Winemyst

I have booked and paid for a non-refundable flight through flights by celebrity. If I cancel the cruise, do those flights still belong to me? or does the cancelling of the cruise cancel the flights? 

One of our family recently received a diagnosis that will require daily meds that must be stored in the refrigerator. This is new territory for us. I think I’ve figured out how to transport it on an overseas flight with a cooler, and now I must figure out the cruise and hotels. For those with similar needs, what do you do on the cruise? Do you use the minibar fridge? How do you handle hotels? My experience in some hotels is that the fridge is not that cold. 

Our hotels are in Rome and Venice, if any one has any specific experience there. And we are sailing on an M class ship in a family veranda, if that makes a difference

51 minutes ago, villauk said:

 

 

Aren’t they supposed to be where the new Sunset Suites are?  According to the X website, available for booking from 2020 on Connie?

 

https://www.celebritycruises.com/gb/things-to-do-onboard/staterooms/suite-class/sunset-suite

 

 

I thought so to, but the deck plans online show from May 26 2020 to April 3 2021 they are family verandas. Best guess is they will be designated sunset suites for all sailings after April 3 2021

I was very happy with the response from celebrity. We were contacted via email that our veranda cabin no longer slept 4. We were moved to a midship veranda, and after I inquired we were able to get corner family veranda for a slight upcharge. I am super excited. 

Fairly certain we will be moved.  Our veranda  cabin now shows at occupancy 2, and we are family of 4

We do Christmas tree ornaments. Its always fun to decorate the tree each year and pull out all those memories.

10 hours ago, rimmit said:

There are people on every cruise ship that do not like kids,  but we have only had a handful of incidents over the years.   This includes RCI, which imo if you go on a boat that is a floating amusement park,  I am sorry,  but there will be kids.  Period.  Pick a different boat if you don’t want to be around Kids.

I once was scolded for having my kids in a shop at Disney's Magic Kingdom.  

We have booked our second celebrity cruise (first with kids) for next summer in Europe. The kids have sailed RC, DCL and MSC. We have also done land vacations in Europe. Of the seven plus sailings they have done we learned they like the smaller, less crowed kids clubs; they like slides, and they love playing UNO or other card games with us.  So when we decided on a Med cruise, we had to make the choice between a cruise with slides or one without. Ultimately, we decided that if we went on a cruise ship with all those bells and whistles (i.e. slides, rock climbing, ice skating etc) we would have a hard time getting them excited about seeing the sights in Europe. Since exposing our kids to history and culture, different foods and languages etc is important to us, we decided on a smaller ship this time. Sure, they will miss the water slides, but they are already excited about the kids club and seeing places they have read about in books.  If we were doing another Caribbean cruise, we would have picked a cruise line with all the extras kids love.  For us KSF didn't make the overall cost less, but it did allow us to reprice and move from an inside cabin to a veranda. So really, it was not the reason we chose celebrity

I got the VIP photo card. We went the first day to pick up the card and link it to room card. I tried to give the photographers the VIP photo card but they all refused it and would only take the room card. Throughout the week I checked the photo kiosks and the photos were on both the VIP photo card and room key. However when we returned they did not show up the photo website. About half appeared 5 days later and the others appeared after I emailed about it. The only picture we never received was the one on the pier in Antigua

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I think our email came a couple days after I requested

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Oh I forgot to mention. For those with kids when you board you register your kids for a wristband but you have to separately register them for the kids club.

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Where did you find lattes?! The bartender told us to go to the Seaside lounge and the lounge server told us to go to Venchi, but warned that the only coffee treats on board anywhere would be chocolate.

We had bought the coffee cuddle vouchers and ended up making our own "lattes" in the buffet with regular milk.

Lost in translation?

My husband got the lattes at the bar in the atrium. They were small lattes though. He also grabbed pastries and donuts too.

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MSC cruise review

Last year my parents took our kids on the MSC Divina. TheyLOVED it. The kids (at that time age 3 and 6) came back raving about the kidsclub and begging to go on the MSC seaside. We decided to look at all cruiselines the week of spring break 2018 and compare prices. We looked at 7 night cruises NCL, Royal,Carnival, Celebrity, Princess going from any of the Florida ports and priced anoceanview room on all of them for a family of four. MSC was half theprice of the others. This is mainly because our kids sale free on MSC. So webooked an Oceanview Fantastica cabin on the Seaside. Now to be fair, aroundSeptember/October 2017 I found a 9 night cruise inside cabin on Royal for about the same price for the same week. Igave the kids the choice and they picked MSC Seaside because of the slides.

Now with the Fantasica experience we had the 12 drinkvouchers. Pre-cruise we booked the water package, wine package (7 bottles atdinner), VIP photo card and a spa package. We had no idea what wine was included and the spa package seemed toogood to be true ( 3 massages and week pass to thermal area for $249.) Thedescriptions were vague for almost all the packages so we were hoping for thebest and prepared to be disappointed.

