Live: Apr 20, 2024 Summit 14 Night Panama Canal Westbound Cruise!

[mahdnc]

We received this in our stateroom last night:

 

[hcat]

18 hours ago, mahdnc said:

I attended the 8 pm star gazing session led by Kelly Beatty up at the Rooftop Terrace.  My wife stayed in our cabin while I went up there to attend.  I got there about 15 minutes late and I was surprised at the decent number of people who attended.  The session involved identifying naked eye objects (no telescope, no binoculars).  For the most part, Kelly, used his green laser pointer to point at and identify the bright stars in the sky such as Sirius and Arcturus.  But the cloudless sky was not very transparent because of the heavy humidity in the air and the smoke from Summit's stack.  So Kelly was unsuccessful in showing the audience the famous Southern Cross which was hanging very low in the southern sky (Southern Cross cannot reasonably be seen from most of the mid and northern USA).  Also there were no bright planets out in the sky at that time either.  Anyway he did an excellent job when you consider what he had to work with.

 

  Very nice photo..

 

We tried doing the  star gazer programs twice...but it was  windy out on a top deck  at sea where it was held..The program never took off...probably best for overnights in port..

 

The roof top terrace  seems like a good location..we  had a calm night for dinner at the restaurant up there but a dark sky

 

we have had great sky views in the SV..aft balc.. 

[mahdnc]

My wife participated in some kind of raffle promotion for the Celebrity Shops.  Captain Saitis drew the three winning raffle tickets.  I was mildly surprised at how well attended it was.

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

Pickleball under sunny skies today up on Deck 12.  Not much wind.  Seemed like excellent weather for this sport.

 

 

[hcat]

9 hours ago, mahdnc said:

Yes, Summit was Revolutionized in 2019.  We are all aware of the changes to the look of the ship from that dry dock. Most of the problems I’ve seen are “beneath the hood” which would not necessarily have been addressed. 

that's the problem with the refurbs. same for Connie and Infinity.. hoping S  Class are in  better shape" under the hood"..trying Silhouette next.

[mahdnc]

I attended two Beyond the Podium presentations today.  Pluto's Amazing Story With Kelly Beatty was this morning.  Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in Feb 1930 and its size turned out to be much smaller than expected which ignited a modern day debate on whether Pluto should have "planet" status.  Kelly does a good job in taking a boring and technical subject and making it entertaining.

 

 

And I was at the heavily attended Puerto Vallarta Paradise by the Sea with Bill Fall in the early afternoon.  Bill also included some presentation slides devoted to the subject of how Panama Canal pilots are trained and re-trained.  In addition to having a simulation lab, there is a small scale mock up of portions of the Panama Canal and its locks for people to actually practice on.  It looked like an amusement park ride.  I continually am amazed at the amount of knowledge that Bill has on the Panama Canal.  Bill disembarks Summit tomorrow at Puerto Vallarta.  Too bad for us.

 

 

Edited April 30 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

@90scruzer, after his presentation today, I cornered Bill to ask him to clarify why Summit would not have gone through the new locks.  When I first asked him about that a few days ago, he kinda gave me a funny look like it was a question with an obvious answer--he told me then that "Summit is too small to go through the new locks" without any explanation.

 

So today I asked him to be more specific and to clarify that remark.  Bill said that the toll is more expensive to go through the new locks and Celebrity did not pay for that.  He then went on to say that even if Celebrity wanted to pay extra for Summit to go through the new locks, the Panama Canal Authority would not allow it.  I asked him if it was because of water usage.  He said if the full water recycle capability of the new locks was used, the new locks actually consume 7% less water than the old locks.

[mahdnc]

Beyond the Podium speaker, Kelly Beatty, has been taking his small telescope and setting it up at the pool deck area (Deck 10) for any passengers that wanted to take a peek at the afternoon sun to see its sunspots.  His 3 inch refractor telescope is outfitted with a solar filter to make it safe for direct viewing and the telescope is mounted on a tripod with an automatic tracker which kept the telescope always pointed at the sun.  The sun was being viewed with 30x magnification. 

