Reflection April 6-13 Review with pics! Part 1

[Miss SeaBee]

Part 2 http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1827587

Part 3 http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=37996763#post37996763

Part 4 http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=37996779#post37996779

 

Pre-cruise, Miami Florida

 

We flew into Miami on Friday, April 5. Stayed at Embassy Suites Miami Airport. It was exactly as expected for an ES. Continuity is why we usually choose ES when traveling. Also love the breakfast buffet. The airport location was not very sexy, but was fine for our purposes. There is free airport shuttle. They will also shuttle you to restaurants within a 6 mile radius. This was a very nice amenity. They even let some people off at a nearby K-Mart while running the dinner shuttle, and came back to pick them up in half an hour. We took the shuttle to nearby La Rosa Cuban restaurant, which was delicious.

 

Nearly everyone staying in this hotel was pre-cruise. Shuttle to the cruise port cost extra, but was super-efficient, pleasant, and easy. Cruise shuttle ran at 11:00 and 1:00. We were at the cruise port by about 11:45, due to some shuttle passengers, who were cruising on the Connie, boarding almost 30 minutes late! I have no idea why the shuttle waited for them. :( The vast majority of passengers on our van were for NCL Epic. No Carnival pax on our van. The Epic pax made Carnival jokes, which I found kind of funny. I just smiled. They didn’t know what they were missing. Our group of 5 were the only Reflection pax.

 

Onboard the Reflection

 

Embarkation

 

A total breeze. No lines, no waiting. I think we arrived at the ship around 11:45 and were on board by 12:15, including taking a bathroom break in the terminal. I am a terrible reviewer, I forgot to notice the timing of these things for my trip report!

 

Sail away started out sunny, but quickly turned to showers. Our brief disappointment in that, though, was countered by the appearance of a gorgeous rainbow. It looked like we were headed straight for it! What a promising start to our cruise.

 

 

 

 

Public Areas

 

Pools

The Reflection is a stunning ship. As far as Celebrity ships, I have been on Solstice, Millenium and Reflection, in that order. Reflection is absolutely my favorite ship to date. I did not feel more crowded than on other ships. I felt that the ship easily absorbed the extra passengers. The most crowded areas were the Oceanview buffet and the main pool deck, but these were no worse than on other ships. As a matter of fact, I usually end up on the upper sun deck overlooking the pool on sea days, and this trip, I was able to get a lounger near the pool during peak hours on sea days. Not an easy task, but possible.

 

The lawn area was nice, but we spent little time there. There just wasn’t time to utilize all the public areas on this ship. Sorry to those of you who are curious, but I didn’t notice how much the cabanas were in use. I didn’t notice if I happened to walk by that area. It just wasn’t on my radar.

 

Pool loungers were in excellent condition with padded chair covers. The pools themselves were the usual S class format. They were pretty full on sea days, and lukewarm when full of bodies and the sun was hot. I found that very unpleasant on sea days, as I always do. If I needed to cool off, I generally went into the Solarium pool, which was cooler on hot days (not cold, though) and this is probably from the controlled temperature inside the solarium, and the lack of overcrowding. Deck chair hog were out in force. Many chairs with towels on them remained empty for hours on end, both in the solarium and at the main pool. I suspect many of these were just lazy, inconsiderate people who didn’t remove their towels when they left the area. There were plenty of chairs with the towel/flip flop or towel/book combination that is the hallmark of the chair hog. I never saw pool butlers clearing chairs until the last sea day. Then they were quite prompt in removing towels and belongings from empty chairs. The only reason I can imagine that it took so long for them to start being vigilant about that is that the questionnaires came out that day, and pool butlers were among the groups to be rated. :/

 

 

The Solarium was my main hangout, and it was perfectly relaxing. I was always able to find a chair, even on sea days.

 

Hot tubs were also usually not too full. I don’t think the hot tubs are hot enough, but that must be a safety precaution. t has been the same on all Celebrity ships. Beware, they are strongly chlorinated. One of my bathing suits got seriously faded in the hot tub.

