Steve_MI

Thank you all for your help. While I certainly hope the requirement changes, this is Australia we are talking about so I won’t hold my breath. Thanks again. 

We have a Celebrity cruise out of Sydney later this year. Assuming the same protocols are in place, Celebrity says that they accept a photo of a negative self-administered rapid antigen test. Does anyone have any experience with submitting a photo? Does it have to be timestamped in some specific fashion? 

Thanks in advance. 

Thinking of booking a celebrity cruise from Sydney to the South Pacific islands, but I can’t tell if their mask requirement is still in place. The website for Australia cruises is somewhat cryptic:

”All guests should wear a mask while traveling through the terminal and in public indoor spaces or crowded outdoor spaces onboard”

What does “should” mean? Is this a recommendation or a requirement?

UPDATE. Well, the cruise is over. In some ways it was better than I expected, in other ways it was worse. 

First, the (comparatively) good: There was a minimal number of kids on board and the ones that were there were pretty well behaved. I didn't see any children running around unsupervised causing a problem. Also, no drunken disturbances, fights, or outrageous rowdiness by anyone on board (although we never did go to the nighttime deck party or the night club). The Celebration being such a new ship, it was pretty nice and in pristine shape. I must say that this part was better than I had expected. 

Now, the disappointment: food and food/drink service. Yuck. I didn't have very high expectations here, but I have to say that Carnival still managed to disappoint. The MDR was a joke. The food was like something out of a hospital cafeteria, and the service was abysmal. Our drink orders took forever and were usually wrong (or substituted do to inventory). Any cocktails ordered in the MDR or pool deck were horrible. This includes the saddest espresso martini I have ever seen. While the MDR staff was slow, at least they were pleasant. The same could not be said for virtually any other place we ate aside from the one night we did the steakhouse (which was actually very good and reasonably priced). 

The biggest turnoff for us (other than the food) was the overall vibe. Carnival calls themself the "Fun" ship, but I have very different ideas of what constitutes "fun" than they do. The ship was very crowded, and we found the packed deck parties and constant commotion, obnoxious music, and whooping/hollering from the other passengers to be nothing short of annoying. We spent the majority of our time outside up in the Loft 19 area, which was decent but lacked a bar, conventional pool, or any sort of eating area. 

I'm not going to disparage the other passengers or comment on demographics, etc., but I will say that there were noticeable differences between this crowd and what we are sued to on Celebrity. I won't say that it was a "problem"...but it was noticeable and awkward at times. 

All in all, it was an acceptable time. We were there with friends, and that made a big difference. Had it just been the two of us, I would certainly have had a much worse time. Carnival is just not for us and I can't imagine that I would ever sail with them again. 

30 minutes ago, asalligo said:

Wow, your only experience is Celebrity and did you like cruising Celebrity? Embrace the fun because frankly that is all Carnival does better than Celebrity. No way to sugar coat it, everything else is going to be a lesser experience, but hay it should have been much cheaper. 

 

 

We absolutely love Celebrity: the food is amazing; the ships are immaculate; the drinks are included; and it’s a polite, respectful crowd. We’ve never seen any drama on a Celebrity cruise - no belligerent drunks, no fights, no crass/obnoxious behavior. 
 

We are only doing this CCL cruise because we’re going with some good friends. Oddly enough, it’ll be our most expensive cruise we’ve ever taken since we booked a suite (and a near top-of-the-line one at that) so that we’d have ample room to escape if the crowd was just too much for us. We’ve never even booked a suite on Celebrity! 

Lots of great feedback - thank you CCers!  
 

We certainly prefer the premium experience when we vacation, and I think that’s what attracted us to Celebrity. Like others, we’ve heard the negative opinions of Carnival and we’ve seen the videos of fights, foolish behavior, etc. and just sort shuddered. 
 

I’ll take the advice to have an open mind (admittedly a challenge) and try it out. I will say I just hate the whole drinks-not-included thing though and having to shell out almost $1k for a drink package. 

We’ve only ever cruised with Celebrity before and are heading out on Carnival Celebration with friends. We really love Celebrity and don’t know what to expect. Any thoughts, tips, or pointers?

