A Review of the Celebrity Silhouette- Aqua Class, Beverage Package, Bad Weather

[tmlove17]

Hi everyone! I have just gotten off of the Celebrity Silhouette and am preparing to write a very thorough review of our experience-- complete with many photos. :) We were in Aquaclass, partook in the fabulous 1,2,3 Go! Offering of a free beverage package, survived the bad weather and booked our 2014 cruise already... It was a good week!

 

However, we do not head home until Tuesday, so I won't be able to begin creating until then. However, I do have the fabulous Tapatalk app on my iPhone, so I am available for the next couple of days to answer any questions you might have before the review begins. :)

 

I hope you'll enjoy it!

[Chicagocrooza]

Hi everyone! I have just gotten off of the Celebrity Silhouette and am preparing to write a very thorough review of our experience-- complete with many photos. :) We were in Aquaclass, partook in the fabulous 1,2,3 Go! Offering of a free beverage package, survived the bad weather and booked our 2014 cruise already... It was a good week!

 

However, we do not head home until Tuesday, so I won't be able to begin creating until then. However, I do have the fabulous Tapatalk app on my iPhone, so I am available for the next couple of days to answer any questions you might have before the review begins. :)

 

I hope you'll enjoy it!

 

 

Great that you enjoyed your week. How bad was the weather ? Eastern or western ? Did you experience one day of bad weather or multiple days of bad weather ?

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review !

[RocketMan275]

Looking forward to your review. We're Aqua on that ship in March 2014 doing Eastern.

[tmlove17]

Great that you enjoyed your week. How bad was the weather ? Eastern or western ? Did you experience one day of bad weather or multiple days of bad weather ?

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review !

 

It's hard to say how bad the weather was because everyone's standards are different. For us, coming from the cold & rainy PCNW, clouds but warm temps is not so bad. For others, they said it was the worst weather they had seen. In truth, Monday- Friday was cloudy, with three of the five days experiencing rain at different parts. Many sailing excursions were cancelled-- including all excursions visiting Stingray City in GC. After the fifth day without sun, it got pretty depressing as the ports did not look as beautiful as they do when the sun is out.

 

So many of us joked that we were under-dressed, because truly, we were! I packed one sweater and no long pants. That was a bit inconvenient at times. :) however, because our excursions were cancelled, my DH and I joked that we came out ahead because of all the money we saved.

 

When you're on a beautiful ship on vacation, bad weather only causes minor disappointments. :)

 

(Oh, and we sailed the Western Caribbean-- March 24-31.)

[Chicagocrooza]

So sad to hear about the weather. I guess that's when you fully enjoy all the things the ship had to offered.

 

But it sounded like you made the best of it. That's great.

[tmlove17]

Disclaimer:

 

I’ll begin by letting you know that this review is a little different than others in that I deliberately did not take pictures of food, drinks, dailies or menus-- and here’s why. :)

 

I LOVE to be surprised. I get a lot of thrill out of discovering things and letting things happen, and while I did enjoy viewing pictures of certain food and drink items, I didn’t remember any of them when I was on board and instead allowed myself to be pleasantly delighted when my own food and drinks were presented. I think so much about vacationing for me is in exploring and discovering and all of the fun things that go along with it. My ritual each night on board cruise ships is reading the dailies in bed after I’ve brushed my teeth and gotten in my pajamas on, and planning (tentatively) what the next day will look like. I purposely did not want to read any dailies on the boards before we left for a couple of reasons: 1) They have been known to change, and 2) I love the element of surprise. :)

 

Also, I opted not to bring my camera this time around and only use the camera on my iPhone. I am a photographer by night and my only cameras are large and heavy DSLRs that I use for photography shoots. One of these days I will definitely purchase a point and shoot, but after two cruises of hauling my gear around, I decided to simplify. Hopefully you can bear with me on that one. ;)

[tmlove17]

Overview:

 

This was my husband’s and my third cruise since we’ve been married, and my fifth altogether. We’ve previously sailed Holland America and Disney, and since our last cruise was Disney, the bar was set high. However, Disney is also 2x the price, so we began exploring other cruise options. Last year I literally Googled “Most popular cruise line,” and “Top 5 cruise ships” which is when I stumbled upon Celebrity-- and more specifically, the Celebrity Silhouette.

