Salt Water Buckeye

Yes, I'd volunteer. Already asked my TA if she hears anything about signing up to let me know. We've got skin in the game with a family cruise consisting of 10 people booked on Allure in '21, so anything I can do to move the process along, I'm in.

Wife & I are doing a repositioning cruise on Reflection next spring, so very much appreciated your take on the Summit. Our 1st 2 cruises were on Carnival boats, ‘getting our feet wet,’ followed by 3 RCL cruises, each absolutely fabulous, and now our 1st on a Celebrity boat. I have to think there will be a lot of carry over across the Celebrity fleet. Thank you for your thoughtfulness in sharing this information! I share your sentiments about St. Marten; haven’t been there, but for no particular reason it doesn’t appeal to me. I’d like to do St. Lucia and Dominica. The ABC’s appeal to Dianne, another islands we have not been to.

Thanks for digging into this JLM... I really don't know the answer to your question...just know that the salt water helps a lot. Also sunshine. At the time I first came down wit psoriasis (1979), the doc said salt water & sunshine were the 2 best things for it. At the time I lived in So. Calif. not too far from the beach. I'd sunbath in the back yard on my lunch hour and hit the beach frequently after work. The sunshine seemed to help maintain the gains I made, and the salt water seemed to do the improving. Think it may have been the way the surf exfoliated my skin. As you can imagine, I had one of those Hollywood actor tans going, which helped hide the splotches.

Oops, hit the send button by mistake. I know the Summit isn't in the same class, but what applies to the goose may apply to the gander. If you would be so kind as to post back after your cruise as to what type of water is in the Summit pools, that may be an indicator of what to expect on the Reflection.

Sounds like we're in the same boat Kathy (every pun intended)! Enjoy your cruise!

Wow; I just ran across this site! Have been on several RCL cruises and wife & I are booked on ReflectIon’s repositioning cruise in April-May 2020 (1st time on a Celebrity boat). Have some family business to take care of in Ireland, and when I saw this cruise ends in Dublin…well…sounds like a road, er, water trip to me!!! I have a question hopefully someone is knowledgeable about. Is either of the pools on Reflection salt water? I have psoriasis and salt water & sunshine are the 2 best things for it. With so many sea days, there’s no chance to ‘take a dip’ in the ocean. Hoping I can get my ‘fix’ in a pool.

My wife & I used to live on a 36’ boat. In 2017 we sailed on Jewel OTS & booked the forward most cabin on Deck 9 specifically for the motion to ‘rock us to sleep.’ Big disappointment; didn’t feel a thing! However, eating in the MDR, towards the aft of the boat, with the motion we felt there, we had to fight to keep awake during our dinners!!! Go figure! We will be sailing on Celebrity Reflection next April, and I booked the aft most cabin on Deck 10. Will see how that compares. This cabin is on the starboard side and we’ve always been high up on the port side in all our previous cruises. So, other than the height, quite a departure from our norm.

Don't know the answer to your question, but I do know they only keep the survey time open for about a week after they send it out. Waited a little too long and when I went to take the survey, it had timed out.

Thank you for your feedback!

Have sailed on RCL ships and have accumulated C&A points. Just booked a re-positioning cruise on Celebrity Reflection for April 2020. Celebrity has its own loyalty program, but has anyone else sailed on both lines and knows if sailing on a Celebrity ship can add to your already existing C&A points?

Thanks for the great info! It's just a concept I hadn't thought about before & now have a much better idea of how to work it in this type of situation.

Here’s a ‘Dear Abby’ type of question. We’re going on a family cruise next month on Symphony OTS. We have 2 daughters (both in their 30’s) booked into a cabin that comes with an On Board credit; not much, just $50. The one daughter saw the offer to use the OBC when she purchased an internet package today, but didn’t use it because she didn’t understand what it was. She & mom want to go Parasailing on Coco Cay (of curse, er, I mean course, my wife wants to use our cabin’s OBC towards Parasailing), and beloved daughter 1 wants advise on how to handle the OBC with beloved daughter 2. Being married, we’ve always handled any charges/OBC through 1 person, me, just for convenience sake, so this is new territory for me. I proffered 2 suggestions: 1) as each beloved daughter will have their own account, have Guest Service split the cabin’s OBC in half, $25 on each girl’s account, or 2) beloved daughter simply take all the OBC & give beloved daughter 2 $25. Any thoughts or feedback on how you have handled this kind of situation on your cruises? BTW, both daughters get along great, so I don’t foresee any friction between them.

Oops, forgot to mention my thanks to you too, Twangster! It's 6:30 am & I'm not fully awake yet.

Thanks Skid! Filled out the form & submitted.

