kitty9

We just got off Silhouette and noticed that LPC was lucky to have three to four tables occupied.  On a couple of nights, it looked empty.  After trying it when we were on Beyond in January, we said we’d never again do that restaurant. It’s nothing but a gimmick.  

I don’t think corporate logo shirts are appropriate. Just get a couple of nice long sleeved polo shirts . 

10 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

how is her immune system? 

 

I hope 144 lbs in 3 months is a typo.

Her immune system is good.  She has blood work every two weeks and her oncologist has been very happy.  They did talk about things like colds, RSV (she got the shot for that), COVID and the like and he said to use common sense but he’s not concerned.  As for the weight loss, (she was 276 lbs before getting sick) her whole journey started when she got COVID in Feb, developed a blood clot and had a collapsed lung.  She was in hospital for a long time, not eating much for weeks before the lung issue, and during a routine CT scan, they discovered the cancer.  She’s at one of the best cancer treatment centers in the country and her oncologist has been listed as one of the best doctors in the area.  So, if he’s ok with her travel, then so are we. 

My sister has gummies and something called Organic Remedies.  They are THC based.  She gets them from a local dispensary with her physician’s medical marijuana card. 
 

To the person who commented about her fitness to travel, her oncologist encouraged her to take the trip. Her condition is stable and the cancer cells are shrinking with the chemo.  All her markers are really good.  She lost 144 lbs in less than 3 months, but she’s gaining weight and feels good.  

My sister was recently diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and is on a chemo regimen of pills.  Her oncologist prescribed the usual medications to alleviate the side effects, with one being capsules of marijuana-based medication.  It’s the only thing that settles her down.  We are leaving in a week for 21 days on a B2B on Beyond.  Am I right in assuming that she will not be allowed to bring her meds on board?  It’s not like she uses the stuff to get high, but it’s a part of her cancer treatment.  Does anyone know if they allow these meds under special circumstances?

Thank you so much for the information.  We haven’t cruised Celebrity for about 7 years, so any changes are new to us.  

We took our Goddaughter on a cruise, along with her biological father, but we needed to get a letter of permission from the biological mother (who has custody).  We were told that since a couple of ports have custodial issues, they need permission from the non-traveling parent proving that the one parent wasn’t going to take their daughter and leave the US.  

On our cruise documents, lit says that we are Elite+ Amethyst, which isn’t a designation I’ve not seen before.  Is this some kind of a new tier level for Captain’s Club?

I’ve done several segments on three separate world cruises as a single person, and it’s something that I would do again, and again, if I physically could. But right now cruising is off the agenda for me because I have spent 10 weeks in different hospitals since the beginning of the year. Add to that my travel partner, my sister, was just diagnosed with three different kinds of cancer. So despite the fact that we both wanted to go back on Crystal, it’s unfortunately not in the cards for us, even in the future. But as a solo, I found Crystal to be probably the most welcoming cruise line out of all the very many that I have cruised.

On 4/29/2023 at 12:07 PM, Happy Cruiser 6143 said:

Well, my scooter was stored in the hallway.  With the blessing of the ship.  It did not cause any problems.  It would not have fit in that M class concierge cabin.

 

I had heard that some stateroom attendants would take the scooter away to be charged at night.  My attendant looked at me like a deer in the headlights when I asked him about that, thus my interaction with Guest Relations.  GR took the scooter away the first night and charged it and then sent an electrician up to figure out a solution for the rest of the cruise.

I cannot tell you how many times I was blocked in the hallways of celebrity ships when people parked their mobility scooters in the hall. I am a full-time scooter, user and would never park my scooter in the hallway. It’s difficult enough to get around the housekeeping carts in a scooter, much less having to fight your way around somebody else’s scooter. 

Interesting that Crystal usually had a priest, minister and rabbi on their cruises, especially the world cruises. 

On 2/1/2023 at 9:16 AM, Texas Tillie said:

 

All those crew members have time specific contracts with their new lines. It seems that many will be returning to Crystal when those contracts end.

 

Patty

If they have to wait for previous crew to end current contracts, who will staff the ships until those contracts end?  And will Crystal fire the new staff to bring back the oldies?  

