The Brilliant Reflection - A Review of 1-12-2013 Sailing with Photos (Very Long)

[talking2u]

Thanks once again for the great review......

I must admit, although I can see from reading here I will be very unpopular for this comment.....I will share my perspective about the Alcoves.....

We have booked the Alcoves for a few days on our upcoming Reflection holiday...

I have had skin problems of the dangerous kind ....and cannot take a risk by sitting in the lounge chairs around the pool, in the sun. Looking at the beautiful pictures of the pool area, I do see a limited amount of space that does have some shade, however, when it is my only option for lounging outside..... and I can reserve some shade in the open air, for me it is a bonus.

As for the pricing, I felt a day at sea ($149)was the same price for a cabana as one or two people participating in an offshore events on port days..., so I really don't see the price as a big issue. As well, I truly hate chair hogs (and I know none of you are those), but they do exist.......and the stress of getting up to the deck, and getting a chair that doesn't have towels all over it......'reserved' empty for hours.......i appealing for me

That being said, I will have a better perspective perhaps.....after our upcoming holiday.

I close by thanking you ever so kindly for the best review I have ever read on this or any site, regarding a cruise.

Cheers,

Laurie

[librarylady19]

Sandi,

 

Hi, Louis here. As usual great review and pics, I admire your attention to detail.

 

If you have a spare five minutes could you email me? I have a question about Captain Bob in St Maarten that I don' want to ask you here.

I had your email but lost it. Mine is ljgmc@comcast.com

 

Thanks,

 

Louis

 

Will do. Just to remind everyone that we did not sail with Capt. Bob himself so I have no first hand knowledge of his skills as a tour guide or sailor (though his reviews on TA are excellent). We were with Tyrell in a boat with 4 others; Captain Bob had at least 15 in his boat. I don't know if thats the norm or they had to squeeze in as we were late arriving.

[PattyCruiser2013]

What a great review! Thanks for all of the great information and pictures.

 

Quick question - when you had to swim ashore for lunch - what did you do with your belongings? i.e. when you take these excursions, you have to carry your wallet, camera etc. Did you have waterproof bags so your stuff didn't get wet?

 

The island of Saba is visible in the distance:

 

 

We stopped for lunch at a place in Grand Case on the French side. Tyrell anchored the boat as close as the could but as it was quite choppy we had to swim to shore if we wanted to eat!!

It was worth it. Tyrell had called our orders in from the boat and our lunches were ready only minutes after we sat down. We had the choice of grilled fish, chicken or ribs accompanied by rice and beans or fries. Everything was delicious (we tried everything except the chicken between the two of us). I had a guavaberry colada to wash it down. We then had some time to relax on the beach before moving on for the rest of our island tour. Lunch was included in our tour price, except for drinks.

 

Our last stop was Maho Bay....where we waited, like these people at the Sunset Bar, for the planes to land.

 

 

It wasn't as hair-rising as being at the fence, but quite a thrill to see the planes fly so closely overhead. Close enough for me!!

 

 

[dln929]

ok lead me where we can continue to help celebrity get this right. I sail in two weeks and my opinion will be heard ... lol at least they are trying

 

The fight for good beer & good hours on an X ship is a good fight! If you too would like to argue the point, write to Michael Bayley like I did. (Sandi and I talked about this and she doesn't mind that I share what I said to him. We're all beer lovers together! :D:D )

 

contactmichael@celebrity.com

Dear Mr. Bayley,

 

I wish you a very happy new year and heaps of success with your new position at our favorite cruise line, Celebrity. I know you get plenty of advice and queries about Celebrity so I will just have to fall into the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" category. I'm writing to you about Michael's Club.

 

My husband and I love craft beer and are delighted with the craft beer concept in several of the Michael's Clubs. But yikes! The hours stink. Very often it's not open until 5 or even 7 pm. What about us poor souls who want a decent beer with our lunch or at Happy Hour? No other bar/lounge on board serves a decent beer; only Michael's Club will do. Surely as a native born Englishman you will have pity on those of us who like a pint before 7 pm on our holiday? You addressed the question of hours when you (graciously) did the Q&A session on the cruise forum Cruise Critic, but could you push the issue along and get our beers to us earlier?

