Review of the Reflection 14 Night Southern Caribbean

[oskarNZ]

Ft Lauderdale Tour

 

I’m sitting at FLL airport right now waiting for a delayed flight and feeling a bit frustrated by what has not turned out to be the smooth ending to our cruise that I hoped.  Probably the best way to explain the tour we just did is to share the email I just sent Celebrity.

 

Before doing so though, I do want to emphasise that my explanation of the sanctuary is very much my opinion.  As someone who has strong feelings about captive animals, I am generally okay with sanctuary’s if they are trying to do best by animals that can’t be released into the wild and the housing and enclosures are quite large and natural.  In this case I think they are trying to do well by the animals, but unfortunately some of the enclosures seemed very small.  

 

Email:

 

Hello,

Today I disembarked the Celebrity Reflection in Port Everglades and did an end of cruise excursion to The Everglades National Park.  This excursion was extremely poorly run and I wanted to email to express my disappointment.

Before doing so, I would first like to acknowledge  that the cruise itself was very good, as were most of the Celebrity organised excursions we did.  The one in Barbados (Beach Island Hop) was particularly excellent.  

This morning we met in the Celebrity Theatre at the arranged time of 7:30 and waited about 40minutes before we left the theatre.  Once through customs we were met by a tour organiser who seemed a bit confused about what tour we should have been on and needed to see our tickets to confirm we were in fact on the Everglades tour.  She seemed very disorganised.

Once at the bus, she told us not to load our bags onto the bus because the driver had a system and needed to do this.  This would have been fine, but without help, the driver took close to 45minutes just to load people’s bags.  It was close to 9:30 (an hour after our scheduled departure) that we eventually left. They put MIA airport and FLL airport people together on the same bus which seemed a strange decision as there were far too many people on the tour to use one bus.  Presumably all the people still queueing on the pavement when we left were put on a second bus, so why they didn’t split airport groups to speed things up is confusing.  

Once on the road, the driver informed us that the airboats are very cold and we would need a jacket.  This information would have been good before putting all our luggage under the bus, as over half the bus, including my family, clearly weren’t prepared with warm clothing.  The driver was correct though - it was freezing on the boat.

Once we arrived at the Sawgrass Everglades Centre, no clear instructions were given, so people got off the bus.  The driver had gone into the centre (presumably to find a staff member to help us) and we he came out he complained that he hadn’t told us to get off the bus yet.  

We then were given a sticker and told to wait for an airboat to arrive.    

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending how you look at it) the airboat ride was very short.  The captain spotted two Alligators for us, seemed satisfied that we’d had a great ride because of this, and then reminded us to tip her. 

At this stage we were pretty much left to our own devices.  We weren’t provided with a guide, no one was told when we needed to be back on the bus, and our driver was nowhere to be seen. 
There were a lot of confused, annoyed people on that tour all questioning each other whether anyone knew what was going on.

We wandered around the animal displays and many of us joined on to a tour from the same bus company that did have a guide.  In fact most of the tours that arrived with that same company seemed to have a guide except ours. When someone from our bus asked that guide when we needed to be back on the bus, she said she was sorry, but we were not part of her tour and she did not know. 

The animal displays at the ‘sanctuary’ were quite depressing, with many animals pacing in their small cage.  We wandered around looking, but a mixture of feeling a bit sorry for the animals and also worried we might miss our bus, we headed back towards the car park.

There were a lot of people from our tour who had done the same thing.  All, like ourselves seemed frustrated that no one knew what was going on.

I eventually spotted our bus on the other side of the car park and could see people were already on it.  My family wandered over and I asked what time the bus was leaving, explaining that there were a lot of confused people up by the shop.  The driver also seemed a bit frustrated and simply replied that we would leave when a bus space became available for him by the shop.  

When it seemed everyone was on the bus, the driver’s check involved asking a few times if anyone was missing.  He seemed to have forgotten the total from his head count earlier in morning.  

