Summit to the Southern Caribbean, 11/17-11/24: A Probably Overlong Trip Recap

[BeeMinor]

Hi there! My husband Kevin and I are recently back from a very pleasant Thanksgiving week aboard the Summit, and I have some thoughts and photos of warm sunny islands to share for vicarious vacationers! Fair warning, I can be long-winded and a little scattered, so let's just start off with a warm sunny island photo.

 

 

For context, we are 40ish creative professionals who travel pretty often, sometimes on cruises and sometimes not. Our last big trip was a land/cruise hybrid that involved a very weird week on Silversea's Silver Whisper, and our next big trip is a week on the Edge in February. (Exciting!) This was our fifth cruise overall and fourth on Celebrity.

 

Pre-trip: Planning and San Juan

We like to travel over Thanksgiving: it requires fewer vacation days, it's usually within a couple of weeks of my husband's birthday, and it's a prime way for me to avoid eating traditional Thanksgiving food, which I have never liked. The downside is that 50% of the United States seems to be in the process of traveling to visit the other 50% of the United States during that week so it's expensive and hectic. We decided to fly down on Friday and then stay through Monday to both save some money and visit San Juan, a new destination for us. I checked flight prices sporadically just out of curiosity and confirmed that booking early was substantially (hundreds of dollars per ticket) cheaper than waiting it out.

 

We originally booked a Sky Suite but prices for this cruise dropped a lot after final payment, and I upgraded us to a Celebrity Suite for about $200 per person. This cruise was a much-rescheduled onboard booking, so we had an especially nice chunk of OBC to spend. By keeping an eye on all those Celebrity flash sales I booked us three excursions and still wound up with $8 OBC leftover. We don't normally do ship excursions, but we don't particularly care for QSine, Tuscan Grill, the overpriced spa, or tanzanite, so that OBC's gotta go somewhere.

 

After a painfully early 3:45 a.m. wakeup Friday morning, we were on our way from cold and icy southwestern Ohio to warm and sunny San Juan. We stayed at the Sheraton by the convention center—the Summit embarks/disembarks at Pan American Pier East, not from the piers in Old San Juan—which was fine and could not have been more convenient. Both our cab driver and the guy who checked us in at the Sheraton encouraged us to go check out La Placita for an authentic Puerto Rican evening, but we were absolutely wiped and fell asleep before 10 p.m., so we put it on the "next time" list.

 

We're on the Ship!

Since we had plans to hang around San Juan for a couple of days post-cruise, we decided to spend Saturday getting settled into cruise life. (That turned out to be a good plan, because the muster drill was at 4:45 p.m., well before we sailed and smack in the middle of what would have been our shore time.) We Ubered to the pier at about 11 (less than $10 with a very generous tip) and within 30 minutes or so were checked in and on the ship! I didn't notice a lot of service differences between the Sky Suite and Celebrity Suite experiences, but one was being escorted from the terminal to Michael's Club by the MC Concierge, Pavel. Skipping lines is one of my husband's favorite things so that was a nice touch. We went to lunch in Luminae, where I took my only two Luminae food photos of the week:

 

Baby heirloom tomato salad (pretty good)

 

Luminae burger (not bad but my least favorite burger of the week, and I had four)

 

I was unsurprised but disappointed to see that Luminae had not updated its embarkation day lunch menu since our last cruise in 2016—and then disappointed to see very familiar dinner menus—and even more disappointed to see the embarkation day lunch menu repeated as the sea day lunch. I'm sure there's a delicate balance between pleasing people like me who think "the seafood brochette again?!?!?!?" and pleasing people who have firm favorites that they would be sad to see gone, but I find the menus to be tired and somewhat dated for what is supposed to be a contemporary fine dining experience. More thoughts on Luminae later.

 

By the time we finished lunch, staterooms were ready and we went to check out our suite. Guys, I should never have upgraded us, because the Celebrity Suite was AMAZING and we will be forever tempted by it now.

 

So spacious! Loved the dining table!

