Politcally Incorrect Value Oriented Review - Summit 12 night 4/28

[LongTimeTvlr]

Just returned from a 12 night cruise on the Summit.

Itinerary was Southampton to Barcelona, with stops in Le Havre, Cherbourg (change from La Rochelle), Bilbao, Gijon, Vigo, Lisbon, Seville (Cadiz), and Valencia.

Our first time on this class Celebrity Ship. We previously sailed a 12 night Baltic Cruise on the Century and have done HAL and Regent (Radison at the time).

Summit was just back from Dry Dock to install an engine and maybe freshen things up.

Didn't notice any big changes. The hole in the Martini Bar was still there.

 

General Impressions:

 

Good - Dinner was excellent, had beef, duck, lamb, pasta, shrimp - all well prepared and served. Fabulous experience at dinner. Table for 8, 4 in our party and another party of 4. Loved them all. Sought out ways to get together on the ship when possible.

 

Entertainment was better than expected. Most shows outstanding. Ships Talent was halfway between amateur and Top Flight, but very entertaining. Only one bad act - Singer forgot her lines, had to pull out her notes and study them, but she left the ship mid cruise, unfortunately waited until we were in port.

 

Cabin - We were inside, great rate, large room, never in it except to sleep, change, wash etc. Always clean. Bed and pillow very comfortable. Didn't need a pillow or mattress menu. No canapes. No butler, although Cipriano got us everything we needed.

 

Ship / room - Clean and in good shape. She does show her age, but everything worked (except the menu button on the TV, couldn't check bill or book excursions using the online service and after 4 attempts to fix it they gave up and sent us a copy of our bill every night). Very small problem. Everything else we used worked perfectly. Loved the shower. Plenty of room and storage (in the room not the shower).

 

Not so Good -

 

Breakfast was flat out boring in the dining room. Seemed like they were trying to prevent repeat visits. Nothing changed and nothing stood out. We ate there twice and regretted it both times.

As noted elsewhere the waffles were outstanding. Had them soft, had them crisp, had them cold, had them warm - always great. Saved the morning.

 

Lunch - Majored in Wine, bread and cheese. Wine is very overpriced even for a cruise ship. Took to ordering by saying I want the cheapest red you have. Using got a good red for $6 a glass. Some good cheeses - The Port Salute and the Garganzola were great. Rest could have been supplied by velvetta, bland and one dimensional flavor, if any. And the bread - with rare exception, all tasted the same and much of it was not fresh. Had to fight with the staff to get them to cut the bagettes - what are they protecting?

 

Excursions - Took some where we couldn't walk to port, or there was nothing in the Port (Gijon for instance). In Gijon we went to Luanco and Aviles. Turns out there is nothing in them either, but it took us $200 to find that out. Nice enough tour guide, just nothing to show, except the obligatory Cathedral ( I guess if it is the largest church in town that makes it a cathedral).

Had several Large ship problems. In Bilbao we waited for over 45 minutes on a street corner with 40 other passengers for the second bus to come because the first bus couldn't handle all the passengers. Couldn't they find a better drop off / pick up point than a street corner?

For Seville it was chaos loading on the buses. This was our 7th stop and by then all the Mayes bright passengers figured out that once they got their bus stickers they could head for the gangplank:) and be first in line to board their bus (personally don't understand why they wanted to do this but do it they did) Unfortunately boat was late docking in Cadiz and they had handed out stickers to over 8 bus loads of people, most of whom tried to fit in the lobby in front of the gangway. Poorly handled all around.

 

Embarkation - Another large boat problem that they could have handled better - Waited in line to check in - 20 minutes fair enough. Then waited in the waiting room for our number to be called - another 20 minutes fair enough, only to find that we then had to stand in line another 20 minutes on the gangway to get on the boat. Why would they call our number if they had this line?

 

Really poor show -

A couple of things here.

Charging $10 per person for a shuttle to get you to the city listed as your port of call? (Bilbao for example) - Rip Off.

 

Way too much deck space allocated to shops. My lovely wife and I love ballroom dancing. Revelations has a rubber floor:mad: What are they thinking? I guess it works if you dance by jumping up and down but otherwise linoleum would have been better.

And the Ronde-voux (I never took French) Lounge - Way too small. Their were many very good ballroom dancers on this cruise and even more who weren't so good but wanted to dance. No room. Any good music caused a flood of people to congregate in a very small space and tried their best not to injure their fellow dancers. (Actually there was one couple who didn't try not to injure their fellow passengers but that is another story).Absolutely criminal on a "Premium Cruise Line". Century was a smaller ship and had much better dance floors (Crystal Room (large wood floors -puts Summit to shame), Hemisphere and something equivalent to the RV lounge).