 

I couldn’t believe how high the rating for Celebrity were, coupled with the fact that the prices were so reasonable! Upon further research, I knew that this was a line that we would have the potential to fall in love with as cruisers, so I decided to pick an itinerary with them that best suited our needs and timeframe we could travel in.

 

My DH and I are both teachers, so the only times we can travel are winter break, spring break and summer break. Unfortunately this typically means higher prices and crowded venues, but we’ve gotten used to it. We are also from the Northwest, so our winters and springs are cold, cloudy and rainy. By March, we always look for a warm weather escape! Normally we drive down to California from Oregon to take a Mexican cruise, but since most lines are pulling out of there, that was no longer an option this year.

 

Compared to what we paid for our Disney cruise to Mexico last summer, the Celebrity ships sailing the Caribbean were a steal. We could both fly there from Oregon, plus have a balcony room with some money to spare! We ended up deciding on the Western Caribbean itinerary sailing out on March 24th on the Silhouette because it worked best with our schedule, and all of the ports (Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Falmouth and Labadee) were new to us. On Christmas night, we booked this cruise-- our gift to each other for our spring break getaway. :)

 

We do not have kids, so this trip was just my husband and myself, 28 year old teachers from Oregon. :)

[tmlove17]

Pre-planning:

 

I have a tendency to over-plan, and then I always get stressed out because what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation is typically spent running around to various activities we wanted to see and do (talks, excursions, painting, classes, movies, working out, etc.). I deliberately under-planned on this trip to allow for some flexibility, and also because I heard that Celebrity was a bit lacking in the activities department (perfectly fine with me!). We also had a very busy winter, so I didn’t have time to plan absolutely everything perfectly. I really just wanted to kind of do spur of the moment and sporadic activities so that resting, reading and relaxing would take precedence.

 

In previous cruises, we have booked excursions ahead of time only to discover that either friends we meet on board are doing a different one, or in talking to the shore excursions personnel, they have a different recommendation or provide insights that sway us a different way. This time, we decided not to plan any excursions ahead of time and just had a faint idea of what we thought we might like to do in each port. Coming from Oregon, my primary objective for this trip was to relax 24/7 in the Caribbean sun... more on that later. ;)

 

My DH and I booked our flights out of Portland in early January and we were shocked at how expensive they were. We typically visit Orlando at least once a year and they are always at least half of what these PDX ----> FLL flights were. We were shocked. After some finagling with various miles we had with other airlines, we were able to scour up four one-way tickets-- two one ways to FLL and two one ways to PDX. The catch? We had to leave two days early and stay two days late. Four extra days of vacation for less than what those original flights would have cost? Fine with me!

 

When we had originally booked our cruise, we chose a 1C deluxe verandah stateroom (not a Concierge C1) as 2A-2Cs were the same price for some reason (don’t ask me why). It was going to be $200 more per person to upgrade to Concierge, but when I talked to my travel agent she encouraged me to stay put in the verandah and said there would be a high likelihood that we would get upgraded at some point to a better cabin. She told me that since we were past the full payment amount date anyway, if the prices dropped they would only be able to upgrade us and not refund our money. I was okay with that, but I knew it meant I would need to watch for the price drop virtually every day-- I was on a mission to get upgraded. :) We were also later notified that this was going to be called the “President’s Cruise,” as the President of Celebrity, Michael Bayley, would be sailing on board that week as well.

 

After booking the cruise and the flights, my next priority was booking hotel rooms for two nights prior to departure and two nights after we returned. I was absolutely floored with how expensive hotel rooms in Fort Lauderdale were! I later discovered that it was because it was basically the entire southern United States’ spring break (ours is always the last week in March and doesn’t have to do anything with when Easter falls), so absolutely everything was more expensive. I wasn’t about to spend $250 - $350 per night for a hotel room prior to our cruise, so I sat on Priceline day after day after day putting in low bids for 3 and 4 star hotels.