 

Loved this balcony

 

Okay, not so sure about this art

 

The condition of the room was fair-to-good. We've been on the Summit before and knew what to expect. Everything was super clean but there were lots of little things, like loose drawer handles and beat up furniture corners, and the odd bigger thing, like non-working phones and a toilet that sporadically didn't flush. Our stateroom attendant (Kate) and butler (Brij) did a fantastic job looking after our suite and its quirks throughout the week. Kate also made sure we had extra hangers upon boarding--our only real request of the pre-cruise concierge--and later in the week Brij, in conjunction with MC Concierge Pavel, decorated our suite and left a bottle of Kendall Jackson pinot noir for my husband's belated birthday. We didn't do much for Kevin's birthday on his birthday this year because he was traveling back from a work trip, so that, too, was a really nice touch. (Kevin also got several port shopping and art auction "special birthday discounts" which we promptly ignored.)

 

Kevin fell asleep on the full-size couch within minutes of our getting to the suite—guilt-free naps are one reason we like to cruise—and I went looking for the room service breakfast menu. I absolutely love room service breakfast and enjoying it daily is one of my favorite cruising things. Since we were last on Celebrity, the suites breakfast menu has expanded to include what used to be for-fee plates and boozy brunch drinks, much to my delight!

 

 

A weird thing about this suite: it had a truly remarkable number of mirrors. I had lived nearly 39 years without taking a shower in front of a full-length mirror prior to this cruise, and I can't say that my life has been improved by that experience. "This is what you look like eating," my husband would say to himself in the mirror over breakfast, "and this is what you look like walking down the hall," he would continue as we left the room. Also, the phone in the bathroom is perfectly positioned so that if you don't fully latch the bathroom door and you have something like a toiletry bag hanging from the hooks on the back, you might accidentally call Guest Relations several times in the middle of the night before you realize what's going on and briefly wonder if there's a poltergeist in your room. Definitely not that we did that the first night or anything.

 

Enough rambling for one post. Onward to the next!

[GACrusin]

Looking forward to following your entire review!  We recently booked this trip for next Thanksgiving week, also booking in a Sky Suite.  We can hope for the same upgrade opportunity!  It will be our first time on the Summit.  Thank you for sharing your experience.  

[BeeMinor]

About Those Sunny Islands I Mentioned . . . 

 

The buzz on the ship was that the weather the week prior to our trip had been less than ideal, but we had mostly clear skies and pleasant temperatures. 

 

St. Thomas

We’ve been to St. Thomas before and there's not much going on for two people who can't really swim, so we decided to have another lazy day mostly on the ship. Of course it started off with room service breakfast . . .

 

The breakfast my dreams are made of

 

The Eggs Benedict was as good as it looks and one of the best things I ate on the ship all week. My husband had the steak and eggs, which got a "pretty good," and I later had the fresh egg omelet from the specialty breakfast menu along with some more standard boiled/poached egg and toast combos. (Celebrity is two for two on not actually giving me soft-boiled eggs when I order them, but then I am American, so maybe they think that I've checked the wrong box.) Then I got the benedict again. Kevin also wound up ordering it twice. It was that good.  

 

Anyway. We docked at Crown Bay so we walked over to Tickle's to have a couple of Bushwackers, St. Thomas's excellent local rum drink, and some conch fritters. We saw a bunch of these guys hanging out on our way back to the ship:

 

 

St. Thomas was the first Evening Chic night. People were moderately chic, but I was glad I didn't wear my full-glam sequined party dress or I may have felt out of place. Our butler Brij asked us about whether we were going to go to the show so he could save us seats so many times that we decided to go to the show. I'm not really sure about Celebrity's seat-saving-for-the-suites situation. The seats are never full, we feel awkwardly on display, and there's always at least one guy who is very annoyed that he can't sit in what are clearly empty seats, and that in turn makes us feel more awkward for being there. It's not my favorite suite perk.

 

I would tell you about the show, Life, but as our cruise director Patrick said, like actual life it has no plot. I will save my opinions on Celebrity's shows for when we talk about Chandelier.

 

St. Kitts

Although this sail-in may look a bit foreboding, we again had great weather in St. Kitts!

