SeaGams

Thanks for that information. The FCC expiration date has been extended twice so I’ll give Captain’s  Club a call and see what I need to make it happen. I see you’re from Chicago, we just moved from the Northwest suburbs to AZ almost a year ago. 

Apologies if this was previously discussed but I couldn’t find an answer. I have a FCC that I would like to transfer to another person. Is this doable, and if so what is the best way to get this done?  Thanks for any and all advice. 

10 hours ago, JEDMELK said:

Thanks for the great photos and information.

We do not sail on Reflection again until December but its always good to receive first hand information.

Please do come back and let us know how well the luggage valet program works too. To us, it sounds like a great deal, not having to hunt for bags in the terminal, find a porter to drag them through customs and to a cab.

We are (as I am sure others are) very interested.

Sorry that your trip must end but, at least you have a great welcome home greeter!

thanks again,

Jed and Melanie

We have used luggage valet many times and it is the best $$$ spent.  No searching at the cruise terminal, dragging through customs and checking at the airport.  So nice to see our luggage on the carousel at O’Hare.  Mahdnc, safe travels as you make your way back to cold and soon to be snowy Chicago.  We board Reflection in 21 days and your photos and commentary have made the wait more exciting.  Thank You.

Toni

42 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

 

We are missing the wine tasting event for Elites and above in the MDR for this

Tough decision, sweets or wine.  Could you take your dessert to the wine tasting?????

Toni

Love Luggage Valet and have used it every time it is available.  So nice to travel to O’Hare without all that baggage and see it at the carousel.  I too have the same Cruise Crtic loading issues, doesn’t recognize me initially.  Still enjoying your travelogue, makes me feel like I’m almost there.

Toni

We’re much closer to the city in Park Ridge, not far from O’Hare.  I have family near you in Mundelein. 

Chicago fans are eternally optimistic.  And even if they don’t go to the Super Bowl we will be on a wonderful 14 night cruise in the warm and sunny Caribbean, instead of cold, snowy and gloomy Chicago.  It will still be a great Super Bowl party.  What part of Chicago are you from?  We’re in the NW suburbs.

58 minutes ago, mahdnc said:

And what if the Bears make it to the Super Bowl which is in Miami on Feb 2?

We watch the game onboard and frequent the bars.  And of course wear our Bears jerseys.  May help their chances if they get a new kicker next season.

Toni

Thanks for all the wonderful photos and commentary.  We will be boarding Reflection in 31 days with another group of Harley riders, our 9th year in a row.  Looking forward to meeting another Chicagoan on our 1-31-20 Silhouette 14 night cruise.  

Toni

Just shows how we are all different. My mum and I love Alejandro - sailed with him twice and he makes the cruise so special. He and the Captain on the Constellation last summer were hilarious together!

Wendy

I have to admit I was a bit leery of Alejandro at first, but eventually I decided that he was a hilarious breath of fresh air. He has a very unique, individual casual style and I think Celebrity wants to move more in that direction. No more formal nights or CD's in a tux! I also thought both of our captains on the 2-12-16 Equinox sailing were equally competent and ran a flawless operation.

Toni

I still don't get this Captain thing, yes he/she is the most important person on a ship, to get us from port to port safely, For me surely the most important is the Cruise Director who is head of all the entertainment who can make it such a fun cruise. I was on one cruise, could have been the Eclipse, I didn't see the Captain much, he did fun announcements once a day, but the real star was the lady Cruise Director who was simply superb & reading reviews pre & post cruise she got many plaudits. Did the Captain make a difference not really.

And I'll bet her name was Sue Denning. She was the cruise director on our February 2015 Eclipse sailing and stands out in my mind as the very best we've ever had. Can't even remember the captain's name or even if he was Greek!

It really was a great cruise. I felt the staff overall was helpful, happy, and gave attention to detail. We spoke with the staff captain regarding how happy we were and he said that he feels the Equinox staff is one of the best. He also said that Celebrity is trying to get this type of service fleet wide. He said to be sure to fill out the comment cards and the survey emails to help improve things across the board.

This was our fifth February Equinox cruise and I agree they have the happiest staff. We were on Eclipse last year and although the staff and service were perfect they lacked that extra happy factor. E-mail survey already completed.

