iancal

Why would we do this if we have no intention of dining in the MDR?

If you read my post you would see that we dine in the alternative dining venues where formal attire is not required AS PER CELEBRITY DRESS CODE. And we see more and more people doing the same.

Do you have an issue with this dress code? If so, you could discuss it with Celebrity.

The issue for us is certainly NOT paying extra baggage fees.

The issue is that we do extended pre or post cruise independent land trips. We only take the amount of luggage that we each can comfortably handle by ourselves. It used to be 25". Now that is too heavy and too awkward. We are down to a 20/21 each because of the weight. It happens to be a convenient carry on size as well.

I think that is a mistake to assume that everyone travels in the same manner with the same preferences. It is just not so. One's own travel preferences do not set the standard by which everyone else lives.

This is why we pass on formal nights in the MDR and dine casually in an alternate venue. Besides, for us formal nights and playing Mr.&Mrs. Dress-up has lost much of it's appeal because the cruise lines have cut back so much.

This can curt both ways .

The first advice is to deal directly with a TA- either by phone or email. Tell him or her what you saw so that it can be followed up. TA's have lots of things going on so do not be surprised if they do not know everything.

On one of our recent cruise our on line TA not only came back with a great OBC but also told us that her agency had a group on this cruise. We got a slight increase in our OBC and a better cabin, larger balcony, as a result.

This can cut both ways .

The first advice is to deal directly with a TA- either by phone or email. Tell him or her what you saw so that it can be followed up. TA's have lots of things going on so do not be surprised if they do not know everything.

On one of our recent cruises, our on line TA not only came back with a great OBC but also told us that her agency had a group on this cruise. We got a slight increase in our OBC and a better cabin, larger balcony, as a result of joining this group bookimg.

A HAL cruise can be very affordable for us. We stay well clear of the casino and relative t cruises on other lines we tend to spend much less on wine. And not because the wind on HAL is less expensive.

Is it hardly worth bothering about.

We don't sweat the small stuff or things/people that we have no control over. A wet bathing suit in the elevator will not impact our enjoyment of the cruise.

It is just fine if Youare going from your car to the ship, or hotel to port with porterage etc or if you happen to be on an organized tour.

Not so good when you are doing small rentals, trains, ferries, buses,etc. We pack for a max of about 12-13 kilos each in order to pass most of the European airline restrictions. And we only carry what each of us can comfortably lift up to the overhead bin of a plane or a train. Everything else stays home.

We primarily do open jaw and seldom depart from the same airport/city that we arrived at. On our current trip we flew into Vienna. Flying home from Barcelona on a one way choice air flight. No option to store things in hotels though we do sometimes do this and go down to one bag if we are doing a short loop. This works well for us.

Try doing it for two months....with 20" carryons.

You might find that even with the 'right' clothes you may not want to biting along any clothing that gets worn for such a short time.

Depending on the time of year.

In the winter we do not want to be stuck with a cruise air consolidator class ticket. One that is at bottom of the fare code heap or one that cannot be interchanged with another line.

Pure hell if there are serious weather delays or equipment problems. All of a sudden you are a nobody at the very bottom of a re-route list. And who knows where your luggage will end up?

It is cold where we live. Especially in the winter.

So, extended winter vacations to warmer climes are at the top of our list. This winter is covered..not certain about the following winter.

Josee.. Only once in the past 15 or so cruises has a Canadian TA matched the price, net of OBC's that our on line US TA could provide.

Now we do not even bother with getting a quote from a Canadian TA-on line or bricks and mortar.

We are currently visiting a small village on the island of Gozo, Malta.

Picked up an island tourist brochure. One page shows a full page photo of the Prinsendam..presumably arriving at the island. Never seen anything like this before.

Cruise ship oversupply can also cause prices to drop. It could be oversupply in general or in one area. I believe that for a time ther were simply too many cruise ships operating in Europe. Carnival pulled theirs our. Alaska was like that this year.

Same here. Given the choice of cruising from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, or

San Juan we would take the latter any time.

Why on earth would I want to rent a tux?