 

 

Here we went on the first of the three ship excursions I'd booked: ATV and Beach Adventure. We had a small group of six people and all of us were inexperienced ATV riders, but it was a super fun excursion! From the pier, a driver took us up to Fairview House, where we had some basic training on ATV operation before riding around some off-road trails in the hills. We ended up at a spot with this great view:

 

 

Our guide gave us a fairly intense but interesting talk about local plants and herbal remedies, and then we were off for a ride back down to Fairview House. There we had some fruit punch and cake, and some time to walk around the house and grounds. The beach stop was over at Frigate Bay for about an hour. I rate this excursion a total success. I was a little anxious about the ATV riding, but both my husband and I had a blast and would absolutely book a similar activity again.  

 

We were probably the oldest people on our excursion, and in general, this reminds me that this was the youngest group of cruisers we had ever seen on Celebrity. We were on the Equinox for a 10-day Thanksgiving cruise in 2016, and the three-day difference seems to translate to 30x as many families and kids. I saw several large family groups throughout the week, and a substantial number of what seemed to be Friendsgiving groups in their 20s-40s. I also noticed some activities I'd never seen before on the planner, like get togethers for 18-25 year olds and notes like "Karaoke 16+ plus only." We aren't big on kids (our daughter has four feet and fur) but at no point did I feel like there were annoying kids or groups taking over venues or anything like that. I wouldn't hesitate to book a one-week over Thanksgiving again. 

 

A small detour to show you our dog

 

Back to the topic at hand, we also didn't hang out at the pool, so YMMV.

 

Antigua

 

We had our second of three excursions booked here—See Antigua by Sea. So, maybe this was just me not really reading the excursion description correctly, but I was expecting a somewhat leisurely sightseeing catamaran sail broken up by a beachfront lunch and opportunity to lounge or snorkel. What the excursion actually was was a fairly high-speed (about 20 knots) double-decker power catamaran dart through some brief storms and rough seas to Green Island, where we did indeed have about two hours to lounge and eat a beachfront lunch, followed by an equally high-speed dart around the other side of the island accompanied by loud music and lots of rum punch. 

 

Summit, double decker catamaran (L-R)

 

Dear reader, I am not old, but perhaps I am old at heart because I strongly dislike loud places. There was some narration of what was on the coastline, but it was impossible to hear over the music and the sound of the boat cutting through the sea. The lunch was good though:

 

 

And the beach was quite lovely:

 

 

Still, I wouldn't do this one again. 

 

Next time: St. Lucia, Barbados, and let's talk about Chandelier.

[BeeMinor]

18 minutes ago, GACrusin said:

Looking forward to following your entire review!  We recently booked this trip for next Thanksgiving week, also booking in a Sky Suite.  We can hope for the same upgrade opportunity!  It will be our first time on the Summit.  Thank you for sharing your experience.  

 

Thanks for following! We have been in Sky Suites on the Summit, the Constellation, and the Equinox before and really preferred the M-class version of the room. If you don't spy a good moment to upgrade, you will love the view out the window from the bed in the Sky Suite!  

[Barwick Cruiser]

Absolutely loving this review...your writing style is captivating and I feel like I'm with you on the ship!  Question about the Antigua tour, we have this booked for our upcoming cruise and I don't think you read the description wrong because I'm expecting exactly what you thought you were getting not at all what you actually got.  Making me rethink my choice.  Was there any snorkelling at all and for those that did snorkel were there lots of marine life to see?  

 

Keep up the great posting and pics..mustve been hard coming back to an early winter!

Cathy

[bhughey]

We sailed the Summit, just two weeks before you, also in a suite (just a sky suite) and did not have that same breakfast menu! Must be exclusive to celebrity suites and above - and the last time we were in a Celebrity Suite was in 2016 and we didn't have that menu either 😕. Happy to see they have added some adult beverage options at no additional fee.

Great review so far - and cute doggie!

[BeeMinor]

2 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Absolutely loving this review...your writing style is captivating and I feel like I'm with you on the ship!  Question about the Antigua tour, we have this booked for our upcoming cruise and I don't think you read the description wrong because I'm expecting exactly what you thought you were getting not at all what you actually got.  Making me rethink my choice.  Was there any snorkelling at all and for those that did snorkel were there lots of marine life to see?  

