Cruising to Retirement!
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Posts posted by Cruising to Retirement!
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Hello Mary!
My husband and I want to thank you so much for all the fabulous pictures of the ship, the many shows with awesome pictures and reviews, and of course the pics of the main dining rooms including meals. We are sailing on the Ascent for Thanksgiving 2024 in a Sunset Veranda on deck 8. This ship is going to be so much fun. We can't get over all the different shows, food, and drinks! We are way more excited now! (It's my daughters turn with their Mother-in-laws so we always go on a Thanksgiving day cruise!)
You did a wonderful review! A huge thanks Michelle and Bill! Happy Sailing!
- asquared17, PPPJJ-GCVAB, Neesa and 2 others
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1 hour ago, fur4elise said:
First cruise since the pandemic (2020)! So excited to be back on Royal and on an Oasis class! This is group cruise provided by a company my husband works with and is a real treat! I already got custom ducks with our names for our door and found the giant RC magnet from our very first cruise! I applied dates to that last cruise and can now add 2024!
So exciting for you and all of us to be on the Wonder looking forward to it! Happy holidays everyone!
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1 hour ago, Traveling Mike said:
I have done it on both the Millennium and the Reflection. Both ships it was a great experienced and had good food. The main difference in those two places and this one was location. If you get a chance to see it where the location is acceptable, I would recommend doing it.
Thank you so much for blogging! So happy we will be on the Beyond on August 24th 2024 for the 8 night ABC islands in a Sunset Veranda!
Michelle
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10 hours ago, JasonOasis said:
Yeah I'm really excited to go on my first cruise with them.
The one thing that has me nervous is I don't like wearing suits in fact out of all the clothes in my closet I only have 1 suit and I haven't worn it in like 15 plus years. And my husband doesn't have a suit at all. We both use to have to wear suits 5 days a week years and years ago for work but when that changed we got rid of all our suits we gave them all including the ties to the Goodwill.
My question is does Celebrity require guest to wear a suit on formal night or can we wear what we wear on Royal which is some nice denim jeans and a fabulous button down shirt?
Suits are not required.
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6 hours ago, cruisellama said:
Excellent price. Some friends just upgraded also for $6.99 on Reflection Nov 24 - ABC itinerary -
Thanks so very much Cruisellama but I upgraded to premium for $6.99 last week on this Beyond cruise and so surprised that on our Ascent cruise over Thanksgiving in 2024 have the $6.99 and we snatched that up also (not our year to do Thanksgiving our daughters are with their in-laws) I havent seen as many deals on Celebrity that Royal has right now. Hopefully tomorrow!
We are going on the Equinox on January 18 2025 out of Pt. Canaveral and that cruise does not have the $6.99 premium upgrade yet and decided to get into the Aqua Class which was all included including the tips at that time which we also really enjoyed everyone of the people in Blue so much in 2022 and decided to upgrade from our Sunset balcony! We had been in the Retreat once on Equinox in 2022 also and didn't care for it near as much as the Blue dining! There is something always for us whether it's on Royal or Celebrity there is more than enough ships and entertainment, food, etc. that we love them both! We did also stay in Aqua on Solstice in March of this year and had a great time also! We upgraded that time from a casino comp from a balcony up to the Aqua Class on Pacific Coastal! We just love to cruise!
We are happy Equinox will be in Pt. Canaveral so we can drive there from Atlanta area!
Thanks again! Happy cruising!
Michelle
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On 11/1/2023 at 11:23 AM, barbeyg said:
21 days till our Celebrity Beyond sailing in a SS. Cannot wait!
Thats so exciting! We will be on the Beyond on August 24th for and 8 day going to the A, B, C islands! We have a sunset veranda on deck 8 my favorite!
- cruisellama and barbeyg
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Getting excited for this cruise! This will be our 40th Wedding Anniversary! Can't wait!
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7 minutes ago, Maggie M said:
Just booked the Millennium for our honeymoon in January 2025 - 12 nights to Bali, Malaysia, and Thailand! We can't wait! We were hoping to do the trip to Thailand on RC but there weren't many offerings and this option allows us 3 additional countries - it goes out of Bali but comes into Singapore!
7 minutes ago, Maggie M said:Just booked the Millennium for our honeymoon in January 2025 - 12 nights to Bali, Malaysia, and Thailand! We can't wait! We were hoping to do the trip to Thailand on RC but there weren't many offerings and this option allows us 3 additional countries - it goes out of Bali but comes into Singapore!
Everyone might want to check their celebrity cruises for 2024 i got the classic drink packages and upgraded for $6.99 each! Fantastic deal! They did not work for our 2 cruises in 2025. We just got off the Harmony and had an awesome time! Really love that ship like the first time we sailed on it!
