CU64

11 hours ago, Pinboy said:

YOU get a lot of free 5 minute massages and never book ???

Really ??? Ummm , are we thinking of the same thing ?? 

As for me, look at the $$ I saved because she told me that the " Special discount " was only for our cruise !  How lucky can you get ?? 

She also told me I would look " years " younger if I applied some smelly "stuff " for 48 ( or was it 480 ) days after the cruise. Didn't work--- must have been past it's " best before date " .

Lastly, she kinda " hinted " for a tip ----there goes another $25. 

Every time Captain ( didn't know his name ) walked by I was worried he would accuse me of taking advantage of the Spa Attendant with my " negotiating skills " (??). 

 

 

 

 

 

You might want to take a class in “ boundaries.” I have never had a free one but have had the 20 min back massage. No problem with trying to sell me anything.

On 4/5/2023 at 8:18 AM, DaKahuna said:

 

I do, especially bottled water and Vitamin Zero water.  I do that to make sure that all of the beverages containing alcohol I consume do not dehydrate me.  I had that happen once -- never again. 

 

Very smart poster. Biggest reason to go to Med center on a cruise is dehydration. People drink alcohol but no water. Dr says one glass water with every alcoholic beverage.

8 hours ago, CaribbeanBound said:

Celebrity is my preferred cruiseline.  Interestingly, the bad burgers are something I choose to forget about when I think about Celebrity cruising.  Unfortunately, it's true.  The burgers have been bad for years.  They are very much prefab prefrozen burgers that don't appeal to anyone who wants a "good" burger.  Very disappointing.  I gave up even visiting the mast grill on any Celebrity ship.  If I really want a burger, I might buy it in port or wait until I get back home.  "Good Burgers" are not something anyone thinks of when they talk about Celebrity.

 

On the other hand, I sailed once on Carnival for a family reunion.  The ONLY really memorable meals I ate on Carnival were the burgers from "Guy's Burger Joint" (their version of the mast grill) that I ate at lunch time.  OMG, the burgers taste fresh and juicy and they have a huge toppings bar to fix them just the way you want them.  Why Celebrity hasn't upped their game is anyone's guess.  It's a shame that burgers are a "FAIL" on Celebrity.

Princess still has good burgers & hot dogs outside their pool.

On 5/16/2023 at 1:39 PM, arxcards said:

The same aspect of view is available at Quay West and Four Seasons. Quay West is still up the hill a bit, but only halfway, as you can enter via a basement lift from the street below. Quay West has a top floor pool & balcony to get the pics without a window reflection.

I loved my view and location of the Four Seasons. Did not want to leave the room.😌

3 hours ago, luvthec said:

We just got off the Eclipse in Honolulu May 9th.  

 

We were in a CS on deck 10, so these comments only pertain to our experience.

 

The lack of outlets is ridiculous.  My husband had to move his laptop/phone chargers off the desk so I could plug in the hair dryer and curling iron (no acceptable outlet in the bathroom).  We brought 1 extra European converter so we could utilize the Europe type plug on the desk.  We did pull out the nightstand and found an outlet behind there so we could charge a phone overnight and a Kindle during the day.  If they know there is an outlet behind a nightstand, why wouldn't they put some kind of extension on the nightstand so it could be utilized?  

 

One of my biggest complaints is the peeling paint on the balcony.  I mean EVERY SINGLE MORNING it looked like it had snowed.  I had to get a towel and clean off the table, chairs and lounger, then put a towel in front of the sliding doors so as not to track paint onto the carpet.  I peaked next door to see if the problem was just our balcony and our neighbors both had problems as well.  Our room steward actually had to vacuum the balcony every morning, it was that bad.  

 

I noticed ripped carpeting in the Oceanview Cafe, very scratched flooring and worn furniture in the library (where we spent a lot of time due to the pathetic "premium" internet in our room), sinks out of order in the common area ladies rooms, just little things, but it does become noticeable.

 

The toilet in our room was so old, there were scratches that had left a permanent dark gray ring about an inch thick, due to the scraping of the metal while cleaning the bowl.  

 

First world problems?  yes.  But when you pay a lot to stay in one of the nicest suites for 18 days, expectations are high.

 

 

I might be noticing those things also if I paid for a CS.

7 hours ago, Encapsulated said:

Going on eclipse for Antarctica season 2024

 

was on eclipse 2022 and was a bit disappointed with the age/old feel of the ship. It had thick TVs and rooms felt old.

