request. The last time I did it almost a year ago, it surprisingly was taken care of 3 hours later (I am not expecting that to be the norm). You will see the OBC added to your sailing on the Cruise Planner web page. The email address was shareholderbenefit@rccl.com. I provided my name, booking number, and an attachment of a recent statement showing stock ownership including shares.

I am not sure what flames you are worried about. I agree with you--I enjoyed going up to the Sky Lounge for the Cocktail Hour.

The Sep 26th email invitation to watch the Captains Club Webinar (with Laura Hodges Bethge) had my name, membership number, current tier, and total points on it.

I believe that this was done specifically on sailings that had a very large number of Elite passengers where it was impractical to hold the Cocktail Hour at a single venue (e.g.14 night Caribbean sailings, Transatlantic, etc). That certainly made everyone happy especially if you didn't like trudging up to the Sky Lounge. Also hors d'oeuvres consumption (served at the Sky Lounge) was less which I guess would make Celebrity happy.

If you are saying that pre-Covid you could only get the Happy Hour drinks at the Sky Lounge, we were able to get our drinks at other bars on that cruise. In fact that was also true during our Jan 2019 Reflection sailing (14 night Caribbean).

For the ideal holiday itinerary, Christmas Day and New Year's Day are both sea days.

yes, we fly out to Quito on Nov 15 and we are very much looking forward to it. The sailing occurs during the Thanksgiving Day holiday (American). Our upcoming Christmas/NYE cruise is Singapore to Hong Kong. We are looking forward to it as well. I think you’ll enjoy your Millennium cruise. I’m sorry about your family losses.

We have taken our family of 4 on two Christmas/NYE cruises so far (the last one on Solstice in 2019). Our two adult kids will not be able to make our third this coming December (Solstice again). Here is a thread similar to yours from earlier this year (link). In it I posted my comments along with photos and links to the Celebrity Today that was issued for the two holidays which you may be interested in. I think you and your family will enjoy your holiday cruise plus Silhouette is a nice ship. Tipping the crew extra is a great holiday idea. While Christmas is a bit understated in terms of how it is celebrated onboard, NYE is one big party spread across several different venues. Since your ship will be in the warm Caribbean on NYE, the pool deck will be where the action is. If you look at the thread that I posted, you can see we have decorated our cabin for Christmas. To me, I think the only "don't" is not hang any lights out on the balcony. You are going to definitely want to have your family's photo taken by the ship's photographer on Christmas Eve/Day by the Christmas tree in the Main Foyer. If you have any questions, let me know.

And during our Dec 2019 Solstice sailing.

You could marry into it.

I have yet to witness that type of behavior during any of our cruises. Now if there were special Elite lifeboats and the cruise ship was sinking, I could see such a scenario.

Next thing may be that Cruise Critic Connection gatherings will be brought back on every fifth sailing...

Ok, Ruth. I am going to have to educate myself on this teahouse moon thing. I am guessing that it is a place or maybe a poem....

Thanks for posting. I would like to see it held more frequently like it was before--but this is an excellent and welcomed start. I imagine they may be well attended?