DebInAntigua

12 minutes ago, ipeeinthepool said:

 

I also bring my own plastic straws and have enough to share with my friends.  Paper straws are terrible.  Makes me happy.  As long as Celebrity disposes of the waste appropriately, we won't be hurting any sea turtles.

We too brought our own straws. I got a big pack of oversize ones (like milkshake size) so they were good for frozen drinks and tall cocktails both. The paper straws tasted terrible, bleah. I probably used less than 20 or so the whole trip, and brought the rest back to Guatemala for our next cruise. When the drink was suitable, we did without straws entirely rather than use the paper ones or one of our own plastic ones.

Carefully check your OBC when you make a Future Cruise reservation and then later select your actual cruise. I had to call and then email a copy of the flyer to X to get them to give us the extra $100 pp OBC the promo was supposed to include. (Far right column). All they gave us originally was the stateroom OBC. 

I too was very disappointed with the Edge Thermal Suite. I consider it the only complete waste of money during our entire cruise vacation. 
 

Admittedly I was a bit limited in what I could use as I had a broken foot and was in a wheelchair, but we tried most of the rooms except for the rain shower one. 
 

The loungers were good to fall asleep on, but terrible position for enjoying a book. 
 

I won’t be buying passes again. 

We were on Edge last month and ordered both scrambled eggs and omelettes a few days. The omelettes were much better than the scrambled. 

58 minutes ago, hcat said:

 

EDGE CLASSIC MENU...same in all 4 mdrs all nights.( Subject to revision)

 

Starters : Caesar Salad, Shrimp Cocktail ( order dbl),  Escargots, French Onion Soup

 

Entrees: Broiled Salmon w/Hollandaise sauce, mashed potato, veggies,

                Grilled Chicken Breast, garden thyme jus, mashed potato, veggies

                 Grilled New York Sirloin Steak, mashed potato, veggies

 

 Noticeable lack of baked potatos!

I found that I was able to ask for a baked potato and get one, even though it wasn't listed on any menu. Apparently they have them back there somewhere!

We frankly were not that impressed with Fine Cut Steakhouse. The food was pretty good but not amazing. We did ask to be seated far into the restaurant to avoid noise and that helped, but it was still not as elegantly quiet as Murano. And we had an unpleasant experience with a female assistant sommelier who literally sneered at us when we told her we preferred wines on the sweeter, fruitier side instead of very dry. That was a big turnoff.

I don't think we'll bother to book FCS on the Apex. We enjoyed other specialty dining much more on Edge.

1 hour ago, Cherryblossom66 said:

Do you think we would be able to get the fridge stocked with the drinks we want or just what is on the list? We usually have our room steward remove everything from the fridge but we got the special on the upgrade Drinks and More pkg so wondered if we could get it stocked with what we want?

The official policy is "no substitutions". Unofficially, your room steward may be able to do simple changes for you. For us, we told our room steward that we wanted some soda without caffeine to drink at night, and all that was included was Coke & Diet Coke. So he swapped out the Coke for Sprite. He also made a special effort to track down real Kind bars for us each day, since the Edge was putting in some terrible rice-based Granola bars instead of the healthier Kind bars (hopefully, a temporary supply problem).

I suspect that you wouldn't have as much luck trying to change out the wines or vodka, however.

4 hours ago, emmas gran said:

Hi it does say at the top of price list "Not included in any Beverage Package"

I would check it out 

It is included in the Drinks & More upgrade above Premium, if 2 adults upgrade in the same stateroom. 

This is all that is in it. Substitutions seem to be at the discretion / connection power of your room steward. Some will, some won't.

21 minutes ago, Weenah said:

I believe @DebInAntigua has experienced it recently but I can't recall the feedback she provided. 

I did indeed have an experience with this. We bought Drinks & More for two cruises in Nov, one on the Silhouette and one on Edge. The knowledge of the staff were very different between the two ships.

