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First time cruisers back from the Beautiful Celebrity Summit!

just_looking

By just_looking,
in Celebrity Cruises

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just_looking

just_looking

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* We were on the Celebrity Summit Southern Caribbean cruise last week. (April 13-20). It was our first cruise ever, and we LOVED it. I can’t believe my husband Bill made me wait 23 years before taking me on a cruise! (yes, I have been asking for a cruise vacation since we first married). After our experience last week, I am absolutely HOOKED on cruising and can’t wait to board the Summit’s sister ship, the Celebrity Millennium, for an Alaska cruise in less than 2 months. :)

 

I’ve started writing a review that will probably be very LONG! I’m posting the first segment of it right now. I’ve already written most of it, but, I hope to put pictures into future segments so it might a couple of days to get all the parts assembled!

 

PRE-CRUISE TRAVEL

 

We flew in the day before our cruise. It takes literally all day to get to San Juan from the West Coast, so this was really our only option, but it also made boarding day very easy & stress-free.

 

We had to leave for the airport at 4:20 AM for our early flight – yikes! Our flight was uneventful and we arrived at the San Juan airport around 6:30 PM. We collected our bags and got in the LONG taxi queue. It moved quickly, though, and soon we were on our way to the Courtyard Miramar hotel. Total cost with baggage charge and tip was $21. We thought we might be exhausted by the time we reached the hotel, but with the excitement, we both had a burst of energy and decided to stick with our plan to walk to a nearby restaurant.

 

I’m so glad we did! I had found a restaurant online called Casita Miramar that looked like an easy walk from our hotel. When we checked in to the hotel, we asked the desk clerk about it. She told us it was a great choice for dinner, and assured us it was an easy, safe walk. After dropping our bags in our room and freshening up after 12 hours of travel (!) we headed for the restaurant. What a fantastic choice Casita Miramar turned out to be! The menu changes daily and is written on a chalkboard in Spanish. Although Bill is fluent in Spanish, it was a little tricky because he didn’t understand certain Puerto Rican food preparation terms. But we made some educated guesses and were ready to order when our waiter returned. The highlight of the meal was an appetizer we ordered – it was fried balls of coconut flour filled with a soft cheese. Yummy! The white sangria was also excellent. I also tried the red sangria (hey, the waiter said the sangrias were the house specialty!) but didn’t like it as well. Something funny that happened while we were there: a couple that had been sitting across from us in the airplane came in and were seated next to us. We chatted briefly (they were boarding the Summit the next day, too!). Then we noticed their chalkboard was written in English. Turns out the only reason we’d received the Spanish chalkboard is because my husband spoke Spanish to the staff when we first came in. We’d have asked for an English menu if we’d known one existed! Anyway, it was all good. The ambience was as good as the food. We were seated in an outside patio area, but the inside seating looked nice, too. I’d definitely go back there if we come back to San Juan.

 

We were exhausted and stuffed by the time we got back to our room! Let me tell you briefly about the hotel. We chose it only because we had an expiring free night certificate to use at a Marriott brand hotel. ;) But it was a nice little hotel tucked away in a residential neighborhood. I wouldn’t stay there for a long-term vacation, but I’d definitely stay there again for a one-nighter. My one complaint is that the bed was not super-comfortable. Everything else in the hotel seemed very new and updated, but I wonder if they have not replaced the mattresses in a while. :confused: We were tired enough that we still got a good night’s sleep.

 

The next morning Bill wanted to eat at the hotel restaurant. But I’ve never been a fan of hotel breakfast, and, we’d already been charged $9.50 for 2 cups of coffee from the hotel restaurant when we first got up. So I didn’t want to spend $50 on hotel breakfast – let’s save that money for the cruise! I’d noticed a little diner across the street so I convinced him to head over there. Another great choice! It’s called La Pradera. We were the only non-locals in the place, which is always a good sign. We each had coffee and the 2-eggs with ham & toast plate. I also had fresh-squeezed orange juice (they were squeezing it at the bar right in front of us), and Bill had a large bowl of fresh papaya. Total was $12 – an amazing price for a fantastic breakfast. (I am thirsty for a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ as I write this!)

 

No pics for our pre-cruise travel. More to come soon.

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CruisersTimesThree

CruisersTimesThree

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Looking forward to your review! We will be boarding the Summit in 46 more days setting sail to Bermuda and I love reading whatever I can about others experiences on one of my favorite ships.

