Arizona Wildcat

One last time and then am moving on. Proctored testing companies do not know where you are. They also do not care. Thus they do not know what day you are taking the test. Because of the date line it is often Sunday in the US but Monday in Australia etc. I am happy that Abbot knows

The sirloin steak was actually not tough. Again it was about 3/16" thick.

The problem is the flowers have pollen and can have seeds and especially insects that are not visible. They can get transferred and transported. Lots of restrictions on plants. It is not a fleetwide ban. It is specific to various ports, but more and more countries are putting restrictions in place.

Jwlane- you don't seem to understand. When you take a test if the testing company uses GMT then if I test at 9pm on Wednesday in Colorado the test will be labeled at 4am on Thursday by the proctoring company and good for a Satuday cruise. The testing companies date stamp as if you are actually in the UK using the local time there. They do not care or know where you are or your local time.

Really. What is important is that Beyond cruising in the Med has much easier access to staff and was fully staffed when it started cruising. Now some months later Celebrity lost a large number of staff because of them needing a US visa to be able to get off the ship. Very similar to Summit who had some 250 staff who left the round trip TA to Iceland because they lacked EU visas and would not be allowed off ship for 4 weeks. Service was slow to very slow when Summit left Bayonne and improved steadily as time passed. The big issue on Summit was poor cabin service. We were fortunate to have a long term veteran others had newbies. Again a question, if Beyond had a large number of experienced crew leave/not arrive due to visa issues; would it help much to have a bartender (as was commented on several times) who did not know how to make drinks or a cabin attendant just learning their job. The PPV and internet issues have been explained by others. We have a very unhappy passenger who outlined several problems. As I do not drink martinis cannot comment on that. The staffing issue not rubbish. I would be interested in the comments of others on board.

There are lots of threads with hundreds of posts about exactly what you are asking. As for embarkation and disembarking without knowing where you are cruising and what type of cabin nobody could answer. What I do know is Celebrity is a quieter and older group that doesn't tolerate the booze cruise atmosphere I experienced twice on Carnival. The longer the cruise the older the cruisers and fewer children. No rock climbing walls or the such.

Where are you cruising? I now see you are mid Atlantic. Internet there is difficult at best. Sorry. Again not Celebrity's fault. They can only use those few satellites in place in an area of normally low usage. Internet and PPV issues are connected. You are experiencing exactly what others sadly have reported in all forms of travel. People have resumed travel in all modes in huge numbers. They have not returned to work. Whether your local doctor who cannot hire back office staff, motels who cannot get staff to clean rooms and obviously cruiselines who have an even harder job of getting staff with the airline and visa processing mess. What is different with cruises is passengers booked months or years ago. Thus to get the passenger staff in balance what would you suggest they do? They cannot click their fingers and have trained staff appear so. . . the only solution would be cancell maybe 200 cabins. That would put things in balance on board but not so nice for your holiday. The could simply stop taking new bookings but how much would this help for the rest of 2022? What do you suggest to solve the problem? Remember that staffing shortages are not going away any time soon and are beyond the control of the cruiseline.

Cookbook = Just OK. The restaurant in NYC was excellent. Comparing buffet to $150 for dinner? Easy as I've me a piece of fish lightly grilled along with some veggies collected nearby and I am very very happy. Lots of better places to spend $150. As given the dinner on board. Restaurant was miles better.

Go with your friends as already said. One cruise on X does not commit you to cruise on X again. You will have a good time

The three proctored test companies I have used all use GMT. Thus if you take a test at 0001GMT it will show the exact day of the test. If you took the test at 2359 it would show the prior day. It does matter as to how the proctoring company date stamps the test. You will need to ask as they are not all the same because the Date/Day might be different where you take the test. For example in Australia it is now Friday while only Thursday in mainland USA.

Not on Summit in August.

After three attempts totalling 3 hours I simply called Princess. While I was on the phone looking at the app he entered all the data and uploaded the required photos. Took 15 minutes. The app was as bad as the one at Celebrity!

Because you are willing to do what is right.

I love a good pun. Sorry

What is your point? LOL. You would disembark at the end of your cruise unless in a port that did not allow that. I am aware of only a very few.

Same year round. Very warm/humid. In tropical climates I always wear long sleeve cotton shirts and lightweight pants or Bermuda shorts and a hat. The sun is brutal. High about 88-90 and lows mid 70s at 5am. Humidity same as high temp. Cartagena about the same or a bit warmer.

My DW taught special needs children for almost 30 years. Hope her contribution is valued by you as well.

I book business domestic seats directly with the airlines. International always use a different consolidator that I cannot mention here who handles only business seats. FBC does mostly coach. Not enough business seat volume to buy blocks and discount.

Interesting.

Certainly is not for everyone. Have never been told we could not eat in the MDR. You sound unhappy about missing the Concierge lunch, but knew that when you accepted the upgrade.

You do need an enhanced driver's license. It will say valid for Federal Identification.

Turn down service in the evening? Nice but not necessary. Chocolates on my pillow - required for me. Happy to make thing easy for our attendant. Just drop off Chocolates and clean towels in the evening.

And we have tried a suite. Luminae and Blu were comparable to us. Retreat was nice but very happy in Aqua. A bigger cabin not a big deal to us.

PS - an email is fastest and we have gotten a response within about 10 days all but once in some 20 cruises.

Excellent suggestion.