Eclipse: 2 Questions- Coffee + TV Inputs

[Jordster]

Hello everyone!

 

My dear wife and I are looking forward to our upcoming 3/10 Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Eclipse! This will be my 5th cruise, and her 4th, but our first time on Celebrity, and we are psyched after reading so many excellent reviews of the Eclipse.

 

I have two unrelated questions for you experienced cruisers:

 

1. I have read a lot of people complaining that the coffee at the buffet is mediocre. Is there anywhere on the ship where I can reliably get a decent cup of coffee? I don't mind paying a surcharge. On my last cruise, for example, I was on the Caribbean Princess and I bought a $30 coffee card that entitled me to a bunch of espresso drinks plus unlimited coffee - which was great because their coffee was infinitely better than the buffet.

 

If not, are there kettles in the room? I could bring with Starbucks Via and brew it myself in my travel mug...

 

2. Can anyone confirm that there are HDMI inputs on the TVs in the rooms? I can't imagine that they would be missing - I have never seen a brand new 32" LCD TV without one - but you never know. Also, does anyone know if they have VGA in?

 

Thank you!!

[Cruise Arizona]

Hello everyone!

 

My dear wife and I are looking forward to our upcoming 3/10 Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Eclipse! This will be my 5th cruise, and her 4th, but our first time on Celebrity, and we are psyched after reading so many excellent reviews of the Eclipse.

 

I have two unrelated questions for you experienced cruisers:

 

1. I have read a lot of people complaining that the coffee at the buffet is mediocre. Is there anywhere on the ship where I can reliably get a decent cup of coffee? I don't mind paying a surcharge. On my last cruise, for example, I was on the Caribbean Princess and I bought a $30 coffee card that entitled me to a bunch of espresso drinks plus unlimited coffee - which was great because their coffee was infinitely better than the buffet.

 

You can get premium coffees at the Cafe Baccio (Spelling ??) There is a package for this that you can even pre-purchase on the Celebrity website.

 

If not, are there kettles in the room? I could bring with Starbucks Via and brew it myself in my travel mug...

 

Not sure about the hot water kettles, but certainly you can get hot water at the buffet and make your own Starbuck Via I think you can order hot water. Atleast you used to be able to do this, and I have heard of others doing this and using a french press coffee maker.

2. Can anyone confirm that there are HDMI inputs on the TVs in the rooms? I can't imagine that they would be missing - I have never seen a brand new 32" LCD TV without one - but you never know. Also, does anyone know if they have VGA in?

 

Thank you!!

 

The TVs have tons of extra inputs but they are all disabled since the TV is set up on Hotel mode. Probably they have HDMI and VGA, I think I've even seen a picture on another website that you might be able to google and find. You can get around the hotel mode by googling the manual the TV in your room and then following the procedure to turn off the hotel mode, but if you do this be responsible and reset it to hotel mode before your departure.

[aquaclass]

coffee venue on Eclipse

 

http://www.celebritycruises.com/plancruise/ships/shipVenues.do?shipCode=CS

[Sloop-JohnB]

1. I have read a lot of people complaining that the coffee at the buffet is mediocre. Is there anywhere on the ship where I can reliably get a decent cup of coffee? I don't mind paying a surcharge. On my last cruise, for example, I was on the Caribbean Princess and I bought a $30 coffee card that entitled me to a bunch of espresso drinks plus unlimited coffee - which was great because their coffee was infinitely better than the buffet.

 

If not, are there kettles in the room? I could bring with Starbucks Via and brew it myself in my travel mug...

 

Thank you!!

 

Hi Jodster,

 

We were on The Solstice (sister ship in the S-Class to The Eclipse) and found the Premium Coffees and Teas at Cafe Bacio to be excellent. The coffees are espresso based, and the Cafe is sort of like an on-ship Starbucks for lack of a better description.

 

Mr Sloop the coffee drinker in our household much preferred their coffee to the regular (FREE) stuff available all around the ship... he didn't mind the walk each morning to pick us both up a cup of our favourite hot bevvys.

