First X Cruise:SILHOUETTE JAN 17 2016

[Bimmer09]

Norris...you really should be doing this type of review in a professional venue. I would pay to have this type of valuable visual information prior to choosing a sailing. I was a travel consultant for over 30 years and composed and read a huge number of reviews. You are in a class all by yourself.

 

Nashna, you have just made the 1,000 th Post

CONGRATULATIONS!!

 

YOU'VE WON A CRUISE TO THE BAHAMAS!!

 

Actually I'm just giving you one of mine as I win one each week, apparently.

 

Thanks for the many kind compliments! I'm glad you found this and clicked on it not knowing what lay ahead.

 

I look forward to my next review-whenever and whatever that will be.

 

Cheers,

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Norris-check out The Lago Mar in Ft Lauderdale. We love it there. Sadly no king crab legs for Carol though.

 

Will check it out on my second home-TripAdvisor.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Norris,

 

I have loved following your review each day, the pictures are wonderful and it sometimes felt as if you were taking us all with you. We will be on the Silhouette for the first time in August for the British Isles. I am looking forward to the lawn club and wondering if it will be to cold for an alcove.

 

It sounds as though you both had a great trip and I really look forward to your comparison with Princess. Now I will go back and read your past reviews!

 

Thanks for a great read

 

Jane

 

Jane you are welcome!

 

It should be pleasant in the UK in August. Maybe 70s. I'd like to do a British Isles cruise someday. I spent 33 years living in the UK but except for the ports I used to visit on my dad's ship (Liverpool, Preston, Herculaneum for example and of course Belfast, Larne and Londonderry) there's much of Britain I haven't seen from the sea. I just remembered Dover, Harwich and Portsmouth (ferries from Europe)

 

I'm envious and on such a stellar ship too!

 

Thanks for reading my schtick!

 

Norris

[G&Gcruisers]

That's a Christmas Song...I Saw Three Ships.

 

Totally agree with post 1000. Your reviews and photos are the best. I follow several "live" posters but find your most entertaining and informative.

 

One more comment...I would never describe Princess decor as "gaudy", quite the opposit. That poster needs to back up that statement. I love the amount of teak wood still found on PCL. Sadly some ships are using vinyl railings instead of wood.

Margie

[Bimmer09]

That's a Christmas Song...I Saw Three Ships.

 

Totally agree with post 1000. Your reviews and photos are the best. I follow several "live" posters but find your most entertaining and informative.

 

One more comment...I would never describe Princess decor as "gaudy", quite the opposit. That poster needs to back up that statement. I love the amount of teak wood still found on PCL. Sadly some ships are using vinyl railings instead of wood.

Margie

 

Thank you Margie for your endorsement! I'm glad you enjoy my reviews.

 

I too like the use of wood on Princess. Teak balcony furniture rocks!

 

Cheers!

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

I have pushed the boat out on my comparison review, over on the Princess Board. May the Lord have mercy upon me. This will be a long one and I have to be prepared for anything.

 

Here's the URL for those interested

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=49122941#post49122941

 

Norris

[british lady]

Hi Norris, is Herculaneum a port north or south UK?:D

[ar1950]

 

Our food came-first my crab cake

..........................................

I search for the crab but if you watch Deadliest Catch you'll know that finding crab isn't that easy sometimes. The stuffing was ok though.

..........................................

 

Had to chuckle when I read that. When we did our Alaska cruise on the Ruby Princess this last August they had a crab cake appetizer that was inspired by some famous seafood restaurant in Alaska. Unfortunately the inspiration didn't seem to include any crab that we could find. :(

 

BTW, I thought it was safe to mention this here since you are using the Ruby for your Princess/Celebrity comparison.

 

And thanks again for the in-depth review and great photos.

[lor74]

Just posted in your Princess thread...saying hi over here so this one will show up in the participated tab....reading material for tomorrow [emoji3] thanks [emoji106]🏻

[Bimmer09]

Hi Norris, is Herculaneum a port north or south UK?:D

 

In Wales on the North Coast if I recall correctly.

 

Norris

 

[perfect match]

Norris, thank you for sharing this wonderful review with all of us. I have enjoyed every minute I've spent reading it. I am now off to the Princess board to read your comparison.

