njaloha

Part 2 - Michael's Club and Luminae

Michael’s Club Review - Of course, at 3:30 most days, we made our way down to Michael’s for tea. Such a lovely advantage to suite life. We always had the option to enjoy tea in our cabin with a simple call to our butler with drink (water, wine, gin and tonic etc), tea or coffee order and a sampling of tea sandwiches, sweets and scones, oh the scones with jam and cream. I miss my scones as I sit here hungering for them right now.

As suite guests, we didn’t need to go to any bar or café for drinks or coffee during the entire cruise. All our needs were met right in Michael’s Club. From spa and specialty dining reservations to future cruise appointments and shore excursion bookings,our Michael’s club concierge covered it all. Some evenings there was even entertainment. We enjoyed the quiet comfort of the cozy interior which offered a welcome break from the sun and heat during the day.

Luminae review – the wait staff and chefs provided outstanding service and meals once again. I was a little confused though when our welcome letter stated we needed to make reservations every night at Luminae. When I asked Charles, he said to arrive around 6 or after 7:30 so we wouldn’t have to wait. Most nights we headed down around 7:30 and we dined at the far back table by ourselves. Each evening, the meal began with AmuseBouche to wake our pallets.

On formal, oops, I mean chic nights, the chef provided a dessert bar with his compliments. On those two nights, we received a plate of a sample of what was offered including candies, cookies and marshmallows on sticks (odd and dry) as well as whatever dessert we ordered. Also, after our maincourse, our waiter offered a palette cleanser each night which ranged between simple sorbets to an apple sorbet with horseradish (like garlic ice cream blech) to a poached mango “ravioli” filled with, I think, lemon mousse.

My favorite night was lobster night (second chic night) and the intriguing and unique way Celebrity chefs in Luminae prepare and present the lobster. This cruise we enjoyed lobster on butternut squash and savoy cabbage with champagne sauce. You might say that sounds terrible but I’m telling you, think outside the box. Lobster doesn’t have to be just lobster with lemon and butter. On Silhouette and Infinity, for example, it’s paired with citrus. One day, we were offered an appetizer of lobster ‘salad’ which was lump tail meat with slivers of hearts of palm and pineapple (very thin pieces in between the lumps of lobster meat). Amazing.

Oh and the bread at dinner!!!! Lavash, with paprika or lemon pepper or sesame seeds or parmesan. 2 nights the bread basket held the most amazing little popovers. Sigh.

Breakfast we saw an addition to the egg plates – grilled tomato – never liked them never will but they were pretty . I ordered scrambled eggs or chose an omelet (any ingredient you might want). Croissants and pastries of course and juices and smoothies too. Lots of options like pancakes, French toast, egg white wrap, and eggs Benedict 3 ways (classic, florentine or with smoked salmon).

My only complaint with Luminae would have to be the desserts. Presented in the same way as on the Infinity in October, the desserts (and almost the entire menu) were familiar. Pudding type desserts presented as ribbons on the plate and paired with either ice cream or sorbet which became soupy as the ice cream melted quickly causing a puddle on the plate. Unexpected cookie crumbles under the ice cream also didn’t appeal to me. Over use of flower petals and little pink candy flowers bugged me as well. Would it stop me from cruising Celebrity suites or dining in Luminae, heck NO!

Cabin Review next - Part 3

Part 1 - Arrival

New Jersey residents in our late 50’s, my husband and I traveled to the Cape Liberty Port in Bayonne, NJ, by personal car. On a Sunday morning, we enjoyed an easy drive without any traffic whatsoever. We left home at 10:30 and arrived at 11:20. Lots of attendants to direct people where to go except that they need to communicate a bit better since we almost had a fender bender when we were told to go to the curb and some guy decided to pull out right when we pulled up next to him.

Luggage loaded off to the curb and in the hands of the porters, we made our way to the garage entrance where another attendant pushed the button and handed us our ticket (keep it with you for when you get back,more on this at the end of the review). Attendants directed us up to level 4 and showed us where to park. This is very organized and the guys alternated from one side to the other so that nobody was in danger of being hit. Once parked, we took out our carry-on bags and made our way to the elevators down to the street level.

