shipshape sam

I agree. It is more of 'How many PUP's will they offer?

For us: The Rotterdam VII The nightly live music The sea view aft deck area (other than the smoking area-sorry) Walking deck on deck 3 The nightly live music Rudi's New York Deli Cornbeef sandwiches The nightly live music the pool deck area Half Moon Bar and staff Oh yeah, the live rock n roll music most nights of our 11 day cruise 🙂 We have tended over the years to not sail HAL, but our TA suggested we try Rotterdam and we did this past January and now are booked again on Rotterdam.

For me, if I know an item is stolen, would not buy it/bid on it.

Looks like September coming up is not a busy month for PUP's. I would guess that we have earned about half of the points offered.

I have bought a couple of t-shirts and a money clip. Have had no problems.

Yes I still do them even if for ONLY 1 CC point. LOL We are around 855 points, so we will never make next level as the levels are currently configured. We sail in a veranda category, maybe CC if priced right and try to get 2 cruises in a year. We do not do suites and was not impressed with AQ when we did that category. WE have too many land based trips we want/like to do also, including snow skiing, and interior Alaska trips. I like to keep up on what is happening on Celebrity ships as Celebrity over the last 10 years was our favorite cruise line. Now we are divided. We are doing Royal Caribbean with kids/grandkids, doing HAL Rotterdam for the music offered every night and other things, like the Corn beef at New York Deli, and the walking area on deck 3 around whole ship, the relaxed vibe we get, .... E class with IV rooms is not appealing, M class is chopped up with a lot of former public space now as cabins. Thus, for us (and there could be exceptions in future) we are mainly looking at S class sailings when we think of Celebrity.

I like the idea of the New York Deli for Embarkation lunch. I love their corn beef sandwiches.

I guess I should have thought through my comment. I did think OV cafe felt spacious. Our sailing was about 65% capacity in January 2023. Sailings around ours were close to or were 100 % packed. As to evenings or mornings, we never had an issue getting a place to sit and eat, nor stand in line other than getting a fried egg in the morning. Never ate dinner there. Did go for snacks later in evening. My specific memory is a picture that I took in the late evening showing the long hallway and tall walkway through the OV cafe over by the bar are looking aft.

LOL Sounded like 'mo zert' on our sailing deck 6. Next sailing we are on deck 7 and will not miss it. Guess there will some times we stop and hear it.

Good response.

We no longer consider the AI offers. We get the drinks, the laundry, the internet minutes and that is basically what we use from our Elite + status. Celebrity has lessen the value of their Captain's Club program which is a shame and a lesson learned at the same time. We do like and use the drinks credits, will take advantage of the laundry and maybe use some minutes. Last cruise did not use any of our Elite + internet minutes.

i too do not like the IV cabins and look more towards S class sailings. I did like a number of things on the E class ships and IMHO, liked very much the Oceaniew Cafe and how spacious it felt.

Maybe for the same reasons you are leaving HAL.

We saw northern lights on a Celebrity cruise a few years ago. It was in early September. The Captain did make an announcement and it seemed like everyone was on the top decks. We were heading toward Juneau that night. For us with just our eyes the lights moved around, but were (to our eyesight) not very bright. On the ship, we were frustrated with so many people taking 'flash' pictures! I ask one women how did the picture come out. She said it was just dark. I just smiled and walked away. We did a 2 week land trip to Alaska in 2022 arriving Aug 15th in Anchorage. We spent our 1st 5 days south of Anchorage and then headed towards Fairbanks with a stop in Denai for 2 days. Once in Fairbanks, the published start of the season ( I think for tours, etc) was August 21st. We had planned our trip that we would be with a new moon in Fairbanks. First couple nights lots of clouds and some rain. Then just some clouds and then our last 2 nights of 6 in Fairbanks area, we had clear skies and great viewing of aurora. So we saw the northern lights in late August. It was cool at night, but did not stop us from being out there 3 hours each night. Plan for some layers. Assuming you are in September, the most important issue is clear skies. A new moon does not hurt. We experience again, that watching the aurora was very interesting and that with the naked eye, it is muted (at least when we were there). We also were taking time lapse pictures and movies and the color was WOW! On our trip, we were at a Bnb and they rang our phone around 11 pm each night and we were outside till about 2 am each night. We for sure want to go again and will plan to spend more time in Fairbanks. There are things to do during the day. Our Bnb was between Fairbanks and Chena. We too had the big dipper in some of the pictures. If you imagine a 360 degree field of view, I think we saw the aurora in about 270 degrees or 3/4 of the night sky. No one was using a flash, which was a nice change. The rule of thumb, we have read about is that you need 5-6 days to allow for cloud cover. What a shame if you are there only 2-3 days and do not see aurora due to clouds. Obviously, it could be cloudy for 6-7 straight days, but you want to give your self the best chance to see the aurora and see more than just one night. Wishing you the best!

