leaveitallbehind

But join Captains Club with Celebrity to assure your Celebrity points accrual when you cruise with them.

IMO the most valid point you make is with ROI and loss of real estate value for some other venue to allow for this. The investment may be too high and the end use too low to provide enough of a return and other more profitable venues would likely occupy that real estate. But don't sell new idea technology challenges short or the willingness for cruise lines to invest in them. As examples, if you are familiar with RCCL look at Two-70, or with Celebrity Eden. Both venues are cutting edge in technology and are a competitive draw that must be worth the R&D that went into them - and are not separate charge venues. But they are daily use, high volume venues, which in that manner would certainly differ from this idea. Not disagreeing with you, but I never fault anyone for their ideas - many of today's products started as blue sky thinking.

...and as mentioned there are cruise lines that have jacuzzi / whirlpool stye tubs in the bathrooms of certain suite categories. They are relatively large and function as with jacuzzies - just not the freestanding style found on balconies of many ships.

Thinking this further Celebrity also has jacuzzi tubs in some of their suite bathrooms. I guess that would not be too uncommon among other cruise lines. But from the OP's question I was envisioning a free standing jacuzzi/hot tub in the stateroom area v the balcony, and not a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom.

Interesting! But, sorry, I can't help you with this as that is something I am not familiar with. Also not sure how practical it would be? One particular concern I could see with this is with the amount of humidity that would be in the room when in use that would be difficult to vent. (I am familiar with this in a resort hotel room many years ago). I would also think it might need to remain drained between uses to prevent spillage in heavier seas. That all being said there may very well be ships with that feature - just not any I'm aware of. Hopefully you get your answer!

Of those you mention, RCCL has many door decorations on every ship we've sailed.

The cruise lines have staff at the corporate level whose responsibility lies with new design and innovation. My suggestion would be to check the different cruise line websites for their corporate leadership and start there with a phone call to that HQ to see to whom you should contact.

Just a suggestion - you may also want to check with your travel agent (if you used one) or directly with the cruise line that you are on for current information on this new policy. I would think they should know and be able to advise.

Agree with the comments made by @CruiserBruce and @Honolulu Blue in that in our experience as well this was not an issue and was not a topic of discussion relative to our ability to board the ship or disembark at the relative ports of call.

What cruise lines do you typically cruise with? This is rather common with most of the mass market cruise lines.

....and the service elevator areas on most ships in our experience are not particularly well insulated as they are typically bare metal construction. So when the hall access door is opened the activity in that area can be heard. Fortunately, that usually was day time activity when we were near one.

Agree completely. But it seems as though decorating doors is mainly unique to the cruise industry and as previously mentioned I just wonder the reasoning for that. I have traveled extensively on business and have vacationed at resorts and AI's in my past and have not seen that elsewhere. I just find it an interesting practice and wonder what motivates it on cruise ships.

Not specific to NCL, but most elevator banks (and stairways) are separated by a hallway from the staterooms. The rooms are generally well insulated and the "ding" in most cases is very quiet. The primary advantage of stateroom locations near the elevator banks is convenience in using them without a long walk to get around the ship. My bigger concerns would not be so much with elevator noise, but with disrespectful passengers - mainly children - running around the hallways and the elevator banks. But that also is unpredictable and can occur anywhere on the ship. We like elevator locations and frequently choose them for their convenience and have never had an issue with that.

That would be cruise line dependent and in some cases may be true. And it is also true that the ingredients are of a higher quality. But in our experience, most of the specialty restaurants have their own kitchen (or maybe one shared by two) as they are frequently on different decks and locations away from the MDR. The preparations are unique and different as a result. But nonetheless, if there are multiple specialty restaurants on board a given ship (Italian, steakhouse, sushi, French, etc.) that in of itself offers a fairly wide variety of menus and food type options that would, along with the MDR, provide more selection options on a long voyage. There are also world cruises that will tailor certain menus based on the regions and ingredient offerings that they encounter during the voyage that will also provide additional variety. But certainly - just was with your own in home preparations and normal dining out options - there would be on board limitations and if this would be an issue, then perhaps that type of voyage would not be the right choice for you. Especially as most true world cruises are considerably longer than the two months you suggest - that would be more likely just one segment of the cruise.

I meant that I was curious how the source she gets them from has them shipped to them. But you say the pharmacy makes them? Hope you find a solution.

Is this something that your doctor or pharmacist could assist with - or whomever they are purchased through? Perhaps they know of different methods of transport that would work. I would be curious how it is shipped to them.

Don't disagree, but over the years I have also seen many specific - and elaborate - birthday announcements, anniversary cruise, family cruise themes, honeymoon decoration, etc., on RCCL that were definitely not young children themed. More so years ago than recently, but still there nonetheless. It's just an interesting phenomenon to me that seems mostly unique to cruising.

While I agree it is intentional, it also likely that the MDR has by default become the lower quality offering resulting from the inflationary issues and cost control methods at managing the lower base fare, which makes the upsell to the specialty restaurants more palatable. (No pun intended).

On some cruise lines one of the biggest complaints is constant activities announcements! They must have been asleep or just not paying attention to anything. To add to your information sources is the stateroom TV, typically with a scrolling agenda of events on one channel and another dedicated to ship activities hosted by the cruise director and staff.

Good point and thanks for mentioning it. I was only referring to our itinerary in 2019.

I'm with you - no offence to those who do so but its just not for us. Do those who do so also decorate their hotel doors at land based resorts? Not being snarky - genuinely curious. But in all sincerity, to each their own. We used to cruise with a couple that always did it but we never understood why - other than they just liked to do it.

Other than with Maui, which was a tender port, there were no issues at all with getting off the ship or with finding transportation in our experience. With that tender port there was somewhat of a delay with the initial off loading as the tenders were sequenced at two ship board departure stations, which took some time for each tender cycle. It is no more difficult or time consuming than with any other typical itinerary port of call.

GTY's can be a good value and not always with the result of the "worst staterooms on the ship" being assigned. (Of course that is somewhat dependent on category selected). We have done it frequently when the GTY fare was attractive enough and have not had any issues. In fact we have had a couple of instances when we were assigned an upgraded category. Rare, but it can happen. Our experience has been that they assign the staterooms anywhere from 3-4 weeks prior to the sailing date up to 5 days prior. (In theory that can go to day of, but not in our experience). Also, as mentioned previously, if you are not happy with your assignment, you can also request a change to a different location based on remaining availability within the assigned category. It certainly is a personal decision, but if the fare is attractive, the risks IMO are minimal.

Glad this worked out favorably for you. BTW, with Celebrity, if for some reason you are not happy with the current C2 assignment, you can ask to have it moved to a different available C2 location if you want. Your TA can assist with that if you used one. If not, Celebrity can assist directly.

It would appear that any discrepancy is with the information source that provided you with stateroom 1263 as a "C3". Agree with @Essiesmom that there are no C3 Concierge category staterooms on Eclipse. GTY staterooms in the Concierge category are listed as XC when booked, and the three available sub-categories are C2, C1, and SC in ascending fare order based on location. The only difference between a C2 and a C1 is deck location, with C1 being the higher fare of the two - otherwise they are the same stateroom. An SC is an aft facing location in that class, and as such carries the highest fare. Typically the GTY will result in a C2 or C1 assignment, as SC's are very popular and typically are booked full independently. C2's typically are assigned first. So in your case you received a deck 10 C2 aft location behind the "hump", which is a good location not far from the main elevator banks. C1's typically are "hump" and mid-ship locations.