cruisegoal100

Sorry, previous post should have shown departure from Civitavecchia on 11/4/2015 and in Livorno on 11/5/2015.

Itinerary is:

11/5 Civitavecchia, Italy

11/7 Cartagena, Spain

11/9 Agadir, Morocco

11/10 Lanzarote, Canary Islands

11/11 Tenerife, Canary Islands

11/19 Ft Lauderdale, Florida

At sea days: 11/6; 11/8 and ll/12 thru 11/18

This cruise still is not on the Celebrity website and still may not been released for travel agent general booking.

Wish the Celebrity rep would address this on this thread....

For some reason Celebrity seems to be intentionally not showing that Transatlantic. We booked it while onboard the Connie 3/17-3/22.

Marsha called Captain's Club at least 2 weeks ago and they did the same routine as you describe and said they would take care of it.

Hope you're right and they finally fix it!

We had started a thread on the roll call for the 11/4/15 sailing about 3 weeks ago.

Relax and enjoy. If you are not traveling with others then choose a large table for dining and meet interesting people who are world travelers.

We did our 1st TA in April 2010 on the Equinox and will do doing our 9th TA on April 20th, this time on the Silhouette. It is addictive and if you are comfortable meeting people you will love it!

The first TA was during the Icelandic volcano eruptions when people couldn't fly to/from Europe. We had 500 Europeans cancel at the last minute because they couldn't get to Florida. Then another 500 Europeans stranded in the US booked at the last minute to get home to Europe! It was terrific.

We've met Germans and Brits who are also snowbirds in Florida and use TAs to get back and forth. People are really friendly.

Enjoy!

Best Regards,

We did the 5 day Western Caribbean sailing on Connie on 3/17/14 and everything was great except that the soft ice cream machine was out for essentially the whole cruise.

Crew and Captain are wonderful and ship is in good shape.

We have done 6 cruises on the Connie since 2002 including the Baltics, 2 Transatlantics and last fall the Black Sea. It has been our favorite ship for quite a while and we couldn't believe that a few of the crew members even remembered us by name.

We're booked on the Connie again in 2015 for the Three Continent Transatlantic!

Best Regards,

Seven at the moment- 5 this year and 2 in 2015.

Curious to see if this alleviates on Saturday or Monday after the 123 promo ends....

We have done eight TAs on Celebrity...5 eastbound and 3 westbound. Essentially the tradeoffs are

1. 6 nights losing an hour (eastbound) while on a westbound you will gain an hour during each of 6 nights. Had 1 eastbound TA where the hour was lost in the middle of the day vice at night...we personally liked that approach but many do not

2. Eastbound TAs are usually in or around April and the seas are usually calm. You will be starting out with warmer temperatures and it will get cooler as you near Europe. Westbound TAs are usually in the late October to early December timeframe and weather should be a consideration. Seas may be calm, or there may be some rougher seas depending on the weather. During 2 of our westbound TAs we have had to change/delete ports and change course to avoid storms coming eastbound toward Europe and we've had some rougher sea days in these instances.

3. You have the opportunity to spend extra time in Europe in either case, either before or after the TA.

Hope this helps.

We are Diamond Plus on RCCL (22 cruises) and Platinum (13) cruises on Princess. While there are positive and negative aspects of both and many have already been posted here a few additional ones.

Princess

Very attentive dining staff - Pay very close attention to food allergies once you alert them.

The best pizza on any mainline cruise line

Excellent cruisetours - We have done Alaska twice and Australia and the tours/cruises were outstanding.

Very good system to correct dining room misassignments.

Like all Carnival corporation ships it's a pain in the neck to get in/out of your dining room because you can't walk directly through on that floor because the galley is in your way, therefore you must go up or down on the elevator into a very small and crowded hallway.

There are no sofas/loveseats in the cabins.

Royal Caribbean

Great variety of activities.

Good benefits from loyalty program. Once you make Diamond you will get a $225 to $350 discount on the total cost of a Balcony or higher for each cruise. Amount depends on length of cruise.

Cruise Director very visible and accessible to cruisers.

Casino is smoke-free on formal nights.

Some lounges are smoke free including Schooner Bar.

Company takes good care of repeat cruisers in terms of getting reservations, etc.

Greatest variety of ships in terms of size and activities.

Oasis and Allure are "destination ships". There are so many different shows and all can be booked online after final payment. Princess has nothing to compare in this area.

All in all RCCL gives us the best cruise experience between these lines by far.