hobbsie65

I would not be surprised if they had to reschedule the refurbishment. There is no way they could get the proposed changes done in the time they have reserved in April. I would guess that is also why they have not posted the October 2017 and beyond schedule. There are supposed to be some cabin changes during the refurbishment so that needs to be ironed out before they can go on sale.

Does anyone know if it will still be offering the South America cruise in 2018? The 7 night cruise is great as can combine with a 7 night land trip as well.

On a Princess or RCCL cruise, they had an offer where you could have a bag of laundry done at a reduced rate.

 

Do Celebrity do anything like this?

Interested to hear what is offered. :)

I think it was $45 a bag a few days before the end of the cruise while we were in Australia - quite a challenge to cram as much as possible in a paper bag that rips easily :)

Took me a minute to catch on :confused: - but that's a sign of approaching 64 ... The Isle of Wight, where Birmingham and Black Country folk go to retire and die! Time for the tin hat :D

They used to - now it is France & Spain where they retire & die although if they could sell there houses I am sure they would love to live here :):) (This comes from someone who has lived abroad for most of the last 30 years)

Dorset Tours offer full day tours from Southampton to the Isle of Wight, but the regularly scheduled tour does not fit my schedule. They also have 16 seater mini buses which are available on other days. Would anyone be interested in a tour on May 23, 2016?

Hi - I live on the IOW & you can also do this yourself. From Southampton you can get to the island by fast catermeran (20 mins) or the car ferry (1 hour) which runs frequently - you can book/view the time tables at IOW Ferries. There is a decent bus service which also has an open top bus around the island in the summer which is fun Island Breezer

Well have my answer. We were told on board that it was fully refundable if cancelled before final payment. We would not have booked otherwise. Obviously the Reps do not know Australian rules and were quoting US rules. We are now being told by Celebrity Australia that we will loose our deposit and cannot get any credit. Not really fair I think when we were given the wrong information.

Did you take the OBC on the cruise you were on when you booked or the one you want to cnx? I also booked another cruise on our Australia cruise but as I took the OBC on that cruise the deposit (same amount as the OBC I was given) will be non-refundable. People would be booking cruises, spending the OBC perk & then cnx the cruise so it makes sense.

For any UK cruiser who booked their cruise in US$ a while ago and reach final payment date soon [and have not fixed their exchange rate in any way] the OBC issue will fade into nothing. The exchange rate has worsened so much over the last five months and the pound is at a five+ year low.

Totally agree - I have booked my next 2 cruises with UK TA again as I can not see the $ getting any weaker against the £ for a while

planning to book NZ cruise (2017). Tempted to book port side (level 9), since it's facing land side for most of the itinerary. BUT, also don't want to be disappointed by the smell of smoke on the balcony (no offense to smokers). Should I be concerned?

We were in 6155 & never smelt a thing - mind you it was a little cold on the balcony so never spent ages there on the NZ cruise last November

I just had a 2C on the Solstice & loved it - #6155 & the best location.

Any chart anywhere about this?

 

Thanks!

Future Cruise Link

The best advice is to treat each and every sailing individually. For example, right now there is a 2016 cruise I booked two days ago. An S2 cabin, using todays exchange rate via xe.com of £1 =$1.522 results in the following price differences :-

 

Celebrity UK including port charges, taxes and gratuities ($197.40) $4257.57 per person.

 

US TA including port charges, taxes, gratuities, unlimited internet, premium beverage package and $600 OBC ($300 Celebrity, $175 standard TA, $125 previous customer from TA) $2980.38.

 

So $1277.19 cheaper with an additional $1427.40 value in perks per person if you were to buy them individually. This is an exception with specific reasons as to the cost differences mind.

 

Another unusual factor at play here is that if you were to compare this S2 deal to an AQ1 cabin price by adding the cost of unlimited internet, balcony gratuities and upgrade from classic to premium beverage package, and additional £125 OBC, so total cost of cruise minus OBC. The cost of the cabins work out at the following :-

 

A1 = $227.17 pppn.

S2 = $223.37 pppn

 

The S2 having access to Luminae, MC, Butler, larger room, two complimentary dinners in specialty restaurants and a few fluff type perks. Strange eh? :)

 

On the flipside, our next years Baltic cruise was booked through Celebrity UK when they had the buy one, get the second half price offer running. I emailed US TA's at that time but they could not get anywhere near the UK deal.

 

So in short, treat every sailing individually. Ignore anyone who makes sweeping statements such as booking in the US is always cheaper etc. Though do understand the differences in booking procedures in regards to cancellations etc. In the UK if you cancel you will lose your deposit. In the US your deposit will be refunded up until around 60 to 75 days depending on the length of your sailing. Check with your individual agent though.

Totally agree & I think they are doing the go big go better promo in the States at the moment.

Hi. I'm on eclipse at present having a wonderful time. All is great. I asked about booking 2017 on eclipse and the offers are not good at present. No low discount and nothing extra free on the new booking, just up to $250 onboard credit. I'm assume the free drinks package will return in the future? Such a shame tough as I always try to book onboard to get the free classic drinks package.

Greeting to my neighbour on the beautiful IOW :) We just came back from a wonderful cruise in Australia on the Solstice & booked another cruise in Jan 2017 for Asia. We booked an outside cabin & got $175 onboard credit plus the drinks package. It was only $75 deposit each & I transferred to my travel agent who gave me another discount. This was only a few weeks ago.

I think I may know what is happening here as over the period the OP is talking about I was pricing for a Europe cruise in October 2016.

