barbeyg

We will be boarding Apex in early August for 14 nights to Norwegian Fjords, followed by 9 nights on land in the UK, followed by 15 nights home on RCI Brilliance via Iceland, Greenland NE. So excited!

Our next, booked since last year, is a 14 night, Southampton to Norway/Arctic Circle, in August on the Apex. Apex was our first Celebrity ship, and we look forward to boarding her again. This trip is part of a much larger trip, including a week in London, and a TA returning to the states on Brilliance. So excited for this summer!

There is an existing thread about Symphony changes on page 1. And while the new ports for some of the sailings suck, let’s first blame the port of San Juan. PR isn’t known for efficiency in getting work completed. It’s on PR. If you examine your cruise contract (which you agreed to), they can change ports. ALL cruise lines change ports at times. Good luck in finding one that doesn’t.

How disappointing. I figure we will get the same substandard replacement ports on 2/9/25. St Thomas is booked up for the date we should be in San Juan, and this seems to be RCI’s go-to in that case. Or even worse, Falmouth.

Art auction, or casino, unless either is a necessary shortcut somewhere else. I have asthma, and cigarette smoke makes me feel like ai can’t breathe.

This. Travel agents who work for companies that have group rates can get you into that “group”, which will save $$. You don’t have to start a group yourself.

We used to be a “book direct” proponent. Now we are def in the TA camp. When we book a balcony cabin, our agent has group rates that save no less than $500 per cruise, not counting the shipboard credit he provides. And its refundable. If we book a suite, we have the same price as booking direct, but receive $350 to $600 shipboard credit from him. And most importantly, he stays on top of pricing. For example, we booked a transatlantic thru him for a Celebrity crossing, using a Next Cruise open booking. We booked a Sky Suite (minimal full suite), only to receive a call from him in less than 24 hours that Celebrity Suites (next size up, but usually a huge jump in price) was less than a SS! He not only booked us in that (less expensive but higher) category, and had to spend over an hour working with Celebrity to move our Next Cruise booking so we would retain the shipboard credit from Celebrity. I MAY have been able to move the booking, but could have messed something up along the way. Team travel agent here. Saves us money every.single.time. Plus I don’t have to handle the details on this part of our travel. The goal is to find a great one. Our prior experience was with a below average travel agent. I wish we had found our current agent much sooner.

You receive an email from RCI telling you it was chartered, and they give you your options. Happened recently to us on Celebrity.

Dropping by to say that we just cancelled and rebooked for the Beach Club today. Lowest prices so far for this cruise. May want to check if you have anything booked for CC. We are sailing this cruise, and the one prior.

We sail one month from today, Celebrity Edge to HI.

We have sailed both, and would sail either again. Others have already listed the differences very well, so I won’t repeat that info.

We had signed up for the status match with Celebrity long before we sailed them. When we became Diamond on RCI, we changed from Select to Elite in our Celebrity account. We are now D+ and E+ with Celebrity. For us, it has been a status to status match, whenever one of those changed.

We just stayed at the Albergo Del Senato, after our Odyssey TA. It was a lovely hotel, great staff, excellent breakfast and a wonderful rooftop bar. It is adjacent to the Pantheon, and centrally located. We would stay there again, and hope to the next time we are in Rome. https://www.albergodelsenato.it/index.php Cant tell you if they have transfers to the port city, since we booked a private transfer.

Our Odyssey TA last month was the same. Changed at night. It was hardest the 5th night for me, but easy before that. It was tough on the crew members, because that hour came from their time off/sleep. We could adjust easier than they could since we could just sleep in or take a nap. Our steward was thankful when the time changes stopped.

Not to mention the thousands of $$$ we have saved with group rates and/or shipboard credits. Also nice to be able to cancel if something comes up and not lose our deposit.