Celebrity Reflection 11-28-15 to 12-05-15 review

[govols1]

Some facts about us. Happily married. Have cruised 17 times but who is counting. We seem to cruise most on HAL as we enjoy classic ships. My DW loves the lower promenade for walking and I must say I also enjoy smoking a cigar on the back watching the wake of the ship. Plus late at night it's pretty deserted and she can power walk with no one in her path. We are both 53 and enjoy cruising as we feel it's the best value for our hard earned $$. This is our first time on Celebrity. They offered a $150 per person OBC plus the dates and price seemed to work for us.

 

We flew into MIA on the Friday after Thanksgiving as we have learned it's always best to fly into port the day before you cruise. Too stressful to travel on the same day as sailing.

 

We stayed at Hyatt Place airport east, which was basic, nice and close to airport and cruise port. A full breakfast was included. You could pay for shuttle to airport but we chose to arrive a day early to enjoy MIA. Went to total wine and Walmart for provisions and wine. Celebrity allows a bottle of wine per person.

 

We drove around the city and checked it out. Wanted to go to Joes Stone Crab but it was slammed. We ended up parking a block or so away and found a take-out seafood called My Ceviche and they had fresh stone crabs. Ending up getting a salad for my DW and three tacos for me and 1 pound of stone crabs to share. I think there were 7 or 8 claws nicely cracked for us. Dinner was $50.00 for all the above which I am sure was 1/4 of what Joes would have cost us. Highly recommend it.

 

Rented a car from National which worked well for us. Also included a free shuttle to the port which worked well. This was out first cruise on celebrity. I was not sure what to expect all around. When we arrived at the port for checkin, we entered the line about 12noon and there was a long line. Much different from HAL as once you were in line and made it through the maze and were checked in, you went right to the ship instead of going to another holding area which was nice. We had a balcony guarantee and ended up with a 2b category which I understand was a decent upgrade. We were assigned cabin 7144 which was forward. The balcony seemed smaller when we first arrived but in writing this review was more than adequate. The bathroom was reasonable and the shower seemed bigger than we had previously had. Our cabin stewards took good care of us. They serviced the cabin twice a day.

 

Our cruise was an eastern Caribbean cruise with three ports. After an on-time departure at 5pm on Saturday, we sailed to San Juan with a scheduled arrival on Monday at 330pm which essentially gave us two sea days before our arrival. We have been to all the islands on cruise several times previously so we had an idea of what we wanted to do. Our first sea day was nice with temperatures in the 70s but strong winds. It was challenging to read or eat on deck but we did manage ok. Day two was mostly a sea day. We stayed on ships time the entire cruise even though each port observed a time change. With a 330pm arrival that meant it was already 430pm in San Juan which also meant we only had two hours of daylight. Also lots of the stores in old San Juan closed at 5-6pm. We did what we always do in San Juan which is to walk old town. My DW had a short massage ($1.00/minute with a free sangria for me). We then went exploring and ended up back on the ship for dinner, we had the second seating which makes sense for us. We are not yet ready for dinner at 6pm. Still young at heart. We were scheduled to depart for st Thomas at 11pm. If I recall it's about 96 nautical miles which meant we only cruised at about 9 knots. We were the only ship in San Juan. That was not the case in out next two ports. Carnival Glory was moored next to us in st Thomas and the Oasis of the Seas was in sight but not docked where we were.

 

We had a two top--table 161 which was next to a couple from Toronto. We enjoyed getting to know them. Day three was scheduled for St. Thomas. We had never been to St. John so we elected to do a shore excursion taking a ferry to St. John with a tour of an old sugar cane plantation. After the tour we were dropped off at Trunks Bay which was a very beautiful beach. We spent about two hours on the beach. Took a taxi back to downtown St. John ($6.00 per person) where we had some lunch and shopped for a bit. Nothing impressive about the shopping there but I guess it's just something that you do. I'm a guy--we buy, we don't shop. After we boarded the ferry back to port we spent a few minutes checking out the few stores in the port area. We did not head downtown at we did not have anything on our shopping list. We heard the Megan's beach was closed due to storm damage which would have been where we headed had we not gone to St. John. It's a beautiful beach and reasonable to get a taxi there. We departed on time for out next port-- St. Maarten. It was also a short hop--~111 miles so we again went slow. About 9 knots.