[Bimmer09]

Norris, thank you for sharing this wonderful review with all of us. I have enjoyed every minute I've spent reading it. I am now off to the Princess board to read your comparison.

 

Thanks Nancy! It's always great to have you along.

 

I'll be finishing this and trying to write the comparison today.

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

The hotel is all about that beach

 

 

Stairway down to the pools and beach level. There's also an elevator.

 

 

 

There's a large gym on the lobby level

 

 

 

The hotel, as well as having a Starbucks also has a Fedex office and that's where you can print out your boarding pass for free. It also has a conference room which is why you'll see people walking around with name tags in business suits.

 

It has served us well. The beach is a great place to relax with a fruity drink while watching the ships sail out of the harbor.

[Bimmer09]

Once Carol was up and about we met at Riva for breakfast where we fueled up for the traveling day ahead.

 

Carol's granola

 

 

I think that was the Lumberjack portion

 

My new favorite breakfast dish-eggs with churasco (rolled skirt steak with chimichurri)

 

 

Carol's Blueberry pancakes

 

 

Now all we have to do is pack and get out of here by 10 a.m

 

Norris

[clutchcurrier]

Good Morning, Norris,

Finally able to come out of "lurk doom" and send you a note on how much I have enjoyed your X review. Since we have only sailed on Princess, I was very interested in your review on Celebrity. Loved the Emerald review. We sailed on her 2 years ago to the Caribbean. We are on the Royal in November. We really did not want to be on such a large ship, but since it is a milestone anniversary for us and we love the Caribbean, we booked her. Perhaps I will do a review, maybe even with pictures. Probably not a wonderful as yours.

 

Looking forward to reading your Princess and Celebrity comparison.

 

Linda

[Elevatorman]

Good Morning Norris , I am Mrs. Elevatorman, we have enjoyed 43 cruises, all had their ups and downs. We have sailed Princess 18 times including Royal and Regal, (Emerald is my favorite excluding the buffet area) DH loves the smoking area at the bar above the pool. I love the pool area.

We also sail RCCL, Celebrity, and NCL. We had 1 cruise on Carnival .

While we consider Princess our home base, the Silhouette has stolen our hearts. We will be sailing on her this March for the 4th time.

Thank you for your review and I look forward to your comparison on the Princess board.

[Bimmer09]

We get these bottles of water for "free" , as we are charged a daily resort fee ($25?) for the pools, 2 cocktails and beach loungers/umbrellas otherwise these mini sips cost $3.50. Ha! ROFL! That's like airport pricing. They will come in handy during the taxi ride to the airport.

 

 

The ride to the airport took about 25 minutes and cost $20 with tip. As always we do curbside check-in to avoid lines. I tip the United guy $7 so our luggage doesn't end up in Kuala Lumpur.

 

We have TSA Pre tickets and so go to that short line to get through security.

That's normally a dawdle but here in FLL the TSA line feeds into the other lines as there is no one manning the TSA Pre conveyor belt. It's a scrum and a lady is yelling to tell us to take our laptops out. Rats! Mine is at the bottom of my carry-on. I unbury it. We don't have to take shoes and belts off though which is good.

 

Once through security we press on to the Untied Club, seeking Sanctuary.

 

"We're full up come back later" said the lady behind the counter. (We fly the Friendly Skies)

How about those two empty chairs over there? I ask

"Those are for people standing in the main lounge."

But there's no one sitting in them now, said I as the strains of the Twilight Zone theme began to play above my head.

"We're full- come back later!"

 

We slink outside and take a seat across the way. I count the number of people coming out and going in. When the former exceeds the latter (took 5 minutes) I went back in. The two armchairs were still empty and I meant to have them so I called Carol over. This time the lady said we could go in and see if there are any seats in the main lounge. There were 9 empty chairs there after we took our seats. Yeesh, lady!

 

In time we head to our gate, picking up sandwiches for the 3 hour flight.

 

We board in group two. Our names are on the upgrade list for First Class (miles plus $$). We get seated in Economy Plus.

 

When the doors are closed a Flight attendant comes over to me and hands me a ticket-no words. I thought I must have dropped it on the floor. I look at it and it's a First Class ticket. I ask Carol if she wants it but she's gonna nap and tells me to take it. I do.

