whitbob

Assuming all rooms have the same furniture, the nightstand on one side is attached to the wall. The second night stand is 3 stacked boxes. That (moveable) nightstand is approx. 9 inches wide, which will be the split between the beds when made into twins.

Currently on Edge in Sky Suite. Beds aren’t separated but twin platforms and mattresses, so they can be separated.

We are also on this cruise and following along. Thanks for sharing your experiences. We are also in a Sky Suite but didn’t get gifted with the high top table. 😕

Your post peaked my interest, so I tried a mock booking for 2 and they only showed inside and ocean view available. Everything else shows sold out. We booked AQ last summer. I was going to suggest AQ to you as the rooms only allow 2 people, but it must be sold out. No option to book AQ guaranteed was offered. I hope you can find an acceptable room AND we aren’t booked on the “stuff a bus” whatever that means.

Yikes! We are booked on this sailing. Our first Celebrity cruise was Silhouette in the Baltic in late August. It was wonderful. We liked it so much, we booked the Reflection the following year in August, Rome round trip to Greece. There were 750 children on-board. The pool and buffet were madhouses. It was crazy with teens running wild around the ship, we almost stopped sailing Celebrity. We have since been on 6 more Celebrity Cruises, 2 in August in Europe without incident, so we thought the Reflection trip was a one off. Hum?!

We are considering a tasting tour of Waiheke Island while in Auckland. Has anyone taken the package tours offered by Fullers360 ferries? We are considering the Taste of tour, and are looking for feedback. Thank you.

Thank you for asking about the classes. I will be on both of these cruises and take Yoga and Tai Chi classes weekly. It would be nice to understand what level they are on the ship. I was planning to check in at the gym once we board to see if the instructors can offer some detail.

First, a question to your question. Can you define ‘quite a bit more’? I am asking because we just identified a Tauck land trip this week that we are very interested in for 2025, which involves the same deposit and wait for pricing. We did our first trip with Tauck to Nova Scotia last fall, and were very impressed with the entire experience. As to pricing increases, the answer is yes, but as always you have to dig into the details. We did an AMAwaterways cruise May 2023 that was 1 week cruise w 6 nights pre/post. We have another AMA BOOKED FOR May 2025 which is approx $1100 pp more. Same number of nights, 1 week + 6 nights pre/post, but the 2 variables are: we booked the 2023 trip in May 2022, and just booked the next trip, so over 18 months apart. Also the 2025 trip is on AMAMAGNA, which draws a higher price per day than their other ships (usually). We are still looking at timing and discussing the 2025 Tauck trip. The same month (Sept) for this trip in 2024 is sold out, so we know if we want to go, we will need to put down the deposit and wait for final details to determine if was want to withdraw.

You might want to check the restaurant hours on the app for your cruise. For our Edge cruise next month it shows the hours for Rooftop as 5:30 to 9:30.

As you stated the menus in Luminae can be eclectic. We frequently book Aqua or Retreat for the smaller more customizable dining experience. The service in both are excellent most of the time and they are able to offer changes in the kitchen without having to chase down food from another part of the ship. That said, you can check the menu in advance on the app and choose a specialty, Blu (if available) or MDR when nothing appeals on a menu.

We booked Aqua on our first Celebrity cruise, and were hooked. For us it is the smaller dining room and the ability to request substitutions. We enjoy most of the menus. We also typically cruise once a year, so we aren’t repeating the Blu menu over and over. DH is a picky eater, and we have found it is easier to get a sauce changed, or veggie added without sending things back. MDR waiters are busy, and getting the little changes right isn’t as easy as in a smaller dining venue. Service in Blu has always been excellent. As for the specialty dining package. Silhouette is our favorite ship so far (1st E ship cruise coming next month), and the variety of specialties are part of that choice. We looked at booking a b2b in veranda this fall and using the specialty dining package, pricing both. We ended up sticking with Aqua, after reading several CC threads about getting reservations using the packages. As I understand it, you cannot make your reservations until boarding with the dining package. Is this correct? Do others have good experiences with getting the times they want after boarding?

We did the Walmar Castle tour with Viking in 2022. It isn’t as much a castle, but rather a fort. It was built for Henry VIII along with several other fortresses along the coast to protect from invasion from France. The grounds/gardens were pretty and there are views of the ocean. The interior had a few nice rooms, some interesting articles about the castle on the walls, but it wasn’t opulent. In Sandwich we did a walking tour past churches and half timbered houses. The guide was very good. We enjoyed the excursion, but it wasn’t memorable if you are hoping for a royal palace type castle. We also took the Ffestiniog railway. It was one of our favorite excursions of the trip. Again, great guide. She provided a guided tour from the ship to the town to board the train. Pointing out sights, and providing insights on Wales. The train is a narrow gauge rail, so smaller than a normal train. The views along the route were lovely. The was a nice lunch at a restaurant in a park type area, with time to walk around and a 3rd stop at Conwy Castle which is more of a ruins. The guide provided current and historical information about Wales and their relationship with England.

Viking also uses push button detergent dispensers. On Mars last month and they had added machine instruction sheets, explaining the symbols on the washers and dryers. Much easier to operate.

We were on Mars in December and tendered in Roatan. The original booking showed we would dock. There were 2 other ships in port, so we tendered.

It is worth a try. I was using an iPad and the website. The first cruises start in March 2024. We looked months ago, and there were more options for multi day packages. There have had numerous sales, so I would have guessed they over sold packages, so they were dropping the options for us, but your cruises are 2 years out, so that logic doesn’t make sense. Good luck, I hope you can find more options.

