mahdnc

If you cancel a shorex booking that is sold out, it takes a few minutes for the cancelled spot(s) to come back before you can rebook it again. If you bought the shorex with OBC, your OBC is credited back to your on-line total instantaneously which only heightens the worry and impatience while you wait for the cancelled spots to reappear (e.g. did the cancelled spots get snapped up by someone else? Did a wait-lister get it?).

The cruise is also open to Buccaneer players (current and past), team mascot, and the Buccaneer cheerleaders. So I think that is the reason it is done during the offseason. Information link.

A few years ago during a cruise on Solstice, we had dinner reservations to the Silk Harvest for $35 pp. I booked it online before the cruise. It turned out that for the night we had the reservations, Silk Harvest had a special menu with live music and that they were charging $45pp. Furthermore, we found out that our reservation had been moved to the next day with no notification that I was aware of--presumably because we only paid $35 pp for the normal dining experience. I didn't find this out until we actually showed up for our reserved dining time. Long story short, we ended up getting seat for our original dining time and at the original price, but it took some arm twisting by me to get the maitre d' to agree to it. Here is a link to the story I posted on it.

The 2 device upgrade will allow you to have your phone and iPad connected to the internet at premium speeds simultaneously. The 1 device upgrade only allows you to have one device at a time connected to the internet at premium speeds (you can switch back and forth during your cruise, but only one device will be connected to the premium wi-fi at any one time).

Aug 3rd Reuters article: Cruise Operators Plan to Hike Prices as Costs Rise, Demand Swells

For our upcoming Solstice holiday sailing, Murano can now be booked for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve for the special undiscounted price of $150 pp.

Sometimes you have to work for your savings!

It's always good to share this information because sometimes it's not clear how widespread the sale is. Unfortunately for me, none of my 3 future sailings including 2 on Solstice have any flash sales going on right now.

I guess I shouldn't show you the selfie that I took with one of the agents.

When we disembarked Constellation after last Nov's TA, there were six out of eight immigration stations open and staffed. We did not do the walk off as our flights were scheduled to leave TPA in the afternoon. It was pretty chaotic in the cruise terminal. The luggage pickup area was a mess and it was difficult to find and get to the immigration line because of the large amount of people and the gridlock. Disembarking at the Port of Tampa, Nov 6 2022

I saw it more as a Leah and Rachel thing.

As a primarily non-suite passenger, this moment happened for me with the surprise added fee for room service. Ironically our next cruise is in a suite on Xpedition which doesn't come with a butler of course. So far the premium suites seem to be unscathed.

Here is a 2 page gratuities flyer that was issued this year, but no further clues on exactly when it was issued: link The first page mentions that an 18% gratuity is automatically added to specialty dining and spa purchases. The second page has several FAQs that clearly declare a 20% gratuity. So I can only conclude that the gratuity increase occurred sometime between the writing of the first and second pages....

Regardless of this butler cutback, I hope that your cruise turns out to be a trip of a lifetime.

We have used the kids club extensively for our two kids but by the time we started doing Christmas/NYE sailings they were young adults. My information may be out of date: on embarkation day, the kids club (aka Camp at Sea) may staff a desk near the gangway when you board. They used to do this for every sailing, but I have not seen it on my last few cruises--perhaps they will do this for your holiday sailing. It is worth dropping by the kids club as soon as you board. They used to hold a parent's orientation on embarkation day to go over their program, rules, and procedures--something that you will definitely want to attend.

Thanks for the report. We cruised on her last Nov and it was a great ship and crew. I am interested in your take on the various ports.

The extra 2% is going to the newly formed Sky Suite Butler Team.

The Captains Club one cat upgrade is only good for certain sub-categories and does not include getting an outside cabin for the price of an inside cabin, a veranda cabin for the price of an outside cabin, etc. Here are the specific allowable upgrades:

We haven't gotten a bill either in a while including our last pre-COVID sailing.

It also includes Sunset Sky Suites. It's hard to keep track of them all.

We are going on our first Asia cruise (Singapore to Hong Kong) over Christmas/New Year and we are very much looking forward to it. Here are the shore excursions being offered on these 12 night HKG/SIN itineraries: link. Be sure that you are not logged into the Celebrity website when you click on the link. There are a lot of independent guides or tour companies that you can book instead of going through Celebrity. Some of the cities such as Bangkok are very far from the pier. So keep that in mind.

They will be promoted to helmsman duty soon.

It is an odd word choice.

Perhaps I should have said that the guide is up to date as of Jul 27th. No shoes dropped, no ships taken off the list, no updates on the butler policy, etc. I just posted it because it was new to me and it is not available on Celebrity's main website.

This flyer was revised on Jul 27th and is available on thecelebritycommitment.com website: link