 

Keep up the great posting and pics..mustve been hard coming back to an early winter!

Cathy

 

Thank you! On the Antigua trip there was snorkeling at the beach. A couple of members of the ship's crew led groups out not terribly far off the beach. After about an hour of lounge/snorkel time they served lunch, and that took another hour or so. The crew was pretty adamant that you couldn't snorkel after you had any alcohol so it wound down then. We did not snorkel ourselves because we are not strong swimmers but my eavesdropping suggested that those who did were not impressed. To be fair . . . the catamaran had groups from four ships, and the biggest group was from an Aida ship. I don't understand German so my eavesdropping options were limited!

 

There was another, smaller catamaran that came in about an hour after we did for snorkeling as well so maybe it was just an off day? It had been pretty stormy while we were heading to the beach. I heard back on the ship that people on some of the other catamaran excursions had to wear life jackets going out. 

 

1 hour ago, bhughey said:

We sailed the Summit, just two weeks before you, also in a suite (just a sky suite) and did not have that same breakfast menu! Must be exclusive to celebrity suites and above - and the last time we were in a Celebrity Suite was in 2016 and we didn't have that menu either 😕. Happy to see they have added some adult beverage options at no additional fee.

Great review so far - and cute doggie!

 

Thanks! We always miss the dog when we're gone, but she hates water, so she's never going to go on a cruise. 😆 Did your breakfast menu look like this at all or was it the older vertically-oriented one? I asked our butler about whether the speciality items had a fee and he said that it had changed for the suites. We were on Deck 8 amidst Concierge cabins and the other breakfast cards I saw out had a similar exterior, but ours was clearly marked "Suites" on the outside. I will be a little bummed if we can't get Benedicts and Bloodies on the Edge in February when we're back in a Sky Suite.

 

[MarLieb]

Thank you for posting such an informative, entertaining review!  We will be sailing Celebrity for the very first time in a few weeks and will be on the Summit.  Your review is making me even more excited about our trip - thank you!

[BeeMinor]

16 hours ago, MarLieb said:

Thank you for posting such an informative, entertaining review!  We will be sailing Celebrity for the very first time in a few weeks and will be on the Summit.  Your review is making me even more excited about our trip - thank you!

 

My pleasure! More coming very soon!

[BeeMinor]

Are you ready for more sunny island photos? If so you're in luck, because St. Lucia was by far the place where I took the most pictures.

 

St. Lucia

St. Lucia was a new island for us to visit. We had sailed past before and were looking forward to seeing the Pitons closer up. So we went on our third and final ship excursion in St. Lucia: Island's Delights. The tour, which goes to Soufriere to visit the volcano and a historical plantation site, stopped at several scenic lookouts/shopping kiosks along the way. The guides had split us into groups of maybe 20 per minibus and staggered the timings so we weren't all arriving at the same place at the same time. 

 

 

There was a 15-minute or so stop in Anse, where there's a quaint church in the opposite direction from the shopping stalls:

 

Also a guy with coconuts:

 

We drove through the rainforest for part of the way, where our driver hopped out to get us some "jungle M&Ms" (cacao fruit). With all the stops we took our time getting to Soufriere, but eventually we came up on the Pitons.

 

 

Lunch was buffet-style—not as good as the catamaran lunch, but okay—and then we went on to the two main attractions. First, we visited the volcano for a short walking tour.

 

Yes, this is part of the volcano.

 

 

The volcano hasn’t erupted in centuries, but it emits plenty of steam and sulphuric fumes! You can't get right up on the crater because it's not safe, but you can get pretty close and it's an interesting natural feature to see.

 

 

There are also for-fee mud baths near the entrance to the crater. Our tour didn't stop there but I believe others do.

 

From the volcano we went to Morne Coubaril Estate, a historical plantation-turned-sort-of-museum and also, according to the signs, ziplining park. The guide took us on a nice walk through the grounds, pointing out various local plants and their uses—I am very up on my traditional Caribbean herbal remedies after this trip—and stopping for a few short demonstrations of historical activities, like splitting and cleaning coconuts. The plantation doesn’t have quite the wow factor of the volcano but it's a pleasant place to visit.

