gentle@spici

Thanks for doing my homework for me Fred. Lol. Sometimes I forget we are a few seconds away from any information we may need via the internet. 

How much does a bucket of beer cost?  Coors  lite or bud lite. 
How often do they do a happy hr every day? 

We are interested in sailing on the Kdam in January but are a bit worried about having to pay for alcohol. I like a few beers and a few mixed drinks every day on vacation but the wife is content with 2 or 3 drinks a day. so we are still debating it. 
I would say we usually sail celebrity and if you really do your homework you can get some great deals.  We just returned from a 11 day cruise on the Reflection in a 10th floor Concierge balcony with drink pkg and tips and $350obc for $2610 total. 

Looking at a guarantee suite on Kdam for the same price but zero perks. Haven’t booked yet but always like to try new lines and ships. 

The casino bar is about as close as your going to get. 3 screens of games on, usually soccer and basketball or football. Just down from there is a little theater where they show playoff games and bowl games and such. 

I would suggest printing boarding passes the night before. That will save some precious time at the airport. We experienced a lengthy delay a couple weeks ago off the Reflection and didn’t get off the ship until 8:30. We had a 10:15 am flight out of FLL. We had a ride waiting for us and we’re at the airport in minutes and had over an hr wait before we boarded. 

I would have loved to do the valet and not worry about luggage. Our flight was 11:25 and the cutoff was 11:30. They wouldn’t do it. We rented a limo, which actually turned out to be a Tahoe. It was $60 for the 2 of us total both ways. They were waiting for us both times with our name on a sign. It couldn’t have went faster and smoother. 

11:37 shouldn’t be a problem  for you unless something really crazy happens. We had a 11:15 flight on Friday morning and had some issues getting off the ship. The facial recognition system went down so we were delayed and backed up for quite awhile. We were zone 2 to get off and even with the delay we were off the ship by 8:15 and had our luggage and found our personal driver by 8:35. We were at the airport and sitting at the gate by 9:45. We did precheckin the night before which helps save some time. 

I was there yesterday as well  and it was a complete fubar for 2 reasons. First of all we had an early flight and had zone 2 to get off the ship pretty early. So zone 1 was called and we made our way down to the gangway where there were hundreds of ppl clogging up everything in site. We were asked not to leave our open seating areas until our zone was called yet we saw zones of about every number standing near the gangway with everyone complaining.  They made several announcements and yet no one listened.

The second problem was the facial recognition went down right out of the the gate in the morning so of course the line never moved until they could figure out what to do. It was chaos that I have never witnessed in 11 cruises. I saw many instances on this 11 day cruise where ppl decided to make their own rules for whatever reason. But when you have 3700 ppl getting ready to disembark in a 2 hr span and there is a great system in place and then half  the passengers decide to get off when they want to this is the result. It was quite frustrating.   

I do have a couple thanksgiving things to put up but wanted to mix in some Christmas as well. Probably not a.big deal on this cruise since we are the 2nd closest cabin  forward on deck 10. No one will see it but crew members headed to the Bridge. I do remember getting a lot of nice comments  the last time though. Thank You for the info!

Does anyone go all out with holiday or other decorations for your cabin door? I found a thread on it a couple yrs ago but can’t find it now.  2 yrs ago we went the week before Christmas and I kinda got carried away with it and thought it looked really nice. This yr we are going the week before Thanksgiving on the Reflection and get off the Ship the day after. Does anyone remember if there are Christmas decor out before Thanksgiving or do they do it the week after?

My dw and I are almost ready to leave Detroit and the snow to fly into Miami by 9:30am and join you for a nice relaxing 11day vacation. First time on Eclipse. We’ve been on Reflection a couple times and have yet to try specialty dining so we’re hoping to get a discount in the next couple days to see if it’s worth the price. It was so fun following along with Chicago Paul the last couple weeks knowing we were going to follow them on the next cruise.