 

Just getting back from the Apex and hoping that it’ll get a dry dock before my cruise. Anyone know?

“Thick tv’s”…..funny….but they worked just fine.Like the layout & vib of the ship

7 hours ago, coaster said:

Our cruise on Constellation in December, pricing is over $500 pp cheaper for Concierge class over Veranda. Are Veranda cabins in better locations? Thinking of upgrading our outside cabin.

Usually concierge is in prime locations, better than Aqua, I might add.

On 5/5/2023 at 7:23 AM, Loracpin2 said:

If you want great food book Oceania.  

Agreed….if that is all you are cruising for…the food.

On 5/1/2023 at 5:17 PM, Azllama said:

We just got off the Eclipse. The food was terrible!! MDR or OV, only a few good meals, very hit or miss mostly miss. Maybe because of being out Syndey AU, the suppliers are not up to the standards that Celebrity has set? The Mast grill burger was a grey color mystery meat, went on grey and came off grey! Be awhile before we try Celebrity again.

I had one of those burgers at the Mast Grill & was truly shocked at what I was seeing. April 5 New Zealand cruise. I am going on Eclipse out of LA in October & if I see this again, I WILL be going down to hotel hospitality 

On 4/21/2023 at 3:55 PM, Midpacpl said:

I use the online broker insure my trip dot com. You can normally insure everything at  once cruise, hotel, air, etc and virtually up till the day of travel. You can also add to your insurance if you add items to your trip. The booking date, in my experience anyhow, normally only impacts things like cancel for preexisting conditions. 
So, I’m not clear why you are saying you can’t insure future flights, etc Even if you already purchased your insurance or need to change anything like dates you just notify the insurers and if necessary they reprice and either charge you the difference or refund the difference. You can even move insurance to a different trip sometimes - I won’t bog you down with details. 
 

I insured cruise cost at time of booking. About 3 months later, I purchased very expensive direct flights to Sydney. I insured the flights with Delta separately. The combined costs of the 2 was $600. If I had insured the cruise + airfare with the original insurance, the cost was $900.

On 4/19/2023 at 8:02 PM, tscoffey said:

Getting nervous reading the various threads about Japan 2024 cruise passengers on Millennium being cancelled. If the reasoning is correct, and it seems quite likely to be, the cancellations are the result of Japan requiring each cruise to have a minimum number of cabins set aside for Covid isolation purposes. Further, the cabins being cancelled seem to be in the lower decks, nearer to  medical.

My cruise is in late May, and I have an inside cabin on deck 3. A prime candidate for being cancelled if the above scenario is correct.

 

If I keep this cruise, I will soon need to start booking some very expensive roundtrip flights to Tokyo. Plus, 3-4 hotel nights there (as well as post-cruise sightseeing expenses in Tokyo). These expenses would likely exceed $3500, minimum,  in addition to the cruise charges.

 

I originally paid my cruise deposit in mid-December, 2022. I don’t have trip insurance yet, so I assume I can’t insure any future flights or hotels associated with this cruise that are purchased in the future, correct?

 

So - lose $900 now, guaranteed, and avoid any chance of losing a future $3500?

(We are new cruise travelers, so these kinds of situation, risks are all new to us).

 

 

 

Move your $900 deposit to another celebrity cruise. It might cost you $200.

On 4/20/2023 at 6:46 PM, ozdevil said:

Can i ask Why you changed your mind from the Amora Jamison?



 

It was definitely about 250 cheaper for 2 nights on a lower floor, no view. And AJ looks very nice. 5 star. Walked by it. I went with Four Seasons because after 15 hr flight, I thought we should SEE the harbor from our room, enjoy why we were there. ….and I was not disappointed. Corner room on Floor 10 with big picture window of opera house + early 9:30 checkin. And we were right there at the port. We loved the room & the bed was sooo big and comfortable. I paid nonrefunded about 3 weeks before & asked for very early checkin. They took care of us.  😌

On 4/22/2023 at 6:47 PM, D C said:

Careless people do not justify ignoring the good sense of carrying proper ID. 

Just on private excursion Wellington, New Zealand. She was raised there and formally educated. Instructed us to carry Passport. We always take Passport when in foreign country. 

Try having a medical ER when off the ship, needing police and/or hospital services. Good to have Passsport on you.

Initially, I made reservations at Amora Jamison but then changed about 3 weeks prior to the Four Seasons. Glad I did. After spending thousands on airfare + cruise + excursions, the location & service at the FS was excellent. I prepaid room about 3 weeks prior & asked for an early checkin after flying 15 hrs, was accompanied at arrival around 9:30 AM. Could not have been happier. Did not pay for breakfast there but enjoyed several outings to Fine Food Store recommended by the concierge.

