Summit Review - January 16 2016 - X newbie

[JohnBoy in NC]

Just off the Celebrity Summit…this was my first planned Celebrity cruise that I booked 2 years ago until I came across such a great deal on the Connie in December 2015....so technically not my first X cruise but this was a different experience with just my bride and I vs kids/friends. A 25 yr honeymoon cruise!

 

 

Quick Background

 

Mid-40’s - avid cruiser, love seeing new islands/destinations and experiencing different ships and cruise lines. Never have a bad cruise. Big Princess fan but always wanted to try Celebrity and scored a great deal a few years ago for this sailing. This trip was a complete surprise for my wife as we are celebrating 25 years in 2016. She only knew the dates of the trip and we were going on a boat, but that was it. She suspected we were sailing out of Florida on a 10 day cruise given the length of time we would be gone from home (staying in San Juan 2 days pre-cruise and 2 days post-cruise). She was very excited and had no clue when we checked our luggage at the airport that San Juan was our final destination. Plus I paid a few extra miles for first class – which made the trip a lot easier. In addition Citi had given me 2 Admiral’s Lounge passes a few months prior, so it worked out great for our 4 –hr layover in Miami.

 

 

Pre-Cruise

 

Stayed in Condado area in an airbnb condo, which was a great location but even on the 12th floor the road noise was an issue. I wanted to stay in the old city but St. Sebastian Festival was going on and SanSe drove the prices way up. We flew in Thursday late afternoon and decided to just hang around Condado and get our feet wet with San Juan, since we knew that Friday we would be at SanSe all day.

 

 

We took the public bus (stop right at our condo which was nice) for 0.75 each into Old San Juan around 11am. It was crowded (got heavier as the day wore on) but not that crowded – not shoulder to shoulder. We meandered throughout the whole city all day long, stopping at various food trucks, beer stands, bars, shops. It was great to hear music in various venues and open carry of drinks. The parade was really cool and enjoyable. Had a great fun time, nothing too crazy, albeit we left around 6:30pm since we were tired….so I am sure it gets a little wilder before midnight and beyond. We found a great Italian place in Condado and enjoyed the rest of the evening – me knowing that we were going to be on the Summit in the morning (my wife did not know we were sailing Celebrity).

 

 

Cruise - The Main Event

Arrived at the port around 10:30am and the line for security was pretty long. Once through the embarkation process was fast. I surprised my wife with Concierge room and the welcome bubbly was nice since the balcony was hot/direct sun. No fresh flowers but our room attendant Franco did get us a footstool since my wife is short. He also fetched us a nice linen cloth for our balcony table which we enjoyed the whole cruise. I wanted to treat this trip as a honeymoon of sorts, since our silver anniversary.

 

 

 

A key reason I like Celebrity and hope they never change this perk/option – allowing room service ordering of MDR food and extensive breakfast. We ordered MDR dinner EVERY night but one (last chic night where we dressed up in tux/dress) and breakfast every day possible. This allowed me to serve her while we enjoyed the scenery and sunsets every night. Yes I was also her bartender and the 8th floor allowed me to fetch two drinks from the mast bar easily. Another reason I love Celebrity – allowing me to grab 2 drinks (with both cards of course) and no signing receipts. Plus the drink package includes coffee- Café Al Bacio is so good!

 

 

 

Also one night I went up to grab some German food in the buffet and they had a few select premium German beers that I could get on the Classic package – so that was a nice small jesture. Never had a problem getting any cocktail made to fit Classic package. Yes I love my Maker’s Mark at times but house liquors worked too.

 

 

We had a great time, in fact this cruise was the first cruise where we really did almost nothing with ship activities, but that was my intention.

Anyhow we loved the room décor and setup, one of the nice rooms we have had. We only went to one show and it was great---an outside group from Canada – Acapella EH440 – they were fabulous and very entertaining—great vocals and energy---check them out on youtube. We saw the end of one early comedian show which is good, but that is it for ship activities for us this time. We did excursions every day but St. Thomas so our evenings were lazy and quiet – and fun.

 

 

We had a ton of OBC for this cruise (Celebrity and TA) so we used some of it for Nevis catamaran excursion and I grabbed $300 out of the casino (hate to see this option go away). We did not upgrade to premium package this time and still enjoyed ourselves. If they don’t allow getting cash out of the casino for our 2018 cruise…we might upgrade to premium or she could do spa facial/massage….or book a few excursions when we board.

We found the food to be pretty good across the board. We did not do any specialty restaurants this time either---we found ourselves pretty full all the time, especially with alcohol and rum punch/excursions. I did check with Normandie for the last day and they offered me 30% off on the spot, but we decided not to. Comparing to other lines---I would say the food is on par with Princess….can’t really tell which I like better. I love Princess Italian dishes and pizza better, but other entrees seemed comparable. Celebrity buffet is good with lots of options…similar to newer Princess ships (Royal). Definitely better than RCCL to me, but I always find food that I like on any cruise.

 

 

Excursions

 

Tortola – second time here and still have not seen Tortola itself. Did Patouche catamaran tour to the Baths and Cooper Island. I wanted to see the Baths and since it was Sunday the ferry schedule was different and I didn’t want to mess with chance and the hassle of taxi/time management on Virgin Gorda. Joe also took us to Cooper Island for snorkeling and the beach club for lunch. Great Bushwackers there and had a great time. The Baths were awesome and I am glad we made it there. Hopefully will do Tortola itself one day but then again I want to hit Josh Van Dyke too!

