Softball20

Love that you did formal every night! What fun! Great pictures, too. Cannot wait to sail on Reflection in May. We are in AQ so I am looking forward to finding some time for those heated loungers in the Persian Gardens.

Very helpful. We leave next Sunday, sailing with Celebrity for the first time. Hubby uses a cpap machine. Is there a plug by the bed? We usually take an extension cord, however, Celebrity has it on the list of things not allowed.

No, there is no outlet near the beds. There are a couple outlets by the desk.

Viator is a also just a tour broker, a middleman. They don't actually do the tours. As others have mentioned, check out your roll call, as well as the port sections of these boards. Trip Advisor is also lots of help in finding private vendors, as is google. There are lots of great options out there.

I think I cleared up the mystery.

 

Orator is on the Silhouette and uktog is on the Eclipse.

 

People have been reporting all along that 7am is NOT fleetwide, just ship specific.

 

Orator's post

 

"8:00 am is now the official time. "

 

is only for the Silhouette. :(

I wonder if it might be "sailing-specific?" I got off the Silhouette about a week ago and it was 7:00, at least that's what the info in our cabin said.

Bob and Linda-

Did you have a favorite bar/lounge with music (like James Tayor, the Eagles, John Melloncamp) or a musician playing? We love music but not really into the piano bars. Also I LOVE fresh mojitos, any suggestions on a favorite bar/bartender?

Thanks!

We were on the sailing right after this one - the four-nighter to Cozumel. We always love the Sunset bar. Oneil and the other Jamaican bartender there (sorry, I just can't remember his name) were great!! As for the music, we liked the house band, Casablanca. They played a bit of everything, and they are pretty good, but there was really no where that you're going to find a lot of the type of music you mentioned (which we also like). There was a jazz combo and a pretty good guitar player as well, that also played at various locations/times around the ship.

Hi,

 

Thanks for the feedback. I went ahead and canceled. The cost was $228.00 and I am not willing to pay that to take a chance. I am now researching other options and am sure I will find something else.

 

Carol - we dock in Falmouth.

Jamaica is fabulous, but like others have said, do your research. We've been there 17 times, only two of which have been on cruise ships. You might want to check out trip advisor and look into a private guide/tour. We did one once several years ago on one of our ship stops - I believe that the name of the guide we hired was Marva Shaw, or something like that. She was great. We went to a few places, including a beach. Really, she'll take you where ever you want. Really fun day.

We have never docked at Falmouth, but I understand that there are some things springing up around the port.

It depends upon where one is having dinner. At a casual restaurant, fine. At a nicer, fine dining establishment, I don't think that jeans are appropriate. I love jeans and I wear them quite a bit. Sure, I can dress them up, but IMO, they will never be appropriate for a formal dinner. I really don't see any difference between "designer" jeans and non-designer jeans. Jeans are jeans, and an expensive price tag doesn't make them better or different. Just my two cents.

Just off the Silhouette. I have a 5S and I did not buy an internet package on board as we were only gone for four days. I called AT&T before I left and was told that my phone would work at sea/on the ship, and that calls were around $2.50(ish)/minute. Texts were free for incoming and $.50 for outgoing. I did not buy one of the AT&T cruise packages as it was such a short sailing. On board, the cell carrier was "cellular at sea," and I had plenty of bars of service. I was able to receive and send texts from home; I never did try making a call as I didn't need to. On our port day in Mexico, the AT&T rep had told me that my current data plan included Mexico and I could use my phone as I normally would in the US with no additional charges, whether on wi-fi or not. That worked just fine.

We tried the AT&T Passport plan last year in South America. Maybe it's better now, but we found it kind of useless. You had to be somewhere actually on wi-fi to find the wi-fi hotspots. Made no sense at all.

Whatever you do, do not forget to turn OFF your data roaming!!!

As others have said most of the nudity on Orient is at the far end, but the whole beach is clothing optional. We started going to St. Martin when our girls were 8 & 11 (or thereabouts), and we all love Orient. Yes, it's clothing optional and they might see someone without clothes. Before we went for the first time we explained to them what they might see and that it's perfectly acceptable in many parts of the world. They weren't bothered by it at all. It is a beautiful beach, although it can get quite busy. The far end, the opposite end from Club Orient, is typically a lot quieter. There are lots of places to eat, and several vendors offering various water sports - trampolines, jet skis, parasailing, etc.

Maho is a small beach and it's fun to watch the planes for a while, but I don't know that I'd make a day of it, even when the kids were little.

We have used Sicily Life Tours several times and have been very happy with them. We've used them in Taromina two or three times and in Palermo once. They've always been prompt and professional.

