First X Cruise:SILHOUETTE JAN 17 2016

[Bimmer09]

Calm sea but cloudy

 

 

But the clouds lifted and the deck chairs filled

 

 

 

 

I went to the amazing Oceanview Cafe where I found the Indian Food section and made off with a plate of goodies. I also took a couple of french fries for analysis.

Out to the seating on the open deck to join the other diners. Within a minute a bar waiter appeared to take my order. It didn't arrive until I was at the end of the meal but at least I had a drink to take up to the Lawn for that after lunch cigarette.

 

 

The French Fries analysis was that they were indeed yummy, had a nice crisp edge leading to pillowy soft potato nestled within and while I had been getting my grub I noticed some thin steaks and pork cutlets so I already knew what I was having for tomorrow's lunch! The food was excellent and piping hot.

Carol doesn't eat in Buffets unless we are in the Bellagio, Las Vegas. She would order from Room Service and eat on the balcony instead (and be very impressed!)

 

Relaxing at the Sunset Bar, facing the lawn is one of my best memories in a week full of them. I met some good people there, some smoking their cigars, which I personally love the smell of although I don't smoke them. People who have sailed more ships than I to places I have only dreamed of (e.g Buenos Aires to Valparaiso which is on my bucket list) -which reminds me I need a new bucket for when I am washing my car-note to self. People come and go and I do to.

I may be the only one though who gets up from a table saying "I have to go photograph a vase" LOL. Always on the move. I wish I could be in two places at once. We always come home saying- we never got to see X, Y and Z or eat in A BC or stop to listen to this band. So much is offered on the ships to stop anyone feeling bored. But then we have always been able to say- Next time as we cruise every 6 months.

 

I imagine we will search for a cruise if we don't get tickets from the Bayreuth Wagner Festival by January 31st-this Sunday. Carol thinks Baltic. But which ship?

 

I was deep in thought by the Lawn when one of the voices inside my head said "Go to the pool deck Norris and there thou shalt hear music that shall please"

 

I always follow advice like that.

 

I was not steered wrong because when I got down to the pool the excellent band FRONT ROW were just launching into one of my favorite pop songs ever-Don't Stop Believing by Journey which of course was originally sung by the golden pipes of Sir Steve Perry! It was their last song by the pool so I was lucky to catch any of it.

 

Hope you enjoy as much as I did. You'll note an audience member gets on stage and plays tambourine and the vocalist Christina turns on a mic for him. Nice.

 

 

Norris

[G&Gcruisers]

Norris,

I've been waiting for your Winter Cruise review. Glad to hear you are feeling better. Your Princess neighbors were all concerned. You seem like you are back to your old antics.

BTW, DH just happened to be watching his fav Sunday show "ships sailing out of Fort Lauderdale" and spotted the infamous towel wave from an aft balcony on the Silhouette. Was that Carol?

Looking forward to another Norris classic review.

Mj

[Bimmer09]

Norris,

I've been waiting for your Winter Cruise review. Glad to hear you are feeling better. Your Princess neighbors were all concerned. You seem like you are back to your old antics.

BTW, DH just happened to be watching his fav Sunday show "ships sailing out of Fort Lauderdale" and spotted the infamous towel wave from an aft balcony on the Silhouette. Was that Carol?

Looking forward to another Norris classic review.

Mj

 

Wait no more!! I am indeed back to my old antics and feeling great.

 

DH indeed saw Carol waving a white towel. I have been coaching her since our last cruise. Some Princess folks thought I was being too demanding when they saw the video of me telling her to "wave elegantly". My standards are high, I'll admit. I always think "how would Queen Elizabeth do it?" and work from there.

 

Cheers! and thanks for dropping in. Glad to see you aboard!

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

After the pool I went down to deck 5 for a cigarette

 

 

 

and from there returned to the cabin to nap.

 

 

 

It was Elegant Chic night and photographers were already doing portrait shoots

 

I had called our butler this morning at 9 a.m to tell him I had a bag of laundry to pick up - "Right away Sir!". It was still here while I napped and would be until 9 pm when Andrew the room steward stopped by to turn down. I gave it to him instead and he had it back to me next day.

 

While I am napping here's the video I shot from the GoPRo ( during sail away) which was facing at 90 degrees to the ship. You may actually hear me giving Carol her towel waving cue...

 

 

Norris

[mit429]

Our most recent home away from home. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are, indeed. You?

 

 

Yup! My BF, myself, and 2 of our good friends!

 

 

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[debbie2000]

I just found your thread last night & have enjoyed your pictures & posts. We will be sailing on the Silhouette, for the second time, in 15 Days. A great ship & following your posts will help us to get through this next two weeks!

