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This has been my experience as well. I called a few days ago to get lower prices and was exactly as detailed above. Always check my email before ending the call. Prices have now gone down again today so will be making another phone call. I wish it was more like HAL's flight ease....I can do it all myself online when there is a price change.

We did the Edge in Feb and really enjoyed it. We had anytime dining but we prebooked all our dining online. We tried all 4 of the MDR as well as a few specialty restos. You don't have to pre-book if you have anytime dining, you can just show up. The menu is the same in each of the 4 MDR with the exception of a few "exclusive items" offered in each of the 4. You can see sample menus online to give you an idea. We will be on the Edge again next year and have already booked all of our dining 🙂 Not necessary, but I enjoy the planning 🙂

Based on what I read on our roll call, seems like everyone had to pay more for the extra day. No one was happy about it.

Correct. We had the option to cancel with no penalty or pay for the additional night.

I really enjoy a white wine spritzer . Dry white wine is very low in carbs, and adding club soda witth extra lemon or lime makes it a very refreshing drink. You can also get almond milk onboard. I have ordered lattes made with almond milk. Although sometimes it is sweetened vs unsweetened.

We are on the same cruise. It was originally a 12 night cruise departing on Sep 21. Due to scheduling issues with the port of Vancouver, it was changed to 13 nights departing Sep 20. When we found out we had our fingers crossed we would get an extra night in Hawaii. When we found out Astoria was added we were disappointed, mostly because the cruise was now going to cost us an extra roughly $800 for the extra day, which we hadn't signed up for. We were given the option to cancel with no penalty. Bonus for us was we were actually onboard the Edge on a Caribbean cruise when we found out. So we cancelled and rebooked and got the additional OBC for booking on board. Will be our first trip to Hawaii (and to Astoria 😉 ) so all is good! There is a roll call for our cruise if you are interested in joining. There was some discussion on the date/itinerary change. Here is the link:

We like the Plantation area. It is about 15 minutes from the airport. We either stay at the Hampton Inn or La Quinta. Both hotels have breakfast included and you can book without deposit. It is great for shopping and restaurants all within walking distance.

https://westcoastsightseeing.com/services/all-day-baggage-storage/ You can store your luggage at the cruise ship terminal. This company also offers tours. One option is Stanley Park. It is beautiful and there is lots to see and do. It is right near the cruise ship terminal. Happy to help if you have other questions.

Thanks for confirming!

We have booked Flights by Celebrity and are wondering how to check for price drops. With HAL it is very easy to check fo price drops and rebook all online....but I don't see a way to do this with Celebrity other than to do a mock booking and check the flights. Then I assume we would have to call to get the lower price. Am I missing something? Thanks

We love the Pan Pacific hotel. It is in the same building as the cruise port so no transportation is required. We are booked to stay there again for an Oct Pacific coastal cruise. It is pricy but worth it IMO. It is walking distance to Stanley Park which has lots to offer, as well as other sites and public transportation. There are quite a few other hotels right near the cruise port...less than a 5 minute walk. I just received an email Pan Pacific are having a sale that starts in a few days so will check to see if rates have gone down. https://www.panpacific.com/en/offers/save-more-to-explore.html?utm_source=responsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20230421_PPHG_Save_More_To_Explore_Teaser Vancouver is a beautiful city!

Wow thanks so much all for the input. Makes me wish we had more time to spend in NOLA!! Thankfully we have quite a bit of time to plan and all your very helpful suggestions will make that easier 🙂 Happy Easter!

Thanks so much for all the feedback 🙂 The cruise is not until Feb 2024. We will be in New Orleans on Sat Feb 24th. From what I can tell there won't be any festivals going on at that time. Glad to know that we can easily walk to many things ourselves. I took a quick look at Viator (we have used them before) and lots of tours available 🙂 DH would absolutely LOVE the WWII museum...I will check that out. What is the jazz cruise? Sounds like something we would like. We are from the Ottawa area in Canada and are flying to Tampa a few days ahead of time and will also stay a few days after the cruise. We plan to stay in downtown Tampa before the cruise, and then head to St. Petersburg after the cruise.

We are booked on a cruise out of Tampa that has a full day in New Orleans (930 am to 10 pm). All other ports show excursions, but there are none for New Orleans. Just wondering if there will be excursions available through Celebrity or do they typically not offer any for this port. This will be our first time to New Orleans (and to Tampa) so not sure what to expect. We typically cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale for Caribbean cruises. TIA 🙂

We've used them once for a tour in St Martin on our cruise last month. Was probably the worst excursion I've been on. We've cruised many times and typically do a mix of ship excursions and private excursions. We won't use shore excursion group again.

