BosoxI

With 2 teenagers, I would stick with Concierge Class. We love Blu and treat it as our own specialty restaurant, but for teens, not so much. You might be able to get a 30% or 2for1 discount for specialty dining -- I would go a night or two to Tuscan Grill in lieu of spending the extra money for AQ.

Why even pay for Concierge? With two teenagers who probably would prefer plainer food, why run up the cost? Unless they have extremely sophisticated palates, the buffet might suit them best. Pick and choose. Last month in Luminae I found myself ordering three nights from the MDR menu. I would book balconies and see how you like cruising.

I don't want to be bothered with learning or considering all the ins and outs of making a cruise reservation. In thirty four years of cruising on a good number of cruise lines totaling seventy or so cruises, I have canceled ONE and for an extremely unfortunate reason. Never once have I ever reserved a cabin on a cruise I didn't intend to take. Not once. Ever. There might be good reason for Celebrity to make this change, but all I want is to take a cruise to places I desire for a fair price in a decent cabin. I spend too much time researching things as it is, and the years for me are growing short. So, what must I do? I guess I will wait until the last minute before booking and hope there is a cruise and a cabin remaining at a price I am willing to pay. I know this method will work because several weeks ago I booked my DW and me on a Regent cruise at a very reasonable price for later this month. After twenty five cruises on Celebrity, I am ready and willing once again to expand my horizons or stay at home which is delightful and most cost effective.

Celebrity doesn't need any interference from shysters; they can do it themselves.

I was enticed to investigate a cruise in an S1 by a Celebrity ad offering a lower fare along with four (count 'em) FREE perks. When I went to book the cruise, the fare was lower but suddenly it would cost me $300 for the FREE perks. Curious, I selected a second cruise on which the FREE perks were $460. Finally, as I have time on my hands, I found a cruise where the FREE perks were over $800.

Regent is just as bad. They advertise FREE business class airfare and a night in a hotel. In fact if they just said our fares include air and hotel costs, I would have no problem. But once the word FREE enters the picture, I find it very misleading at best.

We all know little in life comes free; how do they get away with this?

Thanks for all the good information which has gone far in helping us to a decision. A special thanks to TC2

Sugar train here we come! Thanks to all who advised and convinced me

Thanks for all your informative posts.

My wife and I are considering a trans Atlantic on the Mariner in April. On a fourteen day cruise there will be eight sea days. My concern is what is there to do on those days, as my wife is not a reader. We've taken about six TAs on larger ships with many activities and one Pacific cruise on a ship about the Mariner's size. She enjoyed herself on all of them. Nevertheless, I am concerned she will be bored and if she is bored, I won't have much fun, either.

Also, though neither of us is sea sick prone, how does the Mariner ride in open ocean? Are there cabin/areas to be avoided should we move forward on this.

I sense her choice would be another (boring) cruise in the Caribbean on a larger ship. I would prefer the TA but ultimately, I prefer to see my wife happy

Finally, is there a way of learning which cabins are available on a Regent ship via the internet?

Be very cautious when booking on board. Some of the offers are not what they appear to be

We have avoided the sugar train because of some rather negative posts made by people over the years. But on our last Cruise one of our acquaintances spoke so highly of it that now we are reconsidering. Given the choice between the train or an Island Tour, what would be your preference?

We'd be interested in a land tour on St. Barts if anyone would care to do it. I simply haven't had the time to investigate anything.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I travel so much, it's sometimes easy to forget which terminal has what and there is more than one terminal. Personally, I like to downplay the "Suite/Zenith" thing.

Don't apologize. I wasn't offended. I have no idea what terminal I was in and I am not even sure I like the conveyor belt better than the old way. We had no plane to catch, so we had no pressure to retrieve the bags. Next time it may be different.

The Miami airport has a big conveyor belt, maybe that's what he's thinking about.

I can assure you I know the difference between a cruise terminal and an airport. All bags are now on the single conveyor belt in the cruise terminal. This is a significant change from the old setup. It took probably a ten minute wait for our bags to come around with their Suite/Zenith tags proudly displayed and this was at about 9AM

Doesn't Luminae use a rotating 14 day menu?

I don't know but our menu was quite repetitious on our recent 11-day cruise and I wound up ordering from the MDR menu more than once. We had tuna as a main course two nights running, for example and pappardelle appeared twice in the evening and at least once on a luncheon menu.

Like everything else it all depends. Most of the time we have received an assignment in days or maybe a week but sometimes it's goes on for some weeks and countless checks to see if an assignment has been made. Some folks on Cruise Critic have said they didn't get it until they were on the dock but that's never happened to us

The early morning coffee run to Cafe Al Bacio is my husbands job on every cruise:).

 

Only one of you needs to go, so long as you take both cards. Enjoy!