[Bimmer09]

I just found your thread last night & have enjoyed your pictures & posts. We will be sailing on the Silhouette, for the second time, in 15 Days. A great ship & following your posts will help us to get through this next two weeks!

 

Debbie, welcome and thanks for reading along!

 

15 days will pass in a flash.

 

You will enjoy your cruise-that's not an order, just a fact.

 

Norris

[morbihan]

Really enjoying your adventure. I catch up every day.

 

Went to read your other trip from Rome and only just arrived in La Spezia. Page 30! Good job it is the weekend as another 23 pages to read.

 

We love Italy, especially Venice.

[azdmelani]

No immediate plans to go back to Alaska but that could always change on Jan 31 when we'll know whether or not we'll be going to Germany in August.

Carol just looked at a brochure we got today that had Baltic cruises in it. We had one booked for last August but switched it to the Rome/Barcelona one.

 

The ports and glaciers are the most important thing re Alaska. I don't think the ship matters so much as it's unlikely to be THE destination.

Princess and HAL really own Alaska and have access to Glacier Bay and their own wilderness resorts and chartered trains. If you are to look at Princess then I have opinions on their ships-the Coral is usually the first choice on the PCL board and rightly so. My favorite Princess-the Diamond was moved to Japan a couple of years ago (boo!! hiss!)

 

If thinking Baltic-and maybe starting in Southampton then read this review by one of my favorite reviewers/photographers Scubacruiserx2. He's on a Carnival ship

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1923693

 

I may have another one for you once I remember the writer's name-she had two Asian daughters....anyone know who I am talking about?

 

Thanks for joining in and for the kind comments!

 

Norris

 

Norris, I will be on the Diamond a month from Tuesday! I've been on the Sapphire but am curious to see how they have overhauled the ship for the Asian market (we are going from Auckland to Sydney).

[Bimmer09]

Tonight was Elegant Chic night and we were dressed not to the nines but to the eights. I didn't take my suit but a shirt and tie did the trick. Black pants and shoes. Carol dressed as she would on Formal Night-elegantly but with flip-flops from Versace.

 

The majority of those out and about in the central hub of the ship were well dressed and would have fit Formal Night expectations even though they now don't have to.

 

The Silhouette Theater had a balcony section roped off for suites but no one was having to fight to get a seat for the 7 pm show...

 

The majority come in around 6.58 and fill the room to maybe 70% capacity.

 

There was a curtain covering the band equipment which disappointed me as I said to Carol "If they just had that set of Ludwig drums and 3 Vox amps sitting there waiting it would give me the chills"

 

The show started with the Cruise Director Paul walking on stage with the Captain,

Emmanouil Alevropoulos and talking about Celebrity's new Marco Polo ad campaign. The crew and ship images came from the Silhouette.

The ad was played on a large screen above the stage

 

 

The crowd applauded when it ended. As a Brit when I first saw that ad I thought it poor as I didn't get that it was an X ad until I saw the shot of the Silly at the end. To me Marco Polo was an explorer and not a name on everyone's lips. To Carol, being from Florida, the pool game registered though as a game someone calling Marco and being answered Polo doesn't sound like a game that you wouldn't tire of-like Chess for instance.

 

We are here for the Beatles tribute band A Hard Day's Night and they come on and sing Beatles songs, dressed like the Beatles and imitiating their movements from 1964.

They are using modern drums and amplifiers and I inwardly BOO but then think how much it would cost to ship the Ludwig drums and Vox amps from ship to ship so I cut them some slack.

 

They sounded pretty good. John had the Rickenbacker 325 in Black and White and Paul had his Hoffner bass which he was playing left handed. George had a Gretsch guitar but in a color that I'd never seen him use. They were all good musicians and did a good job of recreating some of the best pop songs ever written but vocally they were shaky at times. Some songs were just too high for Paul who had to strain and some harmonies didn't hit the Beatles' high standard.

 

John Lennon did goof around in a very casual "I'm still in Hamburg" way, pulling faces and not taking the show too seriously until it came time to play and sing but this John was overdoing it, mugging like he needed psychiatric help or his medications. Less is more.

 

George did a great impersonation indeed and Paul handled all the announcements in a very convincing witty McCartney style. They have obviously watched a lot of Youtube footage (which I do too)

 

The sound and lighting from the ship's theater crew was impeccable. Loud and clear.

 

While the band changed clothes to represent each era of the Beatles, movies of the Bs and their fans from the 60's were played at the side of the stage.

 

 



 

 

More to follow

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Really enjoying your adventure. I catch up every day.

 

Went to read your other trip from Rome and only just arrived in La Spezia. Page 30! Good job it is the weekend as another 23 pages to read.

 

We love Italy, especially Venice.

 

Hi, thanks for coming by to say hello and thanks for reading and saying so.

 

I don't have any muffins baked yet as it's early.

