LizzGo

I thought I had seen a tasting menu which included wine pairings on the packages offered, but cannot seem to find it now. Is this available or just a dream I had?

Thank you. I have heard about the 20% discount but could not find it anywhere. That helps. By "decent" I simply meant drinkable, non-offensive. Let me clarify about the "American clientele being more demanding": We found this an interesting POV. They were referring to over-all experience, not wine in particular. This was something said to us on a few on different occasions by random people, always British. We understood that by extension we could expect the wine selection to be better. Wishful thinking? My definition of better? We did a premium wine tasting at $100 pp. The wines : Meursault 2018, Bunello de Montalcino 2018, Hickenbotham Cab Sauv MccLaren Vale 2018, Silver Oak 2018 and there was also Veuve Cliquot. The first two wines are among my favourites. Long story short, only three of us showed and the Somm was reluctant to open all the bottles for just the three of us, so they cancelled the tasting. I hade been drooling (perhaps literally) over the Meursault and our disappointment was palpable, so he opened that and gave us a generous pour. It was heavenly. We wanted to buy the remainder of the bottle, but I think he said $80 and we balked. I look back with regret. But it seemed a bit steep for 1/2 a bottle of wine. I still regret that. That was the last day of a 12 day cruise and my palate was craving something that was not merely drinkable. So this is why I am inquiring about wine by bottle. I think we will have to bite the bullet and buy the odd bottle on our upcoming cruises. They also used to do a wine by the bottle packages - six bottles. 8 bottles - something like that. Anyone heard of this?

I am quite late to this party but this thread aligns very closely to what I would like to know. We have the premium drinks packages. Does that not give you a discount on wines by the bottle? Also, has it been your experience that once the Somm knows you have an appreciation for better (maybe finer?) wines, they may find some wines not on the list? On our last cruise, which was in Asia/Malaysia the wines by the glass were pretty abysmal. But we found a few that were tolerable. We were told, and I am asking for confirmation, that cruises in North America with a primarily American clientele had better wine offerings bc the American clientele is much more demanding. True, in your experience? I hope so, bc we are doing a btb on the Beyond in the Caribbean in January. It would be lovely to not have to fork over $$$ every time we wanted a decent glass of wine.

We like to play blackjack, maybe a few slots when we cruise. We may go most nights, but not all. Is there an advantage to signing up for the Blue Chip Club?

Yes! 50% off! Just bought 🕺

Does Celebrity do the "stuff as much as you can into a bag" option? Or is it always per piece?

The download says October 1998. Are these old menus?

I know irons are prohibited. I did not see steamers are the prohibited items list Does anyone know?

Everyone knows I'm not talking about ship tour, right? We are not taking a ship tour. I'm not sure a non-ship tour will wait. Most will not. But I think some of you have answered this: Priority disembark is only for ship tours if there is a tender. Otherwise we can just walk right off while the rest of the ship tour people are still sitting in the theatre waiting to be assigned to a group. If that is the case we only have to worry about the ship being late.

We have booked through the ship once or twice. We know the drill. That's not my question. Just to be clear: Have NOT booked a ship excursion. We are interested in an excursion offered by a ground operator. We are in port at 8, not tendered. The ground operator is right there but tour leaves at 9. They claim they will be there to pick us up at 8:45 and get us to the tour at 9. I'm not so sure. Sounds like they're cutting it a bit close......And obviously if we have to wait for all those who have booked through the ship, it will not work.

I was told that those who have booked their excursions thru the ship get priority to disembark at port. All other passengers must wait before they can disembark. Is this true? I’ve never noticed that to be the case, but I’d like to make sure. Can anyone tell me if this is indeed X policy?

We aren't big gamblers but enjoy blackjack playing every night either before and/or after dinner. Recently on a HAL cruise a lady we often met at the table told us that she deposited a certain amount of money (maybe $1500?) in a casino account before the cruise. So when she went to play they drew from that account. In return, HAL gave her a comped drinks package. Ever hear of such a thing with Celebrity?

In NYC recently we were delighted to find we could use our iPhones to tap and enter the subway. Can you do this in Singapore? We understand it is easy to get around using mass transit there. Or I have heard mention of some card that be used interchangeably for MRT, LRT and buses. But tapping our phones would be the easiest.

I will be on the Solstice. Did you get color as well?

each cruise is almost two weeks with a week in UK before, then 5 days in Singapore, so yeah, will be looking pretty sad.

