Chanbre

We were on Borealis from 17 to 27 June. One waiter told us there were 600 passengers and 600 crew on board; obviously they stated approximate numbers. Maximum numbers are 1360 passengers and 662 crew according to https://www.fredolsencruises.com/our-ships/borealis.

There were plenty of waiters circulating around the bars and seating areas. We were asked whether we wanted a drink within minutes of sitting down. Service in the main dining room was as quick as in any other restuarant, i.e. the waiters give you time to enjoy the dining experience.

The public areas of the ship were clean. We frequently saw the crew cleaning handrails. Several times saw vacuum cleaners being used.

Borealis appeared to be fully crewed.

The last picture above has a three-wheeled car. There are about 30 three-wheeled Morgans parked in the Crown Plaza hotel car park (very close to the Liverpool Cruise Terminal) this evening. They are taking the ferry to the Isle of Man tomorrow. About 50 cars in total are expected. Once there they will drive leisurely around the TT circuit - definitely not racing, honestly officer.

My invite to the webinar was sent at 19:17 UK time. Have registered for this one.

The wording after the words "Cant make it" is confusing. I could not make the time for the previous webinar, so believing those words I did not register. I am still trying to find the recording. I wish I had registered for the previous webinar.

@lgw59 We have had 3 non-cruise holidays in Venice. On one memorable day we got a day-pass for the water busses etc, crossed from Venice centre to Lido then took a mix of wheeled buses and water bussess to Chioggia. Maybe not much in Chioggia (it was raining when we went) except some lovely restaurants, but a great journey seeing parts of the Venice bay. Returned via the same route.

@Iamthesea I recommend you looking at our UK government's website. There is lots of travel advice based at travel abroad. The foreign travel advice link leads to information about many countries including France.

Thanks @tring

What does the "Bookmark Bestseller card" actually provide. The description on the Fred Olsen website says it "includes 7 hot drinks for you to enjoy, as well as a bag of milk or mixed truffles" which is somewhat short of detail. What drinks are included? Is it any from the Bookmark Cafe menu? Do people find the card good value?

2 hours ago, CruisnDeb said:

How do find out theme nights? Do they post it in the daily?

Look in the daily at the OVC entry for evening meals.

By the way, there is another current thread about the OVC, see https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2829554-best-and-worst-food-on-celebrity-buffet/

Watch the Ocean View Cafe's evening meal entry in the dailies. They often have specials (they had them on our past cruises). Often the special would celebrate the recent port stop. We have had Russian caviar in St Petersburg, German sausages in Warnemunde, lovely fish from some ports.

In November the temperature test was done when sea-cards were scanned whenever we boarded the ship. One of the crew pointed a hand-held device at the side of our necks.

Have just received an email from Fred Olsen asking "how was your cruise" and wanting "to hear your thoughts". This arrived about 9.5 days after we left the ship.

Thanks @tring.

How and when does Fred Olsen ask for feedback after a cruise. We left the Bolette in Southampton last Saturday and have not yet received anything.

A feedback postcard was left in our cabin midway through the cruise, but it was seeking to resolve any issues we might have whilst we were onboard.

On the Silhouette in September this year we had to book into the Persian Garden even though we were in Aqua class. As others have said above, the number of people allowed matched the number of benches.

We had the basic all-included wifi package on Silhouette in September. Emails and web browsing mostly worked fine, although slowly. Some websites were blocked, or partially blocked. Youtube would not load at all. Ebay-UK partialy loaded but was unusable. BBC news loaded perfectly, although I did not try any of their videos. WhatsApp was fine with text messages but we could not send or receive pictures. WhatsApp rang a few times announcing voice calls, but they did not connect.

We received our emails for the Eurofins testing on 24 August for a 18 September departure. We received separate emails and we had to create two Eurofins accounts and book one test on each account. We did get adjacent test times.

Yesterday our nine night cruise on the Silhouette ended. From Southampton we went anti-clockwise around the UK with stops at Kirkwall, Invergorden, Liverpool, Belfast and Greenock, plus three sea days. There were 1500 passengers on board.

Checkin

Our cases were collected from us in the car park and we walked to the terminal. Outside the terminal we were asked a few basic questions including whether we had our passports and had done our tests. Then, even though we had arrived shortly before our allocated time slot, we were waved through.