 

After about a month of bidding on rooms in both the Fort Lauderdale beach area, as well as the Fort Lauderdale downtown area, I finally had a hotel accept my (much higher than originally) offer on the northern beach area. I settled on a 3 star hotel because 4 star hotels had jumped to nearly $400 in early March and I was quite frankly tired of bidding on rooms every day. We had our price of $150 accepted by the Ocean Sky Resort on the beach, and my heart sank when I read the reviews from previous travelers who had stayed there and seen their photos. Priceline is so hit or miss-- I have had incredible luck and horrible luck with them on various travels, but after this trip I can safely say I will not be using them anymore. More on that later.

 

The final thing pre-cruising that I needed to do was to rent a car, order our luggage tags and print our Express pass for boarding the ship. The rental car was also a time-consuming process, as most places, even through discounters such Costco, were charging $100 per day for economy cars. Our budget for this vacation was not looking good.

 

I had never used Priceline for rental cars, but for this trip I decided that it couldn’t hurt because we definitely needed one (especially because of where we were staying hotel-wise). As I noted before, a month to one week before the cruise departed, rental cars were going for $100 and coupon savings were not really worth much. I decided to bid for $35 on the Wednesday before our ship departed, and low and behold-- I got it! I was thrilled. In circumstances where rental cars are very costly, I highly recommend bidding on one through Priceline because it saved us $65 each day to do so.

[tmlove17]

Pre-Planning, continued:

 

Our luggage tags arrived quickly, and all that was left was printing our Express pass, airline boarding passes and hotel reservation paperwork and we were ready to go. Except that our printer wasn’t working. So... I figured that I could just print my boarding pass at the airport, bring up my hotel reservation on my phone, and get a new Express pass printed by the Celebrity staff when we arrived as this is what I’ve done before on previous cruises.

 

Just about a week before we were scheduled to take off, I checked Celebrity as I always did and discovered that the price of our balcony had dropped significantly-- so much so that Aqua Class was now the same price as what we paid for a 1C! I quickly phoned my travel agent to see if she could get us upgraded and sure enough, we were smoothly moved into a mid-aft Aqua Class cabin on deck 11! (Cabin number 1648.) I was ecstatic. I heard so many times about Aqua Class, dining in Blu, visiting the Persian Gardens, etc., but never thought that we’d be able to have a room in it. We do enjoy the finer things when we can, but not enough to pay what it was originally-- nearly $500 extra per person for the week. We had previously decided to use some of that money for specialty dining instead, but now we would not need to. :)

 

When I checked in for our flights the night before, I was aghast as it turned out that somehow my husband had gotten bumped to standby, but I had not. We purchased the flights over two months earlier using our miles, so there was no reason we should have been bumped. The flight was apparently oversold by several passengers, and the only way to get him back on the flight was to pay for an Economy Comfort seat, at about $100 one-way for both legs which we ended up having to do. We were extremely irritated and called our airline company immediately. As one would expect, at 9:00 at night we were directed to an overseas call center who could do nothing for us at the time.

 

We were upset that not only should we not have had to pay $100 to get on a flight that we already had, but we also should have been notified that he had been bumped. The agent said the best thing he could do would be to make a note on our reservation to try and get the fee reversed, but that there wasn’t anything he could do from his end. Two managers later, same story. So, once we get home we are definitely doing whatever we can to get that reversed because it was just unacceptable-- and the last thing I needed to be dealing with the night before we flew out!

[tmlove17]

Day 1 - Flight Day

 

Friday, March 22nd came extremely fast and so did 3:00am... the time we needed to get up to board our flight. :( I do not do well with flying, early mornings and especially flying during early mornings! However, the sun was calling my name (as was Aqua Class), so we poured ourselves cups of strong coffee and made our way to the airport.

 

Our flights were relatively uneventful, except for the fact that because my husband was bumped and his seat changed, we were not able to sit together at all. This was upsetting to me because I am somewhat of a nervous flier, but I got my act together and just made myself focus on the objective-- sun, rest and our beautiful Silhouette. (PS, did you know United doesn’t even provide little bags of nuts or show complimentary movies anymore?! Their nickel-and-diming is worse than Carnival cruise...) I ended up sitting next to a United Pilot who was getting shuttled to fly a plane in FLL, so she talked to me the entire time about the ins and outs of flying. It helped calm me down a little. ;) Anyway, I digress...

