llarosa

As expected, my "poor" bid for a mini suite on the Jade 2/17 sailing was rejected.   That's okay...  we sail in two days!!

I understand that your bid can be accepted until two days prior to your cruise (which is this Friday for us!), but are bids ever rejected early?  I suspect ours will be rejected ("Poor" bid for a Mini Suite with everything except inside cabins sold out on our ship)... but wondering if all rejected bids come on the last day.

We are on the Jade next week (Yeah!!) and our last stop is Key West.  I thought I read something about US Customs if your last stop was Key West but I can't find what I read and a search of the forum didn't find it for me.  Will we go through customs in Key West or the next day when we return to Miami?

Thanks!

7 hours ago, BalconyGal said:

Someone on my Jade roll call said they called after 80 days out and asked about bidding and they were told NCL doesn't often offer bidding on the Jade.  I find that hard to believe but I could be wrong.  Anyone hear anything like this before?  We're 72 days out and no one (that I know of) has received an email to bid.  Thanks for your insight.

I'm on the Jade on Feb 17th and I have outstanding bids and I know some people have already won their bids.

12 minutes ago, mwolever said:

My parents had exactly this complaint last year, and they did not sleep in late either. My mom said the chair shuffling started before 6AM and was VERY annoying. For what it's worth. 

Thanks...  that's enough for me to confirm I did the right thing in cancelling my bid.  Why would I want to pay more for an annoying cruise.  (We aren't up before 7... and maybe would sleep till 8 on vacation.)

Thanks for your thoughts!

So after reading a bunch on this post and others, I pulled my upgrade bid... but now I'm having second thoughts.

We have a mid ship balcony on the Feb 17th sailing of the Jade.  (We booked a GTY but already have our cabin assignment.)

I don't want to pay the $1500+ for any of the Haven upgrade options but I originally bid on a Mini Suite.

The reason I pulled the bid is after reading numerous comments to avoid the Mini Suites on Deck 11 due to the noise of the pool deck, garden cafe and fitness center.  And of course, we won't be able to select the location if we get the upgrade.

But now I'm thinking that I pulled it too quickly since we don't sleep in late.

I'd be interested in any thoughts on whether the Mini Suite upgrade is worth pursing.

Hi all.  I'm new to NCL and we just booked a cruise for less than a month from now.  I'm looking at a shore excursion and wonder if I should book in advance.  I will have shipboard credit to use as well as the "free at sea" perk that gives us $50 per port for excursions.  When I look at reserving the excursion, I am about to check out and it looks like I am going to be charged full price.  Will the perk ($50) be applied later or is that only good for excursions that are booked at sea?  And what about my shipboard credit - can I use it on this?

Thanks so much for your help.

Lynne

Hi all.  I'm new to NCL and we just booked a cruise for less than a month from now.  I'm looking at a shore excursion and wonder if I should book in advance.  I will have shipboard credit to use as well as the "free at sea" perk that gives us $50 per port for excursions.  When I look at reserving the excursion, I am about to check out and it looks like I am going to be charged full price.  Will the perk ($50) be applied later or is that only good for excursions that are booked at sea?  And what about my shipboard credit - can I use it on this?

Thanks so much for your help.

Lynne

I'm probably too late but I just came across this...

I was in Aqua Class in April and had the same benefits as in post 40.

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Thanks for sharing your photos. We will be sailing in 9070 on Summit May 15th. Getting anxious!

 

By the way, did you enjoy the food in Blu? This will be our first time with Blu - first time with Celebrity.

We LOVED the food in Blu. It was our first Celebrity cruise as well.

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Here are my pictures from our early April cruise. Sorry, no RS for us...

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/23

Hi Ilarosa,

 

 

Can you remember the name of the acapella group? I wanted to look them up.

 

Thanks

Linda

Sorry - I don't recall and that's the only night that I don't have the daily newspaper from.

Great review. Thank you for taking the time to post it as well as your photos. A number of years ago when I was on the Summit (going again in August), smoking was allowed in the Sunset Bar. Is this still allowed? Thanks.

