terrydtx

if you book a suite, not an upgrade by move up offer, your gratuities are included in the price of the suite. So you know this will not decrease.

If true it is one more instance of Celebrity Royal Caribbeanizing. RC only has The Genie Butlers in the higher end suites.

There is a long discussion, on the social media site we can't mention here, that recently Celebrity management made a decision to eliminate Retreat Butlers for Sky and Celebrity Suites. Supposedly this information was given yesterday to a meeting of butlers on the Apex and that there would only be 6 butlers left on the Apex in the future. Has anyone else heard about this? We have a Sky Suite booked and paid for on the Apex in September. I sincerely hope this is just a rumor and not reality.

The point of my comments had nothing to do with whether one port is better or more convenient than another. I was pointing out Maghera is not set up to handle any quantity of large cruise ships efficiently and until they build the new permanent cruise terminal, nothing will change about using Ravenna or Trieste for Celebrity, RCL and HAL. BTW our shuttle bus trip from the Oosterdam to the cruise terminal took more than 10 minutes, with all the traffic it was closer to 30 minutes.

Just for comparison, we also sail on Celebrity and their Fine Cut Steak House is about the equivalent to PG has a $65 + 18% cover charge. HAL is still a better deal.

Thanks, that is what I thought.

By Free do you mean the SR credit included in HIA? In that case there is not a charge up front for the 18% gratuity. We used the HIA credit last year on the Oosterdam in the Pinnacle Grill and I do not believe we were charged the 18% the night we used it either.

This correct, we had a sizable FCC from our Covid incident last year. It had to be used by the end of this year or lose it. We decide to use the FCC to book our cruise on the Koingsdam in November. We first looked at a standard Verandah cabin that would have left about $600 in FCC unused. I asked HAL if that $600 could be converted into OBS for the cruise and was told it could not be converted. We then booked the highest Verandah category, Aft Facing cabin, to use up the $600.

Excellent point. When we booked our Nov. Koingsdam cruise, we wanted to be in an Aft facing cabin. When we booked there was one Aft facing Verandah cabin and one Aft facing Vista cabin available. When we looked at the bed locations on HAL facts, we decide to go with the Verandah with the bed location closer to the bathroom VS the Vista with the bed close to the window and balcony door. My wife is a late sleeper, and I am not, so when on a cruise I will go out to the balcony to sit and enjoy the ocean while she sleeps in. We decided the extra space was not worth having the bed next to the balcony door where I would disturb her when I went out in the mornings,

We cruise with HAL and add the HIA option with an included specialty restaurant credit, that we generally use for the Pinnacle grill. I would assume the new pricing will have no effect on those HIA credits.

Last year we took the train from Florence to Pisa and the train station was almost 2KM from the plaza with the Leaning Tower and while it wasn't uphill it was over 95F and that walk was grueling. You are correct most of the historic towns in Italy were built on hilltops and access has to be by foot from both train and buses.

Marghera has no cruise terminal facility and has very limited cruise ship docking availability. Last year our HAL Oosterdam cruise which departed from Trieste but returned to Marghera. All passengers had to be bused from the Maghera dock to the cruise terminal on Venice Island to get luggage and clear customs. This whole prosses took hours. All passengers who were staying on the Oosterdam for the B2B cruise had to wait until all departing passengers were off the ship before they could depart and get on a bus to visit Venice for the day. People flying home had to go to Venice cruise terminal first then catch a shuttle to the airport. Until Italy builds a new cruise terminal in or near Maghera, Maghera is not really a viable cruise port. This was the only time the Oosterdam docked in Maghera and there was some confusion about where the sip was supposed to dock. I was up and watched as we docked at one dock and then the ship moved down the channel to another dock. I found out the port pilot was the one who directed the ship to the wrong dock. That whole morning was on big cluster screwup. I also heard that many did not have their luggage when they got to the Venice cruise terminal, evidently some was left on the ship and not offloaded at the dock.

On our cruise there were no higher category aft facing cabins available, so it was not an option. I may be wrong but I do not Believe the Koingsdam has any aft facing AQ cabins, at least I can't find them on any deck plans.

Using Ravenna for now is a reality and out of Celebrity's control, so blaming Celebrity is not going to do any good. Either cruise on smaller cruise ships or forget about cruises from Venice, if Ravenna and or Trieste are an inconvenience for you. Last year while in Venice I saw a Windstar ship tie up in the old Venice island terminal.

It is hard to get HAL to say how many, not in Neptune and Pinnacle suites, can add CO on any cruise. I recently saw a post that said 50 on the Rotterdam, but that seems very low, might be more on non-Pinnacle class ships since they do not have to worry about over burdening the CO dining room.

From several experiences I have read on CC keep calling for your friend every day until successful.

Standing in a long line once on a cruise is one too many.

Here is a private tour company, Get Your Guide, we have used with tours all over the world, they work like Viator but with better pricing. I found out recently from a Viator tour operator that Viator makes as much as a 30% markup over pricing from local tour guides and they pay the operators less than they normally charge. We are using them for our Apex cruise in September and our January 2024 Australia/NZ. Book Things To Do, Attractions, and Tours | GetYourGuide

Love your reports and pictures, we did the same as you, last August with 3 days in Rome and then a 12 night cruise on the Reflection of Italy, Croatia and Greece. We also were in a party of 4, my sister and her husband. It was also so hot in Rome, over 100F but we are all from South Texas and use to the heat. We ended up being gone over 30 days as we traveled to Florence then Venice and got on another cruise in Venice for 14 days to Greece.

I am following as we will be on the Apex in September from Rotterdam to Athens.

Celebrity does not charter flights; they use the flights that are available through commercial carriers. Last year we used private transport from Venice to Trieste, the HAL Venice port for about $100pp for our group of 4. If going out of Ravenna you should consider the same private transport. Ravenna is about the same distance from Venice as Trieste.

The CO cabin upgrade is only to the highest cabin category within the cabin category you book. We booked CO for our Volendam cruise next year. We wanted a Vista Suite midship Category A, when we booked, we booked a Category B Vista located towards the aft of the ship and then got the CO upgrade to the exact cabin we wanted midship in the A Category. In this case the difference between the B and A category VS almost paid for the cost of adding CO.

We are used to booking Suites on Celebrity for the Luminae dining room and a lot of the extra benefits we can now also get with CO for a lot less than a suite on Celebrity. I believe it's a great product for those of us who want something a little nicer and extra on a cruise. We now will only book CO on any HAL cruise.

I just looked at our invoice from HAL on the Koingsdam and we actually got $100 pp OBC for not up grading the CO cabin. So, the CO addon total cost was only $150 after the $200 OBC is figured in.

My understanding is that you only get the extra OBC if there is not a higher category cabin in your type of booking. In our case we had an aft facing verandah cabin on the Koingsdam and there were no verandah cabins higher in our category to upgrade to. When we booked the cruise we grabbed the last aft facing verandah and then added CO a month later. We didn't want to risk losing the cabin by booking a lower category when we added CO and upgrading to the aft facing verandah. We were fine with the $100 OBC, which brings our CO add on to only $250 in real cost.