cyntil8ing

We needed to test four of us. I ordered a six pack of tests from eMed. The first test we took showed an error (blue line instead of pink). Instead of shipping us one replacement test, they shipped us another six pack. That was a surprise! Now we have enough for our next cruise.

I am a firm believer in having a back up plan. For our December cruise, the eMed site was down for 8 hours on our test day. We drove an hour each way to our backup appointments at CVS. For our March cruise, we had a surprise snowstorm and our CVS tests were canceled. We used eMed instead.

On 3/19/2022 at 10:14 AM, exm said:

Here’s a picture of us docked next to 4 (!) other ships in Nassau.

 

Here's me waving from the Carnival ship. Last time I was in Nassau (in December), I was on Anthem.

Throw in status matching from other lines and it gets really fun! 😀

Me, my husband and my minor son all show the same status and points. My daughter, who is 18, shows our status and her own earned points (which is 8 points fewer than mine since she didn't technically come along on my honeymoon -- well, she did, but she wasn't a paying passenger).

I got my Diamond status from earning Elite on Celebrity, which in turn went to my children. If I were to earn Diamond Plus in the next two years before my son turns 18, he would get the higher status but not my daughter.

Now on Celebrity, it's different. Kids do NOT get parent's status because you cannot join Captains Club until 18. They only get their status based on their own points (or our's if they're cruising in the same cabin). But there's a good example of individual vs relationship points on their FAQ that applies on RCCL as well. (https://www.celebritycruises.com/captains-club/enroll)

Last week on Conquest, comedy shows were at 7:00, 8:00, 10:00 and 11:00. Theater shows were at 7:30 and 9:30. We had anytime dining. We went to the 7:00 comedy show, dinner around 7:45, the 9:30 theater show then the 11:00 comedy show. There were two comedians, each doing an early and a late show, so this pattern gave us both comedians each night.

Note: this was a four night cruise and there were comedy shows only on nights three and four. There were theater shows every night (Welcome Aboard, Love & Marriage, then two Playlist shows).

We were on the Conquest this week. We had anytime dining. Each night, when the 7:00 comedy show ended, we put in our table request via the app. By the time we walked to the dining room, the table was always ready. On the last night, there was an issue with the app, so we gave our cabin number to the hostess and still didn't have a wait. We were always done with dinner before 9:00, in plenty of time for the 9:30 show.

As others have said, no bread basket or water left on the table, but there was only one night when my water glass was empty. Wait staff was masked. Few, if any, guests wore masks anywhere. The week started off with a distinct minority of people wearing them indoors (including ourselves), but hardly any were wearing by the end (again, including ourselves).

We were a party of two, seated every night at a table for two or by ourselves at a table for four. If another two top was close, it was generally empty the entire time, or the guests were finishing up as we arrived, or we were finishing as they arrived. 

Wait staff still did "show time" each night. It had been five years since our last Carnival cruise, and I was happy that the songs, with the exception of course of the final night's Leaving on a Fun Ship, had changed. 

One difference I noticed was having to order dessert at the same time as appetizers/dinner. No big deal, but we always forgot to order our coffee at the same time, so we always had to wait a few minutes for it. 

11 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

If you tier up on debarkation day, you do not get the benefits until your next cruise

Yeah, points are relative to number of nights, not days. For example, disembarkation day is day 8 of a 7 day cruise.

I'll be coming off the ship next week with 74 points. So close!

I emailed my request 2/21 and got my notification yesterday for my cruise on the 14th.

I bought my shares at $45 in February 2020, a week before the bottom dropped out. It’s going to take a long time and many, many cruises to make it worth it!

I am so sorry for your loss.

I wound encourage you to stay with Celebrity, at least until you know what sort of young traveler she is. Celebrity is excellent with young children! The kids clubs aren't overcrowded and overstimulating, and the staff just love having kids to dote on. There are family-friendly activities and it's just a great experience. I don't see any reason to need to move over to RCCL when your granddaughter would still be too young for the cool stuff they offer.

My kids' first Celebrity cruise was in 2011 when they were 5 and 7. They have been at least on ten more since. Once they were older teens, we started doing more RCCL and Carnival, but they still love X.

8 minutes ago, RichYak said:

I’m aware of all this. Three 2-packs cost $210 from Optum. One 6-pack from Emed costs $150. Why pay $60 more for the same number of tests? was what I was trying to ask. I guess I wasn’t clear. 

Shipping is an extra $16.99 for the eMed tests, but still a significant savings overall. We went with them before our Christmas cruise. Not sure how quickly they're shipping these days, but back in early December, we received ours Monday following a Thursday order.

We didn't end up using them though. The eMed site was down for eight hours the day we planned on testing, so we went with our backup CVS appointments. Still have the tests, which expire 10/22. Hope to use them to fly back from London after our July cruise. 🤞

We bought the eMed tests, but made CVS appointments as a backup for our Christmas cruise. Good thing we did as eMed had an 8 hour outage two days before embarkation. We did get one eMed test completed before the outage, but the results were invalid. They promised a replacement test,  yet we are still waiting for it to arrive two weeks after our cruise!
 

So, we went with the CVS option. We had an issue with getting my daughter’s test results because I entered the wrong birth year when I scheduled the appointments. It took multiple phone calls the following days , but we eventually got it sorted out. There were no issues with the other three tests. The testing process for all four of us took less than 30 minutes. Results started coming in about an hour later.

CVS submitted to my insurance and the claim was rejected. Not sure yet how that will shake out, but I don’t expect it will be billed to me.

My advice would definitely be to have two options. Our remaining eMed tests are valid through October 2022, so assuming nothing changes with testing requirements (a big assumption), we will use them to return home from London after our cruise this July. 🤞

1 hour ago, Toml1234 said:

Part of establishing a brand is to obtain loyalty is it not? 