On the Silhouette, we were only given 2 bottles of wine and one $50 casino credit. I brought this to the attention of Guest Relations, who insisted that it was per cabin, not per person. Based on my time here on CC, I knew this wasn't right and I argued back that it was something that was sold and bought per person, not per couple, and that they needed to honor giving us what was purchased. It took escalating it to a supervisor and 3 days into the cruise before they finally agreed that we were owed 2 bottles of wine each, and two $50 casino credits. Our stateroom attendant on Silhouette had also not heard of the program and kept insisting that the minibar wasn't included. Again, we had to insist that he escalate this to his supervisor to be looked into and by day 2 he came back and said that yes, to his surprise, it was included and he would restock it daily (which he did). Guest Relations told us that only 24 people on the entire ship had upgraded to Drinks & More and it was still very new to all of them.

On the Edge, we automatically got 4 bottles of wine and both casino credits without any issue. We told our room steward we had Drinks & More and he said he was glad we had told him about it, as he didn't see it on our room info but he was aware of the program. He did a great job restocking our minibar with Sprite instead of Coke (so we could have a non-caffeinated choice), and hunting down Kind bars for us instead of restocking the lousy cheap granola bars that Edge was using. Not sure how many people on Edge upgraded, but the staff on Edge definitely were more aware of the program and knew better how to properly deliver it.

So if you don't get the $50 casino credit each, definitely complain and escalate. You buy the upgrade per person and they need to honor the benefits per person.

As a side note, if you want to hold several bookings for a day while you make up your mind, the X website will stop offering the Courtesy Hold option once you have 4 or so on hold. But if you use an incognito window while not logged in, you can get around the limit temporarily. 

I keep a spreadsheet for each cruise of what I paid for each excursion so it's quick for me to compare latest sale prices against what I paid. Saved quite a bit of money today, as most of our Dec 2020 excursions were on sale.

We just came off a couple of cruises where we had upgraded into the Drinks & More. Here's how we got value out of it (or not):

• The bottles of wine - never opened them. They were low end wines and we don't drink much in our cabin anyway. Value = $0
• The casino credits ($50 each person, on each of 2 cruises) - We don't gamble much and treat it as entertainment only. We had a total on both cruises of $200 promotional credit to play, and we managed to flip that on Roulette into about $165 we were able to cash out and keep. The ratio of the casino credit value is related to how long the cruise is, as you have to pay the upgrade per day but get $50 flat pp, whether the cruise is 5 days or 15.
• The minibar - we never touched the vodka and drank very little of the wine. However, we loved the convenience of having large bottles of water restocked daily, along with Kind bars and Pringles and some soft drinks for the room. Yes, I know we could get the beverages with our package and carry them back to the room, but we enjoyed the convenience a lot of the minibar being included. Some people have been able to get the room steward to swap beverages. We got Sprite instead of Coke, for instance, on several days by asking.
• The wine tasting events - Hit or miss. On the first cruise, we were given the "World Wine Tour" and it was terribly oversold and crowded. I said to my husband that if we had paid out of pocket in the Cruise Planner for that event, I would have been mad. It was poorly done. On the second cruise, we were granted access to the "New World vs. Old World" wine event, and the sommelier Sebastian (Edge) who led it was great. Very informative and fun, engaging and entertaining. He introduced us to some new wines we had never tried before and we really enjoyed that one. So I think the value of the wine event will depend entirely on the number of people they cram into it and the quality of the sommelier(s) running it.

As a side note, this is still a relatively new package onboard and we had a lot of trouble on the Silhouette to get them to honor the $50 casino credit PER PERSON, instead of trying to give us $50 per stateroom. It took several days and being insistent to get the additional $50 credit but it was eventually straightened out. Within a few more cruises the crew should be better trained on how to deliver the benefits. I don't think people will be having those issues long term.

We liked the Drinks & More upgrade, so we've gone ahead and done it on our Dec 2020 cruise before they try to raise the price or something. At $9/day pp, I feel it was mostly worth it to us and how we chose to use it. But I wouldn't pay more than that for it.

Thanks for the heads up! I saved over $320 total for our excursions currently booked for a Dec 2020 cruise. (I book way in advance to ensure we get the ones we want, and then monitor pricing).

