Summit Cruise April 2 - 9

We've been back for 10 days so I figure it's time to offer up my review of the cruise. General feeling was that it was well worth it and we had a great time.

First, a bit about us. This was our 5th cruise - but the last one was in 2005 so it had been awhile. We liked the port intensive nature of this cruise and guessed that we'd like the "vibe" on Celebrity. We wanted to be able to sample some of the ship activities and entertainment but weren't focused on those as a highlight. We are rather recent empty nesters as our second daughter graduated from college and is "in the real world" just like her older sister.

We didn't want a ship that had lots of kids and kid activities (although we specifically looked for those last time we cruised in 2005) and were specifically looking for a line known for good food at a reasonable price. Our prior cruises were on Norwegian, Holland America, Carnival and Princess. We've never had a bad cruise and find it hard to imagine that such a thing exists. After this cruise, I'd have to say that Celebrity was our favorite and definately fits us in this stage of our lives.

We flew into Puerto Rico a day ahead of time. We stayed in Old San Juan at the Sheraton and had no complaints. (Taxi from the airport to the hotel was about $27 with tip.) We were upgraded to a suite as a result of my Starwood status. It was a huge room with a view of the water, but really nothing special. There were no ships at the port while we were there. (The hotel is near the "other" port - not where Celebrity docks.)

On Friday afternoon, we wandered around Old San Juan stopping at Punto de Vista Restaurant & Bar for a late afternoon snack and 2 for 1 Mojitos on the rooftop. We split a mofongo stuffed with shrimp and garlic sauce and thought it was very good. I'd say that the Peach Mojito was my favorite of the mojitos. While we were there, another couple sat near us and we struck up a conversation. Turns out, not only were they fellow travelers heading for the Summit, but we had actually talked on Cruise Critic and we were going on an excursion together in St Maarten. (There were only 14 of us on the excursion which was arranged via our Roll Call!) It was great to meet them ahead of time and exchange stories.

After lunch, my husband and I wandered all around OSJ and ended up over by the Castillo San Felipe del Morro fort and the Cementerio Santa María Magdalena. We saw a ton of stray cats on our walk. We ended up with some beautiful sunset views of the fort.

After freshening up, we headed to dinner and ended up at La Cueva Del Mar for some seafood which was good as well. It was a great first night on vacation!

Saturday morning, we did some more exploring of OSJ. We enjoyed the architecture of the city and loved the ocean views. We stopped for a quick breakfast rather early and decided to head to the ship after picking up a Harley T-shirt from San Juan for our daughter who works at Harley in Milwaukee. After a quick cab ride, we got on board around 12:30.

One more thing about pre-cruise that I forgot to mention. We booked the cruise in February - about two months beforehand. (It was past the final booking date so we had to pay for the entire cruise when we booked it.) I worked with an online travel agent who steered me to an Oceanview Guaranteed room. (We knew we wanted a window but didn't want to pay for balcony or better knowing we wouldn't spend too much time in the cabin.) I didn't have enough recent experience to know which room was best so I went with the guarantee room since it was about $50 cheaper (per room) than picking a cabin and there is always the chance of getting an upgrade. Well... we hit the upgrade jackpot. We were upgraded to Aqua Class! We found out about 10 days after we booked the cruise.

I'll be back tomorrow to tell more about the actual cruise.

Lynne

I tried to attach some pictures but it told me that the upload failed. Any suggestions?

Looking forward to your trip report. We sail on Summit this November.

Congrats on the jackpot and looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

With regard to photos, they have to be very small to upload directly, and they will be hard to see here then.

Most people upload the photos to a photo sharing site, such as Flickr. Then you insert a link to the photo here on your CC post.

Lookin forward to the rest.:)

We are going to be on the Summit in October. Looking forward to your review.

Barb

Can't wait to read more! Don't worry about the pics.

Enjoying your report.

Keith

I tried to attach some pictures but it told me that the upload failed. Any suggestions?

Easiest way is to get an online account as suggested. I use Photobucket. Once you have set up an account with PB (it is free), you upload your pics there.

Then, you just copy the link from your picture, and paste it in a post.

Also, lots of info on this as well as photography on the photos and digital photography board here on CC.

Can't wait to read more...

Let's see how this works...

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures

Although we planned to get to the ship in the morning, by the time we got ourselves together and made it to the ship, it was early afternoon. Since we were in Aqua Class, we got to skip the long line and practically walked right on board. It was still rather early so the ship was pretty empty. We went to see our room around 1:30 but our luggage wasn't there yet. We had a bag with our swimsuits with us so we changed and headed first to lunch and then to the pool.

We thought the variety at the buffet was great and the food was pretty good as well. This was true throughout the cruise as we stopped in for lunch and for sushi many times.

