LIVE from the Celebrity Summit: 6/27/17 Independence Day Canada & New England Cruise

BRILLIANT!!:D

 

Hope there's room for the water!!

 

Andy

Water, oh yes... I put a luggage tag on case and it appears with luggage at our room.

Looking forward to your reviews, we're sailing on this cruise on September 10, 2017 for fall foilage.

Looks like you're off to a wonderful start, you made great time with the traffic(fellow Jerseyan here) to Bayonne! Summit is my favorite ship, and I'll be doing the Canada/New England itinerary for the first time on 9/24, so I look forward to following along and to seeing your insights of Halifax, Portland and Bar Harbor.

Your little one is absolutely adorable, and have a wonderful cruise!

cbc

This review is off to a great start. Love all your pictures, esp the one of your adorable little daughter. I hope the cruise is fabulous. The fireworks for Canada Day should be great since it is Canada's 150th birthday. Enjoy the lobster and have some for me.

Looking forward to "cruising" with you! Love the Summit and the CA/NE itinerary.

Awesome thread. We'll be sailing on her the week of 8/20. Great pictures of Bayonne. Seems super convenient.

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Here is a lobster roll that is a lobster roll. It is in Bar Harbor at the Dog and Pony. About 2 blocks off the Main Street. It is all lobster and not the salad type. It was $16.

The rest are poor imitations. That is a 16 0z ( pint ) beer so you can see how large it is

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌞

We board the Summit on July 7th!! Cant wait...

Thank you to everyone for the comments! We have taken several pictures and have had a great first day! Unfortunately, I am having some difficulty getting photos to post on Xcelerate here. I was using Tapatalk before on my phone but now only have the internet on my MacBook. Every time I try to upload photos here it says "upload failed." Any ideas?

After boarding, we had a very loooonnnnggg lunch at Sushi on Five. It was explained to us that the Summit was having its CDC inspections today and we should expect long waits for food, so no complaints as we were warned. For a couple of starters and 4 rolls of sushi, lunch took almost 2 hours. But....the food was delicious!

After lunch we explored for a bit before the muster drill. Our cabin steward George is awesome. He has offered to arrange our room in a manner to make it easier to move around. Once the couch is opened up into a bed, you CANNOT walk around it. All the staff that we have interacted with have been AWESOME as well!!

Before dinner, Captain Kate (who is hilarious) took us up the Hudson for some amazing views of Lady Liberty. We also stopped by at the spa raffle and, guess what, the misses won $150 gift card to the spa!!! That will go to good use on July 2nd!

For dinner, we had 6 p.m. reservations in the Cosmopolitan (Select Dining). Our waitstaff (Leewood and William) were tremendous and we hope to have them every night we are in the Cosmo. They were especially awesome with our little one (as everyone has been thus far). The food was very good, better than I remember it.

We are now back in the room, DD fell asleep at dinner and we are unpacking our luggage, which arrived while we were at dinner.

Now, the one negative I should report if I am being fair. And this is our own opinion. The ship needs a ton of TLC. I am really surprised at the condition of our room and several public areas. I understand rust will happen. I also understand that rust is easily painted. There are some HUGE rusted out sections of the ship. The couch in our room features a gigantic stain as though it was soiled years ago and never changed. There are scuff marks throughout the walls, one of the lightbulbs in the nightstand needed changing, the refrigerator was broken (it needs to be fully replaced tomorrow morning) and the sheets had holes in them! Also, when we opened the pull-out couch, there was the prior cruisers sunglasses and an open teabag. Not very indicative of a "premium line."

The preceding paragraph notwithstanding, the food and service has been exemplary thus far and that is what truly makes a cruise, so we are well on our way to an outstanding one!

