Great Last Minute Back to Back on the Summit (L-O-N-G)

[Vagabondage]

We booked on impulse just 3+ weeks before departure for our January 18 and 25, 2014 Southern Caribbean cruises on the Summit. Great deal. (Love being retired and having flexible schedules.) First time on those itineraries unless you count an ill-starred cruise on the Solstice 2 years ago in which I had to be involuntarily emergency offloaded to a hospital in San Juan. (Look for old postings under my name if you want that cautionary story.) Thankfully everything went smoothly this time and we had a great time!

[BTW, I’m torn between brevity and detail here, so if I seem to be yammering on about matters of little interest, please just skip onward. Some of the detail here is about things I’ve seen a lot of discussion about here on the boards, so I hope my 2c worth may benefit someone else.]

FLIGHTS: Our last minute options from Seattle to San Juan were understandably limited, especially since we ruled out any flights through northern hubs given this winter’s atrocious weather. We lucked out and were able to use some of our Alaska ff miles to book SEA-DFW-FLL/SJU-DFW-SEA on American. That left the FLL to SJU leg to fill in with Spirit Airlines, the only thing available that would get us to SJU in time for sailaway. The American flights all went fine. The outgoing schedule involved an overnight in DFW, but we really didn’t mind at all as there are plenty of inexpensive airport motels and it was actually nice to break up the claustrophobia of a crosscountry coach trip a bit. Spirit was another matter. Holy cow, we’re quite seasoned travelers and have flown a lot in so-called third world countries, but we’ve never seen such chaos as in Spirit’s departure concourse in FLL. It looked like many had been camped out there forever, lying and squatting around on the floor everywhere, no seats anywhere, lots of highly vocal frustrated pax and crying kiddies. We had actually been quite worried about missing our tight 1 hr. connection, which would have meant we’d miss the boat, but we needn’t have. Every single Spirit flight in the concourse including ours was delayed by hours – constant announcements extending previously announced delays, never any explanations. We finally took off two hours late and landed in San Juan after 4. We counted our blessings that we’d been able to find anything to get us Seattle-San Juan on such short notice, but agreed Spirit would be our last choice in future.

PRE-FLIGHT NECESSITY: In light of our Solstice disaster two years ago, I can’t stress this enough. Get adequate travel insurance as soon as you book. We think third-party insurance is an absolute must, as it covers you for all kinds of important things X’s insurance doesn’t. If you or anyone who might affect your travel plans (travel partners, family members at home, etc.) has any kind of medical issues, it’s essential that you book the insurance within 5-21 days after your first payment on the cruise, depending on which insurer you pick. That’s the only way to get an automatic pre-existing conditions waiver. We always use InsureMyTrip to shop for the best coverage, and we find our choice varies depending on trip particulars. Thankfully we didn’t have to use ours this time, but the peace of mind was worth it.

BAGGAGE / PACKING: Our very tight connection in FLL limited us to our wheeled carryons only. (Spirit has no interline baggage agreement with the big carriers, so we couldn’t check a bag from Seattle straight through to San Juan, and there was no time to reclaim from American in Fort Lauderdale, dash to Spirit, and recheck with them.) Since we were on a two week cruise followed by a week in Puerto Rico afterward, this seemed daunting initially but actually worked out just fine.

I always color coordinate anyway, and just packed nonwrinklable black knit pants and capris and a long black silky knit skirt, 6 super space-saving sheer and/or sparkly tops to wear over camisoles, 3 silk scarves, a very lightweight hoodie and a featherweight sheerish sweater suitable for evenings, 3 tankini swim tops (which I also wore with capris for shore excursions) and 1 bottom plus a light coverup. My husband took 2 T shirts, 2 quick-dry nylon REI outdoor sports shirts, 3 nice polos, 2 nice Tommy Bahama-type shirts and a white dress shirt, plus two pair of nice slacks, 2 khaki shorts, 2 ties and a swimsuit. Plenty of lightweight undies for both of us, of course. We sent laundry out once on Day 7. DH debated taking a complete suit for dress nights but just didn’t have the space, so he wore his suit jacket on the plane and with dress slacks for dress nights. Flame us if you must for dressing more casually, but many men were dressed as he was (a few far more casually though they got some stinkeye from others). We both took Keens, and I took a pair of dressy heeled sandals as well as my everyday flipflops, as I had read X’s advisory that flips were verboten in the MDR. But I have balance problems due to a brain-damaging seizure and sometimes need to use a cane, and on a moving ship those dang sandals made me worry I was about to take a nosedive. Since I noticed that many other ladies were wearing dressy flipflops despite X’s pronouncement, on Day 2 I bought myself a pair of blingy foam ones for $20 in the ship’s shop and retired the good leather ones. Next time I won’t bother taking them, which lightens my bag up even further.