3 minutes ago, Native Floridian 26 said:

Easy.  MSC commonly has passengers embark and disembark at multiple ports.  It's the same cruise. I believe it's called interporting.  When it gets to a port, some people join and others leave.  Just look at the maps of the itineraries and it's easy to see.  Now if the cruise had the same dates from the different ports, that would be a problem.  DIfferent dates, different ports, no problem at all.

 

We're taking Armonia in October and had the choice of getting on at Venice, Brindisi, Athens, etc.

Ahhh ok this makes sense. Thank you so much for the info. It seems MSC really is different. I'm used to Celebrity so this should be interesting. 

Hoping someone can help me out. Several sites (including MSC's own site) show an 8 night cruise on the Seashore on 12/27/22 RT Salvador and also on 12/30/22 RT Santos (Sao Paulo). I've searched around quite a bit and can't determine which one is actually correct. I've never sailed MSC but I know enough not to bother calling them. Does anyone have any input?

Thanks in advance!

21 minutes ago, Virginia100 said:

I canceled 6 days ago, in part because I thought the mask policy would change. No mask indoors in Virginia for quite some time so doing it on board a cruise with significant $ spent was always a no go. Just too uncomfortable for me personally.

I agree. I’m on the apex now (final night) and this would have been a miserable experience if I had to wear a mask on board. I cancelled three 2022 bookings on NCL after they reinstated their mask mandate and I had planned to shift them to Celebrity but I’m going to hold off until mid-February to see how this plays out. 
 

Yes there is. They have a variety of apple products. 

The one thing that is kind of sad is people are noticeably less social to others from different parties. We’ve seen very few interactions between couples & groups who obviously aren’t together. I assume it’s fear of quarantine if someone tests positive. 

3 minutes ago, njkate said:

Only problem I'd have with that is cost. I looked if I moved my Hawaii/Tahiti from May to October and cost has more then doubled. I'm not paying over 13K for an Oceanview room when I only paid 6200K when I booked for May. Alaska you may luck out on pricing

Very good point. I think Alaska will be very similar cost and availability, especially for mid-May. Hawaii is a a whole different story. 

We are cancelling our Alaska trip in May on the Sun due to the mask policy. If they drop it, we’ll rebook. When speaking to NCL on the phone two weeks ago the agent said she was pretty sure masks were here to stay for quite a long time. 

1 hour ago, davekathy said:

Are masks optional in all the public areas? 

So far yes, thankfully. 

This ship is absolutely incredible!

We made it on. We were the only younger people that needed to do that. Lol. 

Yeah it says it's closed for online check in. I just want to be sure that in these weird times they actually will let me check in at the terminal and not consider us a no-show. 

It's a classic case of "I thought YOU check us in!!"

Sailing on the Apex tomorrow from FLL. What happens now that I'm not checked in?

2 hours ago, Nado44 said:

We board APEX tomorrow for the NYE sailing. Will pop in and leave an update or two.

Us too!

I have my first X cruise next week and had a quick (possibly stupid) question: does Celebrity test all/random passengers on board, or only those identified as close contacts to a positive case (or have symptoms)?

Thanks and sorry if this should have been known already. 

Ok so I just hung up with NCL. I cancelled my upcoming Feb and May sailings. The agent said that they were informed that, at present, masks will be required on all sailings through Jan 31, 2022. She also said that when they asked mgmt whether this will be extended beyond that date, the answer was "almost certainly". They are not changing their cancellation timeframe back to 60 days, either. 

So there you have it. 

22 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

This is unfortunate for many but not unexpected.  Once the face mask policy was implemented there was no way NCL would back peddle for cruises after this weekend. Reversing the policy would open up more liability. I believe Masks are here to stay on NCL until all Covid precautions are cancelled. I suspect that will be nearing 2023. 

I'm afraid you are probably right. We have almost $20K in NCL travel booked over then next 14 months. This is going to take me a week to cancel everything - cruises, flights, hotels. Ugh. 

8 minutes ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

GEEZE... something this important and they didn't get a proof reader?

 

I believe that should read 'can be achieved". 

 

Or reword that second line completely to eliminate the double negative.

FOllowing Exceptions: When physically distanced outdoors

 

Someone at NCL should be reading carefully and slowly 

 

 

I assume they are too busy dealing with mass cancellations....lol

Sad. Very sad. On hold now cancelling my February and May sailings.