 

As recommended by others we took along our Stainless Steel Travel Mugs and Water Bottles (one of each). He'd get the mug filled with coffee... and then the Water Bottle with Hot Water (and pick me up the fancy Forte Tea Bag)... and bring them back to the room.

 

There are NO KETTLES on ships sailing out of the USA (only out of the UK)... and infact they are not allowed to be brought aboard (they are on the WHAT NOT TO PACK LIST in Celebrity's Brochures "Fine Print" section)

 

IF you want to bring your own tea or coffee (seems to happen often enough) then you can get hot water in the Buffet area (self-serve large urns)

 

Know that several cruisers say they bring travel French Presses and make their own favourite coffees in room via this method.

 

Hope this is helpful,

 

Cheers!

[Jordster]

Anyone know if you really have to look up a manual and take the TVs out of "hotel" mode to get HDMI to work?

 

If so, does anyone know what brand the TVs on Eclipse are?

[Ma Bell]

Samsung.

[Chillaxn']

Here is the model number and a picture of the back.

 

Samsung model LN32B450C3HXZA

[packyourpixiedust]

Hello everyone!

 

 

2. Can anyone confirm that there are HDMI inputs on the TVs in the rooms? I can't imagine that they would be missing - I have never seen a brand new 32" LCD TV without one - but you never know. Also, does anyone know if they have VGA in?

 

Thank you!!

 

I was on a recent Solstice cruise- while there are HDMI inputs on the tv's- they don't work. My husband is very tech savvy, and he could not get the tv to work. Essentially, they do not allow you to switch between inputs...

It was a BIG bummer for us!

[Essiesmom]

These were the inputs on the TV on Solstice. I would think the Eclipse would be the same. However, we did not try to plug anything into them, and have no idea if they were disabled or not. EM

 

 

[Adammara]

Some Marriott hotels have Samsungs on hotel mode, and I googled this answer to the question!

 

Usually there is a RS-232 interface that can do it at distance, or most of the time service come to the room with a special remote that allow changing some "hotel" setting.

Richard

 

 

[macruisefan]

I believe the degree to which you would need to fiddle with the television to make it work, if even possible, would be akin to vandalism. I'm sure it's not something the room stewards are able to correct. And chances are, if you did it, you very well might not be able to undo it. Thereby giving the shaft to the next guest, as all the interactive services would not work.

 

This brings up a question about which I am quite curious. What is it you want to hook up to the television so badly?

[Jordster]

I believe the degree to which you would need to fiddle with the television to make it work, if even possible, would be akin to vandalism. I'm sure it's not something the room stewards are able to correct. And chances are, if you did it, you very well might not be able to undo it. Thereby giving the shaft to the next guest, as all the interactive services would not work.

 

This brings up a question about which I am quite curious. What is it you want to hook up to the television so badly?

 

To be honest, my wife and I like to relax in our room and watch TV late at night... Last cruise I brought "Mad Med" season 1 with me and we enjoyed an episode before bed each night. That was on Princess, and I did not think they would have modern TVs, so I brought with my 13" laptop and an external speaker, and we watched on that.

 

It was a rather inferior experience, so I was hoping to hook up to the 32" TV this time...

 

Thank you very much to those who posted pics of the back of the TV. It sounds like in "Hotel" mode, all of those other hardware features are disabled. I guess I can't blame them - they want you to watch their own pay content.

 

If I do attempt to unlock the TV, I will be sure to lock back to Hotel mode again. I'm not a selfish person...

[IwannaGo Now]

When I was in a suite on a Trans Atlantic on RCCL I was able to connect an external hard drive to the TV USB port, and the TV found it. I was able to play movies I had on the drive. I don't know about Celebrity, or the Eclipse. My recent cruise on Carnival, the TV inputs would not work.

I would like to know if the Century's TV's inputs are accessible to be used with a computer, or hard drive??

[packyourpixiedust]

To be honest, Celebrity offers a lot of "free" movies. Plus there are a handful of channels to watch tv on. We were trying to do the hook up because we wanted to watch a movie one night that we had on our ipad that was not on the interactive tv. So, that was our reasoning. But they do offer free choices that were decent movies- but we had already seen them, and/or wanted to watch a movie not offered.