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#12
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Mason,
I can only add to the good advice that has been provided thus far that given an inside room, Otis and his wife will get to know each other much better over the seven days. As long as they are not claustrophobic, they can get to know cruising without spending big bucks. Should they choose to dress, meals are the same as offered to those in the Penthouse, and they would not be excluded from any activity on the ship. IMHO four great first time ports, and I would say "go for it". -- DG in Cherry Hill, NJ "Mason Barge" wrote in message ... On 29 Jul 2004 12:15:58 -0700, (Otis McNatt) wrote: Hi, My wife and I have traveled many places and done many things, but have never taken one of these things. I know that many of you here have to be old pros when it comes to this subject, so I thought I'd learn from your wisdom. The cruise that I'm eyeing is one from the Celebrity Line, which is a 7-nighter. It departs from Ft. Lauderdale on 9-18 (haha, prime hurricane season) and returns on the 25th. The ship's name is _Century_. It will make seven stops along the route (San Juan, St. Maarten, etc.) and they only have some interior rooms available at this late date, except for the highest-end room type which we're not interested in. I think the cruise for both of us is listed at about $1300. I've tried to educate myself a little on this by reading reviews and some generic advice for first-timers from a commercial site, but I'm still a little unclear on it. We're not into flashy entertainment or fancy dinners where you have to dress up to enter. We're more into working out and relaxation in an environment different from our daily round. This ship and cruise seems to maybe be for us. But I've read that on this ship, there are two formal dinners per week, where formal dress is required. Now I know that I must look incredibly uninformed, but what do the people eat who don't want to participate in such a formal dinner? Are there other alternatives? And as far as the roughly $20/day tipping that I've read is to be expected from us, how does this work? On Celebrity, you can choose the option of just adding it to your on board account. Tips for people who bring you drinks are added automatically as a service charge. The main tips are for waiter, assistant waiter, and you cabin steward. These are people you will probably come to like so much you will be happy to tip them, but at any rate, they get almost their entire income from your tips. So about $3.50 per day per person for the steward and waiter, maybe half that for the ass't. Some cruise lines apparently pre-charge the customer (at booking I guess) for the expected typical gratuities, and there was another option that was similar. Why not just tip as you go, as we do normally on land when we get service for something? As you can probably tell, I'm totally in the dark on this whole thing. I know that there are lots of differect types of cruises attracting different types of people. Have any of you ever been on this particular trip with this line? Just what is the dress code, or am I making too much of this? Are there lots of hidden charges I should know about beforehand? Do most of these lines offer shuttles to/from the Ft. Lauderdale airport? Anyway, I think we'd probably get a kick out of this, but I'm just wondering if it's too much of a hassle for a vacation... Many thanks for anyone with good advice. Well, a big attraction of Celebrity is the dinners, which ARE flashy and fancy. YOu can dine informally dressed in the Ocean Grill (the buffet area on the next to top deck) any night. I'd say, all in all, try it and see how you like it. The price is certainly right. I would suggest you take a suit and try one of the formal dinners, though. Mason Barge "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. If this is tea, please bring me some coffee." -- Abraham Lincoln |
#13
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Mason,
I can only add to the good advice that has been provided thus far that given an inside room, Otis and his wife will get to know each other much better over the seven days. As long as they are not claustrophobic, they can get to know cruising without spending big bucks. Should they choose to dress, meals are the same as offered to those in the Penthouse, and they would not be excluded from any activity on the ship. IMHO four great first time ports, and I would say "go for it". -- DG in Cherry Hill, NJ "Mason Barge" wrote in message ... On 29 Jul 2004 12:15:58 -0700, (Otis McNatt) wrote: Hi, My wife and I have traveled many places and done many things, but have never taken one of these things. I know that many of you here have to be old pros when it comes to this subject, so I thought I'd learn from your wisdom. The cruise that I'm eyeing is one from the Celebrity Line, which is a 7-nighter. It departs from Ft. Lauderdale on 9-18 (haha, prime hurricane season) and returns on the 25th. The ship's name is _Century_. It will make seven stops along the route (San Juan, St. Maarten, etc.) and they only have some interior rooms available at this late date, except for the highest-end room type which we're not interested in. I think the cruise for both of