chrismakris

My wife and I are going to be on St. Maarten and are planning on doing the America's Cup sailing excursion that day. I have a couple of questions.

1) If you have done the excursion, where does the excursion take place?

2) The excursion is supposed to arrive at the ship at 1:15 pm. Can you take a taxi to Maho beach and still catch some of the plane watching? Can you take a taxi from the excursion locale to Maho beach so we can get to the beach earlier?

3) I noticed that on cruisett.com that there will be 8500 passengers in port that day. Will traffic be lighter from Maho beach on that day?

Thank you for your time and answers.

If you are not heavy drinkers maybe then you should get the premium non alcohol package instead.

Those bottles of water and pop and coffees do add up quickly at $2-5 per drink.

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How soon can we drop our luggage at the pier? We are staying at the Sheraton Convention Center and have a car so we can go into OSJ before getting on the ship. Didn't want to have to carry the luggage back to the airport and on the taxi to get back to the ship. Would 9:00 am be too soon? Or would we even be able to get TO the ship at that time with the previous cruisers getting off? Don't want to board - just want to dump luggage.

Luggage can be dropped off at about 12:00. I would get there sooner as you have to wait in line. I would skip the car and just take a taxi from the hotel to the pier and then have him wait for you if the lineup isn't too long. If it's long, just have him go and take another taxi into OSJ.

You really don't have to hurry back until about 6:00 pm.

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Thanks so much for offering to answer these questions - I hope that you're having a great trip! If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to know what kind of cable I need to display my tablet on the TV (so I can bring kid movies for my daughter)?

You will need an HDMI cable. There is a little trick as I believe you have to take the TV off of Hotel mode to be able to play movies and such from your tablet.

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If you like lots of ports, definitely do the sailings out of San Juan. Great itineraries for great islands and San Juan is awesome.

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Only two gripes from me but they are not unique to Celebrity,

 

1 - the policing of the 'saved' sun loungers .

I did notice a couple of times on our last sailing notes on loungers that mentioned that the persons belongings had been moved because they had been there too long.

Hopefully Celebrity isn't slipping on this.

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If the cruise you would like to book has multiple sailings of the same itinerary, and your schedule allows it, why not book the sailing before or after right now to get all the perks included. That way if the price stays the same for when you take your current cruise you can book the sailing you want and cancel the other and transfer the deposit to the new booking.

If the price goes up then you can keep your original booking at the price you want.

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Thanks for a great review, as we will be on board November 29.

One concern I have is my return flight leaves St Juan at 1155 back to Jfk, can anyone advise should I consider doing self disembarkation with my luggage or will I still have enough time if I am off the ship in one of the first groups. What's the latest I want to be at the airport, I know I have to do agricultural checks before I can check in. Many thanks.

 

 

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It's plenty of time. We had the same flight last year and we didn't have to carry our bags of. Just make sure you're in the first group off the ship.

Glad to hear you had a mostly good time. I would agree with you on the Entertainment part. If you do ever sail from San Juan again try to be on the first group off the ship.

We had booked an 11:55 flight out of San Juan and instead of just waiting til it was our turn we decided to be in the first group. We were off the ship and at the airport in 30-40 minutes. There was still hardly anyone at the airport so checkin and security were a breeze.

I hope you give Celebrity another chance.

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It kind of just dawned on me, what this promotion is really doing is trying to make Concierge Cabins more relevant and attractive. For a while they have been the "no man's land" between Veranda and Aqua.

 

 

 

Now they are a draw to folks who normally only book veranda cabins to spend a bit more and book Concierge, and get the all-in perks.

 

 

 

Kind of genius I say.

Count me suckered in. However it was only $50/pp more to go from Veranda to a Concierge Cabin on the cruise we just booked. So extra $300 OBC + free grats + beverage package -$100 = would have been silly to pass up.

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Go to your "Roll Call" and ask there as well. Many of the people on your ship have probably sailed her before so they would know what she's like in the water. For instance when we were on the Summit, she moved very little because the ports were so close that she was sailing at just under 10 knots with very little wind.

If you do upgrade I would also use that OBC to upgrade your drink package to the premium while on board. You would be surprised how much stuff is not included in the classic package.

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If you were to ask my wife....there's never too many photographs you can take. But she's a photographer.

I would break it down in posts. Pre cruise, 15-20 per day getting all the highlights of the things you visited.

20 or so for the first day of the cruise. Cabin picture pictures of the ship while it's still a little empty etc.

10-15 per day from your cruise with excursion pics.

Another 20 or so post cruise. That should give you a little over 300 to post.

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What Celebrity Does right:

Their promos. Some of the best ones out there. Their new 123 All Inclusive is great. I booked us on the Summit in a C3 for the NY-San Juan cruise at an unbelievable price when you take into account everything is included plus a 300 dollar OBC.

Their staff.

Their ship sizes. Perfect size for people like myself who don't want to be crammed on a 4500+ passenger behemoth.

What Celebrity does wrong:

Picture prices. But I think that's a industry wide complaint.

No Pacific Coastals. Personal preference for someone who lives out here and doesn't want to always fly somewhere to cruise.

