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Bill-n-Bob
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Posts posted by Bill-n-Bob
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Ship: Celebrity Apex
Length of Cruise: 7 days (Key West, Belize and Grand Cayman out of Fort Lauderdale)
Cruise Sail Date: January 20th, 2024 (January 20-27)
Date email offer received: No email. Found on the MoveUp website on 10/25/2023 (87 before cruise)
Captain’s Club Tier: Elite Plus
Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: Booked w Celebrity then transferred to TA
Current Cabin: Magic Carpet Suite (MS) (paid $2,916.49pp before taxes/fees)
Bid? Yes/No: No
We initially bid but decided we like our carefully selected Magic Carpet Suite and will save funds for bids on other cruises.
General Comments (offer details, etc.):
Min Bids /Max Bids (Current availability)
Iconic Suite: $140min/$700max (2 avail)
later adjusted to $5,000min/$25,000max
Penthouse Suite: $100min/$500max (1 avail)
later adjusted to $3,000min/$15,000max
Edge Villa: $2,150min/$10,750max (1 avail)
later adjusted to $2,000min/$10,000max
Royal Suite: $1,700min/$8,500max (0 avail)
later adjusted to $1,500min/$7,500max
Celebrity Suite: $1,000min/$5,000max (0 avail)
later adjusted to $400min/$2,000max
Aqua Class Sky Suite: $500min/$2,500max (1 avail)
Sunset Sky Suite: $475min/$2,375max (0 avail)
later adjusted to $300/$1,500maxIf you did not get an email announcing the MoveUp bids check the MoveUp website. Also, If the last name of the people in the cabin is different check using first one and then the other last name.
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The site I use to check my bids is: https://www.celebritycruises.com/bid-on-cruise-room-upgrade
All you need is your booking number and your last name. If your booking has two last names, try the other last name if the first one does not work. What I do not like about this access is that no password is required so anyone that has my booking number can see, change or cancel my bids. I have seen booking numbers posted in Cruise Critic and Facebook threads.
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On 8/21/2023 at 5:53 PM, Suite Susie said:
I’m getting the same message. Wondering if we are not eligible to bid for some reason.
The most common reason why someone cannot bid while others can is you booked through or transferred your booking to a company that does not participate in MoveUp. For example, Costco and other large box stores do not participate in the MoveUp program:
That is exactly why I no longer book Celebrity cruises through Costco.
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- Ship: Beyond
- Length of Cruise: 7 Nights Eastern Caribbean
- Cruise Sail Date: Dec 11, 2022
- Date email offer received: N/A
- Captain’s Club Tier: Elite
- Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: Celebrity Website
- Current Cabin: Infinite Veranda (E3) (Price paid $1,309.45pp)
- Bid? Yes/No: No
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General Comments (offer details, etc.)
Minimum Bid Information
Concierge Stateroom w Infinite Veranda - minimum bid $150pp (Full price $1,731pp)
AquaClass Stateroom w Infinite Veranda - minimum bid $150pp (Full price $2,437pp)
Sky Suite - Minimum bid $2,000pp (Full price $5,735pp)
AquaClass Sky Suite - Minimum bid $2,100pp (Full price $6,402pp)
Celebrity Suite - Minimum bid $3,000 (Full price $7,551pp)
Royal Suite - Minimum bid $4,000pp (Full price - None available so unable to price)
Edge Villa - Minimum bid $6,000pp (Full Price $12,340pp)
One unusual thing for us is that one person in the cabin was able to see and bid upgrades while the other got the standard error "Please ensure your sailing is within the next 21 days. Please ensure there are no errors in the information you entered. Email CelebrityMoveUp@celebrity.com for help with eligibility" so if you get that error try the other name on the reservation.
