Exotic Southern Caribbean | Celebrity Eclipse | Nov 16, 2013

[Maligator]

Day 10: St John’s, Antigua | Monday, November 25, 2013 | Partly Cloudy 90F

Also in port: Mein Schiff 2 | Port load: ≈ 4736

 

Eclipse was backing into her berth as we awoke on a beautiful day. We were excited for our Antigua excursion, which was a helicopter tour over Montserrat. Having taken flightseeing tours in Alaska on our first cruise, we knew this was a real thrill. We’d reported our weights to the Excursions desk as instructed a few days prior, so all was set. On the pier, we located our contact amid the masses and waited for the others to arrive. While we waited, we were treated to the Hell’s Gate Steel Orchestra, who had a contingent of seven musicians on the pier. They were great! I regret not buying a CD, as they’re not on iTunes that I can find. Our contact told us they’d just won the big steel music competition and it was apparent in their performance.

 

 

After a few minutes, the last of our group arrived. The straggler was in a wheelchair due to an apparent foot injury, which presented a bit of a problem, as we had a hike along the waterfront to get to the shuttle van. As her chair was not the powered sort and I could see she was going to have trouble, I offered to give her a hand and she gladly accepted. My parents did not raise an ill-mannered heathen. The drive to the helicopter facility was about 10 minutes and upon our arrival, a scale waited for us in the lobby for a last-minute weigh-in. The weight limit was 215 lbs (I think) and my pre-cruise weight was a little north of that, but it’s just an estimate, right? Wrong. Learn from my failure, dear readers. I was called back to the lobby as the others went through the safety video and was told my combined weight (including my photo gear) was significantly off and I couldn’t go. My heart sank and I had to break the news to my wife, who was in tears. This was the one excursion we truly looked forward to. After some discussion, the staff told us they had an open flight later in the afternoon, but we’d have to buy a second seat for the extra 40 lbs of my butt and camera gear. We had some extra cash and decided it was worth it, so we went back to the port to kill some time.

 

We shopped for touristy stuff and first aid things for her toe and I even managed to get some decent shots of the little hummingbirds I missed in St Lucia. We had lunch on-board and relaxed by the pool before it was time to meet our contact person on the pier again. We paid for the third seat and found out they’d arranged this flight just for us. Yes, we’d already paid and were paying some more. They could’ve just sent us back disappointed, but they didn’t, and by going out of their way, it literally turned our day back around and I think Caribbean Helicopters deserves to be commended for it. Anyway, with that mess out of the way, we loaded up in a Bell Jet Ranger II for the flight. They let me clamp my GoPro camera to the dash, so if you’re inclined to do so, you can

to see the 12 minute video. Kristi was assigned the front/left seat for weight distribution and I drew the right/rear seat behind the pilot. Our pilot was a young woman from Canada, if memory serves, and she explained that they were allowed to do these tours of the exclusion zone in return for giving volcanologists rides to study the island.

 

We lifted off and flew over the harbor, where I was able to fire off a few shots of Eclipse and Mein Schiff 2. There was a little panel in my door that was open and I could stick my lens through for unobstructed shots. We flew south, along the west coast of Antigua, then about 10 minutes to the southwest to Montserrat. I was vaguely familiar with the recent history of the island. I knew a volcano erupted and covered much of the island in mud and ash, but I was unprepared for what I saw. Here was an island just like the others we’d been visiting. It was covered in lush vegetation and settlements dotted the hillsides. Then, with little warning, a long-dormant volcano burped to life and over the next few years, obliterated nearly every town, including the capital, Plymouth. Homes, schools, universities, churches and the airport were destroyed. Those structures in the exclusion zone (the area potentially exposed to any future eruptions) covers about 75% of the island. I’ll let my photos and video do the talking, but flying over modern day ghost towns is absolutely surreal. After about 20 minutes over the island and another 10 minutes back to Antigua, I asked the pilot if we could go back over the harbor so I could get some more shots of the ships and she obliged. This excursion was truly the highlight of the trip.

