Momof3gurlz

@A&L_Ont look where we had dinner tonight. Thanks to you for this long ago recommendation. It was fantastic as always.

@dani negreanu thank you for updating us. As much as I hate what’s happening, I’m glad you have volunteer activities to keep yourself busy. You and the others are doing amazing work bringing comfort and basic necessities to those in need.

This thread has been going for so long I can’t remember if I coined that phrase or is someone else did. I do recall referring to all of us here as “Dani’s flock”.

We just returned from Europe and Med cruise on 10/9. Hope you have a great trip and safe travels!

Morning grape juice 😉

Safe travels Greg & Linda!

As you know, flight options between TF Green and FLL are not great, especially this time of year when JetBlue isn’t running that early am flight down. So Boston it is. Flights were a bit cheaper too. We caught the “T” commuter rail right across from TF Green. Takes us to South Station where we can either transfer to an airport dedicated bus or take Uber/Lyft. We’re going to do Uber/Lyft. The cost is $12.75 each way, $6.75 for me (senior rate).

Thanks Graham. I’ll do my best to keep them in line 😉😇!

3:30 AM, EST and here I am with my first coffee, reading CC 🙂. I had my alarm set for 4:30 AM but couldn’t sleep. We fly out of Boston Logan airport at 11:15 am today. Since it’s a workday it would be tough to have one of our kids drive us up there so we’re taking the train. We haven’t done this before, so we’re giving ourselves plenty of time for any snafus. Hopefully I can doze during the flight 😵‍💫.

We leave tomorrow, late morning. Wish you & Jim were joining us!

All packed! Time for this…

Happy Anniversary Greg and Linda! You’re off to a great start Greg and we look forward to sailing with you - literally!

I’m hoping that the rainy forecast is due to that pesky Invest 94L that’s lurking, and that it’ll ultimately take a sharp turn north leaving us with some better weather!

Thanks for the link Greg. I think I’m just going to bring the Mickey Mouse ones and hope they’re not needed!

I’m relieved every time I see you post Dani. 🙏

The only rain ponchos we have are from Disney with a big Mickey Mouse on the back 😂. (Heads over to Amazon to see what I can get delivered before Thursday)

And??? LOL, just kidding. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to sail with a few new friends from Bella 1.0 along with a few others from CC we haven’t met yet. Plus Andy had his first free casino cruise certificate we were able to use. The timing wasn’t perfect coming right off our Med trip, but…..do it while ya’ can is my my new motto.

I’m really struggling with packing for this upcoming trip. Since the weather might be questionable, I feel like I have to be prepared for several possibilities. I hope the forecasters have a better idea by Wednesday as we fly to Ft Lauderdale Thursday and I’d like to not have to bring an extra bag.

I agree with both of you. The laundry is a great benefit IMO. Another one I forgot to mention is priority tendering in those ports; nice to not have to worry about getting a number and waiting to be called. Also, being able to go straight to your cabin upon embarking to drop off any carryons is a really nice Celebrity feature. This isn’t a Captain’s Club perk, it’s for all guests.

I don’t disagree with you George, I just think it can vary by ship. We’ve had great bartenders on some RC ships and not so great ones on others. Same with the Windjammer. I’m glad you’ve had a great staff at the martini bar on your cruises. It’s certainly what we expected but it didn’t happen on this particular ship.

Captains Club Benefits - this is what Celebrity calls their loyalty program. As Diamonds, Celebrity matched us to their Elite category. There are some similar discounts offered on things like internet, drink packages, spa services, etc. and these are comparable to RC’s. Instead of 4 drink vouchers, Celebrity has a nightly happy hour with free drinks for Elite members (only certain drinks are included). Our booking included the drink package so on this particular cruise the happy hour wasn’t any benefit to us. I think the 4 free drinks per day on RC is better because you can have any time of day. What I did love was the free bag of laundry each, this is a great benefit IMO. Advantage: None Overall - we found Celebrity to be much more organized with fewer lines for anything. The morning we disembarked we had not received a final statement either in our cabin or by email. I headed down to guest services expecting a wait but I was the only one there! Self disembark was as easy as embarking. We simply dinged our sea pass cards and walked off- no line whatsoever. Overall, if I had to describe the difference between the two lines I’d say Celebrity is more refined. Now is that because this was a Mediterranean itinerary instead of Caribbean, I’m not sure. I’d be interested in trying out Celebrity in the Caribbean to see if there’s more of a party atmosphere. So Celebrity came out with a slight advantage but the difference was not as substantial as I expected. I’m happy to answer any questions!

