UKWLDCruise

It happened to me a while ago in Miami coming off a ship and RCI were not that helpful. My bag ended up being abandoned by the person who took it on an airport carousel somewhere in the US. They removed the flight tag but the airline they were flying with, Delta, were kind enough to fly the bag back to the UK for me without charge.

the worst bit was having to declare at UK customs that the bag had been missing for six weeks and i could not be certain what was in it.

I received a hand pay on Freedom and once they knew I was British they just took the statement away. The UK does not tax winnings.

I am just back from an October Freedom back to Back with RCI booking the flights to Orlando.

I had the flight ref number about 11 months before the cruise but found it was little use as it was group booking and BA are useless with those. When I did check in I found that RCI had reserved a seat in a good position for me anyway.

Any official type picture ID is fine.

If the weather is bad enough to cancel they will offer another trip or refund to your choice. I have been on coach execursions though in pretty bad weather.

i wasn't on Legends first run but one of the first few and they still had French yard workers sorting out problems with all sorts of things, including the automatic doors. People had to keep forcing them open when they were locked in or out.

I have found that they wash and dry at such high temp that it isn't worth using at all.

There are US flat pin sockets and European twin round pin in your room. I would pack the UK/US convert plug.

I was in the MDR when one person on the table complained that the gym scales only weighed in new fangled kilowatts.

Travellers cheques are cashable on the ship, if no where else, so are good for getting extra cash without any ATM charges or paying the casino their cut.

There are a lot of islands where I feel safer paying cash than letting them have my card details.

European regs are pretty clearly against plate switches in bathrooms, ceiling cord switches are allowed but wouldn't be great for a ship.

I always find it strange when in the US to have switches inside where all the water is.

Because it costs so much to have ships out of service I have more than once had to step around a carpet fitter when a dry dock was not in sight.

I have had experiences with new ships, years ago when legend was new I was on a cruise with French dock workers trying to trouble shoot loads of problems like the doors not opening.

On Celeb I had a average/poor cruise which some people blamed on it being the first after a TA/spell in Europe.

All in all there are a few cruises you might like to avoid.

A long time ago I was with my 13 year old niece returning to the ship at GC after going on the Atlantis Sub. It was one of the last tenders, there was only a few people on it and it was getting a bit choppy.

Of the few people on the ship there were three more than drunk gents who thought they were on a fishing excursion. They were waving, standing up and saying when are we fishing. Then there were two women who pulled out bibles and prayed until we boarded the ship.

Still it didn't put her off, we still cruise together every now and then and she is in her thirties now.

I am on Freedom in October 15 and I booked up and paid last summer.

I have just checked and my booking is still on the system.

Crusing since the 80's and I have never missed a tender port because of bad weather, though I will admit to missing a whole cruise because of it. It was a back to back and due to weather they ran the same cruise twice in a row.

From what I have seen recently you are just as likely to miss a docked port as Coco Cay with all the medivacs going on.

I must admit that usually when I have tried another cruise line it's because RCI mucked up, missed flights, luggage fallen out of coach etc.

I have tried NCL, it was an enlarged ship and by the way the waitors had to grab piles of plates etc when we were docking the work had had a negative effect on it's structure. Princess was okish but when you have to say that the best bit of your cruise was the trip through Canada to get their you have a problem. Celeb was the latest and it was the worst yet, the infamous cruise of the Eclipse when they got to St Thomas and they didn't have a dock etc, good food yes but served ever so slowly and getting off the ship was hell.

RCI is sort of like BA, it might not be great all the time but you usually get what you expected.

Didn't a port get closed down a while ago because the case X ray picked up a large pineapple belt buckle and security read it as a hand grenade.

After 25 RCI cruises with a Princess and an NCL thrown in as well I booked a cruise on the Eclipse 2012. I know that the lines are sisters but the organisation was awful. Many more than one call in a day at the panic of turning up at a port and finding no berth that could take the ship, a note from the captain explaining about another docking problem, slow service, running out of items, very poor at getting people off the ship at the end of the cruise and as others have said poor ship layout.

Yes the food was slightly better and yes it would be my choice to have a smoke free casino but not with Celebrity the way I found them. 2013 trans Pacific with RCI, 2014 B2B on Freedom.