sheffield

We just returned from this cruise also. It was our first cruise on Norwegian, we had only sailed Celebrity before. We had a fabulous time and have to say that overall we thought it was better than Celebrity.

Prior to the cruise I had worries over how the more liberal smoking policy would affect us. I guess we were lucky because we only smelled smoke once on our balcony. I did not like the casino or the area around it because of the smoky smell. We are not big gamblers but it did stop a friend who travelled with us from entering several tournaments. That was really the only negative thing on the cruise. We knew it was the ship's policy before we sailed so we

just avoided those areas.

The positives were the entertainment which we felt was far superior to Celebrity's. The performers, the costumes, the sound of the music, all were so much better. We loved the Second City improv shows, the music in the Manhattan room. The food in the main dining rooms just amazed me. At best it was excellent and at worst very good. The service is maybe not quite as polished as Celebrity's but the food blew them away. We did not eat in any specialty restaurants. We found the buffet comparable to Celebrity's.

Although the cruise was full and there were lots of children on board we rarely found it crowded, maybe when the shows came out when it was difficult to get an elevator. I rode the elevators a lot as I have difficulty with even one flight of stairs and I rarely had to wait for a long time to get on one. We had a spa balcony so were able to use the Spa Therapy area which was fabulous, again it was never crowded, we were always able to get a sun bed even on sea days.

We did wonder before we went on this cruise whether it would be "us", particularly after some of the terrible reviews we read. We booked it only 2 weeks before we sailed. We had looked at Celebrity cruises out of Florida but the airfare was so expensive, so the departure from NYC was very tempting as we live in Massachusetts. We are pretty quiet people, don't like noise and crowds and we were worried it would be too noisy and busy for us. However I have to say the cruise was definitely "us", we had a great time and will be sailing on Norwegian again.

Thank you for your quick reply.

Was there any where in the shower stall to put bottles of shampoo/conditioner, face wash, bar soap and a razor?

Thanks

Did you need to wear long pants, jacket, etc on Monday? How is the weather? I can't decide what I should pack, leaving on Sunday.

Thanks

I agree with you, we've booked now so it's a moot point. We are going to enjoy the cruise for what it is and not let it bother us.

Thanks everyone for your replies. We have decided to book the cruise, so we leave on March 9th in a Spa Balcony cabin. I am very excited.

Well said Lsimon, everyones circumstances are different and I personally need to have cell phone service while traveling. We only sailed on the Silhouette again in January as I had been told by Celebrity that the problem had been resolved. However we quickly found it it hadn't and it did not make for very relaxing sea days. What annoys me the most is that Celebrity must know whats happening so why can't they be up front about it instead of acting as if you're the first person to bring it up with them.

Thank you, I have done that but got so much conflicting information re smoking I think I'm more confused as what to do than before I posted!!!! I guess we'll have to think about it a little more.

Thanks for the replies.

We are thinking of sailing on the Breakaway on March 9th. We have only sailed on Celebrity before, will we really notice the smell of smoke around the ship? I read that it tends to be smoky from the Casino in a lot of the public areas around there. How about on the balconies, does it spoil sitting on them for some of you?

Thank you

We are on this cruise and the JS's have been sold out for a while now. They recently added the JS Guarantee. There were still quite a few GS left so they are possibly selling a few JS guarantees and then upgrading someone in a JS to a GS to open up a JS.

 

Great deal on the JS guarantee if you are a senior or Florida resident.

 

 

We wondered if this was why there were were suddenly junior suites available. Thanks for the replies, we still can't decide what to do as the airfare is expensive from Massachusetts even though the cruise is a great deal.

We haven't sailed on Royal Caribbean before and are looking at a guarantee junior suite for March 10th. Are there any "bad" rooms within this category, ones that you wouldn't want even if they were really inexpensive?

Thanks

It's as if it's the first time the onboard staff have heard about the problem when you question them about it. It's bad enough it's happening without them pretending they don't know about it. Then they try and tell you how to fix it!! It is a really big issue for us to have no phone service as I am sure it is for a number of people.