 

So after a long day of traveling, we arrived in Fort Lauderdale to somewhat cloudy skies around 3:00 in the afternoon. We grabbed our rental car and headed off to our beachfront hotel... The Ocean Sky Hotel. What previous travelers had complained about and which I fully understand why now is that this hotel seriously needs some upkeep in their rooms for the price they are charging. It is a glorified beachfront Motel 6 that charges Marriott prices (because we actually saved about $100 because of going through Priceline!). If I paid $250 a night to stay there... I would be sick to my stomach. It wasn’t the worst hotel in the world, but definitely not for that price. The area was more commercial so we had to drive downtown to see anything or eat anywhere besides Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds. We kept waiting for the crew from Hotel Impossible to show up and start filming... ;)

 

Hotel aside, we were excited to be at the beginning of our vacation and were up early the next morning to go sight seeing. The night before, we visited Seasons 52 for dinner, which was the first time ever eating at that chain. We were really pleased with our dinner and wished they had a Seasons 52 up in Oregon! Our server for the night gave us some recommendations on what to see and do while we were in Fort Lauderdale, so we jotted them down and planned to use his list while we saw the sights and spent some time in the sun.

[tmlove17]

Day 2 - Exploring Fort Lauderdale

 

We started our morning at Starbucks and I caught up on a few work items, knowing I wouldn’t be able to check email very often on the ship. As we were sitting there, a man struck up a conversation with us and we discovered that he was an FBI agent who had just returned from several months in Kazakhstan working at the embassy, and was also a freelance photographer. We had several things in common with him and we ended up talking for over an hour! We love meeting new people, so this was the perfect start to our vacation. He gave us our phone number and told us to give him a call the next time we were in town which we definitely plan to do.

 

After that, we decided to head over to Nordstrom down at the Aventura Mall near Miami, which is about thirty minutes away. We are loyal Nordstrom patrons, and since they were having a big sale, I decided to stock up on shorts & dresses in Florida rather than Oregon because our selection is quite small at the moment. ;) We were shocked at how big the Aventura Mall is! It was fabulous and kept going on forever it felt like. So many great stores and the layout was superb as well! At the encouragement of our Starbucks friend, we decided to skip Sawgrass Mills mall and head to Aventura instead. I’m glad that we did. He noted that Sawgrass Mills was going to be insanely crowded and busy since it was both the weekend and spring break, and many cruise lines do excursions there on weekend days. I’m glad we took his advice because the Aventura Mall was just what we were looking for!

 

After we went shopping at Aventura, we headed back up to Fort Lauderdale to explore Las Olas blvd. at the guidance of our server from Seasons 52. Unfortunately this day there was SO much traffic-- boat, car and otherwise-- so we spent over an hour just sitting on the roads in downtown Fort Lauderdale just trying to get there. We then spent another 30 minutes trying to find parking, but finally we were successful and landed a spot right in the center of it all. We ate lunch at (Italian restaurant- find name) and it was really good. It was nice enjoying a wood fired pizza and a glass of pinot grigio under the sun in Florida. :)

 

When we were done with our leisurely lunch, we walked up and down Las Olas boulevard, peering in the quaint shops and admiring the canal-front homes and yachts. Those must be nice to own... ;) We then decided to make a Target run for incidentals before our trip, but on our way we drove around the coast and beach-front area near Las Olas. Big mistake. We forgot that it was spring break and it was an absolute zoo! People were tripping all over the place after drinking in the sun all day, and twice we almost hit someone who crossed over the street without paying attention in their partying daze. We were surprised there were no police officers patrolling this area and we got out of there as quick as we could. I’m glad those days are over for us! ;)

 

We searched for a dinner restaurant later on that evening on Yelp and Trip Advisor, and both places rated this placed galled Gilbert’s 17th Street Grill as being the #1 restaurant in all of Fort Lauderdale. We were shocked, as it didn’t seem that impressive, but we thought, what the heck, with that many reviews they must know something we don’t. So we headed over to Gilbert’s for burgers and beer on Saturday night, and the place was totally empty! We went around 6:30 and were a bit surprised as to why it would be rated the number one restaurant. Don’t get me wrong, the burgers were good (and huge!) but I’ve had better other places, and we certainly ate at better restaurants while in Fort Lauderdale. Oh well. To each their own.

