mahdnc

Hot and cold hors d'oeuvres were served at 5:30pm. There was enough food to ruin your appetite for dinner. Shrimp skewers (left) and mini filet mignon (right): The three signs in the next photo say (from left to right): Vegetarian Option, Skewer caprese, and Salman canape: Here is the food that I grabbed (and ruined by dinner appetite with):

There was a sparse offering of snacks in the middle of the day: There was a whole fruit availavle and a station to make a mix of nuts, etc

Here are photos of the breakfast buffet. It included continental choices including rolls, fruit, oatmeal, hard boiled eggs. There were self serve pans of scrambled eggs, sausage links, and bacon strips. There was a made to order omelette station which is nice. I will have to try that tomorrow. I did not see pancakes or waffles or even Belgian waffles.

Wine and beer were available for free. Whiskey and gin could be purchased by the glass or bottle.

Here were the beverages that were readily available in the self-help area: The coffee machine is on the left in the above photo. I believe the black appliance in the middle of the photo was for espresso,

The Executive Lounge was not crowded today. We will see what it looks like tomorrow when all of the Xpedition cruise tour passengers have arrived. I imagine it may be even more crowded if there are Flora cruise tour passengers staying the hotel because I believe they all get Executive Lounge access. The lounge has a living room area with a large screen television: There are a small variety of board games available there: There are quite a few seats for eating in the dining area. Many two top tables were line against the wall of windows in the left of the photo below. There also is a small outdoor (shaded) eating area which is in the very back of this photo. We had breakfast there this morning. The views from the Lounge are nice but not spectacular.

The 9th floor Executive Lounge is pretty nice. It required your room key card to get in through the front door: It was staffed by a couple of friendly Marriott employee. You signed in with them for each trip to the lounge. Since my wife was a Platinum Elite member, I was allowed access as the trailing spouse. For families, I am not sure how many people one Platinum Elite (or above) member can bring in with them. Here were the posted rules and hours of operation:

This few posts is specifically written with Marriott loyalty club members in mind such as @mahasamatman or certain passengers such as @prmssk who had a Penthouse Suite on Xpedition (Royal Suite gets access, too). I believe all Flora passengers get access as well. My wife is Lifetime Platinum member and among the benefits are a welcome gift and access to the Executive Lounge. As I mentioned earlier, we booked a regular room using award points for the 1st night. Celebrity would be taking care of the 2nd and 3rd nights before the cruise. I had questions about how my wife's benefits would be handled. When she checked in, the Front Desk offered her a welcome amenity. Lately. many full service Marriotts that we have been to have watered that gift down to something trivial or 500 loyalty club points. She was pleasantly surprised to be given a menu card which had many options listed. Among them were a cheese and cracker plate, or a fruit and nut plate, or ice cream. There were a couple other options (I think you could get 1000 points instead) which I cannot remember because my mind really lost focus when I heard ice cream as an option. She order the cheese plate because we were pretty hungry since the last time we ate was at Miami. The front desk clerk also got us a couple of bottles of water which I think we got simply because we were guests. The cheese and cracker plate that was delivered to our room was nice and it reminded me of the way things used to be several years ago. Presumably because of my wife's status, we were assigned a room up on the 9th floor where the Executive Lounge was located. In fact our room was located right next to the Executive Lounge which was very convenient although there was a little noise from there early in the morning.

The whole passenger receiving process was seamless and perfectly executed by Celebrity. The only confusion on my part was whether to tip the baggage handlers and driver or not. I did end up tipping them, but my wife told me that Eduardo said that tips were already taken care of.

I have had technical difficulties that have prevented me from updating until now. Sorry. Our MIA to UIO flight got in on time (10:30pm). It turns out that Miami was being treated to a wind and rain storm that wreaked havoc across the area. Fortunately it did not cause us any problems other than our checked luggage got wet--like it sat out in the rain for a spell. Getting through baggage claim and two separate customs & immigration check without any problems. We left the secure area of the airport at about 11:15pm. In 15 seconds, we found our Celebrity representative, Eduardo (wearing the blue blazer and standing left in the photo). He is a polite, soft spoken man with excellent English as he spent some time in the United States for college. He told me that we were the only two passengers that were going to be picked up. We were quickly relieved of all our bags by a Celebrity supplied porter as they were placed on a cart which is in the foreground of the above photo. Our ride was a mini van which also included a driver as well as Eduardo. By 11:25pm, we were on our way to Quito. By 11:55pm we pulled into the JW Marriott hotel where there was a uniformed (with hat) bellhop/doorman who was there to greet us and he collected our luggage. There is an impressive vaulted glass ceiling lobby with Christmas decorations already put out. My wife checked in at the front desk and then the bell hop took us to our room. This evening's stay was arranged by us. We used 25,000 points to reserve a king guest room. By the time bellhop left our room was 12:04am. I took a photo of the clock to celebrate the event. After munching on our snacks, we unpacked a little, got cleaned up and were in bed by 1:45am.