 

Back at the ship, we watched the sail-away (

) from our veranda before heading down to the Passport Bar on deck 3, where she had a salty dog and I had a mojito. We chatted up a friendly couple from Canada, which fit right in with our past cruises. We always end up with friendly Canadians. On Millennium, it was a wonderful couple from outside Toronto, who sat next to us in the MDR. On Equinox, it was a couple who ran a small boutique hotel on Lake Huron. Anyway, I let my gimpy wife have a pass on the MDR for dinner, as she prefers the casual atmosphere of Oceanview. We sat down and were scarfing down our dinner when a guy walked past that looked awfully familiar. Normally, this could be an issue, given my profession, but there aren’t too many thuggish felons on Celebrity, so it wasn’t a former customer. When he walked by again, I asked if he happened to be from Texas. He responded that he was and that he was my supervisor for a few months several years ago. I had to travel a few thousand miles to run into an old police sergeant. He recently retired and grew out his beard, so I think I was excused for not recognizing him right away. We spent the next hour, or so, talking with him and his wife. He’s been going on a few cruises a year since retirement and this was their first with Celebrity. We talked cruising and told police war stories until Kristi’s foot throbbed enough that it was time to leave.

 

We stopped by the Excursions desk to see about some kind of injury waiver for the following day’s excursion. We had a hike scheduled in St Maarten, but with her injured paw, Kristi was in no shape for that kind of activity. The Excursions crewman who assisted us listened to our plight and said he’d have to ask a manager about a special exception for cancelling within 24 hrs. He asked if we’d been to the infirmary. I don’t know if that would have made a difference in getting a refund, but I do know it was more expensive to walk through the infirmary door than it was to just eat the cost of the excursion, so we chose the latter, called it a day and went to bed.

Edited January 13, 2014 by HickoryShampoo

[chamima]

Matt

That video of Montserrat was really powerful.

Does anyone still live on the island?

 

If you haven't yet been, you must go to Hilo in Hawaii.

There you can walk on the cooled lava. It's like being on what I imagine would be the moon. You can also walk through a caldera. Unbelievable experience!

Edited January 13, 2014 by chamima

[fielddreamer]

We are taking the same cruise this Dec . This is answering a lot of questions we have !

[cruisebore]

We are sailing on the Eclipse next month and whilst we have visited all the Islands before, this will be our first Celebrity cruise. Thanks for giving us a flavour of the ship. I wonder if we will be amongst just a few Brits on board.

 

Cb

Edited January 13, 2014 by cruisebore

[Fouremco]

We are sailing on the Eclipse next month and whilst we have visited all the Islands before, this will be our first Celebrity cruise. Thanks for giving us a flavour of the ship. I wonder if we will be amongst just a few Brits on board.

 

Cb

Only a half-dozen or so Brit couples signed up on the Roll Call, but I'm sure that there will be many others aboard.

Edited January 13, 2014 by Fouremco

[Maligator]

Matt

That video of Montserrat was really powerful.

Does anyone still live on the island?

 

If you haven't yet been, you must go to Hilo in Hawaii.

There you can walk on the cooled lava. It's like being on what I imagine would be the moon. You can also walk through a caldera. Unbelievable experience!

 

Yes. There are about 5000 inhabitants on the NW end of the island, but most went to other Caribbean islands or Britain.

 

 

 

 

 

We are taking the same cruise this Dec . This is answering a lot of questions we have !

 

 

Happy to help! You'll have fun, I'm sure.

 

 

 

 

We are sailing on the Eclipse next month and whilst we have visited all the Islands before, this will be our first Celebrity cruise. Thanks for giving us a flavour of the ship. I wonder if we will be amongst just a few Brits on board.

 

Cb

 

You won't be alone. I think we had more than a few. Even if you are a minority, I think you'll be comfortable.

 

Sent from my SCH-I915 using Tapatalk

[cavok]

I am really enjoying your posts but dont take this the wrong way I am not being pulled into the excitement or attraction of the caribbean islands as they seem very same old same old.............maybe its because I live in Europe that so far the European cruises are all about culture, anyway I will keep reading the posts...cheers

 

i'm also enjoying HickoryShampoo's writing style :-)

 

as to the islands, i will have to agree with his depiction.

to us europeans, the caribbean islands sound really exotic. but with a few exceptions and some beaches, we've been somewhat underwhelmed in the past. we're going for the season and the ship.

 

if you want nice exotic islands with locals that actually care, go to thailand, maldives, indonesia etc...

[Pacific islanders]

Don't know if they still do this on the Eclipse but we were astounded to find out on formal nights they have fantastic meat choices in the Lido Grill..........we had rack of lamb and as many chops made the way we wanted them...........Perfect.......We will be back on her in December for 14 days to the So. Caribbean.

