mahdnc

I do highly recommend the JW Marriott. It is well located and the service is excellent. We would definitely book it again if we were to return.

While Singapore was remarkably devoid of large billboards, Bangkok has no such restriction…

Our current windshield view:

That’s ok. I want to find out anyway!

Thank you. It appears we have lucked out on weather. It will be on the cooler side for our two days in Bangkok. And no rain.

We docked at approximately 6:55 am local time. At 7:20 am, the ship was cleared by immigration. The port is very large and very industrial. We have a two day private tour set up for Bangkok for just the two of us. Our tour is set to start at 9 am this morning. We will overnight at the St Regis.

Merry Christmas to you, too, Mary. I am sure you’re excited about your multiple back to back Caribbean sailings coming up soon!

Merry Christmas from Solstice and Thailand!!

Although I will do it, I haven’t made the trip up to kids club to ask one of the counselors. We are pulling into Laem Chabang in an hour on this Christmas Day to begin our two days off the ship in Bangkok. When we get back on, I will ask about the number of kids on this cruise and the number for the next sailing as a comparison. Merry Christmas from Solstice!

Santa came to the Grand Foyer this evening to hand out gifts to a long line of excited kids:

This is the current view from our balcony. We are getting dressed for Christmas Eve dinner on this Evening Chic night!

As the years have gone by, my wife and I have become less and less and less interested in the evening shows onboard Celebrity ships. Nevertheless, we popped in briefly at the Solstice Theatre to watch The Other Guys perform a hastily scheduled matinee show since our port was cancelled. Kudos to them for putting something together at the last minute when I am sure they were planning to be ashore or asleep.

Today, Christmas Eve, we have not done that much with our new found time since today's port was cancelled. We had lunch at the MDR today and I finally realized how loud it was compared to Blu. We had a table for two on the upper floor and the noise from the surrounding tables made it difficult to converse with the couple that was seated in the 2 top beside us. Maybe in the prior years when we were seated at the MDR with our 2 kids, we were the ones making the noise, but now my wife and I are the victims of it. Afterwards we strolled around the shops and the casino. My Summit tee shirt resulted in a conversation with some of the crew that worked on her in the past. A worker at the liquor store--who was from Zimbabwe--spoke very favorably about his time aboard Summit and preferred that size ship over Solstice. The casino was pretty busy today and I went by mainly to checkout the blackjack tables while my wife surveyed the slots. Lowest minimum blackjack table was $10 and there were several of them up and operating (with the lousy 6:5 blackjack payout of course). The $25 table was opening up and that is where you have to go if you want the traditional 3:2 blackjack payout. My wife and I will be hitting the casino but we wait until the latter half of the sailing because if we lose our money (and we always assume that we do), we don't want it to happen at the beginning of the cruise! There were two roulette tables open (one table had a player who liked to scream) and even the craps table had a lively group going. I brought my DSLR camera with me to take some photos around the ship. While I was in the casino, I was greeted by several young kids (escorted by an adult) that were doing a scavenger hunt and needed to find a passenger with a Nikon camera. I am now immortalized in one of their selfies that was taken as proof of their successful find. I hope they won. Video is not allowed in the casino, but non-flash photography is permitted. Here are some photos from the table games this afternoon: Cards. This table did get loud and lively a couple of times. Good for them. Dice. The gentleman on the left, throwing the dice, was on a good roll. He threw at least 10 times after I began watching before he sevened out. Craps is a fast moving game with lots of activity simultaneously going on. It took several shots before I could get one where all the players and dealers were paying attention to the roll. Wheel. It appears that not everyone was happy with this spin.

Here is a screenshot of the schedule that we had for sailing by the glaciers to give you an idea (I guess there were more than 3 glaciers to see): This was for the Chile to Argentina itinerary where we sailed from Punta Arenas, Chile (Day 7) and sailed eastward on the Beagle Channel to Ushuaia, Argentina on Day 8. Here is a link to the Celebrity Today in its entirety and a link to the entire folder of Celebrity Todays.

Have a nice cruise! My family of 4's first Christmas/NYE cruise was on your itinerary but back in 2016. We boarded Infinity at Valparaiso on Christmas Eve and we spent New Years Day at Cape Horn. 15 nights later we would disembark at Buenos Aires. It was an awesome cruise, you will love it! Be sure to note the times (from Celebrity Today) for when Eclipse will pass by the three visible glaciers as you sail down the Beagle Channel (I believe towards Ushuaia for you). For us it was very early in the morning (like 5 am) and that was the only time we saw any that close during the whole cruise. Infinity docked at Ushuaia, Dec 31 2016.

Ah, the ship we both were supposed to be on for the cancelled Christmas 2020 sailing. So in the end for our replacement sailings, I re-booked the itinerary while you re-booked the ship.

We spent a little time up in the Sky Lounge which was also a popular place this morning. Most of the window seating was filled. Closer to the Sky Lounge dance floor, Celebrity ran stretching exercises followed by a trivia game (Hg is a symbol for which element?). On the starboard side of the lounge, we saw whales:

The conference room area on the port side of the ship next to the Sky Lounge was set up as a parent-supervised play area for kids that are too young to be enrolled in the kids program, aka Camp at Sea. To be in the kids program, the kids have to be at least 3 years old and pottie trained. This looks like a Toy Story set:

Here is: Celebrity Today for Day 1 (Singapore) Celebrity Today for Day 2 (Sea Day #1 of 3) Celebrity Today for Day 3, Christmas Eve (Koh Samui, which was cancelled) Celebrity Today folder

The Captain announced at 9:45 am that we will be arriving Laem Chabang at 7 am instead of our originally scheduled time of 9 am tomorrow. I emailed our private tour guide to let him know this but I asked to keep our meet up time at 9 am as my wife and I were not that interested in getting up super early--and on Christmas Day for that matter. A matinee show is being put together for the afternoon in the Celebrity Theatre. The pool deck is open and is a popular place to be now.

Have a super nice cruise. Too bad the Christmas sailing from Hong Kong didn’t happen in 2020 because we would have met….

We are on the other side of the ship and so we didn’t even see the island!

The Captain is back on the public address system telling us again that Ko Samui has been canceled. He also said that he was talking to the captain of the Diamond Princess and they are canceling their stop there, too (translation: don’t get mad at me!).

Nice photo.

Here is the benefits chart for Amethyst and the other tiers in Celebrity's Blue Chip Club.