Mike981

Thank you @Navybankerteacher. Just to clarify, we are sailing in 2025 and most likely in September.

You are bringing back some fun memories. We went on the Millennium shortly after she went into service. It was our second cruise after going on the Mercury the year before. It was a lot of fun, they were still working out some of then kinks. One that comes to mind was a bar that was very busy and the bartenders were doing a fantastic job, especially since there was water rushing down the back wall of the bar. At first I wondered if it was some kind of strange effect, but it didn't take long to realize that this is a problem. Have a great time and thank you for your positive review.

I really appreciate all of your help. As of "right now" it looks like a September 2025 wedding in Iceland. As I said, this is a whole new world for us. I am very comfortable booking a Caribbean cruise, but this seems a lot more difficult.

My Princess (daughter) is getting married mid 2025 in Iceland and my DW and I would like to take some time to visit Ireland as well. We thought it would be interesting to see if a cruise starting from either Iceland or Ireland to NY is a possibility. Since we only cruise the Caribbean I have no idea of where to start looking, let alone of it is possible. Thank you for your help.

And a wonderful review of Ponant and Celebrity it was. I was wondering how your friends feel about their Celebrity experience. I can't remember if they have cruised Celebrity before or not. No worries if you don't have anything to share, just glad you all are having a good time. Your food pictures show the best food I have seen on Celebrity in ages.

Hey Jim, I tried to do a search on this thread to see if you have talked about Ponant at all and didn't see anything. I would love to hear your friends take on Celebrity.

You and me both my friend.

Not five years, but we are cruising in 45 days for the first time in four years. 10 days on Celebrity Silhouette in the Caribbean.

I don't think I could do an 18 hour flight, my wife says she believes she could. I was getting a bit goofy on a 5 1/2 hour flight to San Juan.

Man if only I was as smart as you. We tend to fly in the winter from MN to FL when we travel to get away from the cold and snow. Prices normally are rather rigid because A LOT of folks in the upper Midwest are trying to get away, so planes are almost always full. I had day this spring where the stars lined up. There was a discount for the cruise we wanted and first class air had gone down significantly. So we are booked in our first Aqua room and flying first class, were not excited at all. Interesting before I booked, the price I was getting for Delta's Comfort Plus was consistently high, but that is the world we live in now. Then one day the prices came down, I went and checked first class and it was only a $100 pp more, so I booked. Since then I have seen it several hundred more pp from what I paid. Such is the game. Oh and our room category (Aqua) has been sold out for a while, so I can't price check that anymore, but it also went up quite a bit.

Excited for you two, have a great trip and thank you in advance for all of your wonderful posts. Looking forward to seeing you two on your travels. This will help fill the wait for our January trip on the Silhouette.

You sound a lot like me.

Thank you.

Thank you for your detailed review, could you please share more about this excursion? We have a cruise this January on Silhouette and so far none of the excursions have us interested. Thank you~

FWIW I can't check the price of my room for my January cruise because the room category is sold out. But based on the other categories, the price has gone up substantially. The air I booked months ago is double today. One of my early jobs was at a retail store. We had a pricing gun that we could do big price stickers so we could put, "was" price and the "current" price. We just increased the price to what ever we wanted for the "was" price. It was an "outlet" store, so people loved the discount. It was a good life learning experience on how easily you can manipulate prices.

30 out of 30, dang my lady that is impressive! I was a radio announcer for two decades in country music and I am SURE I would not be able to achieve that. I hope they gave you a free cruise. 😉

Just an FYI for those who like to follow weather around the world, I like to go to this website and spin the globe around and zoom in at interesting weather patterns. I do not believe it is real time, but still pretty cool.

You are wrong. 🙃

My thought as well Rich.

A lot of good info has been given, and I agree that if you would like more detailed suggestions, you will need to give us more information. 🙂 Budget? What does he like: Food, activities, loud/quiet, entertainment. Make it about him. What part of the world. I know you said you are "open", but it's a big world. Length of cruise? Time of year? Preference of flying or driving? Have you thought about consulting a travel agent to help?

I didn't remember that, thank you. That is my thinking as well, it will take time. I hope you see some of the 'positive' changes on your Silhouette trip. We sail her in January and are looking forward to our first cruise in four years.

In my understanding, it is going to take a while to implement these changes on ALL ships. Not each ship is going to be re-provisioned at the same time, some much longer based on the length of their cruise. Now as far as food quality, we will have to see as time goes on.

This turned into being an interesting thread, thank you all.