Tag: Cruise

10 Reasons Your Next Cruise Should be on the Celebrity Flora

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After 58 cruises, I may have just found my favorite one yet!  We just returned from a cruise to the Galapagos on the Celebrity Flora, and it was – spectacular.  The Celebrity Flora is a purpose-built ship for the Galapagos, and it sails year-round with only 100 passengers.  It’s a beautiful ship with an amazing itinerary!  Here are 10 reasons that it may just be the perfect cruise for you!

1. The Flora is a True Luxury Ship – The Flora is a small, expedition-size ship, built in 2019. The rooms are beautiful and a great size. There are some ultra-large suites with incredible views on the aft of the ship, but there’s no bad room onboard.  They are all verandahs or infinite verandahs, and that’s important on a cruise when you spend so much time looking at the ocean.  The rooms are modern with tons of storage, comfortable beds, and nice bathrooms.  The public spaces are beautiful, and the top deck has some great seating areas, indoors and out, and a nice Al Fresco restaurant.  The ship doesn’t’ dock anywhere, we took zodiacs every time we got on and off the ship.  We embarked and disembarked the zodiac from the aft of the ship, and what a beautiful aft of the ship that it was!  It felt a little “celebrity” to embark and disembark like that!  Or maybe that was just me?  Nah.  There are some other great luxury touches, like the inclusions (which we’ll talk more about later), the chef having freshly made snacks waiting for you when you get back from excursions, and the general level of service from the crew.  The small size means more personalized attention, and it shows.

2. The Wildlife – Wildlife was everywhere! Everywhere. We were completely undersold on how much we would see.  Wildlife is just that, wild, and it can certainly vary from cruise to cruise, but wow, we were blown away.  And so much of the wildlife we saw is only found in the Galapagos.  We saw Galapagos penguins, red-footed boobies, blue-footed boobies, flamingoes, sea lions, sea lion pups, fur seals, crabs, marine iguanas, land iguanas, hammerhead sharks, manta rays, eagle rays, giant schools of porpoises, and more!  It was a nature lover’s or photographer’s dream.

3. There Are So Many Inclusions – If you are used to giant ocean ships, you may be surprised at how much is included onboard. Gratuities were included, premium Wi-Fi, and all drinks, alcoholic and non, including specialty coffees. All food was included, including some pre-packaged snacks that were great to grab and eat during off times.  Celebrity supplied all of our snorkeling gear and wetsuits, and they were all high quality products.  We had two nice hiking backpacks in our room, along with refillable water bottles with our names on them.  The room had sunscreen and ChapStick for us, as well as a quality pair of binoculars to borrow.  There were walking sticks for anyone that wanted them on the hikes.  All excursions were included, and they even did our laundry for us a few times.  Considering how many times we changed clothes during the day, the laundry was a lifesaver!  Truth be told, I don’t know if I’ve ever spent so little onboard a cruise!  Don’t tell my husband…

4. The Excursions Choices Are Great – Not only were the excursions included, but there was also a good selection, and they were great! Every evening, we all met in the lounge to hear about the next day’s excursion options. Every day there was a morning and an afternoon excursion, and on a few days, there was a third deep-water snorkeling excursion thrown in.  They did a great job of describing the details and difficulties of each option.  If anything, they generally oversold the difficulty level so there were no ugly surprises.  They showed us pictures of the terrain, and pictures of the zodiac disembarkation points so we could tell how hard it would be to get on and off the zodiacs/tenders.  When it was time for each excursion, we met in the lounge and signed up for a tender.  Each tender had a naturalist assigned to it who led that group through the entire excursion.  The naturalists were wonderful!  The excursions would not have been the same without them.  I’ll talk more about them later.  We could have skipped excursions and stayed onboard, but once we realized how great they were, there was no way.  We saw and did some amazing things!

5. The Snorkeling is Some of the Best There Is – Snorkeling in the Galapagos is top-notch. During the time of the year that we went, the water was chilly! Breathtakingly so in some places!  But the wetsuits were great, and we got used to it quickly.  We snorkeled with exotic fish, penguins, sea lions, reef tip sharks, giant manta rays, eagle rays, and I’m sure countless other creatures.  We had 5 different snorkeling opportunities.  One was cloudy and cold (or “refreshing” as the naturalists call it), and we still saw lots of things!  My best advice is, don’t miss any of the snorkeling excursions.  They are all different, and even if one the day before was cold, the next day may be totally different.  You won’t regret it!

