Reflection questions

[Soonaddsup]

We have only been on one cruise before....celebrity Mercury to caribbean 7 years ago. we loved it.

 

We are now booked onto Reflection eastern med in September and have a few questions. I have been lurking and reading the forums for weeks. They are such fun and get me in the holiday mood. So much interesting information.

 

My questions are:

 

We are booked into CC cabin 1694. It is aft on deck 11. I have searched but cannot find any reviews. Does anyone have any opinions about this cabin? As we are in England I don't think we could change even if we wanted to but would love to know what you think about an aft cabin and this one in particular.

 

We were given $300 credit on booking but NO drinks package. The drinks packages seem so expensive and it is such a port intensive cruise I cannot imagine getting our money's worth. Our usual daily drinking habits are:

 

Copious cups of tea

A 'nice' coffee every day

As much water as possible

a couple of glasses of wine with dinner

Maybe an occasional sparkling water.

 

On holiday we usually forgo the tea as no-one makes it properly with boiling water! We never drink 'soda'.

 

I feel that if we got the package it would just be drinking to get good value.

 

Any thoughts?

 

That's all my questions for now but 'I'll be back' :D

[dmk]

The Reflection is a lovely ship. We have been on it twice and will be back on this October. Your balcony will have a lovely aft view of the wake of the ship. If you like sun, the balcony will be great for you. Because it doesn't have a great deal of coverage overhead, you pretty well get sun all the time...But the sunsets, oh my...Lovely! You will find the elevator a bit of a walk. When we we had an aft cabin, I was pleased for the exercise.

 

Our drinking habits are very similiar to yours. We bought the drink package once. As you said it was just drinking to get the full value. So we have not bought it again.

[Soonaddsup]

Thank you for that quick reply.

 

Actually we are not sun worshippers and prefer to sit in the shade. Oh dear! Maybe we will have to bring a couple of umbrellas to make our own parasols :rolleyes::cool:

 

Would we feel like 2nd class citizens without a drinks package? Do the bar staff treat you differently?

[helen haywood]

Of course the bar staff will not treat you differently! And there is no way your fellow passengers will know whether you have the package or not as everyone who orders a drink hands the attendant their sea pass card. If you had a package the card would say so. LOTS of people don't buy the package because you need to drink a lot of bottled water, many specialty coffees and quite a few alcoholic drinks a day to get your money back.

 

Reflection is my favorite ship and you will love her! Don't worry about the sun on your balcony, there are many shaded places throughout the ship and you can enjoy breakfast on the balcony and afternoon drinks and sunsets without any problem.

[chemmo]

Like you, unless it has been free,we have not had drinks packages as we did not feel we would get value from them. What we have pre purchased before now is a wine package (I think you can get either a 5 or 7 bottle package) and I seem to remember we saved 20 percent. Bottles could obviously be saved for the next night if we didn't finish. I am fairly sure we pre purchased this.

 

I am unsure if thes packages are available on every cruise.

 

Have a wonderful cruise.

[keesar]

It is actually relaxing sitting on the balcony in an aft cabin. You will have a great view of the wake of the ship. It is a good walk to the stairs or elevators but look at it as exercise. Not a convenient location if passengers have physical challenges.

 

We never take the beverage packages. That has not been a problem.

[MTElkwhistle]

I liked the breakfast tea in cafe al bacio but when we were on Equinox last year they did not have enough and ran out. I'm tempted to take some teabags with me next trip.

They had some nice flavoured teas as well.

We paid for the packages last year for the convenience, DH the alcohol and me the premium non alcohol and I reckon we just about broke even. It was convenient though and meant we weren't constantly thinking how much drinks were costing. I spent so much time in cafe al bacio and the waiters in the buffet saw us in the morning and brought us our OJ and coffee without us asking after day 2.

[cruzzzinma]

Check the S class sticky for Solstice cabin 1672 - it is the same location as 1694 on the Reflection.

[Soonaddsup]

You are all amazing.

 

Thank you so much for taking the effort to reply. It is like being part of a big 'celebrity' family :)

 

I will check out the cabin number suggested. Good advice.

 

I expect we can use our onboard credit to pay for drinks. We don't have to count the pennies too much but I like to get value for money.

[dkjretired]

One thing stuck out and that is you drink a lot of water. If you get the non alcoholic package you can have all the water you desire.