I'm guessing that it is not as I don'r recall anyone smoking there.

Here's the last bit about our cruise - the Port Days.

Barbados - We were talked out of going to The Boatyard by our taxi driver. (There is a theme that emerges as we go from port to port.) Instead, we went to another spot on Carilsle Bay pretty close to the Boatyard but without the fees. Taxi was $12 to the beach for the two of us. We rented chairs and an umbrella from the taxi driver's buddy ($10) and ended up going on a boat ride to snorkel at the shipwreck and by the giant turtles for $20 each from one of the vendors on the beach. We had a private tour on a boat that probably could handle a dozen people. We had brought our own snorkel and mask from home but used his flippers and life vest. (It would not have cost any more to use his masks or snorkels.) There were several others from our cruise on the beach. On the way back to the ship, I asked the driver (who returned to pick us up) if Rhianna was going to be in town any time soon and he excitedly told me about her upcoming visit in August. He claimed to know her and said she is very good to the people of Barbados. All in all, we had a good time in Barbados.

St. Lucia - we had the fortune of knowing someone - Christelle - who grew up on the island - to take us on a personalized tour. She spends winters in St Lucia and the rest of the year in Wisconsin. (There is quite a difference between Wisconsin winters and St Lucia winters!) Anyway, she took us to both the Atlantic and the Caribbean costs, to the sulfer springs near the volcano, to the Pitons and gave us a running commentary on the flaura and flana of the Island. We had an authentic St Lucian lunch at a loverly place called Fond Doux Holiday Plantation where they make chocolate. There were tons of pictures of Prince Charles and Camilla who had visited the plantation in 2008. We almost missed this excursion as we didn't have a specific meeting place but we eventually found each other and had a great day.

Antigua - our only rain of the trip was this morning. We didn't plan an early day so we had a leisurely breakfast and made our way to the first floor to exit the ship only to see that it was pouring rain and our plan was to go to a beach... so we turned around and went back to the ship. It cleared up about an hour later so we tried again. It was still a bit overcast so we explored the port area (shopping) and visited the main church of the town which in being renovated after a leaky roof turned into a massive termite problem. They are about 70% done with the renovation and let us wander around in the unfinished building. (Never would have been allowed in the US!) Afterwards, we found a taxi to take us to the beach. Originally, we wanted to go to Valley Church Beach, however, it started raining on the way there and the driver told us that he thought we could avoid the rain by going to a different beach instead. I think we ended up at Fort James Beach although the driver called it Runaway Bay. Our driver knew the people at the restaurant where we were dropped off. It stayed rain free for the rest of the day and we headed back to the ship a couple of hours later. Our same taxi driver picked us up. and took us over to the nearby abandoned fort (Fort James) before heading back to the ship. Antigua was the only island that we hadn't been to before and I was a bit sad that we didn't really see the beautiful beaches we heard so much about. Despite the overcast day, we still had a nice time.

St Maarten - for this port, we joined up with 12 other Cruise Critic folks on a private tour with Bernard's Tours. We had organized this via our Roll Call and it ended up being a fun time. The tour bus was comfortable and air conditioned. We went to the Westin Dawn Beach for a photo opportunity and then to see a bunch of iguanas. The main stops of the day were at Orient Beach (not the nude section!), Marigot Bay (for shopping and a visit to Serafina's French pastry shop) and then to Maho Beach to see the planes land and take off. I have to say that Maho Beach was just crazy. Or rather, the people there were crazy. They got as close as they could to see the planes take off and basically stood in an area specically to be in the exhaust of the departing planes. It was kind of surreal. It was entertaining to have the planes come so low to the ground near the beach as they landed. I'll post a few pictures to try to show you - but there are much better pictures on the internet.

