Detailed Photo Review of Celebrity Eclipse 14 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise 3/4/18

[deladane]

Wow, what a wonderful trip recap and review! I ready enjoyed your photos, and your descriptive writing style almost made me feel like I was cruising along with you. I find that reviews like yours provide an invaluable service to folks like me who are trying to plan an upcoming trip, so thank you very much!

 

Thank you for your kind words! I'm so glad you enjoyed my review :)

[deladane]

Thank you again for another great and entertaining review, I really enjoyed following along again. I LOVE these pictures you got of Miami in the pre-dawn right after you arrived back at port. I was able to get a few half way decent ones in 2014 (our last cruise out of Miami), but those were with the DSLR. Did you use the Olympus Tough TG-5 to get those? I know my phone gets some pretty decent night time pictures but haven't tried yet with the TG-5. And one thing I keep forgetting to ask, but I love how you start off a new section with a picture from that day but include the captioning on it (like the first pic I quoted). Is there a special program that you use to do that?

 

 

In your reply you mentioned Southwest Airlines. We flew with them for the first time on this trip to NOLA but to get the cheapest flights we had to fly from Dulles through Atlanta to NOLA and on the return trip to Dulles, from NOLA to Fort Lauderdale. We had a little over 2 hours to kill at Fort Lauderdale and got burgers from a restaurant called "Burger Fi". It was expensive but those burgers were SO good, similar to Five Guys (which we really like) but actually better.

 

 

Sounds like a busy year coming up for you with all of the traveling. I do hope you get to NOLA one of these days. We didn't rent a car, just hooved it the whole time. We did the airboat bayou tour and enjoyed that until it poured down rain on our way back into the marina. Lol!!! The gals enjoyed window shopping at the sayings on some of the T-shirts in the souvenir shops on Bourbon Street...hysterical!!! We also went inside and all of us got a kick at some of the beads and other souvenirs for sale...definitely not a place to take little kids though. And those pictures will be shared with the rest of the group, but I will not post them on my social media page. LOL!!!

 

Thank you again for taking the time to do another review and I hope you get back to the ABC's for a "re do" cruise and with better weather next time. So happy you posted the link to your blog. :)

 

Thanks Holly :) Yes, those Miami photos were taken with my TG-5. I usually just leave the camera on the auto setting and let it do all the work. I probably could have gotten an even better photo if I took the time to change into the nighttime photography mode, but at that early hour, I wasn't thinking so clearly haha

 

I've been to NOLA two or three times before, so yes, I know the stores you are talking about on Bourbon Street! DH and I have never gone together, so it's definitely on our list of cities we want to visit eventually. The airboat bayou tour sounds great, thanks for the suggestion!

[deladane]

Thank you again for your review, great job!

 

Thanks for reading!

[deladane]

So sad it’s over.

 

Thanks so much for this fantastic report. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

 

Thank you!!

[deladane]

Thanks for all the hard work. It made for some great reading!!!

 

Thanks for reading :)

[deladane]

Great review! If you are ever looking to combine a trip to Europe with a cruise, Celebrity does an amazing Baltic cruise on the Silhouette. Last Summer my wife and I did a 12 night cruise out of Stockholm and it was fantastic. It included overnights in St. Petersburg and Copenhagen. They appear to have changed the itineraries this year but still an awesome part of Europe to see by cruise ship!

 

 

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Funny, my parents are taking a similar cruise out of Copenhagen this September on NCL. The Baltics sound incredible but if we do a Europe trip next year, our dates are limited because of a family celebration we need to be at so it would not work to take a cruise. We'll definitely do a Baltics cruise at some point, just not next year :)

[deladane]

Enjoyed your wonderful review! I appreciate your undertaking such a thorough and thoughtfully detailed accounting of your trip. Thank you for taking the time to document and share your experience. Sincerely wishing you fair winds, clear skies and following seas on your future voyages and journeys!

 

Thank you so much for your kind words :)

[deladane]

Thank you again for another great and entertaining review, I really enjoyed following along again. I LOVE these pictures you got of Miami in the pre-dawn right after you arrived back at port. I was able to get a few half way decent ones in 2014 (our last cruise out of Miami), but those were with the DSLR. Did you use the Olympus Tough TG-5 to get those? I know my phone gets some pretty decent night time pictures but haven't tried yet with the TG-5. And one thing I keep forgetting to ask, but I love how you start off a new section with a picture from that day but include the captioning on it (like the first pic I quoted). Is there a special program that you use to do that?

