LB_NJ

For those of us who live on this side of the pond what are(is) fruit squash and cordials? Saw this in Cunard's soft drink option.

I was actually OK with RCCL pre-COVID, however after the restart the food quality went WAYYY down.

I am not sure if this has always been there however one of the FAQs says: The following are examples of items that guests are not allowed to bring onboard. These and other similar items will be confiscated upon being found. Alcoholic beverages, illegal drugs, flammable liquids, explosives, and dangerous chemicals will not be returned. Firearms & Ammunition, including realistic replicas. *Sharp Objects, including knives and scissors. Illegal Drugs & Substances **Aerial Drones Candles & Incense ***Coffee Makers, Clothes Irons, & Hot Plates Baseball Bats, Hockey Sticks, Cricket Bats, Bows & Arrows Skateboards & Surfboards Martial Arts Gear Self-Defense Gear, including handcuffs, pepper spray, night sticks. Flammable Liquids and Explosives, including lighter fluid and fireworks. HAM Radios Hookahs & Water Hookah Pipes. Electrical Extension Cords Dangerous Chemicals, including bleach and paint. ****Alcoholic and Non-Alcoholic Beverages Potentially hazardous food and/or food that requires refrigeration. Just stumbled across this and noticed it said you couldn't bring Non-Alcoholic Beverages onboard. I added the Bold/underlining.

There are certain vegetables I can't eat and some other foods I just don't like. Plus because of the way they do the foods you CAN'T order small portions.

Last time I looked they were 700 pax and about 1200 pax.

On the first night fine. Second night absolutely nothing. The day before I would try to ask for something off the menu or have to fill up on appetizers.

I booked a TA on a different cruise line (don't say anything, already regretting it, wife talked me into it) and decided to book a round trip airfare. Rnd trip was significantly less than the one way. If we end up not using the second leg, we are still ahead. However, as was mentioned above, airline points miles are absolutely the best way to go for one way international travel.

I sailed on Oceania pre-COVID. Really loved them. They included all the non-alcoholic drinks, food was way better than Celebrity, ship never felt crowded. It was great. They are a little more expensive than Celebrity so it was a hard choice to select Oceania. However, with all these changes coming to Celebrity I will probably give Oceania a try before booking another Celebrity cruise.

Food quality and selection. I don't expect a five star restaurant, however, I expect reasonable quality and taste. If I can't enjoy a meal that ruins a significant part of my enjoyment on a cruise. I will either switch to land vacations or switch cruise lines. I also like the fact that Oceanview is open to 1AM, that actually matters to me. Secondly is how crowded the ship is, if everything is crowded it spoils the fun. Don't really care at all about Captain's Club and the shows are not that big a deal for us.

I hate the menus, this is going to be a disaster.

I know there may be some dress code written down somewhere however, have they ever enforced it. I assume if you come in shorts and a T-shirt no one will stop you. I assume they will insist on footwear (no bare feet) because that is a safety issue.

If all you are going to drink is soda you would need something like 5 or 6 sodas a day for it to make sense. For my upcoming cruise I bought the classic non-alcoholic package ($14 pp/pd + grats) before the change, assuming that Celebrity still honors the purchase. I thought even that might or might not be worth it given what we use daily plus in port days we are off the ship quite a bit so the package goes wasted.

Based on all of this I DO NOT TRUST Royal or Celebrity to maintain any standards. I have 2 cruises booked this month on Celebrity and got an unbelievably cheap TA on Royal (I expect poor service but the repositioning cruise was so cheap I would not expect anything else). After that no more cruises on Celebrity for at least a year until I fully understand what they will provide in the way of food and experience. Why pay lots of money for terrible service. There are so many other ways to enjoy a vacation.

I would suggest a 12 pack of 17 oz bottles. I say that because that is the limit that Royal Carribean allows. As everything is changing no one really knows for sure what will happen. Previously Celebrity did not have a limit. I have not found anything on their web site or in the guest contract that says you can't bring on soda. However, as Celebrity is moving to this model of enhanced revenue generation, they may put a limit on it tomorrow to force people to pay onboard.

Maybe we should call Celebrity the Nickle and Dime cruise line.

They should really just make it a suite only cruise line.

It looks like they got rid of the low-cost options and are trying to force people to higher cost options to increase revenue.

I am happy to move my business to another cruise line and let Royal and Celebrity fail. Comparing a cruise line to an airline is apples and oranges. You spend a few hours on an airplane vs. a week or more on a cruise. Comparisons to resort hotels is probably reasonable and yes they are raising prices and I would be OK with Celebrity doing a 20% price increase. Would rather they did that then reduce quality.

Was thinking of signing up for Medjet and was wondering if anyone has had actual experience using the service?

Yes if there is reduced number of people just cook less. Do people think this will occur across the fleet or just some of the ships? I am thinking Millenium class ships.

They are smaller ships however, I really love them.

Try calling back and ask for a supervisor. These days I find that at best, only one out of three agents know what they are doing.

Last time I was on Oceania (it was pre-COVID) their buffet also was NOT self-serve except for some minor items. That is one of the reasons I like them.

The MAIN reason to buy cruise insurance is for medical to avoid possibly $100,000 medical bills. Most insurance policies do not cover pre-existing conditions unless purchased shortly after the first deposit.

The physical ship may be the same but the food varies considerably by cruise line, service varies, how crowded cruise ship is, hundreds of small things (fresh flowers, live quartet music, fencing lessons, lectures, how pushy the store sales people are) and the overall atmosphere varies considerably by cruise line.