Review of Silhouette Nov 2016 Transatlantic

[tweetylori]

I am loving your review - so interesting to see the same ports through different eyes (and to know what we missed - for next time).

 

Tenerife was such a pleasant surprise for us, we loved it.

 

Thank you sippican! We loved Tenerife also!

[Goldenbeacher]

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[tweetylori]

Thank you! And I'm so excited for you! It'll be here before you know it!

[tweetylori]

Thank you!

[tweetylori]

My wife and I are sailing on Silhouette on December 30, 2106 for 9 glorious days in the sunshine. Your pictures are making it harder for us to wait!! Hope you have a Merry Christmas season and thanks for taking the time to share your experiences and lovely photographs. Happy Cruising! Bob and Linda

 

Super excited for you, can't wait to hear about your adventures!

[PlayCousin]

I also want to thank you for the review. I was wondering about the wreckfish and was pleasantly surprised that your husband ordered it. It looked very good.

[Nanatravel]

Hi Lexie! I will say that out of all the cruises I have taken (which is only 7 including this one) this was the most calm waters I've ever experienced. Towards the end of the cruise we had maybe a day and a half of extra motion. There was one night in the middle of the night where it actually woke us up, but it really wasn't bad at all. Honestly I was hoping for a little more rocking. :D

 

The weather kept warming up as we got closer to the US. There were a couple gorgeous sunny days. But honestly (and to answer your next question) the enrichment speakers were so good that I didn't want to miss so many of their talks! I will be talking about those as the review goes on (and have more pics as well).

 

Hope that answers your questions...I'm excited for you that you have one to look forward to! Where are you sailing?

 

ImHooked, as a follow up to Lori, I believe there were up to 6 Enrichment speakers. Even while sick, I took a chance and listened to Melinda Bates; Washington Insider. She was great. I wore Sea Bands (as I've recently developed Veritgo) but removed them once we were out to sea on the TA portion.

[tweetylori]

I also want to thank you for the review. I was wondering about the wreckfish and was pleasantly surprised that your husband ordered it. It looked very good.

 

Thanks twistout, and believe me, no one was more surprised than me when he ordered fish. There were all kinds of meat on that menu. He did enjoy it, especially with the different sauces. I tasted it, and it was quite good, but my rabbit was so good, I wasn't coveting his fish. Believe me, he made up for it with plenty more beef...got plenty more beef pics coming.

 

Will try to do more shortly. Pesky work keeps getting in the way :( And we went to a concert fundraiser last night...great show called Three Phantoms!

[lizakramer]

And then these happened:

 

 

Husband had the cheese danish and my croissant was supposed to have had a filling...can't remember if it was almond or nutella or what, but I do remember it didn't matter because the filling got missed on mine. Flaky and delicious, but empty. :( Ahhhh such problems! :rolleyes:

 

 

Tweetylori - this is a great review, thank you for all the time you've put into it! We are heading on Sillouette on Dec 11 for Western Caribbean. I am wondering, do you have to pay extra for the pastries in Cafe al Bacio? We have the premium drink package and we LOVE Lavazza coffee, so I expect we will find ourselves there in the mornings. Any insight you can provide is appreciated. Thanks again!

[tweetylori]

Tweetylori - this is a great review, thank you for all the time you've put into it! We are heading on Sillouette on Dec 11 for Western Caribbean. I am wondering, do you have to pay extra for the pastries in Cafe al Bacio? We have the premium drink package and we LOVE Lavazza coffee, so I expect we will find ourselves there in the mornings. Any insight you can provide is appreciated. Thanks again!

 

Hi Liza, thank you! No, there is no charge for the pastries. And you will love the Premium Drink Package...all the wonderful coffee in Cafe al Bacio you can drink!

[tweetylori]

As I continue, may I say that I really appreciate all the comments and questions? Love hearing from everyone, thank you!

 

When I left off last before sleep, work and other engagements got in my way :rolleyes:, we were exploring the ship so we could see the last of land for awhile from as many different angles as possible:

 

 

 

 

And then we set sail! Bye Tenerife! Bye land for 7 days!

 

 

The ship is full of attractive places to land:

 

[tweetylori]

This is what was on our tv today:

 

[tweetylori]

Looking up from our Deck 8 Sunset Veranda as we sailed away from Tenerife:

 

 

Didn't take long for land to start disappearing:

 

 

 

By now it had to have been a few whole hours since we had eaten :eek: We had no choice, I swear! Tonight's dinner menu:

 

 

[tweetylori]

I was craving a nice salad and the Arugula one was just that! Simple but with nice ingredients...I loved this!

