Photo Review: Celebrity Summit 2/7/15 Southern Caribbean (with 2 days in San Juan)

Just off the Summit this weekend! I’ll start off by saying we had another fantastic cruise onboard the Summit. This was my 3rd time onboard the Summit, as well as 3rd cruise with Celebrity. This was my 14th cruise overall, with 10 (Platinum) of those being on Carnival and one NCL cruise. At this point, we’ll continue to cruise with Celebrity being our line of choice. I enjoyed this cruise on the Summit just as much (if not more) than my last two cruises on this ship.

As I have on my last two photo reviews, I’ll do my best to divulge as many details & photos as possible. I tend to write using the same style and photo posting technique that I enjoy most when reading other photo reviews. If you find there to be too many details or pictures, feel free to just skip ahead to the parts you’re most interested in. For the CC members like myself who enjoy fixating on every detail (as I do) pre-cruise, enjoy.

If you haven’t already read my two previous Summit Photo Reviews, the links are shown below. I’m going to try and not repeat too many of the same pictures & topics I’ve already addressed in either of these reviews, and try to focus more on the ports and days in San Juan.

Photo Review: Celebrity Summit 2/1/14 Southern Caribbean

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1987902

Photo Review: Celebrity Summit 4/26/14 REPO Cruise – Caribbean & Bermuda

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=42676213#post42676213

We booked this cruise last year onboard our first Summit cruise last February, therefore we had the 123go promo again with the Classic Beverage Package as well as $125 in onboard credit for booking an ocean-view room. We love the port intensive nature of this itinerary so it was easy to make the decision to do the “other” Southern cruise itinerary out of San Juan.

Below is the itinerary of our cruise and timeframe for my review:

Friday, February 6th- Pre-cruise stay in San Juan

Saturday, February 7th – Board the Summit

Sunday, February 8th – At Sea

Monday, February 9th – Barbados

Tuesday, February 10th – St. Lucia

Wednesday, February 11th – Antigua

Thursday, February 12th – St. Maarten

Friday, February 13th – St. Thomas (excursion to St. John)

Saturday, February 14th – Post-cruise stay in Old San Juan

Sunday, February 15th – Fly home to Pittsburgh

I’m 33, traveling with my husband William (41). Here I am (your story teller) with San Juan in the backdrop. During the course of this review, I’m going to wait until the end before addressing any comments or questions that may arise. This should help those who want to focus on the review itself without reading any additional back-and-forth.

Looking forward to reading your review. I'm on the fence about booking this cruise.

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Our flight to San Juan left Pittsburgh at 6:20am Friday morning. We had a connecting flight in Orlando, and arrived in San Juan around 1:25pm. Each of the flights were relatively seamless. Our bags were among the first to come off the plane, and we were en route to our hotel in San Juan in no time. The taxi from the airport to our hotel cost $19 total with our 2 bags.

I had booked a room through Hotwire’s hidden rates by selecting a 4-star hotel in the Condado area. For this stay I was given the Ciqala Luxury Home Suites. The room ended up costing $224 total for the night (that included all taxes and fees) which was pretty good considering the prices of comparable 4-star hotels in the area when booking directly. Even though the room was pre-paid through Hotwire, they did take my credit card for a $50 deposit to ensure there were no issues upon checking out of the room.

I had read some mixed reviews online. The only real negative we found is that it wasn’t really close to anything (which I knew in advance). There was a restaurant and mini-mart within walking distance. This didn’t really matter to us, since we took a taxi to explore Old San Juan after arriving at the hotel. When researching online, I did hear that the hotel had a free shuttle that would transport you to/from the beach in Condado, however, we didn’t take advantage of it during our visit.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by this hotel. The pros substantially outweighed any “con” for us. The suite was huge for just the two of us, much nicer than I expected. I would have loved to spend more time at the hotel. I would recommend this hotel to others. Upon arriving at the hotel around 2pm, our room was already ready, even though check-in wasn’t until 3pm. The front desk was especially helpful and called us taxi’s each time we needed them which arrived within a few minutes. Below are some pictures from our suite.

Once we changed clothes, the front desk called us a taxi & we headed to Old San Juan to explore for the afternoon. There really isn’t much description to give other than we wandered around for the rest of the afternoon with no particular plan in mind (which is very unlike me) but my husband insisted on me not over-planning our time in San Juan, that he’d prefer to go with the flow…so that’s what we did. We had dinner at a random eatery that I don’t even recall the name. Then, once we were pretty exhausted (especially after being up since 2am that morning to catch our flight), we took a taxi back to the hotel for the night and went to bed.