 

Cacao fruits

 

 

Although it's only about 25 miles from the cruise port to Soufriere, it takes a solid 90 minutes to cover the distance. The coast road connecting the two places is slow going--narrow and winding with lots of elevation changes. If you are at all inclined toward motion sickness, heed the warning on your ticket and take along a preventative measure of your choice. (I took some non-drowsy Dramamine, aka ginger pills.)

 

We aren't normally group bus tour people, but both my husband and I enjoyed the excursion. It's not hurried, St. Lucia has really beautiful scenery, and I felt like I saw a good swath of the island. Looking back at my e-mail receipt I see I booked the tour at $74/person during a flash sale, which is definitely not bad for a six-hour tour with lots of stops and an included lunch.

 

Back on the ship, Pavel, the MC concierge, organized a helipad sailaway event for St. Lucia. I love helipad sailaways and St. Lucia was a particularly pretty port for it. The Reflection was docked next to us and we sailed pretty close to her while turning around, so we also had a lot of fun waving at folks on the other ship. So, too, did the bridge officers, who had quite a bit of tooting of the horns back and forth! 

 

Let's Talk About Chandelier

I believe this was the night of the second production show, Chandelier. We have avoided Celebrity's production shows in the past, but this time we went to the baffling Life and the equally baffling Chandelier. Don’t get me wrong: the singers and dancers were talented. But the shows themselves are not a good showcase for anyone's talents. Spoiler alert on Chandelier: it's literally about a chandelier that possesses a decrepit hotel sometime in an anachronistic past. The chandelier supposedly redecorates hotel rooms and encourages familial reconciliation while people sing "Rock Me Like a Hurricane." I can't believe that this is a real show that someone is really staging.  On the other hand, I am sort of glad we went, in the same way I'm glad I've seen "Clue the Musical." Sometimes I just can't pass up a trainwreck.

 

Enough about Chandelier. We also saw the comedian, Ace Guillen, at the end the cruise. We gave him a thumbs down but comedy is personal and other people obviously enjoyed his set. The live music around the ship was generally good—we enjoyed the jazz standards and Latin music performances especially—although I (not liking loud places) often found the duos turned up too much, especially in the Sunset Bar. There were late-night dance parties, including silent discos, more than once, but we were in our stateroom with a nightcap before 11 and sometimes before 10 every night, so I can't weigh in on those.   

Edited December 1, 2018 by BeeMinor
Fixed typo

[watchdiva]

Really enjoying your review!  Iagreeabout the See Antigua by Sea excursion.  We were packed in like sardines on the boat and pax took turns sitting so that others who were standing could sit for a bit.  We did this excursion December 2017 on Reflection and it is the only shore ex ever that we hated (and we’ve been cruising 25+ years).  

[BeeMinor]

Barbados

We visited Bridgetown on the Equinox back in 2016 and spent that day sampling rums at Mount Gay and then trying not to get rained on. The weather was again looking threatening, and we wanted a low-key day after all the excursions, so we decided to walk to Mount Gay and sample some more rums. We heard on the ship that Celebrity's regular excursion to Mount Gay was canceled; then it showed up in the daily planner as a "last-minute' offering. Kind of weird. Unless you have OBC to burn there is really no reason to book a ship excursion to Mount Gay, though. It's an inexpensive cab ride or a moderate walk from the port terminal. It's not a nice walk, but absolutely doable if you're comfortable crossing busy streets and walking in the grass part of the way. Mount Gay's distillery isn't in Bridgetown, so the tour is really just a video and a tasting. The bar also makes great cocktails. We had several cocktails and so had them call us a cab--it was, I think, $10 (Barbados, $5 US) back to the pier.

 

I apparently took no photos in Barbados. Sorry about that. Here instead is a photo of an octopus appetizer at the Marina Bar in Bridgetown from back in 2016:

 

Food, Thanksgiving and Otherwise

 

Thursday was Thanksgiving and coincidentally the second Evening Chic night. As I mentioned I'm not into Thanksgiving food but I know lots of people are interested in whether they can have traditional Thanksgiving food on the ship. The answer is probably not. I saw a couple in Luminae who seemed to have special-ordered a meal, but I don't know whether it was turkey and mashed potatoes or something else entirely. The other dining venues seemed to have the regular menus in place. 