Now on to the stuff everyone really cares about! Oceanview Cafe - Celebrity’s version of the Windjammer. We had breakfast here every day and a couple of lunches. Food was plentiful and they had a good variety of regular items and daily specials. One odd thing is they would move the regular daily items around each day. For example, the salad bar was rarely in the same spot twice. Breakfast featured a made to order egg and omelette station. There was a decent amount of seating and the usual crowding at breakfast and in our one sea day. There’s a pizza station at the very back with 3 or 4 varieties and a daily calzone special. Advantage: None Main Dining - There are four main dining rooms, each with a theme, Tuscan, Normandy, Cosmopolitan and Cyprus. To be honest, I’m still a little confused about how the different menus work! There are rotating menus each night with dishes shared by all four dining rooms. Plus, each place has their own signature dishes. BUT you can order anything from any one of the restaurants (assuming you’ve looked at the other menus). Anyway, the overall dining experience is much better because there are no lines, no frenzied waitstaff, etc. You show up when you want to; they either seat you or give you a pager if a table isn’t immediately available. What a concept! Let’s face it, Royals My Time Dining is a broken system. There’s just no excuse for the long lines every night. As for the food, I will say the menus seem a little more interesting, but I’m not so sure anything was better executed. We only did one specialty dinner, Rooftop Garden Grill, and it was very good. Advantage: Celebrity due to the atmosphere & experience. Bars & Lounges - this was kind of a disappointment. We didn’t find any bar staff to be particularly friendly or engaging. In fact the bartenders on the Magic Carpet were borderline rude and the drinks were just, not good. Those at the Martini Bar were slightly more friendly. I just expected more from these two signature venues. The famous ‘show’ put on at the Martini Bar felt forced and staged. There’s no sports bar on the ship but they have TV’s and show some sports in the Casino bar. This venue called The Club is where they do all the games and trivia and they have musical performances there each night. Late night it becomes the nightclub. There’s a very large bar and two levels of seating. We actually spent no time here because it’s very dark and there are no windows. I called it The Cave instead of The Club, lol. Advantage: RC Pool & Solarium - the Solarium never appeared crowded and the main pool was crowded only on our one sea day. Piped in music was relaxing. There were no crazy games, just a guest vs staff pool volleyball contest. Serve yourself towels, no checking them in and out. Advantage: Celebrity Continued next post

Seems like a good time to post my final thoughts on how our first Celebrity cruise stacks up against RC. I’m going to do this by categories. Embarkation - very easy, no lines whatsoever. Probably less than 5 minutes from handing over our luggage to walking onto the ship. Advantage: Celebrity. Ship Appearance - the ship is beautiful, very modern and elegant. We didn’t notice any areas of wear, etc but there are quite a few dead ends and ‘can’t get there from here’ spots around the ship. I loved the Rooftop Garden area but it seems underutilized (see entertainment category below). Personally, I prefer RC ships with their promenades, they just feel much more open than the atrium style common areas. Advantage: None, it’s equal to a newer RC ship. Cabin - Infinite Veranda cabin is controversial. It definitely makes the room feel larger and I loved that. Cabin was beautiful, again very modern. Plenty of storage, a true king sized bed, the tube style shower is larger than any we’ve had on RC. Twice per day service. Advantage: Celebrity due to the larger shower and 2X per day service. Celebrity App & Internet - app worked fine. Internet was just okay, sometimes better than others. Advantage: None Excursions & Tendering - We had two excursions and the process was very, very organized. Tendering is done via the Magic Carpet which is lowered to deck 3 for the process. This was also very organized with no lines at all. Advantage: Celebrity Entertainment - the headliner show was a rock vocal harmony group called Rebel. They performed songs by various artists through the years and we really enjoyed it. There was also a female vocalist and a comedian which we didn’t get to. They had a musical duo performing what I’d call Top 40 songs, a Jazz band, a DJ, and a male acoustic guitarist/singer. The two main venues for this were the atrium area and The Club (more on this later). These performances rotated throughout the night in the atrium, but some of them (esp the DJ) seemed out of place there. The jazz band was best suited for the venue. Eden usually had a violinist playing in the evening. The Rooftop Garden area has a large open area which would be a great spot for live music, but I think only the acoustic guitarist was there and only one evening. Advantage: RC ( they seem to do a better job matching the performer & type of music to the venue) Continued in next post.

@dani negreanu there’s nothing more I can add that the others haven’t said. My thoughts and prayers are with you, your family and your country. I hope you find some small comfort from all the concerned people here, especially those who quietly read along but commented in the past couple of days to let you know of their well wishes. My thoughts and prayers for @BonTexasNY, Bonnie and Jacks family also. 🙏🙏🙏

At least one bit of good news Greg. So sorry to read about Linda’s brother, I hope things work out and she’s able to join you.