MamaFej

I suppose, if you want to stand in line at the customer service desk, you could try. My understanding is that this dinner is arranged through the Cellar Master. For us, mentioning our desire to participate to someone who was coming to us anyway worked well.

Let your sommelier or wine steward know right away. The Cellar Master, Ingrid, can sometimes be found at Cellar Masters bar in the afternoon, especialy if a tasting is going on. You can also sign up with Sommelier Extrodinaire, Nandha in Cellar Masters between 2&4 most afternoons. It was $200 per person onboard the Summit in September.

Got my 5 points for September today.

Thanks for this thread, @Spikesgirl. We are booked for 28 days on the Coral in a litle over a year. This thread is getting me excited about the ship.

I've only taken one river cruise, so far. It was on Ama, and I was very impressed. I'm looking at them for Vietnam in 2024.

Expect those points by around the 14th of October. Points earned in any month are credited by the 14th of the following month. Edited to add that I have had ZERO success in getting missing PUPs awarded, but others have had success. I emailed all of the addresses listed in this thread, and inquired onboard to CC hosts who said they would "email Miami" and ask, but neither had received a response by the time we disembarked.

If the circumstances of your life make that possible, congratulations to you and others in that situation. For the rest of us, at least some connectivity is necessary, for a variety of reasons that may or may not be anyone else's business.

On Constellation and Summit this year, WhatsApp texting worked fine on Surf. I had to switch to my Stream minutes to make or receive calls. That is, my kids would call, I would reply with a text that I needed to switch. I would switch, then call them back. I switched back to Surf afterwards. We had to go to Innovations in order to have access to the ability to switch between Surf and Stream enabled. The techs agreed that it would be much better if the ability to switch were the default. We suspect that X wants people to use up their Stream minutes first, whether Stream was necessary for what they are doing or not, so they can sell more onboard Stream packages. We also suspect that Surf simply blocks certain streaming sites, such as YouTube, Hulu, and other streaming services. Stream really isn't any faster on other sites, in my experience. My sons both stream on Twitch, and I can access it without any problem whilst on Surf. I imagine X doesn't bother blocking Twitch, as it isn't a service the majority of their passenger demographic is likely to use. To be fair, I generally don't actually watch, I just log on when my sons are streaming to boost their viewer numbers when I get an alert that they are Live.

Ah... I see you're familiar with my mother.

I agree, especially while global supply chains are still being rebuilt. We were recently B2B2B on the Summit. On the first night, we had the Cellar Master herself making the rounds in Blu. We told her that we wanted to do the Vueve Clicquot Dinner, and asked for a couple of past favorite wines by name. She didn't have any of them, but told us that she had bought $10,000 worth of wine in Reykjavik that day. We were intorduced to several lovely new wines that cruise and in the following ones. She also bought quite a bit of wine in Boston between the 2nd and 3rd cruise, as scheduled supplies had not been delivered. The Cellar Master and our Blu sommelier made sure that we always had something that paired very well with our menu choices. We were in an Oceanview cabin on the middle cruise, but still got to see the wonderful Blu sommelier, Nandha and Cellar Master Ingrid in the afternoons in Cellar Masters where we drank water and softdrinks while playing games. We did get to do the Veuve Clicquot Dinner on the middle cruise, and it was lovely. The best sommeliers truly do appreciate passengers who let them use their skills, and will strive to present wonderful, even unexpected pairings.

When we stayed at the DoubleTree, we took a hotel shuttle to the port (for Princess). We also took the hotel shuttle back. We were surprised to be offered the yummy cookies upon our return. The bed was hard and uncomfortable (2018 or 19), but the hotel was very clean, and service was quite good. We did a package that included dinner, breakfast, and the parking. I do not remember if there was a charge for the port shuttle, but we did tip generously. It was very convenient.

Thank you! My TA is also a very dear friend, and will be traveling with us. I'll ask him to request the sugar-fee gingerale.

I'll be on my first Silversea cruise in December. I appreciate the information you experienced cruisers are providing. Are you saying that I can request to have sugar-free gingerale? Is there a place on the website to do this? Do I ask my travel agent to request it? Thanks in advance.

Edieted to add a big ol' OT: My favorite teas come from Lake Missoula Tea Company in Missoula, MT. They have many magnificent loose teas and tea blends. Like many small business tea shops, they are extremely careful to source from ethical, sustainable growers. I placed an order yesterday. I've got my favorite Honey Ponderosa, as well as High Country Huckleberry and a few new flavors coming.Yay! They were very smart to give me a sample of the Truffle Nut flavor last time I was there in person. I may or may not have ordered a significant amount of it. Narrator: She most definitely did order a significan amount of it.

I've only ever sween Tea Forte at Cafe al Bacio. Bigelow and field Selects elsewhere onboard Celebrity ships.

