Martha1974

My parents are sailing on Balmoral in September. Dad is now in his 80s and starting to get slightly disoriented in new environments. In order for him to get out and about round the ship I was going to suggest they decorate the door of the cabin so he can recognise it easily (nothing flashy, just a couple of fridge magnets or such). For those of you that are regular FO travellers could you let me know if this would be possible / acceptable / frowned upon?

The last cruise we did my husband took 5 white t-shirts to wear with shorts during the day (on a 7 day cruise) - by day 4 he was paranoid that everyone thought he was still wearing the same one. 😂 Our project before the next cruise in October is to find some more distinctive ones that he likes (he doesn’t do patterns/logos) so people will know he’s been changing them!

Thank you for your excellent and well-balanced report. We are new to Celebrity too and have checked in today for our cruise on the Equinox in 6-weeks. It seems to be the same ports as yours but not in the same order, so all the information you have provided has been super-useful. It’s always reassuring to hear when the answer to ‘would you do it another one?’ is Yes!

Following - this itinerary is definitely on our list (hopefully for 2026) so really looking forward to your report

@Dorset cruise fan DH and I are about to do our first Celebrity cruise (in October) and I have pre-purchased a bag of ‘wash & fold’ laundry through the app. It is showing on-board price of £45 and a 18% discount if pre-purchased. Laundry services are listed under ‘gifts & gear’ in the Celebrity app and there are various options. (BTW we have sailed Princess and Ambassador previously so are also used to having access to self-service.) I hope you enjoy your first Celebrity experience 😀

I was always taught that you need cutlery (silverware) for High Tea but Afternoon Tea can be eaten with fingers (apart from something to add the cream and jam to the scones of course, but let's not open up that debate).

My husband and I are taking our first cruise with Celebrity in October 2024 (Barcelona to Rome on Equinox). We've booked with All Included (I think that's the name of the package) which includes the Classic drinks package but have already decided that we will upgrade to Premium.. Do any of you knowledgeable Celebrity regulars know if there are likely to be any flash sales coming up? Black Friday will obviously be too late, and I know we've just missed one - I did well with some savings on dining etc but we hadn't decided to upgrade at that point. I don't want to go ahead and do it now if there's a chance of a better deal in a month or two's time. TIA

HI Roz, we're based in the UK and have sailed on Princess out of Southampton a couple of times. We can't get the medallion mailed to us ahead of time but we've never had to wait more than 2-3 minutes for it in the terminal before boarding (just to reassure you that, you're right, it's no biggie 🙂). I've also always had a printed copy of the boarding pass plus a screenshot saved to my phone but have never been asked to show either of them in Southampton - we just presented our passports and that was enough. I hope your experience is the same.

Definitely one on Ambience (Deck 10) - have used it a couple of times. There was a lovely attendant (can’t remember her name, it was a while ago) and she kindly offered to swap our laundry from the washer to the dryer so we only needed to collect it when it was finished. Haven’t sailed on Ambition yet so can’t confirm for that, I’m afraid.

We've purchased OBC in advance twice in the past (and will be doing so before our next Princess Cruise too). It showed up in the Cruise Summary as a purchase until we boarded and after that it showed up as refundable OBC on our on-board account - we weren't able to use it to book excursions etc in advance, but we were able to have anything we hadn't used refunded as cash before the end of the cruise so that we could tip our cabin steward (and others) in dollars (we're based in the UK and were sailing in Europe so that was much cheaper than getting USD from a currency exchange to take with us).

Thanks everyone for your comments, and sorry not to reply sooner. We've decided we're going to give it a try. Going to pass on the AirTags this time (we'll just make sure we've got a change of clothes and swimwear in the hand luggage and split our clothes across both cases so we'll both at least have something to wear!) but definitely thinking about investing in them in the future 🙂 PS @dronnygirl have seen on another thread that you're due on the Sky Princess soon (if not already). Hope you have a fabulous time - we've sailed on her twice and love her!

Oh my goodness, nearly $500 for a kettle - not sure there are many Brits who would be paying that much. 🤣 I think $50 would be nearer the mark for most people.