St Thomas - for our last day, you guessed it, we went to a beach. We brought our snorkels and masks and were hoping to go right from the beach. We started out wanting to go to Sapphire Beach but our driver encouraged us to try Coki instead. In this case, it wasn't that she was directing us to her buddies, but rather that she didn't want to drive all the way to Sapphire. She convinced us that the snorkeling off the beach was better at Coki and a couple of people near us on the beach said that they agreed as well. We thought that the beach was very nice but small and the snorkeling was decent. We didn't stay long as the beach this day as we wanted to have some pool time and sauna/steam room time before we left the ship - so we went back around 2pm.

Here are some pictures from our Port days.

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/108

All in all, we had a great cruise.

Lynne

Thanx for the info and pix. Very helpful.

 

We will be sailing in June in an aft cabin.

 

I really like what I see about the Sunset Bar. What can you tell me about it?

 

I understand food is available there.

 

How popular is it? Also see from you pix they also have entertainment.

 

Will the bartender be to toss beers up to me in 1140?:D:p

Ha! No tossing allowed...

The sunset bar is a nice place to hang out. They don't serve food, but it's right off the end of the buffet so you can bring food to your table. (They won't let you eat food at the bar itself.) They had entertainment mostly in the evenings. Maybe 8pm or later. It's not a very large place but it's outdoor and the weather was beautiful.

I'm envious of your cabin. I think the 11th floor would be where I'd really want to be.

You will get plenty of calories burned by taking the stairs everywhere if you are like we are.

Sorry for the delay... Today I'll give my thoughts on the ship activities and entertainment.

For our day at sea, after breakfast, we went to the Celebrity Connection event which was at 930 in the morning. It was a pretty small group - maybe 20 people - who attended even though about 50 had signed up. I suspect that the early hour was a deterent to some. It was really quite nice as Captian Kate and her executive team were there and we practially had one on one time with her. She took questions for about 20 minutes and then introduced her crew. It was also nice to meet up with some fellow cruise critic folks who didn't make the sail away. I finally met Colin who had arranged our St Maarten tour.

After the connection event, hubby and I went on the galley tour. I thought there were a lot of people there (about 15 groups - we were in group 10), but the host mentioned it was a smaller group than usual. While we waited for our group to be called, we had Q&A with the kitchen staff management team. The tour was interesting but not necessarily spectacular. It ended in the Tuscan Grill where there were displays for the specialty restaurants. We didnt end up trying any of them - mostly because we were enjoying eating at Blu.

My husband Paul is a runner (doing a marathon at the end of the month) so he went to get in a run on the treadmill after that and reports back that the gym was decent. He went several times - mostly early in the morning when the ship was arriving at the ports. Great view!

I, on the other hand, wanted to find a chair in the sun. Since by now it was around 11am on a day at sea, there weren't many chairs available - even single chairs. A great number of chairs had towels but not people. I finally went up to the Rooftop Terrace and had a comfy sofa all to myself. After about an hour, I was done and Paul was done running and it was lunch time.

We wanted to try the MDR and did so. We were seated with a party of eight and we seemed to see those folks just about everywhere the rest of the trip. In fact, there was a young married couple that we saw at least three times a day - once on a random beach in Barbados! As I may have said earlier, we thought everything was very good at the MDR as well.

Starting with our day at sea, we found the sushi offered at the buffet around 530 or 6pm most nights. We tended to take it to the Sunset Bar and enjoy "Happy Hour" there before dinner.

We went to several shows - the Magician, one of the Musicals, a group of acapella singers and the Comedian. The Comedian was the best of the the shows - and happened to be someone we went to Marquette University with "back in the day". His name is Rondell Sheridan and he was Raven's father on the show "That's So Raven". We talked to him a bit after the show.

We thought the musical was a bit tedious (dumb story) even thought the dancing and singing was good. We enjoyed the arialists. The Magician was fine and the acapella singers were mediocre. It was nice that the shows were only an hour or so each. We tended to sit near the back so we could leave early (or at least before the cruise director's talk) if we wanted. Sometimes, we'd go to the early show and have dinner afterwards.