Doing a BTB in Jan (Millenium/Soltice)so I'm definitely going to need a cut and color. This sort of terrifies me a little. If you have used this service - what did you think?

Oh, ok! We did this before but it was only $20 or $25. It was ok. ( wouldn’t do it again at current price - true about entry level wines) I thought this was something different bc it was more expensive. I was also looking for a wine package that included bottles of wine. Is this not offered?

I was just curios bc we sailed with HAL, had upgraded, and still had to sign for every drink. I’m thinking this time we will just stick with the classic. My husband drinks beer and Capt Morgan, both in the classic. I drink wine and not seeing anything in the classic I would drink but I think in the long run the few dollars here and there for the upgrade will not amount to the $50 per day the upgrade would be. I also understand that wine by the bottle is discounted 15%. We may be more likely to do that if we haven’t already sprung for the upgraded package.

What is a world wine tour? The Celebrity site does not give a good description. Is it just a one time thing? If you have done this, was it a good experience?

We currently have a basic drinks package included on our upcoming cruise. I understand if you order something above basic ($10 or $11?) you sign for the difference. My question: are you required to sign for each and every drink regardless? I am asking bc we are considering upgrading to premium. I find signing to be a minor annoyance, but if we will be signing all the time anyway, maybe I won’t bother.

I recall one cruise where a man seated nearby kept ordering more lobster- he must have had at least seven. Ugh. No wonder they started putting a cap on it.

I am interested in this topic because we have always upgraded because we are primarily wine drinkers and the classic offerings were not wines we would enjoy. Also, our experience with X has been that once our Sommelier in MDR and also Cellar Masters found out we enjoyed nice wine they would often find something not on the menu. So the upgrade was totally worth it. Plus the premium spirits were much better. Fast forward to the present. We have not sailed with X since 2020. (We disembarked Jan 28, 2020 - just under the wire!) We have a couple of cruises coming up Jan 2024 with classic beverage included. At first glance at the difference in offerings between classic and premium I assumed we would upgrade because there was almost nothing we would drink either wine or spirits included in the classic. Now with the option of simply paying the difference I’m not so sure. Question - Do you now have to sign for every drink whether it is included in your package or not? That was not our experience w X in the past. We sailed w HAL last January and even though we had upgraded ( complete waste of money btw) we still had to sign each and every time we ordered a drink, coffee, water etc. Hate to sound like a spoiled brat but I found that to be annoying. I felt it sort of ruined the carefree cruising experience. Plus it always prompted for a tip, so I always tipped even though I knew there was 18% included. I think if we’re going to have to sign for each drink regardless of whether it is included we won’t bother to upgrade.

We are used to carrying USD for tipping and small purchases when visiting several different countries while cruising. I've noticed that in some of the countries we will be visiting on upcoming cruises like Malaysia, and I think Thailand, (maybe Bali, Vietnam as well) do not even allow the use of foreign currency. As credit cards are useless for tipping and I'm guessing many small vendors will want cash, how do you handle this? I imagine we can always order in Ringget or other currencies from our bank, but I would have no clue how much to order. Can anyone who has been to these countries what they have done? How much to order or just ask your driver or guide to take you to an ATM?

I haven’t read all the previous comments so I hope I’m not being redundant. We sailed YC in the Mediterranean. The stateroom and service was spectacular. The food was mostly good, but not as good as Celebrity. I think the wine was better with MSC. But Celebrity did not lose us and we probably would not sail MSC again. First of all, even the we had access to the entire ship, we ventured out once and the hordes of people and out of control children was overwhelming. and it was after 10 pm. As a fellow YC guest said” They’re animals out there!”. So we stayed in our separate area and it was a little too quiet and confining. The entertainment in the main theatre bordered on embarrassing. I’ve seen better in high school auditoriums. ( Pretending to tap dance in ballet slippers with out of sync tap dancing audio being played!) We also had the distinct impression the staff was overworked, especially in the main section of the ship. One server from Brazil said as much. She had signed a ninth month contract and she was counting the days and would not be renewing. YC was supposed to have an exclusive elevator, but when there’s fifty people pushing to get on it’s pretty hard for just two people to turn them away. Luckily we found a way to avoid the elevators all together when going to the private YC dining room. There were smoking areas everywhere, even inside. So on the bright side, as I said at the beginning, the cabin and service was the best we had experienced. It was also nice to have a completely uncrowded pool area to yourself. We hung out with a fun group of people about of about a dozen representing eight different nationalities and that made the experience memorable!