6. The Food is Wonderful – The food onboard was delicious! The dining room isn’t open all day, it’s open at set times, and as someone who likes to snack all day, I was concerned. I shouldn’t have been!  The snacks that were waiting for us when we got back from excursions filled the gaps!  They even had hot chocolate waiting for us after snorkeling!  Brilliant.  Room service was also available 24 hours a day and there were hot items available all day from room service, even for breakfast.  We had a hot breakfast in our room a few times!  Lunch and breakfast in the dining room were buffets, and you could also choose to eat on the top deck at the Al Fresco restaurant which was a la carte.  Dinner in the dining room was also a la carte, or you could book the Al Fresco restaurant up top, which was no additional cost, they just asked that guests make reservations.  We never went hungry!

7. The Crew and Naturalists Are Top Notch – The ratio of crew to guests was impressive. 100 guests to 80 crew members! Wowsers!  And, all but two of the crew were Ecuadorians (if you didn’t know, the Galapagos Islands are a part of Ecuador), and they could not have been more friendly and welcoming to us as we visited their country.  We were so impressed with the friendliness of everyone onboard.  They tried to greet us by name whenever they could.  Our friends onboard had their names in foam on their lattes the first morning, without even introducing themselves.  The crew just knew!  They were always there to help and make sure everything was going well.  The Naturalists were superb.  They were knowledgeable, and personable, and added real value to the excursions.  They also took photos on our excursions and everyone got a thumb drive full of pictures at the end of the week!  It was such a great touch.

8. There’s Glamping! – You heard me! Glamping! Glamping was one of the few things with an additional cost onboard, and I suspect they needed to charge because of the limited availability.  On the top deck, there were two double cabanas that you could rent for the night for $299.  Each double cabana had a table on one side, and a bed on the other.  The night began with a private four-course dinner brought to you by your own server.  There was also a cabana attendant who checked on us and gave us a phone to contact him if we ever needed anything.  He asked how many blankets and pillows we wanted and made sure the bed was ready when we were.  We were given some games like Jenga and Dominoes, as well as an iPad full of movies if we wanted to watch any.  When we were ready for bed, we placed our breakfast order for the morning, and adjourned to the other cabana with the bed.  They closed the cabana from the back and we settled in for the night.  The front was open to the ocean and stars.  Because we were so close to the equator, we could see both the northern and southern hemispheres of stars!  We fell asleep to the sound of the ocean and woke up to gorgeous views and a hot breakfast waiting for us.  I loved it!  This is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing!  When will I ever get to glamp on a cruise ship again?

9. Celebrity Makes Getting There a Breeze – Getting to Baltra n the Galapagos Islands, where you board the Flora, is not easy! But if you package it up with Celebrity, it’s easy! Celebrity takes care of everything!  And bonus – they usually have included air or a huge discount on it.  So, there’s even more reason to do it all through them!  When you add air with Celebrity, you add two nights in Quito before your trip, and one night after, to make it a 10-night trip.  You are in the Celebrity bubble the moment you get off the flight in Quito.  They pick you up at the airport and take you to a very nice hotel for the night.  On the full day you have in Quito, you eat breakfast in the hotel and then leave for some tours around town in small groups.  We saw the sights of Quito and took a trip to the equator.  We had a wonderful lunch in a monastery with the whole group.  Dinner was with the entire group again close to the hotel at an excellent restaurant.  The next morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we traveled to the airport and boarded a chartered flight to Baltra.  After landing, we took a short ten-minute trip to the ship tenders.  It was all seamless!  After the cruise, we did the same thing in reverse back to Quito for the night!  Even the guests that had red-eyes that night were given a hotel room to relax in, with dinner at the hotel.  Celebrity took us back to the airport in time for our flight, and our wonderful vacation came to a close.

10. You Can Add on Machu Pichu – If you don’t want your vacation to come to an end so quickly, or just want to see Machu Pichu in Peru, there’s a Machu Pichu add-on you can do as well! I mean, who doesn’t want to see Peru? In fact, on our cruise, about 25% of the guests decided to take advantage of the proximity to this storied location and were headed to Peru as we had to travel home.  They just wanted to keep staying in that Celebrity bubble!  It’s a great place to be!

Do you have any questions about the Flora?  Just ask!  We are happy to answer!

 

5 Great Safety Procedures With Royal Caribbean

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Several of our agents were lucky enough to participate in different Royal Caribbean test cruises recently, and cruising is definitely back!  From the Caribbean out of Port Canaveral, Miami, and Galveston, to an Alaskan sailing out of Seattle, they were just amazing!  The verdict was unanimous.  We felt safe, and were absolutely thrilled to be sailing again.  Truth be told, there were even tears of joy shed upon boarding.  Cruise lines have had a long, hard road back to sailing, and they have put in the work, and it was worth it.  Here are 5 new safety procedures that we experienced!

