Welcome to The Kennedys Travel Channel. Now that we are semi retired we have caught the cruising bug and wanted to share our experiences and our journeys.
This appears to be a covid era issue. For Piraeus nowadays, cruisers report being dropped off close to their ship terminal when arriving by any Uber or taxi. Also, many people don’t arrive directly from the airport but from their hotel, for which there may not be a transfer service by the cruise company.
I have sailed from Piraeus more recently, although from a different part of the port, but the taxi was able to drop us at the terminal entral. This is shown in my more recent video.
Thank you for this wonderful video. We are going to cruise the Celestyal Journey in May 2025 visiting some of the Greek isles. We look forward to it. I'm going to share this video with my family so they can see what the ship looks like. Great job!
My daughter stayed in that bedroom. She says there were switches on the wall and it got pretty dark in there and she is someone that likes to sleep in complete darkness.
@@leighmchenry9118 It was great to have two bedrooms, but it is at the expense of storage and space in both bedrooms and the living area. My wife was not impressed with having to do her makeup at the bathroom basin!
beautiful! i love landing at night in an unknown country, especially when u can see that light from cars on highways and roads... it's just a different feeling... 😊
We used to travel with a small video camera and I was wondering if you took these with a phone or go pro or what? I was considering using a phone, but wondered if I'd have to set up a place to download all the videos while traveling due to storage limitations.
I always film with a Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. I am actually a wedding videographer and have a lot of professional cameras, but I find the phone to be by far the easiest option for cruises. I used to take a laptop to offload footage, but latest phone is 256Gb, which, for me, is more than enough to cover a cruise.
If you look at 3:03 in the video, you will see a big blue platform lorry with a couple of guys cleaning the windows, though I guess they can only do the windows facing the dock.
Thank you for your wonderful videos. I will be on this cruise next year and your posts have been so exciting, seeing what is in store! You are an excellent videographer, BTW
Thank you so much for your kind words. The ship and the crew were wonderful and the excursions were great, so I am sure that you will have a great time. Make sure that you are out on deck for the sail in to Montenegro! I actually do videography for a living, but just use my phone for cruise videos as it means that I have a lot less to carry. So pleased that you like the videos.
My husband and I were on this cruise with you, and we can see ourselves in this video (you did different excursions than we did up until this point). It's been really nice revisiting our trip through your wonderful videos. Thanks!
Now I have to try and work out who you were in the video! :) Thank you for your kind comments. We weren't sure what to expect as we originally booked the 3 Continents cruise and then Celestyal changed the itinerary for this one, but I think this was one of the best cruises that I have been on. I am starting on the Corfu video now. Were you on that same excursion?
@@TheKennedysTravelChannel My husband is easy to find. He's the guy who has the big arms and wore tank tops and shorts the whole time! For the Corfu excursion, we did the Achilleion and Corfu Old Town. We had also initially signed up for 3 Continents too.
@@TheKennedysTravelChannel Yes, that's him. I was with you wife in the absurdly long bathroom line at Olympia. I wound up going into the men's bathroom rather than waiting in that line!
We both remember you well. We kept bumping into each other as we were wandering around. You will always be remembered as the lady who went onto the men's bathroom! Now, do I have a video clip of that........? Great to hear from you. That was probably our favourite of all our cruises.
