jill5172

Answering my own question - read the fine print; it's all there! 😄 Your restaurant location and dining time will be confirmed in your stateroom on embarkation day.

@DaKahuna - thank you so much for the step-by-step tutorial! It's all there. 😃 Next question - we tried to book the Chef's Table dining experience but the only available time is 12:00 PM on the day of embarkation, which cannot be serious, can it? It seems from the description that it's an evening event. Even if it is offered at lunch as well, it would surprise me that it would be offered on the day of embarkation. Is it possible that this is something that you book and then they tell you later which night/time to show up? Sort of like how we had to select a day and time for the Persian Garden spa pass, which should theoretically be available the entire trip?

Separately - I also learned that there is a dedicated concierge phone line for the Retreat, which I will definitely use next time. Hopefully the hold time is shorter!

Hi there! Just booked a Celebrity Suite for the Dec 1-7, 2023 Eclipse sailing to Los Cabos from Los Angeles. I've never sailed Celebrity before but have sailed Disney concierge, NCL Haven and RCCL in various cabins in years past. Having read through a lot of threads here recently I am unclear as to some of the perks of our cabin. For example - during the booking process it stated that this cabin/this sailing should include premium drinks, premium wi-fi, tips and OBC. When I got my cruise confirmation, it gave us $300 each in OBC but the cruise confirmation did not say anything about gratuities, premium drinks or premium wifi being included. In fact, when we went to the "plan my cruise" section of the webpage, it offered us the opportunity to pay for a premium drinks and premium wifi package. I ended up calling them to confirm and (after over an hour on hold, argh) and a lot of behind the scenes typing on the agent's part, she said we definitely have them and sent me a confirmation with $0.0 for tips, premium drinks and premium wifi. I am very confused ... any help on this would be appreciated!

Give it time; the real nagging happens within the three days before you sail. I had booked for 12 people and I got individual emails for EVERY SINGLE PERSON at least once a day for the three days before the cruise, after I had had to watch the safety video 12 times to get everyone checked in at 30 days ahead. It was insane.

@justhappy thank you for this live trip report! We are going on this exact cruise in 11 long months. I am so excited for this one as my 14-yo twins have never been to Alaska. They specifically requested that our next cruise be on the Encore after watching the shipboard promotional videos on our recent cruise on the Jade. They are excited about the VR gaming and racetrack; I am excited about seeing glaciers again. 😄

On our recent cruise I had forgotten about making dining reservations at 130 days out. Big mistake, considering we had a group of 14! I ended up only being able to get reservations for tables of 6 or 8 for 9:00 or 9:30 PM, which I was dreading because while we are just middle-aged farts, we prefer to eat around 6:30 PM. After I made the reservations, I emailed the pre-cruise concierge. They said they couldn't do anything about the reservation times and suggested that we contact the special events team to book for our group. The special events team responded after about a week and had combined our reservations into a single reservation for each night, but still all at 9:30 PM. Super frustrating. But then! We got on board and met our absolutely fantastic concierge Suzy, and she worked magic for us every single night and got us into the restaurants we wanted at the times we wanted. Note: there was never a single night where the restaurants were full - every time there were lots of empty tables so I think it is not as hard as it would seem. (They probably do this because they are terribly understaffed compared to pre-COVID days.)

It's a bit late, but as I just finished booking Alaska on Encore for next summer, I'll give you my $0.02. With Alaska I looked for itinerary first, then ship choice. I specifically wanted either a one-way to see Hubbard Glacier or a round-trip from Seattle (where I live) that goes to Glacier Bay. Bliss only was offering Dawes Glacier/inside passage, which is less appealing to me. Encore has Glacier Bay, RT from Seattle and a proper Haven (important to us; we like having a dedicated Haven bar and restaurant.) Joy is not sailing to Alaska next August, though the Sun is, for longer itineraries than we were interested in. We are very excited for this cruise - we were planning a big group Alaska cruise on Bliss in August 2020; that obviously did not happen. Looking like we should be able to recruit friends on this one too, which makes it even more fun.

Thank you so much!!

Hello! I haven't received any communications from the Haven concierge desk for our upcoming Greek Isles cruise (July 30 departure.) Is it just too early or did I maybe miss an email? Can someone share the Haven concierge desk email address? Thanks!!

Thanks for this reminder; we've only sailed Haven on the larger ships. We are doing a Greek Isles cruise this summer on the Jade. I know we'll miss the Haven bar (especially the guys in our group, who love to make friends with the bartenders) and restaurant, but I expect we'll find other alternatives. If nothing else, we will hang out in our spacious garden villa. 😁 Otherwise I appreciate any observations y'all have for differences in Haven amenities on Jade vs. the larger ships, and suggestions to make it even more special since it's a smaller ship.

There is another option, which is to make an appointment and go into a passport office and renew it in person. On the .gov passport page there are instructions for emergency (within 3 days) or urgent (within 2 weeks) passport needs. @Tsunami74 if you want to try expediting it, you can do it yourself by mail. The companies who do it for you will not get it any faster than you can by expediting it yourself - all they do is the paperwork and mailing of the documents for you. For some people this is worth it, but if you have the ability to fill out a government form and follow directions, you will save yourself a lot of money.

@slidebiteI would have said the same thing when I (a committed non-gamer) first met my husband and my best friends almost 20 years ago, but the reality is that not everyone has the same interests as me. If I can convince my introverted husband and kids to go on a cruise to places I want to go by letting them have their decompression time in the cabin while I hang out on deck with a drink and play trivia with strangers, it’s all good! As they say, to each his own. (As for suggestions that we may not be able to connect to the TV … if there’s a TV which was manufactured in the last decade on board it’s likely we can connect to it. Even if for some reason they had all of the HDMI ports blocked my family will be fine with their Switch or iPad or laptop or phone or Apple Watch. I have given up fighting against it and now just choose my battles accordingly.)

We are considering bringing one of their gaming systems - if it is possible to connect it to the TV. My husband is also a huge gamer and I think all three of them would like to have the option to play their xBox or PS5 games if possible while @Tasm3nand I hang out and socialize with people onboard. 😁

We booked recently on the Voyager. Initially I booked through Regent directly but I had a similar experience with a surprising delay in follow-up from their agents. We have cruised several times on other lines (Disney concierge, RCCL, NCL Haven, Princess suites) and their online service and phone service always yielded immediate response. It's hard to not have that, especially at Regent prices. In any event, we ended up transferring our booking to a local travel agent who specializes in luxury vacations. I found her via a Facebook group for my local community and have been much happier to have someone more responsive but still knowledgeable about this line. She also was able to get us better OBC and a waiver for the airfare deviation for all of us (a $700 savings for my family). She will be a great resource when it comes to planning excursions, as well. Separately, I appreciate the age discussion here too. We are in our early-mid 50s but will be traveling with our teenage twin boys. We are not worried that they'll be bored as it's a port-intensive cruise with only one sea day. They are used to going with us to fine dining restaurants and will be well behaved, especially considering that they'll likely want to spend their free time in the cabin playing video games. This will allow us to enjoy the ship as well - I am so looking forward to this new experience on a more mature/luxury line.