We then headed to Ft Lauderdale airport first where we the driver reminded us to tip him and told us not to get off the bus until he had sorted our luggage at each stop (further slowing things down).  

In all respect to the driver, he was doing the job of more than one person, so I can understand why he was slow and disorganised.  But the excursion in general really wasn’t good and it was a disappointing end to an otherwise great cruise. It’s a shame that this should be our last memory and is something Celebrity promote.  It was certainly not worthy of the money we spent.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Regards,
K.......
Reservation number .....
 

[mahdnc]

Hi. I'm on our plane in Houston waiting for it to leave the gate to take us home too Chicago where there's gonna be a snow storm tonight!

 

I just got through reading your last post. I'm really sorry to hear about the tour. 

 

It was nice to meet you and I wish we had run into each other more. I was really expecting that we would talk about my cruise to your homeland next year on Solstice!

 

I have to go, our plane is about to take off. 

 

Safe travels to you and your family!

 

Awesome photos by the way!

[Barwick Cruiser]

Was on this cruise also and thanks, Karina, for a wonderful review.  So sorry to hear about your final day and the disappointing excursion.  Also wish we'd had more opportunities to exchange info about your country and discuss our Dec Solstice cruise.

 

We had a good time on the cruise and agree about the house band, Inc, who had quite the following onboard.  We enjoyed most of the entertainment and wish the aerialists had done another show they were fantastic.  

 

Food was very good both in the main dining room as well as the specialties.  We ate in Oceanview on embarkation and that was it.  Select Dining was a huge disappointment for us...totally unorganized, never seen such chaos every single night on a Celebrity ship.  We also had the 4 night dining package and agree that Tuscan was our favourite, really enjoyed on the final night but didn't see you and your family there, must've just missed you.

 

We are enjoying an extra night in Ft. Lauderdale and fly home tomorrow...just in time apparently before the weather turns cold here!!  Safe flight back to NZ for you and your family and thanks for posting a very well done review!!

Cathy

[oskarNZ]

7 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Hi. I'm on our plane in Houston waiting for it to leave the gate to take us home too Chicago where there's gonna be a snow storm tonight!

 

I just got through reading your last post. I'm really sorry to hear about the tour. 

 

It was nice to meet you and I wish we had run into each other more. I was really expecting that we would talk about my cruise to your homeland next year on Solstice!

 

I have to go, our plane is about to take off. 

 

Safe travels to you and your family!

 

Awesome photos by the way!

 

Thanks David for your great organisational skills.  You did such a wonderful job of running our roll call and meet up.  It is a shame we didn’t get to talk further, but feel free to email me with any questions that come up about NZ.

 

I hope the storm in Chicago isn’t too bad and you were able to land safely.  

 

Regarding the tour, I try not to cause too much of a fuss generally, but after discussing it further with my husband while we were waiting for our flight, we both agree that I didn’t really emphasise well enough just how disorganised, disappointing and, at times, depressing the tour was.  

On the plus side I have now been to the Florida Everglades and can tick that off as a place I’ve seen,  Tick.  

 

 

[oskarNZ]

6 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Was on this cruise also and thanks, Karina, for a wonderful review.  So sorry to hear about your final day and the disappointing excursion.  Also wish we'd had more opportunities to exchange info about your country and discuss our Dec Solstice cruise.

 

We had a good time on the cruise and agree about the house band, Inc, who had quite the following onboard.  We enjoyed most of the entertainment and wish the aerialists had done another show they were fantastic.  

 

Food was very good both in the main dining room as well as the specialties.  We ate in Oceanview on embarkation and that was it.  Select Dining was a huge disappointment for us...totally unorganized, never seen such chaos every single night on a Celebrity ship.  We also had the 4 night dining package and agree that Tuscan was our favourite, really enjoyed on the final night but didn't see you and your family there, must've just missed you.

 

We are enjoying an extra night in Ft. Lauderdale and fly home tomorrow...just in time apparently before the weather turns cold here!!  Safe flight back to NZ for you and your family and thanks for posting a very well done review!!