 

I'm asking for a selfish reason--my own taste buds--but I think you would be very pleased with the results if you were to give Michael's Club hours more consistent with the other bar/lounges on board. Look at this response that I got from your Craft Beer Cruises Dept. when I wrote them a few months back. As follows:

 

 

Good afternoon Deirdre. Thank you for sailing Celebrity Cruises and for your interest in our 2013 Craft Beer Cruises. Here are the six Brewery hosted Craft Beer Cruises we have lined up for 2013. You need to book with the agency indicated next to each, in order to be included in the group and participate in the craft beer tasting events: Welcome Aboard Craft Beer Reception Two one-hour Craft Beer Tasting Seminars Four-Course Craft Beer Pairing Luncheon Two onboard, behind the scenes tours 2013 Craft Beer Groups: Boulder Beer Company 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Celebrity Reflection 3/09/13 Groups@Cruisefox.com www.cruisefox.com BJ's Brewhouse 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Celebrity Reflection 3/16/13 www.worldviewtravel.com/craftbeercruise Samuel Adams 7 Night Eastern Caribbean Celebrity Reflection 4/06/13 CostcoTravel.com http://ctrv.us/SamuelAdamsCruise California Beer Festival at Sea (featuring several different breweries) 9 night Pacific Coastal (opportunities to visit breweries in each port of call) Celebrity Solstice 5/06/13 www.CruiseSpecialists.com/CBF Dry Dock Brewing Company 7 night Alaska Celebrity Millennium 7/23/13 Highlands Ranch Travel 888-702-4727 Karl Strauss Brewing Company 11 night Hawaii Celebrity Solstice 9/23/13 www.carefreevacations.com/brewscruise Cheers!

 

So you can see, there's an interest out there for fine craft beer. You already have the customers! Make them happy by opening Michael's Club to coincide with Happy Hour! More happy Celebrity cruisers = more happy Celebrity executives. And shareholders, too (we're one of them too ).

 

Another item for your consideration. When the initial press release came out when Celebrity introduced the concept, the description included several fun activities such as food and beer pairings. The Craft Beer Cruises offer events like this, but why not offer to everyone as promised when Celebrity planned Michael's Club? People are more than willing to pay a nominal fee for the food and wine pairing courses and I bet they'd do the same for Craft Beer courses too. The microbrewery/craft beer movement is hot, hot, hot in the US. Take advantage of people's interest! You at Celebrity have a great opportunity here to differentiate yourselves from other cruise lines and grab an audience that is well-educated, well-off, and crazy about craft beer. I wish you'd have more confidence in Michael's Club. Take it and run with it!

 

MICHAEL'S CLUB

 

Celebrity's history and future will converge in Michael's Club - a venue found on every Celebrity ship - where the line will present on Celebrity Silhouette and Celebrity Reflection a restyled, casually elegant bar where vacationers can sit back and enjoy the comfortably sophisticated atmosphere while watching the World Cup games and sipping a Chimay Blue.

 

Across the Celebrity fleet, Michael's Club offers an impressive selection of rare malts, whiskies and scotches. Building on that tradition, the "new" Michael's Club on CelebritySilhouette and Celebrity Reflection will add an equally impressive selection of more than 50 beers, including flavorful craft beers, and will allow guests to participate in engaging experiences such as ideal food and beer pairings, how to pour the perfect draft, or how to select the proper beer glass, all while snacking on homemade, gourmet potato chips and bread sticks, and fresh, lightly-spiced caramel popcorn, amidst a vibe of live music and cool playlists, or major international sporting events airing on the venue's large, 46" TV screens.

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Sincerely,

 

Deirdre N.

 

PS Forgot to mention but with the current 123 Go! promo, you are going to have a lot of people who will go into Michael's Club and try a beer because it presents no risk to them. I wonder how many of these people will enjoy the beverage package so much that they will refuse to sail without buying one? See? Another potential group that will make your revenue department very happy! As they say, "reach out and touch them."