1. Air Filtration – Many people have the misguided impression that cruise ships are a floating box of stale air. That’s absolutely not the case, and it’s even more true now. On Royal Caribbean, the HVAC systems continuously supply 100% fresh air from outdoors to all indoor spaces.  The air comes in from one side of the ship, and is removed via an exhaust system on the opposite side.  The air is completely replaced up to 12 times an hour in staterooms, and about 15 times an hour in large public spaces.  In addition, Royal Caribbean has this to say about air filtration:

“Fan coil units in your stateroom and public spaces provide an extra layer of protection, continuously scrubbing the air of pathogens, using a high-grade MERV 13 filter that captures aerosols 1 to 3 microns in size with 90% efficacy — fine enough to filter cold and flu germs and coronavirus.  An independent study by the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the National Strategic Research Institute onboard Oasis of the Seas confirmed that cross-contamination of air between adjacent spaces is virtually impossible thanks to this powerful system.”

If that sounds impressive, it’s because it is impressive!

2. Extensive Cleaning – Cruise ships were remarkably clean before Coronavirus, but the cleaning process is on a whole new level now. During the sailings, the cleaning never seemed to stop. Royal Caribbean has said they are cleaning high traffic and frequently touched areas every 20 to 30 minutes during busy times. They are even using black light technology to check the cleaning procedure’s effectiveness, and the crew participates in ongoing training classes to make sure all new protocols are being followed.  We were all impressed by the constant cleaning!  Additionally, there is hand sanitizer everywhere, with crew members gently reminding you to use it before entering any common area.  There are even small bottles in your stateroom that you can carry with you!  If you thought there was a lot of available hand sanitizer on cruise ships pre-COVID, it also is on a whole new level now.

3. Social Distancing – Much like we’ve become accustomed to in our every day lives, social distancing markers were used onboard. There were spots to stand on wherever lines may form. In the lounges, some tables were marked with signs asking guests not to use them.  In the theaters, some seats were marked in the same way so guests could spread out, and reservations were needed for shows to make sure they weren’t too full.  Cruise ships are also sailing with fewer guests these days.  The reduced capacity onboard these spacious ships made it easy to spread out, and we didn’t encounter any overly-crowded areas.  Things that normally would have required a large gathering of guests were redone to spread people out.  The muster drill, for example, is all on the app now.  Guests watch instruction videos and check in to their muster station at their leisure during the first afternoon onboard.  It was such a time saver, and yet still worked!

4. Masks When Necessary – There were times onboard when masks were required, and other times when they were not. We were able to enjoy meals without masks, of course, as well as outdoor spaces. In the ports, we followed the local rules, and on CocoCay (Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas), masks were not required as we were outdoors the entire time!  If you are someone who is more comfortable wearing a mask, masks were never discouraged.  You could absolutely wear them and not be self-conscious doing so.  All crew members were in masks at all times.  They did have some great buttons on their uniforms with a picture of their unmasked smiling faces so you could see their entire face.  We thought that was a great touch!

5. Touchless Systems – Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines are making everything they can a touchless system. The buffets were well staffed with crew members who generously filled your plate with no judging! You could stand in front of those breakfast potatoes asking for another spoonful as many times as you wanted.  Not that we did that, of course, we just noticed others doing it.  *Cough Cough*  There were also crew members at drink and ice cream stations who would get you whatever you liked!  The menus in the restaurants were all via QR codes, or were available in the Royal app.  We thought most of these changes worked really well, and that they were good enough improvements to potentially keep in place even once we are through COVID!

Royal Caribbean is doing an amazing job of keeping their guests safe, and we felt it.  Cruises are incredible vacations, full of tons of activities and fun experiences, and that has not changed!  We will sail again soon!

10 Changes on My First Cruise in Forever

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My goodness, I have missed cruising! I just returned from the first Royal Caribbean cruise to sail in North America in almost fifteen months! Fifteen months! Who would have ever believed that an entire industry would shut down for so long – and survive? But it did! Cruising is back!

While cruise ships won’t start sailing from the U.S. for a few more weeks, some cruises from international ports have begun! When Royal Caribbean announced that they would begin sailing from Nassau on Adventure of the Seas, I knew I had to be there.

All passengers, age 16 and over, had to be fully vaccinated by the time the cruise sailed. And for now, anyone returning to the United States from abroad, has to produce a negative Covid test. Other than that, we weren’t sure what protocols would be in place. I fully trusted Royal Caribbean to keep us safe though, so I grabbed a friend, and we booked our flights! We did end up having to take a last minute Covid test before boarding, but it was easy, and everyone made it onboard!

