mahdnc

I understand. Did you have a specific ship picked out? Makes a big difference with your options.

Celebrity does not sponsor the Connections gatherings anymore. You and your roll call will need to organize you own informal get togethers (sail away, etc).

Nice report and photos, Cannot wait to see more.

It sounds like there are five of you? How many cabins are you planning on booking?

FV cabins have been re-designated as UV (Ultra Deluxe Veranda) but they are only on Solstice and Millennium class ships (not on Edge class). Also UV cabins on some of the Solstice and Millennium class ships are being recategorized as expensive Horizon Suites. We currently are in a FV/UV cabin on Summit right now.

Oh, and as soon as I posted Post #342, a fourth problem developed with our cabin (8166). The bathroom light switch started to malfunction. When we were getting ready for dinner, the lights in the bathroom would start flickering wildly and the bathroom light switch was making distressing crackling noises. For that problem we called Guest Services immediately and a mechanic came in to change out the light switch while we were eating. Problem is now solved although the light switch color doesn't match the other light switches in the cabin. But, we are good! Do electricians shop for supplies at an electrical outlet?

Beautiful sunset about 25 minutes ago. The only problem was that Solstice was sailing into the sunset which meant that it would be hard to find outdoor railspace. Predictably, when I got to Deck 11 forward( 15 minutes before sunset), there was already a bunch of people crowded around the rail.

I’ve heard that there is a passenger(s) onboard who sailed eastward through the canal on Emerald Princess earlier this month. That means that they got to see this month’s total solar eclipse at sea and they sailed through the new and old locks!

I left my padlock at home

In 2005, we took a cruise on board Horizon out of Tampa for a Western Caribbean sailing. During its stop at Colon we took the ferry tour of the Miraflores and Pedro Miguel locks. You get a much different perspective of the locks than from a large cruise ship. For example, we were allowed to touch the walls of the locks from our small ferry boat. A motorcoach took us from the pier at Colon and drove us to the Pacific side of the canal where we boarded our ferry boat. After we sailed through both sets of Pacific side locks, the bus picked us up somewhere at a pier at Gatun Lake and then the it took us back to the ship. It made for a very long and grueling day. This shore excursion is still offered by Celebrity and was available for our cruise. If you are a hard core Panama Canal enthusiast, I would highly recommend taking this excursion even on a cruise that crosses the canal simply because of the different perspective and experience that you get. Here are some photos from our 2005 canal shore excursion:

If you are directing that question to me, what subject could I possibly make a living at? 😃

Now that we have been in our cabin for a little over a week now, I can more confidently comment on its condition of 8166.: Appearance-wise the interior of the cabin looks new. Cabinets and and bathroom look great. This is largely attributable to the Revolution makeover. There have been 3 minor performance problems: 1. Rain water collects on the balcony as it is slow to drain. In the photo below, the drain is located at the corner of the bathtub wall. Fortunately that drain is located at a low spot. During a couple of the storms, the standing water would occupy half of the balcony floor. I did not report this as a couple of the rains that we experienced was very hard and the pool of water did not hang around for very long. I do know from having been in the Millennium class FV (now UV) cabins for 6 cruises that the slow drainage is unusual. Our stateroom attendant had already noticed it and he had maintenance repair it (presumably they cleaned out the drain pipe). 2. The sliding balcony door will not latch shut. The door has two locking points and both "holes" in the door jam are deformed and so the closure hooks built into the door has nothing to latch on to. Here is a photo of the upper locking point. Ignore the chrome hardware mounted on the door as it does nothing: This was a problem because a couple of nights ago, we woke up to balcony door having slid all the way to its fully open position while we were sleeping. I pointed this out to our stateroom attendant and within a couple of hours a maintenance person came to our cabin installed a new strike plate for the hook in the sliding door to latch on to (photo below). Nice job. 3. The shower drains slowly. It never builds up a level high enough for it to come close to spilling out over the threshold and onto the bathroom door. One thing that is odd is that the problem seems to be intermittent. Our stateroom attendant told us that maintenance is aware of the problem. No picture to show of the problem while the shower is in use. Sorry.

