Is the current sale real? and shared dining

[the penguins]

11 hours ago, WrittenOnYourHeart said:

Regarding seating in the MDR... If you WANT to be seated with others for sure, I'd go with one of the fixed dining times. Most people select Select Dining because those default to individual party tables and you'd be dependent on someone wanting to share.

We always choose Seiect/Any Time dining and regularly have solo passengers join us. When you check in each night just say "sharing please" and the staff will be happy to accommodate you.

[MarkWiltonM]

I get daily emails from Celebrity touting their "semi-annual sale." I imagine that means the first six months of the year, to be replaced by the other "semi-annual sale" which will run for the last six months of the year. Not literally, but sort of. If it's always a sale it's never a sale, of course. And yet, prices do change. I suppose this is based on changes in the "full fare" so that the amount of the discount is consistent. We have found that in some cases, it's much less expensive to book when new itineraries are first released. We usually do this as a refundable-deposit fare because the sail dates are so far out. But usually within six to mine months the current fares for a non-refundable deposit are often more than our refundable-deposit fare. However, in some cases we have seen very high fares as soon as itineraries were released, so it all depends. And it doesn't seem to matter if it's a new ship or not. For example, we got a very reasonable fare on Ascent when fares first opened up for the brand new ship. We got a refundable-deposit Sunset Veranda for $178.50 per person with a $200 OBC per stateroom. We recently booked another SV on Ascent for April 2026 and the refundable-deposit fare is $226.50 per person. This was, again, when the itineraries were first released.    

[Liao]

I rarely can see all that much of a $ difference between E-class and the older ships, in particular for CS and above.  That said I was very surprised just a few days ago when I found (and booked) a RS on Eclipse for a TA in March of 2025, all in $13,200.  Very similar itinerary on Apex also March 2025 in RS was $24k.  There really is no rhyme or reason IMO.