 

In the past I've found Luminae to be a nice experience but the food can be hit and miss. This week was no exception. We waited for a table (briefly) only once, and service was friendly and efficient without being rushed. The food was just okay, and all the servers were really pushing ordering from the MDR menu by our usual late dinner time, so I wonder if they had been getting negative feedback from earlier diners. We ordered only Luminae food. Every piece of seafood I had was overcooked and rubbery. I have the note "meh" next to almost every appetizer I had throughout the week. The pasta was pretty thick (like a 3 or 4 on a pasta roller) but that's a tastes-may-vary thing. The meat dishes I had (cotes de boeuf and roasted lamb) were both well prepared, though, and my husband liked all the soups he tried. And, again, I think the menus need a serious revamp. I hesitate to compare Celebrity to Silversea, but since Celebrity is pricing suites in a way that does compare with Silversea I think it's fair for me to note that we enjoyed the food on Silversea immensely more. One of the reasons we go on cruises is to enjoy nice dinners, and we discussed on the ship that we'd be reluctant to book another X cruise after the Edge if Celebrity doesn't at least mix up the menus. I don't expect James Beard-award-winning cuisine on a big ship, but if I can get a better experience for the money on a small ship, well . . . 

 

That said, the buffet on this trip was an unexpected treat. We had lunch there a couple of times and the food was fresh, well-prepared, and tasty. On the last night of the cruise we wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather and decided to forego Luminae in favor of a casual dinner at the Sunset Bar, and it was so good that I would have gone back if we'd had more days on the ship. The grill station at the back of the buffet turned out perfectly grilled chicken, and with a big salad from the buffet and glass of rose from the Sunset Bar it was really a great meal. We also enjoyed the no-nonsense fast-food style burgers and beers from the Pool Grill; when I've gotten burgers there on previous cruises, it hasn't been busy and the burgers have been dry, but this time there was a steady flow of patrons and everything was hot and fresh. During the day, the buffet was packed, so we sometimes took our plates down to our balcony on Deck 8 and ate there rather than searching for an empty/clean table. During our sea day lunch we were treated to a real ocean show from our balcony—a school of dolphins swimming alongside the ship! It was absolutely magical.

[PelicanLvr]

Enjoying your review!  Thanks for posting.

 

Thanks also for the tips about dinner from the buffet to enjoy a beautiful night at the Sunset Bar.  We will be on Summit in about a month and hope to do that a few nights.  Any other tips/comments on dinner at the buffet?

[bhughey]

On 11/30/2018 at 1:58 PM, BeeMinor said:

 

Thank you! On the Antigua trip there was snorkeling at the beach. A couple of members of the ship's crew led groups out not terribly far off the beach. After about an hour of lounge/snorkel time they served lunch, and that took another hour or so. The crew was pretty adamant that you couldn't snorkel after you had any alcohol so it wound down then. We did not snorkel ourselves because we are not strong swimmers but my eavesdropping suggested that those who did were not impressed. To be fair . . . the catamaran had groups from four ships, and the biggest group was from an Aida ship. I don't understand German so my eavesdropping options were limited!

 

There was another, smaller catamaran that came in about an hour after we did for snorkeling as well so maybe it was just an off day? It had been pretty stormy while we were heading to the beach. I heard back on the ship that people on some of the other catamaran excursions had to wear life jackets going out. 

 

 

Thanks! We always miss the dog when we're gone, but she hates water, so she's never going to go on a cruise. 😆 Did your breakfast menu look like this at all or was it the older vertically-oriented one? I asked our butler about whether the speciality items had a fee and he said that it had changed for the suites. We were on Deck 8 amidst Concierge cabins and the other breakfast cards I saw out had a similar exterior, but ours was clearly marked "Suites" on the outside. I will be a little bummed if we can't get Benedicts and Bloodies on the Edge in February when we're back in a Sky Suite.

We only had the long, door hanging type breakfast menus. No bloodies and no bennies.

Side note: I should mention, as I have been remiss in writing a review of our cruise, but our Butler, Peter was absolutely wonderful! A truly genuine and delightful man who felt like an old friend. He really went above and beyond!

