Celebrity Secrets and Tips

Happy New Year Merrytimers!  Your cruise now only months away!  Here are a few of my secrets and tips that you will hopefully find useful.  

EMBARKATION DAY:

Lunch will be served in the Oceanview Café where the masses will gather for the extensive buffet.  It is generally really crazy on embarkation day, and finding a table may prove difficult.  Our secret: We like to avoid the crowd of people with the hand luggage in tow, so we head to the Bistro on Five.  Note that the Bistro is one of the specialty restaurants and as such there is a $7 per person surcharge.  You can get crepes, paninis, salads, soups, and such here.  The clam chowder and French onion soups are favorites of mine as is the Italian crepe for dessert.  The Italian crepe is stuffed with fresh sliced banana, Nutella, pistachio and drizzled with chocolate… Oh my!  The Bistro is on the small side, so head there early if you’re interested.

Photo Courtesy of Celebrity Cruises

ROOM SERVICE

24 hour room service is available and it’s quite good with lots of choices.  It’s fun to order breakfast and sit on the balcony and enjoy the view.

FOOD FINDS

Main Dining Room:  In addition to the dinner menu of the day, you will find Celebrity Classics that are served every night: grilled steak, chicken or salmon, shrimp cocktail, baked potato or mashed potatoes, Caesar salad, and onion soup.

Complimentary pastries that include my favorite almond and chocolate croissants are served each morning at the Café Al Bacio!  This is also a great place for a hot chocolate or specialty coffee (a charge applies).

Photo Courtesy of Celebrity Cruises

Oceanview Café:  At the breakfast toast & bread station, you will find large assortments of some very nice specialty whole grain, rye and seed breads, as well as some nice variety of bagels and other rolls. The servers will happily slice and toast any of these if you request them.   You will find most everything that your heart desires for breakfast… from corned beef hash to eggs benedict to Greek yogurt and cereals to fresh fruit.

Don’t forget about the waffle station, also located in the Oceanview Café!  Yummy waffles with orange butter, fruit, and syrup… perhaps even whipped cream!

The ice cream bar is good here too; so don’t miss it!  There’s a pizza station, a pasta station, a stir fry station, a Mexican station, a salad bar, and more… enough choices to satisfy any appetite!

From about 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm, there are tea sandwiches, cookies, pastries, and such available in the Oceanview Café.

I'll be giving more tips on dining options on your ship in a forthcoming blog entry.

GENERAL

You can get over-the-counter seasickness meds as needed at customer service or the purser's desk. They dispense a couple of tablets at a time for free. (I recommend bringing your own Bonine, which you can get at a drugstore or Wal-Mart, etc.).

There is only one US - style outlet in most of the cabins, so you'll either have to switch things around to charge your camera/phone/iPod/computer, etc., or bring a power strip or at least a "Christmas tree" plug to have enough outlets. Also, there's no clock in the cabins so a lighted alarm clock is a good idea if you want to know what time it is when you wake up in the night. A night light helps to find the way to the bathroom.  A hair dryer will be in your stateroom or bathroom. There is a stocked mini-fridge in each stateroom (a charge applies for each item); you can have your room steward remove the items if you want to use it for your own treats and drinks.

SPA

Embark early and head for the spa to make your appointments. 

LAUNDRY:

There is no self-serve laundry on Celebrity ships but generally there will be at least one “laundry bag special” where for one price you can fill the provided bag with as much laundry as you can fit.  It’s not a bad deal and we used it twice on our last Celebrity cruise!

GALLEY TOUR & More:  Be sure to watch the daily schedule for special one-time only tours, such as a tour of the ship’s galley.

And this is just the beginning of my tips and thoughts… more to come!