Sigyn

Thanks! How do you still get your Celebrity points with an RCL cruise? I know Royal owns Celebrity, but not sure how that works. Appreciate any info!

I haven't been to Hawaii since 2001, but when I went, I flew from Los Angeles to Kauai and stayed at a little beachfront hotel with a tiki bar by the shore and had the most amazing time. You don't have to stay in the swankiest hotel to have a fabulous vacation in Hawaii. Get something facing the water and you're set. It's Hawaii. Food is much more expensive there, but once you rent a vehicle you can take yourself all over the island, eat from the food trucks for lunch, coffee shops for breakfast, and splurge on a couple of fun dinners. You can make of it what you will. Or do a cruise. But don't feel like you HAVE to do a cruise to experience Hawaii. There was so much to do just on Kauai. We went non-stop for four days, going to the fern grotto, doing a helicopter ride over the island to see the Jurassic Park waterfalls from the original movie, visiting the North Shore (have you heard the song Puff the Magic Dragon? That's where Peter, Paul and Mary got their inspiration "From a Land Called Hanalei") and just touring everything. We even did a luau and the kalua pig was the most delicious pork I'd ever had and I don't usually even eat pork. We were exhausted. We were only there five days, so the final day we just laid on the beach and relaxed. I wished we had more time just on Kauai. Here it is, 22 years later and I haven't been back. I need to go and experience things on Hawaii time. One island is plenty. Edited to say I dug up where I stayed back in 2001. Then, it was $125 a night. Now it's about $300 a night. But it's a fantastic place and still gets really good ratings and you can open the sliding door in your room and step out onto an ocean front concrete path and the beach sand is on the other side of the path. You can even see the tiki bar from my memories in some of the photos: https://www.aquaaston.com/hotels/aston-islander-on-the-beach

I have a dear friend who is on the Solstice this week, her first Celebrity cruise in 20 years, and she's been texting me, telling me how beautiful the ship is, how clean and well maintained everything is, and how delicious all of the food is in the MDR. Just thought I'd share.

Just wanted to say I really hope he goes. My mom has Parkinson's and is severely impaired and I think back to a few years ago before her impairment required assisted living, and I wish we'd taken her more places, despite her not wanting to go, when she could still do those things. We did do some local trips, but I often thought, "Oh, that's a lot of trouble, she's in pain, she doesn't feel well, I'll leave her alone and let her rest as she wishes." I love that you have booked him on a cruise. I hope so much for your family's sake and his that he goes since it will be a memory you'll have forever.

I think I'll take my 15-year-old son on a last-minute spring break cruise. Would Celebrity be a good choice? And if so, which ship? I know a lot of people opt for Carnival or Royal Caribbean for kids and teenagers, but we just did Norwegian for a holiday cruise and my son mostly preferred swimming in the pool, hanging out on the deck in the loungers as he listened to his music and napping in the observation lounge. If there is a ship with a basketball court or a jogging course, he'd be in absolute heaven. If not Celebrity, then please recommend which cruise line and ship. He's off school April 1-10, so of course we're limited in which cruises we can do. I am thinking Celebrity because it would make me happiest. My husband can't come along because he's stuck at work on a big project and he has limited vacation time, whereas I have weeks and weeks more than him. He said, "Go, have fun! Enjoy! I'll take care of our Maine Coon cats and play golf after work!" His own mini vacation. 🙂

Thanks for sharing your experience. I know that medical emergencies can happen at any time, on any ship. I wouldn't be upset over those. You have to take care of whomever needs it, regardless of what it means to others. The lack of kids sounds great. We have three kids, ages 15, 20 and 21, so we don't mind them, but on some vacations, we like to be kid free!

Thanks for the input. What did you like most about it?

Informative post, thank you. In your research, did you determine the average age of Oceania passengers vs. Viking vs. Seabourne, etc? I'm trying to determine that. My husband and I are 51 and 55 and want to make sure we fit in with the passengers on the cruise line we choose.

Prima did not feel like a mega ship. It was lovely. We were on it far more than off because for our holiday cruise the weather was particularly bad and we missed three of the four ports. We did stop in Cozumel on Christmas Day, but it was raining so hard it was coming down sideways with wind gusts of 20-25 mph, so we stayed on the ship, like most of the other passengers. The captain couldn't stop in Grand Cayman or Great Stirrup Cay because those were tender ports and the seas were too rough. However, that meant we were on the ship a lot, and we still had a good time. We hung out indoors in The Local and outdoors at the Soleil Bar, both on deck 8, and really liked them. We never felt like it was crowded, despite a completely full ship for a holiday cruise. I've seen other people complain about the small areas, but I liked them because it kept you in smaller, more intimate areas and not with big crowds of people. There was always enough space to get a seat in the theater for a show, in the comedy club, etc.

