This is my review of our July 9th sailing on the Celebrity Summit to Bermuda. This was my family’s first time sailing with Celebrity, though in the past we’ve sailed with RC, NCL, and Carnival. My wife and I celebrated our 25th Anniversary while onboard. Hopefully this might help someone decide on Celebrity, the Summit, or the Bermuda itinerary. I tried to break the review into categories, but some overlap, and I certainly won’t have the fortitude to cover absolutely everything.
Ship
The Summit was great! The interior of the ship felt modern and spacious, not at all indicative of it’s age. I understand it was refurbished within the past several years – Celebrity did a great job with this! Our last cruise, several years ago, was on an RC mega ship. The Summit is noticeably smaller, which felt like a positive change. It didn’t take forever to get from A to B, didn’t feel as crowded, and having less ‘can’t miss activities’ made the entire trip feel less hectic. We warned our teenagers that they should bring a book to read because there won’t be Wave Riders, climbing walls, slides, zip lines, etc. In the end they didn’t read much because the basic internet service included with the room was good enough for them to play their favorite cell phone games. I only noticed a short lag if I was pulling up an online photo album and the pictures would load one at a time instead of all at once. This was much better than I was expecting it to be. We were also able to text each other fairly reliably while onboard.
While the pool area didn’t feel overly crowded, it was usually hard to find a lounge chair or table in the main pool area or Solarium by the time we got there. We aren’t early risers! I do have to mention the ‘bubble loungers’ in the Solarium pool. I don’t know what these are really called, but it is a series of parallel metal tubes arranged so that they roughly make the shape of a really wide lounge chair with room for 5-6 people on each side of the pool. You sit on these, kinda half in and half out of the water, and there are bubbles shooting up from below the tubes. This was super relaxing and our favorite part of the pool deck.
Crew
The crew of Summit significantly enhanced our enjoyment of this trip. The captain was engaging, the cruise director was entertaining, and everyone else was smiling and happy to help with whatever we needed. The staff in Blu really personalized the service and made us feel special, especially on the evening of our anniversary. My only complaint would be that occasionally some of the bartenders seemed to not know what they had available. I’m a craft beer guy and they often didn’t have the beer listed on their bar menu and little knowledge of what might be on hand outside of the mass-produced Bud/Miller/Coors/Corona products. Kudos to the staff that didn’t know, but took the time to have a look and see what they could offer me in the craft beer range of products. They often had craft beers not listed on their menu, or any of the bar menus for that matter. Other than this relatively minor issue, the entire crew was spectacular.
Room
My family was in connecting Aqua Class staterooms, which were spotless. We have two teenage sons, so squeezing into one stateroom probably would have been a bit uncomfortable, but the connecting rooms gave us plenty of space. We were in rooms 9122 & 9124 in the aft-ish area. This location provided very convenient access to dining. Being right around the corner from the aft elevators and stairs, we could walk up one flight directly into the buffet or down to floor 5 and be right outside of Blu. Being under the buffet, there were only a few times during the cruise that I noticed noise from above, and even then it was a single instance, not an ongoing issue. Our stateroom attendant(?), Lenard, was great -> always a smile and hello when he saw us and if we were coming down the hall with our hands full he would open our door for us with his key card. He even made some towel swans with rose petals on the evening of our anniversary.
One of the benefits of staying in Aqua class is access to the Asian Gardens. This included a steam room, sauna, and salt therapy room, as well as a ‘waterfall shower’ and heated bench in the main area. If you like steam rooms and saunas you’ll probably like this too. We did this once and it was okay, but for me it wasn’t something I’d prioritize visiting.
