Vagabond Knight

Geez, I am so sorry to hear this. You must be so disappointed. I hope they have this figured out before next year. We're booked for the end of June 2024 and have been trying to take this trip for a couple of years. It was originally supposed to be a birthday/retirement celebration, but Covid ruined that. May I assume the other cruise lines are having the same problem and having to cancel theirs as well?

How many moments am I allowed to string together before it's no longer only a moment? 😄 We've previously had only one cruise booked at a time, but my husband's retiring and he's gone nuts. We currently have eight cruises booked on four different cruise lines. The other thing that confused me is that we had that very same cruisetour booked on Celebrity a couple of years ahead and it got cancelled due to Covid. When we decided to re-book that itinerary for 2024 earlier this year, we booked it on Royal Caribbean instead (they both do the same itineraries on most of the Alaskan cruisetours, even using the same numbering system).

Nevermind... it was a senior moment on my part. That other one is booked on Royal Caribbean.

It was a cute idea and gave boarding kind of a la-de-da feel, but with it being pre-poured some time earlier, it was never really cold, sparkling, or bubbly by the time we got it. Not complaining since I understand it would slow boarding down considerably to try to do fresh pours, but it's nothing that I'd miss terribly. I'll gladly give it up forever if they never bring back the old muster drills. 😄

Logged into the Celebrity site. Have two cruises already booked. I see no option to see a list of my upcoming cruises. I try "Manage Reservation" and the only one it shows me is the first one that will take place. Anyone know how I can bring up the one that takes place later? Darned if I can find a link to do so. 😕

I wish the cruise lines had staterooms that were somewhere in between full handicapped and regular cabins. Some older people and/or those with ankle, knee or hip issues would really benefit from having a higher toilet and bars to assist them getting up and down, but have no need for a full handicapped enabled cabin. Tall people would benefit as well since it's a lot harder to get up from a sitting position when your knees are higher than your bum, and if you have any of the other issues mentioned the struggle is multiplied.

Sleep in and not have to worry about rushing to an excursion, go to the pool, hang out in a hot tub, meet cool people at a bar, go to a trivia session, go to the spa, find out what the activity directors have planned for the day (dance lessons, wine tasting, paper airplane contest, bingo... who knows?), read a book, plan your next cruise/vacation, go to the gym (you, not me), research the next port that you ARE interested in, take a nap, wander around and check out all the places (lounges, restaurants, tucked away spots) that you haven't been to on the ship yet, check out the places you usually avoid due to crowds, fool around with your other half, explain to a bartender the type of drinks you enjoy and have him/her make you a drink you haven't had before (they'll have more time to work with you since there will be fewer people onboard), watch a movie, go to a talk/lecture or take in some musical entertainment if any are scheduled, soak up a little bit of sun, write a journal of your trip so far, research something online that you haven't had time to research previously, take photos of the ship, people watch (especially those who went ashore and came back looking very happy... if they look REALLY happy, find out what they did onshore!)..

This seems like a dumb question, but what town is it?

Think of a European cruise as a wine tasting or beer flight. With a cruise, you get to try a little taste of a lot of different flavors, and then you can decide which ones you enjoyed enough to purchase as a full glass. If you come away from a port satisfied after having a few hours there and having tasted a bit of the local food and taken some pics to post to social media, then you probably don't need to spend a bunch of time or money traveling there in the future. If you absolutely loved your visit and have to drag yourself back to the ship with a list as long as your arm of stuff you want to do there, then you can feel comfortable committing to a more extensive land-based vacation to that location in the future.

We've been in Aqua Class a number of times and don't really consider Blu to be any healthier than the MDR or the Oceanview... it's more of matter of your selections in any of these venues.

We're in the one-and-done category. The menu was very limited and, in our opinion, overpriced. Food was OK, but nothing special. Service was OK. Animation was cute, but not as extensive as we expected for the price. Would not do again.