 

Bars/Nightclubs/Entertainment

 

I don’t drink alcohol, so some of this is my experience, and some is according to the impressions of my daughter, step-daughter, and sister. The pool bar was very busy on sea days, but I still never had to wait longer than maybe 10 minutes to be served. Service was friendly. I had a premium non-alcoholic package, and it did not seem to have any adverse effect on service. The mast bar was not as friendly, at least not to non-alcohol drinkers. The bartenders there are super-party-hardy, and have no tolerance for buzz-kill non-alcohol drinkers. I was treated poorly by this staff twice, specifically taunted for ordering something that didn’t have alcohol in it. I wish they realized that I like a frozen drink as much as anyone else, I just don’t drink alcohol, and there is no option for me but to order my drinks at a bar. I did complain to guest services by filling out the first “how are we doing” card we got. I suggested that they have at least a few venues for non-alcoholic drinks only. I think it would improve the efficiency of service and spare people like me from the relentless alcohol pushers. The outcome of reporting my experience to guest services was to have the bartender I complained about confront my sister, who he thought was me. She had no idea what he was talking about, but told me about it later. He was aggressive, sarcastic, and told her not to report him again. I wrote up the whole experience, including this confrontation in the final questionnaire. I don’t want a response from Celebrity. I want them to educate their bar staff about professionalism and customer service. I got neither from the Mast bar. To be fair, the rest of my family, who was drinking a lot, got very good, friendly service from this same staff.

 

The sunset bar was a nice venue, but we didn’t go there very much. We had drinks there on embarkation day. The aft view is beautiful.

 

The sky lounge was generally where the night life was to be found. My DD (25), step-daughter (30) and sister (45) danced every night. Some nights they came dragging in at 5:00 a.m., so I would say Reflection gets 3 thumbs up from the nightlife crowd! They also enjoyed the Molecular bar and the martini bar. I think the general demographic on this cruise was also younger than what I have experienced on my previous X cruises. There were at least 3 wedding parties that we knew of, resulting in quite a few young singles, much to my DD and step-daughter’s delight.

 

We enjoyed the a cappella group, and the musicians who performed around the ship. I was not aware of overly loud music, as has been reported by previous cruisers. The music at the pool was often noisy, as expected.

 

The theater gets 5 thumbs down from the group. We usually enjoy Celebrity shows, even the corny production shows. We did not feel that the singers and dancers were good at all. The blonde headline singer was flat, and her voice did not blend with the brunette woman, who was mediocre. The dancers were blah. Sorry, Celebrity. We missed the 1st night’s show due to dinner running too late. We got to the theater a few minutes after the show had started, and it was standing room only. I saw a few minutes of a man juggling what looked like two giant q-tips. It did not look interesting enough to inspire me to stand for the remainder of the show. We saw the second night, which was a comedian/magician we had already seen on the Millie last year. He was enjoyable, we just already knew most of his show. The third night was the production show, horrible. We did not bother to return to the theater after that. I will report that the theater was quite crowded, more than I have noticed on other X ships, but that may be my perception, generally coming in just 10-15 minutes before the show started. We usually have traditional 6:00 dining, but this trip we did select dining with 7:00 p.m. reservations, which does not line up well with the show times. We never had “good” seats in the theater. There was not any reserved seating for suite guests. I have never seen reserved seating before on X, but I had read here on CC that it was done on the Reflection.

 

Dining

 

On the first night, we dined in Murano. It was fabulous, and comparable to my previously excellent experiences in Murano on Solstice and the Olympic on Millenium. Everything was perfection, and the service was over-the-top! I loved it!

 

On the second formal night, Thursday, we dined in Tuscan Grille. It was also very good, but I think a notch down from Murano. I had the filet mignon, which was ordered rare, and was tender but dryer than it should have been. My appetizer, a shredded beef-filled ravioli with creamy truffle sauce was the best appetizer I had the entire cruise, IMHO even better than the goat cheese soufflé in Murano. It would have made a great main course!