You really can’t eliminate a restaurant on one ship because you had a negative experience on a sister ship. We love Toscana, especially the breaded veal chop.  A lot has to do with the chef.  On one cruise, we had a terrible experience in Polo and said we’d not dine there again.  But on our next cruise, we gave Polo another chance and it was excellent.  Yep, there was a new chef.  
 

It really bothers me that people won’t dine with a gay couple.  On our cruise last month, we made friends with two gay couples and had dinner in Privee one night.  My sister and I had a fantastic time.  We are on your March cruise.  Maybe we can meet.  

We’ve had our port times shortened on our upcoming B2B Caribbean cruise.  While I don’t see these new times having a big impact in the Caribbean, it sure stinks for other itineraries, unless you have private tours that you have to change/shorten.
 

When we were booking on board, I asked the Club hostess why O no longer goes to some of the more popular ports in the Caribbean like St Martin, Aruba, St Thomas.  She told me that O cruisers don’t like crowded ports, so they stopped going to them.  But I asked her, if that’s the case, why does O still go to places like Venice or St. Petersburg or Livorno or Barcelona?  Those ports/cities are are always way overcrowded with the behemoth ships and their 6000 passengers.  She had no retort.  So, what would be their real reason for going to less known ports?

BTW, as just a general thing, O ships no longer sell anything like cough drops, Cepacol (sore throats) or any other medical items.  They also stopped selling things as simple as Lifesavers or breath mints because those can cover Covid, according to the sales staff in the shops.

7 hours ago, artbcpa said:

Since we haven't sailed on Oceania in nearly 5 years, I can't comment on specific food shortages. As for the general quality, it is nowhere near what it was. We just disembarked from the Insignia, and I would say that the food was among the worst we have eaten on any ship. What was most disappointing was how they labeled their dishes inappropriately. "Shrimp scampi" without garlic in a red sauce; "Classic BLT" served mushed like an egg salad, a "Cuban sandwich", that didn't even approach what a cuban sandwich looks or tastes like. Certainly my worst meal was at Polo Grille of all places, where I was served a veal chop that I could not cut with a steak knife. First the waiter and then the manager came over as they could not believe that veal would be that tough, so I offered to let them try. When they could not cut it, I got a new meal.

The worst for me was their supposed stir fry.  I’ve never, ever seen stir fry in a runny white sauce.  It looked more like soup than stir fry.  This happened twice at lunch when they advertised a stir fry option.

My sister also ordered the veal wrapped in pancetta and needed a buzz saw to cut it.  And the filet mignon was so stringy that the steak knife couldn’t cut through it.  O is obviously ordering inferior cuts of meat. 

10 hours ago, jmfdr said:

Try Viking Ocean!

No go with Viking.  I’m fully disabled and Viking actively discourages disabled from cruising.  I called them  and told them I used a scooter full time and she told me they can’t really accommodate scooters because they sell themselves as a highly active cruise line. 

4 hours ago, LHT28 said:

Trivia  is usually in Martinis  so no screen to project questions on 

wonder how that will work ?

On our B2B that started Dec 23, trivia was held in the Theater.  Night time trivia was held in Horizons.  The one and only Guess That Tune was in Martinis.

3 hours ago, LHT28 said:

They have  had  some CD's from Princess before  most were not a good fit

 One guy was like Dottie loved the PA system😲

The announcements got to be a bit much from Dottie.  I agree, the Princess CD’s haven’t meshed well with O cruisers. 

We were loyal Celebrity cruisers with 34 cruises.  We wanted to try different lines, being the foodies we are, and went to Princess, HAL, and Oceania.  We fell in love with O because we felt they had the best food at sea. But no more. We just came back from a 22 day B2B and discovered how the cutbacks have negatively affected their food.  Like someone upthread said, the buffet was worse that what you find at Golden Corral, and that’s what we see on Oceania.  It was so disappointing that we thought about going back to X, but after reading this thread, it appears that our two favorite lines have been chewed up by the bean counters.  And I’m afraid this is just the beginning. NCL announced increased gratuities and have cut  the twice a day cabin cleaning to once.  Bet this will happen on other lines. 

Just now, Jancruz said:

Stu and I are on March 12 also.., so very ready to cruise!! Have I seen you on the roll call??

