Tom-n-Cheryl

(Summary: Just make sure to arrive by noon, I'd guess!) Due to a last minute complication, we got a late start from our Sunday morning drive from our home (near Pt Canaveral) and arrived at the port close to 1. It probably took 15 additional minutes (extraordinarily long line of cars blacked up at #29) to get to the luggage drop off. I left Cheryl there with our carry-on and headed over to the Palm Garage, since the Reflection is unfortunately at pier #29 and thus does not have any parking. Once I arrived at the Palm Garage, I discovered that it was full. I was given very poor (hurried, because he's going to need to tell everyone behind you the same thing and it was raining!) directions to another garage (Northport). Well, a couple of wrong/U-turns later I was parking. It was now 1:40 and I walked down to level 1 where I discovered chaos at the spot to catch the shuttle. There was easily 100 people in a shuttle waiting line - to take them to their respective terminals. There were no shuttles for several minutes, and some people were getting concerned regarding their departure times. Shuttles finally started arriving, and I was in line on perhaps the fourth or fifth. Just as I was about to step on, a bus arrived specifically for Royal and Celebrity. By that time I decided to keep with the shuttle I was already in line for, as it was about to depart and I figured it would take some time to load up a bus, and all the luggage some people hadn't bothered to check! I was fortunate as the Reflection ended up being the first stop on that shuttle (just a few of us), with the bulk of the passengers heading to other ships (mainly HAL from what I could overhear). Inside the terminal, it was decidedly disorganized. I've never cared for Pot Everglades, and this whole mess did nothing to change that! Tom

Good thinking! We actually used to have clips (for curtains) on our packing list. Tom

Yes, Sushi on Five is open. It obviously generates more/sufficient income. Not much on that menu which appeals to us. Tom

Just dropped the final ropes...

The captain just came on and said we'd be leaving at 10:30. Damn, 10 to 5:00 tomorrow in Nassau.

Hey, if this means that tomorrow is a sea day instead of Nassau, I'm totally good with that! That way, both the porch and the lawn club grill might actually be open for lunch! Tom

We'll, with what they get paid though... !

We are on the Reflection and were supposed to departure 4:00 p.m. It's 7:00 p.m. and we're still here. The captain just came on and said that due to the weather conditions, the Coast Guard has closed the port. No idea when we will be leaving.

When?

Another observation, though it's early yet... We had under 900 people onboard in February. Today we're up to ~ 2,777. I've been noticing that the internet is quite slow, compared to that sailing. Obviously, many more people sharing the bandwidth... Tom

Another "perk" lost... LINK Tom

In February of this year we thoroughly enjoyed our lunches at The Porch (it was open every day). On sea days we'd hit up the Lawn Club Grill for a great burger. It was a nice perk, being in a RS and having both of these places included. This was especially nice since Celebrity already had Luminae closed for lunch on port days. We just boarded today and learned that The Porch now only serves lunch on sea days - we're on for a B2B. This is unfortunate, as it was truly one of the factors we considered in booking the Reflection again. So now, with Luminae already a non-option most days (most days are port days). this leaves us with what feels like very basic choices. Thanks Celebrity... Tom

I'm not a robe or pajamas type person - so that's one less thing to be concerned with from my standpoint! 🙂 Tom

Hope this works for you! Tom

Yes, we had it booked for probably a year - and I closely followed the build progress. In the weeks prior to final payment I began reading more and more things about the ship which made me rethink our plans. From venues being seriously too small to accommodate the crowds to some bars already becoming short on chairs/barstools due to breakage (where NCL apparently went with less expensive non-commercial quality chairs which were not even standing up to the use over the first few cruises, etc). It still appears to be a beautiful ship with lots of innovative features, but in the end we decided to take a winter trip to the mountains instead ! Tom

I seem to recall it's $500/day Tom

Thanks! Steak Tartare is gone, replaced with Beef Carpaccio. I enjoy both - so it's all good 🙂 Sad to see the beef marrow gone... And, yep, the T-bone is BACK (I think it used to be something crazy like 22-24 oz). Hmmmm, I think it used to be a Porterhouse (larger tenderloin portion). Tom

Were most of the other cabanas being utilized at that time? Perhaps the person at the cabana desk isn't cut in on the 18% !! (yikes) I'm not sure how accurate their cabana bookings are. When we booked, all of them were available, and I grabbed #10. After a couple weeks I had picked up some AARP gift cards (basically 10% off), so I cancelled our booking and within a minute I went back it to grab it using the gift cards. #10 did not repopulate on the list, so I grabbed #5 (off to the side). I checked back a couple of other times over several days and #10 never came back as available. I seriously doubt in the minute of time that I had initially let it go, and came back, that someone else grabbed it. Anyone care to give their opinion as to their preferred cabana? Tom

That will either give more upside to CCL, or.... ! Tom

Darn, that's the wrong direction they're going in. No matter, come Sunday we'll jump onboard and have a great time. Any idea if that reduction in butler staff was owing to some of them opting out of work this week due to the nature of the current sailing? Thanks for the update! Tom

Just charter a flight - no extra charges then. 😉 Tom

Just like cruising - sometimes it gets a bit rough 🙂 Tom

On the second menu: AUSTRALIAN WAGYU - THE HIGHEST QUALITY JAPANESE BEEF I wish they'd get their marketing straight here ! Tom

Nothing here either - I'll just have to settle for the ongoing/unlimited 3% cash for travel expenses w/Chase! Tom

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" !! Tom