Yes, it seems odd, but it has been my impression (even back when we booked this the first time a few years ago through Celebrity and didn't get to go due to the Covid cancellation) that the tour and the cruise were surprisingly separate. You kind of get that impression when you see a lot of the documentation refer to the dates of the cruise rather than the entire cruisetour. I called in to get something corrected and they couldn't even look it up by start date of the tour, only by the start date of the cruise, and when we tried to fill out the form to transfer the cruise to our travel agent, it said there was no such matching reservation when we tried to use the date of the pre-cruise land tour start. Yet I believe that Royal owns the special train cars that we'll be using for the rail legs, so go figure.

Keep in mind though, that I have seen this complaint on just about every cruise line's forum. It seems that all the lines are trying to cut back to make up for their massive financial losses during Covid. Some of it is OK since there was probably a lot of food waste that has hopefully been reduced, but I'm seeing "reduction in quality" posts just about everywhere.

Thank you all for the replies! BTW, just to clarify when I said "it was awful" regarding our Celebrity experience, I was only referring to the Chef's Table. The rest of the ship/cruise was marvelous, as always.

Did the Chef's Table on Carnival back in 2011 and in 2016 and loved it both times! Thinking about it for our January cruise. Wondering, do they still include wine pairing with each course? Asking because we did Chef's Table on one of the Celebrity ships last year (which was awful, BTW) and they wanted an additional $89 + gratuity per person to add in a wine pairing, which we thought was absolutely ridiculous.

Sealing a bottle of still wine is not that big a deal, but sealing a bubbly is a bit tricky, isn't it?

Is there some kind of bus, taxi, Lyft or Uber service available to get into town and back?

I cannot speak to the others, but we did the small boat (6 passengers) through Harv & Marv with two other couples and LOVED it! It was a three hour tour (cue the "Gilligan's Island" theme), and we could quickly zip over to wherever the whale action was taking place. We saw many whales and were fortunate enough to catch a bubble feeding. I think it's $900 for the small private boat these days, but $150 pp for any Alaskan excursion is not bad, and it was a top notch experience.

We were planning on taking either Celebrity's or Royal Caribbean's 8B 13-day cruisetour because of the emphasis on rail travel for that itinerary (that's a southbound cruisetour that includes most of the Alaskan railroad route, which is a prime attraction for my husband and me, and both lines do the same itinerary). Then I decided to check out doing just the cruise portion and doing a DIY for the land portion. Of course I wanted to include the railroad legs on our DIY and our stops would be pretty much the same as with the cruisetour. By the time I priced it all out, the cost was pretty much the same and someone else was making all the arrangements, so we booked the 13-day cruisetour. It may have worked out differently if the railroad hadn't been such an important element of our trip, but we think we're going to really enjoy this trip as they've planned it. We went with Royal Caribbean since that was the preference of the friends who are going with us. It will be my first time on Royal Caribbean.

OK, thanks for the replies.

We usually cruise on Celebrity, but are considering trying Norwegian. Are you saying that you need to make reservations to attend the shows on Norwegian???

Did it twice on Carnival and it was fantastic... tour of the galley ahead of time and they showed you how they make one of their special desserts... for dinner, they set up in the middle of a huge room... wine for every course... wonderful food... chef coming out to announce/describe each course and take questions. With this in mind, we figured Celebrity would be an even better experience when we sailed last year and booked the Chef's Table, but nope. No galley tour (still a Covid holdover?)... ridiculously expensive considering we've already paid for dinner and most of us had already paid to upgrade to Aqua/Blu... 10 or 12 of us (I forget) crammed in a side room in Murano that would comfortably seat eight... another $89 pp + tip if you wanted the wine pairing... I think the chef popped in there once... we seemed to be sharing servers with Murano and so we sometimes had to wait for a course until they could gather them up again...at least 2/3 of the food was terrible (weird combinations of tastes that didn't go together, inedible beef that was full of gristle and cold in the middle)... those of us with the regular drink package who chose not to get the official wine tasting for an additional $89 pp treated like second class citizens ("... and here is a wine for the rest of you...")... dessert was good, though. My husband and I spent several hundred dollars for that awful meal and left hungry. YMMV, of course.

Just wondering if I need to watch for a sale or not before our January cruise. I did search this forum and couldn't find anything that indicated either way. Thanks in advance!

Now that's REALLY fine print! 😂

What do the asterisks mean next to some of the entrees in the regular section (not in the "Steakhouse Selection" area)?