terrydtx

We sailed on the Equinox in a Sky Suite in August 2021 and on the Reflection in a SS August 2022. We loved both ships but if cruising in a suite we would prefer the Equinox as the suites received the Revolution upgrade as did the Retreat Lounge and Luminae. The Reflection has not been Revolutionized and she looked a little dated. The Reflection has a Lawn Club Grill which we enjoyed while the Equinox has a glass blowing venue where the Reflection LCG is located, which for us is a waste of space. We would not hesitate to book the Reflection or Equinox again if the itinerary is right. We are booked on the Equinox next June from FLL, because she is the only X ship sailing the summer from FLL and we are introducing our 12-year-old granddaughter to the "Suite" life of cruising. After this cruise we most likely will only book Edge Class ships because of the fully enhanced Retreat facilities, we are booked on the Apex in September and the Edge B2B in January 2024.

We used them in Venice in August to get us to Trieste from Venice. They were excellent and as good as Rome Limos who we also have used.

On our two Sky Suite cruises post covid our butlers kept our mini fridge stocked up with our choices of wine, beer, Evain bottled water and mini bottles of liquor all at no extra charge. In both cases we were told by the butler this was included with the Premium Drinks package in a suite. There seems to be some who dispute this, but it was our experience on the Equinox Aug 2021 and Reflection August this year.

We like the Cherry Tart Pinot, and it is on the Premium list by the glass. I buy it here in Texas when we can find it for about $15 a bottle. I remember Kendal Jackson being premium as well and our butlers have supplied bottles of it in our cabin as part of the PDP. For us the biggest difference between classic and premium is the quality and choice of wines and it's worth the upgrade. With Premium we have found no reason to buy any wine by the bottle anymore. We are also now only booking suites with Celebrity and the Premium dinks package is included in the suite's amenities. I also enjoy a Mccallen 12 year old scotch before dinner and at $15 a shot it is included in the PDP, or it was on the Reflection in August.

We like being further forward on Deck 10 on the Port side of the ship. No MC to deal with and easy walk up to deck 12 for Luminae and Retreat lounge on deck 14.

Not what I expect in the MDR when we cruise, this sounds more like a Denny's. In 2018 we did a 14-day Perillo tour of Italy and one of the included dinners in Sicily was roast turkey or fried chicken, I was not happy about that being our choices in Italy either.

I believe it is 12 and under, but they have to order from the children's menu. We had our 11 year old grandson with us in the Retreat in 2019 and he eats more than I do. He is a very adventurous eater and likes to try different things so the children's menu was not to his liking and we had to pay full price so that he could order off the main menu.

We have friends who have cruised in the MSC Yacht Club and confirmed it was very close to the retreat product but that the food quality was not even close to Luminae and was more like standard MDR food.

My wife spent the last 5 days of our Oosterdam cruise from Venice in Covid isolation after she tested positive on August 30th. I was negative until the day we disembarked in Venice. We both spent 4 days in isolation in a crappy hotel in Maghera Venice. Guest services lied or mislead us on everything we could expect with isolation and expenses including prepaid hotel in Maghera with a $100 per diem for meals paid directly to us. The hotel was not prepaid, we had to pay for our rooms with a CC and cover all meals. Since September 4th when we got off the ship not one word or correspondence from HAL. We do not care about any FCC for the 5 missed days as we probably will not book another HAL cruise before it would expire. Fortunately, we had travel insurance through my TA's company, and we received a very generous cash settlement for all of our expenses, which we applied to our Celebrity cruises in 2023. This experience with HAL has left a very bad taste with us and I doubt if we ever will cruise with HAL again. We sailed exclusively for the last 10 years with HAL and made 3 star mariners. We now have 4 future cruises booked with Celebrity.

Club class sounds more like the HAL Club Orange in their Neptune suites which is a total joke. We much prefer the Sky Suites on Celebrity with all the Retreat amenities, facilities plus a butler. Price is not really a consideration for us when comparing other cruise lines, we want better service, better cuisine with a private dinning venue and to be pampered when in a suite.

I know, I retired in April 2020 and because of our saving and investing while working we have been able to book suites (Sky Suites) and travel in first class hotels and air fare. We now have time to take much longer trips, 37 days in Italy in Greece this year, 28 days next year and another 30+ days in 2024 in the land down under. We want to enjoy our prime retirement travel years while we can and make sure we have nothing to leave our kids, LOL It is nice to travel any time of the year now.

We did a suite on the Reflection in August, and I agree the Luminae was excellent. We also had $1000 in OBC, part was used for a couple of small group ship excursions and the rest was used in the ship's stores, I bought 3 Tommy Bahama shirts that I love. We left with no unspent OBC. This was our 4th trip to Italy, and Europe, we have never had a problem with language and getting around on our own. We even took the train after our Reflection cruise from Rome to Florence and then to Venice for our second cruise. We spent 3 days in Florence and 3 days in Venice with no problems of being on our own. I do not see any ports you would have problems with. BTW I must warn you, once you cruise in a suite you will find it very hard to cruise in anything less in the future, this happened to us.

