publicpersona

No! Don't give them any ideas! "We have some exciting changes coming to your onboard dining experience! Meals consumed in the main dining room will continue to be complimentary. For your convenience, a table delivery fee of $39 (plus 20% gratuity) will be automatically charged to your onboard account for each item ordered."

If I obtained the glass of wine at the hotel bar, of course I would. I've done it many times. A cruise ship is a closed ecosystem. There is no issue at all getting a drink in one place and consuming it in another venue where beverages are enjoyed.

Elite happy hour + not honored in MDR = I always carry a rather full glass into the dining room

If someone from Hawaii wants to check-in for OP's cruise, they could check-in September 17 at 6 PM their time. This is the most likely explanation for the discrepancy. That the time is based on the time zone of the port the cruise is sailing from is useful to know when someone wants from the U.S. is checking in for, say, a southern Mediterranean cruise. It is also true to say that you don't need to stress about this too much since recent data points for many ports suggests that no one gives a rat's tail what time your check-in says. Nevertheless, there are exceptions and changes at any time, so if you really, really, really wanted to make sure you were onboard for your concierge lunch, it would be worth checking in as close to check-in opening as possible without having to set an alarm for it. I see their point of view too.

Is it possible this is due to time zone differences? The check-in time would show as their time zone, but is based on Fort Lauderdale time for this sailing.

At least there were the binoculars. But seriously, if having to request those items (especially the ones that are only available upon request) resulted in a memorable problem with your cruise, you probably should go into your next one with lower expectations. I understand your frustration and we've had some disappointments on recent X cruises as well. One day, we were out on excursion from before 8 AM and didn't return until about 6 PM, and the morning room cleanup had not been done (and no, the DND sign wasn't out). The explanation was that our stateroom attendant was sick, and the substitute "couldn't get her key to work on the door." I don't fault either stateroom attendant, but I do fault their management who should be seeing to it that someone being out isn't an issue. And the "couldn't get the door open with their key"? Really? The crew had no way to enter the stateroom until the passengers returned? And nearly the same thing happened two days later, but morning cleanup was completed around mid-afternoon.

Really? We had the opportunity to upgrade Concierge to Aqua on a recent Equinox cruise for almost nothing, and passed on it since all the Aqua rooms under directly underneath the pool deck.

Per person. We just did it two weeks ago on Equinox. I don't know if it mattered, but I submitted bag 1 with my name, bag 2 with spouse name, and bag 3 with my name again, writing "Elite Plus" in big letters. On recent cruises on X the turnaround on the boil 'n bake laundry was bad - one was 72 hours. That was not our experience on Equinox, though. We put one bag on the bed before evening turndown service, and it was back to us around noon the next day!

What source can you cite to indicate this is correct? The selection of flights, while ignoring some good airlines, is far too broad to make sense that they have purchased blocks of seats on all of them. Also, FBC flights earn airline points while consolidator fares do not. Note that I'm not a fan of FBC. Their marketing sells more than they actually deliver, and they charge big fees for changes after final payment that can be avoided if booking directly with the airline). That said, I just used them last week.

That's the marketing influence. The marketing people think it is important to create the illusion that they've created four "curated" and unique dining experiences that you should value more than the old MDR concept. Meanwhile the staff on the ship just want to get you fed and out of there. They probably wonder what all the fuss is that 1/4 of the MDR is painted in black and white.

At 7 pm? If so, I’m so happy for you. Proves my point about YMMV.

Yet they are. The "exclusives" are part of the deceit to make you think each one is a unique galley. Nope, you are still in one huge MDR with four different decors. Pull up all the menus on the app and order whatever you please. They are all coming from the same galley.

THIS is the only answer you can trust in this thread. The Edge class dining times seem to vary ship to ship and possibly cruise to cruise. I was on Apex recently and had one "maitre d'" say they do not have fixed dining times, and another tell me that they actually do for some guests. I don't think it is possible to reserve time during the prime hours of 6 PM-8 PM in advance. The modus operandi for most is that you show up and get a pager. I understand this isn't everyone's experience, but on this one on Apex, we had to wait more than an hour more than once. YMMV. You will find out when you board.