 

 

Summary - We had a great time, danced when we could, enjoyed the company of our fellow cruisers very much. Loved dinner and the shows.

 

Won't go back to the Summit. Prefer the Century, smaller number of passengers so we avoid all the queing, and much better dancing accomodations. May try the Queen Mary next. I am told the largest dance floor afloat. But you have to put up with the British.

[MoreCruisesNow]

Or, from my point-of-view, what's worse, the British have to put up with you!

[FinelyCruising]

....do the Brits act like jerks on the dance floor or something? I read the whole review and can only find one question to ask that pertains to your politically incorrect view....

[flashdog_1]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review.

 

I was amazed that there is a $6 a glass wine! Red? That must be about the price for a bottle (5 glasses = $30?).

 

I've been on Summit twice (to Panama in a balcony and to Alaska in 2004 and 2006), and especially enjoyed the T pool and the food at dinner and relatively large inside cabins.

 

We've been away from X for 2 years and are happy to be returning this summer to Alaska again, this time on Mercury. I loved Century and Mercury is so similar, we're bound to love her, too.

 

Wherever you cruise, hope you find a ship you like better.

[excitedofharpenden]

But you have to put up with the British.

I've news for you. We're everywhere. Even on Celebrity ships;)

 

Phil

[dkjretired]

I've news for you. We're everywhere. Even on Celebrity ships;)

 

Phil

 

As someone whose been to England several times, I appreciate them very much and welcome them anywhere, why is this even an issue, how ridiculous.

 

Nice way to take the focus off an otherwise good review.

[keela1eva2]

Yes the QM2 is a fine Ship and they have a wonderful Queen's room the largest ballroom at sea. Big Band night I take it that you include the Irish in your views on those from the UK.

And yes we are everywhere!!

 

Sue

[smoothy]

Thanks for the review, DW and I aren't big dancers, so we've never really looked at the ships from that perspective, it's interesting to hear your opinion on it. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking the British comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek (could have used a smiley to make that clear though).

[LongTimeTvlr]

I was just kidding.

Geesh.

My ancestors are English and I have spent a great deal of time in England and love the place.

Guess I struck a nerve.

 

Please accept my aplogy if I offended you or your country.

 

It may well be Cunard will be my favorite cruise line. Now I am afraid to sail on them.

[Sky Sweet]

I was just kidding.

Geesh.

My ancestors are English and I have spent a great deal of time in England and love the place.

Guess I struck a nerve.

 

Please accept my aplogy if I offended you or your country.

 

It may well be Cunard will be my favorite cruise line. Now I am afraid to sail on them.

 

Hi LongTimeTvlr :)

 

I realized it was a joke as soon as I read it.

 

One of the problems with posting on cruise critic is that comments that are said in zest are frequently misunderstood because of the lack of facial expressions and voice intonations that are part of real life communications.

 

There have been so many times, that I posted a comment as a joke on cruise critic, and someone was offended because they didn't understand my sense of humor that I stopped doing it for the most part. Consequently I probably come across as a very serious person on the boards, when I am not that way in real life.

 

However, I still frequently post benign messages with double entendres with the idea that a few people wlll get the full intent of my post, while others will not realize it is a joke and just take it at face value.

[Cruise Junky]

Hi LongTimeTvlr :)

 

 

One of the problems with posting on cruise critic is that comments that are said in zest ....

 

 

Would that be Orange or Lemon zest? ;)

[Schplinky]

I've news for you. We're everywhere. Even on Celebrity ships;)

 

Phil

 

Thank goodness!

[Karynanne]

I've news for you. We're everywhere. Even on Celebrity ships;)

 

Phil

 

Phil, you can hang out with me....I love Brits!

[DocJohnB]

Phil, you can hang out with me....I love Brits!

 

I have hung out with Phil. He is a great Brit.:p

[usha]

I don't get the "Brit" thing. The best passenger mix we ever had consisted of over 600 Brits, and almost without exception, I found them to be very friendly & courteous, not to mention, incredibly funny. (We were doing a 15 night trancanal on Galaxy.) I really think that the passengers themselves made that a tough cruise to beat.

[shipknotshore]

Only one bad act - Singer forgot her lines, had to pull out her notes and study them, but she left the ship mid cruise, unfortunately waited until we were in port.

 

 

Huh? Was she that bad that she should have jumped overboard? :eek: ;)

 

Thanks for your review. I'm trying to talk DH into dance lessons....even with lessons I'm sure that a large dance floor would be needed for the safety of the other "real" dancers on the floor. :p

[Andy]

I've news for you. We're everywhere. Even on Celebrity ships;)

 

Phil

 

You can hang out with me anytime Phil :) . I very much look forward to meeting you. I hope all is well.

