BillHana

The paddlewheel is cosmetic only. It paddles for looks but has nothing to do with propulsion. 

You will never see a big ocean ship docked at a rural park and tied up to a tree. This is from an American Splendor Tennessee River cruise docked in Florence AL. No big crowds or long security lines. Just relaxing. We may never go back to the big ships.

Thanks for the info. Mine is 15" by 9" by 21". We are boarding this Thursday at Boston Black Falcon Terminal. Hopefully that works for carry on.

On cruisedeckplans it says about Celebrity Summit "Next drydock planned for Oct 2023"

In Boston is it  possible to walk on with luggage? Anybody know the size limitation of the passenger baggage inspection process?

I can answer some of your questions. We have done lots of Royal Caribbean and Celebrity cruises and 2 on ACL. Small ship cruising is much more relaxing than the big ones and we look forward to more on ACL. Port stops are on the banks of the river and often in a park. Simple on and off. All older, happy and friendly fellow passengers. We are 76 and 80.

1. No idea. 

2. Many excursions are included at no charge. Some in every port. Others have fees of $20 to hundreds. We have only done the free ones.

3. Unless airfare is included (on some unfilled ships) I think you are better making your own arrangements.

4. Don't know about wine. There is lots of free wine onboard from 11 AM to late.

5. I have always done direct with ACL.

6. Don't know about Charleston but other departure cities have a resort type hotel included for the night before departure. Usually nice activities the night before, breakfast on sailing day, and (7) transportation to the ship all included.

I am not able to uninstall because I never got to install. Sounds like others have the same problem with tablets.

I just tried to install the Celebrity Mobile App on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 Tablet and it says it will not work on my device. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Yes, there are older folks on ACL but that is not bad. Very relaxed cruise with happy and friendly fellow cruisers. No crowds at all. Getting on and off the ship easy. No extra charge for anything except a few premium excursions. No tipping is expected. At breakfast you select your choices for lunch and dinner from limited choices but they don't hold you to it. No complaints about food quality. Drinks (including beer and wine) and snacks always available. Cocktail hour every evening includes liquor. All staff friendly with English as a first language, not like the big ships. Lots of excursions available without extra charge. 

We did American Jazz from Memphis to New Orleans. Only issue was low water level in the Mississippi due to drought and some stops inaccessible. We would do it again.

I found the basic included internet is ship dependent. On Equinox in April there seemed to be no restrictions with basic. Text and WIFI calling worked and I could access CruiseCritic. On Summit a month later only the basic internet stuff worked and it was very slow. CruiseCritic didn't work.

With air travel terrible these days we am thinking about taking Acela Express to Baltimore. My local station does not have luggage service. If we drag our suitcases on are we stuck with them at our seats? There is also a size limitation which says only bags smaller than what airlines accept. Anyone have experience with this?

Years ago I accidentally booked a connecting room on Explorer in an Ocean View stateroom. When we got to the room we found the loveseat was removed and a single chair was there. This left the connecting door unblocked which resulted in empty wall space. We could not both sit in a chair in the room. 

Never again will I book a connecting room.

Unlimited cans of water can be easily picked from any bar with the Always Included package.

Can only walk back and forth on deck 5 on either side but blocked front and back. It is often partially closed for maintenance or other excuses. 

I try to read two digital editions of newspapers every day. On Equinox it mostly worked using the basic internet. On Summit it was so slow it took 10 minutes to switch to the next page. I had to resort to downloading the editions in pdf and read after the download was complete. It took one to two hours to download a single edition of the Boston Globe. 

Before the pandemic I was able to request a table for two a my preferred location on Royal Caribbean sailings by sending a message to rcldining at rccl dot com three weeks before departure. I don't know if that still works and if there is anything like this for Celebrity.

Here is from Summit recently

When we boarded Equinox in April and Summit in May the staff paid no attention to the assigned boarding time. Just one long crowded wait to get through security. The boarding time window was a suggestion only.

I signed up using the e-mail link I received a few days ago. Today that same link no longer works.

In early April while boarding Equinox in Ft Lauderdale nobody paid attention to the scheduled times. It was line up as usual and it didn't matter what time your boarding pass showed. Just one long wait to get through security and after that it went fast.

We were on Equinox a few weeks ago. The sky lounge was used for trivia every day at 3:30 or 4. The bar was open at least by 4.

We did this proctored Binax home test two days before the cruise. I never saw any results with a QR code but we did get e-mail with the results. Printed out the e-mail results and took them to the port. During checking in at the port the agent asked for the test results. She looked at the paper for the word "Negative" and that was sufficient. No confirmation of when the test was taken or if the name on the test result matched the express pass name.

The three charges were all around $10 and appeared at different times. It is a small amount but it should not happen and they should not be able to get away with it.

We will follow up on future cruises.

Halfway through the cruise the captain announced that masks were now mandatory and we complied.