Sailing on Eclipse

[Redtravel]

Thanks for responding. Packed and ready to go. Getting on tomorrow. You can probably say the same......except getting off. I am curious about how well your debarkation goes tomorrow morning. I have an 11am plane out of FFL . Is it too early?

[mahdnc]

I sent a note through Guest Relations to Perry Grant inquiring as to his sailing status as some of you were asking me for information on this. Well this afternoon, Perry Grant called our stateroom and I had a chance to talk to him for a few minutes. He will get off the ship tomorrow for one week to become a USA citizen! He will then rejoin the Eclipse in Barbados on Jan 18 (as an American). So there you have it. He told me that he was originally going to take two weeks off but then decided against it. Then this opportunity to become an American citizen came up. Obviously I thanked him for calling me and I assured him that I would pass this information on through Cruise Critic.

[SkystheLimit]

Thank you for the information about Perry Grant. Very exciting times for him.

 

Appreciate all of your input for the cruise. Hope you have recovered from your respiratory problems and have been able to enjoy some of the time.

 

Looking forward to our cruise on the Eclipse based on your review.

[mahdnc]

To the OP - did you experience rough seas during this cruise? If so, (1) how many days, and (2) near which islands?

We will be boarding the Equinox this Saturday, January 11. Enjoy the rest of your cruise.

 

the seas were fairly calm during our sailing. Have a great trip aboard Equinox

[mahdnc]

Wow!

We will be on the Eclipse in February and I certainly hope that either your CD, event planner or Captain's Club Host/ess , or whoever it was that planned these events, will still be on board for our cruise!

 

Elaine is the Event Coordinator and she has been great.

 

The 11:15am CC Farewell Party concluded with a noon lunch at the Moonlight Sonata Dining Room. Celebrity set up a private area for us to eat which was up on the Deck 4 area on the port side. There was a special lunch menu for us which was a very nice touch. About 30 people attended the Farewell Party which was held at Cellar Masters. About 24 people stayed for lunch.

[mahdnc]

Thank you for the information about Perry Grant. Very exciting times for him.

 

Appreciate all of your input for the cruise. Hope you have recovered from your respiratory problems and have been able to enjoy some of the time.

 

Looking forward to our cruise on the Eclipse based on your review.

 

Your very welcome! Time to go to bed now and get ready for the long debarkation tomorrow.

[mahdnc]

Maybe because I had a whole year to get worked up about this after reading the many bad reports, our experience with getting off Eclipse today at Port Everglades actually went very well.

 

In preparation for this problem, I booked a 3PM flight out of FLL today (we are now at the airport). I was also planning on using Luggage Valet to avoid having to wait for our luggage. Unfortunately Luggage Valet was not available for Southwest Airline passengers--at least for this sailing.

 

We were assigned Group 20 luggage tags which were given to us on the evening the ship left St. Thomas (Jan 8). The paperwork we were given said that the estimated departure time for each of the luggage numbers were:

 

#01-08: 8am-8:15am

#10-19: 8:20am-9:00am

#20-29:9:10am-9:50am

#30-34:9:50am-10:00am

 

So here was the actual time line for us:

 

8:36am: Luggage Group #16 was told thru the PA system to begin disembarking

8:46am: Luggage Group #18 was told to begin disembarking

9:08am: we (#20) began lining up to go to Deck 2 to disembark

9:10am: we step off Celebrity Eclipse.

9:15am: our line moves into the baggage claim area. We find our 6 bags pretty quickly and then line up to go thru customs/immigration. There are 5 desks that are open. There appear to be enough baggage porters available for anybody that wanted one.

9:44am: we are in the USA (1st time in 2014!) and now line up for a taxi. Our line is not very long but the line also merges with people from another line looking for a taxi (they are from another terminal). When we reached the front of the line, we told the taxi dispatcher there that we needed a minivan/SUV for the 4 of us and all our luggage. She asks us to stand to the side where there were some other groups waiting for a large taxi.

9:53am: we are directed to a SUV taxi to take us to FLL.

10:02: we arrive in our taxi to the Southwest terminal at FLL. The taxis fare is $19.70.

 

So we are now sitting in the main FLL terminal and cannot check in until around noon. So here we sit!

Edited January 11, 2014 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

We are now in the air and flying home.

 

After we checked our bags, we found the line to the security checkpoint to Terminal 1 (Southwest Airlines) to be incredibly long. With all the cruise ships in town, it was crowded. The line backed up all the way across the walkway over the street and we found the end of the line where the car rental desks were. Fortunately the line moved very quickly, so it looked worse than it turned out to be. Also there were TSA agents managing the line to help people find the end of the line and they were on the lookout for passengers in the long line whose flight was leaving within 30 minutes.

 

One interesting bit of luck for us. The 11:30am non-stop Southwest flight that I would have liked to book for the return trip was delayed until 5:00pm for reasons I did not know. Our 3:05pm flight was only slightly delayed but will arrive well ahead of the "11:30am" flight.

 

While lining up for our Southwest flight we were talking to a couple that was got stuck in Chicago during the cold freeze and ended up missing last week's Carnival Freedom's cruise.

 

We had freezing problems of our own. On the next to the last evening of the cruise, my father called us on the ship from Kentucky to let us know that my home security company picked up a high level alarm in our basement sump (we live in Chicago). Our 21 yr old pet/house sitter had gone out to eat and we ended up calling her (Skype) while she was out to investigate. Turned out that we had a broken (frozen) pipe in our house. Anyway she was able to call a plumber in on an emergency call to fix the problem. Celebrity was kind enough to offer us a complimentary ship to shore call to address our home problem, which we ended up not using. But I appreciated the gesture.