 

 

And the Celery Root soup was decent:

 

[tweetylori]

Any of you that have been following this I'm sure already know what Husband had for dinner...yep, the Prime Rib:

 

 

I thought I was going to get the Pollock, but Iskandar was really steering me away from it, and I had already learned to listen to him. He suggested the Chicken Chiquita or the Spaghetti Carbonara. Well, who was I to turn down any advised pasta? :D

 

And Iskandar was so very very right about this. Certainly different from the Carbonara we had had in Rome, but this was rich and delicious in its own right. Egg was perfectly cooked. YUM!

 

[tweetylori]

I couldn't finish the pasta, but that didn't stop Iskandar from presenting dessert menus with his usual "no calories" statement.

 

 

Well we had never heard of a Biscuit Croustillant so we HAD to try it, right?

 

 

And the Sticky Toffee Pudding did have the Fit Fare tag on it, so we needed to get fit :o

 

 

The Biscuit one was light and not too sweet. And the Sticky Toffee Pudding was surprisingly light as well, although sweeter than the other one. Certainly not super rich like what Gordon Ramsey's restaurants serve, but I was happier with lighter after all we had already consumed! I really liked it a lot, and would have ordered it again at a future time, but never saw it appear on a menu again, so grab this one when you see it!

Edited December 1, 2016 by tweetylori

[tweetylori]

As if this day wasn't already great enough, entertainment tonight in the Silhouette lounge turned out to be terrific! Once again chose to enjoy top talent from the front row:

 

 

Presenting Vocalist Dave Austen who lived up to Celebrity Today's description of "spectacular":

 

 

He not only sang Ed Sheeran, Tom Jones, Sam Smith and Josh Groban (he mentioned even singing with Josh...bet that was something!), he even did Bocelli and Pavarotti. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of his show!

 

[tweetylori]

At some point on this day we also enjoyed drinks while listening to live music down in the Passport Lounge.

 

 

 

 

 

[tweetylori]

I do believe we stayed up quite late on this night, because there is once again photo evidence of a late night buffet stop: :p

 

[tweetylori]

So after another night of trying to ignore the fact that our bed was super hard and not very comfortable (which is the only bad thing I have to say about our cabin), we woke up to Day 9, the 3rd Sea Day, and Day 1 of the Atlantic Crossing.

 

 

To think we had already been to Rome, La Spezia, Lucca, Pisa, Toulon, Barcelona, Mallorca & Tenerife, yet we still had SEVEN DAYS at sea was just beyond exciting to me. It was like starting another whole new vacation! We hadn't even had a week's vacation for awhile, so to have a week on top of more than a week was beyond okay with me. :D

 

All was forgiven about the hard bed every morning when we got up to this:

 

[tweetylori]

By the way we also gained an hour, the first of many of the crossing! What an awesome extra perk going Westbound! :D

 

I will blame it on the extra hour that we somehow managed to get hungry again :p In my foodie way I had to wonder what the dining room was serving for breakfast. With apologies for the crappy photography, here were the choices:

 

 

 

[tweetylori]

Nice to know what the dining room options were, but I really did love the Oceanview buffet for breakfast! What helped us love it more and more was having a STRATEGY. STRATEGY made the otherwise chaotic experience much more pleasant. :D It's a very simple strategy because we like hot food. In order to have hot food where there are hundreds of people fighting for it at the same time, it is important to first find a place to land.

 

So whether it was breakfast or lunch, we would take turns being the one to sit first after we managed to find a table. (There was even one day we could not find a table at all, so we left and came back in twenty minutes and it was fine).

 

While one of us waited at the priceless real estate, the other would go get a plate of food and was also responsible for picking up utensils for both of us.

 

The Table-Saver would have Sea Pass cards in hand ready to order a big bottle of San Pellegrino with two glasses of ice, plus a Cafe Americano and/or freshly squeezed orange juice (whatever we were in the mood for) We could also catch the eye of one of the incredibly efficient and super funny guys that push carts around with coffee and hot tea. Not only was it so nice to be served coffee and tea in a buffet, but they made us smile and laugh!

 

Then there was the Pastry-Pusher-Person who would make us (uh, mostly Husband) happy with an endless supply of brought-to-the-table fresh pastries. :p

 

So it didn't take us long to learn we never had to fight for drinks at the drink station with the masses...not with our Premium Drink Package! (turn the drink menu board on the table down, by the way, when you don't want service...put it up when you do). And even if we didn't have the drink package, everyone can sit and enjoy being brought coffee and tea.

