TobyKnits

Personally, I would go ahead and book the guarantee.

We did the suite guarantee on Millie in Oct. 2012 and got accessible Sky Suite 9121. It is the first suite off the elevator/stairway vestibule, underneath the overhang from the pool deck, and also underneath the ping pong table and a crew access door.

There was occasional noise from the crew door in the morning and once in a while the ping pong table was annoying (mainly if someone was bouncing the ball off the deck instead of off the table). But there was really much LESS noise and much less annoyance than I would have expected. And there were lots of people playing ping pong. Also, the bathroom is accessible with a roll in shower and there is a ramp at the doorway to the balcony.

Frankly, I think you have a good chance of getting this cabin on a guarantee because who in their right mind would pick a cabin by choice that is under the ping pong table and the overhang, and accessible if you don't need it?

On the plus side, it was super convenient both to the pool deck and the buffet. We'd have no problem staying in this room again and we are used to a very quiet environment at home. But if I was choosing from a group of cabins all at the same price, this wouldn't be the one I'd pick.

I talk about it in a little more detail with photos on my blog.

http://rlshome.com/blog/?p=3292

Who knows, you may get lucky and get a better room.

Lower level.

Upper level is for select dining.

I don't recall if there were 2 tops near the railing or not as I only ate upstairs once at lunch, but it doesn't factor in if you are doing early seating.

TroubleT is right, it is closer to $300 a couple. I want to say $269. If you already have the Celebrity cookbook you can ask them to deduct that.

On Millie (M class) we had Chef's Table in the galley. On Equinox (S class) there is not room in the galley and we were told none of the S class ships have room in the galley for a chef's table.

Anyway, on Equinox the Chef's Table group met in Cellar Masters for champagne and amuse bouches, then Chef Tato walked us through the kitchen for Select dining, then we had dinner in the Murano wine room.

The dishes we have had have all been Celebrity dishes from the specialty restaurants. The amuse bouches were Chef Tato's creations. The wine they pour is excellent and they are happy to pour a lot of it.

ETA: I nearly forgot, I have the menu from our Chef's Table in January on Flickr. If you view the large version you should be able to read it.

The concept of a sizable company like Celebrity, changing their product in an attempt to better please their current customers, and/or appeal to NEW customers is FANTASTIC. "Adapt or die" applies to business as well as biology. ;)

 

Unfortunately there are always going to be SOME folks unhappy with ANY changes while lamenting "The Good Ol' Days" and "The Way We Were." (a perfect example is clinging to the nearly extinct tradition of formal night dining)

Very well said.

Personally, I look forward to changes. Even though I've only sailed Millie once and Equinox once so I shouldn't be bored with the current venues, I wouldn't be disappointed to things mixed up a bit.

In terms of restaurants - after eating off the Murano menu 3 times total I could care less if I ever see it again. *yawn* As much as I used to love crepes, I can no longer tolerate dairy or eggs in my diet so for my own selfish reasons I would like to see something different in this space. Maybe there is enough space/kitchen here to support a change to a pub style venue.

Silk Harvest seems like the perfect place for the new suites restaurant. It would have the kitchen and space, whereas all the other venues that have been mentioned (Michael's Club, Bistro on 5, and Cellar Masters) do not appear to have enough of a kitchen to be able to support a restaurant with a complete menu.

Being from Seattle, I don't find glass blowing all that interesting and would welcome something different in that space.

The Lawn Club seems like a terrible waste of space/resources. I told my husband when we were on board last month that, if nothing else, they should replace it with the best quality fake turf, put loungers on it and stop investing so much to maintain it.

Change is interesting! Thanks to the original poster for sharing what you heard; I think it's fun to speculate on what may be different the next time we are on board.

- seated at Group table although requested private dining. Eventually resolved but uncomfortable.

The opposite has been my normal experience. We request large table, get seated alone. Each time it was easily remedied and is one of the first things we take care of when we get on the ship. As others said, this is best handled by the maitre d' in the dining room.

- lackluster food at San Marco. Worst was a flavorless tuna carpaccio and a $5 "ribeye" the last night

We have had very good food in the MDR. Not excellent, but very good. On our last cruise the ribeye 2 people at our table ordered in Tuscan Grill was TERRIBLE and the ribeye a couple days later in the MDR was very good. My impression is that Celebrity has some quality control issues with their beef.

- room canapés consisting of a handful of raisins and olives (only 2 of 3 days)

We usually book a Sky Suite so maybe we get slightly better canapés. They generally consisted of 4 items - olives, dip (salsa or hummus or bean), chips, tomatoes & mozzarella were common.