Money and affordability have absolutely nothing to do with our decision making process. The notion of equating those dress who formally with personal wealth or station in life could not be further from the truth.

In fact my experience is that those who aspire to wealth are the most conscious of dressing formally. Those who are wealthy do not really give a damm about what others think. They tend to be independent thinkers.

Not only does the dress code NOT require formal on formal nights, MDR excepted,Celebrity provides multiple options for those who prefer casual attire. So are some people suggesting that the Celebrity dress code is not reasonable or are they trying to establish their own version of a dress code? Perhaps those folks might want to try a different cruise line..maybe Cunard.

If we decide to go casual and make Bistro on Five our dining venue on a formal evening it is not really any body else's business or concern.

ariawoman, we are from Canada.

There are people who skate around this restriction by having a USA or Canadian accomodation address and a friendly US or Canadian TA.

Just as we have done in the past with certain travel offerings from UK/ European vendors that were priced at much higher rates in North America. But please don't tell them that we did it or that we will probably do it again at some point in the future!

Everything.

We both have fairly long travel bucket lists. We are retired. We usually combine a cruise with an extended land trip. Most often we are booking within the cruise cancellation window.

We select based on what attractive offers there are, on whether we can combine trips, the strength of our currency vis a vis the place where we are planning to travel. We planned to go South Africa for a month a few years ago. By delaying that trip by a year we saved about 20 percent because their currency was falling in value. Now we are avoiding the UK but are planning a land trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We are on a land trip now. Snagged a cruise in the final payment window that was attractive to us so we re-arranged our land tour. But, we are both very flexible travellers so this approach works for us.

Our currency has dropped from 105 to 90 cents to the USD and is expected to fall to 80 cents. This will probably mean fewer trips to the US and fewer cruises where the purchase price is based in USD. We still have some money in our USD account so there will be at least one more cruise on the horizon.

We very much like Celebrity. One of the reasons is that they provide great options for us on formal evenings when we want to give the MDR a miss.

We seldom bother with formal any more. We are currently on a land trip for seven weeks prior to taking a Med cruise. Packing formal clothing for four hours on two or three nights hardly seems worthwhile. Leaving Dec 31 on a land trip followed by a Feb 20 cruise. We won't be packing formal wear for that cruise either nor do we plan on dining in the MDR.

So does this mean that we should not consider a Celebrity cruise? Somehow I do not think yhat Celebrity would agree with that stance. Celebrity is about so much more than formal nights.

We took a number of Med cruises in 2011 and 2012 because we had never seen the prices so low. Plus our currency was very strong. Prices seem higher this year. We will do fewer cruises and more land trips. We usually book inside the final payment window and we are noticing fewer and fewer attractive offers compared to the last three years.

Cruise air pricing is all over the map. We priced open jaw to Santiago and back from Buenos A. Cruise air was much higher priced than what we could do on our own.

Just purchased one way cruise air home from Europe that was a bargain. But, there was a large price variance between airline options. Fortunately for us our airline of choice and preferred routing was one of the lowest priced options. We have never found cruise air in NA, on any cruise line, worth buying however this could simply be 'luck of the draw' as it were.

I agree with a previous poster. If you do not like it then simply vote with your feet. Select a cruise line that does not do this.

But keep in mind that there are many consumer and commercial products that are priced in the same fashion.....to maximize profits.

We happen to live in Canada. There are a number of European products that are significantly less expensive to buy here than in Europe-including in the do called duty free shops.

Not saying that it is fair but the only way to change it may be to stop dealing with companies that price in this manner...where possible.

Our offer was a free cruise. We booked a replacement cruise. This replacement cruise now has a very large refundable OBC sitting in it.

The OBC consists of the total amount that we paid for our cancelled cruise, about $200 that Princess gave us to offset our cost in cancelling our reward travel, less the port fees for our upcoming Feb. Cruise.

It was basically a free cruise plus an upgrade from balcony to mini suite.

I worked for a multi national for 25 plus years. Consumer and commercial products. Prices varied by county-because of in county costs and because of the ability to realize higher margins. More so the latter than the the former in most cases. These discrepencies cause the 'grey market' to thrive. Less of it now but it still exists.