abbydancer2003

Constellation - Day 1 Tampa Departure Friday 1 Once again, we got up in time for breakfast. Because we now aren’t leaving the hotel until noon, we only casually packed as we dressed. We headed up to the lounge, where we found Arie just getting his breakfast. It was pretty much the same stuff as yesterday, so I just had some egg, toast and fruit. Soon Cheryl joined us. We finished breakfast, and then just hung out talked until about 11:50, taking a break to go pack up all our bags. We called for a Lyft XL at about noon, and within 10 minutes our ride was there. We got all our luggage and all of us in and headed to the port. The ride went well, and at about 12:30 we were pulling up to the port. There appears to be just one road in, and you drop your luggage there. We dropped, and saw a line of people. We thought they were going into the building, and assumed that was the line. But instead, we were sent up an escalator. (I still don't know what the people downstairs were doing)At the top, there was another large line of people, that appeared have about 3 switchbacks. We also saw the retreat waiting area, so since we have a retreat boarding pass, we were told to wait there. While there we met another couple, also in a sky suite. We waited for a few minutes, and then a worker came out. She had a list with her, and when we gave her our room number, she said we weren’t on it, and we should just get in the big line. We all said we were told to wait there, but she kept on insisting we weren’t on the lis. Finally, she led us to the security checkpoint in the building. Once inside the terminal, a gentleman told us to get in line to check in, but we noticed a woman with a check in iPad nearby, so we asked her and she told us to wait. Then another lady led the four of us towards an area in the corner of the terminal labeled retreat checkin. When she went to check us off, she noticed we weren’t on her list either. She however, just wrote the room numbers down. I then noticed that they probably had the wrong list. It was the “escort list”, which is just upper suites, not the list of all suite guests for suite access. As we arrived, I was pleased to see that the concierge there was Jiro. This is the fourth cruise with him and last time we saw him was when he was escorting us off the Infinity last April. Of course we hugged each other. We then waited just a few minutes for someone to check us in, and then we quickly boarded. First stop was going to be our room in the aft of deck 6, to drop the backpacks. Nope, doors locked, so we went to Michaels Club where we met Penelope, the other concierge. I’d heard of her before, here on Cruise Critic. As we were waiting, she gave us a paper with our folio numbers so that we could access the internet, which was appreciated. We also did the safety briefing. We also met the main bartender there, who told us he was there for all our drink and light bites needs (something like that). Around 1 pm we decided to go to lunch. We were able to leaving our backpacks in the lounge, so that was nice. On the way, we did stop at our muster station in the Rendezvous lounge, where the crew member checking us in reminded us about going there, etc. We met the maitre’d of the dining room from Turkey. It was busy in there, but he said he had one table left. We were seated against the wall in the first table. Our server was Edwin, and we know we’ve met him before. For lunch I had my new usual, Kale salad with Romaine, Steak Frites with Wedge potatoes, and the new Strawberry crumble for dessert. It was good, and even better when I got a bit of ice cream to put on it. Glen had the Kale salad and a pasta dish, and the Chocolate with Dulce de Leche. Once again, he was surprised it was more chocolate than Dulce de Leche. I believe he said the same thing about it in April. After lunch we took a quick peek to make sure we could get into the room. We could, and so we brought our backpacks up. Room has some really amazing things about it, but storage isn’t one of them. We did, however, between the desk drawers and the closet, have enough space for everything. Also, the only card we had was for the retreat concierges, so we have no idea who the head butler is, or our room steward/retreat host is. I did notice that some of the exercise equipment (you can request it in an Aqua sky suite) was in fact in the room. Wasn’t the last couple of times. Soon after that, we got a text from Arie saying they’d found a table at the the Sunset Bar. In theory, there was a Cruise Critic meet and greet. Our bags hadn’t come, so we headed up. We never did find anyone, although we did see a big group of Toyota 4 Runner fans from Oregon. (Sailed with an RV group once before - same idea I think). We stayed up there until just after sail away. Here are some of things. Bye-bye Tampa terminal The military ship/museum that seems to be at many ports. The other terminal. A Norwegian ship was there today. They left before us. A regional airport or something. A small plane is landing. After sailaway we went back to the room, and our luggage was there. After unpacking I notice the refrigerator was empty, which was good, so I decided to go to the lounge to get some water. On the way out, I met Rhonda, our steward/host. She’s new to this area (maybe new to “enhanced” rooms stewarding - I’m not quite sure, so didn’t have cards. I mentioned that we didn’t have a card for the head butler either. She was reassuring me that I’d meet him, and then she noticed him down the hall. She called him over, and he, Tony introduced himself, and told me I’d seen him before. We determined that he was one of the other butlers on the Infinity with us. He also gave me his card, and told me to call him for anything we otherwise would have called the butler for, and did we need coffee every morning? I said no, but do I call room service, and he said to call him. Basically call him for anything we would call a butler for, and he’ll do it or have some else do it. After I told him that I was going to the lounge to get some water, he said he’d do it. Soon he brought up water and soft drinks. So we’ll see. After dressing for dinner, we wandered over to the Rendezvous Lounge. There was a band, but they were very loud so we headed back to Michael’s club. We ordered drinks, and the bartender made me a very good Sangria. While there, we passed under Tampa’s Rainbow bridge. It’s very pretty at night, and I was able to go outside and get some unblurry pictures. While there, the suite manager came by. I realized that it's Jess, who was the suite manager on the Summit in St. Maarten when my sister and I were on the 3rd cruise. It was great talking to her, and then to a Norwegian couple near us. We ended up back in room for a bit, so I decided to take some pictures, since it’s kind of a unique room. It’s a Sky suite, but can also serve as a second bedroom for the penthouse. The most interesting thing - the bathroom. Two sinks and separate tub and shower. The hallway into the room. The bed area, pretty standard there. At about 8, we decided to go to dinner. I started with the smoked tomato soup and for my main I ordered the prime rib from main dining. They had regular horseradish, and I wondered about creamy. Glen said his salmon appetizer had a “horseradish marshmallow”. He suggested I try that with the prime rib. It was kind of sweet, so I mixed it with the regular horseradish. You can see it in the front of the picture. For dessert, Glen had the poached pear, but because it came with a chocolate ganache, I opted for the Dulce de Leche Creme Catalina, which was sort of a Dluce de Leche creme brûlée. After dinner it was back to the room to work on this, and a short paper I have due this week. A successful but not perfect first day in the books.

