My review (with photos) of our corner Family Veranda on the "revolutionized" Summit

[Turtles06]

My wife and I have just returned from a very enjoyable 14-day New England/Canada cruise out of Cape Liberty on the “revolutionized” Summit.  We were originally booked in a C2 cabin, but when a corner Family Veranda opened up (8166), we “downgraded” ourselves and grabbed it.  We’d stayed in the same cabin some years ago on the Infinity, so we knew how large and wonderful it is for two people.  Even back then, the Infinity was worn and dated, so we were excited to see what the “revolution” had brought to the Summit.  Because there are still so many questions about specific staterooms on the Summit since the updates, and since I’d promised on another Summit thread to post photos of our corner FV, here are our thoughts and photos (spread across a number of posts).

 

First, the positives.  Overall, we still loved this cabin, and would certainly book it again if we had the opportunity.   We thought the color changes were lovely; we liked the grey and beige tones, which have a certain quiet elegance to them.  (I’m not sure the photos really do them justice.)  For the two of us, at least, there was more than ample closet space.  We also had enough drawer space (four dresser drawers next to the closet, four smaller ones in the desk, and four smaller ones in the second room).   There are also shelves in the closets as you can see in the photos.  

 

 

 

There are two closets like this in the "main" part of the cabin:

 

 

The bed was extremely comfortable, and we thought that Celebrity did an excellent job with the bathroom.  The stall shower, though small, was one of the best we’ve ever had on a ship, and it was wonderful to have a glass door in place of that awful shower curtain.  There was ample storage space in the bathroom, as you can see in the photos. 

 

 

 

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

[Turtles06]

Here’s the second room.  We weren’t really sure what to call that thing that’s not really a sofa and not really a chair. I started calling it Chairy.  Both the sofa and Chairy convert to beds.   

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

 

[Turtles06]

The balcony is so huge it’s really a private deck.  There are two loungers with a small table, and four reclining chairs and a higher table.  You have great views to the side as well as the stern.  Simply awesome.

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

[upwarduk]

When we were above you on Infinity in 9156, I remember having a corridor from the outside door to the inside cabin door. We had wardrobes in that corridor. Is this still the case?

Edited September 24, 2019 by upwarduk

[Turtles06]

3 minutes ago, upwarduk said:

When we were above you on Infinity in 9156, I remember having a corridor from the outside door to the inside cabin door. We had wardrobes in that corridor. Is this still the case?

 

We had no wardrobes in our corridor on the Infinity, and there are none there now on the Summit, at least not in the corner FV we just had.    

[Turtles06]

There are several design negatives in this cabin.  None would keep us from booking this cabin again, but I do want to mention them.  The biggest flaw was the lack of a mirror on any wall where a blow dryer could be plugged in, particularly over the desk, which is where the main outlets are.   (The blow dryer in fact is stored in the top drawer of the desk.)  This is, in our opinion, an epic design fail.   Yes, it’s clear that Celebrity wanted to center the new flat screen TV on the wall across from the bed.  But who cares about symmetry; on a ship, you need function!  There needs to be a mirror to the right of the TV over the desk, or on the room divider to the right.  This is a case where function needs to trump design.  The only wall mirror is on a wall perpendicular to the closets about 16 feet away from the outlet for the blow dryer, and is thus too far away to be of any use when you are drying your hair and would like to see what you are doing.  

 

Either Celebrity or a prior passenger left a small, round makeup mirror in the desk drawer.  While this was better than nothing (especially since we both have short hair), it is not a solution to the lack of a wall mirror, and I think that someone with long hair or using a curling iron would probably have a problem.   I want to add that, according to our next door neighbors in a non-corner FV, there’s a little different set up there.  While they had no mirror over the desk either, they said there was a mirror on the wall in the second room, and that if they stretched the blow dryer cord as far as it could go around the room divider, they could just see the mirror.  Still not ideal.

 

  

(photos by turtles06)

[Turtles06]

The sofa and Chairy in the second room are hard as rocks to sit on.  And they are both so deep that for short people like me, there’s no back support because your body doesn’t touch the back of the furniture.  For me, the only comfortable place to sit indoors was the desk chair.  The two throw pillows in the second room were really large rocks covered with fabric; you could probably kill a person if you bashed him or her over the head with one. 

 

Not that the two of us needed an electrical outlet in the second room, but I think if there were more than two guests in the cabin, the people using that second room would want some, and it struck me as strange that there were none.  Several days into the cruise, my wife noticed there actually is one outlet in the second room – down there in the corner just above the floor, so close to the couch that it would be difficult to use.   We suspected it’s there so the cabin attendant can plug in a vacuum cleaner.

