chelseauk

1. I really needed to drop some things off in my cabin. I was going to do it without getting in the crew's way, so I don't know what the big deal is.

 

2. Hey, I was tired, and my feet hurt. It's my vacation; if I want to be comfortable, I should be comfortable.

 

3. I was just trying to get to my table early to know if it was a good location or not. If not, I wanted to be first in line to talk with the Maitre D'.

 

4. I have restless leg syndrome. It's not my fault, it's a disability. You shouldn't be so insensitive.

 

5. Hand sanitizer is not really the best way to clean your hands. Plus, I think you had some undesirable germs on your trousers.

 

6. Why let a perfectly useful table go to waste? No one else was using it.

 

7. That's the best time to haggle for deals with the local vendors - just before the ship is about to leave. I got a real bargain on a T-shirt.

 

Ah that explains it :) and made me smile

Just got back from the brilliance and if any of these are you then.... well you know who you are.

 

1. Totally ignore the signs and announcements, and go to your cabin before it is ready making sure you open the closed doors and ignore the signs on them and then wonder why you get gently told off.

 

2. Sit back and relax in a lounge area on a sofa (near latitudes) - with your naked feet on the table - sorry but yuck.

 

3. Ignore the queues and push (and i mean push) past people to get into the MDR quicker when you have assigned seating anyway.

 

4. Kick the back of the seats repeatedly in the cinema (it's not nice)

 

5. Put your hands in the hand sanitizer, throw the goop on the floor and my trousers, then pretend to clean your hands.

 

6. Place your ashtray on the table tennis table and smoke there both blocking its use and smoking where kids will want to be (but to be honest a least causing me much amusement due to the irony).

 

7. Turn up late for the ship and keep us all waiting for 20 minutes past the departure time - next time make it 30 and maybe we can wave at you from the sea.

Just got back from the brilliance of the sea and a trip around the Baltic. This was our first trip with RCL after having been on the Celebrity Eclipse twice previously so it was interesting to compare the two. Before we start I will say we don’t drink, and don’t use the speciality restaurants.

Embarkation.

 

 

Coming from the UK we parked at Harwich and whilst not as organised as Southampton is was perfectly adequate. After parking and having got rid of our luggage we took a short bus ride to the terminal. This didn’t seem as organised as Southampton and the queue was pretty long – total check in time to the ship was about 45mins to 1 hour. Southampton with celebrity seemed to be about 30 mins so a bit slower and a bit more waiting in line. Once on the ship the staterooms were ready at about 1.40pm.

 

 

Room

First time in an outside room (previously balcony) and to be honest was pretty impressed, we were on deck 3 (room 3070) and it was very quiet. The room was smaller than celebrity and the shower with shower curtain quite a bit smaller (and celebrity had a glass shower partition).

There was plenty of room for storage and the bed was big but a little hard the only real issues was a fridge/cooler that wasn’t very cold (But did have space without it being emptied). The air conditioning wasn’t great (we did report it) but it could only get the room down to about 21c

 

 

 

Food.

I suffer from a food allergy and can’t eat capsicum which makes life very complicate when eating out. The MDR staff was brilliant and their efforts were much better than celebrity last year (A particular low point on the eclipse was a carbonara that somehow ended up as spaghetti with a bit or parmesan cheese on it. The food in the MDR was generally pretty tasty and nice albeit the cheaper cuts or meat and small fish portions but on balance we thought they did better than celebrity who have better cuts but don’t seem to cook them as well.

 

 

 

The windjammer was much better for getting a seat (Always could get something outside) but the food wasn’t brilliant – breakfast didn’t very much and the cooked breakfast was to be honest fairly poor, two types of bacon for instance – “English” back (palid and undercooked) and “American” overcooked and tough. – Didn’t eat in breakfast in the MDR – maybe we should have….

 

 

Lunch in the MDR wasn’t bad but as it was port intensive it wasn’t open much. Dinner in the buffet was better than breakfast but because of my allergy I was limited to what I could eat.

 

 

 

That’s enough for now as not been home long - I’ll do some stuff on what we did in port later (as we went self-guided everywhere but Russia) if anyone is interested.