us is listed at about $1300. I've tried to educate myself a little on this by reading reviews and some generic advice for first-timers from a commercial site, but I'm still a little unclear on it. We're not into flashy entertainment or fancy dinners where you have to dress up to enter. We're more into working out and relaxation in an environment different from our daily round. This ship and cruise seems to maybe be for us. But I've read that on this ship, there are two formal dinners per week, where formal dress is required. Now I know that I must look incredibly uninformed, but what do the people eat who don't want to participate in such a formal dinner? Are there other alternatives? And as far as the roughly $20/day tipping that I've read is to be expected from us, how does this work? On Celebrity, you can choose the option of just adding it to your on board account. Tips for people who bring you drinks are added automatically as a service charge. The main tips are for waiter, assistant waiter, and you cabin steward. These are people you will probably come to like so much you will be happy to tip them, but at any rate, they get almost their entire income from your tips. So about $3.50 per day per person for the steward and waiter, maybe half that for the ass't. Some cruise lines apparently pre-charge the customer (at booking I guess) for the expected typical gratuities, and there was another option that was similar. Why not just tip as you go, as we do normally on land when we get service for something? As you can probably tell, I'm totally in the dark on this whole thing. I know that there are lots of differect types of cruises attracting different types of people. Have any of you ever been on this particular trip with this line? Just what is the dress code, or am I making too much of this? Are there lots of hidden charges I should know about beforehand? Do most of these lines offer shuttles to/from the Ft. Lauderdale airport? Anyway, I think we'd probably get a kick out of this, but I'm just wondering if it's too much of a hassle for a vacation... Many thanks for anyone with good advice. Well, a big attraction of Celebrity is the dinners, which ARE flashy and fancy. YOu can dine informally dressed in the Ocean Grill (the buffet area on the next to top deck) any night. I'd say, all in all, try it and see how you like it. The price is certainly right. I would suggest you take a suit and try one of the formal dinners, though. Mason Barge "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. If this is tea, please bring me some coffee." -- Abraham Lincoln |
#14
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll
like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. All of these cruise lines will have good exercise and activity oriented stuff. The ports probably won't be the same. How important are they? Julie In rec.travel.cruises Otis McNatt wrote: Hi, My wife and I have traveled many places and done many things, but have never taken one of these things. I know that many of you here have to be old pros when it comes to this subject, so I thought I'd learn from your wisdom. The cruise that I'm eyeing is one from the Celebrity Line, which is a 7-nighter. It departs from Ft. Lauderdale on 9-18 (haha, prime hurricane season) and returns on the 25th. The ship's name is _Century_. It will make seven stops along the route (San Juan, St. Maarten, etc.) and they only have some interior rooms available at this late date, except for the highest-end room type which we're not interested in. I think the cruise for both of us is listed at about $1300. I've tried to educate myself a little on this by reading reviews and some generic advice for first-timers from a commercial site, but I'm still a little unclear on it. We're not into flashy entertainment or fancy dinners where you have to dress up to enter. We're more into working out and relaxation in an environment different from our daily round. This ship and cruise seems to maybe be for us. But I've read that on this ship, there are two formal dinners per week, where formal dress is required. Now I know that I must look incredibly uninformed, but what do the people eat who don't want to participate in such a formal dinner? Are there other alternatives? And as far as the roughly $20/day tipping that I've read is to be expected from us, how does this work? Some cruise lines apparently pre-charge the customer (at booking I guess) for the expected typical gratuities, and there was another option that was similar. Why not just tip as you go, as we do normally on land when we get service for something? As you can probably tell, I'm totally in the dark on this whole thing. I know that there are lots of differect types of cruises attracting different types of people. Have any of you ever been on this particular trip with this line? Just what is the dress code, or am I making too much of this? Are there lots of hidden charges I should know about beforehand? Do most of these lines offer shuttles to/from the Ft. Lauderdale airport? Anyway, I think we'd probably get a kick out of this, but I'm just wondering if it's too much of a hassle for a vacation... Many thanks for anyone with good advice. -- Otis -- Julie ********** Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm |
#15
