Dawg74

Received Celebrity notification email for Nassau today. Not my first choice but that's ok, hopefully the weather is nice in Nassau the day we dock!!

Hi all, I thought I posted this yesterday but I guess I just thought about it. :) we received a call yesterday, the message said we are going to Bahamas, it didn't specify Nassau but I am assuming since the rest have heard that. I know it's not what many of us planned for but it's still going to be a great time!!

We are in the same boat, haha, as you, I was excited about St. Marten, Punta Cana and St. Croix, I haven't received official word about Nassau but I understand others have. I would like it to be settled and for what its worth I don't really want to go to Nassau but.... still going to be a great trip. I want to know if the schedule of sea days has changed to as we booked some tours already privately and I need to alter the schedule.

With due respect, I am not "worried" about anything. I was asking for the opinions of more seasoned cruisers who may have experienced something similar to this in the past.

 

Not exactly sure when you plan your excursions, if you are a last minute sort of person, but I am not. I enjoy the planning and researching aspect. I was simply asking so I am aware of what can be expected and what I might need to research.

 

But thanks for your sarcasm and angst. It is refreshing to know that people will still be rude when hiding behind a keyboard. (yes, that was sarcasm of my own.)

We are also concerned and wondering what will happen with our cruise, we visit St. Maarten as well in December. We have had a couple changes to cruises in the past although never for this reason, the cruise line just sent us an email when it happened to us advising of a change. Once we got a sea day and once we got sent to a different island. It sounds bad for St. Maarten, so perhaps we will hear of the proposed changes in the coming days.

We received this email to, the prices didn't seem to include a discount for the shore excursions or dining packages that we looked at either.

I regularly go to the US site to compare prices. Prices consistently show in USD on the US site and CAD on the Canadian site. That said, I'm still on the old website, and I've no idea how the new one works in this regard.

Hi Fouremco

I can't get the new site to work anymore, I have tried the suggestions here including the link to the old site, I can pull up the front page but can't go anywhere from there. On the new site there is a spot to change countries, as shown below but for me there is no other choice other than United States. I am in the US right now, but still I didn't think that would make a difference, I have shopped the Canadian site in the past while in the US. I am hoping I hear back from celebrity today, I assume I am not the only one with this problem 😕

We tried twice once on the eclipse and once on the Equinox and both times we were told it was not possible at guest relations. We were charged 10 per day extra, it sucked, but I like the sparking waters so I paid it.

Has anyone been able to change the country at the bottom of the main page and look at cruises in a different currency? I see where it says United States and I can click on it but there are no other options. We are from Canada and book in Canadian dollars. Even the three cruises I have booked right now indicate the balance is in US dollars when I paid a deposit in Canadian dollars. I talked to our vacation planner and she thought we should be able to change the country at the bottom of the page, but it doesn't work for us. :(

We purchased a large amount of OBC for our cruise last March on the Equinox due to a very favourable exchange rate with the Canadian dollar. Guest services gave us cash but would only do so on the last night of the cruise. Throughout the cruise they said the money was to spend onboard. That was our experience. It worked out ok for us as we used it for the land portion of our trip.

$200 plus price protection for the same category if you go with one of their offers. One was the April 14 Summit out of San Juan, and I can't remember the other. Have you decided on an alternative?

Hi

We haven't decided on anything yet, I only found out here last night so I emailed our vacation planner today am I am awaiting a response. The 14th cruise might be good. We are coming with our kids so we have two rooms booked, hopefully we could still get two together.

What kind of a credit did celebrity offer to rebook?

We have this booked to, was a great price.... we'll see what happens I guess

Hi there, we have taken our kids on a couple of boating excursions in St. Maarten, booked privately not from the cruise ship. One involved a tour of Simpson bay, some snorkel stops at a couple areas, a beach lunch and a stop to watch the planes land. The other was similar but rather than travelling around the coast of St. Maarten we went to Anguilla, again we snorkelled, had a nice beach lunch and so on. The boat was a big speed boat which was fun, our three kids loved it each time as did we. Enjoy your trip!!

Our kids have been cruising on Celebrity for the past 4 years and have been on 3 of the longer itineraries in the Caribbean. They love it, the atmosphere is fun without being too loud and crazy. Some of the other cruises we have been on have been fun but just a bit too loud with all the activities and people. We have two cruises coming up with the kids on celebrity, they are now 10, 13 and 16 and just as excited to go as ever. Enjoy your trip where ever you go!!

