Carried_Away

Free drinks are offered to all players, regardless of level in the Captain's Club or the Blue Chip Club. Although the casino bar doesn't use the menu from the Martini Bar, you can order martinis and common martini variations (for example, I usually drink cosmopolitans and lemon drop martinis; I imagine an apple martini or a chocolate martini would be no problem). I find the drink service at the casino table games to be consistently excellent. The glasses might be smaller that those at the Martini Bar (or, if you treat your servers well, they might not be so small), but I never go thirsty.

I recommend double-checking that the second person has been assigned the same arrival time. Like the OP, I cruise with a friend. I check in as soon as check-in opens to get us an early arrival time. On previous cruises, I've always had the experience described above --- once I enter my own info and select an arrival time, the same time is automatically assigned to my friend, who does her own check-in much later. But when I checked in for the cruise we're embarking on later this week, my friend was not assigned the same arrival time that I chose. I had to go into her check-in and select a time for her. By the time I did that, the time slot I'd selected for myself wasn't available, so I had to select the next half-hour window for her. Regardless, we're both going to arrive during my check-in slot.

On my two previous cruises to St. Kitts, there were plenty of monkeys with their owners in the port area right at the end of the pier --- more in the afternoon when I returned to the ship than when I first disembarked. If you want to hold a monkey or take a photo (I know it's not advised, but plenty of people do it anyway), I recommend confirming/negotiating a price in advance.

I doubt you'll find a better discount on board. If you want that specific treatment and you can get that price at a time that works for you, I think you should book it. I find spa deals to be hit or miss. I've always found port-day specials, but not necessarily for the treatments I want. Sometimes I've been able to get a pretty good deal that fit my preferences for treatment type, day, and time, but on other cruises, the spa manager hasn't offered anything other than the specific port-day special (often a sampler treatment with a short massage and maybe a short facial or reflexology). Even when the deals have been good, I don't think I've ever gotten an offer that was better than the best price available through the Cruise Planner. Have you considered a 75-minute massage? I find that the massage deals usually provide the best value at 75 minutes.

I prefer St. Kitts, which seems more prosperous and nicely developed to me. If you're interested in a beach day, Cockleshell Beach in St. Kitts is nice, and you can stop on the way for a beautiful sight and photos at the point where you can see both the Caribbean Sea on one side of the island and the Atlantic Ocean on the other side.

I've never seen more than a few kids on my Celebrity cruises. I've sailed to the Caribbean in October, November, December, and January, but not over the holidays when kids would be out of school. I've also sailed to Bermuda in late May and very early June.

I also enjoyed sailing with Captain Nigel on the Summit in June. I saw him around the ship more than any other captain I've sailed with, and he gave both the presentation the OP mentioned and a Q&A with the hotel director. I'm perfectly happy with any captain who gets us where we're going safely, but some do offer a bonus with their personal interactions and visibility.

My friend and I sailed on the Reflection in January and had no complaints.

Playing music or videos without headphones in an enclosed public space like the solarium is appalling manners. I can't fathom how people can be so inconsiderate.

Thanks for posting.

Yes, I enjoy staying on the ship on port days sometimes. As Jim said, if you're interested in spa treatments, look for or ask about discounts on port days.

If you purchase specialty dining package through the cruise planner, you'll be given a choice of times, and the system will make a reservation for you at that time on one of the first two nights in one of the specialty restaurants (you don't choose the restaurant). You do not have to keep that reservation if you don't like the date, time, or restaurant. Just go to one of the specialty restaurants or the tables set up for specialty reservations when you board, and you can make/change all your reservations at that point. 7:30 is a popular time and might be tough to get, but I can usually make reservations for 8 p.m. Occasionally 8 isn't available at the restaurant I want on the night I want, and I get 8:30 instead. If you're a little flexible, you should be able to get something reasonably close to what you want. Even if you only see very early or late times available on the cruise planner, there will be more availability on the ship. You can also check for cancellations if your preference isn't initially available. My experience is that the maitre d's try to be accommodating.