Cathy

 Thanks Cathy 🙂

 

I’m going to respond to you properly tomorrow as I can barely keep my eyes open right now, but just out of interest, how did you enjoy the Grenada tour?  

[MartinsCruise]

Thank you for your well-written review and wonderful photos.  We'll be back on the Reflection in April with Curacao being one of our stops.  Do you know which beach you snorkeled from to see the turtles?  We have a late flight out so we were thinking of the Everglades tour just to pass time but after reading about the disorganization and especially how the animals are kept, we will plan something different.  I really appreciate that you shared this information with us and that you emailed Celebrity.  

[oskarNZ]

11 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Was on this cruise also and thanks, Karina, for a wonderful review.  So sorry to hear about your final day and the disappointing excursion.  Also wish we'd had more opportunities to exchange info about your country and discuss our Dec Solstice cruise.

 

We had a good time on the cruise and agree about the house band, Inc, who had quite the following onboard.  We enjoyed most of the entertainment and wish the aerialists had done another show they were fantastic.  

 

Food was very good both in the main dining room as well as the specialties.  We ate in Oceanview on embarkation and that was it.  Select Dining was a huge disappointment for us...totally unorganized, never seen such chaos every single night on a Celebrity ship.  We also had the 4 night dining package and agree that Tuscan was our favourite, really enjoyed on the final night but didn't see you and your family there, must've just missed you.

 

We are enjoying an extra night in Ft. Lauderdale and fly home tomorrow...just in time apparently before the weather turns cold here!!  Safe flight back to NZ for you and your family and thanks for posting a very well done review!!

Cathy

 

Thanks Cathy.  I’m pleased you enjoyed the review.  

 

So sorry to hear about your experience with Select Dining. How frustrating!

We had it too but had quite a different experience and really liked it.

The difference I suspect is because I made reservations prior to the cruise for 6:30 every night and were able to enter on the side of the room that was for reservations and suite guests.   The nights we dined there we always  arrived between 5:30 and 6:30, and our early arrivals were always happily accommodated as the restaurant was always lovely and quiet at 5:30.  From 6:30 onwards, most tables were full.   

 

Most nights they sat us at the same 4-top table next to a waiters station in a seperate space/room at the back of the restaurant.  We saw other people complain when they got offered one of these waiters station tables - complaining it would be too noisy being right next to one, but we loved it back there. This smaller space had about a dozen tables and didn’t have the loud hum of voices of the main part of the restaurant, plus being just one back from a window, we could enjoy sail away from each port and/or the sunset out the window each night.  We were happy.  

 

Please note that I’m not mentioning our good experience to try and make you feel worse about your poor one, just hoping that it might help someone else.  In saying that I completely understand that a lot of people don’t like dining early or making reservations when the dining option you have chosen should, theoretically, provide flexibility.

 

I hope you enjoyed your last night in Ft Lauderdale and get home before the cold hits. 

We are in LA now and are here for another night before we head home.  Not sure I’m quite ready to go back and face reality 🤣

[DreadPirateRobert]

Thanks for such a thorough review! My wife and I were also on this cruise. You definitely did a better job of picking shore excursions than we did. 😄

 

[oskarNZ]

2 hours ago, MartinsCruise said:

Thank you for your well-written review and wonderful photos.  We'll be back on the Reflection in April with Curacao being one of our stops.  Do you know which beach you snorkeled from to see the turtles?  We have a late flight out so we were thinking of the Everglades tour just to pass time but after reading about the disorganization and especially how the animals are kept, we will plan something different.  I really appreciate that you shared this information with us and that you emailed Celebrity.  

 

Thanks for reading 😊

 

I couldn’t remember the name of the beach, but after a bit of googling I think it’s Playa Grandi.  It’s a public beach, so free to swim in, but do note that there aren’t any facilities there and it’s probably not a beach you would want to spend a whole day at.  

