grampasgrumpy

That is how I read it. But no, they are saying it is only for the cruises listed at the top. I am not happy at all. I am trying to make sure it is just not me who reads it that way.

Your interpretation is correct. There is no qualifier for that last paragraph you have bracketed. That line does not say it applies only to the sailings listed above and nothing else modifies that line. They may not have intended for it to read like it does but that's what it says.

Not true Costa Maya is not on the list more non mexicans ex-pats from Europe live there. Population is only 500. Florida has tons of murders Orlando is full of violent crime were is the travel alert for Florida.

You responded to a post from 2009. The information was factual at that time.

Of your three options I have been to 2, Mr. Sanchos and Paradise Beach. Based on what you have said I think Paradise Beach would be more of what you are looking for. They have chairs by the ocean and chairs by a huge awesome pool. Paradise Beach is "nicer" than Mr. Sanchos but it is ala carte, where as Mr Sanchos is an all inclusive, $50/pp (adults), $40/pp (12-17) and $35pp (4-11). Mr. Sanchos also has an extra charge of $12/pp for their water park area with climbing toys, etc. Paradise Beach has a small fee of about $3/pp for use of chairs, restrooms, etc. They also have a water toy area for an extra charge. There is a pier at, or right next to, Paradise Beach that has quite a few small, but sometimes colorful, fish under and around it so it is a good place for the kids to snorkel. Food and drinks are ala carte. Their pool is AWESOME! Most of the beaches in Coz are subject to have occasional rocks in the water so wherever you go walk carefully or wear water shoes. There will be other beach "entertainment" vendors at both locations where you can rent a kayak, paddleboard, etc. I haven't been to Chankanaab so I can't comment on it.

 

If I had two tweens I'd take them to Paradise Beach.

DAY 4 - ST. THOMAS/ST. JOHN...

Well, I brought along a 24 x 36 (nicely boxed) canvas sunrise that I took on St. John a few years ago to give to our friends who lost their home, car, and everything else to Irma. We even brought along an extra roll of tape in case security needed to open the box. Boarding with it back in Ft. Lauderdale was no problem. However,when we went to get off the ship at 7:58 on Wednesday morning, we were stopped by security and asked what was in the box. I explained it was a canvas photo I had taken and was bringing for friends. “But we never left the USA,” I say. We were told to just wait. She said she’d have to call an officer who dealt with customs and boarder patrol. After about 10 minutes, another crew member arrives (no idea what she really did) and was told if we wanted to bring anything off the ship, she’d have to call Celebrity’s port agent who would have to escort us to the Customs office on St.Thomas to be cleared. As you can imagine, by now, I’m not a happy camper. We never left the USA; I wasn’t taking anything off the ship that I personally didn’t own so there would be no customs duty to pay; and now we probably were going to miss the 9:00 AM ferry. I looked at my husband and told him to just take the box back to the room. I’ll have to ship the photo to them, I suppose. And write my congressman about this totally insane customs rule (had it been smaller and fit it in a beach bag, no one would have said a word. Just plain insane.....

In reference to your painting and customs, while the ship did not enter another port outside the US before this stop, in theory you could have purchased a painting onboard and customs would have jurisdiction over that purchase. Even if it was duty free they would still likely want to see the paper trail. It shouldn't take them a long time to get the situation resolved though so some of your frustration is still valid.

I'm in the crowd that says Key West is a place perfect for wandering on your own. Maps are plentiful and easy to follow so just pick out some places that might interest you and start walking. There are many awesome places within walking distance. We plan to eat and drink our way from Mallory Square to the southern most point, then repeat the eating and drinking on the way back to the ship. The cost of a tour would take a chunk out of our eating and drinking budget. :eek:

I've got a Caribbean cruise on 24 hour hold right now, and one of the perks included was the Classic Beverage Package. I clicked on the "details" link which says: Classic Beverage Package Option Includes Beer Up To $6 Per Serving, Spirits, Cocktails, And Frozen Drinks Up To $8 Per Serving, Wine By The Glass Up To $9 Per Serving...blah blah blah.

 

I wonder if something is about to change with the beverage packages? This cruise is for January 2019. I don't need specialty cocktails, but I'd like to be able to get basic tropical drinks, a mojito, a margarita, etc.

Ha! You are making the mistake of assuming Celebrity's website is accurate and up-to-date. Unfortunately this is not the case. :(

Paradise Beach is a bit more upscale in appearance. Their pool is awesome! Mr. Sancho's is nice and the AI feature is a plus if you plan to have a few drinks and eat. Both places have great staff and will take great care of you. From what you have described I think Paradise Beach would be more of what you are looking for.