Really enjoyed your first summit review. That was the first review that I found when I was getting ready to book celebrity when carnival canceled the valor out of San Juan.

Here I am 35 days from sailing and you're posting up an updated review. Woot!

How is celebrity compared to carnival at disembarking people?

P.S. We love cats (we have 5 of them at home). So you'll see a variety of cat photos as we encounter them on this trip.

Wonderful review and photos! Looking forward to the rest!!!

I really look forward to the rest of the review. I have read your last two and this one is very timely since I am boarding for a B2B in less than a month. Thank you again.

Great start and beautiful pictures!!! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

I'm so excited for this review! Your review of the Summit from last year was one of the reasons we decided to book! We're so pumped for our cruise with this itinerary in March!!!

Subscribing. We'll be on Summit in April (same itinerary). I've already read your other two Summit reviews and can't wait to hear more.

I love San Juan (grew up there) and recognize each photo.

Most of the cats you see are being assisted by SaveAGato (cat) which is a trap, neuter, and return program. I am involved with a comparable program where I live and we have neutered thousands of cats-thus preventing many thousands of unwanted kittens.

Thanks for the review. I enjoy this type much more than the ones who ramble about when they napped, etc.

Happy Sails to You

OOOEEE Baby :D:D Bob and Phyl

Looking forward to hearing all the rest.... We are on this itinerary in 18 days!!!

Love your reviews. Looking forward to my 1st celebrity cruise. Summit same itinerary. ....:)

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I really enjoyed your previous reviews. They were extremely helpful when I was planning my Summit to Bermuda cruise last year. I will enjoy reading along on this one too! I am loving all your pictures of Old San Juan. They are beautiful, and bringing back many good memories of our trip to Puerto Rico.

The next morning, we woke up early and took advantage of the free breakfast that was included with our stay at the Ciqala Suites. Breakfast was offered from 7-10am every morning on the sub-pent house floor. There was a small continental breakfast items that you could help yourself to including coffee and juice, and you could also order something from the breakfast menu that the chef prepared made-to-order. There was seating both inside and out.

One of the night surprises was that the minibar items were all priced great. Beverages such as soda, juice and bottles of water were only $1 each. Beers were $2 or $3 each depending on the variety. A variety of candy bars and snacks in the fridge were only $1 each. So, basically you could eat and drink as you wanted without worrying about how much you would be charged, unlike every other mini-bar I’ve ever experiences. I have the full list provided by the hotel if anyone’s staying there and interested in the details.

Other features at the Ciqala Suites that are worth mentioning in our welcome docs (even though we weren’t there during the days to take advantage): Tuesdays & Thursdays from 6-8pm complementary tapa of the day and cocktail of the day; Monday through Thursdays from 6-8pm, cocktail lounge nights. There was also free wifi at the hotel. Upon checking in, we were also given a list of tours and excursions offered through the hotel. The pool bar area was open from 10am until 9pm. They also provided a list of the pool menu of all food and drink upon checking in, but unfortunately, we didn’t make it while it was open.

Below are some pictures taken from our breakfast and a few shots of the pool area that morning.

You could just barely see the ship from the hotel through the city view...

Views from the pool deck on the top floor of the hotel.

After breakfast, we headed back to our hotel room to pack-up and head to the ship. The front desk called us a taxi around 10:30 and we were at the port by 10:45am. There was only about 10 people ahead of us in line at that point. By 11am, they opened the doors to allow everyone to go through security and check-in. By 11:15, we were already onboard and started exploring the ship. It really was that quick and painless. We setup shop on the top deck & had several drinks (since I was lugging around my carry-on bag which was pretty heavy) until we heard the announcement (at 1:00?) that the rooms were ready. At that point, we made our way to our room (the same one we had on last year's cruise because we enjoyed the extra space so much – ocean-view 9001 forward). I’ll be adding a few of the photos of the stateroom in this review as well.

The first day always flies by (perhaps it’s the level of excitement compiled with the number of drinks we consume). Before we knew it was time for the muster drill, and then sail-away. It was probably 9-10pm before my DH forced me to grab something to eat at the ocean-view café and then we retired for the night.