Live on Reflection: 14 Nt Exotic Southern Caribbean (Jan 4)

[mahdnc]

On 1/17/2019 at 7:33 PM, JEDMELK said:

Please do come back and let us know how well the luggage valet program works too. To us, it sounds like a great deal, not having to hunt for bags in the terminal, find a porter to drag them through customs and to a cab.

We are (as I am sure others are) very interested.

Sorry that your trip must end but, at least you have a great welcome home greeter!

thanks again,

Jed and Melanie

 

Our flight made it in before the snowstorm hit Chicago. We all got home at 9:30 pm last night. And with all our luggage! So I guess it's a thumbs up for Luggage Valet!

 

Our luggage was among the first to appear on the baggage carousel although that was either luck (most likely) or from our son's Premier 1K status as the bags had a Premier Access Priority tag put on it by United. 

 

 

A couple of other comments about Luggage Valet: the documents delivered to our stateroom included the Luggage Valet tags that the ship uses to identify our bags as well as a set of United baggage tags and our printed United boarding passes including the TSA precheck that our Global Entry membership affords us. 

 

I noticed that when I fired up my United app on my iPhone that my electronic boarding passes were already there.

 

Also I could track my bags status through my app like I would expect. The first time stamp is when they are received at FLL. 

 

So it's as if you checked in to your airline and handed them your luggage like you do at the airport except you've done it on board the cruise ship. Of course that's exactly what Celebrity advertises that Luggage Valet does for you. So I can say that it works exactly as advertised. 

 

Edited January 19, 2019 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

And finally, this greets us this morning:

 

[oskarNZ]

What a beautiful winter wonderland.  I pleased though that you made it home before the bad weather hit.  Also, we’ll done David’s son for getting you all upgrades on the plane.  

 

Thanks for the interesting and informative trip report.  It will no doubt help many future cruisers.

[rakes5]

22 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Regarding using Global Entry while my memory is fresh:

 

This is the first cruise that the entire family had Global Entry. I had our Global Entry cards ready to prove that the entire family

 

This is also the first time we were at a port that used Mobile Passport (a free app that's like a poor man's Global Entry).  I had the Mobile Passport app open and I submitted an immigration application so that we were ready to go with either Global  Entry or Mobile Passport. 

 

Two lessons learned about Mobile Passport. 

 

We recently entered the US at FLL, from Grand Cayman, with our daughter, who had never used Mobile Passport. I showed her how easy it was to use by entering our information. When we got to the lines, they had separate lines for Mobil Passport and Global Access. We saw that the Global Access lines were much shorter, so, we went that way. However, we had to use the self serve kiosks, where you scan your passports, and we got a weird error message. Because we had checked in with the Mobile Passport app, we couldn't use the Global Access kiosks, because it recognized that we had already checked in. So, we had to go stand in the longer Mobile Passport line. Our daugher, who just went to the regular line, was waiting for us as we exited. Lesson learned - you can enter all of the information for Mobile Passport, just don't submit it until you've decided which method you want to use.

 

Second, we experienced not being able to submit with mobile passport at FLL. We found two issues. One, we used the ships internet, during our cruise, and our phone were connecting to the ships wifi, but not internet. So, we were unable to submit, because my phone was trying to use wifi. I simply had to turn off wifi, and then I could submit. The second issue was another time, when I not being able to get cell service at the terminal, even though others around me had a good signal. I have an iPhone, and when I looked the control panel, I saw my data icon was not green, so it  wasn't connecting, so I turned it back on, and it still didn't connect. Turning my phone on and off solved the problem. Maybe I just wasn't patient enough, because I was standing the mobile passport line. The lesson learned - beware you may have issue submitting in security, so try your phone before you exit the ship.

[mahdnc]

1 hour ago, rakes5 said:

 

Two lessons learned about Mobile Passport. 

 

Lesson learned - you can enter all of the information for Mobile Passport, just don't submit it until you've decided which method you want to use.