We got the letter about Noro, but it did say "last cruise". They're still serving everything though. We're only a day in, however. Washing and sanitizing a lot today.

We were on Royal last month, and had a suite, so were in their suite area. All the Pinnacle people wore their big Pinnacle pins. On X, I have no idea who is Zenith, except for those I know personally, and know their status. When I get there, I hope to be just as unobtrusive except maybe online, and even then, only when relevant.

I can see the webinar in my points history, but, like others, not added to my total. And the "Tier and Points" page still tells me I have no upcoming cruises, as it did yesterday when I boarded the Constellation.

Detailed post on boarding coming tomorrow, as I'm falling asleep as I summerize. Short version - hot mess to inconvenience, depending on your experience. Ours was in the middle and we did get apologies for how it happened. That said, we were on the ship quickly, so could have been way worse. Good night.

Constellation Day 0 Tampa We decided, after going to sleep on east coast time, to go to the lounge for breakfast. It was, I’d say, a typical Marriott lounge breakfast on the small side. Eggs and sausage, oatmeal, bread, bagels and fruit. It was enough though. After breakfast, we got a text that said that Arie & Cheryl would arrive around 10:45 per their GPS. Glen found a Walgreens about 1/2 mile away, and we needed a couple of things so we walked over. About when we got back we got a text that they were almost there. Soon we found out that they were in 1430, and the room had lounge access. We met them there, and spent a while catching up and chatting. They suggested we go to Tarpon Springs, a town about 25 minutes NE of Tampa, which was (and maybe still is) the sponge diving capital of the world. Because sponge diving was done by the Greeks, the downtown is a greek village. Sounded fun, so we went. We stopped at a convenience store called Wawa, apparently a big deal in the Northeast. After getting some coffee, we headed on. We arrived around 2pm, and spent a few minutes looking for parking. (By the time we left, there was plenty of parking, so I think we came at the end of the busy time.). As we walked to downtown we found a bronze of the 4 nymphs, which clearly told us we were in a Greek area. We walked around until we found a restaurant (Mama’s) and all had a nice greek lunch. Glen and I had Gyro sandwiches, and split fries and a greek salad. The fries and salad were good, and the Gyros was OK, good enough, but not the best I’ve ever had. During lunch we got a message from Celebrity that, due to Noro, on the previous cruise, our boarding was delayed for a deep cleaning. This was not unexpected, thanks to what I saw online yesterday. We wandered back to the car, visiting some of the stores. Most were gift shops that sold normal tourist items (tee shirts, hats, etc, etc, but also natural sponges. We didn’t buy anything. On the way back, we took some surface streets, and got back to the hotel around 5:00pm. Arie parked the car to the side of the main lot, since they are leaving it here for the cruise. We decided to meet in the lounge at around 5:45 for games and a bottle of wine they brought. I’m taking a class, so before I went up, I emailed a document to myself that I need to use to write a short paper. (I’ll do it next). I then met them at the lounge, but figured out how to print the document. Glen came up at around 6pm. We grabbed some snacks from the lounge, and played one game of Splendor, and one of Around the World Fluxx. We drank a very nice bottle of wine, and talked for a while. Around 8:30, we called it a night. We may see them for breakfast tomorrow, but we will definitely see them after, since we’re going to get an UBER together. We decided that we were a little hungry, but not enough to go to a restaurant, so we went to the hotel restaurant. We ordered (it took about 15 minutes for somebody to come) 8 boneless chicken wings, and a Caesar salad. They gave us a lot more than 8 and the salad was big. After finishing and waiting for the bill, I went to the front desk and asked for a noon checkout. Turns out that’s the normal time. As I got back, Glen had paid the bill and we were only charged for 8 wings. Back to the room to end a very nice day.

