A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19
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**chezp** · 07-09-2016, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pris

Your room looks quite nice. As I recall, you had the Aqua Class. Is that correct?

No we didn't. This is category 1B I think from memory. I must admit the Aqua Class is very tempting for a future cruise...

**chezp** · 07-09-2016, 02:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xwewhisper

The ship looks quite lovely as does your room! Celebrity definitely has an older clientele but we kind of liked that on our cruise with them because nothing we wanted to do was ever terribly crowded!

There was that, although with one notable exception, which we'll get to in due course... boy, that night was insane!

**chezp** · 07-09-2016, 02:37 PM

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Originally Posted by SuperDave

I can't believe how it to for check in at the terminal for the two of you. A bit unorganized and you'd think there would be signage, but no!

Not exactly like a Disney cruise. I was in and out of there in no time and by the time I checked in, which went quick, I think I was on The Magic in about ten minutes!

Well, let's face it - Disney are excellent when it comes to minimising waiting...

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Nice photos on board and the spa looks quite nice!

That's quite a room you have and bigger than I thought it would be.

Me too!

I wasn't expecting it to be that big.

cubfancolleen · 07-09-2016, 04:12 PM

Your room looks great, and I love the look of the Persian Garden. Seems less pricey than DCL, too?

**chezp** · 07-09-2016, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Your room looks great, and I love the look of the Persian Garden. Seems less pricey than DCL, too?

I thought so too, but then again, I can never remember the Disney pricing for the Rainforest and given it's only the Magic or the Wonder that does cruises longer than seven nights, it's hard to know, as I know they charge more for the Rainforest on the Dream and the Fantasy - and rightly too, as it is so much better than the original version.

cubfancolleen · 07-09-2016, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chezp

I thought so too, but then again, I can never remember the Disney pricing for the Rainforest and given it's only the Magic or the Wonder that does cruises longer than seven nights, it's hard to know, as I know they charge more for the Rainforest on the Dream and the Fantasy - and rightly too, as it is so much better than the original version.

I feel we paid about $199 for the two of us for Alaska, so only 7 nights, and the old, less glitzy version of the Rainforest.

**KMB733** · 07-09-2016, 07:01 PM

Finally all caught up! Great pictures of the donkeys and how nice of Mark to stop so you could take pictures of the cows. Beautiful pictures of the Bay. The chairlifts look a little scary. I'm not sure I would be brave enough to ride them. Sorry about the windburn, but glad you were able to find something to help with it. Glad you were able to make it on the ferry crossing and make it home to get those passports! Great pictures from the crossing. Looks like the park was a great choice to go to this morning. Great pictures of the butterflies. That ferret is so cute!! Getting to watch the otters being fed was really cool. I had no idea that they eat meat! I thought they only ate fish. But my favorite animals would have to be the buffalo. The ferry sounds like a nice way to pass the time. It was such a lovely day outside. Sorry the boarding process seemed like such a headache. But thankfully you are finally on board! That spa looks like heaven!!

**Cam22** · 07-09-2016, 10:02 PM

Sorry it took so long to board!

But the ship does look beautiful and your room is very impressive.

**chezp** · 07-10-2016, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

I feel we paid about $199 for the two of us for Alaska, so only 7 nights, and the old, less glitzy version of the Rainforest.

Wow, I dread to think how much it would be on a 14 night cruise then!

**chezp** · 07-10-2016, 03:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KMB733

Finally all caught up! Great pictures of the donkeys and how nice of Mark to stop so you could take pictures of the cows. Beautiful pictures of the Bay. The chairlifts look a little scary. I'm not sure I would be brave enough to ride them.

They were fine, but then again, I'm not scared of heights and I can imagine for some, they'd be very daunting to get on.

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Sorry about the windburn, but glad you were able to find something to help with it. Glad you were able to make it on the ferry crossing and make it home to get those passports! Great pictures from the crossing. Looks like the park was a great choice to go to this morning. Great pictures of the butterflies. That ferret is so cute!!

I know!

Ferrets and cute... never thought they'd go together.

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Getting to watch the otters being fed was really cool. I had no idea that they eat meat! I thought they only ate fish. But my favorite animals would have to be the buffalo.

They're mine too, especially after our amazing encounters with them in Yellowstone a few years ago.

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The ferry sounds like a nice way to pass the time. It was such a lovely day outside. Sorry the boarding process seemed like such a headache. But thankfully you are finally on board! That spa looks like heaven!!

It was lovely.

**chezp** · 07-10-2016, 03:27 AM

Sunday 5 June – part nine: the worst mandatory safety drill ever?

I looked for confirmation of our speciality dinner at 6:30pm, but there was nothing to be seen anywhere. I tried calling guest services, but just sat on hold for about five minutes, so we figured we’d go down to speak to them on deck three.

This is the card room on deck nine that would be a lot busier later in the cruise:

These creations were fascinating, but very difficult to photograph.

As we did, we realised that they were getting ready for the mandatory drill, which had been pushed back to 5:00pm, so we gave up on guest services, and headed instead for our muster point, which was in the photo gallery.

We were amongst the first there, and snagged some seats. I thought they were very good at finding more seats, as more people arrived, many of whom couldn’t stand for long periods. At one point, a female crew member did ask me if I had a problem standing, and I told her yes, and that was fine. However, we did find it interesting that she didn’t say anything to Mark. As he said, obviously he looked as if he needed a seat!

