mauimary

Glad to report I’m happily back in on my iPhone signing in as usual. For the past year I have been having to resign in every time as CC wouldn’t keep me signed in but at least it was easy with a few taps.

This am we updated our IPhone 12 Pro Max with the latest updates and now we are unable to log into CC. Previously every time I was able to hit previous user and my password would appear. Turned off phones and rebooted them. We are however able to log on with both iPads one updated and one not. What is going on? Pretty sure this is not the correct place to ask this but Celebrity cruisers are a very active group! I like to be able to use my phone!

For the cruise immediately after ours for embarkation they did have to check in at one pier and we’re bussed. The rep said the pier where check in was at was not big enough for the Solstice. It was a smaller pier. This whole ordeal was an anomaly. We pd $43 ea direction for Uber. We spent the night before at the Marriott LAX Our return from pier 93 to LAX was also 43$ for the two of us. The problem was if you were close on time we were also competing with Norwegian passengers whose ship was at pier 93 who were still around.

We pd $43.42 dollars to LAX in a Mercedes! For some reason our ride arrived before many of the others. I think by the time we got to terminal 93 many of the earlier Norwegian passengers had already been picked up so it was not too overly crazy! Busy yes.

We booked select dining online. If you want to go at the most popular times it might be best to reserve ahead of time. We dine early so we booked early 6-6:30 ea night. When we decided to change a dining room we just showed up and they got us right in. For those that do not have Select they were assigned to one of the dining rooms.

No announcements on C. We have been on four cruises in the last year (Europe Alaska and twice to Mexico) as well as a land trip involving trains in Europe we have not gotten Covid. We are also very careful. We are boosted to the max. This particular cruise was really fun and our weather was perfect.

Folks withWheel chair and scooters and walkers had their own handicap smaller bus. The reason we had to do this is because both Princess and Norwegian had use of the main piers at San Pedro. We were told they had seniority. We were at a sort of makeshift pier #46. For those with early flights you need to let them know as no one could do walk off. They will place you in a earlier group. We did not get called until nearly 9:30. Then you get in a long line to clear Immigration in the dining room then another long line to walk down a very steep plank from deck 4. Then the two busses one to get luggage and place it on another bus and finally down to Pier 93 where taxi and Uber cars are. At this point we then competed with the Norwegian passengers. We made it to LAX @apx 1145! Needless to say a process and hopefully it’s not like this all the time. Our flight was not until 2p hence the reason for our late group #28.

Thank you OrcaGirl for your review. We too we’re on this cruise so it was fun to read of your experiences. You have a good way with words. Sounds like you did a variety of excursions so really enjoyed your honest take on them. You two really know how to have fun. Mike and Ron who are asking about masks and coughing. Yes there was some coughers but not a lot. Very few wearing masks. No requests to wear them by staff or Capt. We are very cautious so purposely kept ourselves out of crowds. Even had our own corner in the Theatre by ourselves and we’re one of the last to leave. There was one guy who we particularly noticed so stayed well clear of him. Would see him at El Bacio. Unfortunately today through all the chaos of disembarking and on and off again shuttle buses just to get to where we could get an Uber we found ourselves several rows behind the cougher who made no effort to protect anyone else. We made sure we wore masks on those busses. Others got them out and put them on. Fingers crossed 🤞 Several years ago we did the Airport transfer excursion Timekiller. Got a glimpse of Rodeo Drive. Ended up costing us a 50$ taxi to get back to LAX from Santa Monica! Make sure you have a really late in the afternoon flight!!

We already had this cruise booked as part of a side by side. Saved us 900$ on a sunset veranda.

We did RT Hawaii years ago on RCCL out if LA. Turned out to be one of our fav cruises. Many folks like ourselves do it for all the sea days. Seas we’re quite smooth. Granted you do not spend much time in the Islands. You really need a land trip there. We definitely would do it again. Bring it on Celebrity!!

We were on the Beyond in July. Several nights we had no dining room reservations so we just showed up early by apx 6p and walked right in and we’re seated at a lovely table by the window. Since the Beyond has four dining rooms you can move among them. Each one has their own menu. Some selections are common to all four. We found ourselves going back and forth between Tuscan Restaurant and Normandie Restaurant.

I thought the title of this thread was How to save on drinks W/O a drink pkg? This thread has gotten way off topic. We have had drink pkgs in the past but on this next cruise next week we have decided to go at it with no perks. So no drinks other than Elite Happy Hour. We did however purchase the non alcohol pkg for coffees teas and water. We will cover off our tips. We are Elite so will settle with those benefits and purchase what we would like. We are trying this out to see if it can work for us. We are planning to maybe take one bottle of wine but in the past we have dragged that back home. So May not do that. Nice to hear how others are making this work for them w/o an alcohol pkg. 🍻 cheers

I hear you saying that there is only one Secrurity Scanner and that is used for the entire airport both for flights within Europe and for those flights that are headed to destinations beyond Europe. We were under the impression everyone in our super long que was headed for destinations with Europe.

Robin thank you for reporting back. Sounds much better than our fiasco in July. Hoping like you say back to the US is less complicated than flying within Europe. We did not have to check luggage and we couldn’t enter the que for security prior to four hrs! The whole ordeal was exhausting. We are repeating this process in mid Dec and have no status other than comfort plus on Delta tickets. We did learn flying back to the US from Barcelona that we needed the other check in machine as well. Hoping we have the same experience you did.

We just hang on to them and take a few with us when we travel. Will take several with us on a Mexico cruise in a few weeks. We have to be extra careful as we have foreign travel coming up a few weeks after.