Tom-n-Cheryl

Does anyone know if these jacked up in-room liquor prices were also accompanied by an increase to the onboard prices of wine/champagne (for example, the wine list prices in the steakhouse)? On Carnival, it's been customary for us to enjoy a bottle of Dom on the first night in the steakhouse - when they offer bottles at 50% off. Bringing down the price from something like $225 to $112.50. That is a rather good deal, particularly onboard a ship (and I'd say that does not occur at any land based restaurant ON EARTH). On our last Celebrity cruise, we forwent the first night Dom, as they have it listed for something like $325 ! I recently "discovered" the AARP Carnival gift cards where $450 gets you a $500 card... and you can buy lots of these, something like 25 a month! I just paid for the Mardi Gras sailing I booked yesterday with those, saving $250 right there! I was looking at the Carnival site and noticed that you can pre-purchase Cruise Cash Bar ahead of time. I can use the gift cards here too, so that would kick down the Dom closer to $100. A penny saved, is a penny earned so they say! For that matter, I guess I could get the regular Cruise Cash as well and essentially shave 10% off other onboard purchases (limit on both is $500). Tom

Nice itinerary - that would bite !! Tom

On a shorter cruise, I could manage dragging our 29" (packed to the gills) suitcase up the gangway onto the ship. Not so much for longer sailings!! Tom

I thought you couldn't bring anything onboard which would not fit through their (carry-on size) scanner in the terminal? I'd like the thought of lugging ours on - if only to avoid waiting for the bag to be delivered to our cabin, all the while wondering if it had been mistakenly routed to the naughty room - which has happened SEVERAL times. Edit -- OH, enjoy a MDE chicken sandwich for me ... and a Muffaletta (at Emeril's)!! Tom

A couple decades ago, when I would still reluctantly venture onto the dance floor, I got burned while dancing thanks to a careless woman out there with a lit cigarette. She was oblivious to it, oh well. I've heard of "light up the dance floor", but not light up ON the dance floor!! Glad that's a thing of the past. 🙂 Tom

I'd pick between the two solely on WHERE it sails from and WHERE it sails to. (well, with price and cabin availability factored in) ! Tom

OK ... then get ready... 😁 (and just in case some of you have the munchies) The Signature Burger is probably the best burger I've ever had - I tried it once in February, and twice this last trip. Hope you're OK looking at a RARE burger !! I've never been a fan of bacon on a burger, but this moist/fatty pork belly ain't no bacon !!!

What the market will bear, apparently. Other lines are really sticking it to people as well (they all have different approaches, but all share the same goal). Since we're just off the Reflection, I was looking at a 10 night sailing on Celebrity Edge earlier this week for February with great ports. They had two types of suites remaining - an $11k Sky Suite (lowest level suite) and a $19K Royal Suite (lowest "Top level" suite). I called their casino department (Blue Chip Club) and was given a reduced rate of $6,500 for the Sky Suite, and put it on a courtesy hold. All suites come with a premium beverage package, pre-paid tips, streaming internet (4 devices), and several hundred OBC. I decided not to pull the trigger for a couple of reasons, and saw that it was back on the market this morning, now for just over $13k. I just looked again, out of curiosity, someone already grabbed the Sky Suite... *poof* Instead, I went with a Carnival casino promo and booked an aft corner excel suite on the Mardi Gras for ~$2,500 --- which includes CHEERS! Granted, I'll need to purchase WiFi and cover my own tips, but.... WOW.... I'll be smiling as I tackle my first MDE chicken sandwich of the week following embarkation! We'll probably stay on the ship for the entire cruise, as the ports are not worth the effort, IMO ... Nassau, Grand Turk, Amber Cove. At this point, out of Florida, we mainly cruise for the ship. Tom

(I updated my post with a couple of pics... it posted too soon!)

I think you'll really like it! Things not to miss: The Porch - Dinner or lunch (lunch only on sea days) The Lawn Club Grill specialty burger menu at lunch... go for the Signature Burger !! If you go there for dinner, get the warm cookie dessert. Le Petit Chef - two menus offered during the week. Go for the one which has the ravioli !!

Yeppers

On the Reflection a couple of weeks (just off Sunday) and there were very few smokers - I don't think I ever saw more than a dozen or so at the Sunset Bar (port=smoking side), and a few around the Mast Bar. I love the Solstice class ships, and the smoke free casinos on Celebrity. Tom

Is there any OBC which is "refundable" ? Tom

Yep - I was amazed (link) ! Tom

I guess it's too late to claim that you stole the idea from me, huh? 😉 BTW, I don't mind the smell of pot smoke (in all its variants), it's cigarette smoke which really gets to me. Tom

I'd never heard of Engine Ice ! Tom

On the Reflection recently, over two weeks time, we had every night booked prior to the sailing through the shoreside concierge. We were able to get all our times, but swapped a couple of nights once onboard and had to kick one out 30 minutes from our requested time. Tom

Darn it - I guess we missed a day. Gani didn't tell me !! Tom

On our recent Reflection sailing, I took advantage of a nice Celebrity offer. Pre-cruise you can purchase slot or table play... $50 gets you $55 in chips. I purchased $500 worth, and turned that into $650 on the first night after churning through the promo chips. Tom

I'll resist the temptation to save a few $'s, if it means I lose all control ! Tom

Thread probably will be deleted, but... The same way that Carnival wants to discourage people from smuggling alcohol onboard (primarily because it impacts revenue), they want to discourage people from smuggling weed/pot/MJ/etc onboard. If people can "medicate" themselves, that cuts Carnival out of the loop. Not to mention issues associated with the fire hazard of lit smoking materials.. and lit people, lol Tom

I was pricing out a GS on the Wonder for February, and they're wanting ~$6,500pp for the week. Now, if I want to travel in Star Class, and get all the perks, I can snag a large Aqua Theater suite for a mere $17,000 pp... Thanks, but no thanks ! Tom

I want to say it's 2:30. Tom

Still formulating a strategy for our May Celebration sailing. We'll be getting a little over $7,000 in OBC (75th Milestone OBC and $2,000 casino OBC) so it's going to take some type of - table game - strategy of purchasing chips each day, playing a token amount, rinse/repeat... We'll see! What I don't want to do is have to hit the jewelry/watch store in order to use it ! ! ! Tom

(Note - all comments below were with whatever "premium" plan was offered) On the Mardi Gras (August '21) I tested the speeds twice mid-cruise. The lower was in the 25Mbps range, the higher was at 35Mbps. That's the fastest I've come across since I was getting 39Mbps on the Allure... in 2016 !! On the Liberty (a couple cruises earlier this year) I was regularly getting between 3.5-4.9Mbps -- still a good speed for most purposes, as long as it's stable. Speaking of stable (or not!) on the Reflection the last two weeks I was getting speeds as low as 50Kbps!! Generally it was ranging from 700Kbps to 2.5Mbps. Oddly, I found that if I ran it through a VPN (Hotspot Shield) I would get speeds nearly 10x faster - that's how I was getting those upper readings. I tested that again over several days, taking readings with and without the VPN under different conditions/times of day. Since everything was encrypted with the VPN, it obviously skipped right past their bandwidth throttling. See THIS article which explains what I seemed to be encountering on Celebrity. Tom