I agree, for example on our Reflection cruise in August we booked a private mini-van tour for 6 hours of the Amalfi coast for $125pp for just the 4 of us. Celebrity had a similar tour for a small group (Max of 12) that was essentially the same at $225pp cost. We saved $400 by booking a private tour. We also got to set our personal itinerary and times to stop for lunch on the tour.

FBC is Flights by Celebrity, their airfare booking program. BC is Business class which is the old first class on overseas flights. Most BC seats are now lay flat seats with many nice amenities. There is also a newer flying class, Premium Economy (PE) which is closer to the old business class seating on the 1990's and early 2000's, with wider seats with more recline (not lay flat), free premium drinks, priority boarding and better meals than coach. As a rule of thumb PE is about twice the cost of coach and BC is twice the cost of PE. PE is not available on all airlines or airplane configurations.

We were at Black's in November and a BBQ plate with Brisket and sausage combo was $29.99 a plate, which is where my comment came from. This use to be under $20 a plate before the meat inflation. BTW Black's is a Texas institution and on the best BBQ in Texas lists.

We have no problems using Wi-Fi calling with premium Wi-Fi onboard. Make sure you cell phone is set to Wi-Fi calling and you should have no problems. You might also let your father-in-law know your husband could miss a day calling him, just in case.

We book with FBC early and knowing we can cancel or make changes anytime for no penalty until final payment 90 days out from the cruise. Flying overseas we book business class and by booking a decent fare with FBC we know that we will not pay any more than that fare. We then have plenty of time to look at BC consolidators for better fares as we get closer to departure. FBC is our fail safe back up in case we can't find better deals on our own. We did this for our flights this year to Rome and home from Venice and the BC fare we booked on FBC ended up being $1200pp less than we ever found on our own or with consolidators. I have also found FBC to be better for flights that are multiple cities and or airlines. We booked BC on United to Rome and home from Venice on Delta for our cruise in August this year. We have booked our air for our Apex cruise in September with FBC and so far, it is a lot less than we have found on our own or with a consolidator. We booked the FBC fare in November, but it is $2000pp more than we paid for our trip in August 2022. Air costs have escalated tremendously for 2023 over 2022 and I expect 2024 to be even worse.

If you enjoy eating out at home for a max $35 for 2, you must be dinning at Denny's or IHOP type restaurants and should stay in the MDR. We book suites on Celebrity and love the food in Luminae so we seldom dine at more than one specialty restaurant per cruise. On the Reflection in August, we only did one specialty restaurant, the Lawn Club Grill and had excellent steaks, but it was not worth the $55pp upcharge. We live in a vacation destination city, San Antonio, and we can't even get a good BBQ meal for 2 for under $35 anymore. $55pp will get us steaks at excellent prime quality steak houses, however, so the LCG was a waste of money.

Our August 21 departure this year on the Oosterdam was from Trieste and returned to Maghera on Sept 4th. We enjoyed 3 days pre cruise in Venice and took a private car to Trieste. The 3 days pre-cruise was so crowded in Venice, and I hate to think how much worse it would have been with cruise ships docking in Venice. In Maghera passengers were bused to the old terminal on Venice Island to get luggage and go through the disembarkation process.

I agree and that has been our experience the past two years in SS. If any butler is refusing to do this, then they may need retraining. If my butler refused to do this for us, I would hesitate to leave any extra gratuities for him or her.

We have been in Sky Suites on three different ships post Covid and the drinks in our suite experience I described above has been consistent on all three ships and cruises. I do not see any gray area about this.

This was our experience on the Reflection in August. Our Butler was awesome and continually offered to bring drinks to our Sky Suite during the afternoons. Early on he stopped us in the hallway bringing drinks from a bar to our cabin and said next time to call him and he would bring them to us. The day of embarkation our mini fridge was empty, and our butler asked how we wanted it stocked. We told him premium water and red and white wine. He kept us well stocked with Evian bottled water and 1/2 bottles of red and white wine all at no extra charge. He also left us several packaged snacks with the mini fridge every day. The butler said the mini bar was included with our suite's premium drink package.

Our butlers in our Sky Suites have always been able to bring drinks to our cabin. We just call the Butler, and he or she has our drinks in about 10 minutes. They also bring Bloody Marys with our room service breakfasts.

If we book Oceania it would be ONLY on one of their 4 newer ships, not the old Renaissance ships. Azamara has nothing but the old ships from the 1990's.

I think we are going to give Oceania a serious look for future cruises. We did an Azamara cruise in 2017 and it was one of the worst experiences on any cruise, old, tired ships with pea sized cabins they call suites. I looked at pricing for our 2024 Edge Sky Suite from Sydney and our 12-day cruise with this "sale" is $4000 total more than when we booked in February with no sale. No way I would pay what they want for this cruise now. BTW the price we booked at in February is about the same for a Veranda cabin on Oceania for a similar NZ itinerary. If I was booking now, we would be on the Oceania cruise. We are looking at a cruise of South America in January 2025 and Celebrity is outrageous, the same cruise in 2024 on Oceania is less expensive, they have not released their 2025 cruises of SA yet, but when they do we will be looking at them.