We waited until 5:00pm, with me entertaining myself by seeing how Andy Murray was doing in the French Open (sadly, although he won the first set, he lost the match eventually

) and then finally we were treated to the safety video, which was straight forward enough, although I did love the way that all the cartoon characters were moving very slowly and carefully, I doubt it would be like that in a real emergency.

Now this is where things started to get a bit silly. About three quarters of the way through, there was a tannoy announcement, which I have never known to happen before during a mandatory drill, asking for certain people to go to guest services immediately. They’d been paging at least one of these groups for maybe 40 minutes now, and it didn’t bode well, given it sounded as if they’d managed to lose people even before we’d set sail.

Then it got even better. We were told over the tannoy that was the end of the safety video, and I think quite understandably, quite a lot of people started to move away, only to have a crew member literally screaming at them that the drill wasn’t done. Well, unless you’ve sailed before, how the heck would you know that? And equally, this can’t be the first time that’s happened, so why not change the announcement to make it clear?

We then had our crew members yelling that they were still missing people – and quite a lot of them… probably about seven or eight cabins. Generally, we don’t find there are that many missing from Disney, as they’re really good at rounding people up as soon as they arrive and making sure they’ve signed in. I think at least two or three didn’t answer, so I suspect they’re going to be in a lot of trouble.

Still, we had to sit or stand there, and bear in mind, it must’ve been about 5:20pm by now, as apparently the captain needed to do his spiel, during which he told us that his crew were “well trained” about four times. Well, it didn’t seem like that, from what we’d witnessed, and we weren’t the only ones, as I heard a lot of other people saying this was the most disorganised drill they’d ever been to. It certainly wasn’t inspiring much confidence in any of us.

Eventually, we were allowed to head off, although not before being told that some of our group (not us), who were downstairs, would actually be upstairs if there was a real emergency. Huh?

I get there’s not that much space upstairs, but please, try and make it as genuine a test as you can, rather than confusing people even more…

We waited for the crowds to disperse, then headed downstairs, where we found this neat entertainment venue…

We walked past the casino, and I still find it weird to see one of these on board. I guess that’s what happens when you get used to Disney cruising.

I also find it weird that you can actually photograph in here, as of course in places like Vegas you can’t.

We made it back to the guest services area on the third deck and I got some photos, while Mark got in the massive line, as I wanted to find out what had happened to our speciality dining booking for tonight. I knew a time, but had no idea where to go.

It’s never a good sign when that many people want to speak to someone at guest services on the first day.

When we got there, we were told that we were better off going to Murano’s on the fifth floor, as they deal with speciality dining. Ok, we could’ve done with knowing that before we joined the line!

We headed up there, through this bar…

... and then into the lobby for Murano’s. We were quickly seen, and were told our booking was actually in here. Cool!

When we came out, we decided to make use of our free drink package, although Mark was a bit disappointed to find out Corona beer wasn’t included with the classic, it was only with the premium, which was an extra $11.80/night. I don’t think so!

I didn’t do that well either, as they actually ran out of White Zinfandel, and I had to have a glass of another rose wine, which was Ok, but not as nice.

Drinks in hand, we headed through to the other speciality restaurants….

… then walked back along deck five…

Now we knew why all the restaurants had the windows blacked out, it’s because this would’ve been the view otherwise.

Next: where’s my avocado?

cubfancolleen · 07-10-2016, 08:07 AM

Sounds like chaos during the dril. I wonder if those they paged to Guest Services hadn't yet boarded, and they were trying to verify that? Seems one of the only reasons to be so disruptive.
It is weird to see a casino. We'll have one on Royal Caribbean as well.
The specialty restaurants look nice.

**chezp** · 07-10-2016, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Sounds like chaos during the dril. I wonder if those they paged to Guest Services hadn't yet boarded, and they were trying to verify that? Seems one of the only reasons to be so disruptive.

I hadn't thought of that - that could be a reason...

Quote:

It is weird to see a casino. We'll have one on Royal Caribbean as well.

I don't think I'll ever get used to seeing those on non-Disney cruise ships.

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The specialty restaurants look nice.

More to come on all of those...

Pris · 07-10-2016, 10:18 AM

Oh, dear, the chaos sounds disheartening. The one major complaint we had on our one Celebrity cruise was that the staff didn't seem to be as well trained as they should have been. There were several cases of "the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing" situations. I hope this isn't going to be a problem throughout the voyage. All of these issues can't be blamed on the extra cleaning of the ship that was required, although some might have been. Since all staff are pulled in to do the cleaning pulling them away, in some cases, from their usual embarkation day duties for a time, some things might have been a bit overlooked or slighted. I've gotten used to the casinos, although we never make use of them.

**chezp** · 07-10-2016, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pris

Oh, dear, the chaos sounds disheartening. The one major complaint we had on our one Celebrity cruise was that the staff didn't seem to be as well trained as they should have been. There were several cases of "the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing" situations. I hope this isn't going to be a problem throughout the voyage.

Fortunately it wasn't a major issue, but yes I hear you - we had that experience of feeling things weren't always coordinated perfectly, let's just put it that way.

Quote:

All of these issues can't be blamed on the extra cleaning of the ship that was required, although some might have been. Since all staff are pulled in to do the cleaning pulling them away, in some cases, from their usual embarkation day duties for a time, some things might have been a bit overlooked or slighted. I've gotten used to the casinos, although we never make use of them.

Same here.