Review: Reflection Western Caribbean March 28-April 4 (LONG)

[happyscmom]

March 28 – April 4

Aqua Class room 1654 (Deck 11)

 

This was our first cruise on Celebrity. My husband and I have both cruised Royal Caribbean and Carnival numerous times, but we decided to try a “luxury” cruise as this was for our 15th anniversary. We left our four kids at home and pre-booked as much as we could before we left.

I will begin by saying that prior to the cruise I was very frustrated with Celebrity. We booked Verandah with the 123 all-inclusive drink package at first. After the final payment we upgraded to Aqua. We were not able to get the added benefits of gratuities and on board credit despite numerous calls. That was a real frustration prior to boarding, but I kept hearing how great it would be on board. FYI – I met numerous cruisers who booked and upgraded after the final payment. ALL were given all benefits. ALL worked through a travel agent. It really confirmed my belief that you should never book directly through X.

 

Overall:

Before I launch into the day-by-day, here are the highlights. The ship is BEAUTIFUL. Seriously folks, it’s amazing. Every inch is clean, elegant, and amazing. I can’t imagine a prettier ship. The suspended tree in the atrium is amazing and cannot be described. Our room was fabulous. It felt very spacious, well organized, and luxurious. The bed was comfy, the balcony was roomy, and the bathroom was a dream. I had read some complaints about the shape of the end of the bed, but it wasn’t a problem at all. My husband is 6’4”, and he had plenty of room. The staff was hit and miss. Some staff members were awesome while others were downright indifferent (more later). The food….well, not so much. We ate in Blu mostly, and I was disappointed a good bit of the time. The food in Blu could be wonderful or tasteless. The atmosphere was beautiful but loud and always seemed crazy. Our waiter was WONDERFUL. The inside bars were AWESOME. We upgraded our package and really loved the Martini bar and the Molecular Bar. The pool bar was chaotic and the bartenders were often rude. The ports were wonderful (with the exception of a rainy day in Jamaica). Overall, the cruise was great and we will do Celebrity again, I hope. However, I expected to leave the cruise as a loyalist to X, and that did not happen. As always, I will cruise where I find the best deals.

(more to come w/ pics)

[FlorenceItaly]

Hi Virginia,

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us. I look forward to hearing more!

 

 

 

Marie

[happyscmom]

Pre-Cruise:

We flew into Miami International Airport from Atlanta on Friday, March 27 on Frontier airlines. We arrived about 7:00 pm and were to be picked up by the Holiday Inn Express bus at the airport. They took about an hour to arrive. It was pouring rain, and the hotel does not have a restaurant, so we ordered pizza from a takeout place and crashed about 10:30 pm. The hotel was fairly cheap for Miami ($230/night with tax) but it was fairly run down and dirty. You get what you pay for, I guess. The hotel did have transportation to the cruise port for $10/person through Doral transportation. That seemed like a great deal.

 

Day One:

We left on the hotel-arranged shuttle about 10:15 am and arrived at the cruise terminal around 10:45 am. Before leaving our home, we had received a few texts and emails stating that traffic would be bad due to the music festival, so we wanted to be proactive and get on the first shuttle. Plus, what were we going to do at a cruddy hotel? When we arrived at the port, we dropped the luggage on the curb, and were quickly were checked in (special Aqua line…nice). We were sent to wait in the Aqua waiting room. We sat there for all of 10 minutes before we were escorted on board. By 11:15 my husband and I were walking on the ship and sipping sparkling wine. We spent about 30 minutes walking around before hitting the pool bar. One very grumpy bar tender was working there. He was NOT friendly and we had to wait forever to get our first drink. My husband finally asked him if we had done something wrong. We left there and headed up to the Sunset Bar – VERY nice staff. I had a mojito or three. As soon as we sat down we met a lovely Canadian couple whom we sat and talked to for about an hour. Around 1:30 they announced the rooms were ready and we headed down to see the room. We were both surprised at how beautiful the view was from the balcony and how lovely and spacious the room was. Sitting in the room was the complementary sparkling wine, though we didn’t drink it because it wasn’t chilled. I thought that was a bit odd. We also met our room steward, Antonio. He was very good, but always seemed a little unhappy. Hubby and I hung out in the room for a few minutes and then set off exploring again before returning to the Sunset Bar for sailaway. We were supposed to meet some Cruise Critic folks there, but there were so many people that it didn’t happen. No worries, though; it was a beautiful sailaway. Around 5:00 we headed to the room to dress for dinner, then to the martini bar, which we thoroughly enjoyed, and then we hit the Molecular bar. We moved on to Blu for our first night of dinner at about 7:30. This turned out to be a BIG disappointment. Blu was so loud that we could barely even talk to each other. The food was also extremely overcooked and bland. The server we had was WONDERFUL and he noticed that neither of us seemed to like the food, and he brought us something from the MDR. It was better. After dinner we went to the show to hear the comedian. He was very funny and we really had fun there. After dinner we headed back to Molecular for another drink and then went to bed exhausted! Great first day!