One last interesting note. We had our first drinks at the Mast Bar (a Bahama Mama (drink of the day) for me and a virgin Miami Vice for momma (she's pregnant so no liquor)). The bartender presented the bill which I eagerly signed, took my card and went on my way. It was not until later that I realized that it was somebody else's card that I was given (whose account now paid for my drinks!). What's worse, who knew what his bill tab was that was now on my account! :o Of course, Celebrity quickly resolved the mixup. Both of our accounts were credited and new cards were printed. In fact, they told me to go to dinner and they would bring the new cards to me so we were not late for our reservation.

If I can figure out how to upload pictures I will. Talk soon.

Whenever I want to post pictures I use Tapatalk. It is very easy using that. Using that also allows you to also take a real time photo for posting without having to take a photo and then retrieving it from your albums.

My wife was given a wrong card years ago when checking out of the Persian Gardens. The first name was right but the last wasn't. She didn't realize it until later in the day when she tried to get into the cabin. We now always check to make sure that we get the right card back from anyone. Besides checking to make sure that the card is right look at what you are signing for and keep the copy for a few months after the cruise to make sure that you don't get any extra charges on your Credit Card a few months later. It has happened to us a few times.

It is also advisable to check that it is your credit card when getting it back in any land based restaurant.

Happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌞

When in Halifax, there is a matinee of the Nova Scotia Tattoo at 2 PM www.nstattoo.ca which is billed as one of the world's biggest indoor shows. There are many acrobats along with the bands and should be enjoyable to your daughter. The tattoo will be doing several free performances around town on July 2.

Hello from New Jersey! Tomorrow morning we will embark on a much-needed family vacation on the Celebrity Summit! Currently, I'm writing from the warm confines of my bed at home in Branchburg, New Jersey as my wife struggles to remember if she packed all of the shoes she will need for the next 10 days (spoiler: she's never packed enough shoes). We will be joined by our nearly 3 year old daughter.

 

I plan on providing daily updates on our cruise along with pictures and videos of the ship, the dailies, the kid's programs, menus and food (oh, there will be so much food). We have the the internet package and are ready to use it!

 

We are getting picked up promptly at 8:30 a.m. by our chauffeur (my father-in-law) to brave the Tuesday morning traffic into Hudson County to get to the Cape Liberty Cruise Port by 10 a.m. or so (we like being the first one on the ship after the VIPs - I'm paying for it, get me on it!)

 

We will be staying in a luxurious Category 11 Inside Cabin (2055). We usually go balcony but were very concerned about having a balcony with a toddler so opted for the inside at a great price!

 

The itinerary is as follows (along with our planned activities):

 

Tuesday, June 27th: Bayonne, New Jersey

Wednesday, June 28th: AT SEA

Thursday, June 29th: Bar Harbor, Maine (Ollie's Trollies)

Friday, June 30th: Saint John, New Brunswick (Freedom Tours' "Fundy to Fundy" Tour)

Saturday, July 1st: Halifax, Nova Scotia (CANADA DAY)(We plan to go to the parade and walk around on our own, at night we hope to see the fireworks)

Sunday, July 2nd: Halifax, Nova Scotia (Peggy's Cove & Titanic)

Monday, July 3rd: Portland, Maine (Lobster rolls....just, lots of lobster rolls)

Tuesday, July 4th: Boston, Massachusetts (Meeting up with friends who live in Boston for the day, maybe the Children's Museum)

Wednesday, July 5th: Boston, Massachusetts (Staying on board)

Thursday, July 6th: Newport, Rhode Island (The Breakers & the Elms Mansions)

Friday, July 7th: Bayonne, New Jersey (Time to go home, already?)

 

If you have any questions, let me know and I will be happy to answer. Can't wait to get on board!

Hope you are having a great time. Was wondering if Mario and Lionel were working at the sunset bar?

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Bon Voyage. Have a wonderful cruise. I am looking forward to reading your exploits.....:):):)

Bob

Back when we were travelling with our son the cabin stewards always folded the couch back up every morning so we could move around. Don't they still do that?

