mahdnc

Poor Ruth. Butlers will not be the last cut back. Basically Celebrity knows they need to save more.

My point was that a good butler can come in handy which I think is true before and after the sale.

It is absolutely amazing the number of attractions within easy walking distance from the Overseas Passenger Terminal in Sydney.

We have only sailed in suites twice. The most recent time was in 2005 on board the old Horizon. Not quite half way into our 10 night sailing, my wife seriously injured her leg in a ziplining accident during our stop at Puerto Limon. I will just say that our butler was a godsend for the remainder of our cruise and he took good care of my wife.

GBR is a paradise for both divers and snorkelers alike. Either way you go, I would suggest that if a guided tour is available for a fee, it is worth paying. The guides know where all the good stuff is like the amazing giant clams.

You undoubtedly saw Heart Reef. We did a lot of scuba diving during our GBR cruise. However it was amazing to see it from the air. Agincourt Reef, Jan 9 2018

Thank you. When we were there in 2018, Yorkey's Knob was still very isolated with nothing there to see. One very nice thing about Celebrity's shore excursions is that many of the tour boats (such as the snorkel boats) would pick you up at the ship and at the conclusion of the tour, they would drop you off there, too. A very big time saver and huge advantage for booking through Celebrity. There were a lot of boats and tenders waiting to pull up along side any one of the four docking platforms that Solstice had operating. Sort of like a busy airport with 4 gates. Because all the shorex boats and commercial tenders came in different shapes and sizes, the Solstice crew would have to make adjustments to the platform geometry before each boat could tie up along side. 4 shore excursion boats waiting their turn to pick up their Solstice passengers, near Cairns, Jan 7 2018

Yorkey's Knob is Cairns like Civitavecchia "is" Rome. About a 30 minute drive away once you take the long tender ride to Yorkey's Knob.

If it follows last year's release schedule, Caribbean itineraries will be released in mid-December. Here is a thread from late last year that followed the itinerary releases as they unfolded:

The language on the Celebrity website has not been updated either.

Now I know what 40% off every sailing truly means.

I understand what you mean but this is the best place to grieve about it. It's not like I can tell a co-worker that my cruise is going to be less enjoyable because I am not going to have a butler.

We did the 12 night Great Barrier Reef sailing on Solstice back in Jan 2018. The ship overnighted at Yorkey's Knob (Cairns). The tenders were not scheduled to run throughout the night because of crocodiles, sharks, jellyfish (with stingers) and shoals. I know that's something they don't put in the marketing brochures, but here it is in the "Important Information" bulletin that we received on board. The last tender from Yorkey's Knob was scheduled to leave at 10:30 pm with service resuming at 7:30 am the following morning. Here is the link to the Celebrity Today with the tender information in the screenshot below: Note the length of the tender ride which doesn't include waiting for the tender to load and unload--and it's another 25-30 minutes depending on traffic to get from Yorkey's Knob to Cairns by car/bus. Our actual tender schedule was much different than the plan: 1. Because of high winds, the captain stopped the tendering to Yorkey's Knob at 6:00 pm. Earlier in the day high winds caused one of the tenders to crash into Solstice resulting in broken windows on the tender. The high winds also made it difficult for Solstice to hold her anchor. The strong winds would cause Solstice to drag her anchor and she had to re-anchor two more times that day. We had plans to stay in a hotel at Cairns that evening but we didn't find out that the tendering had stopped until it was too late and so we were stuck on the ship for the night. 2. The ship quietly offered a special early tender before the official start of tendering during our second day at Cairns. It was to accommodate passengers like us who made independent plans ashore and needed to be at Cairns early. It takes about 3 hours to tender 3,000 passengers off the ship and those that weren't on Celebrity shore excursions would have to wait at least an hour before they could get on a tender (and then the 40 minute tender ride + 30 min car ride to Cairns). This special tender left at 6 am. Our first view of Yorkey's Knob (Cairns) from our Solstice balcony, Jan 7 2018

If you hit the jackpot, you may not want to cruise on Celebrity anyway.

Like watching NASCAR because you want to see car wrecks?

I would think that this would be the best way to avoid being assigned to different evenings in the event they run the Chef's Table more than once during your sailing.

I don't think that will happen because Celebrity will want to continue to justify the extra premium they charge for those cabins. Otherwise they become just extra large balcony cabins. Celebrity was originally charting a course to convert the large family veranda cabins (an example of an extra large balcony cabin) to Horizon Suites to generate more revenue but had to stop with implementing it in one ship because Covid interrupted the Revolution makeover.

Then definitively skip the Uffizi. If I ever go back to Florence, I would like to tour the Uffizi for the first time. My wife would be bored though.

Uffizi is to Italy like the Louvre is to France. It houses many masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance. If you had to choose between the two as a casual tourist, go to the Accademia to see the iconic David. If you're an art lover and want to see paintings by Botticelli (including the iconic Birth of Venus), a da Vinci, and a Michelangelo, go to the Uffizi.

Port side cabins will be able to watch the evening sun set as the ship makes its way to Vancouver from Hawaii. Aft cabins, too. Since this is a spring time cruise, the sun will be setting almost due west.

Interesting. if true, that would be a shame.

If you still have them, save your kids' SeaPass cards as proof in case past cruises somehow are missing. Alternatively if you retain your booking information and/or Folio number that might be good, too. I don't think it will be necessary as I don't recall reading any posts (or seeing very many posts) about kid's sailing histories being incomplete.

As a non-suite passenger, I am also among those that are not thrilled with the changes. However you make very good points.

3 am on the first day of the cruise for our upcoming Christmas sailing on Solstice.

Our first Celebrity cruise was in 1996 (the brand new Century!) and we took our kids with us who were then 3 yrs old (daughter) and 7 months old (son). We took a total of 14 cruises together as a family--all on Celebrity. I remember our son getting his Captains Club membership before he was 18 and his older sister got it sometime later. In both cases, their complete sailing history was already in their file and they were assigned the correct membership tier when they became of age. I am proud to say as parents, my wife and I got both our kids a college education and Elite status with Celebrity. Infinity, Feb 2002, Caribbean. Kids are not Captains Club members yet. Infinity, Christmas 2016, off the coast of Peru. Kids are Elite (in more ways than one)