surebeatssailing

The website is truly an embarrassment. I was trying to look at shore excursions for a booked trip & went in under "My Celebrity" with my reservation # etc. A message kept popping up about incorrect information & try again. This went on for 2 days & then & called Celebrity & 2 very helpful people told me that there was a website problem with"My Celebrity" & told me how to go around it to find out about the shore excursions on my particular cruise.

Very frustrating!

If you post on the British forum you will receive an abundance of help from the locals for Southampton & London and anything in between.

Never been there but going to Amsrerdam next August. The restaurant may be Kantjil. There has been discussion about this on the next cruise as a place for the roll call to meet for dinner.

Check the website...sure sounds like it. Good luck!

Sorry about my spelling for Amsterdam!:o

Never been there but going to Amsrerdam next August. The restaurant may be Kantjil. There has been discussion about this on the next cruise as a place for the roll call to meet for dinner.

Check the website...sure sounds like it. Good luck!

We used Bob's Limos in Rome. Just google & it will give you the website for contact. You sign up for a shared shuttle from Rome to the cruise port & they arrange the pickups of others going from Rome hotels to the port. We paid 75E for both of us. The owner is actually from Ohio!

Although I am not from London someone on these boards referred me to londontoolkit.com . There is a huge amount of information there.

We are going to London on Aug 22 after a baltic cruise & are staying at the Doubletree in Westminster...walkable to many sites. I also looked into the big Bus Tours HOHO which takes you to almost all of the highlights [ also on the londontoolkit site ]. There is even theater info there.

We prefer to travel above ground so we can see more of London.

We are doing the British Isles August 2016 on Celebrity .

Thanks to PetNitNoy & orchestrapal for your helpful responses.

Shirley

Always find it hard to believe a review where people never once went to the London theaters.For all of you that are planning a trip to London don't miss a show in the west end or on the fringe.

It is the best theater in the world, yes NY, the best.

We are actually looking at doing this in August after a cruise. We will be there 3 days but day 1 is booked with a tour from Southampton with 3 stops . Day 2 is a Sunday & I don't think the theaters are open that day so it leaves us with Monday. Evening or afternoon...does it matter? Should we prebook tickets prior to our cruise or get them through the hotel concierge when we check in on Saturday evening post cruise ? We are looking @ Phantom of the Opera at this point.

Thanks

In February 2015 @ check-in @ Fort Lauderdale on the Equinox we got into the line for deck 3 as we were about to try an inside cabin for the first time after 18 cruises on Celebrity.

Imagine our shock when we were upgraded to a Concierge Class ! Seems that Luminae was under construction on that cruise so we assumed that the inside/ocean views were being used for construction people as we saw them back & forth in those room areas on deck 3. And we received a bottle of wine a day later delivered to our cabin!

We never questioned the upgrade & it is unlikely to ever happen to us again but we really enjoyed it when it did!:D

We are staying at Novatel in 3 weeks!

You are so considerate! You are right when you say a specific trip/ tour may be a lifelong dream & you would not want the opportunity ruined for someone because you little one was having a meltdown.

And from your point of view you would not be able to enjoy yourself worrying about others who may be impacted if said meltdown did occur. It is hard to keep a child focused on a long tour ...sometimes hard for an adult.

I certainly appreciate your thoughtfulness. Happy Traveling!

As we have a late flight out of Heathrow, we have decided to hire a car and drive there, after we disembark Celebrity Eclipse in Southampton.

 

Someone on these boards directed me to londontoolkit.com. We are disembarking in Southampton in August from the Eclipse & taking a bus tour to Salisbury, Stonehenge & Windsor Castle. The tour Company picks you up @ the cruise port , has your luggage on board all day & after the tour drops you off @ Heathrow around 1730 or to your London hotel around 1800. Entrance fees to Stonehenge & Windsor can be arranged through this tour just by clicking whether you want them or not. The tour bus is called International Friends.

Just returned from Brugge and the hours for the Church of Our Lady is noon on Sunday till approximately 4 or 4:30 p.m. There is an extra charge to see the Madonna and Child. It's a beautiful church :)

Thank you so much! I did know about the extra charge for the Madonna & Child but this is something my husband really really wants to see.

We will be going to Bruge on a Sunday in August. The ship leaves port @ 1500 so we will meet our taxi group by 1315 to be ready for the taxi to return us to the ship.

Does anyone know if the church where the Madonna & Child is displayed is open for viewing in the morning on Sunday?

I pack travel friendly clothes; place dry cleaner bags between clothes that may tend to crease; carry a spray bottle to mist the wrinkles out if needed. And when needed I use the ship's laundry. Life is good!

Use your ATM Debit card with a pin. Be sure to call your bank before you leave and tell them the countries you will be in and that you might be using ATM machines. We also take a couple of credit cards and call them also and let them know which countries we will be in. We have traveled out of the quite a bit over the past 3 years and have used the new chip card. Many places would take only the chip card, you push the card in and leave it until the transaction goes through, no swiping of the card there. We are able to swipe ours here and or push it it in and hold it in the front of the machine.

Thanks for the info. We always do the travel notifications. We have the new chip cards. I do have to change my pin for the debit card since it presently uses 6 numbers & I believe I read somewhere that I need a 4 number pin in Europe

Use your ATM card that you use in the US.

Thanks FritzG...appreciate .

Coming from the USA...do we use a bank debit card with a pin OR do we use a credit card with a pin to access the ATMs for currency of the country we are in?

We use our credit cards for hotels, meals, etc but we may need extra cash for transportation ,gratuities & small purchases at a drug store, etc.

I wasnt aware that was needed to make any bookings in MDR. If uou have "select dining" then you front up any time, any night.

If you dont have select dining then you have either the early or late sitting, whichever you select.

You don't have to make reservations for Select Dining. The only reason we do is we have a better chance of being seated at our preferred time. My husband does not do well with late dining.

We have never waited longer than a couple of minutes for a table. We may not have had any wait if we had just come when we were ready to eat but that 7-7:30 time frame can get pretty busy.

Thanks markeb for the info!

Shirley

We are flying United, how do you get free passes to the lounge- sounds like a great place to wait ?

I guess we received them because we are flying business class . We have never flown business class on an international flight. We usually fly Economy Plus to Europe. We use our United card for airline tickets & just a few months ago signed up for the Mileage Plus Explorer card.

So I guess one of these reasons is why we received these passes.

Been on several cruises & always have trouble with reservations . I also get the first night in but no success with subsequent nights. Now I call the

dining/excursion number 1-800-722-5941 & someone else does it for me.:)

Unless you feel the need to hang a curtain somewhere (and a lightweight one, at that) don't buy them! There is plenty of storage!

We find them convenient to hang tuxedo & my formal wear without stuffing the closet.

Also handy to hang clothes line between 2 hooks for underwear ,etc after washing them in the sink.

We only bring enough clothes for 1/2 of the days we will be gone so clothes go to the laundry & some are washed in the cabin.

We have the heavy duty hooks that hold 60 lbs. We use regular magnets near the desk to organize excursion tickets / coupons.

Last night, I could no longer look up an itinerary and click the stateroom to view the floor plan and amenities. I had to go back to the ships hyperlink and click from there. Why couldn't they fix the deck plans page?

 

I also vote for the ability to download all shore excursions to PDF.

 

Actually, I like the way Holland America does that one. Because they also include a section on the excursions you've already booked.

I called the excursion dept phone # & requested them to email me the excursions for my cruise. They promptly did this & I opened it in a PDF file.

While we are on excursions, I wish Celebrity would provide more details on what their excursions include. Very limited info.