[someguyfl]

When we were on the Equinox last year the wifi service was pretty terrible, both on our iPads and even on the computers in the ilounge. So SLOW!!! It was a total waste of money buying the packages. We swore we would never do it again. We would just learn to endure a week without Internet access.

 

Did you find the service on the Reflection any more efficient? I'm told they might have upgraded the system.

 

I was chatting with the person who ran the network on the Eclipse 2 years ago, he said that they pay for satellite uplink bandwidth in advance based on anticipated usage on any given cruise -- if they see a big conference book a cruise, or more/younger people, they will book more bandwidth. If they get the demographics wrong, and underbook, the service will be slower.

 

That said -- it's satellite, and will never be the same as you are used to with your 3G/4G cell phone or home wifi.

 

My personal routine is ... connect, start syncing email. using a tabbed web browser I open up many pages at once to read later (news articles, forum posts, etc), wait for them all to download, as the pages/email finish downloading, i log off. Read the emails/web pages, write replies and queue them to send, connect, send, disconnect.

[librarylady19]

What a great review! Thanks for all of the great information and pictures.

 

Quick question - when you had to swim ashore for lunch - what did you do with your belongings? i.e. when you take these excursions, you have to carry your wallet, camera etc. Did you have waterproof bags so your stuff didn't get wet?

 

No need to bring anything onshore....the boat had a hold where we kept all our things. Scott actually put some cash under his hat and the other couples put money in a Ziploc bag!! That's why I have no pictures of Grand Case though as Scott left the camera behind (we had already ruined one camera in Bermuda last year).

[fussylady]

Hi, someguyfl,

 

Thanks for your explanation and suggestion.

 

School is getting out about now, and so i will go outside to find a teenager walking home who can explain to me what you said.

 

Thanks again.

[SuperTrooper00]

Hi, someguyfl,

 

Thanks for your explanation and suggestion.

 

School is getting out about now, and so i will go outside to find a teenager walking home who can explain to me what you said.

 

Thanks again.

 

LOL. His advice was actually really good.

[DisneyTech]

Thank you so much for your review. I had a question regarding your meal at Qsine. You mentioned that you couldn't use your drink package for drinks at Qsine, is this just for their specialty drinks or all of the drinks there? Do they serve normal bar drinks in addition to the specialty ones?

[u2cruiser]

Hi, someguyfl,

 

Thanks for your explanation and suggestion.

 

School is getting out about now, and so i will go outside to find a teenager walking home who can explain to me what you said.

 

Thanks again.

 

Haha! Too funny :D

[emcee207]

Hi, someguyfl,

 

Thanks for your explanation and suggestion.

 

School is getting out about now, and so i will go outside to find a teenager walking home who can explain to me what you said.

 

Thanks again.

 

LOL, my sentiments exactly, one of the funniest things I"ve read on these boards recently!

 

someguyfl, us "Ole folk" aren't laughing at you...............we are laughing at ourselves, LOL!:D

[chloeluke]

Scott found some kindred spirits to discuss beer and home brewing in Michaels so I left him there and enjoyed some relaxation at the Persian Gardens. 5 pm was a great time to go there as many people were getting ready for dinner.

 

Scott also participated in a beer tasting event at Michaels and said it was a lot of fun!

 

Tonight was the second formal night of the cruise and we were really looking forward to another delicious meal at Blu. they really came through!

 

Here are the menus:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59368763@N07/6303099551/in/set-72157627905504343/

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/59368763@N07/6303626138/in/set-72157627905504343/

 

We started with the soft-shell crab....wonderful:

 

 

And shared the baked goat cheese appetizer:

 

 

We both had the scrumptious spicy plantain corn soup and the lobster.

 

 

The lobster shells were removed tableside by our ever-efficient waitress Paola. I'm sure those who enjoy fresh lobster on a regular basis would not be impressed, but these 2 Midwesterners were satisfied. Paola insisted we needed "surf and turf"and brought the steak entree for us to share.

