Moonarino

Excellent tips, thanks! Draft I'm sure will be fine, as any draft is likely much better than can (which I refuse to let touch my lips) or even bottle. Likewise, pub feel sounds great. It's been a while. Aussie rules FB, how long has it been since I've seen one of those games. Futbol is always on somewhere isn't it? NFL is restricted (usually) to Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays so it's a little harder to notice unless the radar is up for it. But this time of year I'm looking as much for college football (and basketball) as anything else. Yes it helps a great deal, especially that you also mentioned comfortable seating in the Casino bar. I hadn't actually seen any seating there in the pics I've found. Bad angles probably.

Does your app auto-update? If not, maybe you're using an older version that just doesn't look the same. I count a dozen or more updates in 2022 alone. (Most are probably small fixes or changes, but some can be fairly major.)

(Sidebar) I appreciate your perspective. I had a booking on Apex last fall that I ended up cancelling (under covid policy), in major part because I wasn't getting good vibes on E class.

With very limited experience on X and a few cruises on Royal (and more on Carnival), my take is that X is the only one of these three that doesn't try to "FORCE" me to "have a great time". It's been 11 years since I cruised Celebrity, so I certainly can't offer too much detail in that area. But . . . Pet peeve: In the past few years I've grown greatly annoyed by the fact that it's harder and harder to find even a semi-quiet space on Carnival or Royal ships. Music music music, blaring so loud it seems impossible to escape. I love music(!) but good grief gimme a break. The breaking point for Royal was our last cruise on Oasis 4-5 years ago (a big disappointment compared to two previous Oasis-class cruises) followed then Indy OTS in 2019 -- as annoyingly noisy as any Carnival cruise I've sailed in the past 7-8 years. Yes I'm venting. It's gotten ridiculous, and I think even hazardous to healthy ears. I am very much looking forward to our Nov 7 cruise on Silhouette, in part because I'm sure my ears will not be ringing (or roaring) for most of the cruise. If it lives up to expectations, my "return" to Celebrity might just be permanent. My two cents.

Thanks. It might've taken me a while to find that out, considering the name (old and new) and also that the Celebrity website's "bar" photos don't represent very well beyond drinks, and (for Craft Social) a close-up of people sitting around a table enjoying convo and drinks. I know what "bar" means (lol) but would be nice if I could find pics that show more features and ambience, and especially the differences from one to the next. Edit to add: I did find some decent pics of "Craft Social" via duckduckgo image search. The Celebrity pics barely show a tenth of what's actually there.

Glad you posted that because I share the sentiment. I'll add (to counter a later negative comment) that after our first cruise (years ago) on Royal and Celebrity, we were happy to get back to Carnival because the food just tasted better. But mind you this was years ago, and after the covid-induced universal meltdown, and post, I wonder how long dining venues of any sort will be able to sustain. @njsmom: As for age, as others alluded, I don't consider a 10-12 yo cruise ship as being "old", especially when that are 25-yo ships still sailing without incident. Perspective: Salt air can corrode the average metal, overnight, literally. Case in point, I lived in Florida for almost a decade (Air Force) and for 3 years within a quarter-mile of the beach. One night I left a fairly new pair of pliers outside in my screened-in deck, and the next afternoon I found it coated with rust. Any sea-sailing conveyance is highly prone to rust and I've seen my share of corrosion on cruise ships, but it was just surface rust which didn't affect much of anything beyond appearance. My points are (1) it's a constant job keeping a cruise ship looking pretty, but (2) even when it doesn't look perfect, it doesn't mean the ship is going to disintegrate in even the next 10 years. I sailed Eclipse in 2011 when she was just a year old and would not hesitate to book another cruise on any of the Summit class ships. In 16 days I'm boarding 11-yo Silhouette for a 10-day cruise and hugely looking forward to it. Book your best pick, relax, enjoy.

This is interesting (to say the least). My biggest dread about our upcoming 10-day on Silhouette (Nov 7) is either one of us testing positive -- if/when/for whatever reason we might actually get tested after boarding.