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On 12/13/2021 at 6:38 PM, Bill-n-Bob said:
One comment... After getting my upgrade $600 of my $1,145 onboard credit disappeared. The only reason I found out was that the remaining credit was not enough to pay for a private excursion I had booked and I got an automated email asking for the balance. The $600 was a standard perk from my original Sky Suite booking and should not have changed by my upgrade. After contacting the Retreat Concierge they apologized and corrected the problem but after 2 days it does not show up on my Cruise Planner so they have escalated it to their IT department. Something unexpected to check...
It took 4 days, 3 calls to the Retreat Concierge and the involvement of the IT department but the $600 was put back in my onboard credit account. During those 4 days the private excursion we had booked was cancelled for nonpayment and it took another day to get it rebooked. A very strange case... More interesting was that our bid for the Celebrity Suite was accepted on December 7th saving us 23% but on December 15th they lowered the cost of Celebrity Suites by 25% so we ended up paying more for the suite through the Move-Up program than if we waited and booked it at the asking price. Not a big difference in cost but another unusual event. We have written to the Celebrity Move-Up desk about both issues but have not heard back. Still a believer in the program and will continue to participate on future cruises.
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On 12/7/2021 at 5:24 PM, Bill-n-Bob said:
- Ship: EDGE
- Length of Cruise: 7 Nights
- Cruise Sail Date: Jan 2, 2022
- Date email offer received: No email. Notified by others bidding opened Dec 5.
- Captain’s Club Tier: Elite
- Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: TA
- Current Cabin: Sky Suite (S3) (price booked $2,469pp)
- Bid? Yes/No: Yes
If YES - Bidding Details:
- Cabin Category: Celebrity Suite (full price $4,713pp)
- Bid Offer: $1,155pp
- Notification Date: Dec 7, 2021 (credit card charged Dec 7; no email yet; new cabin in reservation)
- Accepted / Rejected: Accepted
Comments:
Iconic Suite: Bid Range: $10k-$20k Bid: No Bid Full Price: $17,279
Penthouse Suite: Bid Range: $7k-$13k Bid: No Bid Full Price: $9,461(Sold Out)
Edge Villa Bid Range: $3.5k-$7k Bid: $4,220 Full Price: $8,040 (bid expired Dec 7)
Royal Suite Bid Range: $2.4k-$5k Bid: $2,535 Full Price: $6,958 (bid expired Dec 7)
Celebrity Suite Bid Range: $1k-$2k Bid: $1,155 Full Price: $4,713 (bid accepted Dec 7)
Note: - All prices/bids are per person
- Remember we have already paid $2,469pp for our Sky Suite so add that
to the bid when comparing to the full price of the cabin. We got the cabin at a 23.1% discount. - Surprised how quickly we were notified. Comfortable with our bids.
One comment... After getting my upgrade $600 of my $1,145 onboard credit disappeared. The only reason I found out was that the remaining credit was not enough to pay for a private excursion I had booked and I got an automated email asking for the balance. The $600 was a standard perk from my original Sky Suite booking and should not have changed by my upgrade. After contacting the Retreat Concierge they apologized and corrected the problem but after 2 days it does not show up on my Cruise Planner so they have escalated it to their IT department. Something unexpected to check...
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- Ship: EDGE
- Length of Cruise: 7 Nights
- Cruise Sail Date: Jan 2, 2022
- Date email offer received: No email. Notified by others bidding opened Dec 5.
- Captain’s Club Tier: Elite
- Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: TA
- Current Cabin: Sky Suite (S3) (price booked $2,469pp)
- Bid? Yes/No: Yes
If YES - Bidding Details:
- Cabin Category: Celebrity Suite (full price $4,713pp)
- Bid Offer: $1,155pp
- Notification Date: Dec 7, 2021 (credit card charged Dec 7; no email yet; new cabin in reservation)
- Accepted / Rejected: Accepted
Comments:
Iconic Suite: Bid Range: $10k-$20k Bid: No Bid Full Price: $17,279
Penthouse Suite: Bid Range: $7k-$13k Bid: No Bid Full Price: $9,461(Sold Out)
Edge Villa Bid Range: $3.5k-$7k Bid: $4,220 Full Price: $8,040 (bid expired Dec 7)
Royal Suite Bid Range: $2.4k-$5k Bid: $2,535 Full Price: $6,958 (bid expired Dec 7)
Celebrity Suite Bid Range: $1k-$2k Bid: $1,155 Full Price: $4,713 (bid accepted Dec 7)
Note: - All prices/bids are per person
- Remember we have already paid $2,469pp for our Sky Suite so add that
to the bid when comparing to the full price of the cabin. We got the cabin at a 23.1% discount. - Surprised how quickly we were notified. Comfortable with our bids.
