terrydtx

I was asking the OP about what it is like now, there are several posts on other threads from CC members on Celebrity ships now or very recently that were complaining about the lack of wines available on board for the Premium drink package by the glass. We are wine drinkers and I would be concerned if there was a true shortage of premium wines by the glass. On our last Celebrity cruise last August we had a nice large selection of premium wines by the glass in Luminae and the specialty restaurants.

We do not care what ship we are on, we will still book the Retreat for all the other amenities we get.

Since you boarded in Civi and are in the Retreat, was there a Suites only check in line and a VIP lounge to wait for boarding like in Ft Lauderdale? Thank you again. Terry

The only reasons I book with FBC or HAL Flight Ease is when I can save on business class seats which in some cases is substantial over booking direct with the airline. On our flights to Rome and returning from Venice for August we saved $1500pp for BC flights over what we could do direct with the airlines. It can be more stressful dealing with the cruise line, but when I can save that much I can handle a lot of stress. We booked our August air last fall and we are paying less for business than what Premium Economy costs today on the same flights.

Maybe this will change once FBC pays for the flights and they are actually ticketed. Once ticketed you own them and should be able to make changes. This happened to us last year when after final payment for our Infinity cruise from Barcelona and FBC had ticketed the flights we were finally able to get seats assigned from AA. The flight we couldn't get seats prior to FP, was the segment home from Madrid to DFW which was shown as Iberian Airlines operated by AA. Then two weeks later the cruise was canceled anyway by Celebrity. Once they were paid and ticketed the AA online site allowed us to get seats. Good Luck flying today is just so stressful.

Following, we will be on the August 5th sailing and are super excited to be back sailing in the Retreat. Since you are in the Retreat, there have been discussions on other threads that some Celebrity ships do not have much of a selection of the Premium drinks package wines by the glass due to supply chain issues. If you are a wine drinker, I would appreciate your observation on this in Luminae. One of our favorite PDP wines is Cherry Tart Cherry Pie Pino Noir.

It was ala cart last year on the Equinox and we found the food to be excellent, my DW who won't eat sushi enjoyed the pot stickers and ramen bowl. $35pp will provide a nice full meal.

The website Cruisedeckplans.com which is fairly accurate has a note that the Connie is scheduled for a dry-docking Oct 1, 2023. It doesn't say what refurbishments if any will be done.

Last year we had the same problem with AA going to FLL on flights booked by FBC. I called FBC after we booked online and they were able to request our seats with AA no problems. All other US airlines like Delta, Alaska Air and United, we have booked through either Celebrity or HAL flights we have been able to go into their websites and book seats using our loyalty accounts and Confirmation numbers as soon as we booked them.

That makes it very difficult to choose what nights to pass on the MDR and book a specialty restaurant.

We had the same issue with ITA flight operated by Delta, ITA is like British Airways, you cannot get seat until 24 hours before when you check in even though it is a Delta flight. I called both Delta and ITA to get seats with no luck, both told me nothing could be booked until the flights were actually ticketed by FBC. We were even flying business class, fortunately our flights got changed to direct flights by Delta to Atlanta from Venice by Delta and the ITA flight numbers went away. This is all for our August Reflection cruise.

Good to know, we arrive in Venice by train from Florence 3 days before our Oosterdam cruise.

We knew this from past flights and posts here. So many airports in Europe have been a mess all this season, another reason we didn't want to connect there and only book direct flights back to the US. Our first cruise in the Med we flew home from Barcelona the day we got off the ship. there were hundreds of passengers from our cruise all checking in at the same time and it took us over 2 hours to check in, that was 15 years ago. We learned our lesson back then.

It has all been very confusing by HAL. For our Aug 21 cruise when HAL first announced they would provide shuttles the pick up times were 11:00 and 1:00 at both locations, we had no intensions of taking a shuttle with 40 strangers so we opted out and booked our private transport. I guess if any changes on times were made we may not have been notified since we opted out.

We are doing the same a mini van 4 the four of us $433 total from Venice city to the port. We will be at the ship by 11:00 the time the first X shuttles are scheduled to leave Venice. We hope to avoid the crowds and be onboard for lunch by noon.

We get off the Oosterdam on Sept 4th, however we are not returning to Trieste, we come back to Maghera port in Venice, but we decided when we booked our air to fly home the day after on the 5th at 11:20am. We want to avoid the long cruise passengers lines.

We fly on United one stop through Dulles to Rome and home from Venice one stop through Atlanta.

We will be in Italy and Greece for 34 days that includes 24 cruise days and 9 land days, our biggest worry was the possibility of missing our flights home. We have a fantastic business class airfare less than $2400pp so having to make last minute flight home changes could have been a huge added cost. We fly to Rome and return home from Venice. If we have to miss one of our cruises for testing positive we could quarantine on land, enjoy Italy and get our money back from the cruise line, but still fly home on time. That is a way less stressful scenario.

We will too, we wasted the last 2 years of our prime travel retirement time, and no more!! At least we do not have the anxiety and stress of possibly not being able to fly home.

From about day 10 forward on those TA's the lettuce and other fresh veggies and fruits start getting a little wilty.

I bet you didn't complain either, LOL On the Equinox last year some of the premium wines were not available but the Luminae sommelier brought us some marvelous wines not listed as being by the glass and poured our glasses and left the bottle for us to finish, she told us she was including the whole bottle in our premium package. On our 10 night cruise this happened about 3 times. I never complained either.

Same thing happened to us on our one and last RCL cruise. Carnival, NCL and Royal are for families with young kids whose parents think the ship is a babysitter and it's OK to let them run amuck unsupervised for 7 days.

Since the Rotterdam is the supposed to be the latest and greatest ship in HAL's fleet and if one's opinion that the food was not great on board, I think it is fare to say HAL's MDR food has gone downhill. Even if that is the only HAL cruise one has been on since COVID. Or are you saying one must cruise on every HAL ship before they can justify making a statement about the food quality going downhill? You are correct my TA will not steer me to a cuisse line she thinks I will not like, that is why she has been my TA for over 15 years. We did a Haven Cruise on the NCL's Breakaway pre Covid, against her suggestion, and for us it was one and done with NCL. I do not need to sail in the Haven on every NCL ship to say the food and service was terrible, but I know we will never do it again.

Luminae promotes the Moroccan Chicken as one of his restaurant's signature dishes, it was bad enough that I would not eat in his restaurant if given the opportunity. The night I ordered it on the Equinox, our waiter told me that he had many complaints that night about the entree. I am sure Boulud would not be happy at all with how Celebrity is cooking his recipes.

My sister and BIL returned from an NCL Hawaii cruise on June 6th. My Bil tested positive the day they got home on the 6th, they got off the ship on the 5th and took the redeye home that night. My BIL started getting symptoms on the overnight flight to Chicago from Honolulu so no doubt he got Covid on the cruise ship. Our 11year old Niece also came home from the cruise with Covid but out of their group of 9 family members on the cruise they were the only ones with the virus, so far. My sister has been negative the whole time as well. All of the adults were vaccinated and boosted and the children were all vaccinated but not boosted and all tested negative to board the ship on May 29th.