 

(and we really miss our pups when we're gone, too - but it makes coming home a little easier!)

Edited December 5, 2018 by bhughey

[cricketts]

What a great review! We’re in a Sky Suite next month, and have submitted bids in the “Move Up” program for a Celebrity or Royal Suite - fingers crossed!

[BeeMinor]

On 12/4/2018 at 6:10 PM, PelicanLvr said:

Enjoying your review!  Thanks for posting.

 

Thanks also for the tips about dinner from the buffet to enjoy a beautiful night at the Sunset Bar.  We will be on Summit in about a month and hope to do that a few nights.  Any other tips/comments on dinner at the buffet?

 

Thank you! If you don't want to share dinner with loud music, try to pick a time when the duo isn't playing.  The grilling station at the back had chicken, steak, fish, and maybe pork chops that all looked pretty good. It's worth checking all the stations just to see what strikes you--there's a vegetarian/gluten-free section tucked away in a corner that tended to have more Asian/Indian flavors, and a kids' section with classic American food. My husband had the mac and cheese from the kids' section and said it was excellent. The night we ate in the buffet we saw several ship officers, entertainers, and other staff members there, and if I hadn't been very ready for a salad I might have followed them around discreetly to see what they were eating.

[BeeMinor]

On 12/4/2018 at 8:40 PM, bhughey said:

We only had the long, door hanging type breakfast menus. No bloodies and no bennies.

Side note: I should mention, as I have been remiss in writing a review of our cruise, but our Butler, Peter was absolutely wonderful! A truly genuine and delightful man who felt like an old friend. He really went above and beyond!

 

(and we really miss our pups when we're gone, too - but it makes coming home a little easier!)

 

I wonder if there's been a recent total change then? Huh. I guess I'll see on the Edge. I think the old ones had the premium items on the back, and I never wanted to pay the upcharge, but having had them now I would.

 

Getting knocked over by a very excited dog is the best part of coming home!

[BeeMinor]

On 12/5/2018 at 1:48 AM, cricketts said:

What a great review! We’re in a Sky Suite next month, and have submitted bids in the “Move Up” program for a Celebrity or Royal Suite - fingers crossed!

 

Thank you! We heard the people in one of the Penthouse Suites tell the MC concierge they'd won the bid through Move Up, so it happens!

[BeeMinor]

Last Ship Thoughts + Weekending in San Juan

 

A few miscellaneous observations:

 

Wifi was decent. I ran a speedtest early in the cruise and it pinged at about 2 mbps, which was adequate for the light browsing/Instagramming I did on the ship. However, the connection dropped a lot, and I had to sign in and sign out multiple times to connect more than once. I wouldn't say that overall it was faster or more reliable than my included roaming data on T-Mobile. 

 

Lots of people seemed very confused about their drink packages. Bartenders will generally take your order and then make sure whatever you get is covered, or tell you before pouring if it's not. If you want something specific, be prepared to ask for it very specifically. For example, the premium package covers a Champagne, but the bartenders don't actively differentiate among sparkling wines. So if I didn't specifically ask for the "Montaudon Champagne" I'd get Chandon or prosecco. As a wine drinker I didn't find any of the wines to be especially great but they were generally fine. If it's included in a package it is usually grocery store wine. Sommeliers we interacted with around the ship and at the "World of Wine" tasting—which was super fun—didn't seem to have a lot to say about the wines beyond origin and vintage. There was the one who suggested that the bone dry Cabernet Sauvignon at the wine tasting would pair really well with turkey, which, to each his own, I guess.

 

Incidentally, the entire ship ran out of tequila by the last night—we got what were just about the last two margaritas on the ship, I think. 

 

Debarkation for the suites was, as always, very smooth. We went to Michael's long enough for a coffee and croissant, and then walked out with Pavel at about 8:30. We waited in line for about 10 seconds. My husband took one look at the enormous line for customs for non-suite guests and said, "well, that's worth the money for the suite right there."

 

And then we were back in San Juan!

