SWPD

Afternoon Everyone

 

So more on the Cruise Tour portion of our trip. I did a lot of research before out trip. Trying to figure out how much to budget for. I wanted to pay as much off ahead of time as I could, that way we would not have to worry about money while on vacation. I have to admit, that’s one of the major appeals of cruising.

 

So when we met with David, our tour director, the first night, he handed us our itinerary and our optional excursion packet with the princess and locations of the excursions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily we had budgeted a good amount of money for the land tour part, knowing that we wanted to fly to McKinley and do a few other excursions. What I forget to budget for was how expensive food was and is up there, but more on that later.

 

We found out that the reason why information is so hard to come by is because the options and prices for the excursions are constantly changing from week to week. Whether, time and availability being some of the variables that effect what is available. For example, as you see white water rafting was available in Denali. We wanted to do this excursion, so we told David, and filled out the paperwork. Unfortunately, due to whether and the fact that we participated in another excursion, which i will tell you about later in the review, we were unable to go. It was ok though, we were never charged and did get to participate in other wonderful excursions along the way. The way the excursions work is/are, you fill out the paperwork, hand it to your tour director, then he or she makes all the calls and sets it up so you can go, the others in your tour group may be relaxing or doing other excursions at that time, but they set it up so you never miss anything important. Then on the last day of the land tour, they charge your credit card for what you actually participated in.

Great review. Used a lot of your information and made a bunch of notes. We see you were in the Grandeur January 2015. We sailed on her that month too. Been on her 19 times. Love that ship and drew. We are booked for the 7B June 17 this year. You were and enormous help. Thanks

Any luck in getting an idea how many elites will be joining us?

Weather. This transatlantic has not been as smooth as previous ones...just luck of the draw. But, in fairness our previous ta's in both directions have been exceptionally smooth.

 

We did have on night of 7 meter seas and 70 mph winds, followed by a night of maybe 4-5 meter seas, but neither was all that bad....sounds worse than it was..and for the most part we just slept through it. Since then we've had moderate seas, a few short showers, but mostly clear or partially cloudy skies. The seas...if you look across the water there is some white breaking of small waves and the ship has a slow pitch and roll which you really only notice when you focus on it. Hard to say how many are effected by the seas.

 

The temperature has been a steady 71F, day and night irrespective of where we are...on the TV. One should probably surmise that the instrument providing temperature to the tv page is probably not working correctly. It's now fixed and it's 84F. In reality, it's been windy on deck, but they provided light blankets so you could sit outside on the first two cooler sea days. Now it is really in the 70's, so no blankets needed. Inside the ship there are cooler and warmer areas...some women always have something warmer to put on, if needed.

 

This is the first day I've worn shorts...it's beautiful out, with some slow boat motion.

 

On an unrelated topic, this is a no food day...we ate at Qsine last night. Must have eaten at least 10,000 calories...followed by much needed pepto bismol snack back in the room. Excellent fun meal....too much food.

 

Aqua spa cafe menu today is the deviled egg or poached salmon special dish with 15 minute wait.

 

There have been two concerts at 2pm on sea days. Outstanding...standing room only.

Breakfast drinks are unrelated to the coupons. When used, the coupons are only valid from 5-7pm.

quick response. You are good. Have you found out yet about the Elite numbers for the Nov 7 sailing? We will miss the SS United Stated room for breakfast. We have loved the Normandie of the Summit.

Gary

Yes, they still have all the Elite drinks for breakfast.

Kim,

Do you need to use one of the three coupons for espresso's or bellinis at breakfast?

Thanks, Gary

Can you find out how many Elite's are on the 7 Nov. sailing?

The nits and other stuff

 

1) captains club letter to elites: there are two senior officer parties, one is for select dining and late seating...the other is for early seating. We are in aqua, dining in blu. If you believe the written word, we aren't invited to any of the events. Now aqua/blu isn't new, is it? We don't get a senior officers party? who writes/checks the stuff that's distributed? ( obviously we really are invited, but shucks, you'd think by now they would have updated the invite lists.

 

2) ditto on captains club celebration. One has to wonder when the captains club and celebrity's web booking system will realize that there is an aqua class on celebrity ships that doesn't dine in the mdr.

 

3) CAUTION: If you purchase an open passage booking, it is automatically assigned to the same travel professional in your current record. That means, I think, you have to use it through that agent! You may be able to change that when you book on board so be careful

 

4) CAUTION: in the past you could transfer an on board booking to a TA of your choice within 60 days if booking. Reading the current new program, the reservation seems to go to "travel partner", whatever that means, "to further service your needs." This one could be a biggie, because our TA has different offers on different weeks, so it looks like I might lose control of when the reservation is moved and therefore lose control of my TA provided perks. I think You can stop the automatic assignment, but you have to do it when you book on board so be careful. No mention of 60 days to transfer, but you may cancel or change your reservation up to 75 or 90 days prior to sail date. It's hard to understand all the nuances.....

 

5) CAUTION: the fine print on the future cruise program says "combinable with one additional offer of your choice available up to the final payment due date". I remind you that you can't apply for the stockholder obc until well after final payment! Although the folks in future cruise sales insist it's combinable, I wouldn't count on that unless celebrity changes the words, they, presumably carefully, wrote into the fine print.

 

6) remember all that talk about a VIP entrance to the ship when in port? We have not seen one in our first two stops...and I think this was the ship that was supposed to have one. I guess it was a trial that wasn't worth continuing. I actually applaud celebrity for trying new things and then being able to then decide it sounded good, but doesn't work well.

 

7) the buffet in the constellation lounge has continued from 5-7 and it's good. There is some internal bar confusion about what wines are in the classic package or, for this cruise, on the elite menu which is the classic package menu. Each bar seems to have their own view of what wines are included. In the constellation lounge they say only Cabernet is the only red on the classic package. Rendezvous lounge has three or four reds on the package. I checked and while the constellation lounge has all the same wines, they only tell you Cabernet is included. I guess it's a training/communication problem

 

8) this is one celebrity really should fix. The captain makes various announcements during the cruise and some of them such as weather or late arrival information are pretty important. However, they don't play the captains message into the cabins,...only the public spaces. If you are in your cabin, you may not even hear that there is an announcement going on. I have no problem with any of this. But where I do have a problem is that there is no way to review or hear what the captain said after he makes the announcement. If you miss the announcement, you may never know there even was an announcement. This would be easily solved if they put the captains announcements (audio) on one of the tv channels and there is even a channel already that shows where we are, speed etc with no audio. Seems like this would be an easy improvement.

1. Can you find out how many Elite's are on the 7 Nov. sailing?

2. Can you still get a free Bellini for breakfast?

I like the idea of the coupon and using them at the Rendezvous lounge to take to dinner.

Thanks