publicpersona

I agree. Many of the benefits they list are available through other means, such as the robes. The video linked below is relatively recent and discusses the benefits. That said, I'll gladly take Concierge over Veranda if the price is right. About to go on Summit 11/27 which was getting $549 for Veranda gty, or $459 for Concierge gty. That's a no-brainer.

Yes, everything is fine under the correct number. Unless I can see that it is causing an issue, I don't plan to try to fix it. I'm afraid they will, in their infinite IT wisdom, delete the one that is correct and then tell me they have no record of me every having cruised, much less 600 or so points.

I just noticed that at the top of the marketing email to Captain's Club members (with subject Exciting News! Our newest ship has joined the fleet), it has my name with a Captain's Club membership number, current tier of Preview, and zero points. This is not my real CC number or level at all. Does anyone else have a duplicate CC number shown on that email? I'm inclined not to inquire about it. Chances are good, given Celebrity's IT track record, the one they'd remove would be the one I've been accumulating points on for 15 years.

Same here. We just booked Summit 11/27 and took the Concierge Gty at $459 rather than the Veranda Gty at $549. It was a no-brainer.

A good sleep mask is a wonderful thing. I’m very light sensitive, but when I have on my sleep mask, airport runway lights couldn’t wake me up.

How likely is it our ship (Celebrity Summit 11/28) will dock at the “Navy pier” (is it called Fort Zachery now?)? I’m planning to meet a group in Mallory Square, but the timing won’t work unless we are at one of those piers. It appears we may be the only cruise ship calling that day.

For a brief confused second, I misread one of the benefits as "waived room service fee" (as in, a term used for the daily gratuities by another cruise line). That made it effectively $10 a day for the other things. But I quickly realized it was "waived room service fee" which has no value to me at all. Is there anyone that isn't getting priority boarding somehow?

I did not. I would think you could book restaurants the same way, but I do not know that.

The most recent X cruise I took, there was a podium outside Murano for booking all specialty restaurants. As I stood in that line, I used the app to book and it was much faster. Sometimes you can connect to ship wifi in the terminal and start booking but make sure the voyage has turned over.

The other thing they don’t realize we’ve all figured out is that the email that says “Sale absolutely ends tonight! Book now!” is a sure indication that tomorrow’s email will be “Extended!”

The number of reservations for specialty restaurants available online are limited. Connect to onboard wi-fi and use the app as soon as you get onboard to book. Alternatively, there will be someone on deck 5 somewhere between Murano and Tuscan taking reservations. Word of warning: We always go to Murano on each Celebrity cruise and love(d) the Murano Lobster. On Equinox two weeks ago, we were very disappointed in both for the first time. It seemed to me that only a single portion of lobster was split between the two of us. Also, service was somewhat MDR-ish. Can't say we will do it again.

Neither is it infinite.

From Equinox sailing Aug 27. By the way, the Music and Mixology event was great. Don't miss it.

Yeah, whenever you read something like "For your convenience .." or "We've made some exciting changes!" you know you are about to get screwed.

You are right. I stand corrected and apologize for my response. Threads like these thrive on hyperbole, of course, and I confess to using it as much as anyone. What I really mean to say is that I don't care for pillow chocolates. Or canapes. And actually was annoyed by towel animals. If I had made a list of top ten things I love about Celebrity ten years ago, none of those items would have been on the list. However, of the ten things that would have been on my list ten years ago, I think probably 7 or 8 of them are now gone.

Neither the post I quoted nor my comment said anything about pillow chocolates. I was commenting that if all one required to have a great cruise is to literally be on a ship at sea, a container ship would suffice. I've enjoyed almost all of my 70+ cruises not just for being on a ship at sea, but because we were constantly having our expectations exceeded with how well we were being treated. I'm on Equinox next week and plan to have another great cruise. But given that Equinox is being used to test things that will piss customers off ($2 for a cookie?), I'm mindful that we could be disappointed.

Sounds like you'd be better off on a container ship. MSC has those.

You're right .. I was speaking about ordering by the glass. And MDR was actually better about this than the other bars on the ship. I liked Cellar Masters, but as far as I know, Cellar Masters no longer exist on any ship, except perhaps Infinity class where they have a bar by that name but it is not at all a wine bar.

This is absolutely true. I've found that ordering any wine results in a pour of whatever's open. When I challenged this in the Sky Lounge one time, the bar staff educated me that there was no "menu", but the wines in that little book and in the app were just "examples" of wine.

There are medical scenarios where distilled water is required. The goal is to have the least likelihood of any contaminants. Desalinized water on a cruise ship is perfectly fine for drinking, but not ideal for some other purposes. When we don't have a drink package, we carry on our limit of bottles of water primarily to have a supply of water bottles to take ashore. To me it tastes better than water from the tap, but I don't mind drinking tap if I need to.

Nope .. that's why I went back and deleted my post. Sorry.

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It used to be a great value for wine drinkers when it was priced at $20 or $25. Now at $45+$9 = $54 (onboard price, per my pending cruise drink options), not a good value at all. There would be six stations with two wines at each representing different countries, and someone at each station to talk about the wines. There were some cheeses and crackers available also. It was basically all you can drink in an hour. The experience was particularly good when the weather was good (not too hot) and they'd have it out on the lawn.

Be equally careful of cruise line gift cards purchased at a discount from online gift card resellers. They are very difficult to actually use. You can't, for example, go online to make a payment on your cruise with them. You have to talk to someone to get it applied. And when I did get connected to someone to apply it, they wanted to verify that I was a travel agent. Wait .. what? Fortunately, I did get it applied eventually, but lesson learned.

It isn't called the Boil 'n Bake for nothing. Larger items get the neck irritators attached. Smaller items probably go into mesh bags that are labelled. I sent a suit for dry cleaning once, and when it was returned to the cabin, I just put it in the garment bag for the trip home. When I took it out at home, it was very obvious that it too got into the Boil 'n Bake.