 

Main dining room dining was very good, and I never had a bad meal. We had select dining with 7:00 reservations that I booked well ahead of time. I thought it would be the perfect dining time for us. I don’t like eating late, but we never felt like we were hungry yet at 6:00 traditional dining. I thought this would be a nice compromise. It was, except that the shows are timed according to traditional dining times, which made us feel rushed to get to shows. If shows are very important to you, I would try to eat around traditional times.

 

We loved our waiter, Dionisius and our assistant waiter, Kevin, on the first night, so we asked to be seated with them the next night. After that, they always had the same table in his section ready and waiting for us. We never had to wait at all to be seated. We did see some lines for select seating around the time we would be leaving, 8:30 or 9:00, but they seemed to move quickly. I don’t know if it helped us to have reservations or not.

 

[Keith1010]

Very well written. I will go and read Part 2.

 

Keith

[kjaooo]

why so many threads just put them all in one

[Miss SeaBee]

why so many threads just put them all in one

 

Sure wish I could. I had it all written out as one post, but Cruise Critic only allows 6 images per page, including smileys! :) See? That's one already!

[Journey11]

Very interesting and informative review. Thank you for taking the time to prepare it. Sounds like you had a good cruise.

[Chicagocrooza]

Thanks for the review. We were on this beautiful reflection cruise as well. I surely recognize one of the pic. That's holly we met at the molecular bar numerous times. We are Eric and Amy from Chicago.

[Miss SeaBee]

Yes! The molecular bar was a favorite!

[Miss SeaBee]

One thing I forgot to mention in my review, I was given elite status for this cruise for being in a premium suite. I have not received that in the past, but there has been some discussion about this on the boards. Sadly, I think X's plan to entice me to keep going for elite status backfired. I was not at all impressed with the benefits. I don't drink, so the cocktail parties didn't interest me. I received invitations to a few events like sail away from St. Maarten the helipad, but we had something else going on at that time. The coupons were generally like sales coupons, not really anything free. Free bag of laundry (not good last 3 days of cruise....my clothes weren't dirty the first half of the week! Persian gardens free pass, but only for 2 hrs on a port day. The only coupon

I used was the 90 mins free Internet.

[micmacmissy]

Sure wish I could. I had it all written out as one post, but Cruise Critic only allows 6 images per page, including smileys! :) See? That's one already!

 

It's 6 images/smilies per POST, not per page. In the future you can combine them!

 

Thanks for the review!

[Chicagocrooza]

One thing I forgot to mention in my review, I was given elite status for this cruise for being in a premium suite. I have not received that in the past, but there has been some discussion about this on the boards. Sadly, I think X's plan to entice me to keep going for elite status backfired. I was not at all impressed with the benefits. I don't drink, so the cocktail parties didn't interest me. I received invitations to a few events like sail away from St. Maarten the helipad, but we had something else going on at that time. The coupons were generally like sales coupons, not really anything free. Free bag of laundry (not good last 3 days of cruise....my clothes weren't dirty the first half of the week! Persian gardens free pass, but only for 2 hrs on a port day. The only coupon

I used was the 90 mins free Internet.

 

But I am sure your three girls in the sky suite could use the free drinks for you :)

[Tommy3putts]

great review and pics. Cant wait for my cruise on Reflection in 2014!

[sdnich]

Just booked the Reflection 3/2014 so I am looking forward to your review!!

[Croooser]

One of the better reviews that I have seen. We board Saturday for the TA and are glad to hear that you did not feel that the additional passenger were a negative. Thanks for taking the effort to do such a nice job on your review.

[Miss SeaBee]

It's 6 images/smilies per POST, not per page. In the future you can combine them!

 

Thanks for the review!

 

Explain how I do that? I did it as all one page, and when I hit post, I got an error message that said I could only have 6 photos? Help, so I can do it all together next time!

[Miss SeaBee]

One of the better reviews that I have seen. We board Saturday for the TA and are glad to hear that you did not feel that the additional passenger were a negative. Thanks for taking the effort to do such a nice job on your review.

