kathynorth

We've done the World Wines event twice and enjoyed it. I believe we had 8 stations on our last cruise, each with a white and a red wine from different countries. They man the stations with a crew member from the country of the wine. The event is approx 1 hr duration and you go from station to station tasting each of the wines. The pour size is the same as you get at a typical wine tasting, but you can go back to the same station as many times as you like. Toward the end the crew start giving heavier pours to finish off the bottles. They usually have a large fruit and cheese platter to help cleanse the pallet. On a different cruise I did the event where you create your own wine. I thought this would be an individual creation, but it turned out we were put into groups of 4 and had to collaborate on what we did or didn't like. IMO our wine tasted terrible and I ended up pouring the sample we were allowed to bring back to the cabin out in the sink. We also did the Reidel wine tasting, where you get a set of Reidel wine glasses as part of this event. Although this was more expensive, we enjoyed this event. At that time I didn't realize just how much the shape of a wine glass can impact the taste of the wine. It was very interesting to understand how sight, smell and taste all interface to create a nice wine experience. I was so impressed that I told everyone what I learned during that session. The result was that several members of my family gifted me Reidel wine glasses the following holiday season. Now my cabinet is filled with specialty glassware, some for wine, some for beer.

ticktock1, I’m sorry I gave you the wrong information. I was thrown off by the BA thread title. The port name I gave was for BA, not Puerto Madelyn. Sorry 😞

Neither of these. The cruise port for large cruise ships is at Terminal de Cruceros Benito Quinquela Martn. This is an industrial area so the tour guide will need to pick you up near the front gate of the port area. If you are arriving to BA via cruise ship then you need to ride a shuttle bus from the ship to the terminal.

OP, are you on the Apex? I don't see Blu or Luminae listed on the app for next Saturday's cruise.

Which ship are you going on? We can look up to see if we can find a menu on our app. I can see the Blu menu on my app for our upcoming Feb 11th cruise.

I received that also. I then hit reply and clarified that I was looking for a custom tour start time due to our ship arrival time. An actual person responded to the 2nd email and we've communicated back and forth several times since.

Beautiful photos! Thanks for posting these. Great that you were able to visit Machu Pichu. I hope you enjoy the rest of your trip without disruptions. Peru is a beautiful country that we hope to visit again in future years.

Thanks for all the photos! They really help to visualize your experience. Looking forward to more.

Buckeye94, people have posted that Celebrity MDR menus are changing as of this week. If you find a spare moment could you confirm or discount if the menues have changed on the Infinity?

I feel like Celebrity could have managed all these cost cutting items in a better way. For example, if the above is accurate, they could have introduced a "pizzaria" in an existing pizza location by giving that station a minor facelift and incorporate the salad bar and stir fry to give it a "free" specialty restaurant feel. Eliminate table drink service in OV, but add a couple of user friendly drink ordering stations in the OV. Expand the menu and open hours at Mast Grill (currently closes at 5pm). As for the cabin changes, add a couple of easy to procure cold meat items to the Continental RS menu. Rather than just cutting out turndown, they could initially incorporate no turndown into the "Go Green" program. I'm wondering if the right hand is talking to the left with all these changes happening at the same time.

On our last cruise (happened to be Infinity) we found servers handing out glasses of champagne and mimosas at different locations around the ship, not as you entered the ship as in the past. This was noticeable to us as we were on a Sail Only rate for that cruise.

This is the phone # I use to reach the MyCruise Reward Team at Celebrity. 900-760-0654 ext 3 They can look up your account and determine how many points you can cash in to pay down your cruise. They can make the transaction while you wait on the phone. Be sure to ask them to send you an updated invoice. I always ask to have them wait on the phone with me until the emailed invoice arrives. This way I can confirm everything is as it should be before hanging up.

Thanks for your response. We are boarding in BA. I’m wondering if there’s a difference between Chili vs Argentina, or different cruiseline protocols.

We have a private "Free Walking Tour of Montevideo" scheduled with this group. I emailed them and they arranged to have 2 groups from our cruise ship, one at 11 and the 2nd at 11:15. They are very easy to work with and are pretty good with communication. https://freewalkingtour.com.uy/

anonmom, were you able to figure something out? If not, what did you end up doing when you stopped at Ushuaia?

Which cruiseline did your friend cruise with and when did your friend cruise?

On our Feb 2018 trip we dressed similar to what TayanaLorna recommends. We read lots of posts with recommendations for special clothing and determine we definitely over-packed. Follow how you'd typically dress during cold and hot wet weather, while following the concept of layering so you can adjust with the change in temperature. One recent recommendation that I read for Volunteer Point was to bring painters booties so the penguin poop doesn't damage your footwear. You can toss the soiled booties in the trash before leaving in your transport vehicle.

You can walk up to any of the 4 MDR and ask which has the fastest seating time. The attendant can check the computer and add you to the active waitlist for any of the 4 restaurants.

Hi Jim, I was able to revive the post and I bumped it so it now shows in the South America thread. Here's the link. My only regret is that we didn't stay another night so we could take a trip to the Brazil side. The cost for excursions from the vendor stationed in the lower hotel lobby were very reasonable, much better than what we were seeing advertised by online tour agencies.

bump

We did Iguazu Falls as a DIY in Dec 2018. I posted a summary of our plan on the South America board. You can probably find it by searching for my screen name and my posts from early 2019.

I think the 20% gratuity refers to purchasing a beverage that's not covered by your drink package. When I checked the app for my upcoming cruise it says the same thing. The menu doesn't mention anything about charges for food, just the cost of beverages.

It appears that most cruises that are coming up soon have the extra RS charge. It's likely those cruises that are further out that don't show the charge likely haven't had the app updated to reflect the new charge.

Oops, that should read $11.74 for room service charge ($9.95 service charge + $1.79 gratuity).

According to my app, Suite Guests don't pay the $9.95 service fee. They are only charged an 18% gratuity if they order an additional charge item that's not included in the standard suite package.