Likewise if you're still following here . . . First, I'm envious of your experience and happy to hear the crew kept you informed on "sightings". I spent 3 years in Alaska eons ago and a couple of times saw Northern Lights displays that made my knees a little weak. I'm scouring the boards for info on the best sports bar (TV) on Silhouette. Football and basketball freak here, trying to make sure I don't miss anything "important". You got word on that kind of venue?

I'm pretty much the same, only one Celebrity cruise before my upcoming Nov 7 on Silhouette but numerous others on CCL and RCI. First, Silhouette has been renovated (beautifully it seems!) so you may not get many (if any) postings regarding this particular ship. As for dining, don't expect nearly as many dining or snack options on Celebrity as on Oasis Class for example, but probably a little more or better(?) than the average Carnival ship. Probably more venues with cover charges on Celebrity. As for Silhouette, this is probably as informative as you can find: https://www.celebritycruises.com/cruise-ships/celebrity-silhouette/eat-and-drink As @TMLAalumstated, your 4-night cruise will probably not be typical as compared to longer cruises on X. But yes, I definitely think you could expect a mellower crowd on any Celebrity cruise longer that 3-4 days. Short cruises are often "party" cruises. I've done two 5-day cruises that weren't bad at all, but maybe I was just lucky. I do expect my 10-day Silhouette cruise to be very laid back in comparison to most cruises I've done. But if it doesn't work out that way, I'll be sure to let you know! 😬🙃

This has been my experience too, and I often escape to the "lower" (usually deck 4 or 5) area to escape other ship noise. (I tend toward "noise-induced vertigo" or something close to that.) @McGarrett5oh, for the past several cruises I've grabbed balcony staterooms exactly 2 decks above smoking and other potential "crowd" areas (fairly near the MDR but notably above outside areas) and have done exceedingly well with that every time. Never a problem with noise or smoke or anything.

Back when so many were yelling "mask up or die!" (or at least "or stay out!") the availability of N95s had quickly dropped to zero, and people had to wear whatever they could get their hands on. This of course led to a general regression in knowledge (please forgive the harshness, call it tongue-in-cheek) to the extent that any mask was better than nothing. That thinking still pervades. In this topic especially, one shouldn't take much of anything personally because this subject (and everything close to it) was so badly misinformed from the outset of covid and ongoing for 2 years. It piled up and piled up and piled up. (I remember when people generally knew what a natural vaccine was, and that it brought us an equivalent of "natural immunity" which was a very good thing to have.) These days a lot of compassion toward our fellow humanity is called for, because for too long it's been so dee-ay-em hard to know what the real truth is.

Depends on who you ask. Seniors were and are advised by some to wear masks to protect themselves. I used to wear N95 masks when mowing the lawn because I'm mildly allergic to grass molds, pollens, etc. That was until 2020 when (as you mentioned) it got to be so hard to find any masks at all. It didn't take long to use up my lawn-mowing stash of N95s, but then my lady found cloth masks (which I refused to wear) on Amazon and in some local stores I think. I'm sure this was another reason cloth masks got to be so "popular" for a long while, because those could be bought (or made) when paper masks couldn't.

Not just the news media though.

Agree 100%, FL lives and breathes (hugely) on tourist money. I left there (see below) in the early 90s, and returning 15+ years later I was amazed at how the I-95 corridor had been improved, facelifted, nothing like that long drive had been throughout the 80s. Gorgeous where it used to be desolate in many parts for many long miles. WE enjoy that now thanks to all the money Florida makes from tourism. (I applaud this knowing how so many other places do not use public funds well at all.) I was pretty sure the east coast hadn't been spared, contrary to another post somewhere in here. I've stopped off in Ormond Beach a few times, nice area, hope the town (and everwhere) can fully recover soon. @odysee, I spend almost a decade in Florida, nearly half of my Air Force career, and rode out a hurricane or two. (By that I mean we were evacuated for 2-3 days here and there, never actually "rode one out".) In every case that I saw and heard of, getting roads cleared and power restored was essentially 80% of the commercial effort (as opposed to residents etc), so when that was accomplished we could expect that everything would soon be near normal -- again commercially speaking, not regarding the condition/livability of residential areas and such. Florida does hurricane recovery as well as it can be done (generally at least). 5 weeks? I daresay as a tourist, for the most part (and depending on where you go) you likely won't even notice there was a hurricane.

