GT38

  I have sailed with Oceania several times.  I am considering sailing next year on Cunard's Queen Elizabeth in the Britannia Club Balcony category.  How does the food and service compare?

On 12/17/2023 at 6:02 AM, rollie said:

About myself, we have done over 39 Celebrity cruises.  In the last few years we have been able to afford the Retreat.  We really liked the experience on Edge class in the Retreat.  That being said, we feel that Celebrities prices have gone through the roof and the Retreat experience is not the same as it once was.  So, we decided to give MSC Yacht club a try.  I think that the only area that Celebrity still excels is service.  I don't think any other cruise line, other than a luxury brand, can beat Celebrities service.  Luminae food is not what it once was.  The service is still top notch, but quality and choices are not what the once were.  The Retreat sundeck is nice, but the Yacht Club is awesome.  Yacht Club is much bigger than the Retreat sundeck.  I liked the buffet there and had breakfast there everyday..  I was surprised with how good the food quality is in the Yacht Club.  I thought this was an area where Celebrity would still be tops.  Not so.  The lounge is another area that MCS out shines Celebrity.  The bar area is bigger and the whole area is more opulent.  

 

In summary, with the prices Celebrity is now charging for the Retreat, I think I well stick with MSC.

 

  Totally agree.  I've been on over 70 cruises on 12 cruise lines including Silver Seas, Oceania, and Windstar.  The MSC Yacht Club is the best bang for the buck.

13 hours ago, Roel94 said:

Never knew that.Do you eat any other meat? I eat chicken at times but mainly fish.

Sounds like my wife, mainly fish.

    Does this steakhouse also have seafood?

Thanks

  The December 27, 2024 12 day cruise on the Vista has been changed to a 7 day cruise due to operational needs.  Is Oceania refunding your deposit if you are unhappy with the change or giving you additional ship board credit?

  Are Oceania deposits refundable?

  The US Government has issued a Level 3 travel advisory for Jamaica.  The have posted a DO NOT travel to parts of St. Ann's Parish.  Ocho Rios is in St. Ann's parish.  The Seascape is scheduled to stop in Ocho Rios next month.  Will the tours be affected?

Does MSC have formal nights?

  I'm sailing on the Seascape in November.  Do you have to make reservations for the shows and if so, how?

Thanks

  Are reservations required for the shows? I'm sailing on the Seascape in November.

  Our booking confirmation for an upcoming MSC cruise states Yacht Club passengers will have special shore excursions.  How do I find out what these are?

When will Princess announce the 2025 Caribbean schedule for the new Sun princess?

Does anyone know when the 2024/2025 Caribbean schedule for the Sun Princess will be announced?

When are the Sun Princess 2025 itineraries going to be available to be booked?

  What incentives do Oceania offer when you book a future cruise while on a Oceania cruise?

   I'm sailing on the Odyssey next week.   What are the shows on the Odyssey that you have to have a reservations for?  

Thanks

  I'm sailing on Royal Caribbean for the first time in 4 years.  Do they still have formal night?

Does anyone have recent daily planners from the Odyssey?

Does anyone know the dinner menus on the Odyessey?

  On our recent June 11th cruise to the New England Islands on the American Star,  a couple of the passengers become very ill near the end of the cruise.   My self and several  additional passengers tested positive for COVID when they go back to their homes.  The Captain had announced that two crew members tested positive and were removed from the ship.  All passengers had tested negative for COVID by the cruise line before boarding the ship.

On 5/30/2022 at 10:04 AM, Spaniel Lover said:

 

American Cruise Lines recently invited me aboard American Constellation to shoot photos and videos for them during a 7-day Puget Sound cruise.  I'm a professional photographer/videographer, as well as a licensed commercial drone pilot.  I thought I would share some of the photos & videos with the ACL fans here on Cruise Critic.  Hopefully, someday, some of the photos that I'm showing you here on this page will appear in brochures and other promotional material for American Cruise Lines.

