soccermommy

I was on the Summit in August and found the MDR menu a little limited, but I can say I did not lose any weight on that cruise. We’ll be on Millennium next month, and I expect I’ll be fine. And no lighter. In the past year, we sailed Princess, RCI and NCL, and we were not thrilled with the food on any of them. Cutbacks in food are plaguing many mainstream lines. We actually thought Celebrity was the best for food, but that’s just our own subjective opinion.

Since your reviews inspired us to follow in your footsteps, I.e. Iceland-Greenland on Summit, and soon Japan on Millenium, I am excited about your trip on the Great Lakes. I grew up on the other side of Lake Ontario, Rochester NY, and the Lakes are special. Safe travels, and have a wonderful time!

I know food is subjective…DH and I had major differences on some of our meals! For someone who will try anything, he was definitely pickier than I was. No one will starve on the Summit. It’s more likely you come home pounds heavier. I speak from experience. I saw vegan and gluten free choices in the buffet and MDR, and as I am a diabetic, I found the MDR would modify meals and desserts for me with a little bit of notice to our waiters and hostess. I guess my main problem is the number of choices available on the daily menu, but maybe this being a 12 day cruise had something to do with it. i can’t comment on Luminae or Blu but I’m sure others who have eaten in these can chime in. I definitely would do this itinerary again. We sort of saw Northern Lights, but clouds obscured most sights. We do have pictures of green clouds though.

This won’t be a long or detailed thread, but I wanted to give some impressions of this cruise, our first on Celebrity in 2 years. DH and I are in our youngish 70’s, from the Boston area. We are longtime NCL cruisers but got hooked on Celebrity. We would have sailed them more but family constraints had us on Princess, Royal and NCL last year, which did give us a base for comparing cruise lines. We really looked forward to visiting Iceland, since Covid took care of the previous two attempts. ITINERARY We flew to Reykjavík from Boston on Iceland Air. We used Celebrity Air, decent price. Only issue was after final payment, they forgot to tell the airline we had paid, but a call took care of that. We stayed at the Hotel Von, very close to downtown, and within walking distance to several landmarks, which we did while waiting for our room.Small room, but very clean and perfect for the two of us. A restaurant shares the lobby, but technically not part of the hotel. We ate there quite a bit and enjoyed it. Be advised that food in Iceland is very expensive. We did a small group Golden Circle tour with Gateway to Iceland, booked through Trip Advisor. We would use them again. We used Celebrity for shore excursions in Isafjordur and Akureyri, mostly because there just wasn’t much to book. Both had stupendous scenery, lovely people. Several trips would not cover the sights Iceland has to offer. Greenland. The trip through Prinz Christian Sund was probably the highlight of this cruise. Even the rainy, chilly weather couldn’t affect the glorious scenery. Mountains, glaciers and some narrow waterways. We even entered a small inlet where the Summit did a full 360 turnaround so the glacier could be viewed from everywhere on the ship. I am not sure the Eclipse next year will be able to duplicate this since spaces were tight! Nanotorlik. A tiny little town which might have had more to offer if the rain, wind, and 40 degree temps hadn’t interfered. Our tour, a small boat tour of the fjord was cancelled. I think the locals were a bit bemused at the sight of so many crazy tourists who didn’t have the sense to get out of the rain. St. John’s, Newfoundland. A neat, colorful city with an even more colorful history. We booked a walking tour through Viatour, which DH enjoyed. I didn’t make it, more on that later. Halifax, booked a small group Lunenberg tour through Viatour. We had been to Halifax before and wanted to see more of the province. We did get Peggy’s Cove again, I think almost every tour does it, but there have have been improvements. Walking is much safer and is now accessible. It’s still as pretty as ever. We did manage to beat the large tour busses, always a major plus. Lunenberg is a very small lovely city. We also got some great coastal views of both Mahone’s and St. Margaret’s bays. Boston. Disembarking was simple. We walked a block and got a much cheaper Uber home. SUMMIT The ship may be getting older, but you’d have to look for evidence. Immaculately clean and maintained. A couple of times restrooms needed attention, generally near the theater or Sky Club, but they were near the crowds. Service was what I expect from Celebrity, crew friendly, helpful and seemed grateful to have us onboard. I found only one instance of not quite rude disinterest, and that was at Customer Service. But, having seen and heard some of the things they deal with, it could be considered understandable. Room. We booked somewhat late and the only rooms available were inside and ocean view. We were in 2074, a deluxe ocean view, and enjoyed it. We felt no need to have a balcony crossing the Atlantic so far north and didn’t miss it. Our room attendant, Akhmead, was great. Entertainment was fine, we aren’t huge show people and the music in the lounges was pretty good. Food. The buffet was good, a lot of choices and generally were well prepared. My major problem was the prepared scrambled eggs. I suspect eating them was the reason I missed the walking tour. I didn’t keep them down very long. Specialty dining. We ate at both Tuscan and Sushi on Five. Food quality was excellent, and service excellent. Easily the best food we had on this cruise, but not something we’d want to do everyday. MDR. A major disappointment. DH will eat anything, literally, but he couldn’t finish the NY strip steak. Tough and overcooked. Beef was often not cooked to order. The appetizers were fine, but choices are limited and repetitive. Desserts were ok, except one night we and our dinner companions all rejected the apple pie, and DH actually complained. It did get better, but I am now under orders to bake a “real” apple pie. Celebrity simply has to increase the choices and quality of the food served. FINAL THOUGHTS Our last cruise on Celebrity was September 2021 on our private yacht, the Summit. Nothing will ever equal the attention all 300 of us received, but there was nothing to complain about for service this time. There is still much to appreciate about the Summit. You can always find something to eat, but there are areas that need work. In Celebrity’s defense, and we don’t consider ourselves cheerleaders, the MDRs on the other three lines we sailed were at best mediocre. From reading various threads, I think Celebrity has done a lousy job with longtime cruisers who no longer feel appreciated or wanted, which is a really dumb marketing move. We don’t sail suites except for a one time lovely Sky Suite upgrade, but I understand if you pay (a lot!) for something, you should get what was advertised. And even though the cruise lines are desperate to shed the crushing debt they incurred, I don’t think some of their cutbacks are beneficial, or smart. But Celebrity is doing a lot right. We have 2 cruises coming up and will book again when the 2025 schedule comes out. If anyone has specific questions, I will do my best to answer.