We sailed Beyond, E class this past January. We liked the ship overall, but as always we have choices. We did not like IV cabin and without spending time to research it, my guess is 90% of balcony cabins are IV. Lots of people like them and will choose to sail because of them. On our sailing, we liked Eden, we liked the Oceanview Cafe. IMHO, I think OC is the best buffet area around. Very tall and spacious feeling too. We actually did not try any Speciality restaurants. We did enjoy eating at the 4 themed MDR's. Loved the Lamb Shank. We did not hang around the pool area, Martini bar was not a wow without the frost. Al bacio was great as usual for us. We only did one show and it was not memorable. IF given the choice of sailing S or E class, we would chose S right now. Could change after our next S class sailing, but even that is in distance future as we are sailing more now with Royal due to grandkids and sailing HAL Rotterdam because, for us, it provides us more of the things we like and remember how sailing with Celebrity was. We get a nice cabin with a balcony, have a walking deck around whole ship, have a great musical entertainment area that plays not just a few times a cruise, but everynight there is music. We liked Rudi's which is similar to Murano's which we loved. Dutch Cafe was very good, but like sweets on Celebrity ships better. I think Celebrity is targeting TINK's (Two Incomes, No Kids) and a younger age bracket and that is the reality. We have moved on from M class ships with all the conversions to more cabins from previous public space. My final thought/comment is Royal Caribbean Corp (Celebrity and Royal) just had one of their best quarters financially and I for sure wish them then best and DO have multiple cruises booked with Royal and would love to sail Celebrity again soon.

I still do the PUP points as I do learn things. We are at 855 and have no expectation of making 3,000. Reality is we are now sailing more on Royal due to granddaughter and her family. Also tried HAL Rotterdam this year and loved how they did musical entertainment at night so we have booked another Rotterdam sailing. Celebrity has their pluses and will miss those features/benfits, but the musical entertainment on HAL wins, at least for now. 😁

Assuming we get moved soon... I bring a lanyard with a clear plastic sea pass card holder attached to it. I loop it through my shorts belt loop or for my swim suit, through a 'D' ring I had sewed in right side cargo pocket. Then place in my right side cargo pocket; Only time I can lose the sea pass card now is when I have to use it so I now hold on to the plastic sea pass holder in my hand till I get the card back. I also bring cargo shorts and swimsuits for the extra pockets.

LOL

I would not hold my breath on that thought.

They are being pretty tight with that ONE Captains Club point. I can see where some need the one or two points needed to move up. We move up one level with help from the PUP points conversions. Good luck and I would for sure check with CC to make sure you are on their distribution list.

Over the years, they did that with both Speciality Restaurant pricing and Drink packages as I recall.

I am surprised still at the initial charge for an extra appetizer/side dish. They can get too cute and ruin/lessen the speciality dining concept. Going to a Speciality dining restaurant, would mean you are not eating in the MDR or Lido Market, which is/should be some cost savings that could be applied to cost of the overall dinner that evening in their pricing model. Maybe they already do that calculation?!

I think you are correct on that. They will try to make the business case, that they still are the better value.

I have read or heard somewhere, that Celebrity can remotely do a lockdown. Cannot confirm it, but it is a question OP can ask. Can that be extended to a single cabin? Celebrity knows. My guess is that they will not want to get involved. One of the reasons I do not like IV and will miss sailing Edge class. We still like S class.

If you do not see yourself using features/benefits of Club Orange (CO), besides dining in CO in the evenings at $25/person/day, what is the difference between CO and MDR? We walked pass it every evening on our way to MDR from Half Moon Bar and it was always about 1/2 full. I have read that there are additional food items, but no example provided. For us the $50/day for both of us equals $600 over the course of our 12 day sailing. We are sure too, that we will eat in the Speciality dining venues 3-4 times, so using 4 times, would now have us paying $600 for 8 days which is $75 per day. So.......strictly on using on CO benefit of dining for 2/3 (8 days) would you pay $600 for 8 days. Just asking to see if there is enough value in that one feature.