 

It was not a scheduled activity or one that was declared in the Celebrity Today schedule.  I would say that about 20-30 people that were walking by took a quick peek at the sun during the one hour that Kelly had the telescope set up.

 

 

Kelly has been presenting on Celebrity ships for a few years now.  He will be on board for an upcoming Equinox trans-Atlantic sailing.  He will also be on a Celebrity sailing that visits Iceland and ends in Boston.  He is a fan of the Celebrity product and loves the Edge class ships although he said that the biggest drawback with Edge class is the lack of a dark space to view the night sky.

 

 

During one of Kelly's presentations he mentioned that he graduated from Caltech which was a pleasant surprise for me since I got my graduate degree from there.  He was there 10 years before I arrived.

Edited April 30 by mahdnc

[raudacruise]

19 hours ago, mahdnc said:

I attended the 8 pm star gazing session led by Kelly Beatty up at the Rooftop Terrace.  My wife stayed in our cabin while I went up there to attend.  I got there about 15 minutes late and I was surprised at the decent number of people who attended.  The session involved identifying naked eye objects (no telescope, no binoculars).  For the most part, Kelly, used his green laser pointer to point at and identify the bright stars in the sky such as Sirius and Arcturus.  But the cloudless sky was not very transparent because of the heavy humidity in the air and the smoke from Summit's stack.  So Kelly was unsuccessful in showing the audience the famous Southern Cross which was hanging very low in the southern sky (Southern Cross cannot reasonably be seen from most of the mid and northern USA).  Also there were no bright planets out in the sky at that time either.  Anyway he did an excellent job when you consider what he had to work with.

 

On our very first cruise on Grandeur of the Seas there was a telescope installed on the top deck.  I’m sure it’s long gone.🔭

[mahdnc]

8 minutes ago, raudacruise said:

On our very first cruise on Grandeur of the Seas there was a telescope installed on the top deck.  I’m sure it’s long gone.🔭

Perhaps it’s because the telescope was used for evil……

[mahdnc]

[mahdnc]

We’re having dinner at Tuscan Grille again tonight (630pm). There are 53 seated guests including ourselves. 

 

Seeing that the Chef’s Table is still being advertised in the Celebrity Today, I asked the maitre d’ how many Chefs Tables were they doing on this fourteen night cruise. He said only two times—embarkation day and Cartagena day. He said they tried to organize a third one for tomorrow, but there are only four passengers that are interested and the chef wants a minimum of six. 
 

Edited May 1 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

10 and 7

 

That’s the number of kids and counselors, respectively, onboard Summit for this sailing.  This information came from one of the counselors. 
 

 

 

Edited May 1 by mahdnc

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

On 4/29/2024 at 12:25 AM, mahdnc said:

We had dinner once again at Le Petite Chef tonight.  Mark and Randi (@celebrity cruiser) and Addie ( @wintrystew) also happen to be at this 6 pm dinner.  I counted 28 guests including ourselves at this dinner.

 

Hi Mark and Randi and Addie!  Hope you are enjoying your Panama Canal cruise!

[mahdnc]

Here are some photos of the dishes we ordered at Tuscan Grille tonight.

 

Berkshire Pork Belly:

 

Broiled Filet Mignon:

 

Polenta Fries:

 

Broccolini Aglio E Olio:

 

Strozzapreti Carbonara:

 

Zabaglione Strawberry Shortcake:

 

Spumoni Donuts:

 

 

[mahdnc]

I took a few photos of the Tuscan Grille dining room:

 

 

This is where the Chef's Table was conducted for the ten of us on embarkation day:

 

[mahdnc]

Tuscan Grille is located at the space formerly occupied by the Normandie Restaurant.  All four Millennium class ships had Celebrity's first specialty restaurant--each of them with a classic cruise liner theme.  Michel Roux supervised the installation of these specialty restaurants. 