[Karynanne]

I have hung out with Phil. He is a great Brit.:p

 

Doc, so have I. He's a good friend of our's.

 

Phil, can't wait to see you on 6/3!

[Elaine0138]

. But you have to put up with the British.

 

My ancestors are English and I have spent a great deal of time in England and love the place.

Guess I struck a nerve.

 

Please accept my aplogy if I offended you or your country.

 

What happened to the apology for the Scots Irish and Welsh we are all British :D

[lucky white heather]

Just returned from a 12 night cruise on the Summit.

Itinerary was Southampton to Barcelona, with stops in Le Havre, Cherbourg (change from La Rochelle), Bilbao, Gijon, Vigo, Lisbon, Seville (Cadiz), and Valencia.

Our first time on this class Celebrity Ship. We previously sailed a 12 night Baltic Cruise on the Century and have done HAL and Regent (Radison at the time).

Summit was just back from Dry Dock to install an engine and maybe freshen things up.

Didn't notice any big changes. The hole in the Martini Bar was still there.

 

General Impressions:

 

Good - Dinner was excellent, had beef, duck, lamb, pasta, shrimp - all well prepared and served. Fabulous experience at dinner. Table for 8, 4 in our party and another party of 4. Loved them all. Sought out ways to get together on the ship when possible.

 

Entertainment was better than expected. Most shows outstanding. Ships Talent was halfway between amateur and Top Flight, but very entertaining. Only one bad act - Singer forgot her lines, had to pull out her notes and study them, but she left the ship mid cruise, unfortunately waited until we were in port.

 

Cabin - We were inside, great rate, large room, never in it except to sleep, change, wash etc. Always clean. Bed and pillow very comfortable. Didn't need a pillow or mattress menu. No canapes. No butler, although Cipriano got us everything we needed.

 

Ship / room - Clean and in good shape. She does show her age, but everything worked (except the menu button on the TV, couldn't check bill or book excursions using the online service and after 4 attempts to fix it they gave up and sent us a copy of our bill every night). Very small problem. Everything else we used worked perfectly. Loved the shower. Plenty of room and storage (in the room not the shower).

 

Not so Good -

 

Breakfast was flat out boring in the dining room. Seemed like they were trying to prevent repeat visits. Nothing changed and nothing stood out. We ate there twice and regretted it both times.

As noted elsewhere the waffles were outstanding. Had them soft, had them crisp, had them cold, had them warm - always great. Saved the morning.

 

Lunch - Majored in Wine, bread and cheese. Wine is very overpriced even for a cruise ship. Took to ordering by saying I want the cheapest red you have. Using got a good red for $6 a glass. Some good cheeses - The Port Salute and the Garganzola were great. Rest could have been supplied by velvetta, bland and one dimensional flavor, if any. And the bread - with rare exception, all tasted the same and much of it was not fresh. Had to fight with the staff to get them to cut the bagettes - what are they protecting?

 

Excursions - Took some where we couldn't walk to port, or there was nothing in the Port (Gijon for instance). In Gijon we went to Luanco and Aviles. Turns out there is nothing in them either, but it took us $200 to find that out. Nice enough tour guide, just nothing to show, except the obligatory Cathedral ( I guess if it is the largest church in town that makes it a cathedral).

Had several Large ship problems. In Bilbao we waited for over 45 minutes on a street corner with 40 other passengers for the second bus to come because the first bus couldn't handle all the passengers. Couldn't they find a better drop off / pick up point than a street corner?

For Seville it was chaos loading on the buses. This was our 7th stop and by then all the Mayes bright passengers figured out that once they got their bus stickers they could head for the gangplank:) and be first in line to board their bus (personally don't understand why they wanted to do this but do it they did) Unfortunately boat was late docking in Cadiz and they had handed out stickers to over 8 bus loads of people, most of whom tried to fit in the lobby in front of the gangway. Poorly handled all around.

 

Embarkation - Another large boat problem that they could have handled better - Waited in line to check in - 20 minutes fair enough. Then waited in the waiting room for our number to be called - another 20 minutes fair enough, only to find that we then had to stand in line another 20 minutes on the gangway to get on the boat. Why would they call our number if they had this line?

 

Really poor show -

A couple of things here.

Charging $10 per person for a shuttle to get you to the city listed as your port of call? (Bilbao for example) - Rip Off.

 

Way too much deck space allocated to shops. My lovely wife and I love ballroom dancing. Revelations has a rubber floor:mad: What are they thinking? I guess it works if you dance by jumping up and down but otherwise linoleum would have been better.