We loved traveling light. So the upshot of all this is that we’ve decided to go with only carryons for every cruise from now on unless we plan fairly long travel post-cruise. In the days before Kindles and iPads I could never have pulled this off as I’m an avid and very quick reader, but Hallelujah! I took only one long print book to read on the beach or by the pool when it was too bright for my Kindle Fire or iPad. Taking only carryons did force us to leave our snorkel gear at home, but rentals are available everywhere we went and gear is already included in most snorkel excursions anyway, even if it’s not the best quality. (If you prefer a dry snorkel and short fins as I do, you’re probably out of luck unless you take your own, but we lived with it.) The kindness of fellow passenger carolslc, whom I’d been chatting with on our roll call, addressed our other major concern of needing lots of sunscreen which couldn’t be packed in carryon. She picked us up some in San Juan and we got it from her at the Connections party. Assuming that on our next cruise we spend a pre-cruise night in a SJ hotel, that won’t be an issue. Thanks again, Carol!

 

More to come...

[Vagabondage]

EMBARKATION: Taxied straight to PanAm pier from the airport. Since it was after 4, we had zero wait to board and we had immediate access to our cabin and our luggage. We were ravenous after hours flying with no food available onboard, so made a beeline for the buffet. Some stations were closed at that hour and it was a little too early for others, but pizza and fruit tided us over to dinner. It was pleasantly quiet to decompress by the view windows with no one else around. Then we did a little walkabout to check out features of the M-class Summit that differed from our previous time on Solstice. I had heard a lot about the T-pool so had to reconnoiter there. Great feature! Since so much of the day was gone already, waited till next morning to buy hubby’s prorated premium nonalcoholic drink package. He’s a friend of Bill W but is positively addicted to mango smoothies and premium coffees from Café al Bacio J. I’ll have one or two glasses of wine or cocktails a day, but decided to skip the pkg and just pay for the drinks with OBC. That was a good call.

CABIN: 2057, Oceanview, port forward. We had been Concierge on deck 9 on the Solstice so were afraid we’d hate OV on deck 2, but we found it just ducky. Because we’d booked at the last minute our cabin had two slight drawbacks. It was a fairly long hike from the midships elevators, which wouldn’t bother most people without mobility issues. And it was a cabin with dropdown bunks retracted into the ceiling, so did not have the mirrored wall which gives cabins without the OH bunks a more spacious, light-filled feel even if the square footage is the same. (Our next week, in 2037, was mirrored and we preferred it, but it really wasn’t that big a difference.) These cabins are well laid out and (like the rest of the ship) impeccably maintained, and we never felt cramped in the least. I know a lot of cruisers swear by suites or Sweet 16’s, but we spent relatively little time in our cabin and would much rather spend the extra $$ on traveling more often!

 

We heard no noise in our cabin other than a few loud inconsiderate passengers as they passed in the hall, and that can happen on any deck. We felt ship rocking only twice, briefly – a sensation which I find pleasant anyway, as it conjured up lots of happy childhood memories of adventures in our small family boat. We had felt more motion on deck 9 on the Solstice, an advantage of lower decks. When we were Concierge on the Solstice we found the canapés rather pathetic, the flowers unimpressive, never used the robes, and found that since our breakfast was delivered lukewarm we preferred to go to the buffet ourselves, so those aspects of CC we did not miss at all. X no longer gives double Captain’s Club credit for CC, so that was no longer an incentive to book in a higher class. I do need down pillows, but this time our cabin attendant Sintiwati obligingly got some for me as soon as I asked even if we didn’t have a pillow menu. She also brought us the extra hangers we requested. Of course a balcony is nice in higher classes, but we found we really didn’t miss it much as the porthole window in OV is large and bright with a handy shelf and we spent our outside time on deck or off the ship anyway. [Now the one difference my husband did complain about is that the free plastic X pen in OV isn’t nearly as nice as the silver metal one we got two years ago in CC J.] Obviously YMMV, but we’ve decided to book OV for future cruises. Frugality + comfort = more trips, a winner for us!

 

Our cabin attendant Sintiwati, from Java, was very shy and her English was more hesitant than most of the other attendants we interacted with, but she was beyond polite and did a super-conscientious job of taking care of everything. Our only minor problem is that every day when we came back from shore or the pool our room AC would be turned down to the lowest setting, way too cold for comfort. We would reset it each day and asked Sintiwati both in person and in a note to please NOT turn it down when she serviced the cabin, but she either didn’t understand our request or didn’t want to deviate from her standard orders.

I had brought a small outlet tap that gave us enough plugins to recharge all our electronics, as well as EU to US plug adapters that enabled us to use the two EU plugs by the desk. That desk is well designed and lighted and took pressure off the bathroom as I could prep for dinner there while DH showered. Quite a bit of room there to stow electronics and toiletries. We always use hanging toiletry bags when we travel, so the bathroom never felt crowded.