Also saved several hundred dollars on some 2021 cruises by calling today.

Our room steward switched out Sprite for us as we wanted some caffeine free soft drinks. 
 

Kind bars were being replaced on Edge with cheap, unimpressive, chewy granola bars. Nowhere near the quality of a Kind bar. Our steward was unsure if this was a temporary supply problem or yet another cutback. 

Kind bar compared to the minibar granola bars provided on Edge:

Had surgery today with spinal block in a top private hospital in Guatemala City. Never had that for surgery before, it was odd being fully awake the whole time. 
 

Piece that was broken off was actually in worse shape than they expected. It had to be removed completely and they found a cartilage tear in the joint as well. Ortho surgeon said it will look a bit odd but should heal well with minimal risk of arthritis setting in. If I had left it as-is and refused surgery, the broken slivers inside the joint would have caused significant pain and loss of movement eventually, and likely very bad arthritis in a few years. 
 

They are keeping me overnight as the spinal block took 6 hours to wear off. Should be released by noon on Friday. 
 

Have to avoid as much walking as possible first two weeks, and keep wrapped and in a broken toe shoe (not full boot) for total of 6 weeks or more, depending on my progress. 
 

Really did a number on it!

We will collect all the paperwork from the hospital and see what the cruise insurance says. But I suspect they will do their best to deny it, in spite of the fact that my surgery will cost about 1/3 or less of a US hospital. Not holding my breath. 
 

I should sleep now. Will be back later this weekend with more Edge review info! 🙂

Update: Just saw orthopedic doctor in Guatemala City and he said I should have been told it was displaced fracture in the big toe joint, not just “cracked”. Original x-rays from the ship and ones done today show a chunk broken off and slipped down into the joint. Scheduled for surgery tomorrow afternoon. 
 

Have to say I’m pretty upset that I wasn’t shown the x-rays when it happened and I was misinformed about how severe it was.  I would have probably chosen to disembark and see an orthopedic in the ER in Florida that day. Cruise insurance would have paid for it in FL, now I’m going to be stuck with several thousand dollars worth of medical expenses. 
 

Anyone know what the right department at  Celebrity is to file a complaint about this?

Now that I'm back home and have time to type up longer posts on my laptop, I'll do my best to recap our cruise and provide more of a review.

Let's start with how well a concierge IV cabin worked with me hobbling around in a foot splint and having a wheelchair for getting around the ship. This info might be useful for anyone with some mobility and/or size challenges too.

Our cabin attendant Dan (might have been spelled Dahn) was amazing. He made sure we got whatever I needed to be more comfortable, including tons of pillows so I could sleep in a zero gravity / foot elevated position. He also arranged for ice packs to be brought anytime we asked, even if it was after his working hours (he would have a fellow housekeeper friend bring us one).

Celebrity provided a wheelchair that just barely fit through the cabin door (with like 1/2 inch each side to spare!). So my husband was able to get me into and out of the room in the wheelchair although turning in the hallways to get into and out of the cabin was pretty tight. While in the cabin, we stored the wheelchair like this:

There was still enough room for someone to walk around the bed with the wheelchair tucked in like that. We moved the chair that normally goes there to be beside the sofa, against the closet. This did block one of the doors but it wasn't a big deal as we had very few hanging items. Almost all of our clothes were folded in packing cubes and stored in the smaller closets and dresser drawers (packing cubes rule, by the way, but that's for another post.)

For the bathroom, originally Dan brought a standard shower stool but it had some issues with sliding and the legs didn't seem sturdy enough for my weight (fluffy cruiser here). So Dan replaced it with one of the much maligned tom-toms and that actually worked great. The top of the tom-tom can flip from padded to solid and it's extremely stable to sit on, even for large people. I used it in the shower and in front of the sink so I could more easily do my hair, brush my teeth, etc.

Notice in the picture above that there is a grab bar on the wall and that the shower height can be adjusted and used as a hand-held. We were in a concierge cabin so I'm not sure if a normal IV would have that same shower head.