Does the OP even exist? Never been back, to our knowledge.

This thread is a year old. The OP responded several times when it was a recent post.

Paul, my wife and I will be on the Eclipse for the Christmas/New Year's cruise departing Dec 21. We have sailed Celebrity a few times but it is still exciting to get the preview and current information your posts provide. Thank for taking the time to do this!

I thought that they had changed the Mast Grill to a pay venue? Not true?

They did make it a pay venue but they very quickly undid it. I think they got an earful from quite a few folks...

I agree with ABoatNerd, Celebrity does not need to care. Why on earth would they spend money to fix or create a website when the ships are sailing full at some of the highest prices on record ?

 

That would be a horrible waste of money, with no return on the investment....

They want more than bookings. They want to sell beverage packages, dining packages, excursions, etc. There are several "features" on their website that do not work that are costing them additional revenue. As to the connections party, they should either fix the registration process or remove it from their site. Removing it would cost essentially nothing. Leaving a broken process in place requires manual intervention when people inquire about it, or if they choose not to respond it leads to negative reactions from customers.

I brought my own. I don't know if Celebrity has any or not. They can be a somewhat controversial if you know what I mean. [emoji44] I have the original set plus all the expansion packs. We drove to the port so I just brought them all. The 3rd time we played it, I took most of the dud cards out -- the ones people draw & put back or toss to the used pile. If your flying & weight is an issue, I would just take out the duds at home.

 

We were a little concerned about where to play the game on the ship. We had a suite, the first time we played, I think there were 8 of us, we played in our suite. We looked around at different options and decided to give the Martini Bar area a try. It worked out fine, the couch and chairs were far enough from the actual bar not to offend anyone that might overhear what we were reading (or if we did offend, no one complained to us). The liveliness of the Bar & Centrum drown out our laughter.

 

 

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LOL We played Cards Against Humanity on an Alaskan cruise aboard the Solstice last year. While we were playing, in a quiet public area with seating, a crew member came by cleaning. He overheard some of our play and started laughing and shaking his head. He kept cleaning and cleaning right by us. He finally had to go clean elsewhere but he soon came back and cleaned more in our area, and just laughed and laughed. He was clearly enjoying hearing our comments. I'm sure it was the cleanest (and "dirtiest") area on the ship. ;p

I'm not sure what it is, but I do know I only eat it for special occasions... like after breakfast, mid-morning, after lunch, mid-afternoon, early evening since I do late dining, after dinner, and then I usually have some on my late night pre-bedtime walk. Other than that I usually just leave it alone.

We've had door and safe batteries replaced a few times and cards deprogrammed on various cruise lines. Batteries die and key cards become demagnetized. It's not something unique to Celebrity. OP, you just had the bad luck of all three on one cruise.

 

Do try one of the S Class ships, they're great but not because batteries won't conk out and cards will always work, they won't.

Oh I agree it can happen to anyone at any time on any cruise line. My title was just a fun way to play it. In this case though, what should have been a 15 minute battery swap took about 2 & 1/2 hrs, late at night.

 

We'll be back on Celebrity, no doubt. It was much nicer in almost every way. (except the batteries :p )

Did they let you bring your shaggy service dog with you this time?

Either I am missing the joke or you have me confused with somebody else.

Some people go thru great pains to tell a story. :rolleyes::eek::p

Brevity in story telling is not my forte. :p

 

I thought about writing a novel one day but even the digital version would be too heavy to carry around.:eek:

OMG What a story!! Too funny (although not for you at the time lol) After that, I really hope you enjoyed your cruise and drink package:D

We did! It really was a great cruise despite the key card glitches.

If your story was not so long I would have thought it was an April fools attempt.

It never occurred to me that anyone would think that. Here are some pics I took for any doubters.

First pic shows "Igors" tools and the partially disassembled lock as he is gone to get a drill.

Second pic shows the lock with three screws removed.

Third pic shows a close up of the stripped out screw.

Our recent cruise on Celebrity Constellation was amazing but after 12 cruises on Carnival without a single battery failure, I believe Carnival has better batteries than Celebrity. My personal justification is in the story below.