 

MUSTER DRILL: 7:45 pm Sat, in the theater for us, just before sailaway. A minor nuisance to have to plan dinner or other activities around it, but X handles it efficiently and with good humor and after the Costa Concordia disaster in Italy, it’s nice to know we’re on a cruiseline that insists on safety measures before leaving the harbor!

ROLL CALL/CONNECTIONS PARTY: Cellar Masters on the first full day, I think it was around 5. Quite a few had signed up, but very few showed – maybe 15-20? We enjoyed visiting with those who did, especially after having “met” online. We skipped roll call our second week.

 

More to follow...

[Vagabondage]

Continued...

 

MDR DINING: We chose Select again, and cannot praise hostess Rosemary enough for the terrific and personable job she did accommodating ours and other guests’ requests, which in our case was for a table for two each night. (This didn’t prevent us from chatting with other guests at neighboring two-tops, which are really a very few feet away, if they and we felt inclined. But this way we had the option for just-us conversation if that was our mood.) We made our res for the first night as soon as we got on the ship, and as you can’t reserve a time slot more than 24 hours in advance, got in the habit of requesting a time for the next night on our way out of the MDR each night. It was always honored, with never more than a 2-minute wait. We were super-happy with our waiters Balan (from the Phillippines) and Yovana (from Peru) the first night and asked to sit in their area each night thereafter, so over the two weeks we had lots of fun with them. They were smoothly professional and very personable, and I predict they will both go far with Celebrity Cruises. We really became quite fond of them. And that Rosemary (South Africa) is a wonder -- watching her orchestrate everything each night with funny little comments under her breath cracked us up. Bravissimo, Balan, Yovana and Rosemary!!

 

We certainly can’t complain about the food or choices in the MDR, as in two weeks quality averaged 8 or 9 out of 10, a very decent showing for meals that are not cooked a la minute. We rarely followed the chef’s recommendation but instead our own inclination, making use several times of the left side of the menu (salmon never overcooked as we initially feared, steak, Caesar whose blandness improved when I requested fresh lemon to perk it up and which DH happily ordered lots of fresh anchovies for, excellent crème brulee) rather than the nightly specials. We laughed at some of the grandiose labels for appetizers which proved underwhelming, but so what? I made the mistake of ordering escargot a few nights into the cruise, knowing that they would be drenched in garlic herb butter and thus a guilty pleasure – but DANG! They lived up to their reputation and I couldn’t resist them several more times in the two weeks. A couple nights I ordered escargot and a salad rather than a main course to assuage my guilt. I understand X suffers periodic shortages of the little critters and takes them off the menu (or maybe the “shortages” are budgetary rather than with purveyors?), but I hope they have them again on our next cruise!

 

My favorite MDR entrees were the rack of lamb and the prime rib. I found the lobster good but not great (dry, less sweet and flavorful than New England lobster, which we always find true with warm water lobster) and chose Beef Wellington instead the following week. It was very nice. We avoided the chicken – maybe paranoid, but worried about salmonella in an industrial kitchen cranking out so many meals. I quite enjoyed a couple of interesting cold soups. There’s one thing in the MDR that gets really low marks from us, though, and that is the coffee. Swill. Maybe we’re just Seattle coffee snobs, but we couldn’t stand it and gave up after three nights. Instead, we often headed to Café al Bacio and had our coffee and dessert (small pastry or a scoop of gelato) there. That was our favorite spot on the whole ship and we spent a lot of time there at different times of day. Small, elegant desserts are way better than those in the MDR or buffet, too. My husband was in love with the coconut gelato, and in the mornings we’d stop and pick up an almond croissant and good coffee to take upstairs to the Oceanview Café to have with the rest of our breakfast. Their croissants are a 10+, way better than any pastry in Oceanview looked, and Nyoman from Bali always started our day with a good memory for our preferences, efficient service and a smile.

OCEANVIEW BUFFET: If you chose carefully, you can eat well here, but this food was only occasionally stellar. Fresh OJ from the bar by the entry was always a treat, and Joseph who ran it most days was always full of jokes. Crunchy unripe melon was the norm on the buffet line, the scrambled eggs were sometimes perfect and sometimes rubbery, and the two times I tried the oft-praised waffles they already had a couple dozen made up and sitting at the steam table so would not honor my polite request to wait for a fresh one. Rubbery waffles, meh. I love smoked salmon and thought at first I’d probably be tempted to have it every day, but it was saltier than most I’ve ever had which is bad for me so after a couple tries I passed on it. Other than a bagel I never tried a breakfast pastry from Oceanview, preferring to schlep a croissant from Café al Bacio. The one thing I found consistently good – if indulgent – for breakfast was the poached egg station with its different varieties of eggs Benedict (standard with Canadian bacon, over corned beef hash, Mexican with salsa and guac, etc.) as well as plain poached eggs. The Hollandaise was good, and I quickly took a shine to Kenishia from Jamaica who ran the station efficiently. I enjoyed our friendly chats if the station wasn’t busy. Hubby liked to have a little blintz each day, gave them a thumbs up.