In the days leading up to the cruise I read so many reviewsand started to worry that we would be disappointed. We are pretty easy goingtravelers and love Europe. It seemed like people liked the ship but there werelimited sun loungers and the food sucked. Now as background I have sailed NCL, Carnival (Liberty and can’tremember the other), Royal (Allure, Sovereign, Navigator), Disney (Dream),Celebrity (Equinox), the Big red boat (yep that’s right), and NCL (sorry can’tremember which ship). We typically avoid the buffet except for lunch, andmainly eat in the MDR. I would say the worst food I experienced was on NCL MDR,but the specialty restaurants were excellent. Every other ship was good to average,nothing to complain about. Celebrity’s food was excellent and we ate the Indianfood in the buffet every day for lunch.

Okay so arrival day – embarkation went smoothly, no issues.When we arrived we realized that it was the Miami Dolphins cruise. At first Iwas a bit nervous that they would take over the cruise, but we barely sawthem. Drinks coupons arrived in room. Wehad 24 alcoholic drinks coupons, 24 non-alcoholic coupons, water bottlecoupons, and wine coupons. This was justthe right amount for us. We used the kids non-alcoholic drinks coupons forlatte’s in the morning and then the kids shared the rest. As some of you mayrecall, I posted earlier that we received a 9:45pm dining time. That was notgoing to work for us. At first they told us there was nothing they could do,then we were told we could always eat in the buffet. I’m usually pretty easygoing but my 4 year old was not eating dinner at 9:45pm and I was not eating inthe buffet all week. Once they realizedwe were not going away, we were assigned an earlier dining time. Whew.

Food­- we found the service in the main dining roomto be good. It was efficient and moved quickly (they had 2 more seatings to getin that night so they had to move fast). The food was average cruise food in myopinion. Some dishes were better than others. We ate breakfast in the maindining room every day. We did have a good laugh one morning when I orderedbiscuits eggs benedict and received traditional eggs benedict with a peanutbutter cookie on the side. I think something got lost in translationthere. Most of the time we did lunch inthe buffet. We really enjoyed the pizza, prosciutto, mozzarella, salad options.On the last sea day we had lunch in the main dining room . Our kids ate halftheir dinners with us and half with the kids club. I do wish the kids clubdinners provided vegetable and fruit options for the children, because myyoungest would eat fries, bread and pasta all day if allowed. Also, on the fewnights we went to the buffet to grab a drink, it was insanely crowded,bordering on chaotic. This is because half the space is being used as a diningroom. I have no idea why they designed a ship that could not accommodate allits passengers in a main dining room.

Kids club – This sailing was busy. Last year on theDivina there were far fewer children and the kids got more personal attention.Due to the number of children, some activities such as the parade around thepool were cancelled for safety reasons. I completely understand. My kids saidthey enjoyed the kids club better last year. They missed not having the cookingclass this time. That said, when they were at the kids club they enjoyedthemselves.

Pools, slides, sports deck – the pools were busy.However, we were able to snag a seat above the adventure park. There is NO seating by the adventure park. Thelines for the slides were not too bad in the mornings, and the adventure parkgot busy around 11/11:30am. We were usually there before that so it was not toobad. There is no age minimum for the slides (they have taped over the ageminimum) but there is a height minimum (42 inches I believe but don’t quote meon that, my kids are 44 and 48 inches and they could ride the slides). We spentquite a bit of time playing basketball on the sports deck. My biggest pet peevewas the number of children in the pools and hot tubs with diapers on, and thestaff said NOTHING.

Wine Package – Not a huge choice of wines in thispackage. Has to be $33 or under per bottle. We did find a decent Chilean red,Malbec, and a pinot grigio that we liked. I think we paid $120 precruise for 7bottles. So a decent savings for us.

Shore excursions – we did not do any organized shoreexcursions. In Nassau we did the day pass at the British Colonial Hilton. Wehad a very nice time. In St. Thomas, we took a Taxi to Megan’s Bay. We werethere 15 minutes and the kids got stung by something in the water, and that wasthe end of that. Giant waste of time and money, but oh well. In Antigua, wetook a taxi to Darkwood beach. Best decision ever. Two chairs and an Umbrellawere $15. $3 beers, nice clean beach. There was a drop off in the water, so becareful with little ones. Antigua was out favorite port.

Spa – This was by far the best deal of our trip. Our$249 package was exactly as advertised. 3 massages and use of the thermal spaarea for the week. Would highly recommend booking spa services pre-cruise asthey are much cheaper. Also head to spastraight away to schedule the massages as time slots were already booking upquick. We had another good laugh at the “do not taste the snow” sign in thesnow room.