 

This was my 57th cruise overall, but most of those have been on big cruise ships carrying thousands of passengers.  A cruise on a small ship like this (there were only 100 passengers aboard the week I sailed) is very different.  You get to know your fellow passengers much better, since there are only a small number of them.  Once you find someone you enjoy chatting with, you tend to share a table with them at meal times and get to know them much better than you typically do with passengers on the mega cruise ships.  It's a more social cruise than my big-ship cruises have been.

 

The other huge difference with a cruise like this is that it's not about the ship...  it's about the places the ship takes you to, and which you get to explore.  This cruise took me to several different small towns in the Puget Sound area that I'm sure I never would have visited if not for the ship taking me there.

 

An aerial shot I took of American Constellation as we approached Poulsbo, Washington.
You can see the Olympic Mountains in the distance.

 

The cruise began in Seattle, Washington.  American Cruise Lines flew me in to Seattle the day before the cruise began, and put me up in a nice high-rise hotel for the night.  This gave me a few hours to head down to Seattle's waterfront and get some aerial video and photos of the Seattle skyline from my drone.

There are very strict rules for drone pilots about where you can and cannot fly your drone.  The city of Seattle has specific rules that forbid launching a drone from any public property, including parks, walkways, streets, etc.  That means that you really have to launch from private property.  The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates airplane and drone pilots, forbids flying drones over people.  So, to stay legal, I launched my drone from the end of pier 56, and flew it over the water to get this next shot of the Seattle Great Wheel, the skyline, and (in the distance, on the left) the Space Needle.

 

 

There were about 50 of us who were staying in the hotel the night before the cruise.  This is part of what ACL calls the pre-cruise package, which includes a nice breakfast in the hotel the morning of the cruise, and a bus tour of Seattle as we made our way from the hotel to where the ship was docked.  During the bus tour, the bus stopped at Dr. Jose Rizal Park, which sits on a hillside with a fantastic view of Seattle.  This was one of several photo opportunities during the bus ride on the way to the ship.  I was able to get this photo:

 

 

Just to be clear, that was not a shot from my drone.  I shot that with my Canon camera from a viewing location in the park, overlooking the city.  Another stop during our bus tour was Seattle Center, the home of the Space Needle.  Because this entire area is city property, I could not launch the drone from here for an aerial shot of the Space Needle...  not to mention the fact that the area is crawling with people, and you can't legally fly a drone over people.  So, I had to settle for a shot of the Space Needle from the ground, looking up.

 

 

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time during our bus tour for us to actually go up to the top of the Space Needle...  but that was okay, since I actually have visited Seattle before and been up to the top of the Space Needle.  If you've got a lot of time to kill and would like to watch a 33-minute long travelogue I made about that previous trip, click here.

 

What hotel did you stay in on the pre cruise?

  Viking states you need a covid-19 antigen test within 24 hours to boarding your first international flight.  Does that mean that the time you board a domestic flight you have to take to connect with the international flight can not be used in determining when you need to take the test?  When other cruise lines require a test 24 hours prior to departure, it means any time the day before.

What is the big sphere for on the new ICON of the Seas?

  I recently was attempting to reserve shore excursions on MYVIKING.COM.  I was unable to complete the check out process(payment) after trying  two different credit cards.  I called Viking and was told that I had in-fact reserved the excursions.  The problem was I had a credit on my account which the MYVIKING.COM web site could not handle.  They send me an email confirming my reservations and said they would credit any over payment.  I logged in MYVIKING.COM web site yesterday to see if they had loaded additional shore excursions.  The web site stated the tours I had attempted to book required payment.  I checked my daily schedule on MYVIKING.COM and two of my booked tour had been deleted since they were sold out and I hadn't made a payment.  I called Viking and they couldn't explain what their web site was doing, but assured me I was pay up and that no excursions had been deleted from my up-come cruise.  Has anyone had a similar experience?

On 7/28/2021 at 6:42 AM, twototravel said:

Breakfast service continues to be a problem. If you don’t arrive as soon as the restaurant opens, you definitely won’t have time to eat your breakfast if you have a early excursion. 
 

This morning is our first at-anchor port…Boothbay. We will see how the tenders work. 
 

Several staff/managers aboard training who will then move on to other ACL ships.

 

Wifi has not worked yet. Using phone as hotspot.

   What time does the restaurant open for Breakfast??