Lunch in Oceanview was similarly just OK, not special but who needs special 3x a day? If it had been really good they’d have needed a cargo sling to offload me at the end of the cruises. Hubby was very disappointed that the meat curries he had so enjoyed several times on the Solstice were absent here – only a couple veggie ones which he didn’t find very tasty. Pizza was OK, not great and not a lot of selection. Ditto with the panini, which IMHO had skimpy fillings and we found the staff there a bit grumpy the two times we tried it. The daily roasts were tougher cuts of meat and way overdone for my taste – not worth the bother. Salad bar was always good, and I fell into the habit of having that and a doctored up baked potato many days. Unimaginative, but reliable. Brought in a burger from the pool bar a couple times to eat with salad as I’m a cheeseburger lover, but I like my burgers medium rare and that’s not possible here, so they were just OK. They don’t even melt the cheese on them, just slap it on a lukewarm patty with untoasted bun. Picky picky picky, I know…

 

Never tried Oceanview for dinner.

SUSHI: [More pickiness alert] IMHO not worth the bother. No nigiri, bland “spicy tuna rolls,” slim selection. The occasional dim sum items at lunch missed the boat for us, too. We missed West Coast standards.

AT SEA BRUNCH: Hmmm, this one’s a tossup for us. Most of the food is the same that’s available at other venues, with a few exceptions. The one new item we really enjoyed was the chilled shrimp. I looked forward to the leg of lamb, but could not persuade the server to part with much more than a 4-5 ounce sliver of it despite a specific request for more and a plate that was almost empty. What little I had was overdone for my taste, anyway – nice in theory, so-so execution. Many diners seemed excited about the chocolate fountain, but that didn’t appeal to us. Actually, few of X’s desserts anywhere in the two weeks floated our boat with the notable exception of Café al Bacio, but that was lucky as the calories I expended on escargot at dinner were already alarming enough without adding desserts! What we didn’t enjoy about the buffet was the semi-stampede ambience and all the milling around both weeks we tried it. I think we might give it a pass next time. Should have tried Bistro on Five instead, which kept forgetting to go to.

NORMANDIE: We’d been vacillating about trying one of the specialty dining options, as we really didn’t want to make the cruise overly focused on food, but the last evening of our first week we found an automated phone message offering us half off dinner at Normandie the following night (first night of the second cruise) as B2B passengers. We decided why not? So we stopped by and made a res. The next night we showed up at the appointed time and were told rather coolly by the maitre d’ that he had no reservation for us. We told him that we had most assuredly made one the previous evening. He said, without re-checking his screen, “Well, the person you reserved with did not record it.” “When I replied, ‘YOU were the person we reserved it with,’” he neither blinked nor apologized but merely nodded rather curtly and showed us to a table. We both found this person supercilious, our least favorite staff member in an otherwise exceptional crew. Nevertheless, our dinner was excellent. Normandie is a beautiful space, and my rack of lamb was perfect. DH had the lobster, which he said was nice but not wonderful. (Again, we are probably lobster snobs, as relatives are lobstermen in PEI, Canada and fresh off the boat there is the standard we hold all lobster to. I think most people like the lobster quite well, so don’t mind us. I’m afraid I’m sounding obnoxious here…) We tried the dessert sampler and it was great and a lot of fun.

 

More to come...

[Vagabondage]

Continued...

 

DRINKS: As noted above, my husband is a fanatic for mango smoothies. (Not the smoothies from the Aqua Spa café, which he doesn’t care much for.) They weren’t available everywhere. He finally got in the habit of just going to the pool bar for them and usually had success there, but there were a couple of bartenders there who adamantly swore the bar could not make them. He had to point out where they keep the mango mix to convince them to give it a try, but eventually he got one each time, though they were pretty much just straight frappéd mango pulp and ice – no yogurt or anything added like in some smoothies. I didn’t order all that many cocktails, but the ones I had were good. The only exception was lone night I ordered a cocktail in the MDR. Instead of the requested Painkiller, the drink they brought was a red, white and blue mystery (Blue Curaҫao on the bottom), but I didn’t want to trouble anyone further so just drank it anyway. Didn’t love it, whatever it was. I ordered wines by the glass with dinner most nights, spending $9-16@, and found that they were fine and I came out ahead of what I’d have spent if I’d had the alcohol package.

 

POOLS: Temp suited us fine, and I like that there’s plenty of room to just sit on the edge and dangle your legs for as long as you like without getting in others’ way. Drink service around the pool wasn’t overly attentive and usually had to be flagged down, but c’mon, how hard is that? Pool butlers kept the area tidied up well. One did so overly well, sweeping up our newly-arranged towels and my beach bag which I had just put down within 1 minute, while I was still standing there taking off my coverup. When I protested, he just plunked the stuff back down without a word and walked off. I then watched him remove two other groups’ possessions when they hadn’t been absent for more than 5 minutes in the pools. So it’s nice to foil chair-hogs who try to reserve prime chairs when they’re away for hours, but there’s such a thing as being a little too overzealous! Actually, I didn’t see much chair hogging at all.

