Back from Fabulous Silhouette Cruise March 5-17

[New Hampshire]

Some notes on our just completed cruise. It was absolutely fabulous! Captain and Cruise Director were wonderful, among the best we've ever experienced. Captain could be a stand-up comic!!

 

We arrived at 11:30 and embarkation was quick and easy. We have made it a practice to eat at Bistro on Five for the first lunch which we did this time. Especially with ten of us, it was a wonderful, leisurely and delicious lunch. Our cabins were ready by the time we finished.

 

The recent menu changes turned out to be wonderful. Deletions were not missed, except for escargot. The additions were wonderful; lobster tail, filet mignon, chateaubriand, chicken Kiev. The addition of crab stuffed mushroom caps to replace escargot turned out well. It is delicious, served on the same dish as escargot was, with garlicky butter sauce in the bottom to soak up with bread....YUMMY!!!! Our group of ten loved our MDR dinners. No one had any complaints. We were five veteran Celebrity cruisers and five newbies.

 

We ate in all the specialty restaurants and all were wonderful. Both food and service were outstanding in every one of them. Martini Bar was outstanding as usual. Our waiter there, John, remembered us from last year on the Eclipse and will be with us again on our next cruise in October on Reflection. He was wonderful. He saved us e every night in the Martini Bar.

 

After reading the rave reviews for the ships party band I was disappointed to find the band was a different one on this sailing. We found it to be our least favorite of all our sailings.

 

There was a Zumba class on board daily and it was packed on the sea days. One of the Cruise Director's staff, Valentina, is Zumba certified. I took part in rehearsals for a flash mob dance. After three rehearsals to learn the routine we received phone calls to report to a certain location at a certain time to perform. It was a blast!!!!

 

We found the entertainment to be very good with the exception of a guy billed as a Mentalist Magician. He turned out to be neither and tried to be a comedian, but he wasn't that either. He was awful!!! The ventriloquist was side splitting funny!! The aerialists, who are not a specialty act, but are part of the group of singers and dancers were wonderful and participated in numerous shows.

 

We did two sail and snorkel ships through the ship because of the distance involved in trying to set up something independently. The full day trip in St Kitts called Fan TA Sea. Turned out to be fun, but the catamaran itself turned out to be disappointing. It was old and the smallest one we've ever been on. It turns out the company has five cats and when you sign up for the Fan TA Sea excursion, you can wind up on any one of them. They stagger the times they leave the port, so they arrive at Nevis for the barbecue lunch about thirty minutes apart. The crew was wonderful and it was a fun day. We did a half day sail and snorkel in St Thomas. This time it was on a four year old very large cat that held 60 and there were only 17 of us. The boat was great as well as the crew. The snorkeling at the reef off Buck Island was very good and guided by one of the crew. The disappointment with this trip was that it left late and came back early. What was supposed to be 3 1/2 hours turned out to be 2 1/2.

 

For the rest of the ports, we did them on our own. For St Martin we took a cab from the pier to Orient Beach. The fare is based on the number of passengers. There were nine of us in the van cab and the cost was $6 per person. Our driver came back to pick us up at an agreed upon time. In Antigua, we went to Valley Church Beach. Cab fare was $8 per person and it was about a twenty minute ride. The beach is beautiful with chairs available to rent. There's lots of natural shade available, so no umbrella rental is needed although it's available. There is a restaurant there with restrooms available. In St Lucia we had a half day pass at the Rendezvous Resort. The cost was $60 per person. It was a short $4 cab ride from the pier. The beach and pool were great as we're the food and drinks. It was well worth the price.

 

There has been discussion on these board about the passengers sailing out of Bayonne. Posters have complained about passengers being rude, aggressive and obnoxious. I've sailed out of Bayonne once before about six years ago and found that description to be quite accurate for that sailing. I'm a former Jersey Girl, so don't flame me!!! This time the passenger make-up was wonderful. Every age group was well represented and it was a kind, spirited, friendly group of people.

 

Memories of this wonderful trip will sustain me until the Reflectionin October!!!M

[portofrome]

Glad you had a wonderful cruise and thanks for the review.

[Spender Nui]

How did you like your cabin? Did you have enough space and storage?

[Realtor at Sea]

When were were on the Silhouette in January what they billed as a lobster tail, was half a lobster tail with about two bites of lobster. Really ridiculous! Are they serving a whole lobster tail now?

