Chewbecca

We're on the wait list for select dining for our cruise departing this weekend, we've been on the wait list for quite a while now with no movement.

We plan to go to the dining room to change on departure day, we won't do the late dining as our teenage son is with us and wants to go to x club after dinner which doesn't work when dinner ends late. We'll probably end up in speciality every night if we cannot move so could be expensive.

I'm especially cross with my TA as we asked for select when booking but only noticed about 6 weeks ago that we were not on the waitlist for it. We won't be using that TA again!

It is usually slightly cheaper via a TA & means you can avoid, well, partially, the horror of the X website.

We have 3 in a room, with our 13 year old son and find it tight. The pull out beds don't seem queen sized to me and I think 2 in that with one a 16 year old would be a challenge. I'd definitely switch if you can. Balcony is nice but not really essential, especially on a cooler cruise which I'm guessing yours is? The family verandah rooms are fab but there are so few of them, they are very hard to secure.

Our son is one of the main reasons we cruise and celebrity is possibly his favourite line. It depends what sort of child they are I guess, he is fairly quiet and geeky, he does enjoy meeting and having a (very) good time playing cards, having some 'banter' with a small group but prefers not to be in a very large group of kids doing the climbing walls and being rowdy.

DS's favourite speciality is Tuscan Grill, he'd choose to eat there every night if he could. He also likes sushi on five and to order room service in between! We like Murano/Ocean Liners too, but it is a much more formal experience than TG. I wouldn't describe it as French though, just as I wouldn't call Tuscan Grill Italian but hey ho, we find them all nice for a change from MDR. We haven't tried Q'sine yet but plan to on our cruise on Eclipse this summer, :-).

We did Singapore to Abu Dhabi this Easter & loved it.

Really great itinerary, the variety of ports was fascinating, coupled with a nice, fairly even sprinkling of sea days made for a perfect relaxing but interesting cruise. Worst port (by far) was New Mangalore but I think that may be dropped for next season? All others - Phuket, Colombo, Cochin, Goa, Mumbai, Oman, Dubai offered interesting & enjoyable days out.

DS -13 - really enjoyed his time at X club on Connie this Easter. Sea days were his favourite!

He met a small group of teens (4-8 of them usually) aged about 12-15 & they mostly just hung out together, played cards, a little x box, a few scavengers etc, but he really enjoyed chatting/bantering with kids of all nationalities. He checked out the timetable every day & turned up when he wanted & skipped the things he didn't. He went every night after dinner without fail.

Maybe UK prices are different but we're sailing on Eclipse this summer for literally 1/3 of the Oceania cruise we were pricing up.

Have not sailed on Eclipse before, we are fairly new to Celebrity having sailed on Oceania, Azamara, RC, HAL and Seabourn previously.

We sailed on Constellation this Easter and were impressed by the product for the price, hence booking Eclipse for the summer instead of the (far more expensive) Oceania cruise we were interested in. The live music on Connie was excellent and there was a great mix of quieter and louder venues. The music style was generally pitched at a mature audience, I never heard any 'dance' music. The daily quiz in Rendezvous was great fun and well organised by Matt. We were given a pager for the MDR a few times but this wasn't a concern, we went for a drink and were called within 10mins. Yes, there were art auctions but they were easy enough to avoid. The speciality restaurants were all excellent and we visited all multiple times. We hope our Eclipse cruise is as good as our Connie experience.

Two queries on the advice given here:

- can we in the UK book through US agents? I thought we could not.

- can we swap cabins after booking without incurring a fee/loss of perks? Last year I booked a cabin I didn't really want but thought the cruise was going to sell out. When a better one came up, I asked to move to it & we lost our booking perks whilst doing so. At a later date lots of cabins came available so I no longer feel so jittery when it shows minimal availability, I think Celebrity play games with us. So if I were you OP, I would wait for the right cabin/perks to come up. Bit of a risk though!

We (almost) always order a soup or salad first, followed by a starter then main. I wouldn't be happy if the soup/salad came at the same time as the starter though, but thankfully thus has not happened!

I do find many of the starters to be very small, one spring roll, 2" long by 1/2" wide. One of my starters recently mentioned peppers on the description but the quantity on the plate was about 2, tiny fingernail's worth. I don't mind if i have a salad too, rather enjoy little tasters.

@downsmead - yes, that's our sailing too. I am really excited about the itinerary!

We have checked in and printed express passes off.

We're flying with celebrity air (or whatever it is called) as well and therefore also possibly need to print off flight stuff, transfers, hotel voucher maybe but we can't access any of it.

We've been locked out of our reservation for over a month now, ever since we printed the express passes. We can't check for luggage tags or anything. Sailing on 2 April.

Tried all the tips and tricks but to no avail.

Have been in touch with the help team too who repeat the same advice & ignore the fact the answers didn't work!

Very annoying.

The filet mignon was on once (in 10 days), and was great, agree. It was the New York strip (from the menu that's available every day) that was poor.

We spent our Easter 2016 holiday on Az and summer 2016 holiday on Seabourn, standard verandah cabin for both.

Seabourn food was spectacularly better than the Az main dining room, we didn't have great food at Easter, the steaks for example were terrible.