I don't enjoy mega ships, smaller and mid-size ships are more my style. Even our holiday sailing six weeks ago was on NCL's new ship, the Prima, which holds 3,000 people. Big, but not the same as a mega ship with 6,000 or 7,000 by any means. I will keep looking at each itinerary and figure out what appeals most. Yes, Rome and Florence are very far from the port. I remember that from before. I won't go into Florence this time, there are other towns closer to Livorno worth seeing. But Rome, must go in to see Rome every time. It's Rome. I didn't know that about Athens. Thanks for the info! Yes, very port intensive. I know that from our previous cruise. I still want delicious food and a beautiful environment to soothe me once I'm back on board, however. Interesting, thank you. Yes, definitely super hot, I remember that from both summers we've spent in the Mediterranean. Not my ideal time to go, but have to plan it around when our teenage son is at camp. He's not going with us, but he has three weeks at camp when we're free to vacation without him. Still balancing things around school schedules and that means summers are for vacations. I know, definitely all over the place. I agree that while the itinerary is number one, the ship does matter. We weren't on the ship much during our one Med cruise, but we did care about the quality of the food when we were on it, so that mattered quite a bit. And needless to say, the food on Carnival was awful. So many people had swollen ankles mid-way through from the salt and preservatives in the food. It was horrible. It was so important to us to have good, healthy food because all we wanted to do was relax with nice wine and a nice environment because we were exhausted from long days in port in Italy, Spain and France. The ship was pretty, even tho it was Carnival, because it was brand new, three months out from its inaugural cruise. But the food quality was dreadful. This is an interesting and useful way to look at it, thank you!

You don't get to 260 pages by staying on topic, sir.

We're looking at several option for a Mediterranean cruise for July 2024. It's nearly impossible to decide which cruise line and itinerary to go with. We've done one Med cruise before, but that was six years ago and on Carnival, so it doesn't count. 🙂 So I'm trying to start with the cruise line. Would like to know the favorites of folks on CC. We're looking at Celebrity, Norwegian, Seabourn, Holland America, Virgin, Viking and Oceania. There's even one from Silversea that would work for us. I know it's a mix of luxury and non-luxury cruise lines, but they each have their pluses and minuses and the cost of each cruise is acceptable. I'm mostly curious whether the age threshold is higher on Viking, Oceania and Silversea, and if the entertainment would be to our liking, although we don't really do cruises for the entertainment. But if we do go to a show, I'd like for us to enjoy it. We're pretty low-key, we like to see a port, do an excursion, have a great dinner and wine afterward, and good conversation with our fellow passengers and relax on the deck or in a lounge on the ship afterward. We enjoy listening to music at night, that's our favorite kind of on-board entertainment. Particularly guitarists, as my husband plays guitar. I'm 55 and my husband is 51, so I want the age mix of passengers to be compatible for us. Perhaps that's Celebrity? We have previously cruised on Norwegian and we're doing our first Celebrity cruise this summer. Any insight would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

I prefer to call them the "unwashed masses"

With a title of "Lobster Warning" I thought I was going to open this post and read about lobsters attacking people en masse! Alas, it's just about lobster tail being served on a ship.

I have never had bad ice cream anywhere in my life. 🙂

Absolutely agree.

Whatever it is, is fine with us.

True, the Constellation only has one tender port. We had a couple of tender ports on our holiday cruise this past December and the seas were so rough we couldn't disembark at either. So disappointing.

It's $2,500 difference for us based on other factors we have to consider. The Ascent is a nice itinerary for us. We did stops in Spain, France and Italy when we went to the Med in 2016 - most ports were different ones than the Ascent - but it was amazing! On that trip we arrived in Barcelona and had time to sightsee all day, spent the night, then toured Montserrat before our cruise the next day. Our ports were Messina (we did the Godfather tour of Sicily), Naples (where we went to the Amalfi coast and Pompeii), Civitavecchia (we toured Rome), Livorno (we toured Florence and Lucca), Marseille (we toured Arles and St. Remy), and Palma De Mallorca (we did a lovely off the beaten track tour of this Spanish island). We spent two more days in Barcelona upon disembarkation and just loved the city. We went back to Italy for two weeks the next year for a land-based vacation with our kids and spent the time touring Rome, Tuscany, Lake Garda and Venice. And then the pandemic hit and we haven't been back to Europe since 2017. Long past due.

I do love the idea of Croatia.

This is funny. I will have to come back to CC to complain about the inconsistent ceiling pattern in my cabin.

wow, that is a great deal. Suite Guarantee where they choose is just $5,341 total for two people with all fees and $300 OBC pp and $250 OBC extra and this is 48 hrs after you posted. I wouldn't normally do a guaranteed room, but not like you'd get a bad suite. currently a total of $5,871 with same OBC benefits if you choose your own sky suite, and $5,612 total with all fees if you choose your own aqua sky suite. too bad I don't have time to go on this cruise!

There's an upper bunk in our cabin in the Millennium. There are only two of us in the cabin so we won't be using it. I've looked at photos of the cabins in our category, trying to see what the veranda rooms look like with an unused upper bunk, but the ones I see have the upper bunk unfolded, ready for sleeping. Maybe that's because when it's folded up it's invisible? (Hoping!) For anyone who has stayed in such a room, will we notice the upper bunk when it's folded up? Thanks!

My husband and I have never sailed Celebrity and we both scored 5 points from watching the December video and we moved up from Preview to Classic members of the Captain's Club when the points appeared in our accounts on Jan. 14. We will now get 5 more points from the Feb. video for a total of 10. (whoo-hoo!) We sail in July on the Millennium. I saw the "one cruise" mention, but then when you look at the Captain's Club descriptions, it just says 2-149 points for Classic. It's as if they forgot that they ever said the part about the one cruise. Go figure. Here's the photo of the description on my account now.

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but there is a price difference on the cruises. $1,300 more for the Constellation. And for things I have to consider outside of the cruise cost, going on the Constellation will cost me an extra $1,200 as well, so $2,500 to do the Constellation 10-day cruise as opposed to the Ascent 7-day cruise. It's an acceptable cost, just one more consideration.