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A favor to ask... My group is on the Jan 13 sailing of the Edge. When you get back could someone post or email me ( bill_bob_dc@yahoo.com ) where the LGBT get together was held on your cruise and if it worked well there. For our cruise in October the LGBT get together was in the Martini Bar and it was so overcrowded with non LGBT cruisers it really didn't work well. I think it would have worked better at any other bar that was not as crowded. Thanks...
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With 50 days to go before we sail it is time to float this thread back to page 1...
Anyone else going?
Everything is set. Excursions are made... Specialty dining reservations arranged... Spa treatments booked... Airport transfers contracted.
Just waiting for the time to pass.
Half of our group is staying at a hotel called "Pig in the Wall" in Southampton. With a name like that it should be an amazing place.
Looking forward to meeting everyone at the martini bar.
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We are Bill & Bob from Washington DC and we are booked for this adventure!
This will be our longest cruise ever, our first cruise on Viking Ocean and all of the ports except Hong Kong will be new to us.
We will probably go one to two weeks early for a more in depth tour of Angkor Wat, Hanoi and Hue. After the cruise we plan on flying back to Singapore for a better look at the city before starting that painful flight home.
We have heard that Viking generally does not do a G&L get together but will arrange one if requested. When we get closer to our sailing date we will contact Viking and request it.
We are traveling with another couple (straight) and are looking forward to meeting our fellow LGBT travelers.
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Yes we use the G&L Roll Calls and met some great people there but generally get few replies.
I think the main problem that prevents more participation is that unless you know about the G&L roll calls you are not likely to stumble across them. When we go to the LGBT meetings most of the people we talk to do not know about it.
Even if you type in "Gay & Lesbian Cruisers", "Gay & Lesbian Roll Call" or "Gay & Lesbian" into the search engine on the Cruise Critic website you do not find them.
If you use the "Find Your Roll Call" tool and put in your cruise line, ship and month you only see the main roll call but not any of the G&L roll calls or any other specialty roll calls.
To find it you need to know to follow the path down through "Boards" to "Special Interest Cruising" and then look for "Gay & Lesbian Cruisers" and then search for your sailing. In the past I have had difficulty finding it so I created shortcuts to get there.
I usually see a lot of views but few replies. Not sure if those are people just interested in what other people are doing or people that are the cruise who don't care to post a reply.
Although it sounds a little like a stalker we have successfully looked at the members of the "Main" roll call to identify gay couples and then contacted them directly. Invariably they had no idea there was a G&L Roll Call but were glad to be contacted.
We will start another G&L Roll Call tonight for the 2019 Viking Southeast Asia Cruise we are on but I doubt we will see responses in the year we have until we sail.
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Moe/Kevin,
We rented a great little apartment in Cannaregio for a weekbefore our cruise. To get around we purchased an unlimited pass on the waterbussystem for the week. We even took the waterbus to the ship dragging ourluggage with us.
The single most amazing thing we did was the night tour ofSt. Mark’s Basilica. No crowds and the gold tiles are illuminated from thelights below and they do not need to compete with the light streaming through the windows above.
An evening Vivaldi concert at the Church of San Vidal ismagical. If you sit at the back on the left hand side the artists enter and exitbeside you.
Send us an email ( bill-n-bob@yahoo.com) and we can share other thoughts especially about your day in Dubrovnik.