We also had Noro delayed on the the Infinity last March. No CDC though, since it was in Buenos Aires. They did give the B2Bs (per a B2B friend) a free tour of the city.

Today's summary coming later, but our boarding has been delayed, and apparently for B2B (thanks for the update, Jim) is going to be a hot mess. Also happened to us on the Infinity in March. I think boarding started around 12:30 then.

We're at the Marriott Tampa Westshore - near the airport. In our wanderings nearby so far we've seen, as far as chains go, Longhorn, Olive Garden, Season 52, and a Waffle House. There are more nearby but this is what we've seen so far.

We did Antarctica "drive bys" in 2010 on Princess, and 2019 on X. Princess had top notch naturalists, Celebrity had a radio personality reading wikipedia. I've done a couple of cruises on the Sapphire, and she's one of my favorite Princess ships. Have a blast.

Quick update from the rest of today. The flight was on time. United now offers advanced meal selection in first/business class. Last time I had the frittata thing that wasn't very good, so for today I'd ordered french toast. It was apparently "Brie and Apricot" French toast. Another thing I won't order again. The brie in it didn't really go with it, and there was no syrup or anything. The mango compote with it was good though. Note to self: Simple is best. Flight was on time, but the tournament that I was watching on Chopped wasn't over. In addition to the final episode, I want to see who the last heat winner was. There was about 2-3 minutes left on it when we started deplaning, so I sent Glen off and watched the end. Hopefully I can see the finale on the way home. As we were heading to the train to the terminal I looked at the hotel location, and realized it was less than 2 miles from the airport. So I called, and they told me they did have a free shuttle, just call after we got our bags. I don't know why I didn't know this before. Luggage to a while to arrive, but once it did, we found the shuttle waiting stop and within 12 minutes he was there, and we were in our room. We were supposed to have dinner with friends from a cruise several years ago, but they had an issue with her parents, so we were on our own. Driving to the hotel we passed a shopping center and a lot of restaurants nearby. We decided to walk to one. After getting to our room, checking out the concierge lounge and talking to my sister for a while, we decided to walk to the LongHorn steakhouse, a restaurant not found near us. On the way out I asked about their shuttle and it will go anywhere in a 2 mile radius. (Restaurant is, but we decided to walk.). However the port is about 5 so they won't take us there. Before leaving, I checked to join the waitlist on the restaurant website, but it said a 0-15 minute wait. SInce we were about 20 minutes away, I figured we should just go. 20 minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant and the lobby was very crowded. We were quoted a 20 minute wait. You win some and you lose some. However our wait was only about 6 minutes and it turned out that there were 2 10+ parties ahead of us, so they could get us in right away. We spent about an hour there having steak, salad, baked potato and iced tea. They offered both sweetened and unsweetened iced tea, and our server was very amused that in the SF area, the only way in most places to get sweetened ice is by adding sweetener yourself. We came back to the hotel, and I'm writing this, and as Glen said when I started, "It's only 6:30 our time". However, we've been up since 5am, so I'll wrap this and say good night. Tomorrow Arie and Cheryl join us around lunch time, and our adventure really begins.