That's my daily job. Two double-shot cappuccini and two almond croissants in my pocket. And if I remember to take my sea pass card out of my wallet it makes fumbling at the door a lot easier. I haven't dropped a coffee yet

We have sailed Cunard in Queens Grill every chance we have(or can afford). We first sailed the QM2 in Dec 04. No passenger dining in the Queens Grill would ask to be seated in the main dining room either then or now. You can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. Your table and servers are waiting for you. No timed seating, whenever they are open you can dine. You cannot invite passengers from other categories to eat with you and it doesn’t matter how many points you have you can only eat there if you have a Queens Grill Cabin. I have had wonderful meals there including as many lobsters, alaskan crab legs and other delights as often as I liked. The last two sailing drinks have also been included. However, there is a dress code and passengers usually have no problems following it.

Amen. Just a wonderful experience on what is still my favourite ship

I can't recall which ship, but my wife was annoyed by noise emanating from the connecting door. I wasn't but then I don't notice too much anymore;)

In our seventy or so cruises on various lines we have probably booked guarantees 10% of the time. We have always wound up with decent cabins, although once on Celebrity we were given a stateroom

with an obstructed view. A call to Celebrity got that remedied quickly. If cabin location is not important, and to us it isn't, a guarantee can be a good choice.

I don't believe cruise lines purposely set out to screw passengers. Several years ago my wife won a seven day cruise in a balcony cabin on Celebrity. I assumed we'd get the worse cabin on the ship. Not so. We were assigned a very nice mid range balcony. There assignments are based on availability, I suspect, not with malice.

Ma Bell was referring to the location where the bags were to be picked up in the terminal. It is labeled “Suite/Zenith”.

In Miami there is only a single area for all bags. Inside, balcony, suites make no difference. All the bags are on this single conveyor.

We did our serious drinking in the Ensemble Bar (on the Reflection) where we grew to appreciate the skill and friendliness of the bar tenders. Since we had the Premium Drink Package there was lots of fun to be had...by trying different types of booze. The bar tenders always clearly showed what products they used, and even found me a few under-the-counter items that were kept out of eyesight and not listed on any bar menu (because there were no decent bar menus). At the pool bar I would often order a spicy Grey Goose Bloody Mary and all the bartenders did reach for the Grey Goose.

 

Hank

I am glad you were happy with your drinks but my original question goes unanswered. What authority checks to ensure that what is in the Grey Goose bottle is actually Grey Goose at full strength?

Don't know if this has been posted prior, but there is no such thing as a short sleeved dress shirt after your 10 years old.

You are absolutely right, except manufacturers and stores will call a sweatshirt a dress shirt if it helps their sales. Sadly, there are people who will fall for the ruse. Little by little long standing definitions are being redefined and in ways that tend to drag us all down.

I also must say that grown men who must wear a baseball cap in a restaurant or who can't abide wearing a long sleeve shirt for a few hours should consider vacationing in more relaxed venues. On average we Celebrity cruisers are an unimpressive bunch, physically and sartorially.

Very simple, when embarking they designate exactly where your cabin is, when disembarking they only designate the area where you find your luggage.

Not in Miami where a standard conveyor belt is now in use for all luggage in all classes

The formula was 30 points for every credit.

You received one credit per cruise, an extra credit for Concierge cabin or higher and a third credit if it was a long cruise (like 12+ days).

 

Before the conversion in late 2013 Elite was the top loyalty level and only required 10 credits.

They changed the accrual system because it was VERY easy to become Elite under the old system (5 short cruises in Concierge).

The new system is based on how much money you are spending.

I have dined with people who made Zenith in under 15 cruises by sailing in high level cabins.

 

 

 

For some reason we were given Zenith luggage tags when we were disembarking from the Eclipse last week. With fewer than 1400 credits

that's as close to Zenith as we're likely to get. Do all suite passengers get Zenith tags now? We never had in the past.

I saw a couple of men wearing t shirts, no collar in the MDR on chic night recently.

 

The daily's contradict the sign outside the actual MDR onboard.

 

In short, Celebrity is so consistently, inconsistent, that few people care or even take them too seriously.

There were a couple of guys eating in Luminae last week in tee shirts and shorts during the dinner hours. Designer jeans are a joke; I wouldn't dig a ditch in what some men are wearing to dinner.

Hank,

 

One of the things you neglected to add when you pointed out they inflate the daily value of the drink package is that they inflated the drink cost to push people into the drinks perk because of Celebrity's low cost of goods on the bottles. Then they pushed all of the better brands out of the Classic package and allowed people with the lower package to pay actual cash for the inflated difference which generated more REVENUE. Voila! Double/Double.

Drinks in general have fascinated me. What authority checks to ensure the booze is actually what it is purported to be. Last week on the Eclipse I ordered a Sapphire Martini. The bartender definitely did not reach for the Bombay bottle on the shelf, but I couldn't see what he did use. What I do know is that the drink I was served was weak. An inferior gin? Excessive shaking melting the ice? A short pour? Watered down liquor? Maybe all four. I don't claim to be an expert on liquor but I have drunk enough over the years to know what a drink should be. And, yes, there is that outside chance that my taste buds were off that night. But then so were my wife's who had the same drink.