I believe the reference to itinerary wasn't about the temperature, but the demographics and attitudes of the guests. European and exotic cruises (such as OP asked about) will be potentially more upscale on chic night with more dressing up. In contrast, with Caribbean/Bahama cruises, particularly of short duration, chic night is hardly distinguishable from other nights. You may see others in a jacket and tie, but they will be the exception. While I used to enjoy bringing my tux on cruises, that's just not happening any more for me. I bring a tie to go with a dress shirt, but last two Caribbean cruises, I didn't even bother with that. The bottom line is to dress how you want to dress* and not worry about it. If you want to dress super fancy, great. If not, that's fine too. You do you. * This is not to be construed as including wife beater t-shirts, baseball caps, etc. I used to would say shorts also, but they seem to be fairly common now at dinner (again, on Caribbean cruises).

Another IT pro here that says for all practical purposes, having an HTTPS connection is good enough for me. That said, it is subject to the man in the middle. Specifically, any entity that controls the certificates you are trusting from your device can decrypt your data. Many organizations use services like ZScaler and similar for security. These organizations load certs onto devices so that you are forced to trust the security software. The data stream is decrypted, analyzed for security, and re-encrypted so that it is not obvious to client or host. I provide this illustration as an example of why https may not keep your data encrypted between your browser and the host like you think it does.

I've been cruising Celebrity regularly for many years and I have never ever seen any attempt on any ship to manage the pool lounge chairs. All you have to do is go to the Solarium around 7-8 AM and see every chair has debris left by selfish people to reserve "their" chairs for the day. You know this is happening. And it shouldn't be that hard to correct.

I know. You had a typo in your post that puzzled me for a minute.

This had me puzzled for a minute. Neither Celebrity nor Virgin Voyages have any ocean liners in their fleets. The article is about ocean cruise lines. Very different. Our Readers’ Favorite Mega-ship Ocean Cruise Lines of 2024 (travelandleisure.com)

If you did a google search, you may have found an old policy from 2007. The current policy is here. I can say also that cruise documents generated today state the policy as 1 bottle per person of drinking age also. https://www.celebritycruises.com/faqs/all-faqs #beverage-packages

A little confusion on this is to be understood. Royal limits to 2 bottles per stateroom, regardless of people in that stateroom. Celebrity does not.

I agree with everything you said. I have both extremes in my wine cellar. My comments were geared towards the types of wine people might pick up at the grocery store on the way to the cruise. Fun fact: The "air in the neck" is called ullage.

Just got an email specific to our cruise (had names, dates, and reservation number within) urging us to reconsider not buying their travel insurance. After all, we wouldn't want to ruin our Galapagos Islands vacation because we didn't have the travel insurance they require. The punch line: It's a Mediterranean cruise.

Is the ship overnighting in some exotic port? The only time I can remember MDR being closed was overnighting (in NYC in my case). Oceanview was open. Otherwise, I'd just assume that it is Celebrity IT at work again.

If you bottles have cork closures, you can either bring a corkscrew (in checked baggage, not carry-on) or your room attendant or any barkeeper can find one for you. Personally, I've found the best solution of all is just to purchase wines with screw top closures, assuming the wine is one I would drink regardless of its closure. (Fun fact: natural cork closures are actually an inferior method compared to screw tops.)

I've sailed in IV many times and they are just OK. I'd prefer a real balcony. That's the thing that bugs me. A cabin with a floor to ceiling window isn't a bad concept. River cruises have always had them. But the one thing it absolutely is not is a balcony. Just as an aside, I'm amused when cruise lines say "The captain ..." does something or other. And when passengers go along with that charade. While the person in command of the ship certainly could order the windows closed, almost always it is done by the guy washing the windows that day, or even if done for safety, the decision is made by someone a couple steps down the chain of command from the captain.