I've been following this thread and chiming in occasionally. I love the formal nights and will continue to dress up on chic nights (I wear dresses and heels every night to dinner anyway; I just kick it up a few notches on formal nights). I don't care if people don't want to put on a tux, but I also agree that we don't want to see shorts, etc., in the MDR of any cruise and, fortunately, that doesn't happen too often. However, I just can't buy into the theory that I've seen on this thread a couple times that the increase in people buying or receiving beverage packages has any thing to do with the clientele of the ship or the manner in which they dress. My husband and I are both professionals in our early/mid 50, and we've been cruising for years. We love the beverage packages and wouldn't travel without it. Do we drink more on vacation than we do at home? Sure; so what? It doesn't mean we are any less respectful of the ship's policies or just drinking to get drunk. It's a great value for us and certainly easier than signing for each drink. Last week on the Silhouette I probably drank half the daily value of the package in bottled water alone.

The premise of this thread takes me back to Constitutional Law 101 in law school -- the [erroneous late-modern] idea that rules can only require or prohibit things. There is another approach that is very powerful in all societies: encouraging things. So the point of Chic Night is to encourage those who want to dress up to do so, in the hope that they will be the critical mass to dominate the ambience. If others choose not to participate, they should at least feel "underdressed" and uncomfortable. If they don't, that's just a sign that our society has lost the last shreds of civilization.

Interesting thoughts; thanks for sharing. I never would have thought to analogize this thread to my Constitutional Law class. I've probably blocked those days out :)

Totally agree blaming luggage and airline reasons are just excuses!! Even with my overpacking' date=' I manage to get all my "stuff" in a large suitcase. So does DH. And we each bring a carry-on.[/quote']

 

Agreed, and I bring lots of shoes - mostly heels to go with the fun dresses and skirts. Even my husband will pack five or six pairs of shoes. We generally take one large suitcase each, a rolling hanging suitcase, a carry on each and sometimes a medium size one that we like to share.

 

I still think that the "chic" thing (whatever that really means) was likely meant to be a compromise between the faction that still likes to dress up (me, included) and the group that complained about not wanting to. I guess time will tell how people interpret it and how far it is stretched.

Looking forward to hearing more about the scotch :)

Many people, ourselves included, prefer to dress up a bit more on "chic" nights. So why do you care, or does anyone else care, if there is a still a concession to the dressier nights? Generally on those nights, the entertainment is a bit better, and the photo spots are set up.

 

It is incredibly irritating how people on this board are so heavily invested in not only wanting to dress down...but making sure that everyone else sees it "their way".

 

If you do not wish to dress up formally, then dress as you see fit. Do not insist that anyone else do the same, or eliminate the very few concessions made to there being a few special nights..including called it "Chic Night".

We still love the dressier nights and will continue to dress formally! I agree that it's a more special atmosphere all around on those nights. We are actually just off a short, four night sailing on the Silhouette and I was impressed that even on such a short cruise, there were still people really dressed up on the Chic night. Not terribly many, but they were definitely rocking it! I even saw a few gentlemen in suits/ties on the non chic night.

You will be able to get a taxi in town back to the ship.

Although many still went crazy, Chic Night is simply a concession to the Formal Crowd so that they can be comfortable dressing up if they wish. If they eliminated those nights , it still would be a negative for those who do want to dress. At least there are 2 (well, supposed to be 2 but they keep sneaking in 3) nights that can be focused on more formal dressing, if wished.

 

We still prefer the more relaxed approach on many of the more premium lines, e.g. Oceania, Azamara, Viking.

I kind of think the opposite: I see it as a concession to the crowd that didn't want to dress formally.

I read this on a Silhouette review:

 

Disembarkation: We chose self-disembarkation, and it seemed like most of the ship did that as well! They had asked that everyone vacate their cabins by 7:00 a.m. that morning, and we were directed to wait in the World Class bar until the ship was cleared. We were a bit later than 7:00 (as were many), and it took a while to get an elevator as everyone had their luggage. We never actually made it to wait in World Class as by that time the line to get to get out was wrapping around well past World Class and we, as the other passengers, spent most of the time trying to find the end of the line. That whole process, once we made it to deck 5, probably took about a half hour in the line to get out. By the time we had gotten close to the exit, they had tried to let people from the end of the line (which had wrapped that far by then), to also exit. That didn’t go over well with those who had been waiting a while, so the ship’s personnel directed them to the end of the line. Also by that time it seemed that there were people getting in line without luggage. Perhaps they didn’t want to wait for their number to be called for them to get off (and go retrieve their luggage), or perhaps by that point they were already calling groups to do the regular disembarkation.

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2443549

 

 

Hence my prediction that 7:00 will be a short-lived failed experiment.