 

The only time I would use the drink station was for iced tea. They did have water and other drinks available at the station though. Which leads me to the issue of water. The drink stations had signs that said very clearly: DO NOT FILL YOUR WATER BOTTLES. Early in the cruise they even had staff stationed there to stop people. I'm telling you, as soon as those staff members ventured on, people were filling those bottles. :eek: So for those of you wondering how illness could be spread, look to your fellow shipmates. :mad: The crew can only do so much to stop stupidity.

 

Speaking of which, in my times of being the Table-Keeper I also witnessed a lot of coughing! One time a woman was hacking up a lung into her hand (she was also coughing withOUT covering up), then proceeded to shake the heck out of a pepper shaker. All I could think of was the next person that sat down and used pepper who wasn't careful was in big trouble! So I learned to use a napkin or something to grasp salt and pepper if I wanted to use it. And I would use the Purell offered at the door on the way in AND on the way out!

 

So after all that, on this particular day, I ended up with an old favorite plus I found that the carving station (yes, there is even a carving station at breakfast too!) had great Italian Sausage. Loved it!

 

Edited December 1, 2016 by tweetylori

[mafig]

Searching for tables, having one person hold the "real estate," not finding a place to sit and coming back later sounds awful to me.

 

We almost always go and prefer the dining room for breakfast.

 

Sometimes we do go to the buffet after to see if we've missed anything.:o

 

A couple of times I've been sitting there with a small serving of corned beef hash and someone that I've met through the roll call comes by and says:

"my goodness, is that all you're eating?" and I reply

"yes, I eat like a bird." :D Little do they know that it's breakfast #2.:o

[Mort from MI]

There were massive crew changes following the TA. No excuse for poor service, but might explain some of the problems. I was also on the TA and it was one of the best in more than 15 Celebrity TAs. The food and service was excellent. The entertainment appeared to be well received and all of the reviews seem to be highly positive. I have always found Terminal 25 to be difficult.

 

 

15 TA's should make you an expert for this question: Is the weather warm enough to be outside by the pool during the day. I could never convince my wife to try a TA cruise unless we could be outside in the afternoon.

 

 

 

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[floridaag]

Enjoying your review as we just got off the ship yesterday on the first Caribbean itinerary after the transatlantic. We have been on all 5 Solstice class ships and the Reflection twice. While we enjoyed the cruise, I felt there were some things just a little "off" from past cruises. Maybe it was because it was the first Caribbean sailing of the season or they were worried about the "Bliss" group that had chartered the ship the following week (this week).

 

Rich Clesen was the CD and had just boarded the ship on embarkation day. Looks like your entertainment was very good while ours was just kind of blah. The production shows were okay but I am just tired of these. Other entertainment was average to really bad. We had a magician/comedian(??) that was so bad I felt sorry for the guy. A comedian (Bengt Washburn) was just okay while the Motown Tribute group was good but have seen much better. The House Band never played in the atrium other than 1 or 2 nights and the last few days the female singer was not even with them...sick or quit...not sure. But they were one of the worst house bands we have had on our cruises. So overall it left a lot to be desired.

 

Food was good (Qsine and Lawn Club Grill excellent) but again service seemed a little off in the Main Dining Room. Our cabin steward was not one of our best and we had to continually ask for toilet paper, clean glasses and soap. But at least the cabin seemed clean and I was not having to clean or make up the bed.

 

Upon debarkation we elected to take off our own bags for the first time and were told to be on deck 3 around 7:20. Wow, what a madhouse. Hardly any place to stand. Waited about 30 minutes. Other passengers who had done this on previous cruises said this was by far the worst organized debarkation yet and no help from anyone except one solitary crew member who looked like Kevin Bacon being stampeded in Animal House by the time we got off.

 

So, we had a good time but it just seemed something just was not quite up to par with past Celebrity experiences.

 

Funny how different cruisers have different experiences. We were on the same 7 day Thanksgiving cruise following the TA. In the past year and half, we have been on the Reflection and the Solstice as well. We found the staff and crew to be the best on this ship out of the three. We did not eat in the MDR and did not see any of the shows other than the Broadway one on the last day. Of the three ships, the Silhouette is my favorite by far.

 

Debarkation was a complete zoo - no argument on that though. I don't know what happened there.