I usually get a specialty dining package and have never had a problem making reservations on embarkation day --- and then sometimes changing things after that. It helps that my friend and I prefer to eat late, so we're not asking for the most popular times, but unless it's really important to you to have reservations for 7 p.m. each night and a specific restaurant each night, I think you'll be fine. In your situation, I would cancel one of the two reservations you already have (keep the first night discount), buy the five-night package, and make the reservations as one of the first items on my to-do list when I boarded the ship. With just a little flexibility, you should be able to get reservations you're satisfied with. Edited to add: You can go to any specialty restaurant to make all your specialty reservations. Also, there is usually a table for specialty dining reservations outside the buffet throughout the cruise and in other high-traffic areas on embarkation day.

Celebrity recently had a flash sale with up to 50% off some Cruise Planner purchases, including beverage packages and upgrades from classic to premium. If you find a similar sale for your cruise, you might be able to get the upgrade to premium for less than $15/day.

My friend and I sailed to Bermuda a couple of weeks ago. The ship's time change occurred when we were at sea, and my friend's iPhone phone did not automatically update. I think it updated when we got to Bermuda. I kept my iPhone on airplane mode and only connected to the ship's Internet to use the Celebrity app. I don't believe my phone updated the time, but the app showed the correct ship time. I mainly relied on my watches (not smart watches), which I manually changed on the appropriate days.

I upgrade because I like premium water, martinis at the Martini Bar, and top-shelf liquor. I'm not sure whether I drink enough that the premium beverage package saves me money, but I also like the convenience of ordering whatever I want to drink, whenever I want to drink it, and not worrying about it.

The NRD is nonrefundable deposit.

No, I didn't pay attention to that. Sorry.

We booked an "all-included" fare, which I think is the only option for Aqua Class, and then upgraded our beverage packages to premium. All of our drinks in Blu and elsewhere were covered by our packages.

For those of you who had the same questions, here's my experience from the Summit's June 4 sailing: Aqua Class received a 10% discount on spa services, and the "spa concierge" was the spa managers. Overall, these supposed benefits were inconsequential. The other discounts available --- port-day and embarkation-day specials, and the discount for multiple treatments --- ended up being better than the Aqua 10%. And I had no difficulty making appointments my usual ways, through the Cruise Planner and the staff at the spa reception desk, so I had no need of the "concierge."

My friend and I are just off the Summit after the June 4 sailing to Bermuda. We had a wonderful cruise, and I thought I'd share some observations on dining issues that have been discussed here recently. We ate dinner in Oceanview two or three nights and saw no cutbacks in the buffet. Just about every station was open, including the made-to-order grill and stir-fry stations. The usual staples --- pizza, pasta, Latin, and Indian --- were available, as were daily specials. Dinner service was scheduled to end at 9:30 nightly, but on our first overnight in Bermuda, we and a lot of other guests (more than the usual number in Oceanview for dinner) came in after 9:30 as we returned from port. The crew kept some dinner stations open as late as 10:30 to accommodate people. It was sometimes hard to find a bar server, as is often our experience in the buffet, but otherwise, I was happy with our experience in Oceanview. As others have reported, there was no self-service in Oceanview because of the recent GI illness on the ship. We didn't get sick or hear of others on our sailing getting sick. We were in Aqua Class for the first time, so Blu was our dining room. We were impressed with the service, the food, and the ambience. We will definitely sail in Aqua Class again, at least on M- and S-class ships, because of Blu. As others have reported here, the chocolate cake and cheesecake have been removed as nightly options on the app menus, but we still noticed those desserts on printed menus in Blu. I had the cheesecake once or twice.

I just got off the Summit. As others have said, there were 6:5 blackjack tables with $10 minimum. Two tables offered 3:2 for $25 minimum. The craps minimum was $25, which surprised me. I believe I've seen $10 or maybe $15 craps on previous Celebrity cruises. Three-card poker was $10.

I was on the Reflection and in January and posted about the dinner buffet when I returned. I was happy with the options:

Thanks for your review. I'll be embarking on the Summit four weeks from today, and you gave me some things to look forward to.

I typically sail during the school year, and I have never seen more than a few children on Celebrity.