Inside the terminal there were numerous lanes where documents were being checked. It appeared as if there were enought lanes open that no one needed to queue. We went directly to an empty lane where someone was waiting. All our documents had been printed, the checker read through them quickly and took photos of a couple of them. Then we were told we could board the ship. It took maybe fifteen minutes from the car park to boarding the ship. There is a long row of desks in the terminal they appeared to be busy with people who, presumably, needed additional checking.

On board we were asked to go directly to our muster station before going to our cabin or any other venue. At the muster station the two of us were given a quick safety briefing, our sea card was scanned and we were done. There was no queue and it only took a few minutes.

Masks and social distancing

Most of the passengers wore masks most of the time while moving around inside the ship. A few took their masks off while seated in the theatre. The crew were masked all of the time both inside and on the open decks.

Most of the time people stayed a short distance apart. Lifts generally held a maximum of four, frequently people let a partially occupied lift go and waited for another. Chairs in Al Bacio, also empty tables at lunchtime in the OVC, could be hard to find. Some people were happy to share a table but a small number were quite rude when saying they did not want to share or have anyone sitting close.

One expection to the social distancing was at a sale in the deck-5 jewellery shops. Some display cases were covered with cloths, the shop keepers gave an introduction to the sale before the grand unveil. The ladies forgot their social distancing. They all crowded togther, shoulders toughing shoulders and two or three deep, so they could get first views of the the items on offer. On the positive side, they were masked.

Wifi

We had the basic all-included wifi package. Emails and web browsing mostly worked fine, although somewhat slowly. Some websites were blocked, or partially blocked. Youtube would not load at all. Ebay-UK partily loaded but was unusable. BBC news loaded perfectly, although I did not try any of their videos. WhatsApp was fine with text messages but we could not send or receive pictures. WhatsApp rang a few times announcing voice calls, but they did not connect.

I wonder whether some of the contributors to this thread would appreciate this Instagram post from Captain Kate.

Do check out the non-alcoholic packages, see https://www.celebritycruises.com/gb/things-to-do-onboard/onboard-packages/beverage-packages . We had the classic non-alcohol package on one cruise and were very happy. We paid one drink at a time at full price for the few alcohic drinks we had and that cost much less than the upgrade to the full classic drink package.

How long does the hand-washer take, how many people could it wash in (say) five minutes? And, how many of them were provided?

Thanks for the great review. We were also booked on the cancelled 17 July cruise so it is very interesting to see and learn a little of the ship we missed. We are now hoping that our cruise on Bolette goes ahead later this year.

We had a deck 6 SV on Eclipse a few years ago, it was near the centreline of the ship. We did not notice any noise and the view was not obstructed in any way. The balcony space seemed very similar to that of a higher deck SV on Silhouette. Just outside the balcony on deck 6 there is a crew walkway (I think for maintence purposes) and I recall someone using it once.

We were booked on the, now cancelled, 18 Sept 2021 Silhouette cruise from Southampton. We have rebooked onto the new UK-only cruise. Same dates, same ship, same cabin, lower price. Now expecting a refund of some of the money we had paid.

The UK and the countries visited by the original cruise are all being very cautious about opening their borders to people from other countries. Hence Celebrity were, I suspect, unsure whether the cruise could visit any of the scheduled ports. Rather that risk no ports, they changed the itinery to visit UK ports that they are confident of visiting.

Our 23 April 2020 cruise from Southampton was cancelled a few weeks before departure. Several months ago we booked, through our UK based TA, another cruise and I believe the price included an allowance for our FCC.

Today we have received an email direct from Celebrity saying that they have now told our TA about our FCC and we should contact them to redeem the FCC.

I think we will soon have to have another conversation with the TA.

Thanks Noosey. We decided to stay here three more nights. The hotel seems very nice. Today's walk around the docks and in the summer sun was great. We passed the Liverpool Cruise Terminal, it looked deserted. Everything closed and locked, no people seen and no information boards.

We have spoken to a Fred Olsen person on the phone. They will be emailing a detailed compensation offer to us,  it sounds quite good. But it probably will not cover our petrol etc for driving to Liverpool. Haved also spoken to the cruise car parking company and they say they are giving us a full refund of our parking fees.