 

Once we finished dinner, we headed back to our hotel room to grab a drink on the beach, watch the water for awhile and then get a good night’s sleep-- we would be cruising in the morning! :)

[tmlove17]

Day 3 - Cruise day!

We were up early, checked out of the hotel as quick as we could, and dropped our car back off at the airport to hop a quick taxi across to the cruise port. On both legs of our trip we rented a car from the airport, as it was very quick and convenient to do so with the port being right across the street. We got our Starbucks, used the wifi there so I could download several books onto my iPad, ate our favorite Mallorca Sweet Bread pastries and off we went to the beautiful Silhouette! We were at Port Everglades by about 11:30am.

 

When we pulled up to the cruise terminal, it was a big chaotic as other cruise lines were there and there was a ton of traffic, yelling and whistle-blowing. A porter grabbed our bags quickly and before we knew it we were heading in to the security area where we’d line up before entering the embarkation area. There were two lines before security: Ones for Aqua Class guests and Suite guests, and one for everyone else. I was excited to go in the Aqua Class line because there was no one in it, while there were at least 200 people in the other line. We proceeded to the Aqua Class line, but were stopped by a security guard asking for our Express Pass. “Crap!” I thought. “I never printed it!” In the other cruise lines I’ve sailed, we did not need our pass to get into security, so I did not know it would be a problem. I tried bringing it up on my phone, but there was no reception indoors... so, the agent said we needed to wait in the security line with the rest of the ship’s passengers besides suites and Aqua Class. Darn. They did end up having a manifest at the front of the security line where they could double-check that we were on the ship, but it took an extra 20 minutes to get through the line. I have definitely learned my lesson about making sure everything is printed and taken care of ahead of time!

 

The embarkation lines post-security were relatively light, and this time we were able to wait in the Aqua Class line which only had one guest ahead of us. It was almost time to get on board the ship! We met the agent who provided us with our Sea Pass cards and took our pictures for our account (which was required). He wished us farewell and we were off!

 

I was impressed with how smooth it was to board the ship. There were no numbers called and no waiting areas besides the lines corresponding to which stateroom type you were in. After we collected our Sea Pass cards, we headed up some escalators to the bridge leading onto the ship. We did stop for the obligatory ship photo (which we never buy, but still, it’s a fun kick-off tradition) and within two minutes we were on board, mouths agape with astonishment at the Silhouette’s beauty!

 

I think most cruisers experience the initial daze once they get on their cruise ship. There was so much to take in, and so much to see all at once. Live music was playing and crew members were on every corner offering to assist us and greeting us on our arrival. The speakers came on almost immediately noting that rooms would not be ready for another hour, but we were welcome to get lunch in the Oceanview Cafe, or in other spots where lunch was offered already. We opted to grab a small plate and then head up to the Sunset Bar to enjoy a drink and the view while we waited for our rooms. I was already impressed with the food quality for just the regular “cafeteria” style food-- the Oceanview Cafe has a huge selection, no lines, and a really modern and sleek interior. There are also no trays, which I heard is because Celebrity wanted to do away with the feel of a cafeteria. There are at least three different islands throughout the cafe which offer the same type of food, so dozens of people are not waiting for the same item. The only line I ever waited in at the Oceanview Cafe was for the customized pasta bowls, and this was naturally because they took a little bit of time to prepare. Otherwise, we always just walked up, grabbed what we wanted, and headed out for a table.

 

A couple of things that impressed us about the Oceanview Cafe was the amount of seating available. This was a jam-packed spring break cruise (others likened the amount of people to Thanksgiving and Christmas cruises) and we never were without a seat or a deck chair. Sometimes we had to eat outside or even near the Lawn Club area, but we were able to sit and enjoy our meal every time. That was impressive on the part of Celebrity, because that has not been the case in trips’ past with other cruise lines we’ve sailed on. In fact, we only ate one meal at the cafe on the last ship we sailed on because it was so incredibly crowded and we could never get a table.