Food
The food onboard was excellent! We ate in Blu most evenings and while the main dining menu was available, we only ordered a few items off of it during the course of the week. There were a few times we had to wait for a table depending on when we showed up, anywhere from 10-20 minutes. This wasn’t an issue because they provided a beeper for when a table was ready and Cellar Masters was right around the corner, so we all went there and had a pre-dinner drink while we waited. One evening, after a bit of a wait, I was concerned we were going to miss the show. We let our waiter know that we were hoping to make it to the show and he took our orders and expedited our starters. As soon as we finished the starters, he had the main courses ready to deliver. We didn’t have time for dessert, but he took our orders and said he would have it sent to our staterooms, where it was waiting for us after the show! Our sommelier, Reagan, was fantastic! We don’t have a ‘usual’ drink, so he seemed to enjoy concocting fruity non-alcoholic beverages for my teens, and finding my wife and I something delicious to drink with our meal. I’m more of a craft beer guy than a wine drinker and he managed to find me a beer that I didn’t even know was available…not on any of the bar menus. We really enjoyed his smile and service!
Our final dinner was in Le Petit Chef. The food here was also very good, but the show on the tabletop is the real reason to eat here. The menu is limited to one set course that goes along with the animation and another set of backup options (you can mix and match between the 2 sets). After having experienced the novelty once, I don’t see myself choosing this over Blu…though I thought it was definitely worth it the first time around.
My one complaint about ‘food’ isn’t really the food itself, but the opening times of Blu and the MDR. Breakfast ends at 9am in these venues. As mentioned above, my family are not early risers, so to get seated at Blu before 9am was usually a struggle. Since they don’t serve lunch in Blu it would have been nice to have breakfast served a little later.
Shows
I thought the shows were hit or miss (which of course is subjective!). The comedian was very funny, both during his normal set and the late-night ‘adult only’ set. The ‘adult only’ set didn’t seem to be policed for children (I’m not complaining, only noting this in case it’s pertinent to future cruisers). The magician was a good change of pace, but did a bit too much close up magic that we had to watch by it being broadcast on a big screen. The singing/dancing shows, to me, were ho-hum. The house musicians, singers, and dancers are clearly talented, but they aren’t given great material to perform. For example, there was a Soundtrack show that I assumed was to be music from movies. While there was a James Bond theme medley and Somewhere Over the Rainbow (plus probably others that I didn’t recognize), there were other pop hits from the past decade thrown in for no apparent rhyme or reason. And a lot of the more upbeat music seemed to be toned down a bit. It was enough to hold my attention for 45 minutes or so but was pretty meh. It would be nice if they could weave a story or theme through the entire show, so it isn’t just a string of disconnected performances.
Bermuda
The island of Bermuda was beautiful and the people there were friendly and welcoming. Of any cruise port we’ve ever visited, this is the island my entire family would love to come back to. On our first day we took the ‘shipwreck snorkel’ excursion booked pre-cruise through Celebrity. Unfortunately, it was too windy to complete the trip as planned, but we were able to take a glass bottom boat over the shipwreck and then snorkel in a more protected area. Overall, a good experience. In the afternoon we had lunch at the Frog & Onion pub and played minigolf at the port. The minigolf course there is very well done. We visited Harbor Nights in the evening, taking the Hamilton ferry there and back. It was a nice evening out, but I wouldn’t consider it a can’t miss activity. I will say that the vendors were much better than some at other cruise ports. They were not pushy at all and pretty much stayed in their stall and waited until we needed help. The 2nd day we took the Hidden Gems tour which we booked on our own. This was also a great tour – cave exploring, cliff jumping, lunch and snorkeling. Our tour guide was very entertaining. The final day we did some shopping at the port and took a taxi to Horseshoe Bay and back. We only had about an hour to enjoy the beach, but it was very enjoyable and had decent snorkeling too.
This post is already much longer than I thought it would be, so I’m going to stop here. I’m happy to answer any questions or talk about something I haven’t covered though, just ask. I HIGHLY recommend this ship and itinerary. As a matter of fact, I told my wife I’d happily cruise this same ship and itinerary again. Based on our experience we’d definitely sail with Celebrity again in the future!