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll
like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. All of these cruise lines will have good exercise and activity oriented stuff. The ports probably won't be the same. How important are they? Julie In rec.travel.cruises Otis McNatt wrote: Hi, My wife and I have traveled many places and done many things, but have never taken one of these things. I know that many of you here have to be old pros when it comes to this subject, so I thought I'd learn from your wisdom. The cruise that I'm eyeing is one from the Celebrity Line, which is a 7-nighter. It departs from Ft. Lauderdale on 9-18 (haha, prime hurricane season) and returns on the 25th. The ship's name is _Century_. It will make seven stops along the route (San Juan, St. Maarten, etc.) and they only have some interior rooms available at this late date, except for the highest-end room type which we're not interested in. I think the cruise for both of us is listed at about $1300. I've tried to educate myself a little on this by reading reviews and some generic advice for first-timers from a commercial site, but I'm still a little unclear on it. We're not into flashy entertainment or fancy dinners where you have to dress up to enter. We're more into working out and relaxation in an environment different from our daily round. This ship and cruise seems to maybe be for us. But I've read that on this ship, there are two formal dinners per week, where formal dress is required. Now I know that I must look incredibly uninformed, but what do the people eat who don't want to participate in such a formal dinner? Are there other alternatives? And as far as the roughly $20/day tipping that I've read is to be expected from us, how does this work? Some cruise lines apparently pre-charge the customer (at booking I guess) for the expected typical gratuities, and there was another option that was similar. Why not just tip as you go, as we do normally on land when we get service for something? As you can probably tell, I'm totally in the dark on this whole thing. I know that there are lots of differect types of cruises attracting different types of people. Have any of you ever been on this particular trip with this line? Just what is the dress code, or am I making too much of this? Are there lots of hidden charges I should know about beforehand? Do most of these lines offer shuttles to/from the Ft. Lauderdale airport? Anyway, I think we'd probably get a kick out of this, but I'm just wondering if it's too much of a hassle for a vacation... Many thanks for anyone with good advice. -- Otis -- Julie ********** Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm |
#16
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Juliana wrote:
Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. Thanks for touching on this Juliana. I was beginning to suspect that I'd happened on a cruise line that emphasized glitz, and that they were not all the same. I realize that since the cruise business now caters to the masses, that dress codes may be desirable because I know how some people are. Some folks would show up for dinner wearing their grungy old sandals and tank tops, with all their pimples showing...YUK. Then again, you can put a nice suit or evening gown on a boor, and they're still boorish; but I guess they would look a little nicer anyway. But the bottom line is that my idea of a tropical vacation does not include packing a suit for any reason. And my wife feels the same way. Our idea of "casual" does not require slacks, or "golf" wear, as Ive read. If we can't wear shorts everywhere, then we don't care to be there. And thanks a bunch to everyone who posted. All were read, and all were informative! -- Otis |
#17
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Juliana wrote:
Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. Thanks for touching on this Juliana. I was beginning to suspect that I'd happened on a cruise line that emphasized glitz, and that they were not all the same. I realize that since the cruise business now caters to the masses, that dress codes may be desirable because I know how some people are. Some folks would show up for dinner wearing their grungy old sandals and tank tops, with all their pimples showing...YUK. Then again, you can put a nice suit or evening gown on a boor, and they're still boorish; but I guess they would look a little nicer anyway. But the bottom line is that my idea of a tropical vacation does not include packing a suit for any reason. And my wife feels the same way. Our idea of "casual" does not require slacks, or "golf" wear, as Ive read. If we can't wear shorts everywhere, then we don't care to be there. And thanks a bunch to everyone who posted. All were read, and all were informative! -- Otis |
#18
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Just a followup. Of the cruise lines I suggested, only Norwegian will let