 

 

Dessert..sure we ate it, but don't remember what it was!!

 

We went to the late show of Centre Stage in the Theatre but really didn't enjoy it. it was obviously a favorite of the seniors in the crowd, but the singing and dancing were not to our taste and my least favorite performance of the week.

 

We stayed for the late night comedy performance of Steve Caouette at 11:45 pm. It was entertaining but wasn't really any more "adult" than his earlier shows. I Expected it to be a bit racier I guess!!

 

The food looks delicious - we are on the Eclipse on 23/2 and I love crab but have never had the soft shell variety - hope this is not a silly question but how do you eat them! do you eat the whole thing??

[Lois R]

The food looks delicious - we are on the Eclipse on 23/2 and I love crab but have never had the soft shell variety - hope this is not a silly question but how do you eat them! do you eat the whole thing??

 

Not silly at all....if you have never tried them...they are some of my

most favorites:D and yes, you eat the WHOLE THING:D...they are

delicious!!!!:D

[librarylady19]

Thank you so much for your review. I had a question regarding your meal at Qsine. You mentioned that you couldn't use your drink package for drinks at Qsine, is this just for their specialty drinks or all of the drinks there? Do they serve normal bar drinks in addition to the specialty ones?

It is just the special cocktails (the ones you order via the iPad menu) that are excluded for some reason :confused: You can order the sangria by the glass as well as wine by the glass. I don't know about "regular" mixed drinks but someone else might.

Edited January 29, 2013 by librarylady19

[librarylady19]

Thanks again to everyone for your compliments and encouragement. I am almost at the end of my review....

 

As I mentioned, we decided to forgo the lunch at Muranos and thus did not eat there at all on this cruise. Here are some photos and the menu that Scott snapped on the first day for those who are interested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[librarylady19]

We did not eat at Tuscan Grille either. (We did eat at Tuscan on Eclipse and weren't blown away). We could have gone to the Elite breakfast that was held there but preferred Blu. We popped in one day and it was a continental breakfast offering - pastries, fruit, cold meats, juices. The attraction for some might be the cappucinos and bloody marys but we could get those with the PBP anyway.

 

It is a beautiful restaurant with a wonderful view....again, these were taken on the first day....

 

 

 

 

 

[Freq Traveler]

hi

 

can you please tell me the post number of the tuscon grill menu

 

i saw it and now can't find it

 

what is Blu Restaurant?? there is so much to learn about a new ship

 

thank you for info on the drink package - I think I finally understand that, lol

 

You can see a menu for Tuscan Grille on the Celebrity website by clicking on OnBoard Celebrity/Restaurants & Cafe. The offer a menu on this page.

 

We dined at Murano and Qsine on the Eclipse and absolutely loved them both. Agreen Qsine would be so much fun with a group. Murano is EXCELLENT, food in an elegant setting.

 

We are trying Tuscan Grille ourselves next month on the Reflection.

[lilghallinsf]

Again, your review is excellent. In looking at the murano menu, I see a five senses meal paired with wine. If you are on the beverages package, premium, can you use this with the wines?

[librarylady19]

I made one more visit to the Persian Gardens, completed our Guest Questionnaire and started to think about packing. We had an 11:50 a.m. flight from Ft. Lauderdale and had opted for walk-off disembarkation the next day (the first time we had done this). We received instructions to be at Ensemble Lounge by 6:45 a.m. (that early!!). At least we didn't have to pack before dinner.

 

Our last meal on the ship (sob!) was our much anticipated dinner at Lawn Club Grill. We had read lots of positive things on CC and also heard from others on our sailing how much they enjoyed their meal so expectations were high.

 

Here are some photos taken during the day.

 

 

Those darn alcoves again....blocking the sea view

 

More alcoves!

 

Our reservation was at 7:30 p.m.

Edited January 29, 2013 by librarylady19

[librarylady19]

Our reservation was for 7:30 p.m. I was a bit concerned we would be freezing, as it was on the nippy side and breezy, but they were prepared. There were heat lamps on overhead and we were given plaid blankets for our laps or shoulders. It was really quite cozy.