Before these canapés they served what I would consider a more upscale version (or maybe more pretentious) - whipped spread on a slice of cucumber, shrimp, salmon mousse on cucumber, a roll of salami with some kind of whip in it, etc. I actually like the newer canapés better and never once were we given raisins (I would remember, can't stand them.)

- rude treatment by Nina at Guest Relations regarding first point above

We have never been treated rudely by any Celebrity staff member.

IMHO, you would have to lower your expectations from this to switch to Princess. I think partly this was a factor of only being a 4 day cruise, as much as I hate to think that guests are treated differently on short cruises. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it as much as you hoped to.

My husband and I disembarked Equinox on Monday, January 20th, 2014. There were a total of four ships in port. For the first time, we did self-carry luggage. We went to the appointed location on the ship 15 mins before we were told (deck 5 forward). The line stretched from the forward doors all the way back to Cafe Al Bacio. When we got to the end of that line, we were told the line at deck 5 midship was much shorter, go join it. We waited in line for about 20 minute - during which people kept trying to cut into the line. Ship staff did a pretty good job of telling people to go to the end of the line.

Then the line started moving, quickly. There were several people who did NOT belong in self-carry as they were physically impaired. I actually felt sorry for these folks as this was not the time or place where you would want to be slowing down the crowd.

Upon walking into the terminal you must have 1 hand free to use the down escalator, otherwise you must wait for the elevator. We were able to use the escalator and were directed to a very short line at customs. At 7:35 am we were in a cab driving away from the port.

Have no idea what the lines were like after this time, but doing self-carry was quick and easy because our luggage was easy for us to manage.

Almost a year ago we received cancellation notice of our April 26, 2014 sailing on Millennium. It was particularly bad timing as we had just had an unexpected death in the family and the last thing I had time to deal with was changing our vacation plans.

At any rate - our travel agent was given 2 weeks notice which equated to a couple days less than 2 weeks when she told us. They offered us the same $200 OBC to rebook. However, a few days after the 2 week notice to rebook, 1-2-3 GO was starting.

We were able to get a couple day extension, rebook with 1-2-3 GO, AND get the $200 OBC. So you may find that there is a little bit of leeway, but not much. Also, it took several phone calls by our travel agent to find someone at Celebrity that would let us have 1-2-3 GO and the OBC. Several weeks later they announced a modified itinerary than what we had booked on, this was the transpacific crossing.

Good luck! It is unfortunate, we were very disappointed when our cruise was cancelled, but once we got past our disappointment we realized that Celebrity still is our favorite cruise line of choice.

Looking forward to reading more of your review!

Lovely review, thank you for including all the positives plus the few things you thought could be improved. Glad you enjoyed your cruise!

Did you prepay your gratuities? I am of the thrifty frame of mind and would consider the OBC as going for gratuities first.

Also, I find booking independent tours through the roll call to be more to my liking than Celebrity excursions.

That was a fun recap Bill! Wish we were all still onboard.

Dry dock.

I was just on Equinox in January, crew said they were headed to dry dock in a couple of months.

Both my Celebrity cruises have been in Sky Suites. While I mostly eat breakfast in Blu, my husband and I prefer the MDR for dinner because we like the conversation with our tablemates and prefer to sit at a large table. We also prefer having the same waiters every night. I don't see where adding a dedicated restaurant for suite guests makes any sense at all.

If we go to 2 specialty restaurants in a 10-17 day cruise that is enough for us. Partly because we like sitting with our MDR table and partly because we've actually had better food in the MDR than some of the dishes in the specialty restaurants.

The changes described by the original poster would do nothing to encourage us to continue booking at the suite level.

I like this idea of a video, especially if it used some soft of glowlight to show all the places with germs, people touching them, and then carrying them to new surfaces including their mouths.

It's like someone above said - the person who goes to the bathroom, thinks they are clean, and doesn't wash. Show the place they touched that may have been dirtied by someone else (how about the button to flush the toilet), and then later how they put their hand to their mouth with food...anything that grosses people out and makes them realize wash with soap and water and do it often!

Thanks for your detailed review of the specialty restaurants. My DH and I will be on Reflection later this year and this will help us decide where and what to eat.

I found it interesting that you had wonderful ribeyes. In Tuscan on Equinox a couple weeks ago we had horrible ribeyes, worse than what was served in the MDR and far less tasty than the ones we make at home.

1. Chamomile is readily available at the buffet and in Blu. Other varieties that I had recently include: Mango, Mango White, Raspberry. I know English Breakfast and Earl Grey are also available. I'm sure there are more, but I have to avoid black tea don't recall the rest.