ENTERTAINMENT: Shows in the theater didn’t interest us in the least, but we loved the energetic party band Xtasea from St. Kitts with its eclectic mix of genres and enjoyed the piano and acoustic guitar music at Café al Bacio and Michael’s. There was plenty of entertainment to suit us, much more than we took advantage of.

MISC ACTIVITIES: Weren’t interested in the spa or casino. Did a little shopping – we’re not big recreational shoppers, so the offerings more than satisfied us. Avoided the art auctions like the plague and got frankly tired of the constant plugs for them. Loved the fun Zumba sessions by the pool. Generally preferred a quiet afterdinner coffee or drink somewhere, sometimes in the moonlight, to dancing or bars, though we did a little of that. Husband was very happy to find that Friends of Bill W met daily, run on an impromptu basis by whoever showed up that day. It was always noted in the ship’s daily. Though he didn’t attend every day, he did quite a few times and was glad to report that a real cohesive group formed for such a short time. He hated to say goodbye to some of them at cruise end. Cruising can be a challenging environment for a person in recovery, but meeting others who are walking the same path is a great plus, so it’s great that X supports this.

SHORE EXCURSIONS: Will address these in a separate post.

 

Almost done...

[Vagabondage]

Wrapping up...

 

FELLOW PASSENGERS: A very pleasant crowd, polite, and interesting whenever we chatted. A fairly sophisticated group, I’d say. There were a lot of active retirees our age (late 50’s-early 70’s), some 80’s-ish or older retirees in multigenerational family groups, few kids or teenagers or early 20’s this time around, though we did see several newlyweds, and quite a few in their 30’s and 40’s. It may have been a little tame for some of the younger ones, but it was perfect for us and not the geriatric ghetto of the cruising stereotype. My need for a cane some days posed no problems as the ship is well-designed for universal access, and there were a few passengers with major disabilities (e.g. even quadriplegia) who seemed to be having a great time.

CREW: A+++. We must have interacted with at least 150 crew members if not more, and in our opinion only two deserved scores below 95%. Some deserved 150%. Not only was service efficient, but it was uniformly polite and friendly, from room attendants to servers to cleaning staff. A typical example happened the one night we were seated away from our usual area in the MDR, with unfamiliar waiters. My husband ordered ice cream for dessert and requested “two dollops.” The waiter looked nonplussed but quickly recovered, noted Jim’s request and scurried off to fulfill it. We soon found out from our other waiter that the first waiter thought Jim had ordered “two gallons” of ice cream. I’m sure he thought Jim was insane, and there must have been some eyebrow raising gossip among the waitstaff. But on X they bend over backwards to keep the customers happy, so he was off to do it till the second waiter intercepted him and clarified our request. When the waiter came back, we all had a good laugh. To us, the crew is Celebrity’s single biggest asset. They work hard, very long hours for little pay, most far away from family for months, and it made us feel good to tip many of them extra at the end of the cruise.

THE SHIP: Attractively designed and furnished and 100% immaculate, another A+. Colorful but not gaudy. Very enjoyable high quality art throughout the ship, from the interesting sculptures (our favorite was the oversized reclining bather by the T pool) to the joyous framed graphics. We liked the size of the Summit (2,150 pax) a bit better than the Solstice (2,850), feeling less like part of a huge herd. The morning of our B2B switch, after all the departing guests had left, I watched a maintenance guy carefully crouching from one chair to another in the Deck 5 lounges, scrutinizing each intently. Curious as to what he was doing, I moved closer and saw that he was going over minute furniture scuffs and scratches with a wood stain pen to make the ship all spiffed up for the arriving week’s passengers. Talk about shipshape!

