TexSea

The shower over the toilet reminds me of the bathroom on my very first cruise in the 90s. I much prefer the S-class bathrooms.

I checked the PDF brochures that I have, and both the old one and the new 2016 one say that AQ receives the CC amenities.

I have a 2014/2015 PDF of a brochure that states "Daily delivery of bottled water and teas". And now the current brochure states the same as you mentioned: Welcome bottled water and daily delivery of flavored tea.

Interesting...

Great review. I can tell this one will be a blueprint for our cruise next May.

Yes - on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I don't log in much to FB, but I appreciate the non-PR produced, yet Celebrity related items you post on Twitter.

Hello all. Here's a Q&A with a few Infinity crew members that Celebrity tweeted today. The first part has been posted and the other parts will be posted over the next few days.

https://cruiseable.com/behind-the-scenes-with-the-crew-of-celebrity-infinity

Enjoy!

Hi. I've scanned the Patters from our northbound Grand Princess Alaska trip from Vancouver to Whittier on May 23, 2015.

The PDF is available at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67289472/GrandPrincessAlaska5232015.pdf.

Thanks!

-Jayson

A few days ago we ate at the 49th State Brewery whiles trying at the Denali Princess lodge and they had Alaskan yak burgers. And really good beer. There's a shuttle you can take for $10 that will take you to the brewery.

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We are going on the Glacier Point Excursion in a few weeks. Would you recommend it? Were you able to walk on the glacier much?

We'd definitely recommend it!!!! Take insect repellent. Even this early the mosquitoes were out. And loved me. Though once I applied repellent I was fine.

You don't walk on ice directly. We were able to paddle up to the rocky part in front of the glacier and walk around. They made it sound like that's not always possible. However I took it as they usually do but can't promise conditions will make it always possible. It's a beautiful location that most people don't visit.

There are other excursions as you probably know that allow you to walk on a glacier. I didn't want to take the plane or helicopter ride to do it though.

That's pretty funny! But where are the crab legs on the menu???? Maybe later in the season?

There were crab legs one night because we ordered them. I don't think I have that menu though.

Just off the Grand. Not at my computer but will attempt adding MDR menu pics from my phone. Of course let me know if they aren't readable and I'll repost later.

On our way home from the Grand. Had a great time.

Harv and Marv's for sure.

Sea cycles in Ketchikan.

Glacier Point Wilderness Tour in Skagway.

We left on May 23 with two ships. We stepped out of the cab at 2:05 and were on board at 3:15. I'll say the pre-immigration chairs were about half full at 3:00, similar to what was reported earlier. So later is better to minimize waiting. In retrospect it wasn't too bad. Just not as nice and quick as other ports.

We did use the kiosks and I thought they were easy to use. We were able to skip ahead of others who were having problems or with lots of people in their party. ;-)

Thanks for this as I've been going back and forth on the best time to arrive.

We leave on the Grand soon. Hope you write up a brief review over on the Princess board.

I have a couple of Princess e-gift cards. They state that once I'm on board I can apply them to my onboard account at guest relations. Which then could be used to buy anything onboard of course.

I just got off the Grand this morning in Vancouver....

Thanks for the positive update. We're heading up there in three weeks for our first Princess Cruise. Can't wait!!

While the name is a little corny, as long as it takes my seapass card, I'm there. Will definitely miss Molecular Bar though.

We went on the cruise last July and it was probably our best trip ever. And I would do the exact same cruise again.

From the overlooks, looking out over the water might cause you some issues with the acrophobia. I have mild acrophobia and I didn't find it troubling. However, taking the cable car will be challenging for you. It effected me a little, but my partner hated it. He closed his eyes the entire time but made it. Also didn't help that we were sharing the car with a family whose teens were jumping around and trying to rock the car.

You can walk down on a donkey poop-strewn pathway. Though it can be slippery and depending what time you go down, it may be dark.

Not sure what other options would be for you. I'm sure others will have an idea.

Take a look at http://www.thepreismans.com/ecarib_reflection_menus.htm for photos of the Reflection's menus. Should be similar enough for Equinox and of course individual items could have changed as well.

I can personally say that vegetarians should have no problems in any restaurants. We went to Murano last year on Reflection and I came out stuffed. I don't freak out if something is made with chicken broth, which undoubtedly some items are. Sometimes you just have overlook things when you can't completely control them. I agree that vegans might have a less special time.

When you do order it at Café al Bacio, if you're used to a richer chocolate flavor, request they add an extra scoop of the powder. Makes a big difference, especially if you're used to Starbucks hot chocolate.

