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DH had a total knee replacement in April 2021. Due to covid we didn't cruise until 2022. However, he says after 12 weeks he would have been ok to cruise but with some limitations. IE avoid excursions with a lot of walking. Take advantage of the pool and exercise bikes on board to rehab. As long as your doctor says you are good to go I wouldn't stay home. He says to avoid dancing at all costs wink wink!!!

We sail mainly with X but venture out from time to time to other lines. We have done a few cruises on HAL and are booked on a 14 day Norway cruise on the Rotterdam for Sep 2023. It checked all the boxes for us re ports. Might be worth checking out.

Our Celebrity cruise in 2019 we booked an excursion thru Celebrity in order to avoid the donkey and cable car options. We were bussed both ways from the smaller dock. Our tour ended in Fira and we had the option to stay longer and expore on our own, but would have had to make our own way back to the ship. We chose to take the bus back.

We were on Eclipse in June and I remember the same. We were on the heliport and were offered hot chocolate. Saw warm blankets but never used them. It wasn't as cold as I thought it might be. Loved our cruise!!

A friend of mine highly recommended it to me. When I looked into it turns out I am not eligible as I am a retired municipal government employee.

When we last made a booking on board in June 2022, we were told you could only move the booking without losing the $100 pp if you chose the refundable deposit which was a lot more expensive than the non refundable deposit. Was a big surprise to us as we had never encountered that before. At that time we did have a cruise in mind so we booked it. However, this time we aren't ready to book anything else so I figure the book later is more flexible. Sounds like if we don't find anything to book we will get our $100 pp back.

Very happy to see the Book Later option gives you one year to book 🙂 In my cruise docs for our upcoming cruise it says 90 days which I suspected was incorrect.

Thank you so much for this post as well as your previous post re: Eden. Very helpful and Much appreciated!!

Thank you so much for posting about your trip I am really enjoying it 🙂 We sail the Edge very soon...our first E class ship 🙂 I have a couple questions re Eden, wondering if you know the answers to. No worries if not...don't expect you to run around the ship and research lol! - Eden Cafe - I had read that Eden Cafe is a complimentary and open for breakfast and lunch but don't see it appearing on the dailies - Eden Bar - can you get "normal" cocktails there or just the really fancy expensive ones. We have the classic beverage package and typically just pay the difference for more expensive drinks. Works out cheaper than upgrading our drinks package but having never been on an E class perhaps the drinks are more expensive especially in Eden? Thanks so much and enjoy the rest of your cruise!

Another way to reduce costs would be to allow for more DIY options for booking activities through the website or app. For example, the only option I have to upgrade my drink package before cruising is to call. Why not add the option to upgrade on-line? Also if I book a dining package I only get the first night reservation and have to book the others on the ship. Why not allow this to be DIY? How about the option to opt out of the printed dailies? So much wasted paper. Everything should be available on the app. I understand some people like them so don't think eliminating them entirely would be popular.

I wonder if Celebrity or any of the cruise lines for that matter ever have a focus group made up of previous passengers to get feedback?

Craft social seems to have disappeared...we did try it and enjoyed it once and then actively looked for it again and couldn't find it.

Would love to see more pub style food and even a sit down pub style restaurant. Could make the buffet smaller to accommodate this. I would like a more casual dining option that is not the buffet. I think there is a lot of waste at the buffet and they need to downsize it....sounds like this may already be happening. Pub style food would typically be cheaper than the MDR fare...thinking burgers, fajitias, fish and chips, wraps etc. NCL does this well with the O'Shehans resturant.

Here is an article about the changes. https://www.cruisehive.com/holland-america-line-makes-major-entertainment-changes/92269

Us too! We live in Gatineau Quebec and are flying out of Ottawa Jan 31st. Fingers crossed no flight delays. Where do you fly from?

We have been fairly loyal to Celebrity but coincidently also just started looking into Virgin. I like what I see so far...will keep researching. Happy to hear what others think!

Hi @TiggerandBartwe are in the "seniors" category as well. DH and I are in our early 60's. We have been cruising for about 10 years. Our favourite lines are Celebrity and HAL. Majority of our cruises have been with Celebrity and have sailed 3 times with HAL. We recently sailed on one of HALs newest ships the Nieuw Statendam. Definitely prefered it to the older ships. We have an upcoming cruise on Celebrity Edge which will be our first time on the newer E class. We have sail Carnival and NCL once each. NCL was big and noisy....but with the thermal suite package we found a nice quite place to escape to. I would sail NCL again with the right itinerary but its not our first choice. Any specific things you are looking for in a cruise line? Happy to provide more info if you like 🙂

If they put kettles and coffee makers in the room wouldn't that cut down on room service requests? I understand they do so for UK based cruises, so why not for all cruises? I have also heard reports you can get a kettle in your room upon request but have never asked. I would love the ability to make my own tea/coffee when I first get up in the morning.

I thought I read that Celebrity had changed the Book Later terms to allow you up to 1 year to choose your cruise. We just received EDocs for an upcoming cruise and says take up to 90 days. This is what the flyer attached to Edocs says. We already have 2 cruises booked for 2023 and 1 for 2024, so not looking to book another cruise that soon. Just wondering what others recent experiences are with this. Also, if we purchase the book later and don't use it, is the 100 pp refundable? TIA

Yes I could definitely opt out. However some of the "offers" are actually worth having. For example, there was recently 35% of shore excursions so I was able to cancel and rebook shore excursions for an upcoming cruise and saved $$. So I want to keep getting the emails...I just wish the "offers" were always something worth having, and that the frequency of the emails was less.

We order room service once or twice per cruise...typically breakfast on a day that we have an early excursion. An extra charge will not stop us from doing that...its very minor in the bigger scheme of things. As I was reading this thread I was looking for the right word to describe how this change made me feel. @chamimayou hit the nail on the head - it is tacky! That is also how I feel about Celebrity's most recent "sales" and bombardment of emails about these so called "sales" - tacky! Our first Celebrity cruise was in 2014 and we fell in love and have gone on several cruises since. Sadly for me the shine is wearing off the Celebrity Brand. What we once saw as a classy cruiseline is starting to become tacky and as a result don't think they will remain our "go to". We do have a couple of Celebrity cruises coming up but in future I will do a lot more comparision shopping with other lines as well as land trips before deciding where to spend our vacation dollars.

When I google Snowbird Travel Insurance a few options can up. Would you mind providing a link? I am currently researching options for us...DH turns 65 soon and the current insurance we have through our credit card drastically reduces what is covered at age 65. TIA 🙂

We did a cruise from QC to Boston in September. We took the train from Ottawa to QC and then flew home from Boston. It worked great!

Yes I agree "outside" is stretching it lol! Perhaps "feeling the wind in your hair" would be a better way of putting it. On IV you need to stick your head out the window. Standard veranda sitting on the veranda will do it. TBH not sure I am going to like it, however DH thinks he will. We will find out soon enough!

We have sailed with X many times, but never on E class. We are booked on our first E class cruise on an IV cabin on the Edge in Feb. Before booking I read many reviews and threads about how many people dislike the IV. Despite that we booked one as we wanted to try it out for ourselves. The penny dropped for me in seeing the pictures posted in this thread (better late than never lol!). In an IV you can't be outside unless you stick your head out the window...which you need to be standing up to do. In a standard veranda you can be sitting in a chair and be fully outside. Do I have that right? If so it sounds like the IV's are actually a sunroom and not a veranda.