 

You're welcome, and have a great TA! The crew was looking forward to it already!

[Miss SeaBee]

why so many threads just put them all in one

 

I think may e I get it. Do I do the first part, then break by replying to that message, and so on? Sorry I'm so slow about this. I've never posted one this long or with so many pictures. Still learning. Is the posting format the same for the ship reviews section?

 

Thanks for the help!

[Bonnie Voyager]

Staterooms

 

Sky Suite 1669, S2 - My daughter, step-daughter, and sister shared stateroom 1669, deck 11 aft, and toward the port side. They loved the location. Cabins above and cabins below, so very, very quiet. The aft view is to die for! The extreme aft location did make getting to the forward areas of the ship quite a hike, but great exercise. They had enough room for three, even three women. Sharing the bathroom was a little challenging, and often one or the other of them would shower in the ladies’ changing room in the Aqua Spa after a day at the pool to limit shower wait-time in the cabin! The bathroom was roomy, with a shower/tub combo. They had the beds in twin bed format. The fold-out couch was fine, according to my sister. They loved their butler, Elvis.

 

Celebrity Suite 1122, starboard, forward-facing angle of the hump, deck 10 - This was a fabulous cabin. I had it’s port side twin on Solstice, so I knew the location would be perfect. The angled balcony is huge. I haven’t seen the balcony of any other CS, so I don’t know how it compares. There is plenty of room for the plush recliner, table and two chairs, and the extra pool lounger that was already in place when we boarded. Yay! We spent a lot of time on this balcony. It gets both shade and sun, depending on the direction of the sun, and time of day. There is a lot of overhang, so it is possible to sit outside even in the rain. Being two decks below the extreme overhang over the deck 12 cabins, meant that our room got plenty of sunlight, while still being protected from the elements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As recommended by another CC review, we put a magnetic white board beside our door, so that we could stay in touch with our family in the other cabin. We left messages about where we were headed, so that we could easily find each other. The other cabin had one, too. The walls outside the cabin look like wood, but are metal, so the board stuck easily with the magnet. Thanks, CC, for another great idea!

Last edited by Greensuz; April 14th, 2013 at 06:35 PM.

[Bonnie Voyager]

The living room is roomy, with a very comfortable couch, big screen TV, vanity table and lots of storage space. The extra closet here, with full-length mirror on the door was nice. The bedroom is pretty tight with the beds in the twin formation, but ample. There is a walk-in closet, two night stands, a flat screen TV, and storage cabinet. The bathroom is roomy, but similar in size to the sky suite, although the layout is a little different. There is a tub/shower combo. A note of caution. My mother is elderly, and getting a little unsteady on her feet. This shower terrified her. The sides are very high, so the step up into the shower is big - bigger than a standard tub height at home. The tub floor is very slick, with no traction decals or a mat. She used a bath towel in the bottom of the tub to help her not to slip. She was afraid of a bathroom fall the entire cruise. If you have mobility issues, but don’t need an accessible room, I would not recommend this cabin category, nor the sky suites. I would downgrade to a standard cabin, which just has a shower, or upgrade to Royal Suite or above for a separate shower and tub. My mom, who doesn’t realize the cost of things, was constantly comparing this cabin unfavorably to the Royal Suite we were in on Millenium. I don’t think she realized how much more that would have cost! (I paid for both of these trips, so she wasn’t aware how much of a $ difference it would have been. :))

 

 

 

 

Our butler was Cesár, and cabin steward Alexander. Both were friendly, efficient and helpful. We had room service breakfast every morning on the balcony, and it was always brought exactly on time by Cesár, at the early side of the time-frame. The breakfast room service menu lists delivery times by half-hour ranges, so if I ordered 7:00 - 7:30, it was always delivered at 7:00. We did not really use any extra butler services. We did not need assistance with reservations, and I would never ask for the unpacking assistance. I understand that you must be present if they perform this for you. How awkward would that be?! I did ask that he and Alexander be on the lookout for my passport when I thought I had misplaced it during my unpacking, and he told me they could not go in our drawers or closed cabinets. Luckily, I found my passport later that day, and locked it in the safe!