I’m curious too. We are sailing next week as well and certainly don’t need unlimited but would be interested in some sort of pkg for $100. We just want to check emails here and there and check in at home. Any input from recent passengers would be appreciated.

Thanks so much for this live blog, Paul !

We will be boarding when you disembark, and reading this feels like a warm up for our cruise. After 12 cruises, I finally got a beverage package. And, though I am shy , reading your past cruise blogs has inspired me to spend time in the ship’s bars, imbibing and socializing. It is a part of cruising that I have missed out on . Your enthusiasm is contagious ! Any suggestions which bar would be a good spot for a “newbie” ?

In addition, your photos of the menus, the food and the ship are wonderful.

I hope you and Edward have a great cruise !

Margaret

If you are interested in Sports at all the casino bar will have plenty of games to watch. The wife and I will be on the cruise Dec.10th as well. Most every evening I will be there watching hopefully football or basketball while she plays blackjack. Maybe we will run into each other. I’ll be drinking Long Islands or Whiskey sours most likely lol.

I must admit I had never thought about decorating our cabin door for a second during any of our cruises but that changed last December when I noticed several decorated with a Christmas theme So for this years Christmas cruise I have actually spent a few hrs researching what to put on our door which will include some cute Christmassy magnets and even some battery operated blinking lights. Might even bring a little 2 ft tall artificial tree with lights if I can fit it in my carry on.

I must agree with some others here 100%. I have worked in customer service for 35 yrs now and I deal with people like this every day. I see them weekly and every single time they have to complain about something. They are just never ever satisfied.

I could see if maybe their ipad was stolen out of their room and was refused compensation then they would have a gripe. (Happened to us on an AI, we still had a great time)

Or their son had a huge gouge torn out of his ankle from something in the pool, without as much as a sorry. (Happened to us once on Carnival and cost over $2000 in medical costs. We still had a great time)

The bottom line is your vacation is what you make of it and when theres over 2500 people onboard a ship some things aren't going to be smooth sailing as they say. lol.

When we have something minor happen on any of our cruises we just think of the old saying that a bad day on vacation is way better than a great day at work.

They are more than happy to serve more than 1 appetizer or entrée if you so desire. I have ordered 2 main entrees before. For example if I see ribs on the menu or something similar I know the portion will be small for me. I definitely order 2 jumbo shrimp cocktails which I like a lot because I think you might get 4 per serving and my wife always likes to snatch 1 or 2 from me. Many times Ill order shrimp cocktail and French onion soup because I love their soup. They always are happy to bring you whatever you want and I never leave the MDR hungry.

I thought Id share some ways I saved us some serious money on our upcoming Celebrity cruise in December. First I scope out 3 or 4 itineraries that will work for us and spend sometimes months waiting for the price we want. I comb thru several TA"s while I wait and see what extra perks I can get. Sometimes you can even get them to compete with each other to get the best price and or perks.

This particular cruise I had to wait 8 months before I finally pulled the trigger. It wasn't so much the price but the extra perks I got from my chosen TA. Theirs was in the form of beverage pkg, tips included, $275 OBC and coupon book.

So as soon as I booked, I applied and got the Celebrity credit card which has 2 special offers for 2 $100 OBC. Basically spend $1000 bucks in 2 months which we did with final payment and the other comes with your first Celebrity purchase. There is a $69 annual fee but you still come out $131 ahead. Theres other perks to have the card too.

Next I scoped out flights for months on end too. Just booked these this week. Once I narrowed the flights I wanted thru the company I use to find competitive prices, I went directly to the airline booking site and booked thru them.

American airlines gives you $100 statement credit and free checked luggage for up to 5 people so I went with them for the flight down. The annual fee is waived the first year so I will cancel it when we get back in December.

Delta gave us the best price coming back with $150 statement credit and also free luggage for up to 4 or 5 people. Again you can cancel once you get back. I just cancelled my Delta card from last winters cruise and got a new one in my wifes name.

