May 3, 2018

   We have our tickets and are organizing to pack for a five week trip to Europe, starting in Dublin, Ireland, on May 6.

   We received an email from Celebrity Cruises today telling us of a delay of just an hour to board the ship due to the high tide expected at 7:30 a.m., rather than earlier.  At least the starting or ending port did not change like on our fall cruise to Chile.

   After four days in Dublin, we will be boarding the Celebrity Eclipse. It has room for 2,850 passengers (with a maximum of 3,148) and crew of around 1,270 with gross tonnage of 121,878.  It is an eight year old ship, classified as large in the Celebrity Cruises fleet. However Royal Caribbean, a sister company; Disney; Dream; Norwegian; MSC and Carnival have ships almost double the size.  The largest cruise ship sailing in the winter of 2018 was the Royal Caribbean Symphony of the Seas with a maximum guest capacity of 6,680 and gross tonnage of 228,081.