There is an awesome view of the island from a high vantage point that is often photographed. Here is a link to see the photos. Another iconic landscape view is Darwin’s Arch although unfortunately the arch collapsed in 2021. I don’t know which itineraries, if any, visit Darwin’s Arch which has fantastic snorkeling and diving.

Not stopping at Bartolomé Island is the one thing I do not like about the Southern Loop. You took a nice photo of it. Your weather looked great, too—at least photographically.

We are in the middle of our 4 hour layover in MIA. Truthfully I was expecting it to be a lot sunnier. Instead it’s rainy and dreary which we can get back home in Chicago. We took advantage of our Priority Pass membership through Chase Sapphire and had a free meal (up to $30 pp) at the Corona Beach House near Gate D23. It’s an ok bar and grill. Then we headed to the Turkish Airlines Lounge (Priority Pass) near Gate E1. It was pretty crowded with other Priority Pass passengers (photo). We were able to find a table and seats next to a wall outlet so we’re good.

Xpedition was purchased by Celebrity and put into service in 2004. So by my count this is her 20th year of Celebrity service. I found online this 2004 e-brochure which is a bit interesting. The Penthouse Suite that @prmssk is currently staying at and there Royal Suite next to it didn’t exist back then.

Her is a link to the Guest Ticket Booklet. Pages with personal information were removed.

Our 2 year old dog, Daisy, sensed she was being left behind when we were packing last night. A month ago when my wife was packing to go on a trip by herself to see her parents, Daisy actually placed her favorite toy in my wife’s open suitcase as if to hint that she should also be going. Last night, Daisy tried a different hint that she should be coming on this cruise:

On Monday I called the Galapagos Desk (866-973-8466) to verify that Celebrity had our independent flight arrangements on file as well as a request to have an extension cord + DI water for my wife’s CPAP which they did. About an hour later, the Galapagos Desk called me and said that they noticed my wife and I were flying into Quito a day early. The agent asked me if I had made hotel arrangements to which I told him that we booked an extra night at the JW Marriott. He asked for my hotel confirmation number and said that he was going to relay that information to the ground team presumably so that it was linked with the reservation that Celebrity has made for us. I asked him if Celebrity would be meeting us at the airport to provide ground transportation to the hotel when we arrive at 10:30pm because the Guest Ticket Booklet made it clear that we would not (screenshot below). The agent said that we would because we are staying at the JW Marriott and went on to say that if we weren’t, then we’d have to get our own ride.

Etihad airplane livery is kind of cool ….we are off to Miami.

I like this area, too. We don’t fly on American very often so I usually don’t get to see it.

We have gotten through security and are eating breakfast at ORD.

We have booked an Xpedition Suite (502). I mainly wanted the balcony for seasickness control.

I am not saying these are the best out there, but these are the apps I currently have on my iPhone. Of the three, I use Sky Guide the most

It will be a long day of flights today. 3+ hours from ORD - MIA, 4 hour layover, and then a 4+ hours flight from MIA to UIO. For all the times we have cruised, this will be the first time we have ever been to MIA.

My wife and I will be flying out soon today to Quito. We have booked the 11 night Quito cruise tour package--and we added an extra night on our own before the cruise tour. This will be our 16th sailing on Celebrity and our first time to the Galapagos. @prmssk is currently on Xpedition (Northern Loop) and she is doing a fabulous job with her live thread--the best Galapagos one that I have seen so far and with outstanding photos. If you have not seen it, I would seriously be looking at it (then read mine afterward!). As for our trip, here are some details about our trip (link😞

Like you, I am aware that the written policy does not extend Captains Club free laundry to the Galapagos ships and that only PS/RS passengers get free laundry. However it seems from reports from you and others that the actual practice on the ship is different.