 

Photo from ship of Miami before we left

 

Photo from our room looking onto our balcony

 

Sunset bar before sailaway

 

 

Mojioto on the lawn...delicious!

[happyscmom]

Day Two: Sea Day

 

Day two was the first day at sea. We had put out the card for a coffee delivery between 7:30 – 8:00, but they called to say coffee was on the way at 6:45. So, we woke up early and had some coffee. I decided to head to the gym for a quick workout. It was packed when I got there, but I was able to grab a treadmill. I was very impressed with the facilities of the gym. All of the equipment is new and working. The one thing that seemed odd was class times. For instance, I wanted to do a spin class on the first sea day, but it was offered at 3:30. Uhhh….by 3:30, I planned to have had a few cocktails by the pool. Anyway, after the gym my husband and I headed to breakfast and to the pool. We were able to snag 2 chairs by the pool, but the chair hogs were out in FORCE. There were many people out there with 5 – 10 chairs saved but no one there. About an hour after we arrived, I noticed a worker putting notes on chairs about not holding chairs, but they never actually removed towels.

 

We stayed at the pool until late afternoon, ate veggie burgers (DELICIOUS) at the Mast Grill, and then headed for the room for a late nap.

Day Two is the formal night, so we got dressed up and headed to the Martini Bar around 5:00. I was so pleased to see just about everyone dressed up. I would say 70% of men had on suits and 30% had on tuxes, but everyone seemed to take the formal night seriously. We left the Martini Bar and went to the Molecular Bar, and there we met a very nice couple with whom we spent a lot of time with after that. I LOVE that about crusing. About 7:30 we headed to dinner at Blu, and once again the food was VERY disappointing. Again it was so loud that we could barely hear. While the staff there was wonderful, the space had no “atmosphere” and the food was bland.

After dinner we went to the show. It was the circ-de-sole type show, and it was very good. My husband and I were both really impressed. Following the show there was dancing at the Martini Bar with two DJs. It was a BLAST. The whole night was great fun.

 

Day Three: Cozumel

 

We woke up to a beautiful day on the Cozumel day. I started the day with a quick run around the top of the ship (beautiful), and we had breakfast in the Ocean View Café. After breakfast we had to hurry to dress for our excursion. We had booked “Salsa Salsa Margarita” through Celebrity. Walking to the meeting point for this excursion was a beautiful walk over the water. We got into port, found our meeting place, checked in with about 20 minutes to spare, and walked around a bit. I thought it was so funny how several shops were selling antibiotics, etc. I have heard of this, but never seen it firsthand. We didn’t buy anything at the port, but it was a bit tempting.

 

The trip to the excursion involved being herded into a series of taxi vans. I’ve never had an excursion like that (usually it is a bus), but the trip was quick and interesting. The excursion is held at a pretty resort, and we arrived and were seated on a beautiful covered deck overlooking the ocean. Each table was set up with ingredients for making salsa and margaritas. As soon as we sat down, the margaritas began to flow. They were pretty weak, but they were yummy! We learned how to make 2 types of margaritas, 6 types of salsa, and how to salsa dance. The excursion was SO MUCH FUN, and we met lots of nice folks. Honestly, this is one of my favorite excursions that I have ever done, and certainly not like any other.

 

Table set up at Salsa, Salsa, Margarita

 

All dressed in the silly attire! LOVE IT!

 

After the excursion we headed back to the Reflection. We ate a little lunch and spent some time by the pool. The day was absolutely beautiful, and the pool was busy but not overly crowded like the day before (THANK GOODNESS). After a bit we headed to the room to rest and change for the night. We headed down to trivia (fun, but we didn’t win), and then to the Martini Bar followed by the Molecular Bar.

 

Lucky Cat - My favorite in the Molecular Bar

 

We finally headed to dinner at Blu at about 8:00. Dinner that night was PAINFULLY slow and crazy. We sat FOREVER waiting on food, never got water refilled, and never got drinks. We were both very frustrated and didn’t get out of there until 9:45. It was impossible to be mad, though, because our servers were working so hard and seemed stretched so thin. I really think Blu needs more servers or a better system, because they often seemed stretched to the edge but the dining room was never full.