We have 4 cruises (2 B2B) booked for this year. The X app does not offer dining packages for purchase. The website for the cruises does offer unlimited and 5 night for the 12 night cruises. The 9 night cruise on the website offers unlimited and 4 night. One is Edge and the other Silhouette.

Have not been on Amabelle, but we have on AmaPrima and AmaCerto. We have stored 2 30 inch soft side duffles on wheels under the bed. When the top is empty, you can push them flat enough to squeeze in. They are also somewhat narrow, so they fit. We upgraded to a 28 inch Travelpro (12 inches deep) last year, and it was too wide to fit under the bed open with another suitcase. 2 medium suitcases should fit. Another thing on Certo was they had a drawer or box on wheels under one side on the bed. It took up all the space under that side of the bed. It slides out at an angle, and we used it to store back packs, carry on luggage. I think the room steward uses it for extra supplies or the decorative pillows, etc at night when they make the bed up for evening.

We just returned from the Panama Classic on Mars. We didn’t notice the passengers skewed old or with limited mobility. We did notice some larger tables in the dining room that appeared to be families traveling together. As for dress, it was a warm weather trip and not Cunard, so days were shorts and tops while evenings were the typical slacks and collared shirts for men and women mixing it up with slacks or skirts with tops in the restaurants. WC was more casual.

We are on Mars now, Verity is the Cruise Director. Returning to Florida from Panama City. This is our 2nd cruise, we did British Isle on Mars in August 2022. We think the Ribeye and Chicken Parm in Manfredi’s are much better than last year. The ribeye wasn’t steak house size cut, but tender and tasty. We are not fond of buffets, but ate in WC most dinners on BIE. Part of it was long days off the ship, but we could not stand how loud the main Restaurant was. We did eat 4 dinners in the Restaurant this cruise. The food was good each time, and the staff have been over the top with good service. We found the starboard side, as well as the front area of the port side to be pleasant. We were seated in the middle section of the port side twice and both times we could not talk without yelling. I would have guessed it was alcohol fueled, but we arrived at 6:30 last night, and by 7 pm the room was full, and people were already yelling to hear each other. The acoustics in that section are just bad. Everything else about the cruise has been excellent. Excursion availability was top notch. We reserved all of the included and optional tours we wanted in advance. Last year we had to waitlist for most excursions, which we now realize was probably Covid vendor related.

We are on Mars now and received this in last nights Daily. It isn’t very detailed. We booked on board August 2022. The discounts were $500 booking, $200 past level guest and $200 for booking onboard. Per person. The $500 was the saving was sale rate at the time for this cruise. We also have $200 total OBC. We checked with TA before traveling and this was the best deal at the time, so we transferred the booking to him after booking on board. Final payment was 6 months before sailing.

We stopped in Colon yesterday. All ship excursions went as planned. Our guide was from the Colon area, and confirmed much of what Billb48 said that things are back to normal for now. We embarked in Panama City on 12/7 after a 3 day stay there, and other than normal traffic jams we moved about without issue using Ubers.

Bliss is heading to Panama City today. We passed them in GATUN Lake. Joy was here Wednesday as they had a large pre cruise group at our hotel. You might want to write into one of their Roll Calls to see if someone can let you know if Norwegian has been providing shuttles on the over nights in Panama City. We took 4 UBERS while in PC for 2 nights. All were clean, timely, averaging 2 to 10 minutes for pick up. Reasonable pricing. One cancelled us after asking if we wanted to go to the airport rather than the cruise port. When we said no, they cancelled, but another accepted immediately. Again, the actual port facility isn’t ideal. We could see the ship, but the driver missed the turn to the port as it wasn’t well marked, and disappeared behind buildings and trees. It would be worse after dark. Good luck with your planning.

When is your cruise? If you are arriving shortly I would not count on taxis waiting at the port. We embarked at Amador Cruise Port yesterday. The building isn’t finished, so we were processed in tents on the pier. Once at the pier, we learned they did have a shuttle from the pier taking you into town. Unsure if that was Viking arranged or the city. Our all aboard was 11:30 pm. The roads around the port are unfinished gravel, not pavement. We used Uber and we were stopped 4 times at noon to inquire where we were going. The driver had a conversation each time convincing people we were boarding the ship. Some were security stops, other appeared to be construction staff managing traffic into the area. We saw no waiting taxis, so I would imagine you would need to prearrange a pick up. We used Uber into old town on Wednesday around noon. The traffic was heavy and stalled entering and exiting the area, so you need to allow time. As Billb mentioned, old town itself was lovely and crowded, but the surrounding areas would be concerning to walk through if you were not aware of where you are going.

We dined in the Solarium on Solstice. It was an overnight, and we were anchored in Sydney Harbour for the first day. They were offering an upper deck pool ‘specialty dinner’ with 360 views of the Opera House, etc at night. Seemed like a great idea until a storm blew in, and they moved the dinner inside. The staff removed all the loungers on one side of the Solarium, and set up white tablecloth type dining with live music. We missed the views, but rest of the experience was well done. I am glad that we didn’t know about the ‘chlorine smell’ as that might have put a damper on the evening.

We typically book AQ rooms for reasons stated, but also struggle with some of the limited menus. A few years ago the Blu Maitre D on Solstice gave a small group tour of the kitchens. It was a sea day between breakfast and lunch when the prepping and cooking was happening, but not serving. He started on 2 and led us up through the sections of MDR kitchens taking the back stairs to the Blu kitchen ending with a treat in Blu with the wait staff. I enjoyed the whole experience, but it left several impressions. Seeing the size of the MDR kitchens and prep areas, I understand why it is hard for them to customize meals in MDR and get them right every time. Also the distance from the MDR kitchen to Blu kitchen isn’t ideal so I understand why they discourage ordering from the MDR menu.