Seabourn Pearls

An aquarium window and viewing area below the waterline with food for fishes when in port.

Bright lights mounted on the stern below the waterline to illuminate the ship's wake in the evening. Perhaps with changing colors. Used selectively not all the time but it would be fun to look at from the Sunset Bar as night overtakes day.

A sampling of poolside music and activities from the Reflection dailies 1/3/15 Eastern. Mostly chill out music in the morning and maybe some pop getting closer to noon. Programs generally noon until 4pm on sea days. Port days are sailaway parties.

Day 1

2pm Xtasea House Band

4pm Sizzle Latin Party

Day 2

Noon Xtasea

1pm Steel Pan Music w/ Stan the Pan Man

2pm Chill Out Session with DJ TX

3pm Guest v Guests volleyball

Day 3

1pm Zumba

2pm Steel Drum Music

3pm DJ TX

Day 4 & 5

4:30 Sailaway party DJ TX

Day 6

12:30 Xtasea House Band

1pm Thriller Flash Mob

1:30 Volleyball

2:00 DJ TX

2:00 Officers v Guests Volleyball

4pm Pool Olympix

I'd guess the solarium pool is 40 feet long. I had it more or less to myself. Lots of people lounging but few swimmers.

Main pool area has two and neither are large. One of the knocks (my knocks) on Solstice Class ships is with so much of the upper decks devoted to watching the grass grow the pool areas can be very crowded.

We were on the Reflection earlier this month. There was music and activity. The noise level built up over the course of the day. It was a party crowd on our cruise. Not our scene but plenty of people having a well-oiled popcentric good time.

I didn't know anything about this. Too bad because my wife loves to play roulette. She plays and I sweep the bigger chips off the table and into my pocket. Nothing beats loading up the safe with casino cash at night and then zeroing out the bill at guest services in the morning. She won $1,300 on our 1/3/15 Reflection cruise. I just broke the last of my Fortunes Casino Benjamins at the grocery store this morning. Net-Net we did that cruise in a 1A veranda for under $1,000. Good times.

On a 7 day cruise the grats are about $170 and the OBC is maybe $300. If the upgrade is $300 per person well, there you go. For me it never pencils especially since my TA covers the gratuities. X is throwing extra perks at CC because most people have figured out that it's smoke and mirrors. You do get extra points towards your status if that matters to you.

OH so well said. That is UGLY. I have a Concierge Balcony booked for New Year's cruise on the Reflection but not sure I can handle that ugly rose!

It's a big ship. You can handle it. If the rose is the worst of your troubles on board you will have a marvelous vacation. Proceed without caution.

You know......

 

Perhaps, there is a new cruise line in this......you could call it Proletariat Cruise line....all the ships would be totally without windows and rectangular in shape so that there would be 2500 exactly equal sized "interior" cabins......Hmmm might have to look into this....LOL

Excellent point. I believe a similar proposal was advanced in Tuesday's SOTU address.

Be sure to see a therapist to deal with your PTSD. What an ordeal!

We tried to do it on our own earlier this month. The cab kept us waiting 15 minutes for additional passengers. The trip to Red Hook was 25-30 minutes instead of 10-15. As we got close to RH or cabbie veered off to drop passengers at Secret Harbor. By now it was after 10am so we just got out and enjoyed beach time at Secret Harbor. The snorkeling was very good and the rum bar/restaurant was terrific but we wanted to see Cinnamon Bay.

Moral of the story: take the Celebrity tour.

If you can't bring Joan Wilder bring a Joan Wilder novel. Both can get you out of trouble in Cartagena.

Thinking about this trip in January of '16.

The luxury of room service is getting stuff delivered without leaving your room.

If we hung the tag for delivery between, say 7-7:30 we always got a call right at 7 to say our order was on its way.

The coffee was surprisingly good and always hot. Room service toast is always a miss and X couldn't delver it crisp either. Fresh fruit was good. Croissants were good. Omelets just okay. Breakfast meats were good.

In the future I would limit my order to coffee, fruit and croissant/pastries and skip anything that needs to be cooked and served hot.

I was at a party yesterday and spent a few minutes chatting with a friend's wife. Now, my buddy is richer than a troll. They have a beautiful home, tons of land, boats, trips everything. But she is the most miserable person I know. It's as if she's a tragic character from mythology whose curse is her inability to be satisfied by anything. She is not mindlessly acquisitive. But water drawn from the deepest well isn't quite cold or fresh enough and the song on the radio never sets her toe to tapping.

At times I think these boards make us all sound like a version of this poor soul. It's called "Cruise Critic" after all, and we have a tendency to rise to the occasion. In most instances I think we describe what went wrong so that deficiencies - real or perceived - can be addressed and improved.