I know it's so frustrating and has gone on far too long to not be resolved.

I too like a larger towel and when we were in a balcony room I just used to pick up a pool towel and take it the room to use after my shower.

We were on the Silhouette 6 weeks ago and they hadn't then. It has the same issues with AT&T as the Reflection. It is extremely annoying and will stop us sailing on both those ships until it is resolved.

What are the new custom menus?

Thanksa

There were none on our Summit cruise to Bermuda in August or on the Silhouette January 5th cruise this year. We were told they didn't use them any more.

We sailed on the Silhouette in January and had no service when at sea with AT&T iPhones 4 and 5c. There is no contract between OnWaves and AT&T therefore you cannot connect to it. There are several threads about it on this site. It is also a problem on the Reflection which also uses OnWave, it is fine on the other boats which use Cellular at Sea.

We just got back from a Silhouette cruise and there were several activities daily for 18-?21 year olds. I can't remember what it was called but there were things like ping pong and movies. I think there were daily activities for them.

We tried everything with no success. We are able to connect with no problem to Cellular at Sea which is the service used on all Celebrity ships other than the Silhouette and the Reflection. We could see On Waves on our phones but just unable to connect.

Sailed on the Silhouette two weeks ago, unable to connect to On Waves with either an AT&T iPhone 4 or 5S. It is not a new problem, we had the same thing happen a year ago. One poster said he was told by AT&T that they are trying to work out a contract with On Waves so no service with them yet. It is incredibly annoying and will stop me booking a cruise on the Silhouette until it is resolved. I believe that there is the same problem on the Reflection but cannot confirm that for definite.

We just got back from the Silhouette and had the same problem with an iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 with service from AT&T. We could see On Waves but we're not able to connect to it. We had the same problem a year ago on the same boat and we were very upset to see it hadn't been resolved. We have no problems connecting to Cellular at Sea on the other Celebrity ships. I find it inexcusable that there should be a problem with cell phone coverage whilst on board. It is a huge problem for me as I have sick parents in England and a son who is in the USMC so I do not like to out of cell phone coverage. It will stop me sailing on ships with On Wave coverage in the future.

I am proud to say my son is a Marine.

Wow Ashley!!! You so have to have your own blog on these kinds of things. I'll make sure DH reads this tonight just so he can see that it can be done!!! Can you suggest any sites for packing tips that you used for research? We leave on a Solstice cruise from Singapore to Sydney on November 23 so I'm starting to get really antsy about packing!:eek: I'm usually a "night before packer" but not this time.

Mo

Oh yes, it can be done! I just googled around, no particular site. These are some of the tips I remember: put socks (and other small things) in shoes, wrap belts around the perimeter of suitcase (instead of rolling up), packed underwear inside hat, wore bulkiest stuff on plane (wedges and jacket for me), side-note I even had a pair of knee-high boots packed :D, i put my heaviest stuff in carry on bags like I said above, I think I took a picture of my suitcase, I will keep looking to see if I did.

Also I started laying stuff out in the spare bedroom a month ahead of time. I would just move stuff to that room as I came across items and knew I did not need them between now and cruise. That way you have time to look and ponder at your items to see if you really need them. I was able to eliminate things this way instead of being rushed. I also took almost an entire day to plan outfits to see what pieces would get me the most use. I ended up trying to stick within color themes, although I kinda veered away from that ;) I will try to think of some more

It was a group effort for us. If someone had room in their bag and someone else was overweight we just moved items around... the airport shuffle. We did weigh our bags at home but our scale was off from the airport. I think also I was under weight because my stuff is smaller than Tyler's. Think about jeans, I am 5'3 and a size 2 he is 6'3 210 pounds. I could get away with more stuff packed :rolleyes:

One more thing, they do not weigh the garment bag, we had that thing stuffed!!!! They did not weight my back pack either, that was stuffed to. So pack heavy things in carry on. I will look for pics now

Beware if you fly with Alitalia because they do weigh your hand luggage and 8 kg is the limit. We had to move some things into our checked luggage.

The ship would decide it for me, I find the solstice class ships are so much better than the M class ships.