 

We love the lamb chops at the lawn club...was it the mast grill, or in the ocean view cafe that you had them?

Thanks for the info, Liz

[upwarduk]

We are sailing on the Eclipse next month and whilst we have visited all the Islands before, this will be our first Celebrity cruise. Thanks for giving us a flavour of the ship. I wonder if we will be amongst just a few Brits on board.

 

Cb

 

We sailed Eclipse, Southern Caribbean March/ April 2013 and there were 605 Brits on board.

As Easter coincided with the second week, this may have been the reason for the high %, but there were very few children on board.

I asked for a kettle in my room, as we had had one when we were on Eclipse in 2010 ( sailing from Southampton)

I was told they had been put in storage in Miami, as Americans don't want them. My reply- 'well there are 605 Brits on this ship, don't we count?'

A kettle appeared in our room!

[GaryfmCol]

Matt:

 

MANY kudos for your EXCELLENT reports and, videos.

 

We are on this ship and, cruise, out of FLL on 01/25.

We will be in Antigua on 02/05.

 

I have sent the link of your video

to our friends that will be on the cruise with us.

I continue to look forward to your postings.

 

Thanks for that excellent Bell Jet Ranger II ride... ;)

[Maligator]

Day 11: Philipsburg, St Maarten | Tuesday, November 26, 2013 | Partly Cloudy 90F

Also in port: Independence Of The Seas, Crown Princess, Norwegian Epic, MSC Divina, Mein Schiff 2 | Port load: ≈ 20392

 

With our day’s planned excursion preempted by injury, we took our time getting dressed and had a leisurely breakfast. We’d planned to hit Maho Beach after the hike excursion, so we decided to make it a whole day at the beach. As a diagnosed aviation geek, Maho Beach is like Mecca in my world, it being the beach at the end of Princess Julianna Airport’s runway and famous for low approaches. I knew it was one of the more popular destinations on the island, so we grabbed the first taxi van we could find, stuffed it full of cruisers and one Excursions crewman and headed off. The trip was about 15-20 minutes and cost US$8/each, since we filled every seat of the 15-passenger van. We arrived early enough to get a decent spot near the Sunset Bar and paid for an umbrella and two lounge chairs. Within the hour, the place was packed and they’d run out of umbrellas and chairs on our end of the beach. While crowded, it wasn’t unbearable. I kept my camera rig ready at all times and would jump up every so often when I saw landing lights in the distance. We got a steady stream of LIAT island hoppers and tiny freight dogs, but it wasn’t long until KLM’s bulbous, big, blue baby was spotted on the downwind. That was the highlight of the day’s arrivals, though I was also excited about…well…pretty much everything. I was disappointed in the lack of toplessness I witnessed at this topless beach. The one (ones?) I did see was from a distance, and like a deer in the sunlit glen, was to be admired from afar. The worst (wurst?) experience of our time at the beach involved my aforementioned discomfort with the Speedo. Having seen them nearly every day at the ship’s pool, I thought I was pretty much desensitized to them. But there was a European family (I think) behind our spot somewhere. The guy had his bits and pieces stuffed into a gray Speedo and would take a dip in the surf every so often. I guess he suffers the same directional challenges my wife does, because he always seemed to use our umbrella as a navigational marker. Several times, he’d emerge from the water and stand directly in front of my chair, shade his eyes from the sun and look around for his party. I still shiver involuntarily when I think about it. Kristi also noticed this, but I think her disdain was not entirely genuine. Only fair, I suppose, as Speedo Guy’s wife (girlfriend?) (daughter?) (sister?) was in most-admirable shape and wore a rather…um…”flattering” bikini and I was in the awkward position of having to pretend like I didn’t notice when she emerged from the surf like Salacia, herself. (That’s Neptune’s chick, if you don’t feel like Googling.)

 

Anyway, Kristi chose to sit in the sun, but I preferred the shelter of the umbrella, only emerging to grab photos of planes. Now, I’m not a complete imbecile. My lineage has been traced back hundreds of years, so I’m well aware of my Scots-Irish heritage. Most of all, I know that we don’t tan, but go directly from pasty, near-albino white to lobster red. So I’d be safe in the shade, right? Nay. I burned to a crisp. Next time I decide to visit a beach, I’m going to bring one of those silver foil suits they wear to fight fires on ships.