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Also, if we check in, go on the ship- can we leave the ship to go back into OSJ? I'd love to drop my bags, get some lunch, then go back into port for a bit.

As noted above, If you are not staying in OSJ I would just drop off my bags and go into town. You have to remember that Celebrity ships dock at the Pan-American terminal which is on the other side of Old San Juan. You would have to make three taxi trips all together. Going on the ship and having lunch will just cut into exploring time.

I would recommend booking a hotel in OSJ and leaving your bags at the hotel for the day while you explore and then head to the ship at about 4:30-ish.

The lineup will be gone and check in will be much smoother and quicker.

Can you let me know what time muster drill was scheduled?

 

Had hoped to arrive at port early (11 - 11:30 am?), grab lunch & head to OSJ

 

enjoy your cruise:)

We did this last year at the port, but didn't do lunch. There was such a long lineup we didn't want to waste time checking in and going for lunch. If I remember correctly they didn't start the embarkation process until 12:00 pm. We dropped off our luggage out front with the baggage valets and then instead of checking in, headed straight for a taxi and OSJ. The muster drill was later on in the evening before sail away.

We went to the old fort and spent the day there. Got back around 5 p.m. and checked in then. No line-up and took less than 10 minutes from exiting the taxi to finding our stateroom.

We are sailing on her in January again. We had two great bartenders at the Martini Bar the last time we were on her. Numan and Geday. Hopefully they're still there.

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Just took advantage of this promo with the Summit sailing from NY to San Juan next October. I could not beat the price for a C3 cabin.

I was surprised that they included this sailing because it is kind of a re-positioning cruise.

Hopefully they extend this promo, so while we are on our Southern Caribbean in January we can book some more cruises while on board. Fingers crossed.

http://www.celebritycruises.com/htmlpage/celebrity-suite-class#&panel1-2&panel2-2&panel3-2&panel4-2&panel5-1&panel6-2&panel7-2

It looks like all the Suite class perks don't begin until April 2015.

I honestly do not know. We booked through US Air. Like I said we got an email to add the beverage package directly from Celebrity, so I would think we should be able to add it to our package.

I would call US Air vacations or Celebrity and ask them. If you booked during a time that the 123Go package or the Pick your Perk was available then you should have had the option to pick one of the items.

If the promo was on and they didn't offer it to you I would try to get them to make it right. I don't recall a time in the last year when one of those offers was not available.

If they can't add it on for you then I would take your stuff to a travel agent and see what they can do for you. You shouldn't have to pay for something that you should have got for free.

Just a quick question arubadan.

Did you book your cruise when the 123Go or Pick your Perk offer was available?

If not I would look into trying to get Celebrity to add it on to your cruise. You might have to pay the difference in cruise fares, but it might cheaper than paying for 2 classic packages. Not sure if you can do this but it would be worth a shot.

http://www.celebritycruises.com/htmlpage/123go-offer

The price shown is per person and it depends how much you drink. Of course while we are on vacation we tend to have that extra glass of wine or beer.

We had the premium package on our last cruise(which is the one to get) and when worked out it saves quite a bit of money. For example:

Morning cappuccino: $4-5 each

Premium bottle of water to take with you when you get off and back on the ship = $16(2 bottle/pp x $4 each bottle)

Premium Beverage before dinner $8-12 each

Wine with dinner $6-$12 each

Couple extra bottles of water here and there, a couple of extra drinks here and there. $25-$30 each person/day.

As you can see it can add up fast.

Keep in mind the choices for your wife for wine will be more limited with the classic package.

Hello.

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with your cruise. If I may make a suggestion.

Should you be able to disembark in Victoria on time at 6:00 pm, that will give you plenty of time to rent a car and take the ferry across and spend the night in Belliingham.

You then have 2 options.

1) You can then drop off the car at Bellingham airport the next day and either take one of the 3 scheduled flights to Seattle before your flight from Seattle. I believe that you can check your bags all the way through to your final destination if your flight out of Seattle is on American or Delta. But double check that. Costs for the flight will be around $100/pp

2) You can drop off your car at Bellingham airport and then take the Airporter Shuttle to SeaTac Airport.

http://www.airporter.com/schedules/schedules-western-wa

As much as I love Victoria, I believe that you should get off Vancouver Island that night if you can. Being on the mainland will give you more options should something go wrong. Bellingham is 45 minutes away once you get off the ferry.

I hope things go well for you with Celebrity.

You can always take one of the excursions that Celebrity offers. They will also drop you off at the airport.

http://www.celebritycruises.com/plan-a-cruise/shore-excursions/productDetails?productCode=SJ47&productId=100000002163568602

Happy Sailings

I know that getting a free upgrade is well, like winning the lottery, but I'm just curious on how they would decide? Captains Club points? Random?

Also, if there are higher level cabins in your category that are not used will they "bump" you up a category for a fee or up a stateroom class? And if so what have you been charged to move up a category class.

Thank you for your responses. I thought maybe because the Seapass card is tied in with a credit card you give at the time of boarding that they could work around it but I guess not.

Guess we'll just have to use the OBC on dining and spa.

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