 

We arrived at about 730am and were cleared to go ashore at 8am. There were 4 other ships in St. Maarten. Oasis of the seas, Celebrity Constellation, Thomson ??, Carnival Glory and some impressive private yachts. One was a $400 million yacht. Impressive does not give it justice. Having been here before we knew that a short walk into town would allow us to hop on the local busses. $2.00 per person to get to Maho beach, better know as airplane beach. We arrived about 1030am ship time which was 1130am local time. Just in time to see several jets land and one jet take off. We had been before so had seen them landing previously but it's still very impressive to see them land. What we had not experienced was a jet takeoff. WOW is about all I can say. I was positioned with gopro in hand ready to a video. My wife was on the beach chilling but what we did not realize was she was directly in the line of fire of the jet engines. She was not a very happy camper as she and everything that we brought with us was covered in sand. She yelled a few choice cuss words at me and said never again, which I understand. Advice. Don't be on the beach directly in line with the runway. You will be blown away. After spending a couple of hours on the beach we walked towards the casino to catch the bus back to town. Again another $2.00 per person. Make sure to allow about one hour getting back to the port as traffic is terrible. Once back in Phillipsburg we walked by the beach and had a couple of drinks before heading back to the ship. My wife had to work hard to get all the sand out of her hair and every part of her body that was exposed. We have eaten in the Opus dining room every night so decided to eat in the Oceanview cafe tonight as they had promoted an Elton John impressionist in the showroom. He was decent but not great. After the show we had a couple of drinks before heading back to the cabin.

 

Celebrity, and I am sure all the cruise lines, promote all-inclusive drink packages as it appeared there was lots of drinking taking place in all the bars and poolside. The premium package was $69.00 per person per day. Do the math to decide if it's worth it to you. If you like to drink all day and all night then it's a no brainer. We only drink at night so not worth it to me.

 

We ate breakfast every day in the Oceanview cafe. We enjoy sitting on the back deck and eating our breakfast and lunch when not ashore. Tonight is the last formal night in Celebrity history. They are moving to smart chic, whatever that is. I wear my tux when I cruise. No skin off my nose but the wife loves to dress up and makes me do the same. The cruise ends with two sea days. I seem to recall its 1086 nautical miles from St Maarten to MIA which means we cruise at about 20 knots. We have a specialty dinner scheduled for Friday.

 

Cruising seems to go way too fast. We look forward to longer cruises but will have to settle for 7-9 day cruises until we are blessed enough to retire when we will be able to see more of the world from a cruise ship!!!!

 

We were assigned group 4 (walking off the ship at about 730am) for debarkation and this was by far the quickest process of getting off the ship, claiming our bags and going through customs ever. It took all of about 15 minutes. A $27.00 taxi ride (flat rate) and we were checked in for our ride home. All good things must come to an end.

 

Overall I would rate our first Celebrity cruise as excellent. Now we just have to plan for our next cruise!

[tybeelucy2]

I was on the same cruise. We did eat at Joe's the night before. It was expensive- considering there was a 2.5 hour wait (which ended up being just under two hours) so we had some drinks and appetizers at the bar which added considerably to the tab :)

 

We enjoyed ourselves very much and booked our next cruise on board. We booked for the Caribbean next DEC but will likely change it to a sooner cruise, maybe Alaska. We did the package for $300 for classic and although we did drink quite a bit, I'm sure they came out ahead still once you figure out their cost for the liquor.

[CanadianDee]

Lovely, balanced review. Thank you!

[SAC69]

"Celebrity, and I am sure all the cruise lines, promote all-inclusive drink packages as it appeared there was lots of drinking taking place in all the bars and poolside. The premium package was $69.00 per person per day. Do the math to decide if it's worth it to you. If you like to drink all day and all night then it's a no brainer. We only drink at night so not worth it to me".

 

Thanks for your review, we sail in March. Just to clarify and comment on your drink package comment above, it's $76.70 per day including the 18% tip but does cover lots of items you may drink during the day aside from booze. Specialty coffees, all bottled water, smoothies, fresh juices, virgin frozen drinks, etc. That can easily make it worth while.:D