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Moe/Kevin,
Welcome to the cruise! I think the radical new design of Edge will guarantee a large group of curious “family” on our cruise. This is the first time we have booked a cruise more to see the ship than the ports and for a couple of ports I don’t think we will even leave the ship.
If you haven’t booked the behind “Inside AccessBehind-The-Scenes Ship Tour” you might consider it. On our cruise of the Galapagos Islands all of the ship tours filled up and I suspect on this ship they will be very popular too.
Your upcoming Azamara Cruise looks amazing. It is similar to a Celebrity cruise we took a couple of years ago. If you are interested in our suggestions just ask.
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With only 157 days until we sail time to float this back to page one.
Our group of 8 is meeting this weekend in DC to finalize our excursions, private tours and self-guided tours for each of the ports. We even found a highly recommended gay tour guide for Lisbon we will use.
Anyone else going? We have room on our private tours if you wanted to join us.
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Since we start our journey next week it is time to float this thread back to the first page.
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Peter & David,
Good to hear from you and we agree this is a great itinerary but I was a little disappointed they changed our final port from Valparaiso to San Antonio.
We have sailed on several cruise lines but these days we usually stick with Celebrity. We like both the Millennium and Solstice class and will sail on the yet to be launched Edge class next January.
I don’t know if you have been following the propulsion problems with Infinity but so far there is no impact to our schedule. It has led to schedule changes and a port cancelation with the Antarctic cruise immediately before ours and the cancellation of an April Panama Canal cruise. It would not totally surprise me if they didn’t need to change something in our schedule.
We arrive in Buenos Aires late on March 1st and most of the rest of our group arrive in the afternoon on March 2nd. We are staying at The Poetry Building with most of our group but others are staying at the Sheraton Park Tower and Hotel NH Collection Buenos Aires Centro Historico. All look good if you are deciding on a place to stay.
We are glad to share our research if you have any interest.
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Edge will be only a couple of months old when we sail and it promises to be an amazing ship. The new Infinite Balcony look amazing. This is one of the few times we are going on a cruise more for the ship more than the ports we visit.
Almost all classes are sold out so we should have a full ship. There are three couples in our group.
Anyone else sailing?
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Back to Europe for another cruise this time to the Canary Islands, Portugal and Spain. We have done a fair number of cruises but all of the ports will be new to us.
We are traveling with 3 other couples from DC and New York that are arriving on different schedules and staying at different hotels.
We arrive a few days early to see new sights (Southampton, Isle of Wight and Osbourne House) and to revisit sites (Portsmouth Historic Dockyard with HMS Victory and the Mary Rose).
Most of us are heading home the day we disembark.
Anyone else going?
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Hi everyone,
We are Bill & Bob from Washington DC and we booked this cruise last February and with since there are only 80 days until we sail we thought it was time to start a thread on the G&L Roll Call.
We are traveling with a group of friends including 3 other gay couples. For one of those couples this is a repeat (same cruise, cruise ship and sailing direction) of one of their favorite cruises they took a few years ago. It didn’t take much to get us to join them this time.
We will be in Brazil (Salvador and Rio de Janeiro) for a week and in Argentina (Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires) for 4 nights before the cruise. We are staying in Chile (Valparaiso and Santiago) for 3 nights after the cruise.
This should be an amazing trip. Is there anyone else sailing on this cruise?
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Gary,
The group is 40 people but we don't know each other. In fact the two of us don't know anyone else on the cruise but that isn't a problem. On a ship this small we should all get to know each other by the end of the cruise.
We are also doing the 2 nights before and 1 night after extension with Celebrity.
Should be an great experience.
-Bill
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Time to start the roll call for this cruise! Bob and I are traveling as part of the Pied Piper group. Pied Piper says that our group is around 40 people which will be almost half of the ship. Several friends have taken this cruise before and raved about it and the CC reviews are almost universally positive so we decided this was the year to do this cruise. Although many of you probably booked this cruise close to two years ago we booked this cruise last week grabbing one of the last cabins before it sold out. We added the two nights before and one night after in Quito through Celebrity.