Much of the cruise was the same wonderful experience I have always loved, but a few things changed! And here are 10 of them.

1. Happiness Was Everywhere – From crew to guests, I think this may have been one of the most joyous cruises I have ever been on. Everyone just seemed so happy to be back. There was a celebration in Nassau when we boarded, the band was playing, the dancers were dancing, the crew was cheering, there wasn’t a grump in sight that first day. The crew was fully masked, but they were still smiling hard enough that you could feel it. At one point I commented to my friend that we couldn’t seem to walk 5 feet without someone saying hello and welcome back. I felt like the guests were also happy and thankful to be there! People were introducing themselves, making small talk with strangers, and socializing everywhere. Over the last 15 months, we have been starving for connections with other people, and this cruise was a chance to make some!

2. Guilt Free Mask Freedom – Because we were all vaccinated, guests 16 and up did not have to wear masks onboard, or on CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s private island. Let me tell you – it was heavenly. It’s been a long time since I haven’t had to worry about whether or not I had a mask on me when going out. I suspect that based on different levels of lockdown across the country, some guests probably wore masks less that week than they have any time at home recently. We could finally see each other’s faces, and it was amazing!

3. Touch Free – Like the rest of the world, the ships have gone to a touch free experience whenever possible. In the dining rooms, the menu was available via QR code located at the table, although there were paper menus if you requested one. On Royal Caribbean there are Freestyle machines to get soda, but we weren’t supposed to touch them. There was a crew member stationed by them all day to get our sodas for us!

4. There Was Still a Buffet – Although the buffet was closed at dinner for this sailing, the buffet was open for breakfast and lunch every day! There were a few items that were pre-prepared as a single serve item, but for most things, the crew was waiting to dish it out to us. The buffet on the island was the same way. Available, but not self-serve.

5. Sanitizing and Cleaning – Cruise ships have always been clean. Under normal circumstances you can’t enter a dining room without washing or sanitizing your hands. Well, this was a whole ‘nother level. There was constant cleaning. Constant cleaning of handrails, sanitizing stations at every venue, the door to our stateroom was even noticeably wet at least twice a day after our stateroom host cleaned the room and sanitized. I couldn’t figure out what was on my hands when I opened the door, until he told me he’d just sanitized! The cruise lines are not messing around.

6. Low Occupancy – For our cruise, and probably for a little while as things get going again, we were at a very low occupancy level. The ship was only around 33% full! I’m not going to lie, that made for a spectacular experience for many things. CocoCay felt empty, with empty beach chairs everywhere. Because so few passengers were onboard, even with a slightly reduced crew, the service was also impeccable. The crew to passenger ratio was pretty close to one to one!

7. Social Gatherings Were Limited – While the cruise line never told us to avoid anyone outside our traveling party, they did spread people out when possible. In the main dining room, for instance, they did not assign multiple parties at one table. They also put reserved signs on several tables around the ship to keep people spread out, as well as some of those “stand here” footprint signs we’ve all grown accustomed to whenever a line may possibly form indoors. At one of the dance parties we went to in the evening, they had spotlights on the dance floor and encouraged people from the same traveling party to find a spotlight and dance in that spotlight! That one was pretty brilliant.

8. Virtual Muster – The muster drill onboard during the first day, brings people as a group to an assigned location to meet at an assigned time. Not anymore! We were asked to watch a video on the app, and check in to our Muster station at some point during the first afternoon to verify with a crew member that we had seen it. This was an excellent change, that I definitely hope sticks around! Although judging from the ship-wide announcements encouraging guests not to forget to go check in, it seems some people had a hard time following instructions on that one.

9. Shows Are Changed but Happening – There were still live shows onboard! The theaters and entertainment venues put reserved cloths over several chairs, which greatly spread people out. We did have to make reservations for shows (although that’s a common thing on some classes of Royal ships), but they repeated the shows so often that we never had a hard time getting in to anything.

10. Each Port Was Different – We quickly got used to the protocols onboard, but we were (understandably) expected to follow the local rules every time we disembarked. Every island we visited (besides CocoCay) wanted us to wear our masks unless we were physically distanced outside, or eating or drinking. So, security reminded us every time we got off the ship to put them on. During our excursions, it felt like we were bathing in sanitizer at times, as everyone from the bus driver, to the tour guides, to the people welcoming us to the destinations, were ready and waiting with a giant bottle of sanitizer to squirt in our hands!

And after all those changes, I’m happy to report that this cruise was a total success! Everyone tested to get on, and everyone tested to get off. And we all passed!

As I said above, cruising is back, friends! And I am one hundred percent here for it!