Since this cabin wasn't intended for wheelchair users, there was a step up and out of the bathroom, but it was not high and I managed it ok. We had luckily brought a couple of collapsible hiking poles on our trip and I was able to use one as a stand-in cane to help with balance getting into and out of the bathroom and around the cabin. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C46QPTR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )

And of course we have to address the ultimate bathroom question... how easy was it to use and get up from the toilet?

Well, first off if you are a larger person, you will find the toilet area on Edge class to be "cozier" than S-class ships. It's rather tight on the shower side but you can open the door to give yourself a bit more room.

There also is a ledge on the right hand side that is wide enough to place a foot on. I found this convenient especially the first few days after my accident, when having my foot down was a lot more painful. I could semi-elevate it while using the toilet.

As far as getting up from the toilet, while this cabin isn't "accessible" it does have a handy built in feature of the towel bar that can work as a grab bar for helping yourself onto and off the toilet. I was also able to grab the sink lip while rising to help stabilize myself (can't reach it from the toilet, but you can grab it as you stand up).

All in all, I found that with the help of our wonderful cabin attendant and some creative repurposing of an extra tom-tom, I was able to deal well with my sudden mobility challenges in a non-accessible cabin.

I'll share more soon - stay tuned!

2 hours ago, Cruisegirl6 said:

What time did you get off the ship? Please go to your doctor and have your foot checked.

Just got back home safely to Guatemala. Going to try to get appointment with orthopedic specialist tomorrow or Tuesday. 

Last night in Eden, Bloom wrapped my foot in one of her special magical ribbons. It’s all better now! (Not really, but she was very sweet about including me during the show, LOL). 
 

Medical just called and Celebrity has arranged a doctor visit in Curacao in the morning. An escort has been requested from Guest Relations by Dr Lever so hopefully we will have assistance. 
 

Enjoying Normandy tonight. It seems to have the most size-friendly seating compared to Cosmo and Tuscan. Will eat in Cyprus later this cruise. 

21 minutes ago, Mynki said:

 

That's the intineraries I was referring to. We were originally told these were to be released tomorrow. Other areas are later in the year. The opening post has the schedule. 🙂

Ah, ok. Europe, Alaska and everything else except Caribbean have supposedly been moved up to be released tomorrow (19th). Thus my confusion.

56 minutes ago, Mynki said:

 

 

The ones that are supposed to be released tomorrow are already showing in both the US and UK. Not sure there's anything particularly "unique" though. 

Just looked right now on the US site. Only seeing Asia / Hawaii / TransPAC crossings. Where did you see them?

We ate at Eden last night and loved it. I’d never realized they had an open kitchen concept. Between watching the chefs and the occasional Edenist performance nearby, it was a very entertaining evening. Each dish was presented with an explanation of the ingredients and textures. Well worth the specialty dining cover charge. 
 

As far as accessibility, there is a small elevator available from the middle Eden floor (deck 5). I could see how someone in a scooter could have trouble with it but we managed fine with the wheelchair. On deck 5 you can enter & exit straight in. If you go up to deck 6 of Eden the elevator opens to the right, so be sure to position yourself well when get in to be able to exit that way. If you go down to the Eden restaurant on deck 4, the elevator exits to the left. There are several 2 and 4 person tables on the ground floor of the Eden restaurant and you can watch the open kitchen and the performers. When booking Eden be sure to tell them if you need to avoid stairs as the majority of the restaurant seating is up a few stairs. You’ll want to get a table on that ground section if you can’t do stairs or have a wheelchair/scooter. 

I’ve been staying on my phone so forgive the shorter updates. Once I pull out the laptop I’ll be more thorough. 
 

Dr Lever in the medical bay made a temporary splint and prescribed more pain meds. She’s trying to get me an appointment in Curacao (day after tomorrow). After canceling Grand Cayman due to rough seas, Celebrity was able to arrange for us to have a longer port time in Curacao (8 am arrival instead of 3:30!). Hopefully the longer time ashore will allow us to get my foot examined by a specialist. 
 

For now just hanging in Eden watching the wake, waiting for our dinner time.