We loved everything about this cruise so much we're doing it again next February.

We were on your sailing and had Daniella one night in Select Dining. As you said she was wonderful, but so were the other servers the other nine nights. Everything was perfect!

Hi Karen, Our Elite coupon had a 20 item per bag limit as well. We each got a set of coupons so I guess you could say we had a limit of 40 items for the cruise. I don't remember if it specified if a pair of socks for example counted as one or two items. All I know it came in handy on or two week Eclipse cruise.

Toni

Tom, there was no shopping guide for Bonaire. Enjoying your photo review, thanks for my new photo album of our cruise.

Toni

Lovely photos, Tom. Thanks again for going to so much work. It's wonderful to relive the cruise through your lens and your words.

 

Larry

Correct as usual my subject. Lovely review Tom, and thank you for taking the time and effort so we can re-live our wonderful cruise vacation. I love your logo too!

Tom, Thank You for recreating all the wonderful memories from our two weeks in paradise. I look forward to seeing all your beautiful photos of the warm, sunny and sandy Caribbean as I still battle the cruise crud we all seemed to come down with. Your hard work is much appreciated by many here.

Toni

PS Love the photo of Pete!

We have 3 groups of 4 booked for dinner in Qsine on the Infinity for our upcoming Panama Canal cruise. Is there an email we can contact to get us either together as one table or at least next to each other? We would even settle for 2 groups of six. I called Celebrity direct and they said we could not sit together in a group larger than 4. Then again they also told me there was no availability for qsine that night so I really have some doubts about there answers. Thanks for any help I can get.

I have had tremendous success organizing dinners for 16 people, last year in Equinox' Silk Harvest and for our upcoming Qsine dinner aboard Eclipse. Call the Captains Club and ask for the e-mail address of the state side dining room administrator for Infinity. You will need to provide them with the names and reservation numbers for everyone in your party. Both of my experiences have been terrific, and everything turned out as expected. But having said that I would still go to Qsine upon boarding to reconfirm your arrangements and go over the seating plan. Good luck!

Thank you for the heads-up. Do you happen to remember what type of item it was? I will be sure to let my friends know that there is an extra charge on some items.

There is a menu near the Aqua Spa Cafe that lists all the available items and charge if any. In addition to the smoothies and yogurt granola I remember deviled eggs were extra.

Basically no truer thoughts about free enterprise could be written.

 

We too have made the choice not to live in the past of Celebrity, our 1st sailing was in 1994 on the Zenith, a small bucket by today's ships. No need to debate the changes as they will continue to evolve.

 

But alas, even a horse has to be re-shoed. We thought we would try and ride an old horse by sailing the Ruby Princess in 2012, all it did was reaffirm that the Celebrity product, even with the differences and changes from 1994 to now, was the product we wish to validate.

 

Now on to research 6 ports and what to do with 4 1/2 sea days:)

Our first Celebrity cruise was also on Zenith before X was purchased by RCI. We have also sailed HAL, RCI and Princess with varying results. Our conclusion is that Celebrity still is the best product in the mainstream cruise industry.

Sorry to disagree with the OP, but our last four Celebrity S class cruises were absolutely wonderful. The food in the MDR has improved light years from when we first started cruising in the mid 1990's. It was go good that we were actually underwhelmed by our four specialty restaurant dinners and will most likely not book them in the future. We are not usually buffet people, but again we were very pleasantly surprised not only by the variety but the quality of the food available at breakfast and lunch. I agree that Celebrity's entertainment is not very exciting and could probably be improved, and changed on a more frequent basis. We were on a 10 night Caribbean sailing and frankly for the price of a Concierge cabin you cannot find a comparable land based vacation on one of the more desirable islands. There are many cruise options at different price levels and if you're unhappy you should take your business elsewhere. However when Celebrity fills their ships with well over 50% Elite passengers I don't see the vast majority of loyal customers going anywhere anytime soon.

Just off Equinox yesterday, February 10th.