After dinner we were so tired that we hung out for just a bit and then went to bed. Overall, great day in COZUMEL.

[happyscmom]

Day Four: Grand Caymen

 

The arrival to Grand Caymen was later than our arrival to Cozumel, so we woke up to a beautiful morning sailing in. Though we had put out the tag to have coffee delivered by room service, they never showed (disappointing), and so we went to breakfast in Blu and hung out a bit. Breakfast in Blu was wonderful. The difference between dinner and breakfast was amazing. I had fresh berries, an egg white veggie omelet, and an English muffin.

 

After breakfast we headed down to the future cruise bookings with the intension of booking a Bermuda cruise for 2016. We sat down, and honestly, we seemed to annoy the lady with our presence. We told her what we wanted, she quoted the price for Aqua, I asked her the price for Concierge, she gave that, but she NEVER said a word that wasn’t asked. She didn’t seem to want to sell it, and she seemed annoyed with questions. We left with the quote, but we never booked the cruise. When we got home we booked our next cruise, but with NCL. A friendly salesperson would have made the difference in that situation.

 

After that we went back to the room. I decided to scroll through and look at my account on the TV, just to make sure there were no surprises. To my SHOCK there was a charge for $255. I had no idea what it was for, so I called customer service to ask. She looked and said she didn’t know, but she would call me back. Thirty minutes later….no call.

 

Since we were heading out to an excursion, I walked down to customer service to get it cleared up. I stood in line for 30 minutes only to be told that it was for a cabana that I had booked (NOT) in Labadee. I explained that we had not booked it, and the customer service agent was super rude and explained that we had. Finally he said that he couldn’t help me and that I would have to talk to excursions. I turned around to see a VERY long line and one man working it. I said, “You are telling me that I have to wait another 30 minutes or so in that line for your mistake?” He said, “Yes, I am.” I almost had steam coming out of my ears. When I got to the other line a woman came up to me, said she had seen the interaction, and nicely apologized. She said she would handle it and call me in the room in 10 minutes. I went back to the room, waited about 30 minutes, and then headed back downstairs. By this time, we were about 30 minutes away from needing to leave for our excursion. I was slightly panicked. The guy at the excursions desk said he didn’t know if he could help me (?), but he would email the person in charge and to go ahead and go on my trip. We returned from the excursion to NO resolution and more phone calls before they finally removed the charge. Let’s just say, I was NOT impressed with customer service that day.

 

Tendering in Grand Caymen

 

HOWEVER, I was impressed with the excursion. We booked the Sail and Snorkel trip with Celebrity. Because it was a tender port, we all took the same tender and then loaded on to buses. The excursion had a lot of people, but the catamaran was so big and beautiful that it never felt crowded. We got on the boat and sailed out to the first snorkel location over the sunken Kittiwake submarine. The water was amazing, the location was beautiful, and the experience could not have been better. We then headed to a second location over a large area of coral reefs. The snorkeling was AMAZING…only paralleled by snorkeling in Hawaii. After snorkeling we got back on the boat to sail back. The ad for the excursion said, “Enjoy a rum punch after you snorkel.” It didn’t say that they were $11/each! My husband and I each had one, but next time I would skip that. No need.

 

Snorkel view.....so nice

 

After the excursion we headed back to the boat in time to get dressed for trivia, bars, and dinner. Trivia that night was HISTORY. My husband is a history teacher, so we thought it would be fun. It was, but their definition of history also included things that were not real. We left trivia and headed to the Molecular bar. This night was our only night of specialty dining. So at 8:00 we headed to Qsine. I must say, the novelty was very cool, but I didn’t LOVE this restaurant. Our server was excellent and the food was good, but nothing was great! Still, the experience was fun and I ate WAY too much. After dinner it was late and I was exhausted and ready for sleep.

[happyscmom]

Day Five: Jamaica

 

This was our first trip to Jamaica, and unfortunately it was probably not a great first because of the weather. The morning started off with nice weather. We had a nice breakfast in Blu, hung out a bit and watched the boat pull into port. We did not book an excursion through X, and instead we had booked an all-inclusive beach day at Jewel Dunn’s River hotel. Getting to the hotel was a bit of a nightmare. The port is crazy and finding the person who was to take us was tough. We spent about 45 minutes waiting with a large group of people. NOT FUN. Having done this once, I think THIS IS THE PORT to book through the ship. AVOID the craziness, folks!