 

 

In your reply you mentioned Southwest Airlines. We flew with them for the first time on this trip to NOLA but to get the cheapest flights we had to fly from Dulles through Atlanta to NOLA and on the return trip to Dulles, from NOLA to Fort Lauderdale. We had a little over 2 hours to kill at Fort Lauderdale and got burgers from a restaurant called "Burger Fi". It was expensive but those burgers were SO good, similar to Five Guys (which we really like) but actually better.

 

 

Sounds like a busy year coming up for you with all of the traveling. I do hope you get to NOLA one of these days. We didn't rent a car, just hooved it the whole time. We did the airboat bayou tour and enjoyed that until it poured down rain on our way back into the marina. Lol!!! The gals enjoyed window shopping at the sayings on some of the T-shirts in the souvenir shops on Bourbon Street...hysterical!!! We also went inside and all of us got a kick at some of the beads and other souvenirs for sale...definitely not a place to take little kids though. And those pictures will be shared with the rest of the group, but I will not post them on my social media page. LOL!!!

 

Thank you again for taking the time to do another review and I hope you get back to the ABC's for a "re do" cruise and with better weather next time. So happy you posted the link to your blog. :)

 

Oh, sorry, just remembered I forgot to answer your question about the photos with captions on them. I used an app called Spark Post- it has tons of templates to do that to your photos, and it is fully customizable so you can change the colors, sizing, the text, and pretty much anything you want. I did it for my Paul Gauguin review too because when I posted all my old reviews on my blog, I realized the tumbnail image for each blog post was always the first photo posted in each entry. Normally, that is the first page of the daily schedule, which doesn't make for a very nice cover photo haha I had to figure out a way around that to get a photo in as my first image of every post, and that's when I decided to make these "cover photos" for each day. The app is a lot of fun, and very easy to use, and I just pick out my favorite photo from each day and add the date, port location, and name of our excursion and it makes a nice way to start each blog post :)

[etmanch]

I enjoyed seeing all your great photos. We were on the same cruise and still disappointed that we did not get to do the snorkel trip on our stop in Bonaire. However looking on the bright side your DH did introduce me to that delicious “Coronarita” drink on our last sea day. :D

[charlielinda]

Your review is wonderful. Your pictures are amazing. What type of camera do you use.

 

 

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[deladane]

Your review is wonderful. Your pictures are amazing. What type of camera do you use.

 

 

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Thank you! I used the Olympus TG-5 underwater camera for all of my photos

[clskinsfan]

Another great review! Thank you for sharing your vacation with us. My wife and I really enjoyed your Tahiti review and we had planned to go there for our 25th next spring. But we decided to do a ten night Alaskan cruise on the Eclipse instead. So I obviously needed to read your review of that ship. We hope to see you on a ship someday.

[micheleata]

Great review. Loved all of your pictures! We had a similar experience with the room service bagels on the Equinox. Everyday we would mark the card for one onion and one plain, and the next morning 2 plain bagels would show up!

 

Next month will be our first cruise to the ABC islands and I really enjoyed hearing about your excursions. I will definitely be reading some of your other reviews.

 

Thanks for sharing.

[Gettingwarmer]

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[deladane]

Another great review! Thank you for sharing your vacation with us. My wife and I really enjoyed your Tahiti review and we had planned to go there for our 25th next spring. But we decided to do a ten night Alaskan cruise on the Eclipse instead. So I obviously needed to read your review of that ship. We hope to see you on a ship someday.

 

Sounds like we have similar taste in ships! Enjoy Alaska, and I hope you get to visit French Polynesia in the future as well :cool:

[deladane]

Great review. Loved all of your pictures! We had a similar experience with the room service bagels on the Equinox. Everyday we would mark the card for one onion and one plain, and the next morning 2 plain bagels would show up!

 

Next month will be our first cruise to the ABC islands and I really enjoyed hearing about your excursions. I will definitely be reading some of your other reviews.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

That's so funny about the room service bagels... why do they even bother giving 2 options?! haha Enjoy the ABC's, and fingers crossed that you have perfect weather while you are there!!

[workingtocruise-59]

Thank you so much for this wonderful review!

I read it in reverse and (apologies!) skipped some of the photos as we are due to take our first Eclipse cruise in November and wanted a few surprises!

Our November cruise is in the Med but, after reading your posts, we are keen to book a cruise to the ABC islands.

[watermelonqueen99]

We've never cruised on Celebrity (we're Carnival people), but as we wait for our next cruise in October, I wanted something different to read, so I popped over to the Celebrity boards. This has to be one of, if not the best review I've ever read on CC. Your pics are stunning, and your commentary is interesting and informative! My only goal this weekend is to read all of your reviews with a drink in my hand. Lol Cheers!