Hi,

 

Really miserable that your trip got curtailed. I've never traveled on Fred but noticed the reports on the balmoral :(

 

Just thought i'd pop on and say that as other mentioned the alcohol based hand cleaners don't kill viruses.

 

I purchased Sterizar hand cleaner a few years back (does kill noro from my research and also lasts as a barrier for 6 hours). I noticed the other day boots do a anti viral hand cleaner (don't know if it kills noro as i haven't checked it but seems similar to the sterizar- just to confuse they tend not to put it with the other hand cleaners - it was with the anti cold stuff). Finally there is also one called Gemstar noro.

 

All should be available in the uk pretty easily.

 

hope this helps someone.

Hi,

 

I've been on a couple of cruises with celebrity and really enjoyed them. Last time i booked direct. This time round I've been looking around and i can't quite work out the advantage of using an online agent rather than going direct. The prices seem to be the same and the deals the same. I'd kind of assumed they would be cheaper or give you a better deal with on board credit (or something) but from what i can tell it's the same but just with someone else to deal with.

 

Am i missing something ?

 

Mike.

Back in May we had a wonderful 2 week trip with Celebrity. When we booked we went via a cashback site called quidco, and we should be due to get a payment of about £96 (which nearly paid for parking). Shortly after they stopped the offer but hey we was still going to get it right ?

 

I've just had this response from quidco. "unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to get a response from the retailer" and so they have closed the case and bang goes the cashback.

 

I know cashback is never guaranteed but you'd at least hope they may respond to the sites support when they contact them.

 

So a word of warning if you see celebrity offering cash back via a site like this, and assume you won't get it.

We did our first cruise last year - standard balcony, no drinks package as we also don't drink much.

 

There is plenty to eat that is included in the price (can't vouch for the coffee as we don't drink it) tea for us.

 

You'll have a really lovely time we did, didn't spend much on drink, didn't eat in specialty restaurants (apart from the bistro on 5 - which costs a massive $5 each). We had such a lovely time we are doing it all again and won't be getting a drinks package or eating in the specialty restaurants - the food in wonderful - so don't stress i'm sure the paid for restaurants are wonderful but I'm keeping them up my sleeve till i get bored of the MDR maybe in another 4 or 5 cruises :)

 

If you do have a bottle of wine with diner and don't drink it all they will re-cork it and then you can have it later in the cruise. Finally don't forget you can take on 1 bottle of wine per person to drink in your cabin.

What type of cabin have you booked and do you have any drinks packages ? As this will change which of the restaurants you can use and what you pay for.

 

We have standard balcony and no drinks packages.

 

If you have a standard cabin "stateroom" then free are :- (based on the eclipse)

 

Oceanview Cafe

Main Dining Room

Aqua Spa Cafe

pool side grill

And Room Service.

 

Paid for drinks on Room service are clearly marked.

 

Oceanview - massive buffet, MDR is sit down and waiters, Aqua Spa healthy, Pool side grill burgers and hot dogs.

 

Free morning coffee, tea, water and juices from concentrate in the oceanview cafe. Water also is drinkable from the rooms. Free drinks available all day in buffet. Not sure about Tea and coffee in the MDR in the evening as we always just have the iced water.

 

Breakfast and lunch all of the above, Not sure in Aqua Spa is open for diner.

I'm pretty new to the whole cruise experience, so maybe it's about the size of the ships and where they can dock - but i just think the itinerary is looking a bit samey.

 

If we don't do Baltic next year we will have to repeat a cruise or go elsewhere - I'd have thought keep repeating the itinerary and you reduce the chance of repeat customers.

Looks like I may get the chance to cruise with someone else next year . Its a really small and uninspiring repeat of the russia and iceland cruises. Poorly done celebrity, poorly done. :(

Just had a quick look and the purell hand santizer brand is alcohol based with 63% ethanol

I do wonder about the hand sanitizer that celebrity were using as the alcohol based ones don't work very well against norovirus. Unless of course they are using something a bit different.