 

When I started looking I could see the prices that included the perks (2 in the case of a Europe cruise). However if I opted not to take the perks then the price was discounted - the amount of the discount varied by cabin type, but the discounts were in the range the OP is talking about (ie $300-$500 per cabin).

 

Initially I was checking on a TA site, but found that X were offering the same fares on their site provided you elected not to take the Go Big/Better perks. So these lower fares appear to be standard X fares and are not group fares.

 

So if the OP booked one of these lower no perks fares then of course you can't subsequently get them.

 

I am wondering if X are trying to address the needs of people who want a lower fare with no perks.

We just came back from a fab cruise on the Solstice & had the same options - it was $950 less for both of us with no perks. Our bar bill was $450 so it was a $450 saving for us to book that way without the drink package perk.

We have a tour schedule in Nice with another group.

 

We tender in at 9:00am and the tour is scheduled for 9:30am.

 

This is the problem:

 

The other group is an "Elite" status and can tender off the ship first. We are not and will have to wait. It's a pecking order.

 

There is no way we can make the 9:30am tour.

 

I called Celebrity and they suggested that I speak with Guest Relations when we board and see if they will allow us to tender with our group that is "Elite".

There is no guarantee they will accommodate our request.

 

Has anyone tried to work with Guest Relations on a tendering request?

 

The other Elite group is not willing to wait until 10:00am for us and delay the tour even though it is only a half hour.

I would book another tour as it sounds like they would not be the kind of people I would want to be with if they cant wait just another 30 mins

we are not booking any cruises to Europe or the Med . Reason is simple I believe that cruise prices must drop & drop substantially because they will not be filled . Reason for what I just said are the terrorist attacks that already happened & what could come in the future .Additionally there are many hundreds of thousands of misplaced refugees & perhaps more to come in 2016 running away from the terrorists towards Europe for safety

 

Also because of my reasoning I believe that the cruise lines will reposition more cruises away from Europe until these issues are resolved ;). We here on the West coast of the USA feel we will see more itineraries pegged towards Pacific ocean ports in 2016 .;)

Is this some sort of joke? Where is San Bernardino? How many South Americans are running towards California for a better life?

Wish they would have adult only flights as well :)

It would be interesting to see a statistic which compares deaths by terrorism and gun crime in Europe and the US in the last 20 years. I suspect that comparison might just see an exodus from the US if that was your only criteria.

If you are worried about the current situation in Paris ( note that that is the only location where there actually is an issue at the moment beyond actual war zones in the Far East of the continent and no one would suggest going there) then obviously do not travel as you may not enjoy yourself. There are however no real grounds to feel fully safe in any urban setting anywhere in the world and the focus of fear will continue to move around the world with each terrorist or murderous act. Let's face it every time you set foot out of your door you roll the dice however the odds are massively stacked in your favour.

I posted yesterday with the gun crime stats for 2015 from the US which was removed for some reason but it makes some scary reading with 9,956 people killed in gun incidents up until the beginning of October so that figure would already be higher as the stats are almost 2 months old.

Double that for us as there's four of us! (Assuming we can get three in the back seat of a taxi!)

 

May I ask which taxi company you booked with please?

 

 

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www.abcshuttle.co.nz

One thing to take into consideration is that ships tours will take precedence over private tours for getting off the ship. Tenders wont become available until most of the ships tours are on there way.

The ships tour price seems reasonable compared to other destinations. NZ$100 = A$94 a saving of just $36 fir one person but probably considerably more for 2 taking in the taxi cost saving.

 

You need to weigh up the time factor with a late tender v ship tour.

It will be NZ$120 for 2 people so apx AUS$112 - less than half the price of the ships tour. We have just arranged the taxi a couple hours after we dock to give ourselves plenty of time.

I think it would be the Kawiti Glow Worm Caves - we have booked a taxi from Paihia to see them on our cruise next month - taxi was NZ$80 & it is NZ$20 each admission.

and that's just where gel should remain, in a budget hotel, true sophistication is a luxury bar of good quality soap.

:) :)

Even most budget hotels provide shower gel - modern luxury at its finest :):):)

Have been watching fares to Amsterdam for 3 months now and am considering canceling the cruise before final payment because can't seem to find a flight that isn't over half the price of the cruise!! Do fares EVER drop? Our trip is in May. Have researched flying from other cities and staying overnight but still can't find a "deal". How far in advance should I have started looking for a flight that is now 7 months away??

You are lucky - our cruise next month is cheaper than the flight :)

I did the Australia/New Zealand cruise on the Solstice in 2013. If memory serves correctly, the only tender port in NZ was Akaroa and like with any other tender port, you will need tickets. Otherwise you will dock normally and no tickets are needed. No visas are needed for NZ.

Thanks Paula - that is what I thought so thanks for clarifying.

Hi,

We are arranging some private tours on our next cruise & a few of the passengers have mentioned getting tickets to get off in port. I know this is the case when we tender but I have never done this when I have docked. Please could someone verify this for us? We are cruising New Zealand.

Many thanks

I also spent ages deciding if we wanted to do this tour on our cruise in November. We only have 2 days when we disembark or we would have flown down after the cruise for a couple days which worked our considerably cheaper than the ships tour. At the end of the day we decided not to do it due to the 'full on' schedule & missing 2 days of our cruise plus the Taieri train in Dunedin which we wanted to do. We also booked a 10 day RCCL cruise from Venice next June for not much more than this tour so that kind of swung it for us. Hopefully we will return one day to enjoy NZ by land.