If they can't disembark earlier (and they can't due to customs ) then this is going to create chaos on the ship with more people "hanging out" and it will quickly be self-evident that it is NOT a workable idea.

I just feel sorry for the people currently on cruises who have to experience it.

That was me :) As tedious as it was, I can honestly say that it did not change my opinion as to whether or not I will sail on Celebrity in the future. Was it too early? Absolutely! Had we not done self check out, it would have perhaps been a bit easier. There was no way we were going to be up early enough to get some food before we left, and we weren't about to schlepp all our luggage up from deck 7 to Oceanview, just to get something to eat. Did it leave a bad impression of my entire cruise? No, but hopefully they re-think this as it didn't seem very smooth and tempers of people in line did begin to shorten when it looked like others were trying to cut in line.

An easy fix would be to not let people on the ships as early. The staff would then have more time to turn the ship around for the next round of guests.

Thank you for the review! Hoping you can clarify a comment re: red wine availability for classic and premium:

 

"Honestly, it didn’t even occur to any of us that we should have asked him for a wine list until about day three! Not sure why we didn’t do this or why he never offered."

 

What did you miss by not having the wine list the first two days? Were there other choices there that one can get within the classic or premium package - and the sommelier just didn't mention them?

 

Or did you want the wine list to order something separate at full/incremental cost? (not included in the package)?

That's the thing - we never actually saw a wine list for the MDR, so we don't know what else might have been available, whether it was in either package or not. That's partially our fault as we just didn't ask (not sure why it didn't occur to us). Of course, he never offered it, either. What we ended up with in the MDR was fine, not great, but there was never a discussion about it. We did see him walk by with an Italian red at one point on the third night, but he disappeared before we got the chance to ask him about it. No big deal; we never went thirsty. It just would have been nice to see if there was anything else. I did find a couple nice by-the-glass selections in Cellar Masters.

Waiting to hear that this new policy is just for those in steerage .

Suite guests can leave when they wish with a complementary piggy-back off the ship . :p

We just got off the Silhouette on Thursday; there was no difference in times for suite guests. I actually looked at that on the information they provided as I had thought that perhaps AQ or suite guests could stay past 7:00 (not that it mattered for us as we weren't in either category - I was just curious as we are in AQ on our next sailing). The information sheet specifically listed each category, but instead of different times by which to vacate the cabins, they were all just assigned different locations to wait to get off the ship.

We did one Oceania cruise on the Regatta in 2015 to South America, and although we had a great time, I'd give the edge to Celebrity. The Regatta is the same size as the Insignia, about 680, and it's beautiful. While I had expected amazing food, I didn't find it to be that much better than Celebrity, with the caveat, however, that on our last few Celebrity sailings we have eaten in Blu since we sailed in Aqua Class. The specialty restaurants on Oceania were very good, but I didn't find them that much better than Celebrity. I wasn't disappointed in the food, but I guess I expected more after all the hype. The service in the dining rooms was inconsistent; sometimes very good but others pretty slow and inattentive. To me and my husband, it just wasn't worth the cost relative to Celebrity.

We did buy a drink package, which, at the time, was similar in pricing to Celebrity's package. As others have mentioned, it was more laid back. We did enjoy the entertainers (singers/dancers) on board. They were a group of four young and talented entertainers, and as they are supposed to be sort of ambassadors, they even invited us to dinner on an occasion or two. Lots of fun!

Just got off the Silhouette on Thursday after a quick four-night girls’ cruise. All in all a great cruise! I have been on the ship before, but it’s been a few years. It is still a beautiful ship and very well maintained.

We drove to Ft. Lauderdale and got to the port around 11:30 a.m. The line for security was not too bad, and the line to actually check-in was very efficient. Once on board we ventured right up to the Sunset Bar to relax for the afternoon. I upgraded my beverage package, as did one of my friends, and we enjoyed the views. The muster drill later was fairly quick, and we sailed at 4:00.

We met our cabin steward shortly thereafter. He was nice and friendly but not the most efficient or on top of things. We asked right away for extra towels and my roomie asked for a robe. We did not see either of those things until later the next day. The room was kept clean but there were little things that were annoying, e.g., it looked like he hadn’t checked the mini bar before we got there as there was a little bottle of wine in there and we could tell that the seal on the screw top had been broken. We mentioned it to him so we didn’t get charged for it, and all was good.

Since it was just a short cruise, there were two sea days and one port day in Cozumel. We just did regular balcony cabins, which we got for a steal about a month before we sailed.

Dining: my last few Celebrity sailings have all been in Aqua Class, so it’s been a while since we’ve eaten in the main dining room. We had the fixed late seating. The food was generally very good; there were decent selections every night, and while I could have done the escargot every night, I had to mix things up a bit. There was one night where we were less than impressed with the entrée (of course, all of us ordered the same thing that night). It was a sliced veal, but it was cut from the round roast and covered in some kind of gravy. I should have known better. Other than that, no complaints whatsoever about the food in the MDR at dinner.