Lots of signs helped us get to zone 5 for the security checkpoint. Suites???? Right this way. After security, port staff showed us to the proper check-in line for Suites. Suites??? Right this way. Very quickly we were checked in and shown the door to the gangway. We even had our own suite guest gangway onto deck 4 right by Michael’s Club. We went in to check it out but didn’t stay long.

Lunch awaited in Luminae so that was our next stop. Oh and it’s only a little before noon at this point. From our home to Luminae in 90 minutes with 50 minutes of that time driving and parking. At Luminae, we enjoyed our very peaceful lunch with an extraordinarily attentive crew of servers and Maggie, the Sommelier. We were served by Paolo, Kasuwa, O’Neill and Charles was our Maitre D’.

At 1:30, the announcement came for all passengers to proceed to their ready cabins. When we arrived at our cabin, our bags stood waiting outside the door. Our butler, Sujith introduced himself right away and was very visible and attentive throughout the cruise. I requested a few specific things like an additional chair for my husband who would be spending some time working at the desk (Don’t judge! He’s a consultant who doesn’t get paid unless he works. side note – he said the internet worked extremely well and he had to do some demanding tasks.)

We unpacked and took pictures from the balcony (port side with view of NYC) until the muster drill. After the drill we headed to deck 5 outside the theater where we were escorted by Anastasia (Michael’s Club Concierge) through a crew area behind the stage onto the helipad for a private suite guests only sail away party with champagne and mimosas served to us. We sailed up the bay to Lady Liberty and lower Manhattan where Captain Alex turned the ship around to head out under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, ship’s horn blasting, and out into Raritan Bay ahead of the Breakaway this time.

Part 2 in next post - Michael's Club and Luminae :D

Welcome back and thank you for the report.

 

We will be on this sailing in one year!!!!

 

Please let us know more, when you can. Any issues you can remember?

 

What was the best meal in your opine?

 

Silent Disco on this sailing?

 

Thanks again....

 

bon voyage

Answer to Silent Disco is YES. 2 different nights and the location was Pool Deck on 10 with a mix of DJ and live music. We didn't participate but watched and the pool deck is a great location for this type of activity.

On the Anthem we were in San Juan today so it's not us

 

 

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Maybe it was a Bermuda triangle ghost

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You definitely could have seen Breakaway. She is on the same route as you on the way to Bermuda. Anthem is supposed to be docked in San Juan.

 

Denise

 

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Yes I know it's breakaway. We left New York harbor together.

I assumed it was anthem heading back to nj but that doesn't make sense since it's in San Juan and even if this was the 5-night they wouldn't be returning to nj until later today.

Nevermind, must have been a mirage that we saw two ships side by side. [emoji6] [emoji53]

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I know the breakaway follows the anthem, and from afar distance you might not be able to tell the distance from their port/starboard sides.

Breakaway is sailing to Bermuda with us. We will be docked there at the same time.

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Onboard Summit southbound to Bermuda and we swear we saw Anthem and Breakaway bow to stern early this morning off our starboard stern

Anybody have info or did we see a mirage?

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You can change the format to see the actual URL instead of the clock by clicking on the icon with the underlined italic A (just above the link crossed out icon, next to the up and down arrows). Sorry, I'm no techie so don't know what the icon button is actually called, but it worked for me ;).

Thank you very much for your reply. I'll give it a try.

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When you created it, you copied and pasted the url. Then saved it.

To delete, just highlight the url you created. Cut it, or do a backspace. It should be erased. Then click save.

Hi,

I just went into my User Profile to edit my signature because I wanted to delete 2 countdown clocks. In the area where the countdown URL's used to be, I see the actual countdown clock. So I left clicked to highlight and right clicked for the pop up and chose CUT to delete it.

How do I delete my current countdown calendar? I realized it has the wrong date and I want to update it. Cannot for the life of me figure out how to delete the clock that is showing (I do know how to create the link to make the correct countdown clock). Anybody?

Just go into your signature in your profile and delete code. Simple right??? I'm on my phone now but later when I'm on my laptop I'll try to be more specific. [emoji2] [emoji2] [emoji2]

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Checked in last night to August cruise with no problems at all. Printed off the xpress pass.

I did notice that the look for the check in pages is the old website.

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At celebritycruises.com if I scroll down to

Find Your Next Celebrity Cruise

there is a place to pick your ship.

