canderson

@cangelmd We're on a TA, too, and just received the bivalent here. We 4 will be in Barcelona for 4 days pre-cruise, and plan to test just as early as the two day limit allows.

Many thanks for the confirmation. I bring along some of my own favorite blend in Lavazza compatible pods, so good to be sure. Lavazza and Nespresso pods don't interchange successfully.

Not really, though correct that the booster won't cause an issue. The booster is neither live nor dead virus. Re "live" virus detection... The PCR tests looks for genetic material from the virus. One reason PCR can continue to come up positive for some time after recovery is that PCR responds to leftover genetic material from a dead virus as well, hence the need for COR for those few who can't produce a negative result in a timely manner. Antigen responds to proteins produced while the virus is active.

I'd argue that the aft side is to be preferred from a wind standpoint when under way. Both nice choices, though.

It's just that you mentioned "The hull will get the blue paint and the normal refresh of carpets, furnishings, etc." which really isn't normal for every dry dock visit. I'm sure they already had all of the new soft goods warehoused in Cadiz for Constellation since it was just about to be Revolutionized when the shutdown occurred, but Reflection was scheduled for the Revolution a fair bit down the road. Perhaps since it may now be quite some time until that happens, they're spending some scarce $ on interim measures, but again, I had not heard anyone from X using the word "will" so far. One can hope! Would be fun to be the first pax to stand on our new RS carpet again twice in a year.

We most recently had one aboard Constellation, and really enjoyed it. With X going to Lavazza elsewhere in the ship as well, figured that that's what they'd gone with exclusively in upper suites as well. I bring a few of my own pods, so unless @2NHcruisers can confirm, not sure which ones to bring.

Nespresso or Lavazza? Thought they had gone exclusively with the latter.

Would like to think soft goods will be replaced, but haven't seen anything official on that. Something on an X conference call? We were treated to this style of refresh for Constellation's restart, and really did make a difference. Lots of small interior maintenance issues were dealt with concurrently.

That's a strange one. I'd call Celebrity, ask for the shorex desk, and see if they can elaborate a bit.

Will grant that this excursion is a little unusual. These pre-cruise excursions typically start as an airport pickup. They hold your bags in the bus during the excursion. Most of the time, street clothes make perfect sense since they're usually 'town tours', but clearly not in this particular case! You'd want to conveniently pack your swim gear into a separate bag for changing wherever that occurs. Do they mention a pickup point? Airport?

Makes sense they could offer it day1 since you can't get left behind, and day2 if you have a mid-late afternoon departure.

Wow - at the moment, they have it making landfall sometime Wednesday evening as a Cat 4 somewhere N of Ft. Myers, S of Tampa.

Intermediate ports, yes, of course. Happens all the time. Embarkation, OTOH, and I'm talking Tampa again, could be very difficult to manage on short notice - especially now with thin supply chains. Finding an empty berth on the E Florida coast when operating out of Tampa and switching up provisioning logistics on embarkation day could prove challenging, not to mention moving thousands across the state to E Florida. As I say, it's fortunate that Serenade hasn't started winter operations there yet and won't for a few weeks yet. Then again, we can hope instead that Tampa doesn't get hammered to begin with and it's all moot.

If the track really does go over Tampa as was suggested by the weather wonks yesterday, guess it's a good thing Connie is in Europe. I could well imagine a cruise delay or cancellation if departure port infrastructure is severely damaged. Again, re Tampa, Serenade will start service again out of Tampa 'soon', but that's 2nd week of October, I think.

"Revolution" IT infrastructure to be completed first, perhaps.

We might not take your seat, but don't expect that beer you forgot you ordered before you left to be there when you get back! (burp) 🤪

My first thought when I read post #1 was "Is the OP posting in the right forum?" Too many smoking areas? Each X ship has 3 areas that run about 10x25 or 30' in size. Given the square footage of public space aboard, and given that the 3 spaces are all outdoors and easily avoidable...

Point: As B2B cruisers, we've been off the ship, through customs, and back on the ship in 20 minutes. Nothing to do with COVID - a function of "zeroing out" the manifest. COVID testing for B2B is performed the day BEFORE the turn. With as many as 100 B2B cruisers wandering around the ship already, a handful of upper suite customers enjoying this free perk after a quick turn with the B2B cruisers would be a drop in the bucket.

We would prefer not to have to make 90% of the sort BEFORE selecting for length of itinerary. The way it works now requires many searches. Back in the day, one could just keep filtering after selecting 10+ as the starting point.

Used to exist. Was even a free perk for RS and above. Still hasn't been reinstated after COVID, unfortunately. Wish it had, as we often have late airport departures on day of disembarkation. Don't understand why it's a problem now. No bigger an issue for the line than B2B passengers.

Yup. Connie used to pick up a number of the longer ABC (or at least AC) cruises each winter. Always looked forward to them.

Doesn't seem like there are as many as there used to be. Constellation used to get the longer and different itineraries, which is why we logged so many nights there. I guess they figure B2B is supposed to be the solution now. The web page used to make it easy to search for cruises based upon length of itinerary. IIRC, there was a 10+ selection that thinned the herd a bit when doing a search. Don't see anything like that now, as though it isn't relevant to us.

Just wanted to report that I downloaded and filled in the form and scanned that and the relevant bits of my brokerage statement, emailed those as attachments to them on Saturday, and here we are on Monday and I received an email indicating that the OBC has been credited already. That's over a weekend even a day faster (1 business day) than the last time I did it!

I should perhaps qualify this by saying that we ate in Luminae the majority of the time, two event dinners and one specialty dinner, but that amazing pork chop came off the MDR menu.

Indeed. Some complain about access, but when you get a TA that will take your call and book your cabin while waiting at the gate for his/her airplane to fill, it's hard to beat. Actually happened when I went to add daughter & SIL to our next cruise when I saw a corner S1 pop up as available.