 

If you are looking for a bigger tour company that stops there, we noticed that an Irie Tour bus was there when we visited.  It did mean a lot of people in the water at once though and we were quite pleased when they left.  If you organise a private tour or drive there on your own, I would try to get going early to beat the crowds.  If you decide to see if Gail is available, tell her Karina from New Zealand thoroughly recommended her.  She’s so awesome and even brings a portable shower for rinsing off after the snorkel and a big towel to hide behind and get changed so you can enjoy the rest of the tour clean and dry.  Plus I loved the way she stood on the jetty watching our valuables and pointing out the location of turtles for us, and loudly telling off any tourists who were touching them.  

 

As for the Everglades tour, the animal conditions really aren’t great. I suspect they know this and are wary of some of the bad reviews they’ve had, as during the prepared talks they spent a lot of time convincing everyone that they are a sanctuary, not a zoo, and have saved these animals from euthanasia.

They also spend a lot of time asking for donations to help the animals.  

I’m of the thought, that a sanctuary has a lot of the same animals taken when and where necessary, but this felt more like someone’s collection of different wild cats and unique animals.  

While I did feel that the keepers genuinely cared about their animals, many of them looked miserable in their tiny enclosures and the raccoon in particular looked like it was going crazy.

 

I know not everyone is as sensitive to these issues as I am, as meanwhile the longest queue I saw in the park was one to handle and get a photograph with a baby crocodile.  But it really does confuse me a business will take people out into a National Park that celebrates the preservation of wildlife, before following this up with an opportunity to handle such animals and see them captive.  

 

Just my opinion...

 

Edited January 19, 2019 by oskarNZ

[oskarNZ]

21 minutes ago, DreadPirateRobert said:

Thanks for such a thorough review! My wife and I were also on this cruise. You definitely did a better job of picking shore excursions than we did. 😄

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Sorry to hear your excursions weren’t all wonderful, but hopefully you did have some awesome ones.  Please feel free to share here if there were any that particularly stood out as it’s interesting to hear about other people’s experience of the same cruise.  😊  

[DreadPirateRobert]

Oh, none were awful. One snag on Curaçao but all in all it was dealt with very well.

Several of the ship sponsored tours far exceeded my expectations. It just looked like you had some incredible experiences.

Our problem was trying to “wing it” on our own and grab something once we got to a port. We should know better. 

Edited January 19, 2019 by DreadPirateRobert

[Dutch48]

On 1/17/2019 at 7:35 AM, oskarNZ said:

Food, glorious food

 

Given that I think this is what I think Celebrity does best, why not start here.

 

In general, we have been really pleased with the quality of food on this ship.  

The buffet has an excellent array of choices and is well managed, and the majority of the food served in the Opus restaurant is excellent also.  

 

Before the cruise, we bought a 4 night dining package and as soon as we arrived onboard we went to select our times.  

I had read here on CC that with the dining package you are forced to choose between either a very early sitting (5:30) or a late one and we did find this to be the case.  Because we quite like eating early, 5:30 was fine with us, but I do think that Celebrity should be more transparent about this during the booking process.  

 

Qisine:

The petite chef experience was fun, but it was definitely a do once and not again type of experience for us.  We found the menu choices a bit limited and while the food was good, it was probably the least tasty of the 4 specialty places we ate at.  

 

Murano:

Very good service and very good food, but at the end of the day, this isn’t really our preferred style of dining.  We find this style of dining a bit stuffy and old fashioned, so while I can’t fault the experience we had, it too is not a place we would eat at more than once due to personal preferences.  

 

Tuscan Grill:

Loved it!   Easily the best meal we had during the two weeks and we loved it so much we have booked our last meal there tonight. 

We subscribe to the Jamie Oliver style of thought where if ingredients are fresh and flavourful, they will speak for themselves and don’t need much playing with (such as flambeing in front of you) and this is what we found at Tuscan Grille.  Even the side dish of freshly made spaghetti tossed in nothing more than olive oil, garlic, peppercorns and parmesan tasted amazing.    

