MERIDIAN

Pilot is aboard. 

We are on Celebrity Summit 7 day Bermuda, here's the letter we just received.

Royal Caribbean
 
ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING TRAVELS
 
Dear Guest,

We look forward to welcoming you aboard Celebrity Summit® for your 7-Night Bermuda Cruise departing this weekend from Port Cape Liberty, New Jersey. Before we board, we have some important information to share with you.

Yesterday two guests aboard Anthem of the Seas experienced life-threatening medical emergencies which required Anthem to change course and facilitate medical evacuations.  Both guests are now on shore receiving all required medical care.  However, this change in course will require the Anthem to dock in Cape Liberty the morning of May 19th at the time the Celebrity Summit was originally scheduled to arrive for debarkation.

In order to accommodate debarkation and embarkation procedures for both vessels, the Celebrity Summit will now arrive in Port Cape Liberty after Anthem of the Seas.  Embarkation procedures for guests sailing on May 19th have now been scheduled for 2:00 – 3:45 PM. 

Please note, seating is limited within the terminal, to avoid standing in long lines please plan on arriving to the Pier on time.  The Celebrity Summit will depart at 5:00 PM.  All guests must be checked in and onboard 60 minutes prior to our scheduled departure.

We appreciate your understanding under these unique circumstances. As always, our primary concern is the health and safety of our guests and crew.  Once again, we look forward to welcoming you aboard the Celebrity Summit and providing you an unforgettable vacation.

Sincerely,

Celebrity Cruises

Keith, you have my son's name :-). I can actually say that Carnival is not a bad line at all, however the experience can vary greatly depending on the ship and the length of the voyage. I've had very pleasant cruises on their Spirit class ships which have a rather generous passenger/space ratio and good flow, cuisine onboard is excellent and their steakhouses are second to none. I did hear Bill Miller discuss carnival at a lecture he'd given in Queens NY last year, be held a little Q&A session after the lecture and an audience member asked about Carnival, Bill pretty much stated the same.as mentioned above.

Wonderful blog so far and I enjoy reading it. If anyone onboard is contemplating a tour of the Kennedy Space Center, I highly recommend it, KSC now has the space shuttle Atlantis on display and it is presented magnificently, there is also quite a bit of nostalgia to revisit, the 1960's living room was surreal.

We had once docked in Port Canaveral one day before the second to last shuttle blasted off, what a shame, the shuttle lifted off the following day on schedule as we were at our next port- Nassau, we would have had front row seats as the ships in port have the launch pad and massive Vehicle Assembly Building in clear sight.

I had also read that you will be docking at T-1. Enjoy your day at sea :-)

- Glenn

We see you sitting pretty in Ponta Delgada on the webcam, I hope the clouds clear out of there.

Bumped into Paul at the lecture this morning and mentioned your regards to him and Bill so you should still be on their christmas card lists.

 

Bills lectures are hilarious and very popular. You can see why he has such a reputation and its good to see that he will be on the QE later for others to enjoy him as well.

 

Learnt quite a bit of the United States today which was very interesting.

 

regards Roscoe

Thanks Roscoe for saying hello to Paul for us and thank you Roy for the informative updates.

Thanks for the report Roy, hopefully you won't have the nosebleed when you make landfall tomorrow. The weather system you're experiencing has been brewing over Bermuda for a while and has been making it's way East towards the Azores but has diluted quite a bit. Weather for Ponta Delgada for tomorrow is 16c/ 61f with occasional showers, enjoy.

DAMN...as it happened, I was sitting behind him this morning in Bills Lecture and he gave me one of the post cards for the SS united States..... If I see him again Ill give him some abuse from you .... Bill chatted to him like they were old friends.

 

regards Roscoe

LOL, no worries- you all have plenty of time to get acquainted. Yes they are good friends- Bill, Paul & I know each other well from the New York maritime circles. Isn't it amazing listening to Bill- he's a shippie god.

I hope all of you are past that nasty weather, it looks pretty good for the rest of the way down to the Azores. Cheers mate- Glenn Lappin

Hi Roscoe,

I'm not onboard but know Bill Miller, my friend Paul Stipkovich is also onboard, he's an artist and NYC chapter chairman of the s.s. United States Conservancy, hopefully you'll be seeing him onboard, do me a favor and tell him Glenn & Isabel say hello- I'm attaching a pic of Paul so you recognize him- Hope you all have a save arrival in the Azores and a great crossing- Glenn

Good thing it turned out to be nothing. But that won't stop this guy, he'll be waiting in Baltimore with business cards in hand.