I have heard of others having success with this but for me I tried it twice on the Eclipse and Equinox and was told I couldn't do it. I don't drink either and enjoy the sparkling water. I didn't push it too much though. Enjoy your trip!!

Hi there

We have tried twice on board to switch from classic alcoholic to premium non alcoholic and both times we were told no. We had to pay the difference between the classic and the premium non alcoholic which I think was 10 per day. So maybe it depends who you get at guest relations!! Can't hurt to try.

Good luck

Hi Canadian Sunset

I don't drink at all, my wife does a little and we have been on the Eclipse a couple of times. There are more things to do than I can get done. There is great musical entertainment throughout the ship during the day, cooking demonstrations, enrichment classes where you can hear really interesting people speak about a range of topics. On sea days we usually have coffee on the balcony, breakfast, lounge by the pool with a frozen drink and listen to music, lunch, then the coffee bar for an espresso, take in the glass blowing show or attend one of the enrichment classes, or play some bocce ball, relax on the balcony or hang out at the sunset bar usually with music. There are tons of other things as others have mentioned above to but as you can see, the day goes by too fast!!! Have a great cruise. :)

When you board get a cc account, on the last cruise day change to a cash account if you have OBR credit remaining. Guest Relations will give the balance to you in cash

How do you actually go about changing to a cash account? Do you just go to guest relations and tell them you want to remove your credit card from the account and have a cash account? Then if it's the last day of the cruise, ask them for the money that's in it? I have never done this before so I just wanted to understand the process.

The casino was a nice way to cash out OBCN (non refundable). There never was a need to cash out OBCR in the casino; you can do that at Guest Relations any time. Totally understand the change however; it's non refundable for a reason and this was clearly a hole in the system people were exploiting.

Well this is good to know, but some people have reported that they could only cash out refundable OBC at guest relations on the last day of the cruise. I know there are a few of us that purchased OBC due to celebrity's favourable exchange rate with the CAN/US dollar with the intention of taking some of that money to spend ashore during the cruise. I will attempt this on our upcoming cruise.

So does this mean that non refundable OBC can not be cashed out in the casino but if I purchased OBC through gifts by celebrity and want some of the cash to spend ashore I can still get it? That was part of the reason I bought it and the gifts by celebrity department told me it was fine. Or is the new policy such that cash is simply no longer given out?

@dawg - your OBC is refundable - no need to cash out at casino

will go back to your credit card using the actual exchange rate of your card...

I understand, but it's the Canadian exchange rate that has become so poor, we cash out in the casino as a way to get US dollars to spend off the ship.

Hi there

We did the exact thing you are considering last March. You are purchasing individual units of $25 U.S. For $30.60 each. You can only buy 9 at a time online but you can do it multiple times. We bought 90 units last year which gave us 2250 U.S. I think we paid 27.40 per unit at the time. We went to the casino and took out 500 at a time to spend ashore with no problems and are hoping to do the same again this March. Hopefully the exchange rate improves in the future.

Just wondered how it went for you with regards to the OBC and cashing it in for USD $$ .... The US exchange right now is almost 40% and if there is a better way for our January cruise I am up for that !!:)

Hi there,

We had no problems cashing in OBC that we purchased from Gifts By Celebrity on our cruise last March, they did charge the 5% fee but it was better than the exchange rate for sure. We are cruising again this March and were thinking of doing the same thing again but then I read something on another thread here about the casinos beginning to give out credits to play in the casino instead of cash, so I am not sure. The Canadian dollar exchange rate is pathetic now so it would be a big benefit to buy some OBC in advance and cash out for spending on shore.

We have done this cruise twice with our 3 children and all of us loved it. There is something for everyone onboard celebrity ships and with this southern itinerary you just can't go wrong. We are trying the Equinox in a few months for a new experience and I bet it will be great to.

Enjoy your trip !!

Hi there,

We have taken our three kids on the Eclipse twice and they loved it. Our experience with the the staff including the photographers, officers, servers, everyone was similar to the other posts. People fussed over them. My son turned 9 on our last cruise and the hostess arranged for the captain to come to our table and wish him a happy birthday and pose for a picture. We had nothing to do with this arrangement. He was thrilled. Even though they do not have some of the waterslides and movie screens and so on that we enjoy on other lines, the attention to detail is very much enjoyed by all in our family. I would encourage anyone to take their kids with them on a celebrity cruise.

Have fun!!!