BACK TO BACK TRANSFER: As already noted, because of our last-minute booking we were unable to keep the same cabin for both trips. Nevertheless our move from 2057 to 2037 was easy peasy. We emptied out our drawers and the safe, repacked those items into our suitcases and left them locked in the cabin before reporting to the Rendezvous Lounge Sunday morning as per our written instructions. Some B2B pax opted to spend the day in San Juan and so left the ship as early as they wanted, but we had already spent several days in the city two years ago and would be returning for a week after the cruise, so we opted to spend a lazy day on the ship. After the last departing passenger had cleared the ship around 10:30 am, an officer led us off, through a quick immigration check, and back onto the ship. The whole thing took 20 minutes. We decided to head for the pool rather than accept the invitation to B2Bers’ lunch in the MDR. When we went to our new cabin later, Sintiwati (who was also our attendant in the new cabin) had transferred everything, including our clothes on their hangers, to its exact place in our previous cabin, so were it not for the fact that this new cabin was mirrored and so felt a bit larger, we would never have known we had moved. 2037 is extreme forward port side, so we usually used the forward elevators to go up to 5, then walked past the shops, bar and Café al Bacio to the midships elevators. It was less boring than walking down the long hallway on deck 2 with nothing but cabin doors to look at. One other small advantage of 2037 is that it had a built-in nightlight in the bathroom, whereas 2057 had not.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This cruise was a winner for us, despite our initial skepticism. We are confirmed independent travelers, often quite off the beaten path, keen to meet locals and experience some of their way of life, not be insulated in tourist enclaves -- especially upscale ones. We like to explore places in depth, and most of our trips spend several weeks getting to know each place. Cruising ticks none of those boxes, and in fact is the polar opposite in most respects. For years we spent every summer in Greece and Turkey and would rue the way the whole character of cruiseport towns changed when a large cruise ship was in, wondering why anyone would ever want to travel that way. Well, we will certainly continue to enjoy traveling in our accustomed way, which cruising will never replace. But that’s apples and oranges. We found these B2B cruises very enjoyable and relaxing for a midwinter shot in the arm. It’s such an easy way to island-hop when the alternative would have required lots of flights and ferries on our own, especially now that my mobility challenges are slowing us down, that our last day onboard we signed up to do exactly the same B2B next year! We only scratched the surface of the islands we visited, and are eager to return for more.

 

Cheers!

[drarill]

Excellent review Judy!! Thanks for sharing your B2B experience with us!!:):)

[colombiangirl]

Great review!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317

[dodger1964]

Thanks for review...Summit is my favorite X ship. I love to walk on the promenade deck and watch and listen to the ocean. The S class ships have really limited that experience.

[cruzngrl]

Nice Review. We are doing this itinerary in Feb 2015. Where did you stay in San Juan?

[AlbertaCruisers]

Just as a heads up, you can make reservations for Select dinning in advance (maybe not once you are on the ship though), but I already have all my reservations done online for our November B2B on the summit. Kind of a pain as you have to do each day. I'm guessing there is some sort of a cut off date prior to the cruise where that doesn't work any more.

 

Great review - we were on Jan 25 and had a great cruise!

Edited February 25, 2014 by AlbertaCruisers

[miched]

How were you able to send out the laundry on day 7? I thought that there was a cut off day.

 

 

🌊🚢🇺🇸🌅🍸🍻

[hulamoon]

Thanks for posting your lovely review Judy.

[existentialtraveler]

hi Judy..we have been on the Summit 3 times now, and are doing B2B in october/Nov. 2014. I am glad you had a great time. We have never been disappointed on the Summit!

[olemissreb]

Thanks for posting. We'll be on the Summit in March 2015. I can't wait. I hope you'll post what you did in ports. We'll be on the St. Croix, St. Kitts route.

[carolslc]

Judy - I loved your very detailed review! I felt like I was on the Summit all over again. We too loved our cruise, and it was wonderful meeting you. I'm so glad I was able to help with the sunscreen. I can't wait to see your review of the ports!

 

-Carol

[cherylroslyn]

Wrapping up...

 

FELLOW PASSENGERS: A very pleasant crowd, polite, and interesting whenever we chatted. A fairly sophisticated group, I’d say. There were a lot of active retirees our age (late 50’s-early 70’s), some 80’s-ish or older retirees in multigenerational family groups, few kids or teenagers or early 20’s this time around, though we did see several newlyweds, and quite a few in their 30’s and 40’s. It may have been a little tame for some of the younger ones, but it was perfect for us and not the geriatric ghetto of the cruising stereotype. My need for a cane some days posed no problems as the ship is well-designed for universal access, and there were a few passengers with major disabilities (e.g. even quadriplegia) who seemed to be having a great time.

CREW: A+++. We must have interacted with at least 150 crew members if not more, and in our opinion only two deserved scores below 95%. Some deserved 150%. Not only was service efficient, but it was uniformly polite and friendly, from room attendants to servers to cleaning staff. A typical example happened the one night we were seated away from our usual area in the MDR, with unfamiliar waiters. My husband ordered ice cream for dessert and requested “two dollops.” The waiter looked nonplussed but quickly recovered, noted Jim’s request and scurried off to fulfill it. We soon found out from our other waiter that the first waiter thought Jim had ordered “two gallons” of ice cream. I’m sure he thought Jim was insane, and there must have been some eyebrow raising gossip among the waitstaff. But on X they bend over backwards to keep the customers happy, so he was off to do it till the second waiter intercepted him and clarified our request. When the waiter came back, we all had a good laugh. To us, the crew is Celebrity’s single biggest asset. They work hard, very long hours for little pay, most far away from family for months, and it made us feel good to tip many of them extra at the end of the cruise.