 

We were greeted warmly by Jason and we stopped to admire the meat case before being seated; we asked for Ramon, the same waiter who was so helpful at The Porch at lunchtime.

 

 

 

Here's the menu:

 

 

Our waiter explained that we could help ourselves to the salad bar and either get a premade flatbread or make our own. I thought it might be fun to toss some dough and assemble a pizza, so washed my hands, donned an apron and went for my lesson.

Edited January 29, 2013 by librarylady19

[librarylady19]

First the chef showed me how to stretch out the dough (the dough was already prepared).

 

 

Then I got to try it...

 

 

Time to toss the dough...Hmm...looks easy enough:

 

 

and I even caught it!

 

 

I headed to the Salad Bar to add sauce and toppings to my flatbread (mostly vegetables) and handed it to the grill chef for cooking;

 

The finished product - it was tasty but we restrained ourselves as we knew we had a lot more food to eat.

 

Pizza + Anchor steam beer - yum!

Edited January 29, 2013 by librarylady19

[librarylady19]

We selected a variety of meats from the vast array available for sharing. We asked about spices/glazes but were told that sauces would be served with the meats...ok.

 

We also ordered the lobster mac and cheese and a baked potato as side dishes (seemed rather unnecessary, but what the heck!)

 

We chose lamb chops, veal chops, rib eye steak, shrimp & scallop skewer and bratwurst. A short while later, this meat lovers array arrived on a tray along with a trio of sauces - bbq, chimichurri and steak sauce.

 

 

So, how did all this food taste. The lamb chops were by far the best item, with the seafood skewer second. The rib eye was a bit fatty. I didn't detect any seasoning on the meats, however, primarily a charred taste. The baked potato was pretty uninspired and must have been sitting around for a few hours - not worth the stomach space! Scott liked the mac and cheese enough to finish it.

 

We weren't going to skip dessert (last day of vacation and all that) and knew we wanted to try the chocolate chip cookie a la mode.

 

 

It was good, but not exceptional, which pretty much sums up my feelings about LCG.

The ambiance is very nice, service good, food decent. It is definitely overpriced for the style of food, however (why not $30 like Tuscan Grille?). For $40, I would like something over-the-top fancy aka Murano or completely original aka Qsine.

 

I'm glad we tried it once but I probably wouldn't return unless the price was right.

[sammamishcruiser]

Hi Sandi

Great review! The ship looks beautiful! I wouldLOVE to sail on her one of these days!

We will be on the Eclilse in April and I have a question for you. Well two actually. Is the storage on the Eclipse also above the bed? I love your idea about the cubes up there. I have one of those hanging thingies for a closet - cloth, has 5 shelves and folds (collapses flat) . Kind of like a shoe holder but wider. Would there be room in the closet for that instead of the cubes?

Thanks so much. Your photos are beautiful! Can't wait for April and our first time in the Caribbean AND on an S class ship!

Melody:D

[librarylady19]

Hi Sandi

Great review! The ship looks beautiful! I wouldLOVE to sail on her one of these days!

We will be on the Eclilse in April and I have a question for you. Well two actually. Is the storage on the Eclipse also above the bed? I love your idea about the cubes up there. I have one of those hanging thingies for a closet - cloth, has 5 shelves and folds (collapses flat) . Kind of like a shoe holder but wider. Would there be room in the closet for that instead of the cubes?

Thanks so much. Your photos are beautiful! Can't wait for April and our first time in the Caribbean AND on an S class ship!

Melody:D

 

Hi Melody,

You will love the S class ships I am sure!! All the ships have the same overhead cupboards so you could definitely use the storage cubes in Eclipse. I would think the hanging organizer would work well in the closet, especially as there are no shelves in the closet.

 

Here's a photo of the closet in AQ 1520 on Eclipse.

 

Edited January 29, 2013 by librarylady19

[emilymad]

Thanks for the wonderful review. Could you have helped cooked both the flat bread and your meats if you had wanted to at the Lawn Grill? My husband is very interested in doing both.