Jancruz1

Haven't been on the roll call yet.  We just got home on Saturday from Dec23 to Jan 14 cruises.  Had a great time.  We had so many cruise credits from the Covid cruise that had to be used by then.  Now, we're on the two March cruises.  

2 hours ago, Mariastreby said:

That sounds interesting. I hope this new CD is very personable too. Our very first Oceania cruise is March 2nd.
We just got off a holiday cruise on the Viking Star, where their new female CD is amazingly vivacious, funny, and talented. Also very guest service response oriented. After the creative programs and events she had for both Christmas and New Years, I’m afraid we’ve been spoiled. But someone who’s been with Princess a while might be great too. 

We're on that cruise also.  We're doing a B2B and will be on the March 12 cruise, too.  We loved Paul---he's funny, personable and fun.  He makes a great comedian.

The new CD for Riviera is new to Oceania.  Paul told me he’s coming over from Princess and is a high tech guy.  Paul said his trivia games will be via PowerPoint, and he plans other changes. Paul and the new guy will overlap their duties as a training experience. 

And the freaking chairs are still so low that it’s like copping a squat.  You wouldn’t believe the complaints from many of the passengers who cannot stand up from those nasty chairs. 

As an example in Terrace, the salad bar was always well stocked with many choices.  I had the salad almost every day, but only once or twice on this trip.  You’d find radishes, celery, chopped eggs, peas, carrots, cucumber, corn and some kind protein.  Now, it’s lettuce, shredded carrots, peas and one other veggie.  No protein, no eggs, no radishes.  And the salad bar hasn’t changed at all during the day.  

We embarked on Dec 23 and will disembark Jan 14.  There have been a few disappointments and some really good things.  We feel the food is going downhill, especially if you’ve been a long time O cruiser.  The buffet is the worst.  Not only is the food not tasty, but the presentations are downright bad.  To quote a man who was standing next to me, “why do so many selections look like they’ve been chewed and spit on a platter?”  Another evening, the pork roast was covered with  some kind of white stuff that looked nasty. A woman said it looked like the pork needed a trip to the med center for some antibiotics.That’s a pretty accurate description.  And why do they repeat the menu items two days in a row?  For both the lunch and dinner menus in Terrace, it was Caribbean night on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the menus the same.  And what the hell is it with O’s penchant for no sugar added everything?  Pastries, cookies, cakes are either drenched in honey or bland as hell because O has gone sugar free.  Damnit, I’m on vacation, and I want some desserts made with sugar.  You may not get sugar, but they are over salting everything else.  Now, I can be a salt person, but I’ve had to send 4 entrees back because they were so salty.  I guess O only cares for diabetics and not high blood pressure.  Give us a few desserts with real sugar. Cookies without sugar are like eating sawdust.
 

Service has been great in the specialty restaurants, but again, in the buffet it can be bad.  I was next to a woman at breakfast who wanted papaya, and the girl kept telling her it was mango.  The lady was very polite, but the server kept insisting it was mango——and she was getting pretty nasty about it.  Finally, another server came over and pulled the girl away and told her it was papaya.  The girl just shrugged and walked away.  The cooks at the Terrace grill are really bad.  First, they need English lessons because they can barely speak or understand the language.  My sister ordered a burger, well done with no cheese and he gave her rare with cheese.  She said “I asked for no cheese”, and he just looked at her, scrapped the cheese off and gave her the burger back.  At breakfast we each ordered an omelet——mine with ham and tomatoes and she with mushrooms, tomatoes and ham.  I was given cheese and green peppers, and hers was ham only.  This grill chef is the worst.  Either he can’t understand English or he just doesn’t listen.  
 

Food the specialty restaurants are as good as ever, although they are way too liberal with the salt.  Service has been great and no major complaints.  I have heard a few long time cruisers say that the specialties need to refresh some of the menus, after so many years of being exactly the same, and I do tend to agree. 
 

There were nearly 100 passengers who didn’t get to Miami on time, and quite a few who didn’t have luggage.  Spoke to a woman from Toronto who still didn’t get her bags until 6 days in, and a couple who’s bags arrived in San Juan.  Not O’s fault and they worked hard to help those passengers.
 

Paul, the cruise director, is fantastic.  He’s fun, funny and runs a great game of trivia.  He’s also friendly and approachable.  One of our most favorite CD’s ever.  
 

Any questions?