We sailed her last year for the first time and loved it so much, we booked the exact same trip this year right down to the same RS we had the first time around!

Welcome to cruising! Hope you have many more years of enjoying it!

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drarill

drarill

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* W

I’m so glad we did! I had found a restaurant online called Casita Miramar that looked like an easy walk from our hotel. When we checked in to the hotel, we asked the desk clerk about it. She told us it was a great choice for dinner, and assured us it was an easy, safe walk. After dropping our bags in our room and freshening up after 12 hours of travel (!) we headed for the restaurant. What a fantastic choice Casita Miramar turned out to be! The menu changes daily and is written on a chalkboard in Spanish. Although Bill is fluent in Spanish, it was a little tricky because he didn’t understand certain Puerto Rican food preparation terms. But we made some educated guesses and were ready to order when our waiter returned. The highlight of the meal was an appetizer we ordered – it was fried balls of coconut flour filled with a soft cheese. Yummy! The white sangria was also excellent. I also tried the red sangria (hey, the waiter said the sangrias were the house specialty!) but didn’t like it as well. Something funny that happened while we were there: a couple that had been sitting across from us in the airplane came in and were seated next to us. We chatted briefly (they were boarding the Summit the next day, too!). Then we noticed their chalkboard was written in English. Turns out the only reason we’d received the Spanish chalkboard is because my husband spoke Spanish to the staff when we first came in. We’d have asked for an English menu if we’d known one existed! Anyway, it was all good. The ambience was as good as the food. We were seated in an outside patio area, but the inside seating looked nice, too. I’d definitely go back there if we come back to San Juan.

.

 

Looking forward to your review!! I love "La Casita, Miramar". It is a hidden gem, mostly visited by locals. Real typical Puerto Rican food!! :)

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just_looking

just_looking

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Looking forward to your review!! I love "La Casita, Miramar". It is a hidden gem, mostly visited by locals. Real typical Puerto Rican food!! :)

 

I'm glad to hear the locals like it. On the balcony/porch seating area, it seemed like we were all tourists. :)

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just_looking

just_looking

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I'm busy editing photos...just testing to see if I've done it right and can insert into my posts.

 

Well, that turned out kind of small, I'll try again!

 

summit-cabin.jpg.4b49587e18c760095561996e2401f5e2.jpg

Oh, I think I've figured it out...it shows as a thumbnail but you can click on it for a larger image.

 

Picture upload:

summitcabin.jpg.0d4250b57e6eef7c4d583d8ca5b9ff8f.jpg

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JMG

JMG

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We stayed at the Courtyard Miramar once....and we are Marriott loyals...but once was enough!!! Nice hotel but the people in the next room partied all night and the staff did not seem to care that we could not sleep.

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just_looking

just_looking

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We stayed at the Courtyard Miramar once....and we are Marriott loyals...but once was enough!!! Nice hotel but the people in the next room partied all night and the staff did not seem to care that we could not sleep.

 

Oh, that's too bad. :( It was really quiet the night we were there.

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just_looking

just_looking

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CRUISE, DAY 1 (part 1)

 

Our hotel check-out time was noon, and with the late night & leisurely morning we took advantage of that and were walking out to a taxi just before noon. I wish we’d asked about the fare before getting in – I think we got ripped off? It took about 7-8 minutes to get to the port (less than half the time it took from the airport the night before), yet he charged us MORE. Hmm. $19 (base fare + baggage), whereas the trip from the airport was only $17 (base fare + baggage). I’ve checked maps online - it’s less than a 2 mile trip. :(

 

The minute we got our bags out of the taxi, the rain started. It was a DOWNPOUR! We had thought about leaving the ship to explore Old San Juan briefly in the afternoon, but now that plan seemed like a bad one. Anyway, we got into the LONG line with our luggage but it moved very quickly. Before we knew it, our bags were on their way and we were headed inside to the Aqua Class line. Here was a nice touch: One of the waiters from Blu, Sydney, was there to welcome us to Aqua Class and tell us about the Blu restaurant as we waited.

 

Total time from taxi-drop off to welcome-aboard glass of champagne was less than 25 minutes! From reading all the hints here on CC, I knew to head straight to a specialty restaurant to make our reservations. (yes, despite being in AquaClass, we couldn’t resist the 5-night specialty dining package). We asked the first crew member we saw for directions to Normandie – it was just down a flight of stair from where we boarded. Sergio confirmed our reservation for that night at 8:30, and helped us make 4 more reservations – 2 more at Normandie, and 2 at Qsine.