 

Ports

 

I don’t do the caribbean for ports. We did get off in San Juan and walk around Old San Juan a little bit. I had planned to do the Segway tour. First, I tried to book independently, with San Juan Segway tours, the only segway tour operator, but they only do Celebrity’s ship tour on Celebrity’s port day. By the time I tried to sign up for the X-sponsored segway tour, it was full. Too bad, riding a segway is on my bucket list! Maybe next time. I found San Juan pretty boring, and returned to the ship quickly, after getting some sinus medication at the CVS near the port. San Juan is a pretty good location for picking up forgotten necessities, since all the usual U.S. chains are here.

 

 

Last edited by Greensuz; April 14th, 2013 at 06:38 PM.

[Bonnie Voyager]

St. Maarten - I enjoyed staying on the ship at this port. My sister and daughters went to Orient Beach and had a nice beach day.

 

 

St. Thomas - We went to Honeymoon Beach on St. John, as recommended by others on CC. To do this, we got a taxi to the Redhook Ferry. The taxis are vans that make several stops along the way and cost is $11 one-way. The ferry ride to St. John is $6 per person one-way, and is about 15-20 minutes long. The ferries run between St. Thomas and St. John every hour on the hour for most of the day. Once off the ferry in St. John, we walked the short distance, a few blocks, over to the Virgin Islands National Park visitors center. There we accessed the Lind trail, which is about a 1/2 to 1 mile hike to Honeymoon beach. Somehow, we ended up following the signs for the upper Lind trail. This is very strenuous, hilly, rocky, with lots of switchbacks. Hiking back, we realized there is a lower Lind trail that is much smoother and easier! I am not sure if the signage is bad, or if we just missed the turn for the lower Lind trail, but just be aware that you reach Honeymoon beach by the lower Lind trail in less time and with a lot less effort! That said, it was actually nice to get some really good exercise. I carried a 30 lb snorkel gear back pack, and felt really good after burning some extra calories. This would NOT be a trail I would recommend for anyone with mobility issues or tolerance for aerobic exercise. Honeymoon beach was GORGEOUS! Soooooo worth the effort to get there. It is a beautiful white sand beach with crystal clear blue water with a sandy bottom. Great for swimming, for snorkeling, not so much. There are some rocky areas out toward the rope that serves as a barrier to boats that had some coral and a some fish-viewing, but definitely not as good as snorkeling I’ve had in many other places. It was beautiful, peaceful, and blessedly uncrowded. The beach is only accessible by hike or by boat, keeping numbers down. There were quite a few small boats anchored here, but I would say less than 30 people total on the beach and in the water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only downside to this independent excursion is the time factor. The taxi ride is pretty long, I would estimate that it took us 45 minutes to get from walking off the ship to arriving at Redhook. Luckily, the ferry was leaving in 10 minutes, so we didn’t have a wait. Still, we had very little time to stay on the beach. We decided to play it safe (luckily) and come back across on the 2:00 ferry. We didn’t want to take any chances missing the 4:45 boarding deadline. I said luckily, because our taxi driver going back took us to the wrong port. There are two ports in St. Thomas, Havensight and Crown Bay, not in walking distance of each other. There were two ships in each port. We told our taxi driver what ship we were on (the taxi was all Reflection pax) but not the name of the port. I’m not sure I even knew the name of the port where we were docked, at the time. (It was Crown Bay.) If any of us had been paying close attention, we might have noticed some of the differences in the ports, and realized we were in the wrong one, but we were all tired, hot, and ready to get back onboard. Many caribbean ports look alike, and we all just got out of the taxi. Too late, we realized we were at the wrong port. We had to get another taxi, for an additional cost of $5 per person, to take us back to the right port. Good thing we left ourselves time to spare. Murphy’s law, don’t forget! I would recommend that you check the name of the port you are docked in, and give the taxi the name of the port AND the ship.