Captain: Michael Karatzas

Chief Engineer: Ioannis Tseronis

Staff Captain: Illias Stefanatos

Guest Relations Manager: Jann Ramos

Hotel Director: Darren Tiller

Cruise Director: Paul Baya

Food & Beverage Manager: Irina Ryazanova

Executive Chef: Michael Fernandes

Here is a list of island activities listed on our roll call....some we did and others we did not.

 

st. thomas- since we have been to st. thomas many times we initally were not going to get off the ship. a friend told us about Bones Rum for pour your own rum drinks. It was alot of fun.

 

Others did the Nightwind or Rumbaba sailing adventures. I heard they were great. Also a group of cc'ers went to the Greenhouse restaurant...which happens to be next to Bones rum :D

 

st. kitts- having been here many times before, we stayed on the ship and enjoyed our cabin and the premium drink package.

 

Others took a tour with Beulah Mills with lunch at royal palms restaurant at the Ottleys Plantation Inn.

 

Barbados- we did a 5 hour catamaran sailing with Silver Moon Catamaran. We have sailed with them before and they did not disappoint. The food was better last time but still had a great sail. They are very accomodating and provide a high quality sail and snorkel adventure.

 

Others sailed with R&R excursions...randcruisingbarbados.com and Calabaza cat sailing.

 

Dominica- again, having been here multiple times we just shopped around downtown a bit. I will say the downtown area felt safer and cleaner than our last visit 2 years ago.

 

others did a tour to Ti TOu Gorge & Trafalgar Falls and then lunched at Papillote gardens. one of our cc friends said this was a great tour...I just dont know the name of the company.

 

st. maarten- we got off the ship around 1030 am since we had some rain in the morning. We headed to Maho beach around 1115 am arriving around noon. we missed the large KLM landing but did catch a few others. word is out about this beach, the sunset bar and the dangerous landing strip as it was the most crowded we have ever seen....REALLY, REALLY crowded. trying to get a drink was nearly impossible.

 

Others went to Holland House for buckets of beer and chair rentals and picked up a few baubles at Ray jewelry store.

 

hope this helps!

 

happy sailing.

Hi Amy :) We met on this Equinox itinerary February, 2011. We have repeated the last two years and sail on her again next Friday the 31st. Thank you for posting all of the dailies. I kept mine from last year but in scanning yours it looks as though there are some changes. So happy to hear you had a great time, I know we will enjoy ours as well. All the best and happy cruising.

Cheers!

Toni

My mother's intuition (even though I'm only a cat mom lol) is that the girl is legit and she's very caring for animals. I just worry how my baby will do this long by herself. First time ever in her 14 years!

 

In may it'll be even longer! Ugh! lol

 

I did call a reference too and she had nothing but good things to say about the girl I've chosen, and she's used her for about 5 years now, with a diabetic cat, so, I guess I know as much as I can for now!

One of the head techs at my animal hospital house sits for me and only one other family. I've had her for years, with sick pets, healthy ones and some that got sick in her care. I would never trade her for the world and treat her very well.

Trust your instincts and referrals. Maybe before your travels you can have her come over and take care of your baby as a test run. That way they can both be more familiar with each other, and see if any questions arise.

Best of luck in your pursuit, it's always a delicate situation leaving any of your beloved babies in someone else's care.

Way too tight for my liking and I am a very frequent flyer for both business and pleasure. Its going to take you 15 minutes to get off the plane. Maybe longer if you are seated towards the rear. A ten minute delay in takeoff or landing and you get to do the OJ Simpson thing thru the airport and hope your bags do as well. Been on lots of flights where the plane has had to sit and wait because the aircraft at our arrival gate had not departed yet. Longest wait was over 30 minutes but most were shorter. If you are late arriving at a busy airport you could miss your landing slot and be stuck in a holding pattern until your flight can be accomodated. Had that happen more than once as well. There are just way too many variables at play for such a short connection time and I haven't even mentioned the weather. While the connection may be legal doable is another thing all together even if it is 37 minutes and not 36.

I agree that the logistics will work only in an ideal situation. We fly into SFO frequently and fog is a major issue. They only have four runways, with only two usually used for landings. Since the Asiana crash in July they will only allow one plane to land at a time if it's a foreign carrier, instead of landing two side by side.