4774Papa

Concierge is just a balcony with a different name. We never book Concierge. Celebrity's happy hour from 5-7 is not worth much when you are forced to book with drink packages that push up the cost of the cruise higher. X has backed of a bit and does allow some bookings without the pricey perks like drink packages, but the cost of cruises is still up.

Yes, snorkel vests as well as masks/breathing tubes were provided.

I always try not to gain weight on cruises. So far, it works. Here is my plan: 1) Limit alcoholic beverages to happy hour and dinner. Also, stick to wine, no umbrella drinks loaded with sugar, 2)Lunches, stick with the salad bar or light food low in carbs and of course no sugar (no ice cream). 3)Exercise, either in the fitness center for at least 30 minutes a day or do a lengthy walk around the ship on upper deck. 4) Only one dessert a day (at dinner),

I love Celebrity and we recently did the Galapagos with them. X had a 20% off sale that made such an expensive cruise a bit less expensive. Still, I always compare cruises from other cruise lines as well. With the COVID19 problem still out there, cruises have less appeal to me than they did prior to COVID19. We are looking more at land tours instead of cruises. Yes, COVID19 is still an issue for that, but perhaps a bit less so. ALso, I am finding great prices for land tours that compare more favorably to taking a cruise. Further, we have taken 21 cruises in the past 12 years (as well as four river cruises) and generally don't repeat the same cruises, expect transatlantics. Transatlantics are more an issue, since if we fly to Italy and do two weeks there, plan to cruise home to the USA, if we get COVID19 and can't cruise home, that would be a very expensive trip home via air.

We did a couple of cruises out of PE a few years ago and booked a local hotel for only one night prior to the cruise and had free parking for our entire trip. Forgot the name of the hotel.

Prices are up for a number of reasons. 1) Inflation 2) COVID19 shutdown severely affected profits for many months. 3) Celebrity's price bundling forcing many bookings with drink packages.

We have stayed in 7175 more than once, but now we just look for the cheapest balcony.

Yes, please just do it. We are flying to Kenya for a safari in August via Amsterdam and won't need a test until we try to return to the USA.

You can buy a nice photo book from snappish for about 1/3 that price.

1) Not completely sure but I believe all or almost all took the land tour as well as the cruise. We had a chance to socialize with about half of the 45 passengers and all of them did the tour as well. 2) We live in Georgia and fly Delta almost all the time. We didn't book airfare with X, but could have and still received skymiles. We still had a pickup arranged by X at the Quito airport when we arrived. We arrived in Quito in the early evening (it was dark, but not late). The one negative to flying Delta was that the return flight departed Quito at 1130 PM and was an overnight flight. I never sleep well on an airplane. 3) Scuba was not offered, doubt if you could do it on our cruise. The snorkeling was great. 4) We booked the cruise a bit late, probably could have saved $$ if we had booked earlier. Still, X had a 20% off sale, which helped a lot. Not sure we would have booked it without the sale.

I compared Celebrity with other cruises of the Galapagos as well as tours. All the cruises were expensive. We found a very affordable tour of Ecuador for several days that included three days in the Galapagos, but not on a cruise. The tour included days in the Amazon, Quito and coastal region. It was less than half the price. I am glad we did the 7 day cruise, since we got to see several islands and I believe far more wildlife than on a three day land tour. Not sure about sailing yourself to the Galapagos. We were told that the government limits the number of people that are allowed to visit the Galapagos. Another issue is arranging for all the COVID19 tests. We had two at the Marriott arranged by Celebrity and one at the Marriott before we flew back to the USA. Cost was included in the tour/cruise package.

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