 

 

(photo by turtles06)

[Turtles06]

There is really no place in the second room to set down a glass or a plate if you are sitting on the sofa or Chairy. There is room, however, for a side table or nightstand between Chairy and the balcony door, but Celebrity has not put one in.   We rectified the problem by putting the small table from the balcony there; it fit nicely. 

 

 

As others have already commented about many of the cabins on the “revolutionized” Summit, there’s no good place for a tray of food if you order room service.   That is also true of this FV.  We solved that problem by bringing the high table in from the balcony, and using the two upright chairs that otherwise served no purpose in this cabin (at least for us) and just took up space.

 

 

Some have complained about the small size of the new safes on the "revolutionized" Summit.  The safe in this cabin is indeed small.  There is no room for a tablet or laptop; it’s really only suitable for passports, keys, wallets, phones, jewelry, and similar small valuables.  This was not a problem for us, as we don’t usually lock up our larger electronics anyway.  However, I do think that in a cabin this size, that is typically booked by four or five guests, it would probably be a good idea to have a second safe in the other cabinet.

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

Edited September 24, 2019 by Turtles06

[Turtles06]

A few tips about the outlets.  The main block of outlets is over the desk: there is an American outlet (on the left), two USB charging ports, and two standard northern European two-pronged outlets.  The latter are so deeply recessed,  however, that unless the prongs on your plugs or adapters are very long, you may well experience some difficulty in getting them out of the outlets after they have been plugged in.  (I did with my two-pronged adapter.)

 

 

The nightstand to the left of the bed (as you face the bed) has a fixed lamp with two American outlets and two USB charging ports.  (However, depending on the size of your chargers, you may not be able to use all of these at the same time.)

 

 

There are no outlets on the right side of the bed.  The nightstand has the phone, and there's a reading lamp hanging over the bed.  (The only switch is above the lamp, so you have to get out of bed to turn it off.  Another silly little thing from the designers.) 

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

[Turtles06]

I don’t want the list of flaws to make it sound as though we did not enjoy this stateroom.  We really loved it.   The biggest problem was the lack of a wall mirror for the blow dryer.  The rest we could easily deal with, and, as I said at the start, we’d definitely book this cabin again.  I hope this has been helpful, and I'm happy to answer any questions that I can.  

 

[TeeRick]

Thanks so much for the review and pictures!

[bobrxlex]

Well Turtles 06 you did a wonderful review.. You could be a professional reviewer. It was great meeting you guys and hope you have many more wonderful cruises.

[Elainemh]

We just stayed in 8183, not a corner.

We did have the large mirror in the front room, but the cords on our dryers and stylers

were not long enough to reach to use that mirror.  We knew from previous reviews that there was not a mirror at the desk.  I had purchased  10”X12” mirror from Amazon

that we brought with us to sit on desk.  The outlets on the desk was too low and due to the size of our hair dryer plug we were not able to plug the dryer in.  Thank goodness I had brought a heavy duty 3 prong extender.

 

I was disappointed that we did not have the high top large table on our deck.  We only

had one small round table. This left no place to really sit and eat.

 

 Even with these small problems I would not hesitate to book this room again.

 

 

[cinnamon]

I we are taking this cruise next year on Summit bug out of Boston. 

Will you be writing a review of the ports and general cruise Turtle.

[jmb4534]

Thank yo so much for the excellent cabin review. That's just what I was wanting to see. 

[kag19]

The lack of mirror is indeed a huge miss.  Thanks for the tip...will be brining a mirror with me on our upcoming trip now!

[tcmagnum]

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

The balcony is so huge it’s really a private deck.  There are two loungers with a small table, and four reclining chairs and a higher table.  You have great views to the side as well as the stern.  Simply awesome.

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

LOVE that balcony!!!

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, upwarduk said:

When we were above you on Infinity in 9156, I remember having a corridor from the outside door to the inside cabin door. We had wardrobes in that corridor. Is this still the case?

 

I never heard of that.  We have only stayed in Deck 7 & 8 corner FVs and the corridor always had panel doors to access the cabin utilities (electricity, water, HVAC). Summit FV 8166 corridor is pictured below along with a photo of what is behind the panel doors.

 

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

The sofa and Chairy in the second room are hard as rocks to sit on.  And they are both so deep that for short people like me, there’s no back support because your body doesn’t touch the back of the furniture.  For me, the only comfortable place to sit indoors was the desk chair.  The two throw pillows in the second room were really large rocks covered with fabric; you could probably kill a person if you bashed him or her over the head with one. 

