Cruise Arizona

A good TA should be able to get it back the way it was. That could be done by escalating it back through the Celebrity system. The first person who answers the phone at Celebrity might not be able to do it, but the next person or two up the chain should be able to get it all back for you.

The gratuity is free pre-paid, so you are not charged. Since you have to pre-pay the gratuity to do Select dining, you may choose this option and the free pre-paid is great because the marketing promotion takes care of that for you. We like this best we when we do Select dining.

If you don't mind pre-paying out of pocket, then the OBC has a higher value. You would just have to decide if you would be spending the OBC in addition to the gratuity when you have the drink package. If you would still spend more than the amount of OBC, then either way is fine.

But rest assured, it is FREE prepaid gratuity, so you won't be charged twice and given credit or anything like that, it is take care of before you even step foot on the ship. And you can do Select dining if you choose.

Anyone recently off Silhouette got the scoop on which fitness classes are included in the price of the cruise and which ones were for a fee.

Last year Zumba was free on the pool deck, yoga and Pilates were for a charge in the fitness center.

Oh how I love Ross. I have a long Calvin Klein jersey dress in red, and my husband and son wore dark suits and I wore my gown (picture posted a few pages back)

The dress is timeless and really perfect for a cruise formal on any line as it can be dressed up or down a little depending on accesories.

I'm off to Ross to day to buy a business dress, hoping for a good find.

Ooooohhhh! another zebra dress on your daughter! Love it! You both look beautiful!!

She was so funny because she bought the zebra dresses years apart. When she planned for the cruise it was one long and one short a week, and only one Zebra a week.

It was kind of crazy because with a 14 day cruise there are only three formal nights, but with two back to back that makes 4. For the guys it was easy because they wore the same suits all four nights and just changed their ties and shirts. The 4 formals didn't take up too much space for us girls, as they are all pretty light weights.

Here's another dress:

I have a really wide computer screen so this looks fine on mine, please let me know if it is too wide.

This is the second week of the cruise with my MIL in the middle.

vandercapellen,

I love the dress! Really beautiful style and color as stated above.

Suzanne, I got home from Silhouette last Sunday and the ship is

beautiful and the service was fantastic:D. I am thinking of booking

her again for early next year too:).....I am going back to Europe on

Reflection in May 2014 but a winter Caribbean cruise sounds good

too;)

Lois,

Are you a wine drinker? I am going with a wine group Feb 16th 2014 Eastern Caribbean Silhouette again. The Sunday departure works well for us since we have to fly from AZ.

email me at suzanne at klasen dot us if you want some more information.

Suzanne, your hair look elegant in the formal picture, I know you said you were not wild about it but it suits the dress and your look that night. Your daughters dress is also lovely in that picture.

I guess I wasn't wild about my hair because I had curled it and was try to go for a softer look, but it ended up flat and slicked back. Because the picture is dark you can't tell it is blonde. So I'm glad to know that you liked it. I guess that means it wasn't as severe as I thought.

Suzanne, We had late seating at dinner and we did 3 specialty restaurants at 9 PM. I wore dresses every night. We stayed by the pool really late everyday because the weather was so beautiful. We also thought the food and entertainment was excellent on Silhouette.

Cruising can be weird sometimes because some people you run into all the time and others that you have met on this board you never see. On my two TA's I was always running into the folks from my roll call, and on these two I hardly ever saw any body. There were two guys that came to karaoke, and one of them did a pretty darn good Michael Jackson, but other than them I saw almost no one from our roll call. It was a lovely cruise though.

Suzanne, we never got dressed for the evening early enough to go to the Elite lounge on Silhouette. Sorry we never got to hang out together in our formal wear. You and your family look so nice in these pictures.