[floridianny]

We have purchased the Premium Non-Alcohol Package a few times and find it a good value. We like to have Pellegrino with lunch and dinner and take bottled waters back to our cabin regularly or off the ship. Every morning in the Ocean View we get fresh OJ and my husband prefers the Cafe Americano to the regular self serve coffee. Once the servers recognize all of us, they greet us and bring us our usual drinks.:)

We go to Cafe al Bacio a couple times a day as well. I only drink tea and it is much better quality. Both the hot and iced teas are very nice. They will also give you either in a "to go" cup. My husband enjoys both the coffee and tea there.

We usually just pay as we go for wine or beer. Were not big drinkers so it doesn't add up to too much.

I will say the water on the ship is very good but the convenience of the bottled to take with you is also nice. I also bring some of my own tea to make myself a cup whenever I want. You can check the prices from menus online to see if this package would be a good deal for you. We have only done Caribbean cruises so we spend a lot of time on the ship. We love the Reflection. They have the most wonderful crew!

Also, any cabin on deck 11 aft will be wonderful. No worries. Enjoy the fantastic aft views:)

[hcat]

We do not book afts...prefer midship, so no help there.

 

Nice tea bags are at AQ spa cafe....hot water in large carafe...no upcharge.

Very nice Tea Forte is served in pots at Cafe Baccio...extra cost if not on package..love daily tea at 3 with a biscotti,

 

we have enjoyed the Classic package as a 123 perk (alas no more) . DH drinks basic beer wine and scotch, and I have just a few during the cruise... a frozen magarita, Aspen Coffee, Baileys..sparkling water is not included.

 

not sure Classic would be worth purchase and no need for us to upgrade to Premium

we'll see how pricing works out on the new program

 

Enjoy your cruise, .Mercury was our fav ship but S Class and Reflection are really nice ships for Modern Luxury!

[Soonaddsup]

We had been a little nervous before sailing on Mercury for our first cruise as a lot of comments said it was getting shabby and dated.

 

However, since we had nothing else to compare her with we thought she was a lovely ship. Maybe we are not too fussy and just enjoyed the holiday. Who could have a bad time cruising from one caribbean island to another eating good food?

 

Reflection sounds wonderful.

 

The anticipation is part of the fun.

[drarill]

Another vote for the non alcoholic drinking package. Between the coffee, OJ, water, sparkling water and frozen drinks it is worth every cent!! :)

Hope you like the Reflection as much as we did. Happy cruising.

[Tiggertastic]

Hi here in England we can change our cabins. On the sticky 1696 has been reviewed with good feedback of a larger balcony and quiet. No 1694 listed n the reviews

Edited July 5, 2015 by Tiggertastic

[ladylemondrop]

I too am a big tea drinker, and found the teas at cafe al bacio wonderful, but they do add up, perhaps make a little note of how much you are actually spending on drinks for first couple of days, you can always buy a drink package for the remainder of your cruise if you feel its worth it. You drink about the same amount as we do, from the sounds of it, and if we didnt get the drink package free we would probably not bother purchasing.

 

Enjoy Reflection, she is beautiful, and the itinerary you have is fantastic, check out your roll call for tour tips etc.

 

My blog has photos and videos of Reflection, and Silhouette (link below)

[Tiggertastic]

Me too, I order the tea forte at home, just enjoyed a nice raspberry nectar

[wallie5446]

Copious cups of teaThe Earl Gray at the buffet is included. But the nice tea's are about $5.00 ea, and 3 a day + $15.00

A 'nice' coffee every dayAgain the stuff out of the urn at the buffet is also included, but the really wonderful cups are $5-6.00 ea and 3 a day = $15-18.00

As much water as possible-From the spickets and fountains, again all included, but by the bottle$3.50-5.00 ea X 4 a day = $14-20.00

a couple of glasses of wine with dinnerThis is the biggie, nothing included here, the so-so by the glass are going to be $9.00 X 2 at dinner = $18.00

Maybe an occasional sparkling water. Non included, $4-5.00 ea

 

:D

 

So if you just do your normal you will spend around $70-76.00 each per day. you can get the Premium package for that kind of money.

EW

[Soonaddsup]

Thank you so much for all your comments. Definitely food for thought.

 

Hard to believe we could spend as much on drinks as the package costs but maybe we are deluded?!!

 

I will discuss with DH but think maybe check out average spend over a couple of days and purchase using OBC if we think it is worth it.

[AtleeH]

Were you given a choice of perks, per 123 Go!, or were you just given the $300 OBC?

 

I ask because when I booked another cruise (Reflection) last January while on board the Silhouette, I choose poorly between the three perks. I chose the $200 per cabin OBC rather than the drink package.

 

Fortunately, my TA was able to fix my mistake about a week ago.