 

Shortly after embarkation when my wife first tried to lock our room safe using our agreed upon numerical code it was balky and took a few tries to lock. The next day it refused to lock after accessing the contents and she noticed the display said 'batt' instead of displaying the numbers entered. A call to guest services was made and very shortly somebody came and replaced the batteries and it worked fine the rest of the cruise.

 

Day three was a sea day and that evening we decided to eat at the buffet and then attended a show and took a short walk before returning to our room around 10:30pm. I tried to unlock our door but my key would not work. We tried Teri's key and it would not work. We were locked out.

 

We went from deck 9 down to guest services on deck 3. The young lady was very apologetic and happily made us new key cards. We went back up to deck 9 only to find neither replacement key worked. We went back down to deck 3 and the young lady was again apologetic and proceeded to happily make us new new keys. It was after 10:30pm and I somewhat grumpily said somebody needed to go up with us so we didn't have to go up down the elevator night . The young lady agreed to go up with us, I am sure because she thinks I am incapable of inserting the key correctly to unlock the door and she wants to demonstrate that fact to me.

 

We get to our room and she inserts one of the new new keys and confidently turns the door knob, only to almost break her wrist as the handle refuses to budge. She lets out a slight "hmmm" and tries the other new new key with the same result. She says she has a master key and will use it to let us in. Master keys she is referring to is a physical keys like a house key. She tries to insert that key only to find it doesn't fit. Now she is flustered and I'm tired and a bit more grumpier. She says she will have to go find somebody to open the door and we can just wait happily right there... standing in the hallway... outside our room... at almost 11pm. I'm fixing to let loose (can you imagine that??) when another staff member happens by and she is some kind of floor supervisor or something and the perky young lady from guest services asks her if she can open our door. This person has a master key that actually works and lets us in. But we still can't ever leave our room or we will be locked out. The perky young lady from guest services assures us that "someone from security" will be right up to fix our door tonight.

 

I am surprised when just a few minutes later someone taps on the door and a gentleman in mechanics overalls is standing there telling me he is there to fix the door. There is nothing to indicate he is from security but I'm happy to let him fix it so I can go to bed. I might add he sounds like he is from Russia or some other eastern European country so we will call him "Igor" (not his real name I am sure). "Igor" has a magical device with him that will let him reprogram the electronic lock. He connects his magical device and commences to reprogram the lock. It takes a while for this magical device to work but finally he confidently tries one room key and it still does not work. He tries the other key and it does not work. He makes some funny faces, tries the keys again and they still don't work. He repeats this a couple of times and finally announces he will have to replace the lock and leaves to go get a new lock and more tools. It is now midnight. At midnight carriages turn into pumpkins and I turn even more grumpier. Ask my lovely wife if you don't believe me.

 

"Igor" returns pretty quickly with a handful of door lock parts and some tools. I ask him if this happens often and he tells me he has replaced one lock before. One. Well, at least that is more than none. During this whole episode he does call twice and ask for assistance but is only given advice over the phone, no one comes to assist him despite his specific request. I might add that "Igor" is very pleasant and apologetic about keeping us up so late. He is not at all grumpy. Like I am. After midnight. He proceeds to remove the four screws holding the lock in place. Three screws come out fine and one takes more time... because the screw head strips out. He once again apologizes and says he has to get a drill to remove the offending screw.

 

He leaves and returns pretty quickly with a drill and quickly drills out the bad screw and removes the lock handles. More screws hold the latching part in the edge of the door and he has trouble removing them but finally gets all of the old lock out. He goes to install the replacement lock and... it doesn't fit. The latching part is different. It is well past midnight. I think every bar on the ship is closed. Too bad because "Igor" and I both could use a good stiff drink. "Igor" apologizes again and goes off in search of more parts.

 

He returns fairly quickly. I am impressed with how quickly he can get what he needs and return each time. But I am still grumpy. He finally gets all the parts installed, reprograms the new lock, tries one key and it works! He tries the other key and it does not work. He tries the key that just worked... and it doesn't work. He reprograms the lock, repeats the same work/doesn't work scenario. He tries this a few more times and asks for the "night steward" to be sent to the room so he can try his master key card and see if it works. It seems that "Igor" is trusted with the device that can reprogram any lock on the ship but is not trusted with a master key card. The room steward shows up and his card will not consistently work.