The service on Seabourn was also better by a huge margin. The service in the dining room, our preferences were remembered really quickly, the drinks waiters were fabulous, right there and ready, with a huge range of wines to choose from and they were so keen to find something to meet your taste. Again, at Easter, we felt we had to beg for attention at times and wine waiters were hard to come by. Service in bars too was far superior, for example we were in the top front bar (can't recall the name, the Living Room on Az), transpired the bar wasn't due to be open at that time, but getting a cocktail was no problem at all, anything we wanted. The service, drinks and food were amazing.

The cabin was also better than Az by a huge margin, the size, the bathroom, the wardrobe, all lovely.

There were downsides though, there was a real lack of entertainment and anything going on. For example, there wasn't even a quiz held daily, as soon as something else was going on, quiz cancelled. We missed dining in R2 because the booking rules were not clear, possibly had changed, we missed out anyway. I love the specialities on Az. The water sports day was daft, the only opened it for a tiny amount of time and it was therefore v crowded.

We would sail on either line again happily if price/itinerary was right, though will call it a day with Az if their MDR steaks are as inedible as they were last Easter!

We've sailed both lines & found little life after the show on either to be honest. Which is fine by us but I'm surprised at that being the reason for the switch..

Also Marina's passenger capacity is significantly more than Az which should increase numbers in the bar if that's important.

We will happily sail with both lines again, depending on time, itinerary & price but if all else was equal I'd choose O's marina because of (significantly) better rooms, better MDR food & included speciality restaurants.

Really glad you posted this correction *amber*, we have our 1st celebrity cruise coming up, we're in a FV, therefore MDR on select & I thought that meant we could rock up whenever we are ready which is what we're used to on other lines. We will eat in the specialities too I hope.

We love the planes at maho beach. It is better when the cruise ships are not in though, gets pretty crowded when they are!

Connie, that's M class I think so hopefully we'll get a movie under the stars or 2.

Good to hear there's some free movies in the room, fingers crossed he can find some he likes the look of.

Thanks for the info.

Our 1st cruise with celebrity is coming up fast.

Can someone tell us where movies are available? DS (13) does enjoy watching a movie or 3 on holiday.

Is there a cinema?

Do they run movies under the stars? (I love this!)

Is there a movie library on the room TV and are they free?

Yes - June & September are best if you can be flexible.

October is risky IMO, and getting riskier as the month progresses, the weather almost always 'breaks' at some point in October and most resorts shut totally.

We sailed on Az Journey in March this year & Seabourn Odyssey in August this year.

The suites are no comparison, we had a verandah suite on both trips, Seabourn wins hands down. The bathroom is about 5x the size and feels almost like a luxury hotel bathroom whereas the Journey's bathroom has the feel of a caravan. The storage is also far better on Seabourn with the walk in closet & the seating area is a real squeeze in the Az cabin, whereas the Seabourn seating area was lovely. The balcony is not hugely bigger but bigger enough to make a difference - I loved the little foot stools and the fact the chair reclines on our Seabourn balcony.

Seabourn also easily wins in MDR, we didn't have brilliant food at Easter in the MDR on Az (worse than summer 2015 when we were also on the Journey). The steaks were appalling in particular. We paid extra to eat speciality dining too frequently, but that was excellent. We didn't get to eat in R2 on Seabourn due to the mysterious (to me) booking arrangements which was annoying.

Seabourn also wins with drinks IMO, much better drinks service, staff so willing and able to find something just right for your tastes, whereas there's much less choice on Az. On Seabourn, the fabulous drinks waiters would let you taste the wine, then if you weren't keen ask what you would prefer, if you wanted something softer, or oakier, nothing was too much trouble. They'd be ready to offer a dessert wine right on time. My glass was never empty. On Az sometimes you feel you have to beg for a drink and wave down a waiter.

We would still happily sail both lines if the price,time & itinerary was right but we definitely felt Seabourn was a step up.

Ross was the CD on 6th August cruise (& we thought he was great), no idea who the maitre d was but the food & service in MDR was excellent.

I have to say that we were a bit disappointed with this on our first trip last week, it was a marina "2 hours", not a day so the scrum was quite off putting, especially given the general lack of scrums on the ship (colonnade breakfast excepting!).

Is it normal to open the marina for just 2 hours per week?

I'd go over to the French side for dinner, to Grand Case where there is the most amazing row of restaurants. Take a look on TA to see which are the top rated and which menus appeal most to you. L'Estaminet is our favourite, quite modern cuisine but it's not the most popular so I think it is a personal choice!

Lucky you, we've spent many lovely gourmet breaks in GC.

(By the way, the advice we've had is that the mosquitos carrying zika are day biters, not night time & only pregnant women/women planning to conceive need to be concerned. Either way, we found that using a mossie spray kept us bite free, we noticed bites on occasions we forgot & would recommend using it day and night).

We booked a balcony guarantee in Jan for an August cruise and the # was allocated on our confirmation paperwork which I wasn't expecting.

Maybe there are different types of guarantee!

We were on journey in August 15 and March 16.

Linens, carpets and fixtures were new and improved. Chairs were new.

Desk/cupboards were old, including balcony furniture. Stickers have been bizarrely put on the centre section of cupboard & desk doors to make it appear lighter but it is a little amateurish to be honest.

I don't know if the mattresses are changed but we found the beds on both trips to be extremely comfortable and slept really well.

I don't think all balconies are set up for 3, no.

Feel a bit like the three bears, too big a party for this, too small a party for that. Hopefully one'll come along that we are just right for! We do have 11 months after all.