lovescarborough

We will be disembarking in March at Port Miami from an Azamara Quest cruise and I was wondering if there will be a (hopefully) short Global Entry line at immigration. Anyone who has recently disembarked there know?

Just disembarked at POM yesterday morning. Left the ship at 9.15. No queues at immigration and they just quickly looked at our passports and we were in a taxi within half an hour of disembarking.

Personally I don't mind plain old tap water but on a Millennium cruise we just couldn't get the cold water tap to run cold. It was always very warm. Not even nice to clean your teeth with!

We did this cruise late April 2016. The weather was very mixed. Our first stop was Bergen and it rained heavily. Later stops had some sunshine but definitely not sunbathing weather ! If you do the Flam railway trip ( recommend you do this ) you will more than likely have snow at the top of the line. Hope this helps.

Don't quite understand your comment, maybe non-US customers get a better deal !

 

We choose our cruise, paid £148 deposit and they gave us $250 back ( thats £184 - better than using an ATM )

When we got home we transferred to a different TA for a lower price with the same perks.

 

If we cancelled the cruise we effectively would lose nothing as we didn't pay anything in the first place ( actual we already profited by £36 ). On top of that we are able to change our reservation to a different cruise as many times as we wish without incurring a fee. We already changed from Reflection to Silhouette without any charge last week.

 

Great deal for us Brits - hope it continues.

When our 2019 cruise became cheaper online with the same perks we weren't allowed to change without losing our deposits but we were allowed to change to a different cruise using the original deposits. I don't know if you read the small print on the linked flyer in this post but what is the early booking offer only applicable to US residents all about ? It looks as though they get extra Obc under this scheme.

We have dined in Murano's every night on one cruise. After the first evening the Restaurant Manager took away our menus and would check with us the night before for what we were in the mood for. The chef would cook off menu and surprise us.

 

If you have a special request you can also ask the Restaurant Manager at least a day in advance and they will try to make it for you. One dish we often request is Steak Dianne for 2.

I never realised they would do this. We also love to dine in speciality restaurants for most of our cruise. We like the ambiance and less rushed service, not to mention the better food. I really wish Celebrity would use two different menus on a cruise longer than 7 days to give more choice. We did a P & O cruise a few years back and that was the one plus point. Two completely different menus on a two week cruise.

We have always used Larrys limos . They are reliable and you get a fixed price quoted when you book via their website. I would be interested to know if the Uber app works on a UK phone and at what cost.

We are flying into Miami airport and sailing out of Port Everglades in March. What is the best means of transport to and from the port please.

Many thanks

com

Are you flying in from the UK and sailing the same day ?

No. Our cruise leaves on January 7th and we prepaid our gratuities along with final payment weeks ago.

Interesting! I have copied part of the email I received yesterday(hope that I am not breaking any forum rules) I live in the UK:-

"As you get ready for your upcoming cruise, we wanted to let you know that we've updated our daily gratuity rates. The new rates will be applied to all sailings from 2 January 2018 onwards. Anyone booked prior to 2 January 2018, will have until the time of their sailing to pay their gratuities at the old rate.

 

If you've prepaid your gratuities, you will not be effected by this price change.

 

If you've not yet prepaid your gratuities, you can still pay the original rates by prepaying them before 2nd January 2018. If you pay your gratuities on board, you will pay the new rates. "

I have just received another email from Celebrity headlined ' Correction, Important Information about Gratuity rates '.

The last sentence quoted here ' If you've not yet paid .... ' Has now been removed and replaced by ' If you pay your gratuities onboard you will pay the new rates'

I am confused as to why they felt the need to send out a correction but maybe I am just missing something ?

As I started this thread I would like to add my thoughts.

We always prepay our gratuities and have never even thought of withdrawing them.

We always tip extra in cash where good service warrants it.

My biggest gripe is that Celebrity allow people to withdraw gratuities with no reason to do so. Okay a bad experience might count as a reason but usually it's just the old excuse of ' I like to tip individuals '

If the gratuities were to become an included service charge then it would not be the case that the majority are subsidising the miserly minority.

I am also wondering if this increase is being passed on to the staff and not just used to swell company profits. It might only be $7 pp per week but based on full occupancy of say the Eclipse at 2850 pax for just one week that's a lot of extra $$. I can't believe Celebrity haven't notified all their booked customers & travel agents.

The increase is per cabin or per pax?

Per day per guest.

Thanks for the heads-up. I haven't received that email yet. Is there a cut-off date for prepaying the gratuities - or any time before the cruise?

The email says you have to prepay before 2nd Jan or pay the new rates onboard. I assume future bookings with pre paid gratuities included will stay the same even though not fully paid yet. No change to the 18% gratuity on drinks etc.

Just had an email from Celebrity with 'updated ' gratuity rates effective on all sailings after Jan 2nd. All daily rates are increasing by $1 a day. This doesn't affect any prepaid gratuities and of course they say you can pay up now to avoid the increase.

