mahdnc

We did the 12 night Great Barrier Reef sailing on Solstice back in Jan 2018. The ship overnighted at Yorkey's Knob (Cairns). The tenders were not scheduled to run throughout the night because of crocodiles, sharks, jellyfish (with stingers) and shoals. I know that's something they don't put in the marketing brochures, but here it is in the "Important Information" bulletin that we received on board. The last tender from Yorkey's Knob was scheduled to leave at 10:30 pm with service resuming at 7:30 am the following morning. Here is the link to the Celebrity Today with the tender information in the screenshot below: Note the length of the tender ride which doesn't include waiting for the tender to load and unload--and it's another 25-30 minutes depending on traffic to get from Yorkey's Knob to Cairns by car/bus. Our actual tender schedule was much different than the plan: 1. Because of high winds, the captain stopped the tendering to Yorkey's Knob at 6:00 pm. Earlier in the day high winds caused one of the tenders to crash into Solstice resulting in broken windows on the tender. The high winds also made it difficult for Solstice to hold her anchor. The strong winds would cause Solstice to drag her anchor and she had to re-anchor two more times that day. We had plans to stay in a hotel at Cairns that evening but we didn't find out that the tendering had stopped until it was too late and so we were stuck on the ship for the night. 2. The ship quietly offered a special early tender before the official start of tendering during our second day at Cairns. It was to accommodate passengers like us who made independent plans ashore and needed to be at Cairns early. It takes about 3 hours to tender 3,000 passengers off the ship and those that weren't on Celebrity shore excursions would have to wait at least an hour before they could get on a tender (and then the 40 minute tender ride + 30 min car ride to Cairns). This special tender left at 6 am. Our first view of Yorkey's Knob (Cairns) from our Solstice balcony, Jan 7 2018

If you hit the jackpot, you may not want to cruise on Celebrity anyway.

Like watching NASCAR because you want to see car wrecks?

I would think that this would be the best way to avoid being assigned to different evenings in the event they run the Chef's Table more than once during your sailing.

I don't think that will happen because Celebrity will want to continue to justify the extra premium they charge for those cabins. Otherwise they become just extra large balcony cabins. Celebrity was originally charting a course to convert the large family veranda cabins (an example of an extra large balcony cabin) to Horizon Suites to generate more revenue but had to stop with implementing it in one ship because Covid interrupted the Revolution makeover.

Then definitively skip the Uffizi. If I ever go back to Florence, I would like to tour the Uffizi for the first time. My wife would be bored though.

Uffizi is to Italy like the Louvre is to France. It houses many masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance. If you had to choose between the two as a casual tourist, go to the Accademia to see the iconic David. If you're an art lover and want to see paintings by Botticelli (including the iconic Birth of Venus), a da Vinci, and a Michelangelo, go to the Uffizi.

Port side cabins will be able to watch the evening sun set as the ship makes its way to Vancouver from Hawaii. Aft cabins, too. Since this is a spring time cruise, the sun will be setting almost due west.

Interesting. if true, that would be a shame.

If you still have them, save your kids' SeaPass cards as proof in case past cruises somehow are missing. Alternatively if you retain your booking information and/or Folio number that might be good, too. I don't think it will be necessary as I don't recall reading any posts (or seeing very many posts) about kid's sailing histories being incomplete.

As a non-suite passenger, I am also among those that are not thrilled with the changes. However you make very good points.

3 am on the first day of the cruise for our upcoming Christmas sailing on Solstice.

Our first Celebrity cruise was in 1996 (the brand new Century!) and we took our kids with us who were then 3 yrs old (daughter) and 7 months old (son). We took a total of 14 cruises together as a family--all on Celebrity. I remember our son getting his Captains Club membership before he was 18 and his older sister got it sometime later. In both cases, their complete sailing history was already in their file and they were assigned the correct membership tier when they became of age. I am proud to say as parents, my wife and I got both our kids a college education and Elite status with Celebrity. Infinity, Feb 2002, Caribbean. Kids are not Captains Club members yet. Infinity, Christmas 2016, off the coast of Peru. Kids are Elite (in more ways than one)

Careful if @Ipeeinthepools is on your cruise.

I could be wrong, but I am thinking what you described may be true for specific cases--perhaps with this particular airline. I hope I am right.

I will have to look it up. Why the avatar change? Your other one was nicer and easier for me to recognize you.

This HAL itinerary is tempting: 42 night round trip from Ft Lauderdale which includes two transatlantics, Morocco, Tunisia, Portugal, Italy (incl overnights at Livorno and Civitavecchia), Greece, Gibraltar, Israel (2 ports), and Egypt (2 ports) (link)

Actually Elon has had ties to that domain name dating back to 1999 wth X.com--the online bank that he co-founded that eventually became PayPal. He bought the domain name back from PayPal six years ago.

It is not a problem. They are in different industries.

Thank you for posting this interesting update. So gelateria by day, World Class Bar by night.

Hopefully you will figure out a way to do Florence in a manner that pleases you. It is a beautiful city--even if Dante isn't buried there.

Yes, admission should be included in the Celebrity shorex. However I agree that this is worth doing as a private tour. You will see much more--such as not setting for seeing the exterior of Santa Croce, but actually going inside to see where Michelangelo, Galileo, Dante, and Machiavelli are laid to rest.

I just noticed today that specialty dining became available for booking on our upcoming Christmas/NYE 2024 sailing. Christmas Eve and NYE are not available yet but should be released later. No multi-dinner packages offered yet either. @dave.s

redrum?

We have been in those cabins on six cruises but up on Deck 8. I am prone to being seasick and have not gotten seasick in those cabins yet as the motion was not that severe during our trips. And yes, if the seas are rough, the pitching motion will be worse the further away from the ship's center you are. The noise from docking or anchoring was not as bad as described in the prior post and that may be due to us being on Deck 8.