 

The lesson learned - beware you may have issue submitting in security, so try your phone before you exit the ship.

 

Thanks for the post.

 

The 2nd lesson is something I have run into before and learned with the airplane's wifi.  That is, turn off my iPhone's wifi so that I am not locked into the airplane's wifi which is not connected to the internet at the end of the flight.  

 

The 1st lesson is interesting to me and very good to know.  I submitted my Mobile Passport application as we got off the ship.  However I didn't run into the problems with Global Entry because the express lane we were directed to (after I asked for the Global Entry lane) did not have any kiosks.  Which makes me think that we really did not use Global Entry but were simply directed to the front of the line.   

[DreadPirateRobert]

On 1/5/2019 at 9:11 PM, Canuker said:

Your photo of the Chic night shows most visible people well-dressed. Virtually all the men are wearing a jacket and most a tie. I have not been on Celebrity for quite a while and had intended to pack light with just shirt & tie for the sem-formal nights. Looks like I'll have to pack a jacket, too?

I was on the same cruise. There were certainly lots of men in suits and tuxes. However I also saw plenty of men in a dress shirt. I brought a blazer but no tie. 

I felt everyone was appropriate. 

[mahdnc]

On 1/17/2019 at 2:20 PM, chamima said:

It's a Martin Luther King day bonus.

I booked something with my TA today and got that mysterious $100 OBC extra.

(Booked 3 cruises 2 days ago and didn't get it)

 

According to my TA who is looking at the reservation she received from Celebrity, I got both the MLK $100 OBC and the $100 bonus OBC for booking on board on that Thursday in addition to the normal $250 OBC for booking on board. So $450 in all. 

 

My TA said that the $100 extra bonus I got shows up as a "work around" that the FutureCruise agent manually did.  

Edited January 20, 2019 by mahdnc

[Barwick Cruiser]

Thanks David for this great live review...was wonderful meeting you and your family onboard as well as so many others that we have been chatting with while waiting for the cruise to start!  We didn't have internet onboard so I've just been reading this review since returning and am enjoying reliving the ports and shipboard venues.  We also have global entry and it seemed to make a big difference once in the terminal and once we figured out which way to go...def should be better markings there.  Enjoyed an extra day in Ft. Lauderdale and flew home yesterday to snow and bitter cold...yuck!! 

 

Hope to meet up with many of our fellow cruisers at some point in the future, either on another cruise or even here in Ontario!!  Hope everyone made it home safely and enjoyed the cruise as much as we did!!

Cathy

[mahdnc]

9 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thanks David for this great live review...was wonderful meeting you and your family onboard as well as so many others that we have been chatting with while waiting for the cruise to start!  We didn't have internet onboard so I've just been reading this review since returning and am enjoying reliving the ports and shipboard venues.  We also have global entry and it seemed to make a big difference once in the terminal and once we figured out which way to go...def should be better markings there.  Enjoyed an extra day in Ft. Lauderdale and flew home yesterday to snow and bitter cold...yuck!! 

 

Hope to meet up with many of our fellow cruisers at some point in the future, either on another cruise or even here in Ontario!!  Hope everyone made it home safely and enjoyed the cruise as much as we did!!

Cathy

 

It was a genuine pleasure to meet you and your husband.  I'm glad that you had another day in Florida before going home. 

 

It stopped snowing here in Chicago, but it's cold today. Lots of trees here, but none of them are palm trees! Sigh

 

[mafw]

Does anyone know if Celebrity offers luggage valet service in Argentina after our cruise?

 

[mahdnc]

11 hours ago, mafw said:

Does anyone know if Celebrity offers luggage valet service in Argentina after our cruise?

 

 

We cruised aboard Infinity from Valparaíso to Buenos Aires in Dec/Jan 2017.  Luggage Valet was not offered.

[mafw]

Thank you for reply to luggage valet on celebrity