The "Celestyal Journey", the former Dutch RYNDAM (Holland America Line) looks so elegant in the classic colour scheme, which distinguishes her from the nowadays screaming colour schedules like Aida, Norwegian Cruise Lines, MSC (Euribia) and many, many more. Why all this nonsense painted on the hulls? A few cruiseships emerged from becoming a fun-boat. The sisters of the RYNDAM are good examples. The STATENDAM became the VASCO DA GAMA (Nicko Cruises) and the MAASDAM became the French RENAISSANCE . But......now Celestyal decided to repaint the Celestyal JOURNEY in a fun-scheme, just like the recently introduced Celestyal DISCOVERY - what a sad news. The more nonsense on the hull , the less original. Keep this vessel in the dignified classical colour scheme. Apart from the mentioned vessels also the other sisters BOREALIS and BOLETTE (Fred Olsen) and VOLENDAM and ZAANDAM are normally painted. Mark my words, these classical mid sized less new vessels become more popular every month, as the mega vessels dominate the cruise market. They are the "funboats" . So owners of Celestyal, keep the "JOURNEY" as she is now. She did a fine job by making a replace cruise for the AMERA to the South Atlantic and beyong the Cape/ East Africa - Indian Ocean. As styleful as in her Dutch days. Keep her as she was introduced by Celestyal. That was a wise choice. Thank you!
@@TheKennedysTravelChannel This is just the opinion of several shiplovers, seamen and maritime people, who just mention that within a short time there will only be "funboats" and hardly classical cruiseships left. Some of us recently cruised on the Vasco da Gama and others on the Renaissance, Volendam , Zaandam, Borealis & Bolette and they all have style and dignity and not the livery of funboats with eyes, noses, waves and other useless paintings. And since we discovered that the Celestyal Discovery was recently introduced with hull-paintings and it was announced that the Celestyal Journey would follow in the spring, we simply said : There are also (future) passengers who don't like all these "Amusement Parks at sea" ! - We hope that mr Chris Theophilides (CEO Celestyal) will rethink this decision.
Hi, it depends which deck. The decks with the restaurants etc have higher ceilings, but I would guess somewhere round 7' 6" in the cabins. I am 6' and there was plenty of head room.
Thank you so much for this! I am taking the same cruise next April and it’s so interesting to see the port, ship etc. keep up the fantastic videos and enjoy your cruise. 😊
I am especially impressed by the dancers, acrobats and singers on Celestyal Journey who come from Cuba and Honduras. They perform EVERY single night (maybe one or two members get a rest day), and also work on side duties like dance lessons or helping out during embarkation. Even with other cruise lines with much bigger ships, there would be alternating teams performing on different days, and sometimes just 1 or 2 singers singing for the whole night. Their hardwork alone is worth an applause.
It's a bit of a worry at first as the ship doesn't have all the extras like slides and go kart tracks on other cruise lines, but it is all about the service and the destinations. We found it to be a fantastic cruise, and we have been with Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. We really couldn't fault the crew at all and will definitely be cruising with them again. We are working on the next video now and hope to have it ready it a few days. Thanks also for your kind words.
@@brownki I think the nearest is on the vanity unit. 3 metres might be a bit short, so I guess 5 metres. We managed well charging our phones by the bed just using the USB ports.
How is the internet speed on Celestyal Journey? Is it comparable to Starlink on modern ships? Also, is the internet package pre-bookable on their Manage Booking website? I have an upcoming cruise, but I can't seem to pre-book any excursions as well on their website.
Hi, we travelled on Norwegian Viva a few months ago and the internet speed was comparable. Things like emails and social media were fine and we managed to hold a few WhatsApp video calls. I can't say for certain what the deal is now that they have changed the internet packages, but we prebooked both internet and excursions through Manage Booking on the website. It's not the easiest site to navigate through and you have to choose the small tab that says "available" to get to the excursions, but we had the choice of packages of excursions or A le Carte to choose whichever ones we wanted. Hope fully someone who has booked more recently will comment.
Thanks for your kind words. We were there on the run up to Christmas but weren't there for Christmas itself, but the ship had Christmas trees, decorations and ginger bread houses around the ship. I believe that they also have a different Christmas and New Year menu in the restaurants, along with special parties and entertainment.
If you are used to cruising on big cruise ships with multiple things to do, you may find the Celestyal ships a bit lacking, although that was not an issue for us. This was one cruise where we spent a lot of time ashore and it was worth it for the ports that we visited. Food was good and the crew were great. I am planning to cruise with them again next year and was happy with my choice. I hope that helps.
