mahdnc

I have used Sky Guide (free?) and SkyView Lite (free) on my iPhone for years. I like them, but there are so many new stargazing apps out there, I hesitate saying that those two are the ones to get or that they are the best. I would recommend googling to see what the current favorites are and then download a couple free ones. Every app will allow you to point your phone toward the sky to see the names of the constellations, stars, and planets that you are looking at. That's the important thing. The pay apps will have more bells and whistles.

You are welcome. If you are not that familiar with the night time constellation and planets, there are a lot of free stargazing apps that turn your smart phone into an awesome constellation identifier using the phone's camera, location, and time information. It's amazingly useful. You need an internet connection to download the app onto your phone. Once downloaded, you don't have to have an internet connection to use the main features of the app.

The evening skies will be getting darker with each passing cruise day because the moon will be rising into the night sky later and later. Take advantage of the moonless period in the night and if it's clear take a look at the sky because many of the stars in the southern hemisphere are not visible from Ohio. Hopefully you can find a somewhat dark spot on the ship to do this. Some things about the southern sky worth noting if you are interested (most people are not): 1. The highly recognizable constellation of Orion will appear high in the sky, but it will be upside down compare to what you are used to seeing in Columbus. 2. The stars that form the well known Southern Cross (also made famous by the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song of the same name) is virtually impossible to see from the USA but will be well placed in the night sky during your cruise. 3. Near the Southern Cross is a very bright star, Alpha Centauri which is the star system closest to us earthlings at a "mere" 4.3 light years away. I could go on, but I will spare you. Whether you like to star gaze or not, I hope you are enjoying your cruise.

But at night it gets pretty dark?

We have the same balcony cabin, but up on Deck 9 for Solstice booked in 2025. Looks like it gets awful dark there at night. No balcony light fixture I suppose?

The P900 is a very affordable camera with a crazy stabilized zoom lens. Nice camera. Be sure to try it out during next year's total solar eclipse.

The balcony we have for 2025 has a great deal of depth and a foot rest will work wonderfully there.

You can get your Captains Club discount either way. However if you call beforehand, you will get a pre-cruise discount on the Wi-Fi package along with your Captains Club discount.

Sounds like you were doing a nonrefundable deposit booking. As mentioned earlier, you have the option of booking the same cabin with a refundable deposit. The tradeoff is that the refundable deposit cruise fare is higher.

Cruise Critic web pages load very slowly via Basic Wi-Fi and it eventually doesn't load the entire page causing the formatting to be all messed up and unusable.

If you are going to work on attached Excel files, I would recommend getting a single Premium Wi-Fi package that you and your husband can share one device at a time.

Sorry. I was just saying there were reasons that I didn't see the Jan 31st and the Feb 2nd as EC days. I misunderstood your post.

That is true, but it would make us feel better.

Here is another area that Celebrity has been cutting corners. In this case it is with their complimentary playing cards available at Guest Relations.

Nice photos, nice review. It look like you all had a good time. Thanks for posting.

Sigh. Being able to get away from the home routine to an ocean environment where we were pampered by Celebrity Cruises was always romantic for my wife and I. Now with all the cutbacks, the romance could be gone and then it will be Celibacy Cruises for us.

I have no experience with this either. Certainly it is easy to overlook.. After you call Celebrity, let us know what the outcome is. Good luck.

Regarding those two sea days: I doubt that Jan 31st would be chosen because I have never seen two EC nights scheduled back to back. Feb 2 would not be selected because it is never done on the last night of the cruise traditionally because you are supposed to be packing up your luggage that day.

The normal rule of thumb is that the first EC occurs on the first full day of the cruise (Cruise Day 2) and the last EC is two days before the last day of the cruise. So that means your 2 Evening Chic nights should be Tue Jan 24 and Wed Feb 1. Because they are both sea days, that pretty much guarantees that it will be those two days. Sometimes the EC night schedule doesn't follow that rule of thumb when they fall on a port day, but yours do not. You may have a 3rd EC night that falls in the middle of the cruise and when I look at your schedule it is not obvious to me when that would be. Celebrity's literature says you get two ECs but it is very common for a 3rd EC to occur on extended cruises such as yours. If you were to have one, my guess is that it will fall on Sunday Jun 29 (Day 7) which is your second day at Aruba and it is exactly in the middle between the other two EC evenings. Either way, you are going to have a great cruise. https://creative.rccl.com/Sales/Celebrity/General_Info/Flyers/15047638_CEL_Evening_Chic_Overview_Flyer.pdf

Of course you are correct. I have the inaugural dates quite wrong. I think I had 6-8 luggage tags because I ordered a set of two for the whole family back in the day when you could also get replacements. And I could have sworn that the original luggage tags we were issued were metal? Anyway all the replacements were plastic and we still use them as well although the we have lost a couple and a few more are broken. I am still partial to the old style Celebrity logo maybe because of the symbolism--the logo and cruise line together were very different back then.

Well the "refund" was an OBC coupon ($50?) that had an expiration date of around a year if I remember correctly,. We were unable to take advantage of it, so they still owe us in my mind.

You have us beat by two years, but we still paid the $35 fee. You must have sailed Meridian back then because Horizon was inaugurated that year. So the fleet was quite small.

To be clear for the OP--who is already sold on Concierge Class--everyone gets an embarkation lunch. However Concierge Class gets theirs in the Main Dining Room while regular balcony passengers have theirs at the Oceanview Cafe. We have yet to be in a Concierge Class cabin since up to now my wife and I have always booked FV for our family of four. Our two kids are now grown and not cruising anymore with us. So I booked our first Concierge Class cabin for our 2025 Transpacific sailing on Solstice because we wanted one of the larger balconies found on the slant location of the hump and the cost difference from a regular balcony was small. So for that 17 night cruise we will enjoy the 5 Club Points per night instead of the 3 we usually get with the FV. I was surprised to see that Aqua Class also gets 5 per night which seems low for what they are usually priced at.

Captains Club logo'd id cards, lapel pins (remember those?), and luggage tags have been a thing of the past for quite some time now. When we were at the Bellagio a year ago, the casino rewards desk simply asked for something with our name and Captains Club number showing our status. We ended up using the Celebrity iPhone app to give her the information she needed.

Welcome to the fray, Jim.