 

 

Martinique – I really wanted to rent a car and explore Martinique on our own, but the logistics and time constraints were too much. I also considered taking the ferry to Point De Bout but someone on our roll call find a private catamaran excursion and got a group together. The excursion was Kata Mambo and it was fabulous! 80 Euro/pp and we went to see the dolphins (very nice, better than I expected) then to St. Pierre for quick swim and beach time, then snorkeling nearby. The bar was open the entire time and was great. A very nice surprise was several homemade snacks during the day and multi-course lunch (great chicken and fish) on real plates and wine glasses. Very enjoyable and a fun day.

 

 

Dominica – Last year in Dominica we had a fabulous time with Levi/Bumpiing Tours. This time I wanted to see the one beach there (Mero) and try out some river tubing. Only one outfit seemed to offer this as a group tour – and that was Antours. We had a BLAST on this tour, highly recommend. We first visited the Emerald Pool, then had about an hour of tubing---and it was scary fun. Much more rapids than I expected. I had heard it could be – but it made it worth it. The river guides swam/floated with everyone and helped steer them clear of big rocks or troubles (if possible). After the tubing they took us to Mero Beach for about an hour or so. Pretty nice beach, glad to have visited just to check it out. Would do this tour again.

 

 

 

Since we would not be coming back to the Caribbean until January 2017, we stocked up on our favorite silver rum for mixers – Appleton. Haven’t been able to find it in the states yet so we bought 8 bottles for $7 each, with some local Dominican rum as well.

 

 

St. Kitts – We always enjoy Shipwreck/South Friars Bay but this time we did a ship excursion to Nevis (run by Blue Water Safaris, which I could have paid $25 less independently and probably had 1 more hour of time, but we had tons of OBC to use anyway). This was a fun trip, boat pretty crowded, but enjoyed the ride to Nevis and our beach time---which wasn’t long enough for me. Snorkeling was decent, the main highlight is the trip there and back with the views.

 

 

St. Thomas – wife was not feeling too well so we decided to forgo taxi/ Sapphire beach option and walk around for a quick bit and then spend the day onboard. The T-pool was uncrowded and nice, enjoyed having the ship to ourselves. She took an hour nap while I enjoyed the classic package. We did enjoy a lazy day on the ship – first time we have really done that before in 10+ cruises.

 

 

Post cruise

 

Debarkation—Since we had an Airbnb in old San Juan we stayed on the ship until last call. We rested/waited in the Reflections lounge with our luggage until 9:30am, after leaving the room around 7:45am. This day we had to use OceanView Café for our breakfast since no room service, and yes it was a zoo but it was manageable.

 

 

Getting off the ship was easy, customs had a pretty long line. We ended up bringing back 11 bottles of local rums that we could not buy in NC. I noted these on my form and the customs agent asked about it, insisting that if we bought some or all (not sure) of the rum in St. Thomas we were allotted 5 each. I don’t think we bought any from St. Thomas directly but he waived us through. At the airport I bought 4 additional bottles of Puerto Rican rum so we are nice and stocked for the year! Yes we packed intentionally our 2 large suitcases to leave enough room for the 50 lb limit.

 

 

In San Juan we stayed at a lovely place near the El Convento hotel on the west side of the old city and we walked Fort Cristobal after dropping off our luggage and getting situated. Before that journey we had lunch at a local place called Café Manolín. Crowded but good. Walked the city all over and snacked at various food trucks around the water and parks. Tried the pina colada at Barrachina Old San Juan – nice and strong.

 

 

Sunday we grabbed some great coffee at Café Don Ruiz…. Near the Fort. It is a must go to place. Walked the whole city again but near the evening ended up at Greengos Caribbean Cantina to watch the Patriots/Broncos AFC Championship game since we did not have a TV at our flat. Great drinks and atmosphere. Left during the Panthers game since we were beat and it started to rain.

 

 

My wife loved San Juan so much (and cruising out of there) that we booked a January 2018 Summit cruise during the same week of SanSe. I booked this week not only for SanSe experience but also the itinerary, for us we get to see 3 new places (Grenada, St. Croix, and Barbados)

 

 

Happy Cruising to All!

JohnBoy in NC

[Keith1010]

Thanks you for your review/report.

 

Keith

[Clarea]

Thanks for the review. Nice to know that Barranchina's still has an excellent Pina Colada.:)

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[fninsn]

Thank you for your review. I will be boarding The Summit on April 9th to do the same itinerary and really looking forward to it.

[gowensricks]

Thank you for the review! I have been thinking about eating at Barrachina's on several occasions, yet we have never gotten over there. How was the food?

[Texed]

J Boy,

 

Thanks for posting. :)

[DrivesLikeMario]

You're in for a treat! Grenada and Barbados are our two favorite islands in all of the Caribbean! Go to the far end of Grand Anse Beach when you're in Grenada - it's very quiet, hardly a soul there and the water & beach are pristine! We're also on that itinerary but in 2017. We'll be doing the itinerary you just got back from later this year (minus Tortola).

 

Thanks for the review. It was very well done and it's always good to see Celebrity through the eyes of a relative newbie. Thanks! :)

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report.