We're sailing with Marella next month and are flying from Manchester at about 8:00am. The information I've received says that we can drop off our cases between 14:00 and 21:00 the day before we fly, which we're very tempted to do. We'll be staying at the Premier Inn and it would be great just to take hand luggage into the hotel without worrying about leaving cases in the car. However, this is also the first time we've flown with more that just carry-on luggage in about 6 years and I'm worrying that we'll drop the cases off early and never see them again! So my question is this - has anybody used the day-before drop-off service (either at Manchester or anywhere else) and how did you find it?

We sailed with Ambassador last year and had a stop in Kirkwall on the way to Iceland. There was an interesting variety of excursions available (Skara Brae etc) but we opted for one that included the Italian Chapel and the Churchill Barriers. It was a morning excursion including a stop for refreshments (scones with jam and cream and beautiful homemade shortbread) and we were back at the ship in time for some lunch and then took the shuttle into Kirkwall for a walk around in the afternoon. I can't remember the cost but I'm sure it won't have been expensive (maybe £40-ish per person).

Definitely still doing the rounds in this part of the world - husband and I both tested positive on Saturday. He’d been suffering longer than I had and he was clear again by the time we tested again yesterday but I’m still positive. Really cross with myself as I’ve managed to avoid it so far, but four years in it’s finally got me!

We often use them on a port day if we don't have an excursion and can stay on the ship until mid-morning. Usually call into the laundry to start the wash on our way up to the buffet for breakfast then call on the way back to the cabin to swap everything from the washer to the dryer. Down to the IC for a coffee and that fills the time until the dryer is finished, than take everything back to the cabin and off the ship for our port day. Usually off the ship by 10am and missing the rush at the gangway.

Cielo would be our first choice too (although I’d be perfectly happy with either of the others). We usually stop for a pre-dinner drink at the Crown Grill bar and when finished I get my glass of wine to take down the aft staircase with me. Have never had to queue for a table (for context we sail in Europe and eat at 7:30) and have always been able to get a 2-top without feeling overcrowded by the tables around us. Usually do 3-4 courses and can be in and out in less than 90 mins.

When we sailed on Sky Princess ex-Southampton last September there was also a US to UK adaptor already plugged into one of the outlets above the desk. We wondered if it had been left by a passenger and missed by the cabin steward, but then found a card stating that it was provided for our convenience and there would be a $25 charge if we took it home! Never seen that before so not sure if it is now standard practice.

Following, and really looking forward to this Live - we're on our first Celebrity cruise on Equinox in October so trying to find out as much as I can about the ship ahead of time.

I was thinking exactly the same! A Villa Maria Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t feel particularly ‘premium’ to me (it’s my go-to in our local Wetherspoons!), particularly compared with the Cloudy Bay that we were served on Princess last month.

I have no experience of this with Marella (at least not yet) but we’re recently off a Princess ship (with a drink package) and we weren’t charged any extra but the daily programme stated that any drinks that were being charged to an on-board account while in Spain would have the additional tax added. Sounds like individual lines are handling this differently.

We didn’t use Vines on our Sky cruise in September (too busy and could never get a seat) but I had no problem getting Whispering Angel in the Crown Grill bar which we used on several occasions. Got a very nice Cloudy Bay in there too!

I have found that the web-site version of DMW will let me do things that I can’t do in the app version, (like booking Speciality dining with Princess Premier credits and not charging my credit card!) but as we don’t do ‘TD-style’ dining I haven’t tried to do same time / same MDR for the whole cruise. sorry @CaptainPedantic - looks like we cross-posted!

DH and I were quoted $350 on embarkation day for a 50 minute couples deep-tissue massage on Sky Princess last week (for the treatment to be booked for a port day). We didn’t go ahead with the booking so I’m not sure if the $350 included the 18% grat or if that would have been added on top.

Following - we were on Sky Princess last September and are boarding again Sept 16 this year so interested to know what might be the same or different (other than new charges for RS/Ocean Now etc) and what the productions shows etc are at the moment