I’m on Summit right now and haven’t seen the sign or the supposedly hot, fresh cookies. I have seen and eaten far too many free ones at Al Bacio, though. If there is a test on another ship, I haven’t heard of it, but if this is another cockamamie idea, Celebrity flunked the test.

Thank you for your fantastic pictures and trip blog! I haven’t been to Bermuda since before my marriage in 1975(!) and DH, the native New Yorker, has never been interested. But your pictures and commentary are making him reconsider, especially since we live in the Boston area and can cruise out of either port. But I have to say, sailing out of Cape Liberty on Celebrity is the clear winner! We are boarding the Summit in Reykjavík in 3 weeks and can’t wait, and your review is making me even more excited. Thanks again!

So looking forward to following your adventures. I always learn something new and interesting from your travels. I haven’t made it to Amsterdam yet, Covid messed up 2 cruises, but I did want you to know, your wonderful blog about the Cape Liberty/Iceland/Boston Summit b2b inspired us to book the Summit this August, though we will be doing the Iceland/Boston portion only. Thanks so much for all time you put into doing this!

In less than 2 weeks, I will be on the Breakaway with DH, DD, SIL and a very active 22 month old toddler. I shudder to think about attending a muster drill as disorganized as shown on that La Lido Loca video. BUT….should anything happen on this cruise, I will be very happy to know exactly where to muster and where my family’s lifeboat is located. Let’s face it, under the Covid rules, how many people actually took the muster seriously, much less checking out where things were located. Sure, it’s on the shipcard, but in a real emergency, for many of us, logic, clear thinking and maybe reading directions are the first things to go overboard. The crew better be more prepared than the passengers, and I think that’s the whole point. I think (hope) that the crew will be better able to handle things and there will be less confusion for them as well as us. Do I prefer the e muster? Of course I do since it’s so much easier, and generally, DH and I ( who usually cruise by ourselves) always check out our muster and lifeboat locations anyway. We’ll be on two Celebrity cruises later this year. I will be curious to see how muster drills will be handled by them later this year. All of this reminds me of a story I heard, I forget where, of a woman who didn’t want to have her card scanned, didn’t want to waste her time with a safety briefing and just wanted someone to take her to the lifeboat. I presume she had no plans to actually muster, but just wanted to be first on the lifeboat. I suspect she wasn’t alone in her attitude. Is NCL overreacting, being chintzy, or just stupid? Time will tell.