[excitedofharpenden]

Hi David. Glad you had a good trip and were able to deal effectively with your home emergency. I've been away a month and have left the heating on just in case, but don't deal with the temperatures you've had :eek: Welcome back to reality!

 

Phil

[mahdnc]

Thanks, for the sentiment Phil!

 

Other Notes:

 

1. clocks were set back an hour on the 13th evening (evening of the 4th sea day).

 

2. I got the chance to teach my son basic strategy and the etiquette of playing blackjack at the ship's casino. We had fun and from two separate days of play we were even up by $75. Now he thinks it's easy. The blackjack tables used 8 decks (we did not play the single deck tables), allowed multiple split pairs, double down on any pair, double down after splits, split aces drew only one card each, paid 3:2 for blackjack, and dealer hit soft 17. Insurance was offered if a dealer showed an ace. Surrender was not available. There were side bet options available for $1 extra.

 

3. During our cruise the casino was surprisingly never busy. Many times the craps table was not even open. Roulette table never had more than 1-2 players. I never saw any blackjack tables with wager minimums under $10 during the entire cruise.

 

4. The casino table games consisted of: roulette (0 and 00 wheel), craps, multiple deck blackjack, single deck blackjack (blackjack pays 6:5), 3 card poker, and texas hold'em poker (players play against the dealer).

 

5. Slot machines were fairly tight. Much to my wife's delight, there was an abundance of penny slot machines.

 

6. On the last night of the cruise, we found a $10 bill laying in the glass payout hopper that you could not reach with your hands to get through the open tray. It was on a machine with the drawer that swings back and forth and against the pile of quarters and large denomination bills. An idle single deck blackjack dealer was watching my kids (18 and 21 yr old) and I trying to get it. He had a casino technician open the machine up to get it for us!

 

7. I was surprised how efficient the ship's staff was in removing the luggage that is set out by the doors on the last night of the cruise. On our past cruises, we often find the hallways choked with luggage. This time it seemed like the luggage was taken away almost as soon as it was set out there!

 

8. we very much enjoyed the evening show on the last formal night (Night #13). It featured a Cirque du Soleil style show with acrobatics, feats of strength, and amazing body control. It was very impressive and is not to be missed. This show was very well attended at the Eclipse Theatre.

 

9. We had zero problems with our on board charge account during the cruise. The stateroom television does a good job in displaying your accumulated charges. Besides the gratuities, our biggest charges came from internet and the medical department! We were given a classic alcohol package by our TA and we had pre-purchased a photo package so we did not get on board charges from those areas. Between my wife, son, and I, we broke even at the casino--so no charges there!

 

10. Before our cruise, we went on line to mycruisephotos.com and purchased the unlimited digital package with prints for $300.00. The package is good for our stateroom which covered the entire family of 4 during the whole 14 night cruise. The website says that this is a better deal than the one you will get on board which is not entirely true. Armed with a Captains Club 15% off coupon you can get the $350 unlimited digital package that is offered on board discounted down to $300. The Photo Gallery also runs a promotion that adds a free set of prints if you buy the unlimited package within the first days of the cruise. So you can still get the same deal on board as the pre-cruise one online. Once we had the Unlimited Package in hand, we took advantage of the different photo opportunities that presented themselves. In the end we had 111 different photographs taken!

 

11. One of the concerns I had about this 14 night cruise was whether I would enjoy the meals in the main dining room. Well I found the food to be very good on each of the 11 evenings I was there (we did Murano on Night #3, Tuscan Grille on the final night, and I was too ill on Night #10). The menus were varied and I always found something on the menu for each course to my liking. Now it is not as good as the Michel Roux days (I still can remember the the Brochette King Neptune and Coquilles Saint-Jacques), but the dinner food was very good.

 

12. We were seated at Table 118 which is on Deck 3 on the port side towards the entrance to the dining room. We had a nice table for 4 next to a window; but our sailing occurred during a time of year when it was very dark outside. We had early seating. We like meeting new people on the cruise so we were a bit disappointed that we were not seated at a larger table as we had requested. But our table was located very close to another table of two and we met a wonderful couple from Connecticut. To be able to spend two week's worth of evening meals with them in a wonderful restaurant at sea was a highlight of our cruise.

 

13. The Moonlight Sonata Dining Room is very nice but I miss the design on the last two class of ships which had the two story tall bank of windows at the back of the dining room.

[Ruthk]

One other question. We sail this agenda every January and will be on board again in two weeks. Last January the MDR menu had crab stuffed mushrooms as an everyday appetizer. Is that still on the menu? Gosh, I loved them and was looking forward to them again, and I read that they have taken them off the menu :(

[mahdnc]

Ruthk,

 

I don't remember seeing them on the "always available" side of the menu during our cruise. Sorry. Never hurts to ask the maitre 'd to see what he can do when you get on board. As you know, the dining room staff is very eager to please.

[Anubi]

Thanks so much for taking us along for your cruise. I always enjoy the 'Live From' type of posts. We are embarking on the Eclipse in April so I had an added interest in your thread. I'm glad you had a great cruise and I'm very much looking forward to the same. :):)

 

Thanks in particular for posting about the disembarkation. That was about the only thing that worried me. ;);)