Sigyn

Would you book Odyssey of the Seas for spring break or the new Icon? It's about $2K more to do Icon, but perhaps it's worth it. 

I booked a cruise through Next Cruise and now I'm thinking about switching ships. Can I do that and still receive the lower deposit and benefits, or do I lose everything? I'm still within the first two months of when I did the Next Cruise deposit. The Icon price just dropped by a bunch, so I'm thinking about that instead of the ship I booked.

Definitely a sad looking sticky bun. 😞

This is what a sticky bun should be.

I put mine in checked luggage. A good tip is to hang them from the ceiling if you want them to hold more weight. They're more limited in what they can handle if you hang them on the wall. Here's our cabin on a recent cruise and one of the magnets  on the ceiling. I was able to put several purses on it. My son (the creature on the bed) could even hang his full backpack from one on the ceiling.

What is the average age of Oceania passengers vs. Celebrity? I'm assuming it's similar, or perhaps a bit older?

I see that the Cruise First promotion is going on. Can you just buy those without booking a cruise?

Was just reading that Norwegian Spirit has cancelled all of its Alaskan cruises for next year: https://cruiseradio.net/norwegian-spirit-2024-alaska-canceled/

All voyages previously scheduled to depart between July 3, 2024 and September 18, 2024 have now been canceled due to what the line says is a “full ship charter.”

I wonder who has chartered the ship?

Interesting! I had no idea about the pod problem. 

11 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

 

I have not figured out what I want to be when I grow up yet.  In fact I have not figured out if I want to grow up ... I'm only 73! 

 

All cats are evil and should never be trusted.  You think they are napping but in reality they are plotting world domination. 

 

Ah, but two of mine are Maine Coons. They're very dog-like. I love dogs, too, and when I have them, I have golden retrievers. But at the moment, they've all sadly gone to the rainbow bridge. 

For the record, I was 25 years old when that was said to me. I'm 55 now. My emotions have stabilized. Thank god. 

Just now, mahdnc said:

 

Wow.  Did you dump him or marry him?

Dumped him. 

Just now, mahdnc said:

 

You are cracking me up.

I should have just went with the multiple personality angle. I did have a boyfriend back in the day who told me I went through more emotions in five minutes than most people experienced all day. 

15 hours ago, cruisestitch said:

On the cruise prior to ours, an azipod broke.  Engineers from France flew in to “Fix” it.  Eventually the ship left Seward and came to Vancouver where we boarded. Our first stop was icy Strait point. and there was no problem. Then Ketchikan. About an hour out of that Port there was a  large “boom” and the ship came to a halt.  The captain came on the PA system and said we were returning to Ketchikan but not to worry because the French engineers were still on board and we would be on our way again shortly. The next day, we got the same announcement. Ketchikan became “ketch-again”.  
 

Then things really went South, so to speak. It was determined that the Azipod could not be fixed.  The only place available for a dry dock was the Bahamas. All passengers and most of the crew had to leave the ship. 
 

they began to collect information from each of us as to what our onward plans were—some people were headed home after the cruise, some were going on land extensions, some had independent plans.  We all put our information on yellow sticky notes which were arranged around the walls of one of the conference rooms, where phones and computers were set up so people could rearrange hotels and flights.

 

Then a crew of Gold-jacketed personnel from Miami arrived. They were called the “go team”.  The first thing they did was throw all the sticky notes away and start over.

 

The cruise should have ended in Seward, with most people going on from there to Anchorage and flights home.  But we were told that it would be impossible for that to happen because there were no hotel rooms available in Anchorage.    Since we were in Ketchikan and our cellphones worked, it was pretty easy to find out that this was a lie. There were plenty of hotel rooms available. 
 

All available commercial flights from Ketchikan quickly sold out, And then we learned that several chartered airplanes would come to Ketchikan for us. However, since the “go team” didn’t really know where we were all going, manifests began to be posted that had some people who were on the land extensions being flown to Vancouver and people who had requested to go to Vancouver would be flown to Anchorage.  

 

It was a complete mess.  Parties traveling together were put on different flights. 
 

Passengers began lining up at Guest Relations asking to be put on different flights. The “go team” lost patience and made an announcement that no manifest could be changed. You had to go on the flight you were scheduled for.
 

One of the most absurd consequences was that a mother was scheduled to go on one flight and her five-year-old child on a different flight. As you can imagine, she went ballistic.  She reached over the Guest relations desk, grabbed one of the go team members by his gold lapels, and forcefully  explained why that WOULD NOT HAPPEN.

 

The line to speak it to “go team” members reached up the stairs, around deck four and up the stairs to deck five. As the hours dragged on, people in line began to get pushy and it seemed like a fight would break out.

 

Someone actually called 911 in Ketchikan and the local sheriff showed up and told the crew that if they didn’t get a handle on the situation, they would seize the ship!!!!!

