sbcs5390

Yes we should keep that in mind. Although not the case for the OP as they came over from Millennium and may or may not have taken advantage of the price drops, these cruises well before final payment were starting at $230/week cruise only plus were on solo sale so lots of couples will have a “two room suite” DIY, an easy option with how the S class connecting cabins work. At that point three meals a day at McDonald’s for a week is almost the same price. For me it’s my first opportunity to try a Royal Suite - for the same price I’m paying for an inside cabin on Oceania the next month.

Correct. No Retreat sundeck

I don’t think I’ve seen tea forte there before. Hard to recall.

I absolutely love the Deck 11 location too - awesome to pop down to the sunset bar via the special stairs by those cabins, or right into the Oceanview. Great quiet loungers nearby. But, I enjoy the sun. Believe you'd have no issue going to the MDR if you like, and on M-class all 3 restaurants share the same galley so it's very easy to order cross-menu.

Interesting - we're on 10/15 too. Nothing yet for me but I'm already in a SS and don't want to move. My mom e-mailed the move up support address last night asking but no response and no e-mail offers yet. Also no luck putting in any of our four booking numbers for 10/15 or 10/22. Maybe they're working through the manifest now. We booked direct with Celebrity.

Elevate is same basic wifi as everything else including AI. It was the indulge package and now the Retreat which included Premium streaming wifi.

A change for sure, or a supply chain issue?

I had 3x B2B and decided to add a 4th when the price dropped for the 4th while on the 1st - so I went to the future cruise desk. I had checked in for all three before leaving home and just forgot to do the fourth. It didn't click when during sailaway from some port I got a call from Celebrity asking if I'd been vaccinated nor did it click when security said they had to retake my picture on the gangway after we swiped in and out for the 4th. I had a letter towards the end of the cruise about not having a card on file but it did not trigger until the end of the cruise because of the OBC I had. I had to go down the last day to settle up as by then I had used up my OBC! Fortunately I was not having it announced over the PA! Will always be sure to check in now.

Yes actually it was February 2022 - I had the year wrong!

Good to know they now have access to folks' phone numbers. This past spring on ML I was out in port and they had question about a room service order for a sailaway party I had placed in advance. They explained their only solution was to call my emergency contact and ask for my phone number because "the ship doesn't have access to guests' phone numbers"!

Very interesting. ML and SI wholesale block WiFi calling on iPhones. Another example of Celebrity consistency 😉

I think they will keep it as is - blocking ports - in part because it’s easier to leave it as is and because a lot of people will pay for the upgrade to get the unblocked functions. My experience on Silhouette and Millennium was that you could not do wifi calling on an iPhone but Microsoft Teams worked fine, for instance, before upgrading. It doesn’t take much bandwidth to do an audio only wifi call but that limitation sells a ton of upgrades especially onboard even though the speed is fine.

I think the press release suggested Starlink would be covered as part of the premium. Of course prices can change. I think basic will be faster than before but Celebrity will continue to block services like Facebook images, wifi calling, etc. to entice the upgrade. So happy to see the schedule but bummed I’ll just miss it on each of my upcoming cruises. Solstice in October, Anthem OTS in January (have to check?), Millennium in February, and Equinox in March!

Thanks for confirming, that’s what I meant to guess but this work week has felt like one long Monday so I was off by a day! The time zones in that area can be a doozy. For a while on our canal cruise they were insisting they’d change them the night before arrival in San Diego. I’m glad they moved it to earlier as that seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.

Thanks for keeping us posted. Maybe next week we’ll pick the brains of another B2Ber on how it works without the Astoria call and two RT LAs in a row. Hoping for my mom’s sake we can stay on the ship. Did you have chic night tonight or last night? I assume the second one will be the sea day before Ensenada.

To me doing a B2B or two is more fun than a long cruise, it's a special feeling to get to stay onboard, not pack up that "last" night, enjoy a nearly-empty ship for a few hours, etc.

Does anyone find it odd that no MoveUp offers are being sent for Solstice Mexican Riviera sailings? We're 18 or 19 nights out and nothing has come and the site doesn't let us in. I might e-mail to ask. I know they're using Blue Chip to clearance out these sailings but would think they'd try to do Move Up as well. Has anyone else received one or is it just us? We booked directly with Celebrity: two insides, a Sky Suite, and a Royal Suite, so all types of cabins.

The corner sky suites are some of the most prized locations on S-class. Other than the top deck, they might not be good if you have restrictions about being in the sun or just don't like sunshine.

It ends at final payment due date - so if you pay early you're still protected.

I had it for lunch on the Silhouette and loved it. I travel solo frequently and asked the waiter if I could just get the tower as I really wanted to try it but it'd be way too much food for one person. So I paid only for the tower and no cover charge for The Porch. They even brought bread. I tipped well. YMMV as this was in February 2021 with limited capacity. The sangria is good, too! I think I substituted one of the types of seafood for more of the others.

We had an in-hull balcony on QM2 once (an rjallt a few times) and those balconies have a slamming door rather than a slider. Our neighbors once were THE WORST about slamming it. We probably should have said something but of course didn’t. I wonder if they’ve installed those door closers on those now? Probably hard with the wind.

I disagree a bit. I worked remotely while onboard for more than a month and I felt like I was just as productive as or more productive than people gossiping/fighting with photocopiers/having water cooler conversations/fire alarm drills/wasting time in a commute/listening to other people yak/long lunches back in traditional offices. I’d also just come off a terribly time consuming assignment where I was working all hours so to some extent I’d earned some time just being fully productive rather than ‘round the clock productive. I think in all that time there was maybe one afternoon or morning a couple hours I wanted to work and couldn’t. I did video meetings on Teams. I used my cell phone. I spoke with people, and got things done. Most significantly, none of my clients knew the difference and that’s what it’s really about after all. But yes, you’ve got to have some level of autonomy because Internet can go out for a bit so if you are “on call” working remotely from a ship can be challenging. If you have normal expectations from the people you work with to get back to them in a day or so, I think it would be fine. That being said, I don’t do transocean cruises while working for this reason, plus the time zone confusion. Wifi and cell service is never far on a Caribbean, northeast, or west coast itinerary. A lot depends on the nature of your work. I do emails and Word documents and calls, not video editing or graphics work that would be more intensely demanding of bandwidth.

Yes, I missed that originally. I’ve had some bad experiences with the pierside security staff (not knowing policies, snide comments, etc.) and know they don’t work for the cruise line which. That’s why I went in my mind to checking it and dealing with the shipboard staff because then you know it’s made it on the ship but that’s just my biases at work probably.

Yes I really miss it and the Porch. We have four cruises booked between Solstice and Equinox and every time I will think about it! I also did LCG for embarkation night on Silhouette and we had an unexpected late departure so it was just lovely being out there in shorts, etc. enjoying the sights. 😞

Yes, though supposedly the whole fleet will be upgraded by next March so some of the ships will have to start coming on soon. I know on Royal people have been seeing the antennas appearing but don't think I've heard of it on any X ships other than Beyond yet. Just keep in mind if you use two factor authentication, you need a way to get the second device online. I was traveling solo for all but the canal cruise, so that was sometimes tricky. What I found was if I used my personal Mac and plugged in my phone to it via USB-C, I could be signed in to X internet on the laptop and it would also give me phone access, sharing the network connection from the laptop. As a couple (or stealing my Mom's code for a bit) it is simpler as long as you are not needing two-factor when the other person is on a call. I think suites are supposed to get additional device access (not just 1 per person like a regular cabin?) but not 100% sure on that.