 

My first impressions on the ship: Wow! I’d read a handful of negative reviews from recent sailings, so I was a bit worried. I mean, some of the reviews made it sound like a rusted old hulk of a ship; we’d pictured something like this:

 

 

hulk-ship.jpg.6f4bf24dbf36ea6c86d5127833c1eceb.jpg

 

All I can say is, What were those reviewers thinking? The Summit is in wonderful condition. It was obviously newly renovated, and everything was super-clean and well maintained. We were looking for problems and just didn’t see any. To be fair, later on we did notice that the comments about the deck chairs on deck 11 were valid. Please, Celebrity, after all the money you spent on Solsticizing the ship, spend a bit more for new deck chairs! :)

 

Our dinner reservations done, we headed over to Guest Services to upgrade my drink package to Premium. (we’d received the classic drink package with the 123 promo, and some OBC from our travel agent). Then we went to the Excursions desk (it was nice of them to put all of this on the same floor as Normandie!) to change an excursion we’d pre-purchased from the morning to the afternoon. They told us it would be no problem to do so, but we had to turn in our tickets which would be waiting for us in our room.

 

Business taken care of for now, it was time to explore the ship a bit, and in no time at all they were announcing the rooms were ready. For some reason I assumed that meant our luggage would also be in our rooms. Nope! Housekeeping and porter services are completely separate operations. :) We thought again about heading into OSJ, but it kept raining off & on, and we didn’t realize there was an umbrella in our closet until much later in the day.

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just_looking

just_looking

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Woohoo!! another Happy Summit Reviewer! Sailing on her in about 3.5 months.... can't wait to see the rest of your review!! And pictures, looove the pictures!

 

Stay tuned, I'll be posting more pictures!

 

Great review, glad you are happy with the ship. We will be on her next month, so I am eager to hear you review.

 

Thanks for your hard work!

 

You are welcome! I have to admit, this is way more time-consuming than I thought it would be. :eek:

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just_looking

just_looking

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* CRUISE, DAY 1 (part 2 – the cabin)

We LOVED our cabin - # 1119 in Aqua Class. This is one of the new cabins built last year, and it was still sparkling-new. Having never been on a cruise before, we were really worried about being cramped in our cabin. I warned Bill before we opened the door: “Honey, it’s going to be tiny but don’t let that ruin our trip!” We were both pleasantly surprised at the size of the cabin. It was just perfect for 2 passengers who weren’t planning on spending a lot of time in the room anyway! The only time we felt cramped was when we were dressing for dinner in the evenings; it was a bit hard to maneuver around the closet/bathroom area. Maybe next cruise I will stage my clothes and makeup by the desk & loveseat area every evening when we are dressing for dinner. (of course I didn't have this brilliant idea until after the cruise, so I didn't get to try it out!)

 

 

summitcabin.jpg.644478eba352ab599921c0be3f4c5a03.jpg

 

Another pleasant surprise was the size of our balcony. Despite all my research on CC, I didn’t realize that some of the deck 11 cabins had angled balconies. (From what I could tell, cabin #s 1101-1123 all have slightly larger balconies, but I can't guarantee that as I was just craning my neck around and trying to count cabins).

 

 

summit-balcony.jpg.cedf7f636ed1462adf47e2a97847e0d2.jpg

 

Our steward Bernard introduced himself (how did he ALWAYS seem to be in that hallway? :)) During our trip, he and his assistant did a great job keeping our cabin clean, and took note of the only request we made –for a 3rd towel in the bathroom. It was always there. Our bath mat had to be replaced a couple of times a day, because as other reviewers have noted, the glass doors in the AquaClass bathrooms are lovely but not functional – they don’t keep water off the bathroom floor. :)

 

 

summit-bath.jpg.11fd951cd537bc7058ba7b7ff4223a66.jpg

 

 

We got our first canapé delivery. We enjoyed getting these every afternoon; it was just a small snack to nibble on before headed out for the next item on the agenda. The canapés changed every day, although there were some repeats by the end of the week. Usually a cheese thing, sometimes a salami roll-up, and always one or two items with seafood (such as salmon spread).

 

 

canapes.jpg.9453829a108db93565fb510cc108419e.jpg

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