 

This from :-

 

A full minute of contact time with 70% ethanol is required to inactive Norovirus

 

http://www.floridahealth.gov/chd/bay/Documents/Norovirus.pdf

Just a quick tip (sure it's been on here before) bearing in mind long waits sometimes and the 0844 493 2043 being a premium style number excluded from most talk plans. It's worth looking them up (and anyone else using this type of number) on say no to 0870 (http://www.saynoto0870.com) which says the geographic (ie normal number) is :-01932 834200 (and having used it I can confirm it works).

last time I checked it was about £5.00/$8.00 (ish) per minute :eek: to call a ship and the person ringing you will need a credit card ready

I'm a big tea drinker :) and as well as confirming UK sailings = kettle :) I have a tip.

 

My tip is this :- The big metal bowser (urns) that have milk in them contain UHT milk (yuk). However every morning at breakfast there are little cartons of fresh milk with the cereals.

 

We used to grab a few everyday and put them in the rooms mini fridge.

 

Also the cups in the room are way to small for us so a couple of buffet mugs quickly found their way into the room and the steward soon worked out we preferred them so washed them up for us :)

 

Now I must go cup of tea waiting for me.

[quote name='rbsmithpaige']US-made Cheddar is so disgusting that it's taken 16 of the top 21 places at the currently running World Championships. Strangely, of the remaining 5 spots, none were from the UK.

You'll find there's a deep divide between "Nasty" and "I don't care for it the way some people do". Expert judges, for instance. ;)

Please consider this good-natured ribbing. I've been diagnosed as having cheese-related oppositional defiance disorder. :D[/QUOTE]

Good natured ribbing eh - course I will.

Fair point and well made - I've had my fair share of truly horrendous cheese in the UK :D So let me rephrase that. The "Cheddar" celebrity was supplying last year on the eclipse was pretty woeful. And since they are sailing from the UK and we do rather like our cheddar there are some really rather nice ones available. Some one mentioned a cheddar and Branston sandwich and hmm yes by the end of 14 day I really could have gone for that. Sometimes simple is nice.

I was wondering what little things do you really miss when on board ?

 

The things that aren't expensive that we would really like to see celebrity to do for us.

 

For me its crisps, sandwiches, good quality Cheddar cheese (I'm English so American cheddar when sailing from the UK doesn't impress - sorry but it is nasty) and maybe a nice simple donut.

 

Oh and join the 21st century and let us at HDMI on the TV. I know some people get round it but really. :rolleyes:

 

What about you?

We had an obstructed view balcony on the eclipse 6th floor. All it meant was when we looked down we could see the top of a lifeboat and then the sea - but looking out was just fine.

We had smokers next to us on the eclipse last year who started the week smoking a lot on the balcony. A letter appeared in there letter holder and it stopped - don't know they were told off but it is suggestive.

Last year on the eclipse it was no problem the steward emptied them into a holdall and put them under the bed :)

On the eclipse there where two whippy ice cream machines there was one behind the ice cream area in the buffet but even better there was a self service one next to the burger grill out by the pool. Ice cream nom nom:D

Assuming its the same as eclipse there are three types of icecream 1. Scoops from the buffet lovely flavours and free. Vannilla and chocolate from machines I'd call them Mr whippy type also free. And finally high end gelato which is super nice. They did have it on offer some of the time (but it did rain and was cold the entire cruise) :( It is probably worth the money as it was really really nice.

Thanks everyone I think ill give it a try :)

Hi all,

 

Last cruise (July 2013 - eclipse) we always had breakfast in the buffet and it could be a bit of a nightmare getting a seat (and the room sevice was really bad -uncooked boiled eggs and white "toast" was particular low lights).

 

This time round again on the eclipse I was wondering what breakfast is like in the MDR (I assume the food is much as you would expect, eggs, bacon, cereal etc)

 

What I was wondering about was what is the atmosphere like - I'm really not a morning person - I have Fibromyalgia and mornings hurt. So I find being chatty etc really difficult.

 

I assume they sit you onto tables to make up a full table (This is what they did at lunch).

 

But what is it really like ? I don't want to appear rude - but don't really want to have to be anything but quiet.

 

Chelsea.

How do you find out who will on the cruises ?