 

Not that the two of us needed an electrical outlet in the second room, but I think if there were more than two guests in the cabin, the people using that second room would want some, and it struck me as strange that there were none.  Several days into the cruise, my wife noticed there actually is one outlet in the second room – down there in the corner just above the floor, so close to the couch that it would be difficult to use.   We suspected it’s there so the cabin attendant can plug in a vacuum cleaner.

 

 

(photo by turtles06)

 

Those plugs, which were euro styled, were usually occupied by lamps.  Here is a photo of a pre-Revolution Summit FV 8166 with a lamp which positioned on the opposite side of the sliding glass door.  Usually the cabin attendant plugged the vacuum cleaner into the outlets located by the desk.

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, bobrxlex said:

Well Turtles 06 you did a wonderful review.. You could be a professional reviewer. It was great meeting you guys and hope you have many more wonderful cruises.

 

Thanks Bob!  It was great to meet you both as well, and we wish you wonderful future travels too!  (And I hope you have recovered from whatever you caught...)

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, cinnamon said:

I we are taking this cruise next year on Summit bug out of Boston. 

Will you be writing a review of the ports and general cruise Turtle.

 

That's my plan.   Long list of post-cruise things to do!  😉

[cinnamon]

4 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

 

That's my plan.   Long list of post-cruise things to do!  😉

That’s great, I’ll  look forward to reading it.  Relax, sort laundry and work through the list. 😉

Edited September 24, 2019 by cinnamon
Sorry for typos. I didn’t read it back as I usually do.

[mahdnc]

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

My wife and I have just returned from a very enjoyable 14-day New England/Canada cruise out of Cape Liberty on the “revolutionized” Summit.  We were originally booked in a C2 cabin, but when a corner Family Veranda opened up (8166), we “downgraded” ourselves and grabbed it.  We’d stayed in the same cabin some years ago on the Infinity, so we knew how large and wonderful it is for two people.  Even back then, the Infinity was worn and dated, so we were excited to see what the “revolution” had brought to the Summit.  Because there are still so many questions about specific staterooms on the Summit since the updates, and since I’d promised on another Summit thread to post photos of our corner FV, here are our thoughts and photos (spread across a number of posts).

 

First, the positives.  Overall, we still loved this cabin, and would certainly book it again if we had the opportunity.   We thought the color changes were lovely; we liked the grey and beige tones, which have a certain quiet elegance to them.  (I’m not sure the photos really do them justice.)  For the two of us, at least, there was more than ample closet space.  We also had enough drawer space (four dresser drawers next to the closet, four smaller ones in the desk, and four smaller ones in the second room).   There are also shelves in the closets as you can see in the photos.  

 

 

(photos by turtles06)

 

Thank you for posting your photos.  We are booked in a Millennium FV for next year.  From a functionality standpoint, I am disappointed that the long desk with the equally long mirror was removed.   Below is the same Summit FV 8188 cabin back in 2010.  Also, back then it was fine to have the TV not located in the center of the front of the bed.

 

[bkbarrym]

2 hours ago, Turtles06 said:

There are several design negatives in this cabin.  None would keep us from booking this cabin again, but I do want to mention them.  The biggest flaw was the lack of a mirror on any wall where a blow dryer could be plugged in, particularly over the desk, which is where the main outlets are.   (The blow dryer in fact is stored in the top drawer of the desk.)  This is, in our opinion, an epic design fail.   Yes, it’s clear that Celebrity wanted to center the new flat screen TV on the wall across from the bed.  But who cares about symmetry; on a ship, you need function!  There needs to be a mirror to the right of the TV over the desk, or on the room divider to the right.  This is a case where function needs to trump design.  The only wall mirror is on a wall perpendicular to the closets about 16 feet away from the outlet for the blow dryer, and is thus too far away to be of any use when you are drying your hair and would like to see what you are doing.  

 

Either Celebrity or a prior passenger left a small, round makeup mirror in the desk drawer.  While this was better than nothing (especially since we both have short hair), it is not a solution to the lack of a wall mirror, and I think that someone with long hair or using a curling iron would probably have a problem.   I want to add that, according to our next door neighbors in a non-corner FV, there’s a little different set up there.  While they had no mirror over the desk either, they said there was a mirror on the wall in the second room, and that if they stretched the blow dryer cord as far as it could go around the room divider, they could just see the mirror.  Still not ideal.

 

  

(photos by turtles06)

They should put a proper mirror above the desk like the other staterooms and shift the TV over to the left and put it on a swivel mount.

[Turtles06]

1 minute ago, bkbarrym said:

They should put a proper mirror above the desk like the other staterooms and shift the TV over to the left and put it on a swivel mount.

 

Thanks, that would be another solution.   It's pretty difficult to understand the lack of a mirror; it's just such a stupid error.