So about the drink package... we had the Classic Package as a part of the deal when we booked the cruise. We decided to upgrade to the Premium Package early in the cruise. My husband enjoys craft beers (which were generally not included in the classic package) and I wanted to try the Martini's at the Martini Bar. We also enjoy wine and thought it would be interesting to try the more expensive varieties. I'm sure we could have been fine with the Classic Package, but since we had a fair amount of Onboard Credit to spend and decided it was well spent on the upgrade.

On the first day, there were a lot of crew members trying to get passengers to upgrade their drink package but we didn't notice the hard sell after that. (I don't think it was because we upgraded... as we didn't notice them selling to fellow passengers either. I think the crew gets some sort of incentive on the first day.)

Back to OBC, we knew we were getting $150 each as a part of the deal when we booked the cruise - and I thought we were getting an additional $75 from our travel agent. Turns out, we got $75 per person from the travel agent! As I mentioned above, we upgraded our drink packages and also wanted to use OBC for tips (which were slightly higher due to being Aqua Class), so that left us with about $80 in extra credit. We contemplated doing an excursion but decided against it as they all seem pretty expensive to us. We ended up buying some of the pictures and overspent by less than $10. Pretty nice, I have to say!

As for the room itself, we were in Room 9062. It was well located and we had absolutely no problem with it. We knew that it had an overhang on the balcony but learned to take pictures around it. Upon entering the room the first time, we were welcomed with a bottle of champagne and some fruit. Since we don't really drink champagne, we asked our room steward if we could change it for a bottle of white wine and he didn't have the authority to - but suggested we ask guest services. We went down to guest services during the day at sea and stood in a long line - when the cheif officer over guest services asked if he could help us. He told us that they usually don't substitue like that but would make an exception for us. We didn't see the new bottle for a couple of days, but it did show up and we drank it on our balcony one evening.

The room had great storage options and we were able to unpack our two large suitcases. I brought a bunch of hangers but there were also a bunch in the closet. The room had a hair dryer but it really wasn't a very good one (and I'm not very particular about hair dryers) so it took twice as long to dry my hair. There was also a battery operated makeup mirror which came in handy. There were a couple of plugs near the vanity/mirror. Since we knew we wanted more than two and since we knew we shouldnt bring a power surge type extension cord (as they are prohibited by Celebrity), we brought along some converters so we could use the european type outlets as well. This meant we had four plugs and never needed more than that.

We explored the ship when it was pretty empty and saw just about everything including the theater, gym, spa, pools, bars, dining rooms etc. We particularly enjoyed the cabana's in the Rooftop Terrace outdoor movie theater on the top deck. (This was recently created at the dry dock.) We ended up watching the Final Four from the theatre.

Saturday night was our first visit to Blu... and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our cruise. (Perhaps Celebrity knew that upgrading us to Aqua Class would spoil us for all future cruises.) We loved getting to know our servers as well as the wonderful quality of the food itself. Just delicious!

After dinner and after the muster drill, we met with fellow cruise critic members at the sail away from the Sunset (aka Oceanview) Bar. There were about 30 or so of us there and we were mostly wearing mardi gras beads. It was fun to put names to faces after chatting online with folks for several months.

Tomorrow's update will cover our day at sea.

Lynne

That was wonderful you got an upgrade like that. I was going to also do the guarantee but was afraid cause I had never done it before. Had no idea they would upgrade like that. Could kick myself now. I am on the penthouse deck in room 6037 in June. Guess sometimes it really is worth taking chances. Good for you! So glad you had a great time!

Let's see how this works...

 

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures

That is a link to your shutterfly album.

I just checked it out, nice pix, appreciate it.

Your link takes you here:

Thanks for taking time to write this review. We will be on the Summit May 15 to Bermuda

Our 7th cruise - first with Celebrity in Aqua Class. We are really interested in hearing about all the perks with Aqua Class and dining in Blu. A couple of specific questions - were you able to substitute the afternoon canapes for a cheese plate or chilled shrimp (if you tried)? I've heard differing replies to this. Also, when dining in Blu, is it possible to order the everyday items - shrimp cocktail, ceasar salad, etc. - from the main dining room?

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.

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.

 

 

After lunch, my husband and I wandered all around OSJ and ended up over by the Castillo San Felipe del Morro fort and the Cementerio Santa María Magdalena. We saw a ton of stray cats on our walk.

 

 

 

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

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

Looks interesting!

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

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

UN - BEEEEEE - LEEEEEE - VA - BLE:eek:

Thanx for those pictures, think I am gonna love Blu.

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

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?

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.

Thanks for an excellent review

Judging from you pictures - the ship does not look to have had a huge make over from when we were onboard in November

<sheepish look> still owe a review of that

Have not bee on here for months - but love this site, great resource

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.

Thank you!