Can't you log out of your MacBook and log into your phone to use TapTalk to upload photos? I know it's a bit of a hassle but I would log in and out between my phone and tablet depending on what I needed to use.

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Great writings, wondering what they charge for the photo package on the first 3 days when you board? Sailing on August 13 and would be interested

Boarded around 11:45 and went straight to Sushi on Five which had just opened.

Yes! I didn't realize I could switch back and forth! Doh!

Here are pictures of Sushi on Five

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Our food. All was excellent, but especially the Dynamite Shrimp and Scallops! I missed pictures of the Octopus Nigiri and the Green Roof roll, but both were great.

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Yesterday's dailies.

Forgot to mention that the waiters at Sushi on Five offered a free couple of scoops from Gelateria for DD, who enjoyed her first of many bowls of ice cream for this trip! We didn't get any of the other dessert because of the inspection issues but told us we could come back any other time to get some.

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Our first drinks (funny enough you can see from the receipt the name of the poor chap who (temporarily) paid for our drinks. I know to look now!

I didn't take pictures of the dinner menu because it is the same menu that is so easily found online (prime rib night). Here is what we got. We loved the spring roll, the mushroom soup, the prime rib and the tres leches crime brûlée. The shrimp Louis appetizer, the bolognese, ravioli and creme brûlée were average to good. DD's pizza with French fries were heartily enjoyed as well!

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Some more pictures from Day 1, the last one being of our couch cushion, yuck!

Last night, momma passed out with DD and I walked around the ship, won some money at craps :), and walked in on the funniest scene I've seen in a long time: 75 people with colored headsets dancing to complete silence. The silent disco was a big hit at the Martini Bar!

Onto Day 2!

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Breakfast was at the Oceanview Cafe.

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First, the lobster in Halifax or St John is NOT the same as the lobster you'll get in Bar Harbor or Portland. It's ok, but it's not Maine lobster! Same with the cruise ship lobster-it's Caribbean and if you're used to Maine (I live outside of Portland), you can't be bothered with it. There is a big difference in flavor and lucky you, with many stops this week you can try them all and make your own decision.

In Portland, pass by the DiMillo's Floating Restaurant (tourist trap) on the waterfront and hit the Portland Lobster Company. Or for a truly local, no frills experience with some of the best lobster and chowder around, try Gilbert's Chowder House (waterfront, opposite direction from PLC). This is where the local businesspeople and tradespeople have lunch.

Happy Cruising....and eating....and drinking.....

doggfan.......LOVE your work. Here's to hoping that you are enjoying your trip as much as we love following it!!! Hope the days stay sunny and the pools nice and cool!!

Cheers,

Andy

Today's dailies.

After breakfast this morning, we hung out poolside, however it was surprisingly cold with big winds. Nobody was using the pools other than a few brace preteens. We did enjoy the hot tubs though. After that we just watched an hour or so of Rogue One at the Rooftop Terrace which, I must say, was awesome. There was a great breeze and when cuddled up in towels made for a fun experience.

I also walked past the archery activity in the Grand Foyer which looked like a ton of fun and I wish we participated.

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Last time we were on Summit, we had some badly ripped sheets too (in an Aquaclass cabin). And we have had stained couches too... ewwww! I always bring something to throw over the couch (like a beach towel from home) so our skin doesn't touch the upholstery (DH is a bit of a germaphobe anyway). Also I always bring an extra blanket because I dislike the covers over the sheets (if any). You are absolutely right though, for a "premium" line, this is not a good advertisement. I do so wonder what kind of shape our cabin (a Sky Suite) will be in late next week when we embark. I love a balcony so I can always hang out on that, but I DEFINITELY understand not wanting to have one with a little one in tow! The first time we took our kids they were 11 and 15, and we didn't even get a balcony then, for fear of their safety. A bit overprotective perhaps but you can never be too careful with your kids. And BTW your daughter is absolutely adorable!