sammyboots

I'm pretty sure you cant do that on Celebrity. Everyone in the same cabin has to have the drinks package, they won't allow just one person so that it isn't shared.

Hi, unfortuntately you're not able to share a drinks package, you will both have to buy one if you want a package. If you're not big drinkers, it's not worth buying in my opinion though. there will be tea/coffee making facilities in your room and free tea/coffee, water etc in the buffet area you can access. I've done the crossing many times and it can be varied, we usually pack layers and a waterproof. They usually offer a laundry bag option, fit as much as you can into a laundry bag for a wash, dry and fold (note not ironed) for a reasonable price also after a few days on board. I'm sure you will have a wonderful trip!

We sail both Celebrity and Cunard amongst others. One of my favourite things about Cunard is the afternoon tea, it really is a special event. You can go to the Queen's Room and have staff wait on you there with tea, warm scones, jam and clotted cream, sandwiches and cake, or else go to the buffet or even have afternoon tea deivered to your cabin. I personally find the food in the dining room better than the main dining room food on Celebrity, I realise this is dependent on ship, staff and many other factors but so far, it's how we've found it. We have a Celebrity cruise coming up in a few weeks and a Cunard one in September so it will be good to compare when so close together!

Yes that's the norm. What happens is that they will eventually go to either expired or bid accepted. Or sometimes all but one of the bids will come up as expired and one is left as pending, usually this is a good sign that your bid will be accepted. However they can stay as pending for weeks.

Yes they still provide kettles in the cabin and I've often seen folk take soft drinks on board.

I'dcheck out the roll call, there might be some helpful info on there or someone that can help you. Enjoy your cruise

I also love Regent, I think Oceania is a notch above Celebrity and Regent is a notch above Oceania.

The QM2 is indeed a wonderful ship to do a TA crossing on and I loved the experience I had when we sailed on her. The crossing takes only seven nights though ( it used to be six back in the day when I did my first TA on the QE11) and many of us, myself included, prefer a TA that takes in a few ports on the way and over a longer period. A transpacific was probably one of my favourites from LA to Sydney, love the at sea days interspaced with a few ports of call over 17 nights, bliss!😊 Going back to the discussion on Celebrity vs Oceania, we took a couple of TAs on Oceania, one from Rio to Barcelona and the other from Miami to Barcelona and absolutely loved it. We take more Celebrity cruises than any other cruiseline but given the choice, as much as I love Celebrity, I’d choose Oceania every time. I prefer the smaller ships and the “can do” attitude of the staff. The food was very good although I’d personally dispute the best at sea that they claim, more Luminae ( which we love) than main dining room Celebrity. It’s made me think I need to check out their future itineraries again!😆

Charleston would’ve been amazing, fabulous place! Those of us living in the UK would particularly have enjoyed a port either Stateside or in the Caribbean. Lisbon is a beautiful city but not what we’d hoped for.

Thankfully none of the above, he’s a keeper for sure, door slammer or not!😂

I agree. My husband seems incapable of closing a door quietly whether at sea or at home, drives me mad. 🙄😆

Pretty sure it says you will be informed at least 2 days before sail date so I'm assuming you should find out today, let us know how you get on, fingers crossed for you!

Sounds like you were in the same position as we were. The area we went to is a similar time journey to Murano and I’d recommend it. If you haven’t been to Venice before of course you’ll want to see the main tourist attractions but if you’re short of time and just wish to have a lovely wander over pretty bridges, watch the gondolas go by and enjoy a coffee or a lovely lunch, I’d recommend getting off at Dell’Orto. The whole hassle of our flights changing from direct to then going via Frankfurt, an early drop off at the airport and what turned into over nine hours until our flight resulted in us not getting home until 2am. I can’t say it will encourage me to book a cruise leaving from Trieste again but… if it ends up like childbirth and a distant memory, I’d definitely take a trip into Venice again rather than spend a long time twiddling our thumbs at the airport. 😊

We found it very easy to navigate the various options available to get to Venice by boat. The prices, including a speed boat option, are clearly written and the staff were very helpful giving us a written timetable to take away with the times even highlighted for us. For anyone not in a hurry, ie planning to stay over, the bus is an even cheaper option but whenever we’ve travelled from the airport to Venice, by boat seems the most fun and practical.

We felt we needed to factor that in with our timings incase it ended up being busy. We ended up having a while to wait for our flight ( which was delayed until 7.30pm in the end!) but you just never know and I prefer to err on the side of caution.

We did a return ticket water bus for around 27 euros which worked very well. They ran fairly regularly and we had the timetable with us. We got off at the first stop at dell’Orto and walked around the Cannaregio area where we found restaurant Diane which I would highly recommend. We originally planned to get off at Rialto to begin with but we decided to take the first stop as I ( not my husband!) was worried about timings. It all worked incredibly well though. Check in at the airport took us around 20 mins and the same for security.

Well we decided to go into Venice after all. We arrived early at the airport, 10.15am and our flight wasn’t until 18.20 so we took our luggage to the left luggage office and then got straight into a water taxi into Venice. We enjoyed a lovely walk around and had the best lunch of the week. Returned in time to check in without any rush, so much better than spending hours just sitting in an airport. 😊

Thanks, that sounds an absolute pain for you. Our outward flight was fine but the return cancelled the day before we left to join the ship. It was rearranged with a different airline and with another stop en route which is a pain. We were told it was this flight or we were welcome to cancel and book our own flights instead! Not too big a deal but not the nice straightforward flight home we had planned.

Thank you VMax1700 and Torquer for your replies. We originally had an earlier flight back but our flight has been cancelled and we are now booked onto a much later flight. This has all been booked through HAL including transfers which they have given us fairly early so we’re just trying to consider options. Staying over isn’t an option as the flights are not organised by us. We’d already seen there was a left luggage facility and researched that VCE takes 75 minutes at times just to get through security never mind check in. The airline we’ve been changed to has several flights operating over the day so we are now considering asking if there’s availability on the afternoon flight instead. Worth a try. Thanks again for your replies.

Can anyone tell us of their experience of checking in their luggage at Venice airport and then heading into either Venice or Murano for an afternoon please?

Thank you for your posts, we are due to sail on the Oosterdam in two weeks time. I have very much enjoyed reading through your posts and the information you have provided.