 

Shopping

 

I don’t shop much, but I did go and look at the shops onboard. The name-brand boutiques were very expensive. I don’t know if these are bargains or not. I lost my favorite Anne Klein watch just before the cruise and thought I might replace it on this trip. I looked at Bulova watches, and the one I liked was $2,500. So I decided to go check out the $10 “clearance” sale at another shop to see if I could find a cheaper watch. These were absolute junk, probably worth much less than $10. The only one that I thought I could stand didn’t run. I took that as a sign to move on. The next shop had some Anne Klein watches and various other brands on sale for 10% off. I found a very pretty Anne Klein watch similar to the one I had lost. It had the original Anne Klein price tag on it, and I got 10% off that. I also know what those watches were supposed to cost, having bought this brand before. So, I felt I got exactly what I wanted at an ok price. Not bargain-basement, but at least not over-priced.

 

Spa

 

I saved my favorite experience for last. I am a spa person, but I usually limit my use of X spa services due to the overpricing. We went on the spa tour just after boarding the ship. They were offering a nice embarkation day discount, which you could use for any spa bookings made that day. Sorry, I can’t remember the percentage of discount, but it was pretty good. I reserved a hot stone massage for the first sea day, and a reflexology foot massage for the morning of our San Juan stop. I had Sheila for both, and she was absolutely the best massage therapist I have ever had at sea! She was just amazing! She was also quite a good saleswoman, and I did end up buying a lot of products from her. I have bought Elemis products in the past, and I know they are very high quality, and I love them, but oh so expensive!!! I bought way more than I should have, but I do love everything I bought. She convinced me to try the seaweed detoxifying massage treatment, and I am so glad I did! This is a two hour treatment. You start with having a seaweed/herbal paste applied all over you. Then you are wrapped in a mylar thermal sheet like a mummy, then covered with a comforter. You get a nice long head massage while you lie there letting the warmth and herbs seep into your skin and muscles. Then you shower off and return to the massage table, where you are again wrapped in a clean mylar sheet and covered with the comforter. Then the table heater is turned on. You then sweat out the toxins. While this is working, you get a foot massage. Then you shower again, and return to the massage table for a full body massage. I felt relaxed and rejuvenated, and my muscles really needed this the day after the St. John hike!

 

I also bought a week pass to the Persian Gardens. I had tried the Persian Gardens on the Millenium an was underwhelmed. On Reflection, it was fabulous! There are heated tile loungers, a sauna, two tropical rain showers, a hammam ( like a steam room with faucets for running water, too), an aromatherapy room and a cold room. I also bought the body scrub package, which was divine! There are 5 different scents. They recommend that you take them into the hammam with you. You sit in the steam and scrub your skin all over with the scrub, which contains salt, oil, essential oils and herbs. I love the way it made my skin feel! I still have some of the scrubs left over.

 

As a side note, one “Celebrity Secret” is that the ladies’ changing room in the Aqua Spa is available to all passengers, without a pass. It is in the Aqua Spa, deck 12. There is a sauna in there that I actually like better than the one in the Persian Gardens, plus it’s not co-ed. There are also nice big private showers, with dispensers of the lemongrass bath gel, shampoo and conditioner. There is also a vanity table with mirror, blow drier, tissues, cotton balls and lemongrass lotion. A very nice area to use after a day at the pool (just come down one level on the foreward stairs or elevator) or gym, or anytime. I used it as much as I did the shower in my room!

 

Overall Impressions

 

I had the best cruise ever on the Reflection, and I think I will probably choose this ship for my next cruise. I have always cruised with family, always in a suite. I am considering doing a solo cruise next time in Aqua Class. My family all agree this was our best cruise so far!

Last edited by Greensuz; April 14th, 2013 at 06:41 PM.

[Bonnie Voyager]

I just cut-and-pasted the other 3 parts of "Greensuz's" review into THIS thread, to make it easier to follow. Greensuz, I sure hope you don't mind that I did this!

[Miss SeaBee]

No, I appreciate if! Thank you!

[Coolcruise02]

Great review and pictures!