New to Celebrity, advice please.

[uptheboro]

I have cruised with Royal Caribbean in Europe and the Caribbean, and am now about to book with Celebrity. We are looking at the Eclipse out of Southampton in August 2010. I will be travelling with my family, hubby and 3 daughters aged 18,16,14 at time of cruise. We will be joining another group of family and friends who have already been booked for months-it's taken me this long to persuade him!

I am thinking of booking a balcony for us and an inside for the girls, or possibly 2 balconies. I am also thinking of Concierge class, and whether it is worth the extra money, but that would be just for us ( the girls don't care about their cabin, they are just glad to be coming!). Does anyone have any opinins on what would be best, or where to find the best cabins. Are all the balcony cabins the same size?

Also I would be interested to hear any ideas on what we will find different about Celebrity, food, activities, entertainment etc.

Will look forward to reading some replies.

Thanks

[excitedofharpenden]

This post which is a sticky is a great one for feedback on cabin locations:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=911018

 

I'm not due on Equinox until November, but have an aft facing SV cabin booked as I love the view of the wake. There are some aft facing C1s on higher decks, but I wouldn't pay a lot more for them for the extra benefits of Concierge Class. Some of the C1s have angled balconies that make them much larger and the thread above has details.

 

Are you a Middlesbrough supporter by any chance?;)

 

Phil

[tom_uk]

I have cruised with Royal Caribbean in Europe and the Caribbean, and am now about to book with Celebrity. We are looking at the Eclipse out of Southampton in August 2010. I will be travelling with my family, hubby and 3 daughters aged 18,16,14 at time of cruise. We will be joining another group of family and friends who have already been booked for months-it's taken me this long to persuade him!

I am thinking of booking a balcony for us and an inside for the girls, or possibly 2 balconies. I am also thinking of Concierge class, and whether it is worth the extra money, but that would be just for us ( the girls don't care about their cabin, they are just glad to be coming!). Does anyone have any opinins on what would be best, or where to find the best cabins. Are all the balcony cabins the same size?

Also I would be interested to hear any ideas on what we will find different about Celebrity, food, activities, entertainment etc.

Will look forward to reading some replies.

Thanks

 

Hello 'uptheboro' - you wouldn't be from Teesside, would you? ;)

 

I've been a couple of Celebrity cruises, albeit on Galaxy, a ship no longer in the fleet and which wasn't anywhere as grand as the Solstice ships. Nonetheless we greatly enjoyed our cruises.

 

The issue of 'deluxe balcony vs Concierge vs Aqua' get raised fairly frequently here. For what it's worth, my view is that I can't see the advantage of CC over standard balcony, on ships where the relevant cabins are the same size. On the Millenium class ships I believe the CC cabins are a bit bigger, but on the Solstice class all the balcony cabins - deluxe balcony, CC and Aqua - are the same size, so the only difference between them is the extras. I personally don't rate the CC extras that highly, but others do. The Aqua extras are a different matter, of course, the key one being that you get to eat in Blu. However, you need to be aware that if some of your party are in an inside cabin they wouldn't qualify to eat in Blu even if you did, so if you wanted to eat together you'd have to eat in the main dining room - which would remove a big benefit of going Aqua.

 

If you book an ordinary balcony cabin, you also need to be aware that the upper parts of the lifeboats obstruct the views from many balconies on the lowest deck of balcony cabins (the Continental deck on Solstice). Although the lifeboats themselves are on the deck below (the Entertainment deck on Solstice), their davits come well up to the level of the balconies on the Continental deck. This is particularly the case for the first 3 boats forward of the midships hump, on either side - these are the tenders and they're bigger (higher) than the normal lifeboats, so they obstruct the relevant balconies on Continental deck quite considerably. To avoid these obstructions you either need to go up to the Sunrise deck (or higher), or get a cabin in the forward section of the deck.

 

All of which sounds as if I'm trying to put you off Eclipse, which would not be true. As I said, we greatly enjoyed our cruises with Celebrity and we're going again, in September, on Solstice in the E Med. Roll on...

 

Here's a link to some blog posts I made for our second Galaxy cruise in 2007.

[uptheboro]

Wow, great advice already, and lots of food for thought.Thanks

I'm going to have a look at the links posted, and hopefully will come to a conclusion about what to do. I need to decide over the next couple of days and make the booking. The other members of the group are booked in a Royal Suite and two celebrity suites. They went intending to book the Independence, but the TA gave them a crazy deal which was too good to miss in these cabins- we are kicking ourselves that we missed out!

I am wondering what will be restricted for us given that the others have the perks of their cabins. We also considered a Sky Suite for 4 and shipping daughter no3 into the Royal Suite with her cousin, but there doesn't appear to be a divider between the living and sleeping area in the Sky Suitev (is that correct?) and we want to have some bolt hole away from teenage shrieking!!

 

Yes I am a Middlesbrough fan from Teesside, Redcar actually. We've both been season ticket holders since 1973, but haven't renewed this year. We'll probably still go to the games, but we are seriously fed up.

[excitedofharpenden]

Wow, great advice already, and lots of food for thought.Thanks

I'm going to have a look at the links posted, and hopefully will come to a conclusion about what to do. I need to decide over the next couple of days and make the booking. The other members of the group are booked in a Royal Suite and two celebrity suites. They went intending to book the Independence, but the TA gave them a crazy deal which was too good to miss in these cabins- we are kicking ourselves that we missed out!

I am wondering what will be restricted for us given that the others have the perks of their cabins. We also considered a Sky Suite for 4 and shipping daughter no3 into the Royal Suite with her cousin, but there doesn't appear to be a divider between the living and sleeping area in the Sky Suitev (is that correct?) and we want to have some bolt hole away from teenage shrieking!!

 

Yes I am a Middlesbrough fan from Teesside, Redcar actually. We've both been season ticket holders since 1973, but haven't renewed this year. We'll probably still go to the games, but we are seriously fed up.

Yep, the SS doesn't have the separate room to sleep. The Celebrity Suite is the first on the rung to have a separate living room and bedroom.

 

I am a Boro supporter, but too am fed up this season after relegation. I was born in Guisborough as my dad worked for ICI at Wilton before we moved down south. Not much left of the chemical industry up there and I know Redcar is having its own issue with Corus now:(

 

Whatever you book, enjoy your cruise.

 

Phil

[uptheboro]

Blimey it's a small world! C'mon Boro!

Please tell me what differences to expect between RCI and Celebrity? Thanks