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Safe travels everyone! We are so excited to be back on the Harmony on Sunday! We are going to the Taylor Swift concert at the AMC movie theater first on Friday here at home! Went to our first and only Taylor Swift concert in 2012 with Ed Sheeran. They were both great! Looks like weather maybe a little rainy but thats okay with us!
Hope everyone has safe travels! See everyone on Sunday!
Almost finished packing...
Michelle
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6 hours ago, Cruising to Retirement! said:
We are super excited getting on to the Harmony one last time until it moves back over to Galveston. We are using our casino comp too! Can't wait to see Grease again and my favorite water show of all! We are thinking we will now drive down if they have a government shutdown! That's the one bad thing! Fingers crossed but not looking good at the moment! We booked many months ago! We are just glad that it's finally almost here!
Well I guess we were spared now that they have a 45 day temporary funding! That's great news so we can fly down as planned in 14 days!
That's a huge relief!
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On 8/15/2023 at 6:45 AM, Allison1961 said:
We booked this about 15 months ago. Our first since covid19 pandemic and so excited. Praying for health and safety on this cruise for everyone!
We are super excited getting on to the Harmony one last time until it moves back over to Galveston. We are using our casino comp too! Can't wait to see Grease again and my favorite water show of all! We are thinking we will now drive down if they have a government shutdown! That's the one bad thing! Fingers crossed but not looking good at the moment! We booked many months ago! We are just glad that it's finally almost here!
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50 minutes ago, Stvr California said:
We are doing Hooked for lunch on day 6. It’s a sea day and why not try everything? We aren’t a big seafood family except for my son who is starting to grow gills.
You will have so much fun! We loved the Navigator back at the end of last September!!! We are native Californians through and through!
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We were so impressed with all the very wonderful shows everywhere. If you did not get to the 8 pm show by 7:40 no seats at all. The Pheonix in the in the Music Hall for many great shows we loved. The comedians were really great. The staff was great too. We really loved the Giovannis Wine Bar menu for a lunch and early dinner with our Bogos on 2 nights and our 3 night dining package with another night. So did not go to main dining room at all. The book was really something. We loved the casino especially me because i actually made prime this cruise. Hard to do on the penny slots ha! This has opened a new cruise experience I feel. My husband did the scotch tasting which was great. And we did the awesome Women in Wine tasting that we had done on our Navigator in September. We had a balcony cabin that was on Deck 7 so I was always dependent on the Elevators too. The ship was full but we met lots of people and truly had one of the best times period.
Thanks for posting the menus for us. We just fell in love with Giovannis Wine Bar so didn't go to Main dining. We loved the hibachi. It was such a bigger room like 3 times the size. We went twice.
I could go on and on. We just got back on Sunday.
Happy Cruising everyone!
Michelle
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On 1/16/2023 at 6:48 AM, Mike n Ky said:
Really impressed by this ship! The layout is different and takes some getting used to but it is definitely a ship we will return to and already considering booking a future cruise while aboard.
The menu function wasn't working on the app and we only went to the MDR the first night and I am trying to see how I can transfer it to this page. Will tell you that it is a theme night setup and they cut the wild mushroom soup off the menu completely, was only available the first night anyway but that is a must have for me. Fortunately Chops came through for me last night. They are limiting the French onion soup to 4 or 5 nights. The food was very good in the MDR but service was a bit slow. We were told by more than one person they have had a much bigger than usual turn around with the crew and there are many on board that are first time contracts. We are doing the CK tonight and tomorrow and hope that I can get an upload of the MDR menu on here soon.
Best JS ever!! Love the split bath, the overall look and feel, the fancy curtains that are controlled by the panel and the number of plugs and usb ports.
Heading into to Ladadee now so gotta get my feed on as I will need the strength to tame the Dragon's Breath zipline.
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We received a paper offer on second day of our second Celebrity cruise saying we have been awarded a free balcony and pay for taxes/port fees only cruise on the Celebrity Solstice in an aft balcony. Many people have received this offer on the Solstice too only for cruises in Jan through Mar 2023. We are both so excited as it is a Pacific Coastal cruise that we booked immediately on board. Being native San Fran Bay Area people we are very excited to cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge. Always been on our Bucket list. Cruise goes out March 25th to April 1st.
- cruisellama and WAAAYTOOO
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16 hours ago, mk-ultra said:
I'm glad you enjoyed the Maya as much as I did. Like you, I thought the food there was faboo. That was a welcome surprise
I wish I'd thought to do Catalina -- that's been on my list for a long time. I went there once as a kid with my dad, but hardly remember it. Good call.