 

We set off to the resort, which was beautiful, but we only got to enjoy it for about 30 minutes before it started to rain. We squeezed ourselves under the bar and tried to avoid the rain while having a few delicious cocktails. About 12 the rain subsided so we went to grab some lunch from the grill. Just as we sat down the eat it the rain hit again. LOTS and LOTS of rain. Finally, at 1:30, we had enough of trying to avoid the rain and headed to the lobby to try to get a bus back. We got back to the ship around 2:15. The day at the beach was a bust! Waste of money…but no one’s fault. It could have been great in good weather.

 

Beautiful resort beach when we arrived. Lots of people and watching the storm head in.

 

At the ship I went to the PACKED gym, and we tried to go to the Aqua Spa to sit in the heated chairs, etc., but it was too packed. We rested a bit before getting dressed for dinner and heading to the bars. We headed to Blu for dinner around 8:00. The food was slightly better (it improved nightly), but it was still a bit loud and crazy.

 

Day 6: Labadee

The night before Labadee, a couple we met invited us to spend the day with them in their cabana. I wasn’t sure about this because I knew that they had paid SO MUCH, but they insisted. When we woke up on Day 6 we went to breakfast and were pleasantly surprised to see it was a beautiful day. When we returned from breakfast we had a message from the couple telling us to meet them at the end of the dock to head to the cabana, and they had added us to “the list.”

 

We met our new friends and headed to the cabana, where we spent the day. I must say, WOWsers! Labadee is absolutely amazing. The beach is pristine and beautiful, the food was nice, the servers were great. Speaking of the cabana, we were in one that was on a hill on the beach for suite guests. It was unreal gorgeous. At $255/day, I am not sure that we could ever swing it, but it is totally worth it if you can. It was just a beautiful day.

 

Beautiful Labadee looking back at the amazing Reflection

 

The view from the cabana

 

We left the cabana at 3:30 and headed back to the ship to shower, change, and rest. It’s amazing how much SITTING in a cabana and floating in a beautiful ocean can exhaust a person. That night was formal night 2, so, once again, we got dressed up and headed to the Martini Bar.

Again, I was very happy to see that everyone was dressed for the event. At the martini bar I had a few of my new favorite drink (Lemon Drop), and then we headed to the Molecular Bar before going to dinner at 8:00. Dinner in Blu on the second formal night was pretty good. The crab cake appetizer was the best thing I had on the ship all week. The lobster was tough, but it was ok. The cheesecake dessert was WONDERFUL. We didn’t get to sit with our waiter though, it was too busy, so the service was not quite as great.

[happyscmom]

Day 7: At Sea

 

The last sea day was an interesting one. The daily had about a million things in it that we wanted to do, which prevented us from going right to the pool deck….MISTAKE. We started the day with breakfast in the Ocean View Café. I must say, that throughout the week I was impressed with that space. The food was always good, plentiful, and organized. After breakfast we went to see the Top Chef show. Four contestants competed to be Top Chef. The show was fun and a great way to spend some time. There as a “sale” going on in the shopping area, and we needed to get gifts for our kids, so we headed from the show to wait in line to buy gifts. It was CRAZY. People push and shoved and acted like they would never be able to buy a Celebrity T-shirt again. A lot of what was being sold was odd (ie- t-shirts for places the cruise had not been), but we managed to get a small gift for each of our four kids. We then went to a morning trivia. It was supposed to be 80s music trivia, but they changed it to 90s (boo hiss). My husband and I did horribly and realized that we know very little about boy bands and hip hop from the 1990s. After trivia and walking around we FINALLY got into Aqua Spa for some time in the saunas and heated loungers. I had read a lot about them, so I was excited. I enjoyed the loungers, but the saunas are just not for me. Overall, this space is probably a feature I would never use again. It’s nice, but I just can’t sit that still.

 

We left Aqua Spa and went to lunch and then changed to go to the pool. Lunch on the last day was supposed to be a special lunch. They had an ice sculpture and about a million desserts, but the rest of the food was the same. It was pretty, but I wasn’t overly impressed.

 

Ice sculpture & special desserts

 

Going to the pool after lunch…. Ha! Joke of all jokes. There were no chairs AT ALL. We went up to the Mast Bar and Sunset Bar, but both have smoking areas, and the smoke really bothers me. By the time we finished walking around, trying to find a spot, having a drink, etc. we decided it was nap time. When we got to the room I sat on the balcony while my husband slept. By that time they had also come to lock up our mini-bar, which meant that our stuff from inside it (our wine from day one) was left out. We never even drank it!