And the Ronde-voux (I never took French) Lounge - Way too small. Their were many very good ballroom dancers on this cruise and even more who weren't so good but wanted to dance. No room. Any good music caused a flood of people to congregate in a very small space and tried their best not to injure their fellow dancers. (Actually there was one couple who didn't try not to injure their fellow passengers but that is another story).Absolutely criminal on a "Premium Cruise Line". Century was a smaller ship and had much better dance floors (Crystal Room (large wood floors -puts Summit to shame), Hemisphere and something equivalent to the RV lounge).

 

 

Summary - We had a great time, danced when we could, enjoyed the company of our fellow cruisers very much. Loved dinner and the shows.

 

Won't go back to the Summit. Prefer the Century, smaller number of passengers so we avoid all the queing, and much better dancing accomodations. May try the Queen Mary next. I am told the largest dance floor afloat. But you have to put up with the British.

 

Hi Long time tvlr...I hope you were not meaning we Scots were the ones trying to injure our fellow dancers on the Summit while we were on the cruise ???

We regularly watched in amazement every night at those dancers who just have to "showboat" their skills when both the floor space and the crush of people all trying to use the dance floor just will not accommodate this behaviour!! We thought there was some kind of etiquette in dancing that prevented people monopolising and enjoying selfish behaviour but apparently not all nations have been instructed in that when they took their dance lessons.

 

I totally agree with the comments you made about the condition of the floor in Revelations...it made us feel we would not bother even trying to dance on that surface..unlike another Mclass ship we have sailed several times .....it seemed to me the circular metal topcoat usually provided on the dance floor area in that lounge had been taken off and not replaced.

 

We go aboard to enjoy a bit of dancing in the evenings but not to the exclusion of the other entertainments on offer, however it becomes boring seeing the same dancers "performing" or even as happened frequently on this cruise , the "performers" giving free dance lessons to learners in their group and expecting to have the space this involves while the rest of their fellow travellers were trying to dance around them !

[Sky Sweet]

Would that be Orange or Lemon zest? ;)

 

Hi Cruise Junky :)

 

Good catch...that was obviously a typo :)

 

I meant to say jest.

[hcat]

We have been on Century (2X), Summit (2X) and the QM2

 

....QM 2 is lovely but huge compared to Century & Summit--if you dislike large ships it won't work for you--also the food is very British except when they add some American franks to the menu. for lunch .. The ballroom is very crowded at the Teas & the big balls so it may not suit your dance needs either....

 

it is also fairly high culture & elegant....

[Bobblsc]

But you have to put up with the British.

 

OK Brits (and that includes English, Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish), you were here in the U. S. as uninvited guests for a few years 1775 to 1781, and then you came back for three years in 1812 to 1815.

 

When I see a Brit, I tell them "It's so nice that after 200 years we are finally getting along." But one time the Brit responded "Yes, but you still owe us those damn taxes."

 

Now that's British tenacity. :D

 

Bob :rolleyes:

[woodofpine]

OK Brits (and that includes English, Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish), you were here in the U. S. as uninvited guests for a few years 1775 to 1781, and then you came back for three years in 1812 to 1815.

 

When I see a Brit, I tell them "It's so nice that after 200 years we are finally getting along." But one time the Brit responded "Yes, but you still owe us those damn taxes."

 

Now that's British tenacity. :D

 

Bob :rolleyes:

 

 

Now, now... We've been strongly allied for 100 years so let's not get too picky...

 

But, if one is to be particular, the British Crown - which may or may not have included all of Ireland but maybe none either (since the act of union wasn't until 1800) were not officially and formally 'uninvited' until 1776 and it can be said that the 'by whom' (?) were they uninvited wasn't affixed until 1787 (US Constitution adopted).

 

That misunderstanding around 1812 had something to do with the British Army getting confused about the directions to Waterloo and Napoleon. ;) If we hadn't hired a Frenchman (Pierre L'Enfant) to design that government ville down on the river (water) later known as Washington, then maybe the Brits wouldn't have gotten confused and mis-directed and found it necessary to burn the place down... ;) Torching D.C. - now that's an idea! Byegone be byegones! :)

 

They didn't have the benefits of Mapquest and Google Earth then. :D

American websites don't 'ya know!

[minke]

The Celebrity PR release before the cruise did say the Rendavous dance floor had been renewed, perhaps it needed smoothing over! 10,000 sq feet of new carpet had been laid. Most of this seemed to me to be in the Casino - only walked through a few times holding my breath to avoid the smoke! and in the shopping area that was mostly deserted owing to application of UK VAT with no VAT number reciepts available!

As a Brit I can say this - "Never seen so many moaning Brits on a cruise before"! I half expected a few more problems after the refit but saw none. Some of the comments I heard by my fellow Countrymen were frankly outrageous, hope I do not meet them again on my next Celebrity cruise. Otherwise apart from that & the weather we enjoyed the cruise.