Honolulu Blue

I'm an introvert too and on the music charters I've done (StarVista Live's Ultimate Disco Cruise and ECP's 80s Cruise), I didn't have too much difficulty finding quiet spaces when I wanted them. I'm also a music lover who's starting to get into concerts. But unlike you, I live in a live performance desert - everyone comes to Metro Detroit or Grand Rapids or the casinos and almost no one comes to my neck of the woods. The pain of getting out of a packed concert arena area means that most concerts (for me) would be overnights, which adds considerably to the costs to go to them. That means that, for me, the music charters I've been on have been worth the money over a regular cruise (double seems about right - I WISH they were only $1700 each. 🤑) I've gotten lots of gifts on the music charters I've been on also - mostly logo items of limited practical value, but I do appreciate the thought behind them. I've never knowingly gotten sponsor gifts; I don't think any of our cruises had sponsors other than the charter company and the cruise line. BTW, I haven't taken a Sixthman cruise yet, though I've been tempted a couple of times (Melissa, Beach Boys - looking at you). I think eventually our paths will intersect.

Thanks. I'm happy they're improved from the one-page newsletters from the recent past. I remember these from just before the pandemic.

Too much rock and romance, and too little time for degeneracy, I suppose. 😛

My mail-in "Comedian 101" course from a few decades ago has the answer to that. Let's see, flick through some yellowed, faded pages... ah yes, here it is - To get to the other side. Key West has a lot of chickens roaming around. You should go there sometime. It will make you happy. I'm jealous! I took this exact cruise in November and we had pretty bad weather - mostly from the long tail of a a tropical system. I had two excursions canceled due to rain or previous rain. Despite that, I had a great time. I'm glad to see Boogie Wonderland is still there; I liked that show also. Great job with your trip report, OP!

I go a step farther for my cell phone - I don't answer unless I'm expecting a call. Period. The people that know me understand and will leave a message or text. Legit businesses with legit business will leave a message. The rest rarely bother with messages, so their call was obviously unimportant. 😊

Actually, two of my music charters on Celebrity and the two sailings I've had on Celebrity out of SJ were quite ethnically diverse. I agree with your main point that X is not ignoring older cruisers in making their push toward youngsters. But I did a little calculation, and this is, according to the calendar, my seventh decade of life. Two decades from now, I won't be THAT old (mid-70s), and I think I'll still be cruising - though maybe not on Celebrity or whomever buys it in the future.

I already do look back at those times as the best. I sailed on the Summit in September '21 along with about 320 other passengers. Heavenly. 😇 I sailed on a Princess a couple of months later with under 1000 passengers. That was pretty blissful too, though that ship had some pinch points. I blundered onto a Millie sailing out of San Juan in November that was about half full. That was also pretty nice.

Do Carnival ships still have entertainment directors (EDs) and are they still listed in whatever passes for the Fun Times these days? I remember part of the reason that EDs were split from CDs is that the ships were getting bigger with more to do, and so there was a need for more scheduling and other items behind the scenes. This was another place to stash CDs who were burning out from being Carnival's face of FUN on their ships. As for executive status, I've always thought of Mr. Heald in his current status as a "beard" - even though he doesn't think he is. He meets with other beards all the time (in person and virtually), including the queen bearded lady. He occasionally visits ships under construction, a very beard-y thing to do. He gets inside information (sometimes) from the PR department and the other beards. When he visits ships to do his thing, he stays in guest accommodations and not crew quarters. And I bet he gets paid more than any CD in the fleet, and very likely more than Chris & Mike. If not, then he's underpaid, IMHO.

I have one question for @CCAubs: Do you know if Mr. Sommer will take the place of Mr. Del Rio at this seminar? There are arguments both ways, but it's nice to have a definitive answer. The questions that I have for Mr. Del Rio (which I asked in a different thread) can be transferred to Mr. Sommer.

Not if it's inside a retirement account like my CCL shares are. I don't think of my shares as an investment. I think of them as a bond or a preferred stock with an occasional nontaxable dividend and a possible equity kicker.

There are several other embarkation ports that you didn't list between Galveston and Ft. Lauderdale, namely: New Orleans Tampa Miami Port Canaveral (sort of near Orlando) It's OK not to toss them for whatever reason, but you really should put them on your initial list. Beyond that, I don't have much to say but have fun planning and have fun cruising!

All right, I accept your challenge. Please list for me at least 20 reasons why one should not ever cruise in Florida or the Caribbean. You don't have to post it here, but kindly link your list wherever you decide to put it. Thanks in advance for sharing your wisdom.