If I pick Constellation and NOV, 2017 to NOV, 2017

it shows:

 

Arabian Sea And Suez Canal 15 Nights

Sun Nov 12 - Mon Nov 27

and

 

Arabian Coast Immersion Cruise 10 Nights

Mon Nov 27 - Thu Dec 7

 

 

Another way is to click Plan a Cruise, (up at the top left),

and then click Find Your Cruise.

 

After picking your FROM and TO dates, you need to click ADVANCED SEARCH and select your ship before clicking SEARCH.

 

I just tried doing it both ways, and both came up with the same 2 Constellation cruises for this November.

 

Either way, it will show you the cruises just for the ship you select without listing the cruises of all the other ships in the fleet.

This sounds like the old website. I see nothing on the new website that is as you describe.

I see FIND A CRUISE at top left in top tool bar.

Here I choose month August and apply, destination Bermuda and apply...

I get my results as expected.

Next I hit reset on dates and choose August and September 2018, then reset on destination and choose Alaska, 6 results. I hit refine and choose the ship, Solstice and receive 2 itineraries.

For this the website is performing as expected and quickly without glitches.

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I don't think Celebrity's site is that bad...

 

 

 

I just searched on the site with the following filters:

 

1- May, 2018

 

2- Europe

 

3- Amsterdam

 

 

 

Resulting cruises - 5

 

2 for Alaska

 

1 for New Zealand

 

2 for Bahamas

[emoji44] this made my day. Thank you for the gafaw

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This is exactly what I said yesterday. Thanks for getting the message out again. Hopefully, someone will read it. I don't think anyone read my messages :(

I suggested the very same thing either on this thread or another weeeeeks ago. These threads are huge and impossible to read through. Btw, I read your message!!! ☺ [emoji2] [emoji3] [emoji6]

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I too was on a completely different looking web site. But the following day, when it had reverted from 50% to 20% it was back to the site I recognized? Twilight Zone indeed!

 

 

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Aloha!. 50%? I didn't see 50%! Missed out. [emoji22]

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I looked into it and ended up on the old website..... The system seemed to shiver and shimmer and suddenly I was back to the new website. Felt like I was in a Dr Who episode [emoji6]

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Last month on the Silhouette we were sitting in Cellar Masters sipping our welcome aboard mimosas when a woman walked in, looked around, and said, "Are we on the boat yet?"

No way, wow!

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Pulling into the terminal.

 

 

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Nice picture!!!

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Ok, your turn to head out on a cruise and post pics so I can survive my post cruise depression. [emoji22] [emoji2]

 

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Bermuda coming up [emoji2] but I'm terrible at this sort of thing. [emoji13]

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Never a happy sight

 

 

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Noooooooo wow that time went fast. Now what do we do?

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The web designers need to add the ability to select a specific ship when looking for a sailing.

Look for (with a magnifying glass) the word 'refine' at right of tool bar. This will provide filter options.

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I would be careful using the old site.

If the communication with the back end has changed, than it is possible that you would be getting bad information (e.g. prices and availability) and changes you made to your reservation might not be communicated to where it counts (Celebrity's database). Not saying this will happen but could.

Hmmm, good point.

Well I can get to the old website using the link provided in this thread, but I have to clear the cache of cookies to regain access to the new site. Once I enter the old site, I'm stuck with it unless I clear cookies and caches.

Using Google Chrome and MS Edge.

After my third call to the Captains Club about the new website they took pity on me and gave me the address for the old website. This works on IE; not sure about other browsers.

 

 

 

Here is the address

 

http://www.celebritycruises.com/?celebrityWR=oldsite

 

 

 

Hope this helps!

Thank you thank you!!!!!

Works on my iPhone

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Personally' date=' I prefer features that were on the old site and are apparently missing from the new site: I like to look at cabins by category and I like to select/filter my search by ship. I hope these features will be added to the new website very soon.[/quote']

 

 

Regarding search by ship, there's an icon that says "refine" . It's not obvious. Small font. It allows you to choose a ship.

 

 

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Anyone having login failures with the new site? I was redirected to the new site yesterday and my login credentials that worked the day before fail (grr). I can use the same credentials to access a link into a reservation page on the old site so I know the user name and password are correct! Anyone have an email contact to report this mess?:mad:

I emailed celebrity one touch at celebrity dot com or you could call celebrity and tell them you're having problems logging on to their new website.

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