Several nights, we would have a drink at Cellar Masters if we happened to come at a busy time for dinner at Blu. (We tended to come after 8.) They'd give us a buzzer till our table was ready. We would typically be half way through a glass of wine or beer before they called us. Cellar Masters would usually have a singer or a duo and we enjoyed their music. The duo that was there quite often were Ukrainian and didn't speak much English - even though they mostly sang American Hits!

After dinner, we stopped into the Martini Bar to enjoy a cocktail as well as the antics at the bar. Think of the old Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail" for an idea of what goes on there. It was quite fun.

I've added some picture to this album to show a few more things on the ship.

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/23

I also was able to add descriptions to most of the food pictures.

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/46

I'll be back in a couple of days to wrap up my review with a report on what we did at the ports.

Any questions? Ask away.

Lynne

Food looks wonderful! I'd love to see labels on all the foods. Some, I can figure out, but others look so good, but are a mystery. Like photo #IMG_2045.JPG

 

What time was Sushi served?

I'm still waiting on the hubby for the pictures of the other menus so I can add the food descriptions... hopefully he will get them to me this weekend so I can stop pestering him!

As for Sushi - it was served for at least 90 minutes each day starting at 5:30. The day I took the picture was the least impressive... I think my hubby has pictures of better sushi as well.

I added pictures of most of the meals we had at Blu during our cruise. This link should take you there.

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/46

There's a great book about those feral cats called Cobblestone Cats: Cats of Old San Juan.

Looks interesting!

Forgot to answer this one... The only thing we ordered that wasn't on the Blu menu was Eggs Benedict for breakfast - so I can't really say much more on that subject. I think my husband took pictures of some of the menus and I will post them once I get his pictures.

I do know that they always had steak, chicken and salmon available if you didn't find anything on the Blu menu that you liked.

I will say that they seemed very accomodating and I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted a ceaser salad or shrimp cocktail that they'd get it for you. I just didn't try it.

We were worried that we wouldn't have lobster as an option in Blu on the night that the MDR had their lobster dinner, but we confirmed at breakfast that it was a choice in Blu as well. We ended up each ordering lobster and also shared a chicken dish that looked delicious that night (and it was). There were a couple of nights that we had three appetizers between the two of us and we were readily accomodated.

Again - I can't say enough about how we enjoyed the food in Blu.

I will also say, however, that we did have lunch in the MDR on our day at sea and enjoyed that very much as well. I think that the food on Celebrity is just good all around.

Grangerguy - We did not try to substitute the daily canapies for Shrimp Cocktail or anything like that. We thought they were just okay - nothing great but not terrible either. Once I add some food pictures, you can see what they were like. They were very small - barely enough for each of us to have a bite - but that wasn't an issue for us as there is so much food available elsewhere on the ship.

We typically had our canapies while we were getting ready for the evening out on the balcony. We often went straight from canapies to get some sushi from the buffet. We enjoyed the sushi much more than the canapies.

As far as other perks for Aqua Class, we got slippers (didn't use them) and robes (used while getting ready). We had free access to the Persian Gardens steam/sauna facilities - but only used them once. We had such a port intensive cruise, there was barely time to sit in an sauna. (Others may love it. Just not my thing.) I already mentioned the bottle of champagne. Other than that, it was really just about the dining in Blu. I beleive the room size is equivalent to Concierge class.

Just started my review from our post dry dock cruise yesterday.

We were on the Summit earlier this month and I don't think I ever saw more than two people in the Bistro on 5. We looked at the menu and thought it was okay - but didn't try it. I'm wondering if it is used more for lunch when there are more days at sea? (We had only one day at sea.)

If I were Celebrity, I would definately think about changing it over to something that is more popular with the guests.

We loved Blu. It was a great small dining room - similar to a restaurant vs. a banquet hall - where we got to know the servers quite well. The food was excellent. I know they call it "lighter fare" but we didn't sense that. We had steak, seafood and even chicken and always had plenty of tasty food.

We only used the spa/Persian Gardens once and could take it or leave it.