 

After our rest, I packed up our room to get things ready to leave outside that evening. We then showered, got dressed, and headed out for our last night at the beautiful Reflection bars. We started at Martini and headed to Molecular, as usual, and then decided to see the comedian. The start of his show was SO funny, but then it just got silly. We left after about 45 minutes, which was good timing because we were able to get to Blu before the show got out. The last night we were joined in Blu by our friends from the cabana. That made dinner really fun. We had the best meal of our cruise on the last night (cheese gnocci), and we realized how much we would miss the whole experience.

 

When we left dinner I headed back to the room to drag our stuff out into the hall, and realized that I had forgotten to tip our waiter at dinner. I ran back down to find him and tip him. Even though tips were automatically added, I brought cash to tip throughout the trip. I started out tipping servers a dollar or two with drinks, but then realized that some were just rude, so I was going to save it to the end and tip those that were really good. By far our best was the Blu waiter, so I gave him the majority of my tip money!

 

Day 8: Heading Home

 

When we woke up Sunday morning, I was overwhelmingly sad about leaving. Even though Blu was open for breakfast, we decided just to head up to Oceanview for a last breakfast. It was packed and crazy, so we quickly ate and headed back to the room. We had to be at our departure point in the terminal at 8:10. We got there at 8:00, sat down for 10 minutes, and then were called out. We had bags in hand and were through security and waiting for our shuttle by 8:15.

 

We booked Doral shuttles for a trip back to the airport when they took us to the ship. MISTAKE. They took over an hour to pick us up despite the fact that I called as we were walking off the ship. At one point, after waiting about 45 minutes, a Doral shuttle came but wouldn’t take us because they said they weren’t there for us. It was annoying. It didn’t matter with our flight, though, because we weren’t leaving until 1:40.

 

We got to the airport, had a long but uneventful wait, and headed out of town on Frontier airlines. As usual, I cried at the end of my wonderful vacation. Despite any complaints in this long review, overall we had a blast. I think X needs to work on customer service, but you can’t beat the trip for destination, ship, and bars. Awesome time!

 

 

ONE more look at the tree.....

[CanadianDee]

Great review, thanks! Our next trip is on the Reflection and I very much appreciated the detail in your review.

 

I'm quite surprised at how many people aren't crazy about Blu because of ambience, food, or both. Good to know.

[Bimmer09]

Thanks for the excellent read and the stellar photos.

Sorry to read about the various customer service issues and disappointments but happy to hear they didn't spoil your cruise.

Rude bar waiters? Oh I can't wait to meet some of those. No excuse for that.

 

I haven't sailed X yet but have a cruise booked on Silhouette next year.

 

Norris

[harrywpb]

Thanks for a great write up. We'll be on the 10/23 TA . I realize you ate in Blu but I've been hearing horror stories about the main dinning room . We're select and have been told that reservations are limited to 5:30 or 9:30.

Can you comment on that from your experience while aboard ?

Thanks

Harry

[xRoadWarrior]

What a great report! We were on the March 7 Eastern Caribbean in Aqua class. Our experience was very similar to yours, especially the craziness in Blu and poor service at the pool bar. We had pre-booked an Eastern Med on the Connie for this summer in a Veranda and am glad we did as we have no desire to do Aqua again.

 

One difference was we did enjoy our Murano and Tuscan Grille dinners which were far more civilized and food significantly better than the Blu "experience".

[miched]

We have sailed in AQ on other Celebrity ships and found that Blu on the Reflection was too congested. The Reflection added more AQ cabins and kept the size of Blu the same. To accomodate the extra passengers they crammed more tables into the area and it does lose the atmoshere that is on the other ships. It does get and is very noisy. The food in Blu is the same however and if you didn't enjoy it then Blu is not for you.

 

With the bev pack that bottle of champagne is useless and we always end up packing it.

 

Reading your review if you ever cruise on Celebrity again a regular balcony may suit you unless they offer the all in promo for CC cabins and above so then it would be worth booking a CC or if the price is close another AQ cabin on a different ship jaunt to compare.

 

The suite section on NCL with the private area that includes drinks, meals and pool looks appealing.

 

happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌞

[happyscmom]

What a great report! We were on the March 7 Eastern Caribbean in Aqua class. Our experience was very similar to yours, especially the craziness in Blu and poor service at the pool bar. We had pre-booked an Eastern Med on the Connie for this summer in a Veranda and am glad we did as we have no desire to do Aqua again.