As Ketchikan once again became   Ketch-again, buses finally began arriving to take passengers to the ferry to go to the airport.  But not to the terminal, but to an unheated building where we waited in line until the wee hours of the morning for the chartered planes, long-delayed by rain, to come get us and take us wherever.  In my case, Vancouver.   There was no sign of anyone from the “go team” or anyone else to tell us what was going on.  No water, no restrooms, no place to sit down. We were cranky and anxious, as you might imagine.
 

I had a voucher for a lovely hotel in Vancouver, the only bright spot in the mess, although I didn’t reach it until 4 AM. And a voucher for a lovely hotel in Vancouver, the only bright spot in the mess, although I didn’t reach it until 4 AM, and a Voucher for a cab to the airport.  My travel agent had re-arranged my flights and Celebrity promised to pay the change fee, which they eventually did.

We all got most of the cost of the cruise refunded, and an FCC for that amount again.

 

Celebrity had to cancel several upcoming cruises while the ship hobbled its way down to the Panama Canal, over to the Bahamas and back again to Alaska to finish the season.
 

 

 

 

 

What a nightmare!!!

22 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Forget that, I want to know why you keep changing avatars. I was just getting used to the penguin and now it's a soup can? Are we talking about multiple personalities here?

LOL. I dunno, I can't figure out what I like. 

edited: I changed it to my cat's picture. well, one of them. I have several cats. 

2 hours ago, Octavias said:

What would qualify as a “nice” additional gratuity?  I’m a planner and am trying to pencil out what this is realistically going to cost.  I’m gathering that people often tip beyond the included gratuities but am unclear of how much? 

I've read that some people give the butler $10 a day pp in the suite, per day for the cruise, some give more. I plan on giving our butler somewhere between $100 and $200 at the end of our 7-day cruise in a sky suite, depending on how much we use them and what the experience is like. I'm guessing we'll need to tip the concierge too, but I need to figure out how much. We also have always tipped about $5 extra on, say, a $25 order at the bars when we order drinks, just to show appreciation, and about $20 if we do dinner at specialty restaurants. 

On 5/14/2023 at 7:13 PM, cruisestitch said:

So much better than August 2013, when Ketchikan became Ketch-again as we woke over and over to the same view with the ship unable to leave.  A trip I will never forget…..

what happened???

I've been cruising and booking different lines these past six months to experience different things and see what fits for us. We'd only done Carnival in the past, due to old friends who preferred it. My husband and I did not like it, but we adored our friends, so we went with them. Now we've done Norwegian, which was fine, but nothing spectacular. Although I found the food in the specialty restaurants to be outstanding. Someone said it was because the Prima was new and the best chefs were there. Whatever the reason, it was amazing. And then I sailed on Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas with my teenager last month for a spring break cruise and that was fine, but I found the food lacking. He LOVED the cruise, tho. So it was a win since it was for him. And now my husband and I will experience Celebrity on the Millennium in seven weeks. 

On 5/14/2023 at 3:26 AM, CU64 said:

“Thick tv’s”…..funny….but they worked just fine.Like the layout & vib of the ship

That is funny. My teenage son just complained about a thick TV yesterday when I gave him a spare from our basement. He said it was too thick (it was a flat screen from 4-5 years ago.) He shut up when I said it's either that or nothing.

2 minutes ago, the penguins said:

Clearly they have never cruised Celebrity.

And clearly they don't know how to read a room. Even if they were being generous and thought my husband and I were, I dunno, late 40's, you don't call people in their 50's old when we're knocking on that door!

4 hours ago, zitsky said:

Well shouldn’t they have someone out there cleaning the Luminae windows before I have lunch?  Should I do it myself?  🥸

Absolutely!!! Or ask your butler. 

In December, we did a holiday cruise on the Norwegian Prima. I told this one couple, in their 30's and who loved to drink and lay by the pool all day, that we were going on our first Celebrity cruise to Alaska this summer. 

They were quite derogatory about our cruise, saying we should cancel and cruise on NCL instead. The reasons they said we should cancel:

—You'll be cruising with a "bunch of boring old people in their 50's and 60's" (we're 51 and 55)

—All you'll do is listen to lectures and have to learn about history and educational things (sign me up now!) 
—It's boring and no one does anything at night (sensing a theme here)
 

Of course, I ignored them and kept my cruise and I'm looking quite forward to it. Just thought I'd share because I found it rather funny. And insulting. Coming from an "old person" in her 50's. 

I went to CocoCay on Harmony of the Seas with my teenage son and it's not an environment that I'd want to do with my husband when we're on Celebrity this summer. It felt like a big amusement park. Not my scene.

We have late dining for our upcoming Millennium cruise to Alaska, but that was scheduled when we were in a Sunset Veranda cabin. We've since changed our cabin to a Sky Suite. Are there set dining times for Luminae as well? 

I made dinner reservations at The Mackenzie Room at 415 Powell St. Is this a safe enough area in the evenings? Looks like it's just across from Oppenheimer Park. 

2 hours ago, not-enough-cruising said:

Including “The Retreat” and Luminae. 
NOT comparable to a RCL JS at

all as was intimated above 

ah, okay. I'm very new to the suite game.