 

As I mentioned, Summit had the Normandie Restaurant and she was adorned with some of the beautiful original wood panelling that was on the iconic French oceanliner, SS Normandie.  I believe that it was in 2016 that the Normandie Restaurant was discontinued--re-decorated and given a different menu.  Here are some photos of the Normandie Restaurant when we were on Summit in Aug 2010:

 

 

 

 

Edited May 1 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]

Here are photos of some of the food that was served in the Normandie restaurant aboard Summit when we sailed on her in 2010:

 

This was the famous goat cheese souffle:

 

I believe this was the lobster bisque:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mahdnc]

I ventured out into the casino tonight for a couple of hours.  You have to play at the $25 multiple deck table to get the "normal" 3:2 payout for a blackjack.  At the other lower limit tables and the $25 single deck table, you are only paid out 6:5 for a blackjack which is just plain evil.  So I intended to play at the $25 table to get the 3:2 payout even though I prefer a lower limit game.

 

For the times that I have passed through the casino during the past 8 or so days, I have only seen one player at the $25 multiple deck table.  That table tonight was empty when I arrived but it did have a dealer standing there ready to go.   The dealer's name was "Happy".  He was from South Africa and started on Summit this past October.  He was really looking forward to seeing Alaska as he did not enjoy the heat in the Caribbean or on this Panama cruise so far.  He told me that South Africa does not get that hot. 

 

I remarked how dead the casino seemed to be on this sailing and Happy told me that the casino typically was a lively mad house during the Caribbean sailings.  Case in point, the $25 table that I was sitting at was usually full during those cruises.  Different clientele I guess.

 

When you play alone with the dealer like I did tonight (aka playing head-to-head), you go through a lot of hands in a very short amount of time.  I lost half of my $500 bankroll pretty fast.  But after an hour and a half of play, I fought back to being up by a $107. 

 

I had a small "I Love Lucy" moment.  I was starting to get tired and noticed that I couldn't even add up the card totals correctly/quickly and so I was thinking about finding the right moment to quit for the evening.  I glanced at my chip stack and realized that I was actually ahead a little bit after being down for most of the night.  So I looked up at the dealer and I said that I was quitting and I wanted to color up my chips.  Unfortunately by then she had already dealt me a hand because I left my $25 chip in the betting box (I Love Lucy moment).  To make matters worse I was dealt a hand that called for doubling down and so I put even more money on the table.  Well somehow I ended up winning and then I pushed all my chips to the dealer to have them colored up.  Whew.

 

Tomorrow we will hit our last port, Puerto Vallarta, and then we get two more sea days before we arrive at Los Angeles.  From onboard the Summit, good night everybody.....

 

 

[mahdnc]

We did have this card in our stateroom tonight when we returned from dinner:

 

[Ex-Airbalancer]

4 hours ago, mahdnc said:

We did have this card in our stateroom tonight when we returned from dinner:

 

I wonder how many people say no , than complain about a bit of rust on the balcony 🤔😉😁

[TMLAalum]

Favor Request!

If anyone has the time, could you please find out if there is a complete MahJongg set aboard?

We are on Summit's next cruise. I just bought a travel set that I am bringing aboard, but we have a total of 8 possible players so another set would be wonderful!

Thanks!

[mahdnc]

Good morning from Puerto Vallarta! This was the first port of call on our very first cruise in Jul 1991.   We were onboard Carnival’s Jubilee.  I was very wide eyed when I saw Puerto Vallarta back then. The mountain backdrop was very impressive to me and there were musicians playing mariachi music on the pier. 
 

 

 

We have a sail and snorkel excursion through Celebrity today. 

[mahdnc]

8 minutes ago, TMLAalum said:

Favor Request!

If anyone has the time, could you please find out if there is a complete MahJongg set aboard?

We are on Summit's next cruise. I just bought a travel set that I am bringing aboard, but we have a total of 8 possible players so another set would be wonderful!

Thanks!

I’ll look into it. If you don’t hear from me by day after tomorrow which is our last full day of cruising, please remind me on the off chance I forgot. 

Edited May 1 by mahdnc

[mahdnc]