We ate there earlier this month. I had lobster and DH had filet mignon. It was an excellent meal 🙂

Thanks all this is helpful 🙂

Hi All, we are thinking about a cruise out of Tampa on the Constellation next Feb. When looking at the deck plans, it shows different plans for cruises as of April 25 2023. Anyone know what the changes are? I don't see a drydock in the schedule so guessing its nothing major. We have sailed on the Connie twice and know she is an older ship so no concerns there. We have never sailed out of Tampa so thought that would be something different to try. Thanks!

We went every night on a 10 day cruise in September and the sets were always different. I never found it overly loud and there were often people up dancing. Was so much fun 🙂 There may be the odd song that gets repeated, but certainly lots of variety. We loved it! Also loved the Dutch Cafe 🙂 It can get busy but service is quick and they will give you a number and bring your order to your table.

We sailed on NS in September and really enjoyed our cruise. It was our first sailing on this class of ship. We had the Thermal Suite pass for our cruise and enjoyed it but never went after dinner. We really enjoyed the music options on the Music Walk. We would wander between Billboard, Rolling Stones, BB Kings and really enjoyed it. We did a few of the shows in the theatre as well which we enjoyed. Also nice just to walk around the ship (both inside and out on deck) . We were never bored!

We sailed the Edge earlier this month. Non speciality lunch options open on embarkation day are: - OVC (buffet) - Mast grill - hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, self serve ice cream (pretty sure it is open on embarkation day - Al Bacio - this is the cafe serving specialty coffees (included if you have a drink package) and delicious cakes, cookies and pastries (free). Not really for lunch although I have been known to have dessert for lunch on occassion! Other non speciality options for breakfast and lunch (don't believe they are open on embarkation day) - MDR - Spa cafe. This is within the solarium and has some healthy lunch options - salads, small sandwiches - Eden Cafe - only open on sea days. This is a great little spot offering salads, panini sandwiches, desserts, tea and coffee. They also have breakfast options although we didn't try it For embarkation day we went to the Grand Bistro which is $30 per person. We wanted to avoid the crowds and this was well worth it. Excellent food and not crowded at all! We went back a second time later in the cruise we enjoyed it so much 🙂 The app will have dining options as well as opening times and menus, but it isn't totally accurate in advance. Hope this helps.