We were on Reflection in June. The treatments themselves were very good. We did find the overall service in the spa to be a confusing, jumbled mess. There was poor communication between the staff and guests and among the staff themselves. All of our appointments either didn't start on time or ran late. For us, that didn't matter so much. But other guests were upset as it interfered with whatever they had scheduled. The lack of a hard sell was a welcome change.

Usually we each book several treatments during a cruise, but this time we just did a couple each because it wasn't fun being in the spa.

However, I will definitely try them again, chalking up our experience to Canyon Ranch being new to the ship.

We were on the Reflection in June. The spa offered "tasters" where they demonstrated various services up in the SpaClub throughout the cruise.

Now for a short review about the ports and what we did. I highly recommend Rick Steve's Mediterranean Port Guide as he gives very reasonable expectations on what to see in such a short time in each port.

Transfers...We used Rome Cabs for all of our transfers and they handled most everything really well. During our Roll Call-orgainzed transfer to the port they were over 20 minutes early to pick us up, the first of three pickups. Well, that made the other pickups early and not everyone was ready. The driver wanted to leave but I had to pretend to look for a phone number in order to give the others time to get down. Fortunately it all worked out. I definitely, without reservation, recommend them though.

Santorini...After much reading and discussion on the Roll Call we decided to do the ship's excursion that included the winery. We did this in order to be among the first off the ship and not have to wait in line for tender tickets or the cable cars. We later learned that some people waited up to two hours in line to go up via the cable cars, with only three other ships in port. The first stop in Oia was short, just over an hour. For some reason we were in a major shopping mood and would have liked longer. Walking around and discovering the fantastic views was fun, if a bit crowded. The winery had great views, with a couple of decent wine choices. Though I have never seen people attack a plate of cheese cubes as I did when we got off the bus. We were dropped off in Thira to make our own way back down on the cable cars. We did more shopping and had an early dinner at a nice restaurant, Naoussa http://www.naoussa-restaurant.com, recommended to us by an art gallery owner in town. The tomato balls and octopus were delicious! Our waiter was quite the character, asking us to apologize to the feta we dropped on the floor. People were lining up along the water views waiting for the sunset. We were worried about the time and decided to make our way to the cable cars. Besides, nothing beats a Texas sunset. The line to go down on the cable car was pretty long but ended up only taking about 30 minutes.

Octopus!

Istanbul...Wow, what a city. We toured the sites on our own and it was very easy. Our big mistake was walking from the port to the Hagia Sophia area - it was hot and up hill. We purchased the Museum Pass from the nearby parked vans for skip-the-line admission to Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace and Harem - worth it even though we didn't break even money wise. The line for the Blue Mosque was about 45 minutes, going all the way around the courtyard. While standing in line guides will offer to take you inside in order to skip the line. I was a little wary about all that, though others left the line to go with them. Every site was astonishingly beautiful - full of culture and a long history that we simply don't have in the relatively young USA. We had a pleasant, albeit pricey, lunch at the Topkapi Palace at their sit-down restaurant on the terrace. We ended up walking back to the ship, detouring to a Starbucks (for a city mug) and some off the main road neighborhoods. On the Galata Bridge we walked on the lower level with the restaurants. If you want pushy, obnoxious, in-your-face vendors, go there.

View of Istanbul from our balcony. Nice way to wake up.

Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque

Istanbul at night...We arranged a night tour with a gay-owned Turkish travel agency to take us around to the Istiklal Avenue area and a few bars and nightclubs. The guide picked us up at 10:00pm and we taxied to the Galata Tower. We strolled along the street while the guide talked about gay life in Istanbul and Turkey - not completely out in the open, but well accepted in most cities. The Istiklal area is packed full of street cafes, trendy restaurants, bars of all sorts with tourists and locals out to enjoy the evening. The area is the place to go at night and has something for everyone. In the bars we went to (which by the way, are just like US bars) I was expecting at least some Western pop music, but it was all Turkish music with live singers at an ear-splitting volume. If you think the volume at the Martini Bar is loud, you definitely would not like this. The tour officially ended at 2:00am, and by 2:15am we were ready to go back to the ship after such a long day. Needless to say, we didn't do much the next day, but we were glad to take advantage of the overnight stay.

Istikial Avenue at night

Here's the June 23 sailing:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67289472/ReflectionEasternMed2014.pdf

Here are some of the Blu dinner menus in PDF. Not the best quality of pics now that I see them on my computer, but I think it gives an idea of what to expect.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67289472/BluMenus2.pdf