42 minutes ago, tusconcam said:

Help please with if I am required to bring my original passport with me on Celebrity cruise shore excursions in Spain, France and Italy.

I had hoped that a photocopy would suffice ; as you can imagine the problems with a potentially lost/stolen original.

The cruise departs from Barcelona May 1st, then visit: Palma de Mallorca, Mersaille, Villefranche, Santa Margherita,  La Spezia, Cagliari, Messina, Naples and finish in Rome.

Ideas, and feedback much appreciated. 

Thanks 

P.s I am Canadian with a valid passport traveling from Toronto 

 

 

I always take original passport with me

44 minutes ago, C4HCG said:

Were the other half any good? 

😉😉😉

3 hours ago, Aus Traveller said:

I have to repeat what Barry said earlier - that terms and conditions that apply in the USA are not relevant here. This thread was initiated by John who lives in Australia and who was enquiring about insurance for an Australian-based cruise. Please don't throw in restrictions that apply in another country, restrictions that might make someone who reads this unnecessarily concerned. The factors that you mention don't apply here. All the best. 🙂 

I did not know where John lived as I was the first to reply.Did not recognize Port M…. 

Hope John finds what they need regarding pre-existing conditions with all your good recommendations. 

20 hours ago, possum52 said:

Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. Are you talking about the ages of the OP and his wife that you have to have the insurance before you pay the initial deposit to be covered for pre-existing conditions?

I can only speak for US. If I pay insurance at time of booking or before 14 days, my pre-existing conditions, if any, are covered. Trying to get whatever pre-existing conditions you have covered at a later date, is not only time consuming but more expensive. This business of pre-existing is very important for those of you with specific issues. …which is why you must read carefully or be guided by an ins rep. Ins usually pays easier when there is a fall, something broken, or medical problem while cruising.

     FYI, woman I traveled with yrs ago showed symptoms of a TIA. Went to Med and they put her to bed with IV. Turns out she was dehydrated as does not drink water. Dr says common condition on a cruise. She was released 4 hrs later. $600. She did not want to take travel ins ( bridge cruise) but I told her I would not go unless she did. Dr told her if he had

Dx her with a TIA ( which I could swear she had), she would have had to be taken off ship.

49 minutes ago, Sailaway John said:

Can anyone help me for a suggestion for Insurance Company to insure wife and I for a 12 day cruise around Southern Australia. Some pre-existing conditions apply. Cruise is booked and have got a great cabin but now no Insurance and some of the Insurance Companies charge more than half the cruise cost.

Thank you

 

You need to get your insurance 14 days or before initial deposit if you want pre-existing conditions to be covered. You are too late for that. Yes, ins expensive for your ages. Get use to it. Plan as part of trip cost. You will be glad you have it if something happens & it is too easy to fall at your ages.

I get Allianz. You might check on Celebrity ins & see about cost.

4 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

We stayed one night (the first night after the cruise) at the then brand new Hotel *IN* the Sydney Zoo.  We were up and down much of the night, watching the koala right outside our window, in its treetop perch.  It moved around occasionally.  Very nice.  Expensive, however.  But for us, that trip was probably a "once ever", so we didn't want to plan any "maybe we'll do that next time..."

 

The next morning, DH was at the main ticket office before it opened, to get 2 of the 4 daily "Meerkat Experience" tickets.  We got to go inside their huge outdoor "cage", with a zookeeper and a zoo photographer.  They put waterproof tarps on our laps, and pretty soon, some meerkats started jumping around, and on our laps.  We've got one priceless photo of a meerkat in "classic meerkat sentinel position", standing on DH's lap.

That was quite a special experience.  (The zoo has a few different "experiences", and in some cases, they differed by day of the week.)

 

We were in Sydney during those horrible wildfires, so that cramped our style.  A lot.  The hotel kept all but one door locked.  At times, we could barely see the big building across the street from our hotel... in downtown Sydney.  But we mostly felt so bad about what was going on, and it continued for way too long.  Just devastating, literally.

And it was just after our cruise that the White Island volcano erupted in NZ, killing too many and injuring more.  That put a damper on our mood.  I don't think our cruise had offered that excursion (?), but we still had just sailed right by the area a few days earlier.

 

Unfortunately, we had to cancel our tour of that amazing Opera House.  The smoke was getting to us.