 

 

Lunch was served

 

 

We landed in a cold place with no palm trees nor sparkling blue sea.

 

We were excited though to see our cat Little Snowy again and she us. We had daily emails with photos from our cat-sitting service and the photos were always the same-a tail hanging out of the bed box spring. She's shy around strangers.

 

I began this review ten minutes after settling in again. I had to start with the memories fresh in my mind.

 

I want to thank all of the new people who responded to my first Celebrity review and to those who came over from the Princess board to check out the Silhouette.

The interest shown has kept me on the computer day after day to keep the narrative going. I want to thank my Sponsors; Peets Coffee and Philip Morris Inc for helping me through the process.

I HOPE TO SEE YOU ALL ON MY NEXT CELEBRITY REVIEW!

BYE FOR NOW

NORRIS

[Bimmer09]

Good Morning, Norris,

Finally able to come out of "lurk doom" and send you a note on how much I have enjoyed your X review. Since we have only sailed on Princess, I was very interested in your review on Celebrity. Loved the Emerald review. We sailed on her 2 years ago to the Caribbean. We are on the Royal in November. We really did not want to be on such a large ship, but since it is a milestone anniversary for us and we love the Caribbean, we booked her. Perhaps I will do a review, maybe even with pictures. Probably not a wonderful as yours.

 

Looking forward to reading your Princess and Celebrity comparison.

 

Linda

 

Linda, I am always pleased (chuffed as we might say in the UK) when someone steps out of lurkerdom! Welcome!

 

The more photo reviews on the boards the better IMO- a picture's worth a thousand words. So please do a review on the Royal when the time comes.

 

Thanks for following along and for the compliments on the review!

 

Norris

[Bimmer09]

Good Morning Norris , I am Mrs. Elevatorman, we have enjoyed 43 cruises, all had their ups and downs. We have sailed Princess 18 times including Royal and Regal, (Emerald is my favorite excluding the buffet area) DH loves the smoking area at the bar above the pool. I love the pool area.

We also sail RCCL, Celebrity, and NCL. We had 1 cruise on Carnival .

While we consider Princess our home base, the Silhouette has stolen our hearts. We will be sailing on her this March for the 4th time.

Thank you for your review and I look forward to your comparison on the Princess board.

 

Thank you for joining us and for reading along until the end!

 

43 cruises? Yikes! I'm so way behind.

 

I am not surprised that Silly stole your hearts.

 

See you on the Princess board!

 

Norris

[Jasperdo]

A BIG thank you for another outstanding review. You've made me interested in going on Celebrity again.

[Bimmer09]

A BIG thank you for another outstanding review. You've made me interested in going on Celebrity again.

 

Then my work is done!

 

cheers,

 

Norris

[jlf1]

Norris,

 

Once again thanks so much for a wonderful, entertaining and descriptive (those pictures are amazing) review.

 

Now I off to start reading your comparison.

 

I will also be waiting for your next review....whenever that happens.

 

Judy

[snowyboy]

Then my work is done!

 

cheers,

 

Norris

 

Enjoyed great read kept me on the edge of my seat, now looking forward to sailing again on Eclipse in 2 weeks time.

[5:00_Somewhere]

I just wanted to pop in and say a quick hello while we have a halfway decent internet connection. We are still aboard and docked in St. Maarten as I type this. Our experience has been just outstanding! We have loved virtually everything about this ship, its crew and the overall experience. The only negative is that the internet has been abysmal ... but that's sort of a blessing in disguise, as well, as it has prevented me from being bothered by work emails. ;)

 

So, just saying hi, and thank you again for all the information you shared which helped us a great deal in preparing for this cruise.

 

Best to all, and will post more once we're home. :)

[Bimmer09]

Norris,

 

Once again thanks so much for a wonderful, entertaining and descriptive (those pictures are amazing) review.

 

Now I off to start reading your comparison.

 

I will also be waiting for your next review....whenever that happens.

 

Judy

 

Judy I see you over on the Princess board now that I've pushed the boat out.

 

Glad you read this review. I had a lot of fun on the ship and in writing about it.

 

We haven't decided on a next cruise yet so as it stands it will be the Reflection in January.

 

Norris