overall we had a really great time. This is our second cruise with Celebrity after cruising many times with Princess (who we love). We chose Celebrity over Princess because they had a Sunday departure rather than a Wednesday departure and it was easier for us with our work schedules. It was more expensive than Princess, but the dates worked better for us, so we chose this cruise.

Flights: We booked through Celebrity Air. We have learned after years of cruising and having departure/arrival ports changed last minute and other ports of call changed last minute, as well as having a few heath scares, that airfare flexibility and travel insurance is a must for us. We wanted to fly economy going and business class return. This was something that Celebrity Air was unable to do for us. The prices kept changing each day, going up and up, and we kept getting different answers from the Celebrity Air team, so finally we just booked business class return through Celebrity Air. I checked the prices again after we booked it and it never went down. Keep in mind only AA and United and a few other airlines have real business class seats. Copa air is cheaper but they have small planes and do not have sleeper seats. We were happy to fly with United. We had a snow storm in NYC/NJ area the day prior to our flight but we were fortunate to fly out on time and catch our connecting flight. We heard of many folks on the cruise who either missed their flights or who were stuck or grounded. Another reason we were happy we got our flights through Celebrity. It eliminates the hassle and their prices were competitive. We always use Princess Air now too.

Santiago Airport: So you will receive a receipt when you go through customs and immigration in Santiago, Chile. Please keep this as it is important. We realized that you need it to get out of the country. In our case we needed to give it to the ship when we embarked. We also used it at the hotel to waive the local taxes from our hotel bill! Some call it a tourist card, but it's a paper receipt in case you want to know what it's for please keep it. We grabbed a taxi from the airport by visiting the taxi counter which is outside of customs. They have 2 counters, 2 lines. One is for metered taxi's and the other is for a lump sum fare. We paid the lump sum and it was $40 US to take us to the hotel. You pay by credit card and they give you a receipt. We didn't have to exchange any money the entire trip! We used USD and credit cards the whole time! Read more