 

We love Italy too. My Ocean Princess review starts in Venice (ends in Rome) so there are a lot of pics there you might enjoy. We stayed on the Grand Canal.

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Norris, I will be on the Diamond a month from Tuesday! I've been on the Sapphire but am curious to see how they have overhauled the ship for the Asian market (we are going from Auckland to Sydney).

 

Give her my love!

 

I know she has some fancy Japanese baths at the stern but never see a photo review from her.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

 

It was a good fun show and people were up dancing. Flash cameras aren't allowed but that's fine by me as I never use flash anyway. On Princess ships I have recorded entire shows on the camcorder but I stand way at the back to do that so the light from the view screen doesn't annoy anyone. Video taping is of course not encouraged. The show was about an hour long.

 

The band had less than an hour before dressing for their next show but 3 of them came out to deck 5 to have a smoke while we were there, without their Beatle wigs. I heard someone ask them if they were using backing tracks but of course they weren't and they said so. Carol congratulated them on a good show and I gave them a thumbs-up too as I am a man of few words (no, really).

 

We stayed out on deck for a while prior to our dinner in Murano

 

There surely can't be a better-lit ship at night that an S Class

 

 

 

We head to the aft elevators to descend to Murano on deck 5

 

 

I stop briefly on 12 to find the pool smoking section for future reference.

 

 

Next up- photos and video of our Murano dinner

 

Norris

[mit429]

I just found your thread last night & have enjoyed your pictures & posts. We will be sailing on the Silhouette, for the second time, in 15 Days. A great ship & following your posts will help us to get through this next two weeks!

 

 

14feb sailing?

 

Us too!

 

 

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[G&Gcruisers]

I would love to see a Beatles Tribute. I actually saw the Beatles in concert at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh in 1964. I use the term saw as we could not hear them with all the screaming. But, it was fun to be part of that history.

 

I would like a scone while I follow along today, please. Do you have any of the clotted cream left over from the Emerald?

 

Beautiful photos once again.

Mj

[mit429]

Norris, I have to say, I'm loving your review thus far. The pictures are bringing back some memories of my first time on an S-class ship, the Eclipse, two years ago, and getting me veryyyyy excited (I'm not sure that I could get any more excited) for our upcoming 14feb cruise on the Silhouette herself.

 

I'm curious to see what your final judgement is on the S-Class and X in general. I've never done Princess, only RCL, and NCL (which wasn't really for me). I'll have to go and check out your other reviews and maybe give Princess a shot in the near future.

 

I love taking pictures and am a huge ship nerd as well, but I've never gone out and done an in-depth review like this ... Maybe I should, but it looks like I have some steep competition!

 

 

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[cathep]

We've just booked the Silhouette for 2017 and I've been second guessing myself thinking we should have booked an NCL with all the water slides and ropes course. After reading this, I'm now convinced that we did the right thing with Celebrity. And you're only 2 days into it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Edited January 30, 2016 by cathep

[Bimmer09]

I would love to see a Beatles Tribute. I actually saw the Beatles in concert at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh in 1964. I use the term saw as we could not hear them with all the screaming. But, it was fun to be part of that history.

 

I would like a scone while I follow along today, please. Do you have any of the clotted cream left over from the Emerald?

 

Beautiful photos once again.

Mj

 

Hello again Mj,

 

Those scones on the Princess ships Afternoon Tea are sublime!

 

I was a Beatles fan even before Love me Do as a tv news show filmed a short clip of them in the Cavern (where they played 292 lunchtime gigs!)on August 22, 1962. I was a big Elvis fan prior to that.

 

My dad was a ship's Captain and docked in Liverpool regularly and brought me back a local paper called Mersey Beat which mentioned the Beatles. I sailed with him a few times as a kid and walked from the docks to find Ringo's home in Admiral Grove and just stared at it for a while (1963)

 

My pocket money was enough to buy the singles when they came out and I joined the fan club as soon as I heard about it and had all those floppy Xmas records with them goofing around. I had Beatles wallpaper, Cuban Heeled boots, the Lennon cap etc etc. I was and still am a fan.

 

Thanks for the response!

 

Norris

[travelling8]

I've been thoroughly enjoying your review ... and your sense of humour!

 

We will be on this ship at the end of February, our first on the Silhouette but not our first time with X. We love cruising X! I can't wait to see your comparison with Princess (we haven't tried that line yet because of the perks that we get with X and RC - Elite).

 

I'm looking forward to your review of Murano. It is one of our favourite restaurants and dine in it at least once every cruise. They have an amazing assortment of cheese that our waiter told us was worth over $2000 - in cheese alone! I do hope that you tried it!

 

My novel has been put aside and I will continue reading your review ...