Ughghgh I just checked and the packages are sold out online. We've been waiting for friends to be ready to handle these and now they're sold out. So what's our strategy for onboard?

We have seen the packages on sale at embarkation. I think they only sell a limited number online. First night speciality dining is usually available at a discount as well.

Our future cruise booking made onboard , came with a drinks package and $300 onboard spend. There was also $200 onboard spend that could be used either on the current cruise or on the new booking. We chose the latter. We also paid the reduced deposit which was the equivalent of $200 ( we are UK cruisers ). A few weeks ago I saw the same cruise at a lower price with the drinks package included. As our reservation had been transferred to our TA we asked them to call Celebrity to change to the latest offer as the price difference was considerably more than the $300 OBC we would lose at it was no longer part of the offer. The answer was that we could do this but would also lose our deposits. The crazy thing was that we could change to a different cruise without losing our deposits. In the end we did that and kept the $ 200 OBC for booking onboard and paid considerably less for the cruise still including the drinks package. This isn't clearly explained by the future cruises team onboard.

We booked a table for 2 on early dining seating

 

We could still talk to our neighbours

 

Our waitress advised us of what was good each night

Offered to get us 2 of certain things , would let us order all over the menu

 

You don’t have to march in at 6-15 on the dot , people were still coming in at 6-45 with no problems

In the past we asked several times to have a table for two on traditional dining and ended up with tables for 8, 6 & 4. We now use either Blu when in Aqua or Select dining. Surely it isn't possible to accommodate all the requests for tables for two in traditional dining ?

You can't just show up at select dining. You will need to see the maitre d when you board to see if there is space for you on select dining and then you may be able to change. There should be someone around the dining room entrance to help. You could also ask to be wait listed for early dining when you book your cruise although I have no experience of doing this. Personally I wouldn't book a cruise if I had to have early seating but it really depends on how much it matters to you.

I have never heard of the drinks package being discounted onboard. We usually have it included in our booking but I would be interested to know if anyone has ever been given a discount.

I just received the email for our cruise departing Jan 7th. I looked at the supposed discounted offers but couldn't see any difference in the price of the speciality dining package that we booked months ago. When is a sale not a sale ? Obviously when it's a Celebrity sale !

We have sailed X several times but have not made use of the Persian Garden. I tried to find out exactly what ammenities are included in a day pass and what the cost is. Nothing on their website other than book onboard. Do you have to book a treatment to use it? We have a sizable OBC this time and want to put it to good use. Will will be sailing on the Infinity.

Persian Gardens on M class isn't worth buying a pass for. The room is dark, no windows, no view, and hard wooden bench type seating. I recall a sauna or steam room and showers and that is all. In my opinion best to spend OBC on something else such as speciality restaurants, drinks package, excursions or shop purchases.

We will be looking for flights for our Jan 2019 cruise from Fort Lauderdale in the next few months and could really use some advice. We have always used flights from UK into Miami airport but now we have regular non stop flights into Fort Lauderdale available to us but we know nothing about the airport. Immigration at Miami is always a nightmare. Is Fort Lauderdale better ? Is it any better for facilities eg. food pre flight, which is virtually non existent after security at Miami ? Flight prices are very similar and obviously without the cost of the transfer from Miami. Any help would be much appreciated! Thank you

I'm sure it will be okay. When you go to your allotted meeting place you will be given a sticker with the number of your tour coach. Tickets are usually collected as you board the bus. I've never seen anyone checking names.

First Celebrity cruise for us. We're thinking of booking the 3 night speciality dining package. Is it like RCI where one of the nights has to be the 1st night or can we book not do the 1st night and have any night we want?

You can book any number of nights on the Celebrity website which will then require you to book either for first or second night but not which restaurant. When you board go to the desk selling packages, which will be close to the boarding area, then you can change the selected restaurant if you want and book the others. There are often discounts up to 50% for the first night so you could probably get this as an extra one. I don't know how long your cruise is but the price for four nights was a better discount than for three last time we booked. Don't forget you can use whichever restaurant you want unlike the old packages where you had to use all three on a three night package. Some are better than others !

We booked onboard a few months back for a Caribbean cruise in Jan 2019. A couple of weeks ago I was browsing Celebrity's website and saw the price had dropped quite a bit and they were still offering the drinks package. The only other difference was that we got extra OBC of $300. As our booking had been transferred to our TA I called them and they called Celebrity. Apparently if we wanted to change our booking to the new price we would lose the extra OBC, fair enough, but also our deposits and the $200 OBC we got for booking onboard but chose to take on this cruise. We then found out that if we changed to another cruise we could keep the $200 and our deposits would be transferred. We took this option and in the end saved £800. We found the whole thing quite a farce. What possible difference does it make to Celebrity whether we stay with one cruise or move to another ? We are loyal customers, almost Elite plus now, but it does make me wonder whether booking onboard is worth it.