 

Edited April 2, 2013 by tmlove17
Photo error

[tmlove17]

We only had to wait for about an hour before our rooms were ready, and they called us by floor number. Decks 12 - 11 were first, which was us, so we quickly headed down to check it out. Aqua Class rooms and halls are gorgeous! The wood detailing and sleek interiors are really exceptional. We felt very classy in our rooms and were impressed with their spaciousness. We were on the port side, so we overlooked the ocean from Fort Lauderdale which was a great view. We were very happy travelers at this point! The food was good, the sun was shining, the drinks were flowing and we had our whole vacation ahead of us... Life is good!

 

 

 

Our bags hadn’t arrived when we were able to enter our rooms, so after giving the room the quick once-over, we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the ship. We’ve found that starting at the top and working our way down is best for us, so we headed up to deck 15 on the forward side to check it out. There was a great area to lay out in which was very private, though we actually forgot about it throughout our cruise because we never had a problem finding a lounge chair. Perhaps that would be a good place for some privacy or if the chairs on deck 12 and 14 are full!

 

Sky Lounge on deck 14:

 

 

After that we headed down to deck 12 since we had already seen the Oceanview Cafe earlier in the day. Deck 12 had the pool, the Solarium and indoor pool and the Aqua Spa. We took this opportunity to go on the spa tour and enter the obligatory spa treatment raffle. One of these days I will win something!! ;) The spa was gorgeous and it made us even more excited about the opportunity to get to use Persian Gardens during our trip! The gym was huge and the spa actually spanned two floors, as the treatment rooms were on the floor below. It was the most peaceful cruise ship spa I have ever been in.

 

The Solarium was very relaxing and peaceful, but it filled up quickly. I do agree that it is a great place to read, but even on colder days at sea that we had (oops, getting ahead of myself...) I preferred the ocean breeze and a blanket instead. I heard many people complaining about never getting a seat in the Solarium. It really is a neat place though! If I were on a longer cruise or a Trans-atlantic I would definitely spend some time in the Solarium, but I wanted sun and warmth on this cruise. (Plus I didn’t want to have to wait for a chair.)

 

The next few decks were mainly staterooms, but the Hideaway reading nook on deck 8 was always busy, as was the library. Both were absolutely gorgeous! I often loved just staring at them as we rode the glass elevators up and down the ship. We never did hole up and read in the Hideaway, but we definitely will on future cruises. For those that have been to Disneyworld before, it’s kind of the same mentality of “There’s no way I can do everything in one week, so I’ll just plan on going back.”

 

 

We saw people playing games all week in the gaming area, and we also saw people using the iLounge very frequently as well. The glass elevators peer in on all of these different activity spots on the cruise, so we could always see what was going on and what people were doing. They were always busy! I only used the iLounge once, to set up my Internet account. I received a complimentary 10 minutes from the Shore Excursions desk, so I decided to save it for an at-sea day.

 

Deck 5 was where we spent the large majority of our cruise during the evenings, as this was where we dined in Blu every night, and the specialty restaurants are on this deck as well. Deck 5 also has the Molecular Bar, Bistro on 5, Michael’s Club and Cafe al Bacio, which we partook in frequently during this cruise. :) I liked to think of deck 5 as the eat and drink deck (and then you can buy some Marc Jacobs purses once you’ve had a couple cocktails at Molecular Bar), because there were a few shops on this deck as well.

We spent a little bit of time each night on Deck 4, as this is where the casino is and other shopping areas. We visited the ice martini bar a couple of times, but I preferred the Molecular Bar drinks so that’s where we spent most of our after-dinner-drinks time at (and met a lot of people at!). We visited Quasar one night which is also on deck four, but more on that later.

 

We rarely visited deck three, except to check a couple of things with our ship board account at Guest Relations and talk to the shore excursions staff a few times. The courtyard on deck three was always a happening place as the Runaways (the ship’s fabulous band) sang each night while people danced. I loved the set-up of decks four and five, as they have seating all around the glass edges and rails so that people can enjoy a drink and watch what’s happening on deck three, rather than have to be down there where it’s actually happening.

 

Deck two was where we got off the boat at ports, as well as where the medical facilities were at. We did not spend time on deck 2.

 

Exploring took us about an hour to get through, and soon after we were notified that the muster drill would be happening shortly. Our Sea Pass cards are printed with the number and location in which we are supposed to gather during a muster drill, and ours was in the Ensemble Lounge. I was impressed yet again with the smoothness of this muster drill. It was the first one in which we did not need to line up on the deck areas, single-file by height with lifejackets on, and instead we just watched a safety briefing video and listened to the staff members who guided us through the process. After it was over, it was time to head up to the Sunset Bar where our Cruise Critic roll call had decided to meet up to say hi during sail-away!