 

If you had a choice and chose poorly, you should be able to either have Celebrity if dealing directly with them, or your TA fix the mistake for you.

 

We have only been on one cruise before....celebrity Mercury to caribbean 7 years ago. we loved it.

 

We are now booked onto Reflection eastern med in September and have a few questions. I have been lurking and reading the forums for weeks. They are such fun and get me in the holiday mood. So much interesting information.

 

My questions are:

 

We are booked into CC cabin 1694. It is aft on deck 11. I have searched but cannot find any reviews. Does anyone have any opinions about this cabin? As we are in England I don't think we could change even if we wanted to but would love to know what you think about an aft cabin and this one in particular.

 

We were given $300 credit on booking but NO drinks package. The drinks packages seem so expensive and it is such a port intensive cruise I cannot imagine getting our money's worth. Our usual daily drinking habits are:

 

Copious cups of tea

A 'nice' coffee every day

As much water as possible

a couple of glasses of wine with dinner

Maybe an occasional sparkling water.

 

On holiday we usually forgo the tea as no-one makes it properly with boiling water! We never drink 'soda'.

 

I feel that if we got the package it would just be drinking to get good value.

 

Any thoughts?

 

That's all my questions for now but 'I'll be back' :D

[cruza]

We have only been on one cruise before....celebrity Mercury to caribbean 7 years ago. we loved it.

 

We are now booked onto Reflection eastern med in September and have a few questions. I have been lurking and reading the forums for weeks. They are such fun and get me in the holiday mood. So much interesting information.

 

My questions are:

 

We are booked into CC cabin 1694. It is aft on deck 11. I have searched but cannot find any reviews. Does anyone have any opinions about this cabin? As we are in England I don't think we could change even if we wanted to but would love to know what you think about an aft cabin and this one in particular.

 

We were given $300 credit on booking but NO drinks package. The drinks packages seem so expensive and it is such a port intensive cruise I cannot imagine getting our money's worth. Our usual daily drinking habits are:

 

Copious cups of tea

A 'nice' coffee every day

As much water as possible

a couple of glasses of wine with dinner

Maybe an occasional sparkling water.

 

On holiday we usually forgo the tea as no-one makes it properly with boiling water! We never drink 'soda'.

 

I feel that if we got the package it would just be drinking to get good value.

 

Any thoughts?

 

That's all my questions for now but 'I'll be back' :D

 

You can get premium non alcohol package. It's not as expensive as clasic alcohol package and covers all premium c0fee and tee, sparkling water. We had it last year and we felt its totally worth the cost.

[Soonaddsup]

We did not have the 123Go offer when we booked.

 

We booked through Celebrity and had gratuities paid plus $300 onboard credit.

 

Might look at the non-alcohol package.

[MrsMac15]

Hello!

 

I'm new to the forum, hope it's OK to post my question in this thread as it also relates to the drinks packages on the Reflection.

 

We are booked on our first cruise in September (West Med - so excited!) and got the 123Go offer when we booked, so we chose the drinks package and gratuities. We are confused about whether we have to pay extra tips for drinks on the cruise, or whether this is covered in the packages we already have?

 

Also what else costs money on board? We are looking at buying the specialty dining package as well as some spa treatments, but is there anything else on board worth paying extra for, or is all the entertainment included?

 

Thanks for helping out a newbie!

[AtleeH]

Drinks Pkg covers all gratuities on drinks. Your Gratuities Pkg pays all other gratuities.

 

Specialty resturants would be paid on board, if not chosen before hand. Same goes for excrusions. If they are booked on board, they are paid for on board.

 

All of the main entertainment comes with the cost of your cabin.

 

Hello!

 

I'm new to the forum, hope it's OK to post my question in this thread as it also relates to the drinks packages on the Reflection.

 

We are booked on our first cruise in September (West Med - so excited!) and got the 123Go offer when we booked, so we chose the drinks package and gratuities. We are confused about whether we have to pay extra tips for drinks on the cruise, or whether this is covered in the packages we already have?

 

Also what else costs money on board? We are looking at buying the specialty dining package as well as some spa treatments, but is there anything else on board worth paying extra for, or is all the entertainment included?

 

Thanks for helping out a newbie!

[kenevenpar]

We did not have the 123Go offer when we booked.

 

We booked through Celebrity and had gratuities paid plus $300 onboard credit.

 

Might look at the non-alcohol package.

 

That sounds a lot like a 123 (or similar) package. I would suggest calling Celebrity and ask if you could trade one of the "perks" for the beverage package. Just an idea.