coast2coast

Hi!

We are doing an 11-night cruise on MSC Poesia in October. It ends in Civitavecchia on 10/27/23.

We are boarding Odyssey of the Seas on the same day for our Transatlantic.

Has anyone ever done a side-to-side cruise from this port?

Just wondering if we will be allowed to take our luggage off the Poesia and just walk to the Odyssey, or if we'll have to board a shuttle bus to leave the port area and take another shuttle bus back in? 

I've done B2Bs on the same ship before, but never a side-to-side so wasn't sure how it all works.

I was a bit confused by this, too. My cruise isn't until next October, yet when I finished web check-in it said my travel documents were ready, but ticket and boarding pass are grayed out. I assume I'll be able to print this out later and find out when check-in time is then?

I just did the loyalty tier match. Only took about 1 1/2 days to get a response from MSC. Diamond Plus on Royal to Gold on MSC. I don't have a recent loyalty card from Royal so just took a snapshot of my profile on Crown and Anchor. Easy peasy.

23 hours ago, rcixfan5 said:

Allure back2back info

First cruise 8/8/2021

Second cruise 8/15/2021

 

Thank you so much for posting this! Very helpful as we'll be boarding in 22 days for a B2B! 🙂

41 minutes ago, Sunshine3601 said:

Nice!  Did you get assigned one of the cabins with the extended balcony on deck 7?

No, in fact our balcony is listed as 20 sq feet although on other Radiance class ships it's listed as 41... so not sure? But we're on the starboard side, not on the hump or aft.

1 hour ago, Sunshine3601 said:

I absolutely love the Serenade and have stayed in many different cabins on deck 7.     do you know your cabin number yet?

This will be our third (and fourth as it's a B2B) cruise on Serenade, so we're happy to be back on again. We got our cabin assignments last night.

51 minutes ago, coaster said:

Hope so. Awesome you got upgraded to a balcony from an inside!

Super excited! This is the 2nd & 3rd time the upgrade fairy has paid us a visit. First time was on the Freedom back in 2016, from an oceanview room on the 2nd deck. 🙂

1 hour ago, coaster said:

We were upgraded from an outside on deck 4 to a spacious balcony on deck 10 on our move to Serenade.

We have a spacious balcony for the 2nd one on the 10th deck as well for the 2nd leg of our trip. Hoping it's not too hard to do the switch on turn-around day.

11 minutes ago, RedIguana said:

Cool, there is hope. I have not received anything, but online shows as canceled. Obviously this is just conjecture, but it looks like Serenade may be arriving on a canal transit from Alaska on the 15 or 16th.

Yes, I think it was originally supposed to be cruising down in Australia after the Alaska season is over, but my guess is that they're not ready for cruise ships down there perhaps. Guess they figured it would be an easy switch temporarily to go from Brilliance to Serenade until the Brilliance is ready to cruise again.

1 hour ago, Saab4444 said:

No, same design but only obstructed if you look down to the water.

That's what I thought, but just found it strange that it's listed one way as obstructed on Brilliance (and Jewel) and not on the Serenade (nor Radiance). 

2 hours ago, RedIguana said:

were you on the Oct 16th sailing? I think I remember you from roll call. If so, when did you recieve notification of the switch?

Yes, both the 16th and 21st. We received notification of the switch last night around 7 p.m.

Our cruise on the Brilliance just got switched to the Serenade. We were upgraded from an interior on deck 3 to a balcony on deck 7. I noticed when comparing deck 7 balconies, ones that are listed as obstructed on Brilliance are not marked that way on the Serenade. Just curious if lifeboats on Serenade don't obstruct the balcony views like they do on the Brilliance? Wondering if they changed the design a bit between the building of the two ships.

I have a B2B on Brilliance starting 10/16. Made final payment last week. It will be what it will be... I'm thinking positive... I don't think it's possible for Royal to get all of the their ships up and running at once, and I'm sure they're doing it as fast as they can. We still have over 2 months... they have plenty of time to get their ducks in a row. Doesn't look like Brilliance's first cruise is scheduled until 9/4 anyway. My guess is by mid August (if not sooner), Royal will probably have another schedule out with more test dates scheduled for the rest of their ships.  We were on the Freedom a few weeks ago and felt that Royal did an excellent job with everything. It's been a big learning experience for everyone. Looking forward to hopping on the Allure next month. She just got back from her test cruise, so hoping for good marks from the CDC. 

On 8/21/2020 at 3:46 PM, RJB said:

The T/A will not happen in Nov.   Our Oct on Riviera was canceled.  When you get there the lift is the best way and then you can walk back down to get to the ship.  Good luck. 

We lifted and shifted to the Odyssey '21 TA out of Rome before the cruise was canceled. Unfortunately this new itinerary doesn't include Alicante, so I'll have to save it for another trip. 😉

Hi!