No worries. Did you have late dinner? We did weird dining times. 7:30 first week and 6:30 second week. It actually worked pretty good for us. My MIL loved the cocktail hour. She is almost there with her cruise credits, but because she was sharing our connecting rooms she was able to use the lounge. (I think officially she was in the room with me and my son, though to give her more privacy she actually roomed with my daughter, and I got stuck with the two big guys who snore and talk in their sleep.)

I hope you enjoyed the cruise as much as we did. We thought the food was outstanding and it was a nice friendly crowd.

Just noticed the only thing that still fits is my shoes.

Suzanne........WOW:) you look beautiful and your kids are no longer

kids anymore! They are grown young adults now;)

The picture is lovely!:)

Thanks Lois, it seemed to happen over night. My first cruise with them was about 8 years ago, in 8-10 more years I could easily be a Grandma.:D

I like my daughter's crazy dress, it suits her personality. This was "green" night.

I love coming on here and seeing Marie's dress.

My favorites are the Dashiki, Black column dress, bright pink, and yellow floral.

Well its been a while since I've been on the boards but I promised a couple of formal night pics from my last cruise.

I'll start with my favorite dress, thought I'm not wild about how my hair looks in the pics. But my daughter, and my guys look great! :D

 

And here is the Card Room

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Gambee, I finally made your review. Some people think I am such a boring cruise because I like to play board games and card games with my family, inside, instead of getting sunburnt by the pool. So here I am at the far table playing either Dominion or Carcassone with my hubby and son. I was looking of all your pictures of the fun and games by the pool, and I was like "What did I do that day?" Thanks to this pic, I remember, enjoying a little family game time.

I read awhile back that Celebrity was not serving escargot in the MDR due to a possible shortage. Is this still true? We are sailing on the Silhouette in May and really would love to taste that great appetizer again!

 

If not served, is there a comparable substitute?

I understand that there is still a shortage that make it nearly impossible to keep the ships stocked at a reasonable price.

In the same dish they server sauteed mushroom caps stuffed with minced crab meat. If you cross your eyes and have 4 glasses of wine before the first course, it almost seems like escargot. :D

Mepsie,

Great Story, espresso martini's must have the same affect a irish coffee!

We were down at deck 3 right by the Passport Bar waiting for the International Rep to take us off. Meet time was 10:15 but we never walked off until just after 11 and we didn't even get into the building. Waited a few minutes US customs looked at our passport and sent us back to ship. Reading is a wonderful thing because someone informed at the CC Meet & Greet the next day that there was a complimentary lunch that we missed out on. LOL!

 

Liars Club we went both weeks and Yes! they were exactly the same. We also doubled up the "Silhouette the Show" I really liked the speciality performers.. I am amazed at the strenght of those people. I also enjoyed the Comedic Juggler even though Gambee wasn't very fond of him. But, I do agree with Gambee on the "boy" group singers I hate them also, while my wife loved them.

Well we were right their in the pass port lounge with you, but I was getting caught up on FB since we had reception in Ft. Lauderdale. I am trying to remember where the invitation was written for lunch in the bistro, but we were thrilled.

Well, the A'capella guys were good, just not my favorite thing, so while I didn't got to their shows in other venues, I did enjoy them in the theater. I thought they were way better than me at singing. Probably the bar is set higher for a'capella groups than for passengers at Karaoke.

I too loved the Cirque show. I was amazed a the skill and ballance. I've heard the Ice Shows on Royal Caribbean are equally as exciting, so I'll have to do that at some point too.

I do like my comedy dirty... I actually thought the second week guy was better than the first. Yes! I do think the dancer from week 2 was better than the first. Not that I was really looking;)

 

Regards,

Kevin Reid

Kevin, I don't remember seeing you in the lobby during turn around day, or at the complementary bistro on 5 lunch that day. Which was really good I must say.

Did you go into Ft. Lauderdale?

I wish they had different words on the two Liars Clubs cause I really liked that game show. Did you go to either?