(And when we arrived home, on the other side of the planet, about 2 days later, it turned out that I was carried off the plane and then in hospital for 10 days on oxygen.  I had caught RSV, something we'd never heard of before.  Now everyone knows about Covid, flu, *and* RSV. 😱 ) 

 

We'd love to go back, but the way things are going, we are very glad we were at least able to do what we did while we were in NZ, Australia, and on the cruise during that trip.

 

One of our best memories was in Hobart, at an animal sanctuary.  The animals are rescues, and have been determined not to be safe to return to the wild.  The were a bunch of kangaroos hopping off in the distance while we turned our attention to a koala "up close and personal" (before the zoo in Sydney).  Suddenly, DH was whispering in my ear, "<name>, you are *surrounded* by kangaroos!"

Indeed!  There were about 5 or 6 right around me.  Our guide then gave me some approved food to offer them, and they gobbled it up from my hand.  That was unreal!  They were smaller than I was expecting, although full grown.  One had a very little joey in her pouch, peering out.  That really "made the day!" 🙂

 

There was also an oddball activity, hidden away in a large but basic shopping mall (!).

It was a "Flight Experience" and they have a *real* Boeing 737 flight simulator (without movement, but all the controls and visual simulations).

I got DH the long version (90 minutes, I think), so in addition to learning the basics of some of the controls work (there are just too, too many switches to learn a lot of it in one session, of course), he then got to select several airports of his choice for simulated take-offs and landings.

 

We had always been leary of flying into Aspen (so we would drive from Denver), so we chose that as one of them.  Um, right... glad we drove.  There is no good "second chance there", and there are occasional crashes (but not usually with the specially trained commercial pilots).  Not as bad as some in the Himalayas, where the runway ends in an X,000 foot sheer drop, but still...

We also did our home airport, Washington National, etc.

I sat in the "jump seat".  I was offered a few minutes to have a turn, but... I actually found those controls VERY intimidating!  Perhaps I'm starting to lose some marbles, but I may well have felt the same way 20 years ago.  There were buttons and switches *everywhere*. 

It was a bit nervewracking, even knowing we were on the ground, in a simulator.

He/we only "ran off the runway" once upon landing; at least it was at a "safe airport", so "we just ended up on the grassy area near the very end of the runway".  😉

But it does represent the actual airport conditions and location, etc.   At least we didn't "smack into a mountain when trying to land at Aspen" or whatever!

 

Enjoy!

 

GC

Dear GC.

Thank you for your interesting & very enjoyable post. Your experience in Sydney must have been something…what good sports! …And big animal lovers. I smiled reading…

I wish I knew you in person. 😍

12 hours ago, GeezerCouple said:

 

Does your HAL ship go *into* Milford Sound?

When we took a HAL cruise Auckland to Sydney (Noordam), our ship went into the sound (it's actually a fjord).  It was indeed incredible.  I actually didn't believe what they were telling us about the top heights on either side of us, so I checked online.  Yup, astonishingly high!

I'm not sure what else an excursion would include, but it's an amazing area.  And it would probably be a breathtaking drive, at least part of the way. 🙂 

 

We loved every minute of our trip, including some special activities on our own for a few days afterwards in Sydney.

 

GC

We will be in Sydney 3 days post cruise. What did you do that you most enjoyed + any particular restaurants?

8 hours ago, resordanis said:

One of our three cruises over November/December the crowd all seemed to be super angry.Everyone that had done B2B2B’s were commenting.  So much so, that I just went to look at something one day and several people yelled at me to get in line, what line I asked and I was only glancing!When we discussed it later we wondered whether it was because there were no passports required on this cruise meaning the age demographics were higher. Just asking?????

Lockdowns lockdowns. Isolated, controlled people by the govt are very unhappy 

12 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Their smoothies are actually protein drinks - at least I would consider things like these to be a protein drinks.    They are all served at room temperature where I consider a smoothy to be icy.

 

Refuel - Peanut Butter, Banana, Cocoa, Almond mil and Flax Seeds

Antioxidant  - Blueberry Blackberry, Strawberry, Coconut Milk, Ginger and Oat

 

It may be my misunderstanding what a Protein Drink is, but this is the closest you will get on a Celebrity ship.

 

All sugar. Not a protein drink.

Usually the discounted first night is sold out.

I would not try to prebook unless you have a specific day and time & are celebrating an occasion. Go to the specialty rest when you get on the ship and see what times are available for whatever day you choose. They can usually find something. Often the restaurant not full because they are short staffed & stop reservations.