[Esprit]

A great review Barbara

 

Thanks again for specifically mentioning Valentina. She only qualified as a Zumba instructor last December and is really pleased with the positive comments so far.

 

Peter

[hcat]

Great review--Glad you had a wonderful time.

 

Was the party band going to be staying or just filling in (one hopes) What was the name? Is there a guitarist or reggae combo on board?

 

We sail on her April 10th .

Counting down.......

[New Hampshire]

The party band was Kenosis. The one that everyone raved about was Spira and I don't know where they are. There was a steel drum duo, the accapella group and a guitar player, plus a strings group.

 

The lobster was a whole lobster tail. Six of the ten of us had it, not me, and all enjoyed it.

[gelo7]

Glad to hear that you had a wonderful cruise aboard the Silhouette.

[hcat]

The party band was Kenosis. The one that everyone raved about was Spira and I don't know where they are. There was a steel drum duo, the accapella group and a guitar player, plus a strings group.

 

The lobster was a whole lobster tail. Six of the ten of us had it, not me, and all enjoyed it.

 

Thanks for the info .... we'd prefer a full reggae band but a duo is beter than just one person! Did you hear/enjoy the guitar player?

[hcat]

Can you tell me if there was an Elite Elegant tea held & if so when & where?

 

I recall it is usually near the end of the cruise but we missed it last time around.

 

Thanks

[librarylady19]

Very nice review. Glad to hear positive comments about the new menu too.

[patchit]

Some notes on our just completed cruise. It was absolutely fabulous! Captain and Cruise Director were wonderful, among the best we've ever experienced. Captain could be a stand-up comic!!

 

Hi Barbara...so glad to hear you had a wonderful time on Silhouette. Thank you for the great review; I enjoyed reading every word. I do have a question, though. Some of us on our Roll Call were wondering if there was an Elite Tea. It's something we always enjoyed on previous cruises and are hoping it hasn't been replaced with the Champagne Tea that has a fee. We leave in 3 weeks and are even more anxious after reading your review.

 

Regards

[New Hampshire]

Hi Barbara...so glad to hear you had a wonderful time on Silhouette. Thank you for the great review; I enjoyed reading every word. I do have a question, though. Some of us on our Roll Call were wondering if there was an Elite Tea. It's something we always enjoyed on previous cruises and are hoping it hasn't been replaced with the Champagne Tea that has a fee. We leave in 3 weeks and are even more anxious after reading your review.

 

Regards

 

Hi Patsy,

 

I still think of that Solstice cruise and the wonderful months we spent on the Roll Call Board leading up to it. That was the best roll call I've ever been involved with.....what fun. I've always hoped to run into some of my Solstice friends on another cruise.

 

There was an Elite Tea. I don't remember where it was. We didn't attend. We stuck to our plan this time of three meals only and no snacking on anything in

between. Despite being good about that, I still came close to wearing a bed sheet home!!!!

 

Have a wonderful time on your cruise.

[patchit]

Hi Patsy,

I still think of that Solstice cruise and the wonderful months we spent on the Roll Call Board leading up to it. That was the best roll call I've ever been involved with.....what fun. I've always hoped to run into some of my Solstice friends on another cruise.

There was an Elite Tea. I don't remember where it was. We didn't attend. We stuck to our plan this time of three meals only and no snacking on anything in between. Despite being good about that, I still came close to wearing a bed sheet home!!!!

Have a wonderful time on your cruise.

 

Thanks so much for the prompt reply. Good to know there is still an Elite Tea so now I'll just have to keep an eye open for it in the daily's and hope the time won't interfere with something else I want to do.

 

I hope to cruise with you again one day, too. You never know; Val and Jer are on the Silhouette sailing with me!

 

Too funny....wearing the bed sheet home! I'm going to have to be careful what goes in my mouth, for sure.:)

 

All the best!

[seasheils]

Thanks for your wonderful review! I was especially happy to hear about the Zumba-certified staff member on board. I have been asking for that in every evaluation I write. I even penned a letter to the head office on that subject. I hope they get a zumba-certified person on every ship in the fleet.

 

I was on the Silhouette in July for the maiden voyage and again in October. They used Zumba Wii---a poor substitute for a real person IMHO.

 

The Flash Mob sounds like fun!!!

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review of your cruise. Glad you had a good time.