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.

Agree with the others. Only other time this happened to me was when an entire cruise itself was being cancelled, and I didn’t see the notification email till later.

Do you know what’s even more fun than enjoying one of your live blogs, @Lovetocruise2002? Going back and forth between yours and Andrew’s! Thanks for sharing!

Sweet trips! We will be bringing her to HI in Oct 2024. 13 night cruise after flying to Seattle, taking the Cascades train to Vancouver, and staying 4 nights in Vancouver first. Can’t wait!

From what I’ve seen here and the other site, the opportunity to win on the low end is greater, partly because there are so many cabins, moving up from inside or OV. I also think RCI (and the other cruise lines) want you to book a better cabin, so they make those easier to “win”. JMO We typically bid on the lower spectrum unless we are really interested in moving up. Then we bid what we are willing to pay for a Royal Up, not close to what the cabin costs. We usually bid from a JS we have booked, for suites, and have won twice so far. One was a lower bid (but not rock bottom), one was more aggressive. We usually cancel a week ahead, if we haven’t won. I don’t want last minute changes. Too many moving pieces with the water we have ordered for the cabin, etc. Just my preference. Good luck!

We are sailing TO Europe, because for us, it’s more important to be adjusted when we get there. We only have several days to enjoy Rome, and don’t want to lose the first day to struggling with the time change. We will be retired so really don’t care about the long flight home. That said, we will try the other way too, and figure out which we like more. We will fly in at least a week ahead the next time, and know we will lose at least one day to adjusting.

Next two Celebrity bookings are: Celebrity Edge, Vancouver to HI, 9/2024 and Celebrity Ascent, 8 night Southern Caribbean (great pricing for 11/13/2023 in a SS -- it's up by $200 now, but still a sweet price for a suite)

Sorry it took so long to respond. On our cruise, the stateroom attendant was referred to as the Retreat Host, but he was just an excellent stateroom attendant. There are also Retreat attendants (concierge and others) that are always in the lounge (not sure what they are called these days) on duty (24 hours) in the Retreat, who are there to resolve any issues, if you are in the lounge and need them. In addition, the Retreat head concierge should have a card in your cabin to call if you need anything. That person does not fulfil the requests, but makes sure those are taken care of, if they pertain to something besides the cabin itself, which the stateroom attendant takes care of. Hope that makes sense. No butler, but excellent service for us.

Our cruise on Beyond, our cabin steward took care of things like ice in the bucket, hangers, etc. He seemed to always be working. We had the Retreat host's card for anything else, and those requests were handled thru the Retreat. We don't make many requests, so didn't notice any decrease in service ourselves. For us, we were happy not to have to meet with the butler from time to time at the cabin. We still got a treat in the cabin for the birthday, had the bottle of champagne waiting, the rose on the table, and chocolates each night, one of which was the specialty chocolates onboard.

We returned last week from Celebrity Beyond. We were in a Sky Suite, and had a great time. The 'Retreat Hosts' are really room stewards who work their butts off. We have no complaints about the service, but aren't high maintenance. We asked for additional hangers and the ice bucket to remain full, and Domnick took great care of that. He was grateful that we are up and out early, so he could begin with our cabin each morning. The ship is beautiful, the staff very friendly, the Retreat lounge was really enjoyable. We would sail the Beyond again in a heartbeat. A very nice touch was that Captain Leo, cruise director Alexandro, and some of the officers were dockside to say goodbye to us as we left the ship. So many times, once the cruise is finished, the staff is in a hurry to push you out the door because they have so much to do to prepare for the next one. That goodbye made for a very nice finish to a great cruise.

21 days till our Celebrity Beyond sailing in a SS. Cannot wait!