We loved Labadee and my daughter and I did the Stand Up Paddle boarding of a 1/2 hour and then we just hung at the beach. There was so much to do there from the little rollar coaster, to zip line, to shopping for Haitian art, so a good barbeque lunch (I had to have fish cause it was good Friday.) There was even a sports court for volly ball and basket ball. I think next time I am there I will bring my gym shoes and do a little exercise walking as well as enjoy the beach.

Ceviche from Q-zine was offered one night in the Elite lounge as an appetizer, waiter said it was the first time he had seen it there, and I loved it. I am a big ceviche fan and often get it at one of local Mexican places that specializes in it here in AZ.

Kids in Specialty, I think some have age limits and some do not. My daughter and I did the Asian restaurant on Solstice 4 years ago, when she was just 11, and there was not issue. It might just be Muranos and the Ocean Liners that have a min age, but it may be some thing that they are also still trying to figure out.

Penny Prince was funny. We actually chatted with him on the beach for a a few minutes in Labadee. He was enjoying a Corona while hanging out in the water, and he accidently dropped the empty bottle in the water. He started to panick because he didn't want it to break and hurt someone, so we all worked together to find the bottle. My son found it and Peny offered to buy him a beer, but he is only 16, too young for a beer or the comedy show on Celebrity, so I told Peny I'd pick up the beer for my son when he's old enough.

The previous week we went to Sin City, and the headliner who was an Emmy winner from the writing staff of Home Improvement was probably a littler better, and the Burleque Dancer was definitely better the second week, the one you saw. Cause you know I'm such an expert on Burleque dancers, being the Catholic Mom and all. It did feel a little weird to go the Sin City Comedy and then Mass the next day in the same room. Any way the Comedy was restricted to 18+, but believe me it would have been fine for 14+.

Liar Club is also one of my favorite funny events. We went week one and we asked if the words would be the same, and so when they said yes, we skipped it week two. Very very funny. The first week we had two couple who were utilizing a sign language interpreter. They were kind of sitting between us in the stage. It was really funny to watch the interpreter desperately try to have the same seriousness that the officers had in presenting their answer, but she was cracking up in a Harvey Corman to Tim Conway kind of way. Anyway, I hadn't seen Liars Club in about 7 years on a Celebrity cruise, so it was nice to see it back.

I liked this guy, and thought the whole bit climbing on the unicycle was hysterical. I had some pretty good laughs that night.

After dinner we decided to stop at the theater and check out the nightly show. It was ok I guess, he had a lot of talent with juggling, but his comedy mainly depended being goofy. Nothing memorable but funny for the time being.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the show we decided to head upstairs to get some shuteye.

 

This guy was waiting for us

 

Say "Hello Master Viper!" for those of you fellow Kung Panda fans :D

 

 

 

 

Gambee,

I know you must have heard them too! There were one or two families with several kids who allowed their children to run in the halls. Since you and I were only a few cabins apart we both share this experience.

Those that know me from this board know that I have been cruising with my kids since they were 7 and 9. I have always had a rule:

No Running, Ever on a Cruise Ship!

I ingrained that into my children since day one, mostly to be courteous to others who might not be as spry as them, and for safety reasons, but our neighbors, added another reason:

Running is really the only noise that can be heard from the hallways in the rooms.

I never heard voices, or noise from the other areas of the ship, but the running reverberates very loudly into the staterooms.

I hardly even noticed the 500+ kids on this cruise. Celebrity youth kept them well occupied, and for the most party they were nice kids with nice families who were very attentive to the kids.

To be honest, the running wasn't that often and that bad, but when I would hear it I'd say to myself "oh its those kids running again" and I love kids.:D

I also have to admit to acutally breaking my own rule one day. I was booking a future cruise and had to run back to my room to get my Credit Card. I tried to run as softly as possible. :o

I hope this post doesn't sound too grumpy, because it absolutely did not ruin my cruise at all, the weather didn't even bother me, but kids and adults don't run in the halls. (unless you do it very softly to get your credit card when booking a future cruise) :D