Anyone else sailing?
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With less than a week to go before we saile it is time to float this thread back to page 1…
In DC we had Snow Saturday and temperatures in the single digit Sunday with more snow coming Monday. The cruise is sounding better and better.
In looking at the on board daily information brochure (Cruise Compass) for the Jan 16th Oasis sailing the LGBT meetings were scheduled for 7pm on Day 4, 5 and 6:
Day 4 (Tue) 7:00pm LGBT Meet & Greet, Champagne Bar, Deck 5
Day 5 (Wed) 7:00pm LGBT Meet & Greet, Rising Tide Bar, Decks 5,8
Day 6 (Thu) 7:00pm LGBT Meet & Greet, Vintages, Deck 8
Our cruise may be different so check the daily Cruise Compass and check the bulletin board near the customer service desk for more information.
__________________
Bill and Bob
Washington DC
email: bill_bob_dc@yahoo.com
Coming Up:
Feb 2016 - RCCL Oasis of the Seas - Eastern Carib.
Sep 2016 - Victoria Cruises Jenna - Yangtze River
Mar 2018 - Celebrity Infinity - Argentina & Chile
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My partner and I just booked RCCL’s Oasis of the Seas Eastern Caribbean Cruise sailing from Ft. Lauderdale on February 20th 2016.
Just checking to see if anyone else is on the cruise?
We generally sail with Celebrity but wanted to sail on an Oasis class ship to see what it was like and the timing of this cruise was perfect. This will be our first cruise where the ship itself is more interesting to us than the ports we visit.
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Boarding passes printed. Counting down the hours until our flights...
The first of our group leaves tomorrow (9/15) and the last leaves a week from Monday (9/22) and we all board the ship a week from Tuesday (9/23).
Should be an amazing trip.
Anyone else on this cruise?
-Bill & Bob
Celebrity MoveUp Offer Tracker - Please Do Not Post Questions Here!
in Celebrity Cruises
Posted
Ship: Millennium
Length of Cruise: 11 Night (11 Night Best of Japan)
Cruise Sail Date: April 21, 2024
Date email offer received: No Email. Found it on MoveUp website 89 days before cruise.
Captain’s Club Tier: Elite +
Booked through Celebrity Direct OR via TA: Celebrity while on a cruise then transferred to TA
Current Cabin: Verandah (V1)
Bid?: Yes
Bidding Details:
Royal Suite: $2,200min-$5,500max Bid $2,815pp
Celebrity Suite: $1,650min-$4,120max Bid $2,760pp
AquaClass Sky Suite: $ 890min-$2,200max Bid $2,200pp
Sky Suite: $1,110min-$2,750max Bid $2,750pp
AquaClass: $275min-$960max Bid $ 645pp
Ultra-Deluxe Concierge Class: $220min-$770max Bid $ 770pp
Concierge Class: $110min-$380max Bid $ 380pp
Ultra-Deluxe Veranda: $220min-$770max Bid $ 770pp
Sunset Veranda: $110min-$380max Bid $ 380pp
Notification Date: Feb 27 (43 days before sailing)
Accepted / Rejected: Accepted – Royal Suite: $2,815pp ($5,630 total)
General Comments:
The Cruise was showing as sold out for the longest time so I was not sure they would even have MoveUp for our cruise, but some cabins opened up.
For lower category we bid the maximum but for higher we carefully calculated bids. None of our bids would have had the cabin cost more than if we had booked the cabin directly.
We had such a great deal on our Veranda (V1) cabin with Classic Drinks Package, Basic Wi-fi and gratuities we had flexibility in our bids. We had upgraded our drink and Wi-fi packages when they went on sale.
At the end the Royal Suite costs just under half of what it would have cost if we had booked it outside of the MoveUp program. You might think our bids too high but we are comfortable with the amounts and very pleased with the result. .