 

We waited until KLM’s departure before making our own. A Maho Beach tradition is for anyone without a lick of sense to stand along the perimeter fence and try to hold on when KLM’s 747 leaves. If you’re not familiar with this, just search YouTube. As they turned onto the runway, I imagined the KLM flight crew picking out which people they thought would go tumbling first. But this particular crew had mercy on the mentally-challenged by releasing the brakes before running the engines up. If they’d run them up while standing on the brakes, the resulting thrust would have been much stronger, which is when folks tend to get blown off the fence.

 

A taxi van driver latched onto us at Sunset Bar and we recruited a family of four to join us. They, in turn, picked up another family of three, which knocked our fare down to US$8/each again. Eclipse’s all-aboard time was 17:00 and it was only 15:00, so we had plenty of time. Again, fate had different plans for us. Traffic on the main road back to Philipsburg was at a stand-still. A pair of ambulances and police passed us and went on ahead somewhere, but we never did see a reason for the unholy mess. The taxi driver said it was unusual for traffic to be that bad. After an hour and only having traveled a couple of miles, Kristi was already planning for us to miss the ship, stranding us in St Maarten forever. For one thing, I’d be fine with that arrangement. Just FedEx the dogs to us. For another thing, if we’re caught in that mess, surely any ship-sponsored excursions were, too, so the ship would have to wait. She wasn’t buying it and was using my phone to Google airlines that served STT from SXM. The rest of our cabmates were on the Divina, as were the couple we picked up along the way. Eventually, the traffic eased a little and we were back at the ship with about 30 minutes to spare. My prediction was correct, as it turned out. We were about 20 minutes late casting lines and we saw shuttle trams with what looked to be late excursions returning to the ship.

 

I got to indulge my ship geekery as we sailed out. We were the first of the flotilla to leave, which offered some nice shots of the other ships. After Kristi made me put my toys away (dang it, woman, these aren’t toys; they cost more), we had dinner in the MDR.

 

Kristi: the usual, flounder with crab, chocolate cheesecake

 

Matt: double escargot (I told you Vladmir was exceptional), chilled strawberry soup, flounder with crab, chocolate fondant

 

After dinner, we tried to walk off the meal’s calories, but got too close to the shops on deck 4 and I got pulled into the watch vortex. Ended up with an Invicta skeleton diver, which I’m not sure I’ll keep. It’s a little large, but I really do like the skeleton design. Likewise, Kristi fell victim to the gravitational pull of the scrapbooking material and bought herself a kit.

 

Next stop...St Thomas.

[Pacific islanders]

Day 11: Philipsburg, St Maarten | Tuesday, November 26, 2013 | Partly Cloudy 90F

Also in port: Independence Of The Seas, Crown Princess, Norwegian Epic, MSC Divina, Mein Schiff 2 | Port load: ≈ 20392

 

With our day’s planned excursion preempted by injury, we took our time getting dressed and had a leisurely breakfast. We’d planned to hit Maho Beach after the hike excursion, so we decided to make it a whole day at the beach. As a diagnosed aviation geek, Maho Beach is like Mecca in my world, it being the beach at the end of Princess Julianna Airport’s runway and famous for low approaches. I knew it was one of the more popular destinations on the island, so we grabbed the first taxi van we could find, stuffed it full of cruisers and one Excursions crewman and headed off. The trip was about 15-20 minutes and cost US$8/each, since we filled every seat of the 15-passenger van. We arrived early enough to get a decent spot near the Sunset Bar and paid for an umbrella and two lounge chairs. Within the hour, the place was packed and they’d run out of umbrellas and chairs on our end of the beach. While crowded, it wasn’t unbearable. I kept my camera rig ready at all times and would jump up every so often when I saw landing lights in the distance. We got a steady stream of LIAT island hoppers and tiny freight dogs, but it wasn’t long until KLM’s bulbous, big, blue baby was spotted on the downwind. That was the highlight of the day’s arrivals, though I was also excited about…well…pretty much everything. I was disappointed in the lack of toplessness I witnessed at this topless beach. The one (ones?) I did see was from a distance, and like a deer in the sunlit glen, was to be admired from afar. The worst (wurst?) experience of our time at the beach involved my aforementioned discomfort with the Speedo. Having seen them nearly every day at the ship’s pool, I thought I was pretty much desensitized to them. But there was a European family (I think) behind our spot somewhere. The guy had his bits and pieces stuffed into a gray Speedo and would take a dip in the surf every so often. I guess he suffers the same directional challenges my wife does, because he always seemed to use our umbrella as a navigational marker. Several times, he’d emerge from the water and stand directly in front of my chair, shade his eyes from the sun and look around for his party. I still shiver involuntarily when I think about it. Kristi also noticed this, but I think her disdain was not entirely genuine. Only fair, I suppose, as Speedo Guy’s wife (girlfriend?) (daughter?) (sister?) was in most-admirable shape and wore a rather…um…”flattering” bikini and I was in the awkward position of having to pretend like I didn’t notice when she emerged from the surf like Salacia, herself. (That’s Neptune’s chick, if you don’t feel like Googling.)