 

One difference was we did enjoy our Murano and Tuscan Grille dinners which were far more civilized and food significantly better than the Blu "experience".

 

If I had it to do over again, I would try Murano. It did look wonderful! They had a lunch package on the last sea day, and I wish we had tried that.

[Iamthesea]

FYI – I met numerous cruisers who booked and upgraded after the final payment. ALL were given all benefits. ALL worked through a travel agent. It really confirmed my belief that you should never book directly through X.

 

 

You forgot about us. We booked directly with Celebrity - regular veranda and received the 1-2-3 Beverage package. Then Upgraded to a Concierge before final and received the extra benefits. Then after final, we upgraded to a Suite and kept everything. ;)

 

We were supposed to meet some Cruise Critic folks there, but there were so many people that it didn’t happen.

 

We were there, too. Never found a beaded group and then I quit looking.

 

We upgraded our package and really loved the Martini bar

Following the show there was dancing at the Martini Bar with two DJs. It was a BLAST. The whole night was great fun.

 

I cannot believe that we never met. We were there in the Martini Bar area all nights.:D

 

before hitting the pool bar. One very grumpy bar tender was working there. He was NOT friendly and we had to wait forever to get our first drink. My husband finally asked him if we had done something wrong.

 

If it is the same BIG guy that we encountered, you are right on about his grumpiness. Also, the little woman behind that bar. They were both indifferent and never looked us in the eye. Therefore, they never received an extra tip. Most of the time, we just found a friendly bar server around the deck areas to get us a drink.

 

I had a mojito or three.

 

I had my first Mojito this trip and have to say that I have a new favorite. :) I meant to try the Lemon Drop.

 

turned out to be a BIG disappointment. Blu was so loud that we could barely even talk to each other. The food was also extremely overcooked and bland.

 

I am so sorry for your bad AQ experience...especially after you upgraded for that experience. I hope that was just a fluke on the food and service. Having said that, the room can get loud when there are large groups present. We enjoy Blu much better on the Constellation class of ships (xRoadWarrior, you may be sorry you downgraded. Not only because of Blu, but also the newer AQ staterooms.) as the service and food have always been close to excellent! We have also enjoyed Blu on the Equinox. Now I am anxious to see how things go on the Eclipse this Fall. Although we did not eat dinner in Blu this cruise, breakfast was excellent!

 

Oh, and to your experience with room service, I have to wonder if your stateroom was getting pranked by the many teens onboard our ship. Stealing/changing times on RS tags, ringing doorbells, etc. We never put out a RS tag and instead ordered on the Interactive TV. Never had a problem with our food showing up at the correct time. Mysterious doorbell ringing...YES!

 

Salsa, Salsa, Margarita

 

Thanks for the review on this excursion. It's the first that I have read. Sounds like something to look into if we are ever sailing back to Cozumel. We shopped this time, but my girls would have loved this!

 

To my SHOCK there was a charge for $255...only to be told that it was for a cabana that I had booked (NOT) in Labadee.

 

That explains the empty cabana on Labadee that we tried to book. :eek: Our Suite attendant on Labadee kept saying that it was booked and that the occupants would show up later. We were on the private beach for the entire day and no one ever came to claim it. We were at first mad that they would not rent it to us (the sun was very hot), but our attendant ended up finding us a perfect shady spot. For a $20 dollar tip, we had drink service, floats, and were within close proximity to the upgraded BBQ. We saved the money ($255) to boot!

 

In defense of the pursers desk, although there is no excuse for being rude, they really had no way to rectify the wrong charge as the cabanas are booked through Excursions either onboard or online. Obviously since the charge was on your bill, the cabana was booked by someone onboard and then billed to the wrong room.

 

See photo below that I took from the beach looking up at the cabanas. ;) In your photo, I think I see my daughter out on her float (last float to the left side. Had on a 2 piece black suit and a straw hat with black band.)

 

Going to the pool after lunch…. Ha! Joke of all jokes. There were no chairs AT ALL.

 

Wish you had come all the way forward at the bow on the Lawn deck. There were plenty of chairs there and where we spent the last day. The youth group were playing basketball for a little while until someone got hurt. Then there were a few stranglers shooting hoops, but for the most part, it was peaceful watching the ship make headway.

 

Again, this is a very nice and thorough review. Glad that you had a good time. ;)

Edited April 15, 2015 by Iamthesea