Better quality tea is available from Cafe al Bacio for a charge.

2. I have never heard of a limit. More importantly, buy a case of soda or water, slap a luggage tag on it and give it to the porters with the rest of your bags. Easy peasy.

I'm already slightly disappointed that the iced tea isn't the real brewed kind so I need some hope!

Real brewed ice tea is available at Cafe al Bacio. The presentation and tea are lovely, definitely try it!

Hi Bill.

 

Any chance you know who the Maitre 'd's are in Blu, Tuscan and Murano?

 

Judy

In Murano it was Maja (pronounced Maya).

I don't recall for the other restaurants.

Amy,

 

Thanks for all the great information. Wondering if you ate at either Biminis or Bravos, and how they were?

 

Also wondering if you noticed the craft beer situation on the Equinox? Wondering if they have the craft beer selection in Michaels yet? I realize that it is a VIP lounge until 7pm, but I previously had heard that they do not have the selection of craft beers on Equinox yet and was wondering if that had changed?

 

Thanks again.

I thought dinner at Bimini's was good, above average. Skip their bread though, unless you want it for dessert. They promote it as one of their signature items which is why I tried it. I thought on the website it said the bread had honey in it. All I could taste and see was sugar. Tons of sugar. I actually scraped out spoonfuls of it. As dessert I quite enjoyed it, but bread with a meal? No thanks.

I don't recall seeing the craft beer selection in Michael's like I have seen photos of from other ships.

Is the helipad sailaway only for Elite status? Thanks. Debbie

We were invited to the helipad for sailaway from St. Maarten and we are not elite. We are actually the lowest level of Captain's Club. We were in a Sky Suite and booked the Chef's Table one night, either of those things may have helped earn us an invite.

My husband and I were also on this cruise. Here is some additional info in response to questions asked on this thread.

Pool deck music - we did not spend tons of time on the pool deck this cruise, but when we were there it happened to be more Zumba music then live bands. This could have just been our timing though.

Glass artists - there was a guy with a tattoo on his right arm. I only remember this because he had to keep it covered. There was a woman whose name was Ryan (no idea of spelling). Not sure what the third man's name is.

St. Kitts tour - I was in one of the groups that booked with Beulah and went to Ottley's Plantation. It was an enjoyable day, would do it again.

Dominica tour - 4 of us booked with Khatt's, our driver was Shane. He got us to Titou Gorge before any other groups and we really enjoyed the uncrowded gorge. Personally, I did not think Trafalgar Falls was a big deal if you have seen waterfalls in any other part of the world. Papilotte was wonderful though! Good food and we enjoyed the gardens and volcanic pools.

Barbados tour - Harrison's Cave is interesting if you haven't seen that sort of thing before.

This was my first time to any of these islands so you can factor that in with my comments on any of the places we went.

OMK&Belladonna - thanks for that tip on pre-ordering!

JenKnits,

No, I cannot claim to be vegan. I eat a lot of vegan food because I am intolerant to both dairy and eggs.

If the MDR has a nightly vegan selection it is not printed on the regular menu from what I have seen. There is always a vegetarian selection there, but in my limited experience on Celebrity the vegetarian item is very commonly loaded with cheese. However, I don't think you will have a problem is you speak to the maitre d', it seems from other threads here (and Karen's reply) they do a decent job accommodating vegans.

On Millie a year or so ago I found that very few of the serving staff knew whether things were dairy free. I got a lot of blank looks when I would ask. For that reason, I think the maitre d' is your best resource.

(Ha! I have not yet decided what to bring for a knitting project. Probably socks and colorwork mitts. My Ravelry username is TobyKnits as well.)

I noticed on the recent Aqua Spa menu that the Preisman's posted it lists smoothies made with vanilla soy and almond milk.

http://www.thepreismans.com/ecarib_reflection_menus.htm#aqua

JenKnits, I am on the same sailing as you are. Really hoping they have almond milk available in Blu and at Cafe El Bacio too. My last cruise was on Millie (this class of ship did not have almond milk at the time, not sure about today) and I brought my own almond milk on board.

I know exactly what you're saying. I am telling myself it is not a big deal (and it's not in the grand scheme of things), but the Panama Canal cruise we took last year would be 120 points in the new system. Guess what we got for conversion - only 90 points.

And then when they offer this bonus booking offer of 25 extra points it really makes me feel like those 30 points we should have had actually were worth something.

It is kind of annoying. The Internet package minutes (as worthless as Internet can be on the ships) are essential for my husband's job so a coupon for that would be useful to us. Laundry too could be useful.