Sorry :o, the guy has a Popeye avatar :D.

That is funny.

Avoid a ship due to the menu?

You gotta be kidding!!

 

What happens when it goes fleetwide?

 

Boycott?

 

When on a cruise ya gotta go with the flow!:D

Some people like their cuisine, ya gotta respect that. Look at it this way, the cruise lines know this and are using celebrity chefs to attract the foodie in all of us- it works in reverse as well. I would sail a different line if I didn't like the food on a ship for the same reason I wouldn't continue eating in a restaurant on land for 7 days when I don't like the food. To each his/her own.

I agree. It's silly the way some people want to turn it into being about one thing and trivialize the overall dissatisfaction with the changes. I have not seen the tables without the linens in person, but I have seen pictures posted and it looks ridiculous. If I want to go to a cheap diner, I can live with that, but for a nice dinner I expect linens. I would never consider serving a nice dinner in my home on a bare table, why should I have that on a cruise I"ve paid for? And more importantly, the changes with sharing food, and Carnival bringing out dishes that they decide to serve me rather than what I order is not acceptable to me. Unfortunately the changes will start on Liberty the week before I sail.

I have not been on CC in a while but heard about the changes, I agree with you and those who oppose the removal of linens and the Applebees service approach to what was once a classy dining experience. I am a platinum member and have seen the changes over the years. Many people will accept it and like it but my family eats with a tablecloth at home. What irks me the most is that you know the direction this is all going in- a few years down the road Carnival will probably attempt phase two -remove the waiters in the dining rooms and there will be cruisers saying that's fine, I have no problem getting my own food.

Hi Meridian :)

 

The pool is now open.

 

 

:)

 

Thank You Very Much ! :)

Does anyone know why the Splendido pool(midship pool) has been closed for two days? I've been watching the webcam and there have been nets over the pool. This is a major concern, thank you.

Perhaps it was underused and more money could be made with the new suites. I think they shoud leave it up front on some of their ships and just have those ships sail in the colder areas (Alaska & Boston-Quebec in the fall). When we were on the Dawn in the Caribbean and wondered there during sea days. Unless there was activities going on there was only about a dozen people in there. I don't see that as being cost effective compared to now. I can't say the new Spinnaker on the Star was overly pretty, it appeared to have a cave like feel to it. But it served it's function, which as I see it was to hold activities.

Underused is exactly why I like Spinnaker, it's nice to go to a quiet place on the ship and take in the scenery, have a drink and Trivia :-)

I might sound cranky but I come from the old school and have cruised long enough to remember what we had. NCL Westward had the best observation because you could look down and see the bow as well.

I remember when Bingo jackpots were $6,000 on a 1500 passenger ship and now 3,000 passengers are playing for $700 if lucky.

Newer cruisers are unaware of what has disappeared and are less likely to be as cranky as me. Reduction of passenger /space ratio is never a good thing. I remember on NCL Dream, art auctions would be held up in the Observ. Lounge but if you were not bidding, you could still have a table and enjoy the lounge. I rarely see conference rooms being used, I wish they would convert them and leave Spinnaker alone.

Have some posts been deleted ?? I can see no objections to this thread. I only see questions about why it was re-opened.

I didn't even know it was closed, all I did was type in spinnaker etc. and was able to post.

I don't want to see the lounges get replace by cabins because we have Jewel booked next year, actually it was supposed to be Pearl but someone chartered the Pearl for our week so NCL put Jewel on the NY/Florida run.

I didn't think it was a big deal to express dissatisfaction with NCL's removal of a lounge everyone seemed to love.

I did search. This thread is is the right for talking about spinnaker being gone. No?

To add my two and a half cents on the correct thread. I meant star- my bad.

All Jewel class will loose the Spinnaker in time. At least RCCL has an observation lounge still but how long will it be before the decide to turn them into accomodations?

What they did to Gem is a good example of the slow motion robbery of cruise passengers. In 15 years I see buffet only in dining rooms.