All booked for Alaska. I did one thing new: pinged Royal's "Private Journeys" folks to see what they can line up in Juneau. I've never tried that service before.
What a great idea to remember Royal's private journeys. Alaska is on our short bucket list for sure. Excited to go on the new Odyssey on January 28th and after March Solstice to go on the new Wonder on May 21st. So nice to be cruising again. We absolutely love it!
Happy Cruising! Thanks for sharing again your blog and awesome pictures.
Michelle
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On 12/29/2022 at 7:30 AM, GatorCruiser said:
Shes a great ship, enjoy!
I'm so glad you had a great time! We had a great time in late September. We also stayed at Hotel Maya and we had pictures at the same spot as your picture was Our room was right there also on the first floor walked right out onto the grass. The view of the Queen Mary is breathtaking. Also the restaurant at Hotel Maya was sensational! We walked straight across the lit up bridge in your picture. We caught the fabulous ferry to Catalina island for Thursday before our cruise left on Friday! That was a must! So much history and great views, and just an overall great time. We loved going down to Mexico again on one of our favorites the Navigator.
We are going going 2 days ahead of time to LA in March again but cruising out on the Celebrity Solstice with a free cruise voucher out of LA from our 2nd Celebrity cruise on the Equinox in August on our 8 day Equinox they gave many on our ship in August but only on the Solstice in January through March 2023. We are doing a Pacific Coastal this time which we are very excited about! We have a great nonstop from Atlanta on Delta each way again! Delta credit cards really pay off is all we can say! Celebrity Solstice leaves out of San Pedro pier which will be a new adventure also.
Your pics you shared were beautiful! Thanks for the memories!
Michelle
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2 hours ago, Mike n Ky said:
Will try to upload for you. Big sundae? Gonna hafta look that up. Will be in Playmakers for the game Monday night so just might endulge.
BTW...this isn't just a first on the Odyssey, it's a first for the ports of call as well.
Enjoy these ports! We love Curacao so much and Aruba especially during the colder months! These islands are so nice and warm during the winter months being so far south. Also we love the wings and nachos a lot too. We are in Aruba until 10. With our sunset cruise being later we will definitely go to Playmakers afterwards for dinner.
Maybe just one night's menu to get an idea would be fine too.
Thanks! Enjoy so much!
Michelle
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2 hours ago, Mike n Ky said:
If you have anything you need to know while we are aboard just let me know.
The new Main dining menus would be a huge help please. We have a 3 night dining package and our BOGO but would love to see if one night be more of our favorite. We wouldn't want to miss our favorite! Ha!
I'm so excited for you! We can't wait to do our sunset cruise in Aruba! Also love Curacao and Labadee also! So glad they have a playmakers too since we won't get back til later with the sunset cruise in Aruba. We are doing playmakers as a just because day! I'm sure I will be back for the big sundae, etc. etc. etc.
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54 minutes ago, Mike n Ky said:
From what I have heard, this IS a ship to experience so we are looking forward to it.
Enjoy! We are going to be on the 8 night also on January 28th! We are excited about going on this new ship! We have been on the Anthem twice and really liked it too!
Michelle
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7 hours ago, PurdueFlyer said:
APEX in 14 days. FLL/San Juan/Tortola/St. Kitts/FLL.
First time on Celebrity. woot!
Enjoy! We are on an 8 day Odyssey on Royal on January 28th before we cruise out of LA harbor again on Celebrity Solstice on March 25th to do a Pacific Coastal. We have always wanted to do one. San Fran/Monterey/Santa Barbara/Ensenada/San Diego! On our second Celebrity cruise they were giving away lots of free cruises in Jan/Feb/March of 2023 out of LA only! We received the invite on our second day of our cruise in August 2022. Lots of people received them I've heard. We have never received anything like this in our whole lives truly! Being San Francisco Bay Areans born and raised this was a treat since we live in Atlanta now! I've always wanted to cruise under the Golden Gate!
Happy cruising everyone in 2023! Cheers!
Michelle
Mods Gone Wild!!!! Icon Inaugural Sailing - January 27 - February 3, 2024
in Live Blogs
Posted
I loved the indepth review of the Icon! Sounds very different from the rest, unique, and a great time had by all! Thanks to all of you for excellent indepth reviews!
On our Jan 14th Wonder for our 40th Anniversary we met up with the Icon at Coco Cay. It was very fun to see. The people that work in Vintages that we saw every night got to go over to the ship and go through it. They told Bill and I so many wonderful things. How very exciting for all of you! All of your pictures took us all on a treasure hunt through the entire ship, etc. So happy for one and all! Thanks so much!
Michelle