 

The Lawn Grill

One of the best aspects of this restaurant for us was eating outdoors and enjoying the sunset (another benefit to eating early).  It was essentially a good quality bbq with nice cuts of meat.  Again we really liked it, but probably wouldn’t rush to return.  

We did try the $15 burger lunch and again while we liked it, once was enough.  I think the lunch food in the buffet was just as good.  

 

Speaking of food, it’s time to head to breakfast.  But later today I will write about our shore experiences which have easily been the highlight of our cruise and where we I have taken all our pics.  

 

 

 

Did you try The Porch? My sister and I will be on the Reflection in April and this is one I’m dying to try.

[mafig]

We don't usually make reservations for Select as we go early (around or before 6:00).

For our upcoming cruise, we did make reservations for the first night, since that's usually chaotic.

Do you think we need to make them for every night?  This is for Reflection, also.

[oskarNZ]

8 hours ago, Dutch48 said:

 

Did you try The Porch? My sister and I will be on the Reflection in April and this is one I’m dying to try.

 

No, sorry.  We didn’t try The Porch or Sushi on Five.  

[oskarNZ]

7 hours ago, mafig said:

We don't usually make reservations for Select as we go early (around or before 6:00).

For our upcoming cruise, we did make reservations for the first night, since that's usually chaotic.

Do you think we need to make them for every night?  This is for Reflection, also.

 

Hard to say.  My guess is that you’ll be fine either way due to your early eating time, but I wouldn’t want you to quote me on that.  

 

The reservations enter through a different door to the non-reservations and based on what Cathy said, I think the reservation side may have been a bit more organised. 

 

I did like that that our reservation meant eating in the same area each night and getting to know the service staff.  Plus we had no issues coming in earlier than our 6:30 slot, but I think it might have posed a problem had we come later.  

 

 

[Shlee2TheSea]

On 1/17/2019 at 9:35 AM, oskarNZ said:

Ports 

 

Antigua 

 

Here we did a Celebrity organised tour called Scenic Antigua and Beach and it’s probably the only excursion of the cruise that I won’t recommend.  Not because it was bad, I just think there are probably better options on offer.  

The bus we travelled in had a poor speaker system making it hard to hear the guide and there was terrible leg room between the seats.  The guide, however, was good at her job and very positive.  

 

Nelson Dockyard was a ‘been there, done that’ kind of place.  The beach they took us to was lovely, but the water was so cold - surprisingly though.  I’m guessing it’s because Antigua was the most northern port of our visit, but none of the other islands we visited had water that cold.  Not the fault of the tour, but still worth mentioning.  

Here’s some pics of the day anyway.

 

 

Hello, Did you happen to hear about anything better to do in Antigua? We just booked this tour but wondering if you found any other information on excursions.

Thanks! 

[gizmodog]

Celebrity had a 14 night cruise this year? I thought they quit doing 14 nights

[oskarNZ]

2 hours ago, Shlee2TheSea said:

Hello, Did you happen to hear about anything better to do in Antigua? We just booked this tour but wondering if you found any other information on excursions.

Thanks! 

Sorry, I did not.  There is likely to have been something we would have preferred, but I couldn’t tell you what that would be. 

There is a chance you might really like this excursion, particularly if you get a van with a better sound system and the ocean is warmer that day. (The view across the bay is particularly pretty).  But I do have to be honest and say that for my family it was our least favourite tour of the cruise.  

[oskarNZ]

50 minutes ago, gizmodog said:

Celebrity had a 14 night cruise this year? I thought they quit doing 14 nights

My post has been bumped.  The cruise was a year ago and I think one of the last 14 nights they offered.  
It was an awesome itinerary and it’s a shame Celebrity don’t offer them anymore.  

Edited January 21, 2020 by oskarNZ

[mahdnc]

Yes, you are right. With the cancellation of the Jan 31 2020 Silhouette sailing, this Reflection cruise was the last Caribbean 14 nighter by Celebrity. 
 

Many of us are hoping for its return!  

[Cruisegirl6]

Thank you so very much, we are on the 11 night ABC island Reflection November 2 cruise.