mahdnc

Your description of the sparse storage area and other furnishing deficiencies is a common complaint and not just for the Aqua Sky Suites.

The few times I have run into this problem, it has been with Solstice class ships (regular veranda cabins). I have not had this problem with Millennium class--perhaps because there are so many cabins that are furnished to sleep 3 or more.

You remember correctly. When all 4 Millennium class ships were built, the Celebrity Suites were not outfitted with balconies. I am guessing that the designers thought that the large floor to ceiling windows would be sufficient. Because of its large size, it was priced rather high and I imagine that customers had a hard time justifying spending that much and not get a balcony. Celebrity ended up retrofitting them with balconies a few years later. Sometimes a retrofit has to work around limitations that compromise the design. Having said that, how did you like the balcony? Was it sufficiently deep enough to be useful?

Your posts in that thread were invaluable and informative. Post 602 was high praise for you:

I like how you think.

Back in the old days, if you drank the wine that you embarked with in your cabin, there was no corkage fee. Bring the bottle to the MDR to enjoy with dinner (instead of buying wine at the MDR), you were charged the corkage fee. Today, you still do not incur a corkage fee if you drink your wine in your stateroom. But now, if you have a classic or premium drink package, you can enjoy your wine at the MDR (or anywhere) with no corkage fee imposed. In neither of the above cases are you automatically charged when you board.

Will these people with basic wi-fi be able to read your request or is this like asking for a show of hands from "people that could not be here"?

The Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald?

Thanks for sharing your experience. It was nice to see you got a positive outcome. Does this mean you won't burn your pom-poms after all?

Nice. That reminds me of the time that my 2 kids and I secretly decorated my sister's cabin door (Mercury, 1998) to celebrate her 30th birthday. It also happened to me her first cruise.

Basically, Celebrity took the better Sky Suites (in terms of bigger interior and/or bigger balcony) which previously had a higher price than the regular Sky Suites and have recategorized them as Aqua Sky Suites which includes a few extra spa benefits/amenities and they are now charging even more for them. So basically, Celebrity was able to find a way to charge more for these suites without incurring any significant cost. So the basic answer for you (and somebody already pointed this out), the attraction of the Aqua Sky Suites is a bigger cabin and/or balcony. The above comments pertain to Millennium class ships. I am not as certain about Solstice class.

Imagine if it was!

For those that might be interested to learn more about the pod problems that plagued Celebrity's M class ships, here is an interesting, old thread which I found this morning: The failures were so frequent that I actually kept a spreadsheet to track them all. I have since lost it (or I can't find it). However post #78 in the thread does a good job of listing each event--I've included a screenshot of it below. In 2003, Celebrity sued the pod manufacturers for $300 million--it was eventually settled out of court.

@njsmom here is an old "live" thread started by @cruisestitch that chronicled the Millennium cruise that she was on that suffered the propulsion pod failure in August 2013 that eventually wiped out the rest of her Alaskan season:

Robinson, that was about 23 years ago like your inaugural Millennium sailing?

Congrats on winning the lottery tonight @Spurs Fans

and you have cats!

Wow. Did you dump him or marry him?

You are cracking me up.

What time does your flight leave (I presume FLL)?

We occasionally will decorate our cabin door--if there is an occasion. Here is one door that I photographed during our Constellation transatlantic in Oct 2022:

Interesting. The only reference I have is the alcohol section in the FAQs on Celebrity's website: link

You are getting fantastic weather, @Fly and Sail.

That sounded like quite the adventure. Those azipods, actually I think they were Mermaid pods (different manufacturer than azipod), caused Celebrity a lot of nightmares on Millennium, Infinity and Summit. The bulk of the problems happened immediately after the three ships were inaugurated and I think they were finally fixed around 2008 although your sailing was an outlier. Infinity suffered more pod failures than any other ship--about a dozen times over 5-6 years (I used to track all the failures on a spreadsheet). Some members on this board were understandably afraid of booking a cruise on her because when a pod failed, it was not pretty with yours being a good example. Our first cruise on Millennium was on a Mediterranean sailing in June 2007 and I was a bit nervous because she suffered two separate pod failures 12 months prior which required emergency drydocking. Fortunately our sailing went without a hitch but the during the sailing after ours, Millennium's propeller struck a rock while calling on Villefranche which screwed up that sailing and then she was taken out of service for emergency drydock to be repaired which forced more sailing cancellations. Those were the days.