But in all honesty, I've never had a better vacation than the week we spent on the Reflection. It was relaxing. It was fun. The service was terrific. Yes, the steak in the MDR on Friday was overcooked and bland. Big deal.

Celebrity is in the vacation business and, IMHO, they deliver on the promise. It's reasonable, especially when paying top dollar, to expect a lot from the experience X provides. It won't be perfect. But I've never seen a company try so hard to make it perfect. When they fall short if you bring it to their attention with a bit of class and courtesy X will do just about anything to satisfy its guests.

I'm green with envy, Arno. It's 7 degrees Fahrenheit here today. The ice at Goddard's pond was wonderful and the hockey was fun but I'd love to be sipping a Patron on the rocks at the Sunset Bar. Alas.

Is the new cruise director related to the old Dallas Cowboys kicker?

Weigh ins at the entrance to the buffet and MDR. A little fat shaming should help the bottom line.

Your answer would make more sense if the cruise price in pounds weren't dropping while the cruise price in dollars is going up.

Cruise prices fluctuate all the time. I find it hard to believe an international company like Celebrity is 60 days behind in accounting for currency fluctuations and would be selling off inventory to British people at an unintentional discount.

If you are correct, is there a way for me to buy the cruise from a British travel agent?

If you're not going to get rid of the lawn can we at least use it?

This pertains mostly to Reflection and Silhouette with the presence of LCG. I'm thinking $20 per person for an ethnic BBQ lunch with regional wines.

Limit it to, say, 200 people. 20 tables of 10.

The obvious would be a Greek lamb roast. Mix in a few officers and you've got a nice party. OPA!

On another day perhaps an Indonesian BBQ. You get the idea. I suspect many of the staff would enjoy showcasing the cuisine from their homeland and it would be a nice way for passengers and crew to interact. Perhaps turn it into a cooking class, too. Lots of possibilities.

It is expensive to maintain. Indeed, each solstice class ship has a dedicated lawnkeeper. A marine environment is tough enough. But moving around to different continents adds a ton of additional stress to the grass.

Consequently, barely anybody on the cruise gets to use it. Even the bocce plots are scheduled for limited play so as to baby the grass.

The side plots should be converted to crushed shell bocce on one side and shuffleboard on the other. High stakes games managed by the ship should be encouraged with a vig for the house -- now that's entertainment.

I was checking prices and price trends for a few cruises on a "fishy" Web site and noticed the prices in dollars were trending north and the prices in pounds were trending lower. Moreover, when I did the currency conversion the pound prices were significantly lower. What gives?

I don't recall that giant rose on our cruise in 2013. Is it relatively new? :confused:

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Forums mobile app

As far as I know it's been there since the shipped launched in 2012.

Cabin reports on this thread have been compiled into a spreadsheet that can be read online or downloaded to Excel for further review and research. The date of the spreadsheet reflects the last update.

 

 

Thanks for your contribution.

 

 

S Class Cabin Spreadsheet.

 

 

SHIP: Reflection

CABIN #: 8252

DECK #: 8

CLASS: 1A

AREA: Midship

BED NEAR: Balcony

QUIET?: Yes

BALCONY VIEW: Excellent

BALCONY SIZE: Very Large, outsized

WIND A PROBLEM?: No

SOOT A PROBLEM?: No

PROBLEMS/COMMENTS: 1st cabin astern of slant on starboard side. Shielded from wind. Deep balcony can be used for sun or shade.

My oh My. The rose makes me want to rethink my Jan 31 cruise. Have you seen the commercial where the husband and wife keep gagging whenever they look at the object? I wonder if we could petition to have it covered during our cruise?

Don't get crazy. We had a marvelous time. The crew, the ship, the cruise exceeded are expectations in every way. For every thing that wasn't perfect 100 things were fantastic. It's a big world and there's so much to do and see but man oh man do I want to get on another Celebrity ship ASAP.

just a reminder of the lovely art

 

Do you suppose the two ladies seated to the right are having "a conversation with the art?" Or perhaps it's their muse and poetry erupts from their golden souls........

"This hideous rose gives me pause as I wonder,

How Reflection's designers could embrace such a blunder.

This ship is so chic, so elegant and swanky,

But this rose is an eyesore, its fragrance quite stanky.

It's towering, red, hulking and heavy,

The Passport Bar beckons for another stiff bevvy.

At a port of call soon may we all get our wishes,

May this hideous bloom go to sleep with the fishes.

When it happens we'll cheer and holler out 'Gratzi,'

As it sinks to the bottom to join Luca Brasi."