Will be sailing on SOS this August. Have a breathing machine for sleep apnea. Anyone have experience if SOS has distilled water available on board, which I need for the machine, or do I have to bring my own?

Do/will they have fireworks for every sail away, or just special occasions? How fabulous to see them with the ocean/Carib sky in the background!

Here's a video to a VLOG couple's experience on Symphony OTS with the Key program:

One point not bought out yet is that for the same price, the 2 extra days on Adventure will net 2 more loyalty points for climbing the loyalty program ladder if that is of any interest to you. Wife & I were on a sister ship to Brilliance, Jewel, 11/2017, and on Adventure 12/2018. Liked both for what they were, Jewel being a ship where the itinerary is more the draw, and Adventure being a little more where the ship is the draw. I'd go with Adventure from what I've gleaned your interests are. We did a sailing catamaran excursion while in Grand Cayman, 25 people max. that went out to a reef and interacted with stingrays in the wild, not penned in. They were at a reef where the water was just a little over waist deep. Fantastic time & highly recommend it. We left as large group, 'party' type boats were coming into the reef. With the small group size of our boat, don't think we'd have anywhere near as much fun with the stingrays as they tend to shy away from disturbances. When we were there, there was another larger group close by, and the stingrays stayed more around us. Also, our excursion included snorkeling in a little deeper area of the reef, which we also enjoyed.

My wife's solution in the past, present, & future: she hands hers to me to carry, or just leaves hers in the cabin safe and we 'sail' on mine.

Responding to KaB's post. Yea, I booked the cruise to give my great wife something to cheer her up when school started, but it's also to celebrate her 60th B'day. Not emphasizing it for obvious reasons to not keep her in the blues. Last Nov. we cruised on Jewel OTS to celebrate an anniversary. Loved that boat. Our nephew has sailed twice with his family on Adventure & have another booking on Adventure in April '19. They love this boat, so we are really looking forward to our adventure on the Adventure!!!

Wife was blue at the beginning of this school year facing the prospects of so many wonderfully behaved, never any problems other peoples children to deal with. Saw a reasonably priced cruise on Adventure of the Seas sailing in now 8 days (Dec. 16th) so booked the cheapest interior room, which she was fine with (we've always had balconies in past cruises). Got my email offer earlier this week to bid on an upgrade, so I did, RCCL accepted, and now we have a balcony cabin on the same deck not too far from the original cabin. Haven't told her, and she's a little directionally challenged, so hope it will be a total surprise when she opens up the door!

There's times when a purse of that nature is appropriate, this just isn't one of them. My wife & I went to a pre-season Cleveland Browns game against Philadelphia (we won 5-0!!!). She brought her purse, but couldn't take it into the stadium. We had to have it checked at a tent outside. There was quite a lot of ladies in the same predicament. The lady right behind us (Eagles fans) got so upset about paying the $10 fee, she told her husband to forget it, she was going to dump her purse in the trash & get into the game. My wife asked her if she could have the purse instead, which she was OK with & gave to her. When Dianne checked out the price on line, the purse cost $144. Throwing away $144 for $10. With thinking like that, no wonder the Eagles lost!!! Have a great cruise!!!

My vote is to leave it locked in the cabin if you bring it aboard. Even on the biggest of ships, how far can you get away from anything you could possibly need that's carried in in the purse? You could be a gentleman in offering to carry some small 'freshen up' items like a tube of lipstick in your pants pockets on formal night, but beyond a sea pass card & a cell phone for pics/videos that can be carried in a pocket, I can't see where the big $ purse is worth the risk of losing. Help me understand why even traveling to/from the cruise necessitates bringing such an expensive item.

Some time ago, someone made the astute observation that in the case of some itineraries/ships, the ports are the destinations. In other cases, the ships themselves are the destinations. The comment about personal preferences is spot on, and I fear adding more 'destination' type attractions across the RCL fleet will dilute the personal preference factor. My wife & I sailed on the Jewel OTS last November on what was a port intensive cruise, and we loved the ship both for what it was, and what it wasn't. 7 of us, including 3 grandchildren ages 3-11 will be on Symphony next August, and all, even the kids, are psych'd for what that that ship has to offer, being a 'destination' ship in and of itself for what it has to offer aboard. Wife & I will be on Adventure OTS next month, which offers a mid-range between the 2 ship classes, and I believe we'll enjoy Adventure for what it has to offer. So, my plea to RCL and my fellow cruisers is to keep/advocate as wide a range of on board offerings as possible, from mild to wild, to cater to a wide range of individual preferences. BTW, Jewel's Centrum was one of the things we loved most about her. So far, my wife & I agree it's the ship we've loved the most of all we've been on. If noise is a problem, I should think some cleverly disguised/placed sound absorption panels would reduce that problem.