 

"Igor" is clearly frustrated. I am grumpy. It is now 12:30AM. The night steward calmly asks "Igor" if he has tried replacing the batteries in the lock. "Igor" looks at the steward as if he has two heads. Then he removes the top part of the lock, the part where the battery pack is kept. I might add that I watched him replace the lock and the only part he reused from the original lock was the battery pack. "Igor" puts his trusty test meter on the battery pack. After he tested the battery pack batteries started flying all over the place as "Igor" started snatching batteries out and slinging them on the floor. The battery pack holds 5 or 6 batteries. They were flying out so fast I couldn't count them. He installed new batteries, programmed the door... and all the room keys suddenly worked... consistently. "Igor" packed his tools and took off after profusely apologizing for keeping us up so late... until almost 1am. I went to bed. Finally.

 

Unfortunately the story does not end here. The next morning we were in Cozumel. We ate breakfast in the dining room and left the ship for our day at Mr. Sancho's beach club. We had a great day there, returned to the ship, cleaned up and headed to the martini bar (shocking I know). We had a drink package and it was programmed into our card. Rather, it was supposed to be. The bar tender advised us our cards did not work on his scanner when he tried to record the drinks.

 

Fortunately the martini bar is on deck 4 and guest services is on deck 3. I head to guest services with our cards and advise the same perky young lady (she must work 24/7) that our keys would now unlock the door but they didn't work at the bar. She offers to make new keys and I tell her to make sure she doesn't lock us out of our room. I think she is a bit apprehensive about it but makes us new keys anyway.

 

I go back to the martini bar and... the new keys do not work at the bar. I go back to see Ms. Perky and she is very apologetic and asks somebody in an officer's uniform at guest services about our cards and they start pointing at the screen and conversing a bit, and then make me new new new keys. We buy another drink just so we can test them at the martini bar, and for no other reason than to test them of course. They worked. I very apprehensively went up to the room to test them and they both worked... finally!

 

At this point I can only assume that when we were later briefly stuck in the elevator, between floors, with the speaker shouting "power failure", that the elevators are not battery powered but I am not 100% sure. Maybe "Igor" was quicker to test and replace the elevator batteries after our lock episode.

 

The moral of the story is... try replacing the batteries first. Always. Batteries first.

 

In the end, "Igor" was very apologetic and he did eventually resolve our lock problem. Guest services was polite but failed to pay attention to detail in reissuing the multiple versions of key cards. Celebrity never followed up with us about the inconvenience and didn't even give us a free apple for the late night fiasco and subsequent inconvenience.

 

I have never had a battery failure on Carnival. Although I guess one could argue a complete shipwide power failure is slightly worse, but since I wasn't there it doesn't count.

I posted this question and others over on the Key West Board but no one has answered any of my questions there. No one. No one answers quicker than these folks here on the Celebrity board!

 

Am hoping someone can tell me if Key West is flat and good for bicycle rides? I see they rent a lot of bikes, just seeing if it is nice and flat and easy to ride. We have never been there so I have no idea. Bringing our tweens ( 9 and 11) and love to bike but don't want to wear everyone out if it is really hilly.

 

I also wondered if there was a better bike rental place there that would come recommended.

 

Any answers are appreciated. Thanks.

You wil not find a place much flatter than Key West. As others have mentioned, be very careful. Some of the streets are a bit narrow.

I was also on that cruise with a small group of friends. We mainly hung out at the aft outdoor bar and not the main pool area. Mostly for the quiet and the ability to catch up with cruise friends we have not seen in a while. We never saw any of the nonsense others saw, but I did see some of the after affects of single individuals searching for their cabins...LOL

 

That being said, we found the food and the food choices amazing compared to Carnival. The buffet alone is better than Carnivals MDR. although, Carnival is revamping it's MDR menu.

 

We loved the grill station at the rear of the buffet that would grill a ribeye or NY strip to order.

They also offered kabobs, jerk chicken and jerk pork on other nights.

 

The beer & wine station at the front of the buffet was not a bad touch either.

all of the choices there blew away Carnivals bland offerings.

 

We did a group dinner one night in Oceanliners and loved it. We will definitely be going back again. :D

Glad to read this as my wife and I will be on the Constellation in 7 short weeks! We are looking forward to a change after 12 cruises on Carnival (including the one I met my wife on so Carnival can't be all bad! ;)) and one cruise on NCL. We are hoping for a slightly more relaxed atmosphere so we can just "chill" for a few days.

Look who dropped in! Did you miss your landing zone? :p

They allow you to bring a bottle of wine...and there is no way an x-ray machine can tell the difference between a bottle of wine and a bottle of rum, vodka, etc., even if it can detect the bottle. So there is no way they can screen for it.