[tmlove17]

Our roll call members had decided to wear Mardi Gras beads at the Sail Away party so that we could spot each other. Unfortunately, Captain’s Club members were also invited to a Sail Away Meet-And-Greet with Michael Bayley at the same time, so some roll call members could not attend our sail away party (we were not invited, as this was our first Celebrity cruise so we were not Captain’s Club members at the time).

 

 

My husband and I were one of the first ones up on the deck and we spotted a couple wearing Mardi Gras beads, so we approached her and it was NancyLovestoCruise and her companion, Peter! It was funny because we would introduce ourselves by our first names and then ask what everyone’s screen names were and we were able to know each other much more initially by our screen names-- lol. After that, Noel and his family, aka Troy86, approached us and we all got to talking, and soon we had a large group forming made up of Lightningsgvt, CBM0806 (Courtney and Chris), PACREW (John and Lori), and a few others. It was fun to hang out with each other and meet after all of this time writing on the boards! I always love roll call meet-ups, as it is how we make a lot of our friends on board, or at least have someone to greet whenever we pass in the halls.

 

After the Sail Away, we figured that our luggage was back in the room and sure enough it was, so we decided to unpack before we headed out to the Persian Gardens before our dinner at Blu. I also needed a shower, as the wind had completely blown my hair in many different directions!

 

The Persian Gardens were pretty empty on our first day, and we were able to get two relaxation chairs next to each other which we rested on for twenty minutes or so before using the aromatherapy spa as well as the steam room and rain showers. The Persian Gardens were just as good as any spa experience, except they were complimentary! This became a regular pre-dinner spot for my husband and I which we thoroughly enjoyed.

 

Dinner at Blu was absolutely fabulous. I wish I could tell you what I had that first night, but all I remember is having a “pinch me, I get to eat here every night?!” moment. It was reminiscent of our favorite restaurant back home-- one that we pay a pretty penny to eat at a couple of times a year-- but we got to eat here for free! We learned after the first night that we really didn’t want to eat anywhere else, including the specialty restaurants. We have another Celebrity cruise coming up this summer, so we decided to save the restaurants for that cruise since we won’t be in Aqua Class. The staff in Blu were excellent. Very attentive, accommodating and really sincere. I know they serve thousands of guests over the course of their ship tenure, but they made us feel like the most important ones in there.

 

One of the other reasons we enjoyed dining in Blu was because of the various couples we met since the tables are somewhat close together. Some people might not like this, but we felt it was a good compromise because we do like meeting people while dining which is what we thought we might miss about not being in the MDR. But we in fact preferred this more because we got the quiet dining experience while getting to know couples next to us as well.

 

 

Dining in Blu was always a 2 hour experience for us because we loved savoring the dishes, enjoying our wine and taking our time with dessert and coffee. It was truly one of my favorite experiences of each day-- looking forward to dining in Blu.

 

 

After we ate dinner, we wandered through some of the shops at sea that had since opened, but nothing really struck us as being a must-have. It was just fun to window-shop. :) We also listened to live music in the Ensemble Lounge and then headed down to Quasar when they were apparently going to be having their adults-only time of dancing and drinking with top-40 hits. We love dancing so we thought this would be fun to do. Unfortunately, there were only two other couples down there with us at 11:00 at night, while others were sitting in the alcove couches just watching us. The two couples soon stopped dancing so it was just my husband and I, busting a move to Lady Gaga and Fergie. We ended up retiring for the night as well, but did enjoy a couple of dances by ourselves on the dance floor because really, who cares? We’re on vacation. Let them watch. :)

 

We often go to bed around 10:00pm when we’re at home, but we rolled in our room around 12:30am that first night... love it! A great start to our vacation.

 

Picture from the Molecular Bar during our ship tour from earlier:

 

[El_aurens]

Great review, can't wait for the rest to come!

[cruiserone]

We loved The Silhouette! Sailed her last March and it was wonderful. I am enjoying your review and seeing your photos.