Here's Verizon's cell coverage map zoomed in on Alaska. I found it at Verizon Coverage Map: Nationwide 5G and 4G LTE Network Cell Phone Coverage | Verizon : My knowledge of Alaskan geography is limited, but there seem to be splotches of orange in the places you're likely to end up. YMMV.

Two instant thoughts when I saw this: Chaperoning 100 teen girls - you poor thing! 🤣 100 teen girls - where do I sign up? 😈

Thank you for sharing your story and that of your waiter friend. The full charter I was recently on... well, I guess we're kind of a cult. We had our own dress code (different on different nights) and brought along almost all of our entertainment. Our group drank a lot of alcohol, which I'm sure the cruise line was grateful for. I'd say we played well with each other, but as for whether we played well with others? You decide. I think these guys kind of liked us:

I found an interesting article from Brittany Chang of Business Insider about themed cruises and the charter cruise business. Several charters from Sixthman and ECP are mentioned by name (including The 80s Cruise). A Holland America rep was also quoted about their charter cruises. Notable by their absence was StarVista Live (though HAL does some SVL charters). TL,DR - the charter business is growing like a weed. The article is at https://www.businessinsider.com/theme-cruise-star-trek-edm-rising-popularity-2023-3 ,

Of limited relevance to the OP, but I sailed on the previous edition of HAL's Rotterdam (#6, IIRC) in 2019. It had a boring 7-day Caribbean itinerary that I'd done on Carnival and other cruise lines several times, but with a couple of twists: 1) This one went to Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala's Caribbean port. It mostly serves Guatemala's navy on that side of the world, but the pier was long enough for us to dock, so we did. 2) It DID NOT go to Cozumel. I thought that was a neat trick. You try finding a 7-day cruise to the Western Caribbean that doesn't go there. It was the smallest ship I had been on at the time in terms of passengers (about 1600) and size. I don't remember a lot about the experience, which must have meant that things went pretty well. My favorite souvenir from this cruise was this freebie: To summarize, I had a decent time on HAL, but I'm not hurrying back.

To provide a counterpoint, I was on the Celebrity Summit for 5 days in February and March and their dinner buffet was more or less as it always had been - full selection, no closed stations, good and tasty food (I'm the wrong person to ask about quality). The fact that it was a charter may have had something to do with it. Or perhaps all the protests to their President's office finally wore them down and they did the right thing in response.

Thanks everyone for sharing. I found a nice article about how writer Ashley Kosciolek got stuck with a charter cruise that wasn't the team she was a fan of. You can read about it at https://thepointsguy.com/guide/nfl-cruise-charter/ .

Ashley Kosciolek (one of my favorite cruise travel writers) happened to get stuck on a partial charter for Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans. She's not a Bucs fan. Hilarity ensues. She writes about her experience at https://thepointsguy.com/guide/nfl-cruise-charter/ . The article is titled "Fumble! I accidentally booked an NFL cruise — for a team I don't even like". I wish I could write a good TL,DR for this article, but I can't. Just read it. I promise it will be worth your time - especially if you're a partial or full charter cruise fan, or a Tampa fan.

I've been on Millie and the Summit since the restart and haven't seen bingo on either. Based on that and others who have posted in this thread, I don't see it coming back anytime soon on the Summit or any other Celebrity ship. If you really want to play bingo while you're cruising, you do have a couple of options that I can see: Bring your bingo equipment from home and call it for the friends you make before and/or during the cruise. It helps if you have a big cabin. If no money changes hands, you can try to find some empty or unused space to hold some games (I modestly suggest the OVC between lunch and dinner, though that's not the only suitable place). If money does change hands, you're going to have to be discreet, because the casino doesn't like competition. 😗 Get some Internet access and play it online. I'm sure you can find something suitable in whatever store your phone/tablet supports. It's best to download it before you get to the cruise ship.

I'm not quite to the point where you are, but I think I'm getting there. On my last two side-to-side cruises, I started out without any Internet access, but folded two days in on both. Life is just so much easier (for me anyway) when I have it. I should note that when I'm on the road in the U.S., I don't need WiFi as much because I have some data and that's usually faster than any WiFi I can get.

I think someone just leaked the name of Celebrity's latest ship! 😁

I don't have any answers for you (you've gotten better advice than I could give from others already), but I want to note that I'm happy that Celebrity is returning to sailing from sunny San Juan for the 2024-25 season. I was on the Millie in November and it was maybe half full. This made me happy, but probably not so much LLP and Jason L.

I was just on the Summit a couple of weeks ago. I spent very little time in the casino while it was open - none at the table games. Sorry. I was on the Millie in November. I got to the roulette once as the casino was opening. THe ship wasn't close to full. It had a $5 minimum. Good luck, have fun, play responsibly.