Way back in the spring of 2020 I found two conflicting articles on the NIH web regarding cloth masks. That was and is the gist of the problem (for all of us) right there, not to mention even earlier conflicting words. But yes cruise pax make their own choices and at this point it's theirs (and mine) to make. Edit to add, just an FYI, the local VA hospital has never allowed visitors to enter the facility wearing cloth masks. They had (and maybe still have) people at all entrances checking the type of mask one was wearing. They had (and have?) their own approved masks ready to give to anybody wearing the wrong kind.

Exactly. We really don't know what we might be missing until we can see it before our eyes in black and white. If they want to confine the "daily" entirely to the app (although as @candersonalluded, can we trust the app that much?), there needs to be a dedicated "button" for it in the app. @PTC DAWG, I'm very much a wanderer too (often explore half the ship on embarkation day) but for some things we need a serial source of information, one day to the next, what's new today or tomorrow.

One thing (among a few) that I missed in my last cruise or two was "where the heck is the outdoor movie schedule??" I never could find that anywhere, no idea what I missed. I used top know exactly where to look in the daily paper thing. Of course I don't cruise to watch movies on the big screen(s) but I've caught a couple of really good ones over the past several years. For the time being I'm wondering what else I've missed because they didn't think to put it in the app yet, or maybe it's mysteriously/randomly hidden under one of the category buttons at the bottom of the app. Until they figure all of that out, I would really like to have the option of the paper schedule/info sheet.

Yeah I realized later that I should've mentioned that, as @candersonsaid somewhere up the page. Screenshots don't rely on anything except whether the phone itself is working or not.

I've been wondering if the app downloads copies of such documents locally to the phone. That would be a good idea, in case one can't get connectivity. But if the app misbehaves just because it can't get a connection or successful login, it might not matter anyway. Go Paper. (Heh. NOT "paperless".)

Renewals (not expired) are the quickest turn-around. But in no case should it be expected to take more than 2 months. A few months ago I had to get a replacement "consular report of birth abroad" for a family member, and even that complicated process only took a couple of months. In case you haven't seen this on the State.gov website, you'll need to submit your current passport with the renewal application. (I also renewed ours 3 years ago and had to do that.)

@dlh015, yep, that's exactly my problem. Thanks a bunch for the tip! And yeah I was thinking the same thing, about having to restore from backups. That would explain why my email address change "didn't work". Well it probably did till last night, when that change was (probably) overwritten from old backups. I'm sure you'll agree that IT life never gets boring lol . . . . . even in retirement it can still be a huge "adventure" for me. (Edit to add) I pretty much did at least a little bit of all of it, from design to cabling, programming, email server build-&-admin, to budgeting, contracts and risk analysis. Lots of job security in that industry, at least for those who can take the pressure.

There ya go. Witness yesterday's mega-corporate IT outage.

I think there are just a variety of lingering residual problems right now, after a massive IT outage that sometimes (more and more these days) takes a while to settle down again -- because of all the interconnectivity, widespread data replication and so on. I posted late yesterday that i wouldn't trust the X (or RCI) web for a while and I still think that's appropriate advice. Or at least go back tomorrow and confirm whatever was done today or last night. I did my check-in today but I will verify it all later . . . . . I noticed today in my Order History that one of my "AI" packages has been "cancelled". What?!? It's a freebie (well sort of), so I might need to call X to get that straightened out. Maybe next week.

And what happens when the phone breaks? LOL . . . although not funny because my camera mysteriously quit working 2 days ago. Paper always works. But for @ShelleyQT, yes the folks from baggage collectors to terminal counters can do pretty much everything for us as we need it. That's one reason why they're still there. And I want to say thanks for asking this kind of question.

Another scary thing is stuff like Amazon Web Services (there are many others like it), huge Internet services shared by lots of websites around the world. It's entirely possible for one corporate problem to get pushed to places outside that company. I'm guessing that didn't happen in this case, but who knows for sure because that kind of thing almost never gets publicized. "IoT", the Internet of Things, get more mysterious every day. Edit to add, sorry for the buzzkill lol . . . . .