you be casual every night in every venue. The others will have formal nights (Norwegian has an "optional" formal night.) where at least some of the dining rooms will expect you to have a jacket. The difference between these and Celebrity is that you won't be terribly in the minority, and they will have more options for casual dining. Plus ont he semi-formal nights on these lines a polo shirt and dockers will do just fine. Your "Golf wear" as it were. However, if you truly want to wear shorts in the dining room every night, then I have to heavily recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines. They will accept this, you will be able to eat anywhere at any time. (On their optional formal nights there might be one dining room off limits to shorts, but another dining room will have the exact same menu.) Norwegian has two cruises to the Caribbean going in September; the Norwegian Sea does the Western Caribbean and the Dawn does the Bahamas (not really the Caribbean) from New York. If I were you, I'd choose one of these for September departure instead of Celebrity. You can choose the more interesting ports on another voyage (I also highly recommend Norwegian's Winter Southern Caribbean itineraries out of San Juan. Thanks to Spirit Air, San Juan is much less expensive to get to than it had been.) Julie In rec.travel.cruises Otis McNatt wrote: Juliana wrote: Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. Thanks for touching on this Juliana. I was beginning to suspect that I'd happened on a cruise line that emphasized glitz, and that they were not all the same. I realize that since the cruise business now caters to the masses, that dress codes may be desirable because I know how some people are. Some folks would show up for dinner wearing their grungy old sandals and tank tops, with all their pimples showing...YUK. Then again, you can put a nice suit or evening gown on a boor, and they're still boorish; but I guess they would look a little nicer anyway. But the bottom line is that my idea of a tropical vacation does not include packing a suit for any reason. And my wife feels the same way. Our idea of "casual" does not require slacks, or "golf" wear, as Ive read. If we can't wear shorts everywhere, then we don't care to be there. And thanks a bunch to everyone who posted. All were read, and all were informative! -- Otis -- Julie ********** Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm |
#19
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
Just a followup. Of the cruise lines I suggested, only Norwegian will let
you be casual every night in every venue. The others will have formal nights (Norwegian has an "optional" formal night.) where at least some of the dining rooms will expect you to have a jacket. The difference between these and Celebrity is that you won't be terribly in the minority, and they will have more options for casual dining. Plus ont he semi-formal nights on these lines a polo shirt and dockers will do just fine. Your "Golf wear" as it were. However, if you truly want to wear shorts in the dining room every night, then I have to heavily recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines. They will accept this, you will be able to eat anywhere at any time. (On their optional formal nights there might be one dining room off limits to shorts, but another dining room will have the exact same menu.) Norwegian has two cruises to the Caribbean going in September; the Norwegian Sea does the Western Caribbean and the Dawn does the Bahamas (not really the Caribbean) from New York. If I were you, I'd choose one of these for September departure instead of Celebrity. You can choose the more interesting ports on another voyage (I also highly recommend Norwegian's Winter Southern Caribbean itineraries out of San Juan. Thanks to Spirit Air, San Juan is much less expensive to get to than it had been.) Julie In rec.travel.cruises Otis McNatt wrote: Juliana wrote: Just a quickie. I know that a lot of people are taking a "Try it you'll like it" attitude toward dress on Celebrity. I'd like to suggest a different tack. If you can rethink this, you might consider a cruise on Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, or possibly Carnival (depending on the ship) or on Princess. All of these cruise lines will let you be casual at dinner, and not feel funny about it. I suspect with Celebrity you will either cave or feel a little like a fish out of water. Thanks for touching on this Juliana. I was beginning to suspect that I'd happened on a cruise line that emphasized glitz, and that they were not all the same. I realize that since the cruise business now caters to the masses, that dress codes may be desirable because I know how some people are. Some folks would show up for dinner wearing their grungy old sandals and tank tops, with all their pimples showing...YUK. Then again, you can put a nice suit or evening gown on a boor, and they're still boorish; but I guess they would look a little nicer anyway. But the bottom line is that my idea of a tropical vacation does not include packing a suit for any reason. And my wife feels the same way. Our idea of "casual" does not require slacks, or "golf" wear, as Ive read. If we can't wear shorts everywhere, then we don't care to be there. And thanks a bunch to everyone who posted. All were read, and all were informative! -- Otis -- Julie ********** Check out my Travel Pages (non-commercial) at http://www.dragonsholm.org/travel.htm |
#20
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Clueless first-timer needs advice about cruises please
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