THE SHIP: Attractively designed and furnished and 100% immaculate, another A+. Colorful but not gaudy. Very enjoyable high quality art throughout the ship, from the interesting sculptures (our favorite was the oversized reclining bather by the T pool) to the joyous framed graphics. We liked the size of the Summit (2,150 pax) a bit better than the Solstice (2,850), feeling less like part of a huge herd. The morning of our B2B switch, after all the departing guests had left, I watched a maintenance guy carefully crouching from one chair to another in the Deck 5 lounges, scrutinizing each intently. Curious as to what he was doing, I moved closer and saw that he was going over minute furniture scuffs and scratches with a wood stain pen to make the ship all spiffed up for the arriving week’s passengers. Talk about shipshape!

BACK TO BACK TRANSFER: As already noted, because of our last-minute booking we were unable to keep the same cabin for both trips. Nevertheless our move from 2057 to 2037 was easy peasy. We emptied out our drawers and the safe, repacked those items into our suitcases and left them locked in the cabin before reporting to the Rendezvous Lounge Sunday morning as per our written instructions. Some B2B pax opted to spend the day in San Juan and so left the ship as early as they wanted, but we had already spent several days in the city two years ago and would be returning for a week after the cruise, so we opted to spend a lazy day on the ship. After the last departing passenger had cleared the ship around 10:30 am, an officer led us off, through a quick immigration check, and back onto the ship. The whole thing took 20 minutes. We decided to head for the pool rather than accept the invitation to B2Bers’ lunch in the MDR. When we went to our new cabin later, Sintiwati (who was also our attendant in the new cabin) had transferred everything, including our clothes on their hangers, to its exact place in our previous cabin, so were it not for the fact that this new cabin was mirrored and so felt a bit larger, we would never have known we had moved. 2037 is extreme forward port side, so we usually used the forward elevators to go up to 5, then walked past the shops, bar and Café al Bacio to the midships elevators. It was less boring than walking down the long hallway on deck 2 with nothing but cabin doors to look at. One other small advantage of 2037 is that it had a built-in nightlight in the bathroom, whereas 2057 had not.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This cruise was a winner for us, despite our initial skepticism. We are confirmed independent travelers, often quite off the beaten path, keen to meet locals and experience some of their way of life, not be insulated in tourist enclaves -- especially upscale ones. We like to explore places in depth, and most of our trips spend several weeks getting to know each place. Cruising ticks none of those boxes, and in fact is the polar opposite in most respects. For years we spent every summer in Greece and Turkey and would rue the way the whole character of cruiseport towns changed when a large cruise ship was in, wondering why anyone would ever want to travel that way. Well, we will certainly continue to enjoy traveling in our accustomed way, which cruising will never replace. But that’s apples and oranges. We found these B2B cruises very enjoyable and relaxing for a midwinter shot in the arm. It’s such an easy way to island-hop when the alternative would have required lots of flights and ferries on our own, especially now that my mobility challenges are slowing us down, that our last day onboard we signed up to do exactly the same B2B next year! We only scratched the surface of the islands we visited, and are eager to return for more.

 

Cheers!

Wow....

 

Just Wow......

 

 

I am floored at how well written that was. It is obvious to me that you are a reader, because people who really read, know how to write. Loved your review and the details made it great.

[ariawoman]

Thanks for your review. :-) I'm jealous and wish I could do a B2B! :-) FYI it's a rule now that muster has to occur before leaving. While X is a safe line, they have no choice in the matter (after the Concordia disaster the rule changed) :-)

[SvenVR73]

This makes counting the days even harder. Doing B2B cruise in less than 3 weeks.

 

Really looking forward to our time on the Summit. ( had great experiences as well on silhouette, constellation and millennium )

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

[DebbieMacG]

Great review thanks :)

[Kim in CA]

Thank you for your wonderful review! We will be embarking on our first Celebrity cruise in about 6 weeks, and it will be the St. Croix route on the Summit. I have been excited, but now even more so! :)

 

I look forward to reading your review of the ports of call on our itinerary.

 

Kim

[h20cruzer]

A breath of fresh air. Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts onto paper so to speak. Spirit airlines scares me, yikes, Loved all your comments about the ship.

Norma

[MaggieAtSea]

This review goes into the Hall of Fame for me… and I've been reading reviews for a very long time here! As another earlier poster put it, you have a gift for writing. Brava! I hope you will take the time to add here a post or two about your shore excursions.

 

As someone who has done both itineraries on the Summit, I think it is a real testament to YOU that I look forward to reading what your thoughts on it will be!

 

Only a month to go until we sail on her again… you have certainly whetted the appetite for it! Thank you.

[davekathy]

Vagabondage...thank you for taking us along on your Cruise. We are doing a B2B on the Summit March/April 2014. Can't wait. You've added to our excitment.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[Vagabondage]

Oh my, such nice comments from many of you -- I'm blushing!

 

WEEK ONE EXCURSIONS AND ACTIVITIES (Jan 18-25)

[Again, this is going to be awfully long, so please excuse my verbosity and read only what interests you. I’ll break it up into several postings.]