So with all that we saved just under $400 on this upcoming cruise. There are endless ways to use reward cards as long as your willing to jump thru their hoops. Most airlines have them and so do most cruises. This 11 day cruise in the southern caribean with a balcony and everything included besides extra tips for cabs and porters will be a bit over $2000. (with airfares)

We will use our $475 OBC on some wifi, portraits, a specialty dinner or 2 and some booze to bring home for later, and my obligatory t shirt and coffee mug I get on every cruise.

Hope this helps someone for a future cruise and Id love to hear ways you save some serious money on yours!

Kirt

Yep, but they are around the water roping buoys. So if you stay away from them you are probably not going to have an encounter. I swam in from a boat and under the buoy line and was stung on my face and arms. I did not know about them and wondered why I was stinging. The Boatyard keeps Vinegar on hand and will freely pour it over your stings. It was only mildly uncomfortable.

This solves a mystery in Jamaica several yrs ago. I was on one of the beaches out in the water by myself and swam out to the ropes by the buoys and was hanging on just relaxin and all of a sudden I felt these burning sensations on me. I looked down and my first impression was clear baby shrimps. Could barely see them. I got the hell out of there in a hurry, man they hurt for awhile. I never really said anything to anyone but always wondered what they were. Thanks for finally enlightening me!

I give you a lot of credit for doing this live! And Thank You! I couldn't do this as there just never seems to be enough minutes in the day while on board. In any event we are doing the 11 day cruise on Eclipse in December and it is exciting to read about your daily ventures.

Come on over to Celebrity, we love the Reflection! I will comment on formal nights as well as dining in general. I absolutely cant stand to wear a coat and tie. Gives me panic attacks to constrict my neck with a tie. I break out into a sweat. literally. Probably because I had a strike and I have anxiety issues since. HOWEVER, I know it pleases my wife if we go and look nice so I will wear a coat and tie to formal nights, always have on all 10 of our cruises. I just keep the tie a little loose. I struggle a little but manage to get thru it just fine. The other nights I will wear nice dress pants and collard shirt. So with that in mind it really bothers me especially on formal night that people show up and are allowed in jeans or basically anything they want. For Gods sake cant we look nice for an hr a night? Celebrity has recently changed formal night to "chic" night. Which means I guess even more "anything goes." I personally have never seen anyone ever turned away on any dining night on 3 different cruise lines.

If you do some homework there are places you can go to get TA to basically bid against each other to get you to book. They offer some very lucrative deals. I have used this my last 3 cruises and am very happy.

To make this successful you do have to do some research to see what the prices are currently at other places, and available cabins or suites and go from there. I have most Tuesdays off with everyone gone I like to spend some time doing my homework and go from there.

I just went thru this with Celebrity 2 months ago. I booked with this deal in mind but my TA didn't mention I had to load it first. Since I didn't AE will not honor the credit. Come to find out the TA had told several clients the same thing so Supposedly we were going to get a credit from TA. Numerous phone calls and lots of time later still no credit.

These offers are totally random on AE cards. It must depend on spending habits I'm thinking. So make sure you load the offer onto your account before accepting the deal! Mine was $150 btw.

1 thing I had wished we took last week was some magnetic Christmas decorations to put on our door. Weve never sailed during the holidays and a lot of peeps had some cool fall holiday stickers on theirs. From Halloween to Christmas. Very festive. It did however remind me to pick up a pretty Christmas tree ornament from St Maarten while we were there.

The Hideaway is indeed convenient for your morning cup of coffee. Its on deck 7 where we were last week. The coffee isn't available until 8 am though so the couple days we woke up early we went to café al bacio.

I'm a tightwad and sometimes look for over a year for a deal so I couldnt pass up this on the Reflection a month before sailing, next week.

Booked a guaranteed balcony which turned out to be 7222.

received $330 in OBC

Both have the drink pkg.

$82 pp per day including tax and port charge. (OBC figured into that)

We are used to being on 9th deck or higher but felt it was too good to pass up.