 

Anyway, Kristi chose to sit in the sun, but I preferred the shelter of the umbrella, only emerging to grab photos of planes. Now, I’m not a complete imbecile. My lineage has been traced back hundreds of years, so I’m well aware of my Scots-Irish heritage. Most of all, I know that we don’t tan, but go directly from pasty, near-albino white to lobster red. So I’d be safe in the shade, right? Nay. I burned to a crisp. Next time I decide to visit a beach, I’m going to bring one of those silver foil suits they wear to fight fires on ships.

 

We waited until KLM’s departure before making our own. A Maho Beach tradition is for anyone without a lick of sense to stand along the perimeter fence and try to hold on when KLM’s 747 leaves. If you’re not familiar with this, just search YouTube. As they turned onto the runway, I imagined the KLM flight crew picking out which people they thought would go tumbling first. But this particular crew had mercy on the mentally-challenged by releasing the brakes before running the engines up. If they’d run them up while standing on the brakes, the resulting thrust would have been much stronger, which is when folks tend to get blown off the fence.

 

A taxi van driver latched onto us at Sunset Bar and we recruited a family of four to join us. They, in turn, picked up another family of three, which knocked our fare down to US$8/each again. Eclipse’s all-aboard time was 17:00 and it was only 15:00, so we had plenty of time. Again, fate had different plans for us. Traffic on the main road back to Philipsburg was at a stand-still. A pair of ambulances and police passed us and went on ahead somewhere, but we never did see a reason for the unholy mess. The taxi driver said it was unusual for traffic to be that bad. After an hour and only having traveled a couple of miles, Kristi was already planning for us to miss the ship, stranding us in St Maarten forever. For one thing, I’d be fine with that arrangement. Just FedEx the dogs to us. For another thing, if we’re caught in that mess, surely any ship-sponsored excursions were, too, so the ship would have to wait. She wasn’t buying it and was using my phone to Google airlines that served STT from SXM. The rest of our cabmates were on the Divina, as were the couple we picked up along the way. Eventually, the traffic eased a little and we were back at the ship with about 30 minutes to spare. My prediction was correct, as it turned out. We were about 20 minutes late casting lines and we saw shuttle trams with what looked to be late excursions returning to the ship.

 

I got to indulge my ship geekery as we sailed out. We were the first of the flotilla to leave, which offered some nice shots of the other ships. After Kristi made me put my toys away (dang it, woman, these aren’t toys; they cost more), we had dinner in the MDR.

 

Kristi: the usual, flounder with crab, chocolate cheesecake

 

Matt: double escargot (I told you Vladmir was exceptional), chilled strawberry soup, flounder with crab, chocolate fondant

 

After dinner, we tried to walk off the meal’s calories, but got too close to the shops on deck 4 and I got pulled into the watch vortex. Ended up with an Invicta skeleton diver, which I’m not sure I’ll keep. It’s a little large, but I really do like the skeleton design. Likewise, Kristi fell victim to the gravitational pull of the scrapbooking material and bought herself a kit.

 

Next stop...St Thomas.