I work for a book publisher. We sell books directly to consumers at cover price. We sell books to retailers at discount prices. Per book, profit is higher selling to consumers. But retailers buy a magnitude more books than consumers and are overwhelmingly most of our income. So, guess which one we focus on?

In the end, you're still buying the Celebrity cruise.

We were on Anthem last week. There was a midnight mass, as well as an interdenominational service Christmas morning. There was a caroling event, but we didn't attend, so I don't know which types of songs were included.

It doesn't get much more traditional Christmas than O Holy Night, which was featured in the Christmas Show. This was recorded at that show and posted by the performer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2Vel-x8Q30

We were a bit surprised when all the decorations came down before we left the ship on New Years Eve.

This was our third cruise on the actual holiday, on three different lines -- Carnival Pride in 2017, Celebrity Edge in 2019 and now Anthem in 2021. They were all a good mix, at least in our opinion, of the traditional and the secular. 

I am so sorry. I hope your husband recovers quickly and that no one else gets sick.

We are testing tomorrow for boarding Anthem Friday. I am so nervous about every cough or sniffle, though we are all boostered, except my ineligible son. I’ve also thought about how we would spend the week at home if necessary. 

I created one account, then under that created three managed profiles for my spouse, adult daughter and minor son. I just had to attest that I had their permission to do so.

We won’t actually test until next Wednesday, but if I log in to eMed with my Navica account, I can select each one of us in turn. I don’t expect any issues and all of our results will be together.

Bayonne, at four hours from our home, is probably the furthest I will drive on embarkation day. In fact, we plan on leaving home by 7:00am next Friday morning for our Christmas Eve departure.

And I totally get the sharing “pain”. My kids are 15 and 18, and I would just rather not!

Looks like you may be in for a little wind tomorrow.

https://forecast.weather.gov/wwamap/wwatxtget.php?cwa=phi&wwa=gale warning

11 hours ago, globaltraveller said:

Radio - What's your opinion about dress code for dinner in the MDRs and specialty restaurants?  I have been on many cruises and if I felt like wearing shorts, or a bathing suit, flip flops and a tank top to dinner I just went to one of the buffets.  I am not on Facebook but my friend who is tells me that many will be wearing tuxes and gowns on formal nights during our Xmas cruise.

My family will be on Anthem for Christmas. You will find us wearing something like this:

I don’t have any advice, other than moving it sooner, before the new baby arrives, rather than later. 
 

But congratulations!

We refunded our 6/2020 and 12/2020 cruises because I was afraid of circumstances changing so that we couldn’t use an FCC. We did end up losing our airfare. 

Timing-wise, assuming a trade notification rather than an account statement is accepted as proof, is only a couple of days. 

The instructions say:

• Electronic copy of your Current Brokerage statement from the past 60-90 days showing proof of ownership of 100 RCL shares

which to me sounds like you must have purchased at least 60 days ago, but it also says current statement, so who knows! Can't hurt to try, right? The stock is definitely "on sale" now.

I hate admitting this, but after years of thinking about it, I decided to buy in February 2020. Yes, less than two weeks before the bottom fell out because of COVID. Sigh.

15 hours ago, Radio said:

I tried to go out there while we were approaching the pier slowly. . . The doors were locked tight.

 

Radio

Hope it was just a temporary closure. That would be a great place to enter or leave port.

I was trying to get a good look, but it was tough to see. Can you get to the starboard side, but not port, via "secret door"? Or are there just not any people out there?

3 minutes ago, RCCruiser92 said:

The RC website says port hours for Orlando on that sailing are noon-9pm.  Is that not true, are they closer to 2pm-8pm in reality?

It can vary, but can change. When I booked our Christmas cruise, we were supposed to depart Sunday @ 3:00pm and arrive at Port Canaveral Tuesday @ 1:00pm. Sometime last month,  the departure was changed to 5:00pm, and Port Canaveral arrival to 2:00pm.

56 minutes ago, RCCruiser92 said:

Are the Disney/Universal/Sea World shuttle shore excursions still available from Port Canaveral in the post-COVID world?  Looking to book for February but wanted to check on shore excursion availability first!

Not only COVID, but note that Anthem's port hours are only 2:00pm to 8:00pm (with all aboard @ 7:30). Not sure if a trip to Orlando, an hour's drive each way, is practical.

I think Celebrity excels with the pre-school to elementary age bunch. My kids have been on 20+ cruises since they were 5 and 2. They're now 18 and 15. At least half of them have been with Celebrity. My kids are somewhat on the introverted side, and the crowded kids clubs on Carnival and RCCL were just too much for them. Celebrity fit them perfectly, fun but not too overwhelming.

We were on Edge for Christmas two years ago, and both said it was their favorite cruise ever. I think that was more because we had good ports where we did fun excursions, but they loved the beautiful ship and enjoyed the shows and even playing trivia. They never visited the teen club.

On the other hand, now that they're older, they enjoy the bells and whistles on the newer Carnival and RCCL ships. We will be on Anthem of the Seas for Christmas, but that's more because I am not ready to fly yet, so we looked for something within driving distance.

One final thing, don't judge the cruisers on Celebrity based on some responses in this thread. Ten years ago, I was somewhat concerned my kids would feel unwelcome on their first Celebrity cruise -- a summer cruise to Bermuda. That has never been the case. 

To qualify as a family suite, the inside cabin passengers must be 12 or under. I know this because we tried to book with our two teens. They would be accommodated for dinner in Luminae for a $30/day fee, but no Retreat access for them at all.

Also, those insides are open to anyone for booking, so there were none available anyway when we tried.

We ended up with next door balcony cabins and were quite happy.