Vip photo card – This one I’m still trying to figureout. We booked this pre-cruise and paid $99. It is $199 to purchase on board.On day one we picked up the physical card and the instructions were to give itto photographers. However, the photographers refused to take it and wanted ourroom key. Throughout the cruise if I scanned my cruisecard or the VIP photocard at the photo computer terminals, all the pictures showed. However, on thelast day I had to link my photocard with my cruisecard. Now that I’m home, thepictures are slowly showing up on Mymscphotos.com for me to download. It is not exactly the most streamlinedservice, but its good value for money.

The smells! – I occasionally got a whiff ofsomething. It was so brief and passing that I think it’s a “people problem” nota “boat problem” if you know what I mean. There was an “engine” smelloccasionally near the aqua park but it did not smell like sewage.

Debarkation -Even if you provided your credit card pre-cruise and authorized purchases, youmust settle your account before you get off the ship. Either I missed thispiece of information or communication could be clearer. I’m all for a companydoing it their own way, but it should be clearly communicated especially whenthe other cruise lines do it differently.

Overall I would definitely sail MSC again. It is no betterand no worse than other cruiselines. To me, each cruiseline has its pros andcons and if the right deal came along I would sail on any of them. On MSC Iloved the European touches. I think it’s great that announcements are inmultiple languages. It was Spring break and it was busy as expected. However,it was busy with families and did not have that college spring break vibe someother cruises have. The staff we encountered were friendly. Our room was a decent size, but the showerwas on the small side.

Booked Bella then found out we couldn't pick our dining time or that we might not even get into a "real" dining room so switched to Fantastica exactly because of those reasons... Personally I do not like that they do not have enough space for all their passengers to eat in one of their two dining rooms... Pretending the buffet is a dining room..... bad planning

 

 

 

Glad it worked out for you... I get on next Saturday

Just be prepared, we booked fantastica a year ago and we still ended up with 945pm

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Hi we are off the ship now. Happy to report that they switched our dining to 530pm. I had to put my foot down a bit, but they fixed it.

There were 3 dining times in the ipanema, 2 in the seashore I believe and they were using the half the buffet as a dining room. It was a sold out ship this week. Not sure if that makes a difference.

I will write a full report when I get home.

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Yeah, I have kids and 9:45 is way to late to eat for them as well. You think they'd realize this. Are you on the Western Caribbean itinerary? If so, any letter about cancelled excursions this week due to safety concerns? Thanks and have fun! :)

We are on the eastern ....sorry

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On board now. Lots of positives, couple minor negatives. One major negative- we booked over a year ago and requested early dining. They gave us the third seating at 9:45pm and said they can't change it. After much back and forth they said we can try to come at 6 and see if someone didn't show up. I hope that works bc my 4 year old will not make it to 945. She is asleep at 730.

I wish we had known this was the Miami dolphin cruise. No big deal though.

I will write a full review on our return.

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I booked this too. My interpretation of the description of this package is that it includes all 3 massages. That is why I booked it.

If I get on board and find out that is not the case, I will ask for a refund.

I'm interested to find out how the scheduling of these massages will work.

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Trying to piece together a list of extra costs so I can be prepared. So far I have:

Xd thingy

Bowling

Zip line

Alcohol beyond our vouchers

Coffee

Gelato

Spa

Specialty dining

Any more?

Is there any free ice cream on board? What non-alcoholic drinks are free?

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Has anyone done the 7 bottle wine package in main dining room?

What are the wine choices?

I've searched for info but can't find it and I can't tell if this is a good deal for us. Wine is our preferred drink but It has to be decent wine.

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Wow. You were right, not cheap but they would LOVE it

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This may be a silly question but last year in st Maarten my daughter fell in love with a water trampoline thing that was $5 all day. She had her heart set on this again but our ports have changed after the hurricanes. Is there anything similar at any of the beaches in St. Thomas?

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This may be a silly question but last year in st Maarten my daughter fell in love with a water trampoline thing that was $5 all day. She had her heart set on this again but our ports have changed after the hurricanes. Is there anything similar at any of the beaches in Antigua?

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please ignore,just saw this was already posted above

MSC Seaside: December 23 – March 17, 2018

On her Eastern Caribbean itineraries departing from Miami, MSC Seaside will now call at St John (Antigua and Barbuda), instead of at Philipsburg (St Maarten).

So does this include cruises that sale 3/17/18 or just ones that end 3/17/18?

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We are probably going to have a beach day in Antigua and I debating between Darkwood or ffryes. However I need to know whether there are umbrellas to rent at either beach.

Shade is very important to one of us. I'm looking for calm waters(I realize this can't always be predicted) quieter beach, one or two bars where I can grab a drink or snack, lounger and umbrella.

I don't need water sports or extras like that. I plan on reading a good book with a great view with a cold drink and floating in water lol DH will have his own snorkeling gear so if there is fish that's a bonus.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them.