Good Morning everyone. Greetings from what's starting to look like my home away from home, the E gates United Club at SFO. It's been two+ weeks since our last cruise, so I guess it's time to go again. This time we're heading to Tampa, where we'll join the Constellation on Friday for a 12 day cruise to the Southern (and far west Caribbean. It will be a new ship for us, which is, I believe our penultimate (I love that word) X ship besides the Galapagos to sail on. (Millennium is the last). We're also visiting 2 new ports, Colon Panama and Porto Limon, Costa Rica. We also go to Cartagena Columbia. We were last there on our honeymoon in 1998. We booked this because our friends Arie and Cheryl @StartrainDD booked it and asked us to join them. Seemed like a good idea, and we got one of the big Aqua sky suites, last one available (more on that when aboard). We get to Tampa at around 5, and will have dinner with friends from Glen's very first X cruise back in 2017. Tomorrow our friends will drive up from the east coast of Florida, and we'll hang out with them, and then board the ship on Friday. Yesterday was just the normal packing, and last minute pharmacy run. I did learn it's hard to find reef safe sunscreen in the Silicon Valley. Our driver picked us up at 6 this morning, and we got through security in 6 minutes, in spite of it looking busy. We board in an hour.

I'll get mine while on the Constellation, earning even more points.

The last post was in September. You can google Luminae menus, though. They're very good about working with food issues.

On our Apex cruise, we didn't really miss the dedicated butler too much. We got our morning coffee, "plated", Head Butler got our device connected to the TV, and that was all we asked for. On the other hand, I didn't feel there was anything special about calling the room steward a "Retreat Host". All he did was standard stuff very well, laundry and made sure we had water in the room. He never filled the ice bucket, but I didn't ask him to. We have cruises booked with X, mostly under the old tips included promotion. We booked one for 2025, one for 2026, and got 4 "book later". Those will probably end up being refunded. We prepaid the tips on what we have, and the price ended up being not a lot more than what we've been booking before they removed them. By the time we get to the 2026, we should be zenith. At which point we'll move to Aqua or elsewhere. We're already branching out and trying new lines.

I booked one of the lower ended suites, because I wanted access to everything. I think, pricing it out, It was a little more expensive per day than the next week in a Sky Suite on the Apex. No butler, limited perks, but 2 room stewards, and I really wanted to try RC.

Thanks - hopefully he's not going home in the next month. (His FB page implies that he's not at the end of a contract). He's a good friend.

Great review - we're on the Beyond in February. Quick question - do you know if Daniel in Eden is from Romania? If so, he might be our awesome Retreat Lounge Bar tender from the Summit in 2021.

If they're suggestiong the Royal Caribbean model, dinner if space.

FWIW, on a cruise last year, we went to Tuscan on the first night with a discount. They did tell me that because we had a discounted rate, we didn't get our Elite Plus discount.

They'll show right around January 14. Usually not before.

Very interesting thread. I've got no set plans for Alaska at this time, but I've done it 7 or 8 times (we live in California so not too bad - closer than the Caribbean). I also did the land portion of the cruise tour in 2021, when they opened their lodges because they thought there wouldn't be an Alaska season. (There wasn't for the interior, just RT Seattle that year). And like many of you I'm a hyper-planner. DH says that if I think something is worth planning, it's worth over planning. He doesn't want to hear anything until a month before because he's sure I'll change it. So this is fun. Some notes for you all. First, Taku Lodge is an amazing experience. It's great for Glacier viewing. If it appeals, there's absolutely no reason to pay the ships price. The office is right next to the pier, and the folks on your excursion will be a mix of how people bought it. In other words, exactly the same. They're great people. We were supposed to go in 2020, and they honored that price through 2 rescheduled (2022 was the charm). And by the way, if you see an excursion that's easy to get to on your own, and it's the same price on the ship, book direct. These are usually local operators, and if you book direct they get all the money, whereas through the ship, I'm pretty sure they take a cut. In Ketchikan, I think you can buy lumberjack show tickets when you get there. And something no one has mentioned - there's a Duck tour. It leaves right from the pier. I've never done it, but it's on my list. There's also a salmon ladder that's interesting at the right time of year (when they're running). Feel free to ask questions.

I am very sorry this happened. But just to clarify - Celebrity does not hire the contractors. The check in staff work for the port. The next day they will maybe be in a Norwegian uniform and name tag. Celebrity does need to work with the port people to make sure this doesn't happen again. I'd also send a copy to the port everglades port authority.

Thank you. We board in just under 2 weeks for the same itinerary.

Fun fact - people think reds don't need to be refrigerated because they're supposed to be served at room temperature. They are, but that's room temperature in Europe in the winter prior to central heating. So today, slightly chilled.