Our dining staff was good and efficient. They weren’t over the top friendly, but they were good with the recommendations (we should have listened to them about the veal) and the food was always prompt. Our wine steward wasn't the greatest. We are all red drinkers, and rather than bring us a wine list, he just told us what was available on the respective drink packages. For the two that stuck with the classic package, there was only one wine he had. It was a Wente Cab, and they said it was fine. For the two of us who had the premium, there were a couple choices. Honestly, it didn’t even occur to any of us that we should have asked him for a wine list until about day three! Not sure why we didn’t do this or why he never offered. The other odd thing was that it was very obvious to all four of us on the first night that he was very quick to refill the premium glasses (without us even asking and before they were empty, which was nice), but he didn’t give nearly the same attention to the two classic girls as their glasses went empty for a bit and they always had to ask for a refill. On night two we switched places at the table and made a point of politely saying something about it.

Breakfast and lunch in the Oceanview Café were very good. The stations were well stocked, and there was always lots of variety.

We did have dinner in Murano on our last night. It was amazing. I was in Murano on the Equinox several years ago, but since then we have typically just gone to the Tuscan Grill as our specialty night. The menu for the TG didn’t knock me out. It’s fairly different than what is on the Celebrity web site. I’m sure that the food is good, but it was a good time to try Murano again. Can’t say enough about how good it was. For wine, the sommelier was aware that two had the classic package and two had premium. He suggested good wines that worked with both and that worked with our meal. He even found me a nice Italian red.

Entertainment: We didn’t go to any of the shows, but we did like the house band. They were quite good and played at several times and locations throughout the ship. The DJ was really good, too.

Other bars/venues: We went to the Sky bar on the first night after dinner. Maybe we were just having bad luck with wine that night, but whatever they had was awful. The red wine available for the classic package was nasty, and my friend who has the premium tried three different ones before a drinkable one came along. Really, we are not that picky; they just weren’t good. Luckily for me I had switched to scotch for my after dinner libations.

We did visit the Martini bar a couple times and made regular visits to the Sunset Bar in the afternoon.

Our one port day was great. Getting off the ship was painless. As there were five ships in port that day, we immediately took a cab to the east side of Cozumel for a beautiful beach day.

Fitness Center: I used the gym a few times. It is well equipped and well maintained.

Disembarkation: We chose self-disembarkation, and it seemed like most of the ship did that as well! They had asked that everyone vacate their cabins by 7:00 a.m. that morning, and we were directed to wait in the World Class bar until the ship was cleared. We were a bit later than 7:00 (as were many), and it took a while to get an elevator as everyone had their luggage. We never actually made it to wait in World Class as by that time the line to get to get out was wrapping around well past World Class and we, as the other passengers, spent most of the time trying to find the end of the line. That whole process, once we made it to deck 5, probably took about a half hour in the line to get out. By the time we had gotten close to the exit, they had tried to let people from the end of the line (which had wrapped that far by then), to also exit. That didn’t go over well with those who had been waiting a while, so the ship’s personnel directed them to the end of the line. Also by that time it seemed that there were people getting in line without luggage. Perhaps they didn’t want to wait for their number to be called for them to get off (and go retrieve their luggage), or perhaps by that point they were already calling groups to do the regular disembarkation. Once off the ship, however, there were no lines at immigration and we left the terminal. As the ship had docked at a different berth than from where we left, there was a shuttle available to take passengers to the on-site parking garage. All in all, it was pretty easy, even with the long line.

This is a lot longer than I intended; sorry. I haven’t been on as many Celebrity cruises as some of the regulars on here (we will turn Elite on our next sailing), and I know that some are frustrated about cuts here and there. All and all, however, it was a really nice, albeit short, time on a beautiful ship, and I’d sail on her again in a heartbeat. It was also just a tease for our May sailing on the Reflection, which can’t come soon enough!

Thanks for all the good tips -- I knew you guys would have answers. I actually like the taxi from the rental agency for all four of us better.

Donna

Good points. With the early cabin check-out and the increasing number of walk-offs, with all their luggage, there will be a lot more congestion in the public areas, as we experienced yesterday. We were instructed to vacate the cabins by 7:00 a.m., but I don't believe the ship had cleared yet, which is not unusual. As walk-offs we were told we could "leave the ship" (assuming it had been cleared) anytime between 7:30 and 9:30. With an early flight or a long drive, I like being able to get off somewhat early some times, but 7:00 is just too early as a requirement for all to vacate their cabins.