Celebrity Today Day 10 At Sea 5 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 9 At Sea 4 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 8 Puntarenas Celebrity Today Day 7 At Sea 3 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 6 Panama Canal Transit Celebrity Today Day 5 Colon Celebrity Today Day 4 Cartagena Celebrity Today Day 3 At Sea 2 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 2 At Sea 1 of 8 Celebrity Today Day 1 Miami

It's a nice day out there.

I also attended the afternoon Beyond the Podium presentation: The New Panama Canal With Bill Fall It was interesting and well attended.

Marcia and I attended the 10:45 am Beyond the Podium presentation: Mysteries of Stonehenge with Kelly Beatty. It was an interesting presentation--makes me want to go and see it now.

We’re eating again as it’s lunchtime. We decided to get something at the Oceanview Cafe and we took it back to our balcony which is not too far away to enjoy the view and the weather.

The seas are very calm this morning. Here’s a current view of the ocean from our breakfast table at the Oceanview Cafe. During his 9:45 am report from the bridge, the captain officially declared our weather as being “amazing”. Yesterday I thought I was getting a touch of seasickness so I put on my prescription ear patch last night. Looks unnecessary today.

Yes, my first time and it was great! Here is one of my time lapse videos I shot from our aft balcony: link

I also forgot to mention that in today's Beyond the Podium presentation, Bill Fall showed this post card:

The Panama Canal narrator, Bill Fall, also lived in the Canal Zone--in fact he was born there. I assume that he has been on some of your cruises. He mentioned something about the Boy Scouts doing a re-tracement trip of the historic and abandoned El Camino Real trail which connected Nombre de Dias and Panama City back in 1519. He said that the crossing was dangerous and involved hiking through heavy jungle and that it was only done twice before it was deemed to dangerous.

I don't think I ever got back to you on this: Surprisingly, Marcia's dive at Key Largo did not go well. She did not think the reef looked in very good shape compared to our visit back in 2010. Moreover she banged both shins by accident against the submerged part of the ladder used to get back into the dive boat. So with two very bruised shins and a disappointing view, she skipped her second dive. We also forgot that the dive crews in Florida do not help the customers like they do in other countries we've been to and so the whole effort of putting the gear together, getting it on, and struggling with the weight of the whole set up, she started to have serious thoughts that her diving days may be over. I'd like to think that she simply had one bad diving day (and some rust) and that there will be other dives in our future that will be much better.

Speaking of which: our Day 2 Celebrity Today had an editing error!

We had dinner once again at Le Petite Chef tonight. Mark and Randi (@celebrity cruiser) and Addie ( @wintrystew) also happen to be at this 6 pm dinner. I counted 28 guests including ourselves at this dinner. This was a different menu/show than the one we experienced a few days ago. In fact I was told that there was a third menu (lobster based) that is part of the rotation for this sailing. Here are some photos of our dinner: Tartlet of Slow-Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes: Poached Salmon and Persian Cucumber Salad: Braised Short Rib of Beef: Strawberry Chantilly Napoleon: Perhaps because we were return customers, the waiter delivered the alternate dessert to our table as well as the strawberry dessert on the main menu. Chocolate Caramel Decadence:

After lunch, I attended my second Beyond the Podium presentation: Panama, The Land Divided The World United by our onboard Panama Canal expert, Bill Fall. My wife instead attended the casino. Let's just say that my choice was much better because I got to feed my mind while my wife fed the machine. Mr. Fall was born and raised in the Canal Zone although it would appear to me that his knowledge and expertise go way beyond having simply existed there. I had missed an earlier Beyond the Podium presentation by him on Day 2 which explained how the Panama Canal operation works. I am sorry I missed it and I have not seen it yet on the stateroom television. The good news is that there are other Panama Canal presentations to be made even after we have crossed the canal during this cruise including the one today. @90scruzer, I had a chance to talk to Bill after his presentation. I asked him what the deal was with Summit and a possible 50-50 chance of going through the old locks. He basically said there wasn't that kind of randomness in the scheduling and that for a variety of different reasons, Summit was always going to go through the old locks. Bill did explain to me that our transit of the Panama Canal took "a lot longer than it should have". He said that normally the ship's own propulsion is used to help it move forward to and through the locks. However in our case, the pilots wanted only the "locomotives" (I presume he is referring to the mules) to move the ship.