I was recently on the Summit B2B2B. Near the end of cruise 3, they ran out of Earl Grey Tea Forte, and were serving Bigelow. It was back at the beginning of cruise 3. Bigelow is better than most "tea dust" teas, but nowhere near as good as the Tea Forte or other leaf teas. I strongly dislike the Field Selects teas, as the plastic taste permeates the tea. Tea Forte is among my favorite bagged leaf teas.

Our cruise is December 12 and our final payment was due yesterday.

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned how phenomenally disrepectful to the professional musicians onboard the neighbor's proposition would be. The charter group notwithstanding, as that's a completely different situation, a musician, no matter how talented, deciding that she should intrude on professionals' work space is not okay. My daughter is a choir teacher. She only sings karaoke when on a cruise, and only when it's her turn. She does not bring her flute (she was first chair in college; she's really good). My son teaches public speaking and has won multiple Shakespearean competitions. He doesn't launch into a soliloquy onboard or in any other inappropriate situation. There are professional entertainers onboard a cruise. They make their living by entertaining. Intruding into their workspace is beyond rude. Can you imagine someone who has their own boat deciding that s/he should be allowed to take the helm? A line cook in a restaurant barging into the ship's galley? Just about everyone enjoys at least some kind of music. That doesn't make it okay to decide that one's own musical abilities will be appreciated "everywhere she goes." Thank you, OP, for having the courtesy to find out if it's okay for your neighbor to do this. Even if there is not a specific rule prohibiting it, it is most certainly not okay.

We disembarked the Summit on the 21st after 33 days aboard: B2B2B. The first and third cruises were in Aqua, the middle one was with MDR dining. Although Blu was not up to the usual standards, we realized just how much better it was than the MDR (in this instance) very early in the cruise. Even with a reserved table for 2 each evening, service was woefully slow, with only 1-2 visits from the overwhelmed sommelier at each dinner. She definitely lacked the knowledge and expertise of the awesome Blu sommelier, Nandha. There was no sense in even trying to pair wines with courses. The slow service is NOT the fault of the crew; they were working their tails off, there just weren't enough of them. I imagine there were not enough folks in the kitchen, either. We wound up eating most meals up in OVC. One night, we did the awesome Veuve Clicquot dinner. We, of course, let the MDR know that they could give away our table on those nights. We were so very happy to get back into Blu on cruise 3! Most of the Blu Crew were still there from the first cruise and eagerly greeted us, stopping by to say hello, even when we weren't in their section. It was delightful. We checked prices on our future cruises to see if we should change the regular or Sunset Veranda ones to Aqua, but the apples to apples price differential wasn't reasonable. We will do lots of specialty dining, instead. We normally enjoy Persian Garden a few times on each Aqua cruise, but skipped it this year. The idea of being in a warm, moist environment with Covid viruses clinging to droplets suspended in the air was not attractive to us. There were loads of obviously sick folks onboard, increasing as each cruise progressed, and several people on each Roll Call reported testing positive once getting home. I imagine there were also quite a few asymptomatic spreaders. We hope that we will be able to enjoy Persian Garden on our few Aqua cruises next year. I'm not exactly sure what our "worth it" price differential per day is, and it probably varies by length of cruise and itinerary, but I know it when I see it.

You might consider Tours By Locals, as well. We are doing several cruises on the Eclipse out of Sydney next year. You might want to check on the Roll Calls, they are pretty active.

Howdy! Please check your email. Then, please don’t be TOO mad at me… I had to make the choice that was best for us. Also, I had a Lycheetini in your honor last night! It was yummy!

I have yet to hear anything positive about the Chef’s Table with Daniel Bouloud on X. We are currently on the 3rd leg of B2B2B on the Summit. After three tries (one on Constellation in May, and two on Summit) we finally got to do the Vueve Cliquot dinner a few nights ago, on our second leg. It was fantastic! Great food, great wines, great company, a knowledgeable sommelier, and a friendly chef. We mentioned to the Cellar Master and the sommelier that we had heard the VC dinner was far superior to the CT with DB, both agreed. Other passengers at the dinner had heard the same. On the other hand, we did the French Chef’s Table dinner on the Azamara Pursuit in June. It was MAGNIFICENT, and less than half the price of the very good VC and mediocre at best (from what I have read) Chef’s Table dinners on Celebrity. Azamara also has two other Chef’s Table dinners, but those menus did not appeal to our tastes. I’m sure they would appeal to others.

Canver from Turkey was Maitre D’ in Blu last cruise. He is now in OVC, and told us he will likely be there for the rest of his contract. He was being very hands-on and helpful in OVC tonight.

We are going to Santiago (our Antarctica cruise goes out of Chile) via Mexico City, with an overnight layover. Even with hotel nights on the way up and back, it’s considerably cheaper than direct flights in Business. You might want to see if Mexico City is an option for you.

Okay, but have you met LINDA?!?!?!?! Or Lynda, or Linda, or Lynda, or Linda?! Sincerely, The Daughter of a Lynda whose Maid of Honor was a Linda