ST CROIX (Sunday): St. Croix is virtually dead on Sundays, other than the welcoming island band and traditional jumbie stiltwalkers and a few craft vendors’ tents set up in the attractive park at the pier. Like many passengers, we didn’t find the shore excursions irresistible. We had considered a snorkel trip to Buck Island but decided against it. One of our sons and his wife are marine biologists (d-i-l’s PhD is in tropical reef ecology) and divers, and we had heard sad reports on the state of the reef at Buck Island. [carolslc, I just read your report on your very good day there, so I’m delighted it worked out well for you!] An equal dissuader was Wuss Factor. Though I love to snorkel, I have a kind of phobia – OK, a MAJOR phobia -- about reef wall dropoffs and knew that the edge of the Buck Island reef suddenly drops off to 13,000 feet (!!). That’s amazing underwater topography and a magnet to many – our scuba diving sons would be all over it -- but I personally feel a lot more relaxed snorkeling in shallower, brightly lit tropical waters where you can see what’s coming toward you! I admit it, I’m a weenie. So instead we just ambled around Frederiksted for awhile, explored Fort Frederik and its museum, took a lot of photos, had a few nice chats with locals, hit Blue Moon café to use wifi, and went back to the ship early to chill by the pool. I’m Danish (my mom and family immigrated from DK, and I’ve visited many times), so it was interesting to me to see the mix of Danish and Caribbean character in the colonial-era buildings. Actually, St. Croix worked out just fine for us, as it was a lazy enough day that we could recharge our batteries after the previous day’s plane hassles. The pool was quite busy that day, so a lot of other passengers were doing the same.

 

ST. KITTS (Monday): Thenford Grey is The Man! We’d read so many glowing accounts of his island tour that we’d contacted him as soon as we booked the last-minute cruise. When I verified that he himself would be leading the tour that day and still had room for just 2 more, we jumped on it. So much has been written here on the board and TripAdvisor praising Thenford’s tours and engaging personality that I needn’t add a lot. Historic Brimstone Hill fortress is impressive and photogenic. Romney Manor’s gardens are lovely. Thenford is erudite on an amazing array of topics, but good-humored and never dry in his accounts, and he knows his St. Kitts’ flora. I wasn’t at all interested in Caribelle Batik there at Romney, as we’ve spent a lot of time in Indonesia and Malaysia seeing batik made in its birthplace and personally prefer the traditional SE Asian styles and dyes to the Caribbean ones. YMMV. But I was only too happy to spend the time wandering the gardens on my own and taking lots and lots of photos. Our next stop was Timothy Hill with its impressive overlook of the point where Atlantic and Caribbean are divided by only a narrow neck of land. It’s a popular stop and several guys rush at you as soon as you get off the bus, clamoring to sell you a photo with their small monkeys. We declined without hesitation as I always feel sorry for the monkeys who must spend their lives in this tedious way, but one cheeky guy put his monkey on my head anyway. (Monkey had a tiny paper napkin diaper, kinda funny.) We’ve had primates climb all over us before in other parts of the world, some of which I’ve enthusiastically welcomed the chance to interact with so closely, so I wasn’t bothered by this other than that it peeved me the owner hadn’t taken no for an answer. But I saw other tourists at the overlook who clearly wanted nothing to do with a monkey on their head – so be on guard if you fall into that category. At the end of the day Thenford gave our group the option to spend a bit of time at Cockleshell Beach, but most declined as the weather had grown gray and windy. All in all this was a great shore excursion and we all got a lot of insight into every aspect of St. Kitts life in Thenford’s comments as we drove around. A+.(**********************/The_Tour.html, $48@)

DOMINICA (Tuesday): As its motto proclaims, Dominica is The Nature Island, and there are numerous great outdoor adventures possible in that beautiful place, which is blessedly less developed than most islands we visited. The choices are so enticing, especially if you're treehuggers like we are. But the reality for me is that I’ve been reined in all my life by a congenital heart defect, compounded in the last two years by balance issues resulting from a seizure and painful, stiff joints from an autoimmune disorder. (Sheesh, this sounds like I have one foot in the grave. I actually do quite a bit despite all this, but I have to pick and choose.) I really, really, really wanted to snorkel Champagne Reef, swim Titou Gorge and clamber into the thermal pools at the base of Trafalgar Falls, but I knew my limits. I envy all of you who’ve done it! Anyway, we had decided instead on a visit to Papillote Wilderness Retreat to explore the gardens, soak in the thermal pools, and have a nice lunch of local fare. As it turned out, we had to skip even that, as my heart had been acting up since the middle of the night and my get up and go had gotten up and gone. I regretfully contacted Papillote and cancelled. Instead we spent a quiet day onboard reading by the pool and checking out the rollers in the T-pool (ahhh… could use them right now!), all of which was plenty enjoyable, but I don’t feel like we’ve really been to Dominica yet. Next time!

 

More to come...