Just back from 10 days in the Caribbean on the Edge. While we have sailed with X several times this was our first E class sailing. None of the ports were new to us...it was all about the ship. We were really excited to try a new ship but I have to say I stressed over our decision to book an IV based on the extraordinary amount of discussion surrounding them. DH was sure he would love the IV...I was on the fence. But I figured the only way to know if we would like it is to try it. IV: So I will get this out of the way and give my thoughts on the IV first: And it turns out I neither loved it nor hated it lol! FWIW we always kept the bifold doors opened. Pros this made the room feel bigger and brighter. I loved the view when we walked into our room 🙂 It was great to be able to stretch out on the bed and see that spectacular view. We opened the window occassionally to take pictures and feel the breeze. Cons as others had mentioned your room heats up pretty quickly as the AC shuts off when the window is open. While this is understandable, it doesn't allow you to use it the way you would a traditional verandah. It really is more of a sunroom than a verandah. Would I book one again? Yes...but not a "must have". We have an upcoming cruise to Hawaii on the Edge and booked a sunset verandah which was actually cheaper than an IV. General layout: It still felt like "coming home" to be on an X ship and didn't take us long to find our way around. We absolutely loved Eden...it is just beautiful and a great place to eat, drink, relax, or sit and read. The thing about Eden is its out of the way so you have to make a point to go there. Which is also one of its charms 🙂 Loved the layout of the grand plaza with the martini bar as part of it and the entertainment can be heard from the deck above at Al Bacio. Al Bacio has always been one of our favourite places on the ship and it still is. It is more open and seems to have more seating which is great. The theatre is better designed...less obstructed views from pillars although there are still some spots where view is slightly obstructed on the 2nd level when watching the aerial performers due to the overhang. The solarium is also another fave of ours and we enjoyed it on the Edge. It has one big hot tub instead of 2 smaller ones and the overall shape is better for placement of loungers. We spent 2 sea days there and although both times it looked full when we got there we did manage to find chairs both times. We never use the main pool or hot tubs, but it did seem odd that the hot tubs are 2 decks up from the main pool. Not very convenient. There is a neat jogging/walking track although it isn't well marked all along the track. Still a nice addition. The spa seems similar and we had an enjoyable couples massage. We had a tour of the Thermal Suite but didn't bother to book it. Not worth it without a T Pool. Love the Tpools on both HAL and NCL in their thermal suites. Dining: We had select dining and made reservations in advance for the 4 MDRs as we wanted to experience them all. We also ate in speciality restaurants: Eden, Steakhouse, Rooftop Grill and Le Grand Bistro. We had a reservation for Petit Chef but cancelled it when we saw the menu. Main course was beef short ribs which didn't appeal and the optional menu was fish. For the upcharge I expected more. We have eaten in Petit Chef on other ships and the menu was much more appealing. Eden was our favourite for dinner. Absolutely delicious and excellent service. We also ate lunch at the Eden Cafe one day (no upcharge) which is only open on sea days. A great place for a bite to eat at lunch and they even have desserts (warm cookies!!) and coffee. The steakhouse was also very enjoyable and a close 2nd. The Rooftop Grill was amazing for the views, but the food was just average. Interestngly there is no way to somewhat close it in during inclement weather. Thankfully we had nice weather when we were up there. On embarkation day we headed to Le Grand Bistro for lunch...there is an upcharge of $30 pp but we had heard it was a great option on embarkation day to avoid the crowds at OVC. It was an excellent choice and well worth the upcharge. We enjoyed it so much we went back on the last sea day. It brought back memories of the old Bistro on Five that we used to love 🙂 It is so great to see a version of this back 🙂 The 4 MDR concept is good and does make for a more enjoyable dining experience. We ate breakfast in the MDR a few times as well. I can't say we had a favourite out of the 4. We only had what I would call bad service twice in a MDR...it happens. The food was decent, some hits some misses. OVC we went to a couple of times for breakfast and lunch. Great to see all the new handwashing stations. I liked the Pizza section being somewhat separate at one end of the OVC. It does seem like there should be a bar there are well...it is a long walk to the bar at the entrance of the OVC. All meals we ate in OVC were great...food was fresh and hot and very enjoyable. There is also a "scoops" place for both ice cream and cookies (free) and gelato (upcharge) in the OVC. Delicious ice cream but long line ups to get it. There is no gelato place near Al Bacio. We didn't go for dinner so can't comment on that. We did room service for breakfast once and it was very good. Food arrived on time and nice and hot. Entertainment: our go to pre-dinner was always the Ensemble bar for drinks and live music. We wondered if we would miss that. We didn't. We enjoyed the live music from the Grand Plaza and although not as quiet as Ensemble it was never overly loud. For a really laid back vibe Eden bar is the place to go (even if you aren't eating there). The Eden bar menu is expensive...drinks in the $20 range. We had the classic package and had no trouble getting drinks from the Eden bar that were covered by our package. They feature live acoustic music and it never seemed crowded. We went to The Club once for 80s night. Live entertainment and dancing was a lot of fun. This venue seems to host a variety of activities. Lastly the theatre...we went to most of the evening shows and enjoyed them all. The guest entertainers were all very good. The Production shows were good although we expected more from the A Hot Summer Night's Dream show based on all the hype. It was just ok. There was a Liars club in the theatre later one night and it was hilarious. There was also an entertaining talk one morning by the CD Guiseppe on what its like to live on a cruise ship. Sadly we missed a similar talk by Captain Tasos which we heard was great. Which brings me to.... Staff: WOW!!!! Absolutely loved Captain Tasos and CD Guiseppe!! They were so entertaining and visible around the ship 🙂 Our Cabin attendant was fantastic and took great care of us 🙂 I don't think I have ever been on a ship where the common washrooms were kept so clean...almost everytime I went in there was an attendant cleaning. Absolutely spotless as was the whole ship. Staff around the ship were very friendly and other than twice in MDR, service was excellent. We loved our first sailing on Edge and looking forward to being back on her again!! One last thing: @OrcaGirlwrote an amazing live report of this cruise...she covers way more than I did and is definitely worth a read if you want more info. Any questions I am happy to try to answer.

Just got off the Edge...there was Beef Tenderloin en Croute on one of the 4 MDR menus regularly. Not exactly the same as Beef Wellington but close.

We were on the cruise with you @OrcaGirl and I really enjoyed following your reports of our cruise 🙂 Your report was fun to read and our experience was similar. I will write a quick review of our experience soon. Thanks so much!

OMG you sound so much like me!! I LOVE the planning part! I sometimes wonder if I should have been a travel agent. Enjoy your cruise 🙂