terrydtx

It's the "biggest Scam of the Year", no cost savings for us when priced out. We booked earlier this year much cheaper, when not on sale. In Texas we have deceptive advertising laws and Celebrity "sales advertising" violates them all. I love Celebrity but they keep running these scam advertising campaigns, and it makes me love them a little less.

The airlines if booked direct will not refund airfare if you cancel unless you pay extra for a refundable fare. So losing $200pp is better than losing 100% if you have to cancel. Last year we had a cruise from Barcelona on the Infinity canceled by Celebrity 3 weeks from departure. We had business class tickets through FBC and we got our refund in 7 days 100%. Celebrity took care of canceling our air, we had to do nothing.

So do we, the Luminae on Celebrity has sold us on only booking suites for the access to it. I will say Tamarind on HAL is our favorite specialty restaurant of any cruise line, with Celebrity's SUSHI on 5 a close second. Unfortunately Tamarind is not fleetwide with HAL.

Our first choice for cruising is Celebrity and their app shows menus for all restaurants months ahead of time, I can see now the daily menus for our June cruise on the Equinox. They have made occasional changes to the menus but at least we have a pretty good idea way ahead of time. I can even see room service menus and all specialty restaurants ahead of time.

Glad it finally worked for you. My biggest issue with the app, is not being able to see the daily MDR menus for the entire cruise. You can only see them for the current day. This makes deciding which days to book specialty restaurants rather difficult. BTW we are looking forward to our 30 plus days visiting your country in January 2024. We will be on a cruise for 22 days in NZ and the Great Barrier Reef and another 12 days doing a self driving land tour of Australia from Melburn to Adelaide.

Does anyone realy have a desktop anyone? Yes any PC will work.

Welcome to HAL Navigator the poorest excuse for an online app on the high seas. I suggest that you book anything pre-cruise online with a laptop through the HAL website and only use Navigator once you board.

Generally Gala nights are on sea days and not the first or last night of the cruise. You will love Tamarind IMO it is the best specialty restaurant of any cruise line. I love the Wasabi crusted tenderloin steak there.

I would trade the extra space of a GS for the SS Retreat amenities anytime. We only sleep in the cabin, so size isn't all that important, but the Retreat facilities and amenities make the huge difference. Add in the value of Luminae, the Retreat Lounge, the Premium drinks package, premium Wi-Fi, all gratuities, the very nice OBC and a SS on Celebrity is a no brainer. All Celebrity ships have Luminae for ALL suite guests, while only the Oasis and Quantum class RCL ships have the Coastal Kitchen with dinning limitations depending on the suites category you are in.

We have cruised with RCL and Celebrity at twice the price is still a better deal and experience.

We plan on trying Eden on the Apex next September at least once, other than that we most likely will stick with Luminae for diners. We tried the Lawn Club Grill on the Reflection in August and it was good but not worth the cover charge. We have never been that impressed with Tuscan or Murano to justify the extra cost. No interest in warm water lobster like they serve in Murano and the Murano rack of lamb we had last year on the Equinox was served in Luminae two days later and IMO was much better than the Murano rack.

On the Celebrity Reflection last August, no extra charge for shrimp cocktails any night or lobster when on the menu for formal night. We followed the Reflection with a HAL Oosterdam cruise and they charged $8.50 for shrimp cocktails and $30 for fillet and 5oz lobster tails in the MDR, "surf and turf" was a sirloin steak with 5 grilled small shrimp on one formal night, no included lobster tails.

August 2021 we made a 9:30am flight with time to spare. We also have TSA pre check and breezed through security. We also took an Uber to the airport and got there within 15 minutes of leaving the ship.

We had originally booked a Grand Suite on the AOS for next June from Galveston before Celebrity announced the Equinox would be sailing next Summer from FLL. We are going to take our granddaughter with us. The Sky Suite on the Equinox was $200pp less than the RCCL Grand suite, and included a Butler, Premium drinks, WiFi, all gratuities and $30O each OBC for the three of us. With all the amenities on Celebrity that were not included on RCCL the real cost was hundreds lower. We canceled the RCCL cruise and lost $400 in NRD but we are still way ahead.

We have looked at entry level suites on RCCL and they generally are more than Sky Suites on Celebrity with far fewer amenities and OBC.

I believe all bars offer beer, wine and champagne also mock cocktails with no liquor.

Good question, I want to find where to get these 'Free" cruises.

The last two i bought were from the shop on the Reflection in August. i love the brand. They are not cheap but great shirts that last forever

Interesting topic, we discovered the Retreat last year by booking a Sky Suite and absolutely loved the experience and now only book SS on Celebrity cruises. We did a NCL Haven in 2019 and thought it was too overpriced for what we got. On 3 Celebrity Retreat cruises now we never felt that way. A Sky Suite gives us everything we want in a cruise, a bigger cabin, a real butler, a private dinning venue, a private lounge with bartenders, premium drinks package, premium Wi-Fi, all gratuities and generous OBC. We are looking at doing a South American cruise in 2025 and Celebrity and Oceania have a very similar itinerary we like. When we compare pricing with a Celebrity SS, the cost would only get us a standard Veranda cabin on Oceania. The Oceania Veranda cabin has none of the Retreat benefits I mentioned above, so in reality it would be much costlier. We have did an Oceania cruise in 2018 and I will admit the food and restaurants were much better than Celebrity, but that is about the only benefit we can see, so most likely Celebrity will be our choice for this cruise.

I guess my Tommy Bahama Hawaiian shirts would also fit that category. Since I retired in 2020, I no longer own any suits or sport jackets. Evening Chic night I will usually wear one of my Tommy Bahama short sleeve button up shirts, untucked of course with long pants. All other smart casual nights it is nice, collared golf shirt and long pants.

The problem with AA is that our tickets status is shown as "On Hold" and not confirmed so AA cannot select seats, which is why FBC can't as well. I am a big loyalty member with an AA Platinum Select CC and that doesn't even matter in this case. I have run into this in the past with AA when I book flights with a cruise line with AA. I appreciate the offer to help and there are plenty of seats available, but AA has their way of doing things. I will worry about this after the first of the year as I am confident our flights will most likely change one or more times before we fly next September. Our out bound United flight to AMS changed already on last Friday when the departure time and aircraft type changed.

I use the Expert Flyer web site to see seat maps on almost any flight and I can see the seats for our flights, I was going to use this when I called FBC, but they were also unable to book seats on the AA flights. I also called AA and got told they couldn't do seats until the tickets are issued when paid. The officially show our flights as being "On Hold" status.

I just tried your suggestion, and I was able to pull up the flight but it would not let me choose seats, it said I had to contact the original carrier for seat selection.

Two weeks ago, we booked with FBC our flights for next September to Amsterdam returning from Athens. We fly from San Antonio to Houston to AMS on United and return from Athens on American with connections in Madrid and DFW. We booked business class at $1200pp less than we could direct and immediately were able to book seats on Unted website, but AA will not let us until the tickets are paid by FBC next June and then issued by AA. We didn't have much choice in booking AA as we got better connection flights to US, our other options included stops in London, Frankfort or Zurich then to US. At least in BC there are no really bad seats so we can wait until next June to choose seats. Both United and AA have great connections, United in Houston and AA in DFW so we are happy. However, flight costs are way higher than what we paid this year to fly to Italy in BC.

On the Reflection in August, we never did make it to Luminae for breakfast, we had our butler deliver breakfast to our balcony each morning. He would call our room about 5 minutes before delivery and it was hot and correct every morning, even the eggs benedick was hot, and the eggs were perfect on delivery. We ordered things not on the room service retreat menu and were accommodated.