[deladane]

Thank you so much for this wonderful review!

I read it in reverse and (apologies!) skipped some of the photos as we are due to take our first Eclipse cruise in November and wanted a few surprises!

Our November cruise is in the Med but, after reading your posts, we are keen to book a cruise to the ABC islands.

 

Thanks for reading! The ABCs are amazing so I hope you are able to book a cruise there to experience it for yourself!!

[deladane]

We've never cruised on Celebrity (we're Carnival people), but as we wait for our next cruise in October, I wanted something different to read, so I popped over to the Celebrity boards. This has to be one of, if not the best review I've ever read on CC. Your pics are stunning, and your commentary is interesting and informative! My only goal this weekend is to read all of your reviews with a drink in my hand. Lol Cheers!

 

Thank you!! I have read a bunch of your reviews already and always loved your humor and entertaining writing style! If you are looking for more pretty photos, check out my Paul Gauguin review as French Polynesia is a photography paradise :cool:

[GenoaAspenGirl]

Thank you!

 

Hi Dana! Tricia from the PG trip. I was planning on following this review after you told us about it, but I completely forgot. Just started it and, as always, you provide fabulous details. We were on the Silver Galapagos in April and are just now booking a couple more trips. (Therefore, back on the CC boards for details.) Leisurely going through your review and enjoying it so far. Thanks so much! Can you believe it’s been over a year since we were on the PG. It will always be at the top of our travel adventures !:cool:

[deladane]

Hi Dana! Tricia from the PG trip. I was planning on following this review after you told us about it, but I completely forgot. Just started it and, as always, you provide fabulous details. We were on the Silver Galapagos in April and are just now booking a couple more trips. (Therefore, back on the CC boards for details.) Leisurely going through your review and enjoying it so far. Thanks so much! Can you believe it’s been over a year since we were on the PG. It will always be at the top of our travel adventures !:cool:

 

Hi Tricia! So glad you found my review and are enjoying it! The Galapagos must have been amazing... it's definitely on my bucket list for some day in the distant future. I also can't believe it has already been a year since the PG cruise... every day of those 2 weeks this year, I kept thinking about what I was doing on that date last year haha Definitely the trip of a lifetime!

[gailgeorge]

I love your photos of all the public rooms. Did you take those with your Olympus TG-5? And some with your fisheye lens on your TG-5?

They are so colorful and sharp! Just finished reading your Paul Gauguin Cruise. Loved your underwater photos! I want to get an underwater camera before we go on our PG cruise next July!

[deladane]

I love your photos of all the public rooms. Did you take those with your Olympus TG-5? And some with your fisheye lens on your TG-5?

They are so colorful and sharp! Just finished reading your Paul Gauguin Cruise. Loved your underwater photos! I want to get an underwater camera before we go on our PG cruise next July!

 

Yup, all of the photos from the Eclipse cruise were from my TG-5. I didn't label each photo for which ones I used the fisheye, but for most of them, you can kinda tell if I used the fisheye because of the rounded lines which would have been straight without the lens. Nearly all of the ones from my PG cruise were from the TG-5 too, except for the panoramic photos (and even those were only in Huahine and Moorea IIRC). The TG-5 proved to be a great all-around camera, both with and without the fisheye lens :) Enjoy your PG cruise!! So many wonderful opportunities for photos, both above and underwater, on both itineraries!

[NBliving]

After that, we made the 45-minute journey back to the cruise port.

 

 

 

We docked back in front of the Exotic Antigua Boutique at 2:45pm. Overall, I enjoyed the tour and thought the guides did a great job. Antigua is a beautiful island, especially as seen from the water, but I would definitely recommend doing some research and picking a tour in advance. The locals at the port are incredibly pushy and I would not recommend trying to book a tour right there when you arrive, nor would I recommend spending too much time walking around the port area. Our itinerary had many islands that are better for shopping where you don’t have to deal with the pushy locals. Sorry Antigua, but you were not my favorite island of this cruise.

 

 

I am really enjoying your review! We were on a 7 night Summit cruise and Antigua was one of our ports. I remember the very pushy locals too. We made our way to the taxis and ended up sharing a taxi with some other people and went to Valley Church Beach. We had a super relaxing day under an umbrella looking at powder blue water. Just thought I'd mention it for others who just want a beach day. As long as you can make your way past the vendors you will have a beautiful day!