 

Your next cruise try the Reflection, we just returned from her and we enjoyed this cruise just as much. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice as the food, staff and ships are the best out there.

 

Happy cruising! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

 

 

Carol

[BamaD]

Love your review. It feels like chatting with an ol' friend!

[tmlove17]

We loved The Silhouette! Sailed her last March and it was wonderful. I am enjoying your review and seeing your photos.

 

Your next cruise try the Reflection, we just returned from her and we enjoyed this cruise just as much. Celebrity is our cruise line of choice as the food, staff and ships are the best out there.

 

Happy cruising! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

 

 

Carol

 

Hi Carol! We will actually be sailing the Reflection this summer on the eastern Mediterranean, and then the Eclipse next summer on the Northern Europe tour. I have heard fabulous things about the Reflection! :)

[tmlove17]

Love your review. It feels like chatting with an ol' friend!

 

Thank you! You can consider me a Cruise Critic friend. Perhaps we'll meet on the seas. ;)

[jerseygirl3]

You two are adorable!! Loving your review. I feel like I'm on the trip with you. We've done Eclipse, Silhouette, Equinox, and we're booked next year for Equnox Caribbean in January and Silhouette TA in November. Since we won't be traveling with our large group of friends on the TA I'm hoping we get upgraded to AQ. I would love to dine in Blu but we 're always with our friends so we stay in the MDR with our fiends. I'm almost tempted to pay the extra $250/pp for AQ. After all it is 15 nights. Decisions, decisions...

[anonymousegirl]

Love your review!

 

Re your husband being bumped--your said you had used miles for your tickets--sorry to say, that means you are the lowest of the bunch since you are flying on what's called a non-revenue ticket. These tickets are the first to be bumped when a flight is oversold. It stinks, but I think you were lucky that you were able to get your husband on that flight at all.

 

This coming June I am flying to Germany first class on British Airways using miles, and I had to break it to my husband that there was always a chance we would be downgraded to coach or worse, bumped completely. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

[jerseygirl3]

Love your review!

 

Re your husband being bumped--your said you had used miles for your tickets--sorry to say, that means you are the lowest of the bunch since you are flying on what's called a non-revenue ticket. These tickets are the first to be bumped when a flight is oversold. It stinks, but I think you were lucky that you were able to get your husband on that flight at all.

 

This coming June I am flying to Germany first class on British Airways using miles, and I had to break it to my husband that there was always a chance we would be downgraded to coach or worse, bumped completely. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

 

Oh, I did have something to comment on about that. The OP said they had to arrive 2 days precruise and 2 days postcruise to be able to use their points, only to have DH bumped and pay an add'l $100 to get him on. When you considered the extra money spent for hotels and meals for 4 extra days, was it worth just paying for the more expensive tix upfront? Just curious. We've run into this before, but I don't think I'd spend 4 extra days. We stayed one extra day post cruise to use our FF points, but 4 days would be pushing our budget. If the cost was the same, of course, I'd take the extra four days of vacation!

[tmlove17]

You two are adorable!! Loving your review. I feel like I'm on the trip with you. We've done Eclipse, Silhouette, Equinox, and we're booked next year for Equnox Caribbean in January and Silhouette TA in November. Since we won't be traveling with our large group of friends on the TA I'm hoping we get upgraded to AQ. I would love to dine in Blu but we 're always with our friends so we stay in the MDR with our fiends. I'm almost tempted to pay the extra $250/pp for AQ. After all it is 15 nights. Decisions, decisions...

 

Those sound like amazing trips! I have always wanted to do a TA. Since my husband and I are teachers, there are only a few small windows we can travel in, and TAs don't fit. :(

 

It would be really hard to say about the AQ upgrade but for 15 nights I most likely would. You won't want to go to the specialty dining room restaurants after that!

[tmlove17]

Love your review!

 

Re your husband being bumped--your said you had used miles for your tickets--sorry to say, that means you are the lowest of the bunch since you are flying on what's called a non-revenue ticket. These tickets are the first to be bumped when a flight is oversold.

 

I figured as much. I've never had it happen before, but I at least would have liked to know ahead of time that he was bumped. :-\

[Lois R]

Megan, enjoying your review:)....I sail her Sunday:D