KathyC

There are VERY few Celebrity cruisers in this group. You're not going to get a lot of replies for these types of posts. I was on one Celebrity cruise last year, and they didn't have those bottles. But if they did I would not have saved them.

We had out first Celebrity last year on Summit and loved it. Will be spending our "couple" cruises on Celebrity, and save Royal for group cruising, starting in 2021. We have a couple more Royal to get through first, that we booked before we sailed Celebrity. Will most likely end up cancelling a B2B on Freedom for Oct 2021 to sail Celebrity instead.

We had the premium drink package on Summit last year and got no receipts. The gratuity was figured into the cost of our drink package.

Never fear, Matt always knows. Sometime we need to be patient for him to get the blog post up. https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2020/07/31/no-royal-caribbean-not-selling-empress-of-the-seas

Our first vacation sans-kids was a RC Blog group cruise. Helped tremendously!

We have a 12 night scheduled in December, and while we (hopefully) are gone, our 23 yo (who just graduated in May) will be housesitting, as he moved back home "temporarily" in March due to COVID getting him kicked out of the dorms. He started a full-time job remotely in July, and his office announced last week they do not plan on re-opening in 2020. Also home with his, will be his 21 yo brother who is a college senior and all his classes are remote for the fall semester. So boys staying home...parents going away for 12 nights! ?

Our youngest moved into college last week of August, we were on a cruise in September. Missed his family weekend too. ?

I usually carry around a few singles in my pocket, and by the end of day 2 I have usually found my bar, my spot and my favorite bartender. Those singles go a long way in finding that spot. ? I don't always give the extra, but when I can I do - especially if my spot is in an underused area and they aren't getting a lot of tips. Those same evening bartenders that in the daytime are at a crazy busy pool deck will see you in the crowd and often bump you ahead by making your drink - we had one on our 12 night Serenade that knew our cabin number by heart around day 3-4 so she took good care of us at the pool, just handing over the drink (we had the drink package) and she'd type in the cabin number.

We have a lot that opened today, but they put a pause on indoor dining because of the rise in cases down south. Celebrity has no remaining sailings out of Bayonne for 2020.

I'm not sure I'd trust a TA that I find on YouTube. But that's just me. I'm not a fan of giving just anyone my credit card information, date of birth, etc...

Pretty sure it's been on every ship I've sailed on. I can't think of one that it has not.

Those ships did return crew to Southampton, so it makes sense they'd hang out there, instead of coming all the way back across the Atlantic. Empress isn't due to show up in Miami until late October, so my "guess" is that she'll stay there to bring fresh crew back to the Caribbean once sailing resumes. Royal is planning on putting some ships into a cold storage type of thing, and I expect it would take time to make those arrangements, so that would happen in Europe, I'd expect. All guesses but makes sense to me.

?

Magens Point Hotel - that looks like St. Thomas

On Oasis last December they charged the upcharge to our group.

I say Oasis over Allure. We sailed on the AMPD Oasis last December and it is amazing. The 20s will love Playmakers & Music Hall, Aqua 80 is the best show out there right now. Plus, Perfect Day CocoCay. As for the other ports, we have our favorites which may not be yours, of course. We happen to love Cozumel, which is another check mark in the Oasis box.

Lately I've been seeing an added $10 upcharge if you do Hibachi with any of the dining plans. I was looking at the options for my December cruise and every single one said $10 upcharge.

I said the same thing about him last night!

Gotcha. Thanks! Thought maybe my status had been elevated to "see all" ?

I can still see two posts with dates? Including the original one.

Ugh. I'm pretty sure my Empress sailing in August will be canceled, as it's the only one on the schedule between now and late October when she is due in Miami. We've been wondering why they didn't just cancel it with all the other cancellations for Canadian sailings - this was the only one to Bermuda on Empress's schedule past August 1. All the rest were to Canada. Now you have me thinking they may send another ship in her place, which means we will not be docking in Hamilton and St. Georges but back over at the Royal Dockyard. The whole appeal of this sailing (besides all the friends on it) was to dock where no other ship can. We docked in those two small ports in 1997 on Song of America. Sighhhhh...

$50 can be the drink package for one day - so yes, re-price! The MEI agents totally get that! ?

I cancelled a cruise planner purchase on May 13, nothing yet. I canceled a sailing in February, took until mid-May for that refund.

Wow, didn't realize the Dominican Republic & Haiti were hit so hard.

We enjoyed it on Oasis. The group we went with said it wasn't as good as other Izumi Hibachi on other ships, but since we had only that one experience we had fun. I'm sure just like with any hibachi experience on land, it's all dependent on your chef's personality and your expectations. We thought it was worth the money for the show and the ridiculous amount of food. It was comparable with what I would pay in NJ, price-wise.