 

In and Around Old San Juan

We stayed the Hotel CasaBlanca in Old San Juan, which I selected for location, price, and lack of a resort fee. Our room was small but clean:

 

The hotel had personality, the staff was extremely nice, and the location was very convenient to OSJ sights, restaurants, and bars. We had a small shared terrace that was great for people watching. On the downside the hotel had no amenities—not even on-site coffee—and the elevator was not running regularly. I'd probably stay elsewhere in San Juan if we were to go back just to have a different experience, but I'd recommend it if you are looking to stay in OSJ and planning to spend most of your time out and about.

 

San Juan has plenty to see and lots of good food and drink! OSJ has lovely historical sights:

 

View from one of the forts

 

Inside the small but interesting Casa Blanca, built for the Ponce de Leon family  

 

Wall art in Casa Blanca not designed for the Ponce de Leon family  

 

And, really, lots of good food all around:

 

A+ nachos at Greengos on Calle Fortaleza

 

We spent Saturday evening in Old San Juan, mostly at La Taberna Lúpulo, a vaguely hipster-ish craft beer bar. If you're interested in craft beers—Ocean Lab seems to be the local choice—it is walkable from the pier in OSJ and worth a visit on a port stop. All the locals we talked to encouraged us to go to La Placita on Saturday night, but we didn't feel up to the crush of people. We did go over the following day, which was not busy but still not a bad place for a couple of drinks and a snack. 

 

Burnt ends at the San Juan Smokehouse, which went remarkably well with daiquiris

 

Also walkable from the OSJ pier is Buns Burger, where I had the best burger of the week (sorry Summit):

 

I'm glad we stuck around San Juan, and I'd definitely recommend doing so post-cruise if you have the time. We flew back on Monday afternoon, which was not one of the days that the big ships disembark, and the airport was practically empty. 

 

And that's all, folks! Off to go gaze longingly at all my warm weather maxi dresses and dream of the moment 80 days from now when we board the Edge to enjoy another week of being temporarily not cold. Thanks for following along, and if you have any other questions about the Summit or the ports, I'll do my best to answer! 

 

 

 

[maggieq]

Thanks for the review.  Brings back memories as we did this same cruise the week after thanksgiving 3 years ago.  We are actually thinking of doing the same cruise for next year, same time of year.  Love flying thanksgiving day and having a couple of days before cruising.  Right now it’s between the summit and equinox. 

Edited December 7, 2018 by maggieq

[PelicanLvr]

Thanks for getting back about dinner at the buffet.  Enjoy Edge!

[amunhbuu]

We were on the cruise the following week.  We loved it.  Summit is certainly showing her age, but the crew was outstanding.  My only gripe was that the wine selections seemed to be limited.  It wasn't until the last two days that we started to get the wine we wanted.  So I don't know if they were having supply issues?

[zdad59]

We loved Hotel Casablanca.   Stayed there when we pre-gamed for a cruise a couple years ago.     Funky, not fancy, but great location in OSJ.    Did you use the rooftop concrete bathtubs ?

 

[swigso]

Hi 

i really enjoyed your review and the comparison to Silversea. We have toyed with trying it 

my brother is a big fan.  You may want to look at Azamara, the ship food is fantastic and 

the breakfast served on the balcony in the morning was one of the highlights of our cruise. 

The staff are amazing and the opera singers brought on board in Portifino

were the highlight of our cruise. The downside is that we favour the bigger ships

and feel that they fit us better. Having said that we will probably sail Azamara if the 

itinary fits but not for more than a seven day port intensive trip.

[BeeMinor]

On 12/7/2018 at 8:34 AM, amunhbuu said:

We were on the cruise the following week.  We loved it.  Summit is certainly showing her age, but the crew was outstanding.  My only gripe was that the wine selections seemed to be limited.  It wasn't until the last two days that we started to get the wine we wanted.  So I don't know if they were having supply issues?

 

Quite possible. I think a lot of people just don't notice or care. When we were on the ship they definitely didn't have all the beers at Cellar Masters that the display made it appear they did--my husband really likes Lagunitas Pils and was thrilled to see it behind the bar, but literally always got a different Lagunitas beer when he ordered it. The bar staff didn't even seem particularly aware that different beers made by the same brewery are not the same beers.