Assuming our transatlantic cruise happens in November, DH and I are hoping to walk up to Santa Barbara Castle in Alicante. I know how to get to the lift (which we don't want to take), but I can't seem to find directions for the best/safest walking path up to the top. I know that there are a lot of stairs involved, but we're in our early 50s and in good physical health so would really like the opportunity to walk to the top. Would love to know what street or area to start in to make the climb. Thanks in advance for any info you might have!

And if there are over 50 kids on board, they'll hire two children's cruise directors. They will even take your kids off the ship and do their own kids' excursions!

(Cruised the week before Christmas in 1979 as a nine year old, and they actually did this!)

(Oh, and another funny... I remember seeing our room attendant's name on a card and told my parents, "Jesus (I pronounced it Gee-zus) is our cabin steward!" Remember, I was 9 at the time and had no idea it was pronounced Hey-soos.)

Can you actually do this?

I know we can take a shuttle from the train station to Largo della Pace to catch yet another shuttle to the port.

However, DH and I are in good health, like to walk, and will be packing light, so assuming the weather's good, we'd prefer to walk.

I saw a video posted recently that shows you can walk from the train station to the Bramante parking area just inside the pier area beyond Fort Michelangelo. Does a shuttle stop there on its way from Largo della Pace to pick up other passengers, because I'm assuming there will be a point somewhere on the pier that we'll have to be transported to the ship by bus because of security in place.

Basically the reason I'm asking this is to not have to deal with two different shuttle buses, and walking all the way from our hotel to Largo della Pace with our luggage (I know it's not that far) just to catch a shuttle that's going to backtrack and retrace half of the journey we just walked to get us to the port.

Hope my question makes sense, and thanks for any info you might be able to provide! 🙂

1 minute ago, Norwich Cruiser said:

They did a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you!

Two questions:

Do they have low-weight dumbbells? (5 pounders in particular)

Do they have exercise balls to use in the gym- the kind you sit on to do core exercises, etc.

TIA for any info you can provide!

5 hours ago, ezemoney said:

try downloading the celebrity app. it will have a day by day list of activities. it is an easy app to use!

 

later,

 

ezemoney

 

Thank you! Downloaded it and checked it out! Great app... can't wait to use it on the ship! 

Hi! First time on Celebrity coming up, and I'm trying to find Celebrity's version of the "Cruise Compass"... I think it's called "Celebrity Today"? Going on the western Caribbean route on the Equinox, and I'm having a hard time finding anything recent.  Can anyone out there point me in the right direction? Just trying to get a feel for what kinds of activities might be offered on the ship. TIA!

Sounds like us! We are usually fairly loyal to Royal but have cruised Princess twice, HAL once, and Carnival (twice for me). Chose Celebrity for our August cruise because prices on Royal were outrageous. This is a family cruise with the two of us, our college-aged DD, my parents, and my brother. We ended up booking 3 side by side by side Veranda rooms. I'm hoping that the balcony dividers can be opened up between the rooms so we can walk from one to the other. Trying to find some Celebrity Dailies from 2019 for the Equinox but am having a hard time finding something recent. From ones I've seen from 2018, it looks like they do offer a lot of venues with live music, so I hope that hasn't changed. It looks like a beautiful ship, and I'm looking forward to the itinerary- Western Caribbean including Key West (haven't been there since I was two!), so I'm really excited about that stop. We're diamond on Royal, so elite on Celebrity I guess. I need to do a little research to see exactly what that means.

We are going on our shortest one (6 nights) on Sunday.  We're not flying, so feel like it would be worth it. For me to factor in flying, it has to be at least a 7-day cruise.  Longest one I've done was a 24-night (two 12 nights back-to-back). It was awesome, but I felt like I needed a vacation from our vacation as it was a very port-intensive trip (Eastern and Western Med for my parents' 50th anniversary).  I could have stayed on longer, but I was getting a bit tired of the food... 😉

Head waiter would make cherries jubilee table-side.

Waiters would come out with Baked Alaska actually aflame on their heads.

Streamers at sail away

Huge midnight buffets every night!

One of my favorite memories was making ice cream sundaes on deck with my dad in the afternoon and sitting and listening to the steel drum band by the poolside.

2 children's cruise directors were actually hired for the week before Christmas sailing on the Song of Norway back in Dec. of 1979.  There were over 50 kids on board which was a lot back then!  The children's cruise directors actually took us kids on tours of the islands... without our parents!!!

I was 9 years old on that cruise, and I got hooked.  Unfortunately next cruise wasn't for 5 more years and then finally back on RCI 18 years after that...

We stayed at Country Inn and Suites when we were in Galveston in January.  Literally right next door is Beerfoot Brewery and Blvd. Seafood restaurant. Highly recommend both places. 

https://www.beerfootbrewery.com

http://blvdseafood.com