 

Kim :)

[Bimmer09]

Norris, I have to say, I'm loving your review thus far. The pictures are bringing back some memories of my first time on an S-class ship, the Eclipse, two years ago, and getting me veryyyyy excited (I'm not sure that I could get any more excited) for our upcoming 14feb cruise on the Silhouette herself.

 

I'm curious to see what your final judgement is on the S-Class and X in general. I've never done Princess, only RCL, and NCL (which wasn't really for me). I'll have to go and check out your other reviews and maybe give Princess a shot in the near future.

 

I love taking pictures and am a huge ship nerd as well, but I've never gone out and done an in-depth review like this ... Maybe I should, but it looks like I have some steep competition!

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Thanks for responding!

 

If you love taking photos and are a huge ship nerd (ahoy there shipmate!) then this is THE ship to indulge yourself in. Certainly the most beautifully designed ship I have set foot on.

 

All you need to have to write a big review is (1) the desire to do so (2) a box of Wheeties-they really work!

 

It's a lot of sitting at the computer tapping and swearing.

 

My main reason for doing it is to have a day by day record of our vacation on line so we can avoid all the cruises bleeding together into a mental mush.

I also enjoy sharing with other people and I just like to write and always have done since I was in short pants. I had a computer stolen recently and the hard drive that I stored excess photos and videos on and went from having 31,000 photos to call on down to 7,000 readily accessible and I was really glad that I had a few thousand hosted on CC reviews. I have bought 2 Terabytes of Cloud storage since.

 

Although I will do a recap at the end of this review and then compare Princess to Celebrity sometime in February on the P board I think you can already see that I was enjoying the ship and the service onboard.

 

I'm not typically a whiner though and if I do complain I'll do so calmly and explain exactly why. Reviews that say the food "wasn't very good" need elaboration.

 

Feb 14th will be here before you know it! Enjoy a great cruise.

 

Norris

 

[Bimmer09]

I've been thoroughly enjoying your review ... and your sense of humour!

 

We will be on this ship at the end of February, our first on the Silhouette but not our first time with X. We love cruising X! I can't wait to see your comparison with Princess (we haven't tried that line yet because of the perks that we get with X and RC - Elite).

 

I'm looking forward to your review of Murano. It is one of our favourite restaurants and dine in it at least once every cruise. They have an amazing assortment of cheese that our waiter told us was worth over $2000 - in cheese alone! I do hope that you tried it!

 

My novel has been put aside and I will continue reading your review ...

 

Kim :)

 

Thanks Kim and thanks for the compliments !

 

I have just uploaded the Murano video to Youtube but will be gone for a few hours to see a live Opera Broadcast.

 

The video will be followed by photos. I'll try to get the video up before I go to the cinema.

 

I can say cheese was consumed and enjoyed.

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Here is the Murano video. I am always looking for waiters I can banter with and have a few laughs with over dinner. I found some in Murano. Walter who does the table side lobster and Roxanna who filets the Dover Sole. The witty Maitre 'd gets a cameo role too.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Norris, off to the Movies

[Bimmer09]

We've just booked the Silhouette for 2017 and I've been second guessing myself thinking we should have booked an NCL with all the water slides and ropes course. After reading this, I'm now convinced that we did the right thing with Celebrity. And you're only 2 days into it! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

 

You made the right choice!

 

 

Norris

[Eloise4Ever]

...when I got down to the pool the excellent band FRONT ROW were just launching into one of my favorite pop songs ever-Don't Stop Believing by Journey which of course was originally sung by the golden pipes of Sir Steve Perry! It was their last song by the pool so I was lucky to catch any of it.

 

Hope you enjoy as much as I did. You'll note an audience member gets on stage and plays tambourine and the vocalist Christina turns on a mic for him. Nice.

 

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Norris

 

Hi Norris, greetings from a fellow Irish (originally from Dublin, now living in Galway) person. I can hear on your videos that you have retained some of your Northern Irish lilt :).

 

I've just finished reading your review to date and was already enjoying it immensely when you absolutely made my day by posting the "Don't Stop Believing" video. It's a very special song to me so to have that pop up while I was happily reliving my Celebrity Solstice class experiences was a wonderful surprise. Thank you so much for your review, I am greatly looking forward to the rest of it.

 

Eloise

[bessinfl]

I love hearing about the Beatles show. (I have been a huge Beatles fan since I was 12, more than half a century ago, and saw them twice back in the day.)

 

I have to say that, although I love Celebrity, I have not been a fan of most of the production shows. (Sue me -- I'm a retired theater critic and have a lot of opinions.) My sailing mates and I have always preferred the lounge performers -- singers, string quartets, acoustic guitarists and the like.

 

But I would happily watch a Beatles act again and again. Equinox, 4/4/2016, I'm talking to you!

 

 

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