Rejoining the ship after overnight in port

[NeroliGirl]

Hi. We're on the Silhouette in September on the Western Med itinerary, which has five port days in a row (Marseille/La Spezia/Civitavecchia/Ajaccio/Barcelona) and we would like to spend the night onshore in Florence and rejoin the ship in Civitavecchia the next day. We'd take the train from La Spezia to Florence, spend the day and night there, then train to Rome the next morning and train back to Civitavecchia in the afternoon.

 

Does anyone know if Celebrity will be OK with us not returning to the ship in La Spezia (we'd let Guest Relations know of our plans) and rejoining the ship the next day in Civitavecchia? I suppose it's no different to accidentally missing the ship in La Spezia and having to make our own way to the next port.

 

We realise we'll be in effect paying twice for our accommodation that evening, and for all meals taken onshore, but it feels like a good opportunity to see a bit more of Italy and experience a bit of night life too.

 

Has anyone else tried this themselves?

[Knighton]

I did something similar many years ago on Celebrity.  We stopped in Germany, the day after that was an at sea day, and then on to Helsinki.  We took the train to Berlin, spent the night there, flew to Helsinki the next day, spent the night there, and the ship was waiting for us the next morning.  If they still allow this (call them and find out), here's what we did:  Call celebrity and have them note on your reservation that you will be doing this.  Make a printed copy of your intentions and itinerary to give to guest services when you board so that they're not surprised that you didn't show up at the end of the day.  Everything went off without a hitch for us, and I really liked how it worked when we rejoined the ship.  Our ship cards were deactivated just in case, so when we boarded they took us to Guest services to verify our identity (need passports) and reactivate our cards. 

[jelayne]

You will need to clear this with Celebrity.  We did something similar last year, I believe it is  called a Downline debarkation or something similar.  We provided the details to Emergency Services department who handled the request.  They provided us with a approval document and arranged the paperwork for the port where  we were reboarding  the ship.  Last year the charge for this was $65.

[NCHPcruiser]

On our Australia/NZ cruise in February we disembarked in Melbourne, spent two nights, caught an early am flight to Sydney (already visited pre cruise) where we rejoined the ship by noon.  We made Celebrity aware of our plans as soon as we boarded.  We, along with a few other guest and crew that were disembarking,  were required to meet at a specified time with a Celebrity officer and immigration officials.  They gave a cursory look to our passport and we were given the ok to disembark.  Celebrity will take your sea pass as you disembark (it will come up on their screen) and you will be given a new sea pass upon return.  Our names were on a list, along with our new sea pass, upon return to security at Sydney.  It was all very organized and we had no problems.  There is a charge for this, around $60 if I remember correctly.  

 

We actually tried to handle this prior to embarkation. However it resulted in a lot of frustration as no one seemed to know how to handle it.