Matt, your descriptions are excellent, and way too funny, thank you. I can't help but cringe with you at the thought of the speedos....seen a few too many of those myself. What ARE they thinking. I particularly remember one in a skin (pale peach) coloured one...EEK. It was on a transatlantic, so no escape for days. Liz

[Maligator]

Matt, your descriptions are excellent, and way too funny, thank you. I can't help but cringe with you at the thought of the speedos....seen a few too many of those myself. What ARE they thinking. I particularly remember one in a skin (pale peach) coloured one...EEK. It was on a transatlantic, so no escape for days. Liz

 

Maybe we can start a group therapy meeting on board. "Friends of Matt"

 

Sent from my SCH-I915 using Tapatalk

[Maligator]

Day 12: Charlotte Amalie, St Thomas, USVI | Wednesday, November 27, 2013 | Cloudy with Rain 85F

Also in port: Carnival Conquest, Crown Princess, Royal Princess, Norwegian Epic, Allure of the Seas | Port load: ≈ 22872

 

I opened the curtains as Eclipse was swinging into position on the east side of Hassell Island. The little island divides the harbor into two distinct sides, each with its own cruise piers. We were scheduled to tender at this stop, so I guess we drew the short straw. Crown Princess, Royal Princess and the Floating Forehead were on our side and took up the three berths along the pier. Conquest and Allure were on the west side of Hassell Island. Despite the heavy port load, I didn’t really feel that cramped.

 

Our excursion didn’t leave until later in the morning, so we took a late tender and did some browsing in the shops, tendered back to the ship to drop our loot and would have enough time to tender back before our excursion meet time. Wrong. Sort of. We did have plenty of time, but there were shenanigans with the tenders and ours was being used as a training boat. We got to our meeting point 10 minutes late and some loudmouth troglodyte felt it necessary to share with us his dislike of our punctuality. Ordinarily, when she goes off on someone, I’m mortified, but when Kristi fired right back with a zinger that shut him up, I beamed with pride. Still, we were Those People for the entire trip and the subject would come up again later. The taxi was an open-air truck with benches under a canopy, which is the standard for St Thomas. We honeymooned here in 2001 and remembered them well. It was a 30 minute trip to Benner Bay, where it was just starting to lightly rain at the yacht club. I was a brilliant shade of red from the previous day’s sunburn, so I was thankful for the cloud cover. We boarded the “Adventuress,” which was crewed by a trio of young ladies. We sailed under power, as the winds were still. We sailed across the strait between St Thomas and St John to Honeymoon Beach, where they tied off to a mooring buoy. After some brief instructions for the novice snorkelers (this was my first time), I took the plunge off the side and into crystal clear blue water. Kristi doesn’t like to get her hair wet, so she stayed on the boat and read her book. I kicked around for a while and got used to breathing through a tube until I got comfortable. The clouds gave me both shade and a cooling rain that felt good on my sunburn. I found a discarded Gatorade bottle on the beach and confiscated it to carry beach sand. I think I forgot to mention that we collect sand and soil from the places we visit and pour it in layers into decorative bottles back home. After 30 minutes, I surfaced long enough to check my bearings and saw the boat was full and the passengers waving at me. Ugh. Once again, That Guy was holding up the show. I sheepishly boarded and tried to explain I was confused by the other snorkelers, thinking they were with our group.

 

Back in Charlotte Amalie, our shuttle taxi arrived right at 17:00 (all-aboard time) and – for once – That Guy was part of That Group. We were on the last tender back to Eclipse with one other straggler group. Just as we started to sail out, the clouds opened up and sent everyone scurrying for cover. Kristi was more cautious this time and we arrived in the MDR with no new broken body parts.

 

Kristi: take a guess, sirloin, chocolate cake

 

Matt: double escargot, mushroom-barley soup, seafood & lobster pasta, crème brulee

 

We were exhausted and retired to the room until we fell asleep.

 

More soon. We're in the home stretch!

[cruisebore]

What were the immigration requirements for St Thomas ?

THanks

 

Cb

[Maligator]

What were the immigration requirements for St Thomas ?

THanks

 

Cb

 

I don't know that there were any. After boarding in Ft Lauderdale, I don't think we ever needed our passports until our return. Unlike last year where the ship kept them, we held onto our passports.

 

Sent from my SCH-I915 using Tapatalk

[ibcnusoon]

Amazing video of Montserrat and the "exclusion zone". Thank you so much for sharing!

[Fouremco]

Thanks for another humorous accounting of your day's activities!

[cruisin from ontario]

I have been reading your review every day - it's a great review. A nice combination of humour and information! We are going on the Eclipse later this year and I hope our trip is as good as yours (minus the broken toe!)

Thanks for writing the review!

 

Jody

[Maligator]

Day 13: At-sea | Thursday, November 28, 2013 | Sunny 90F

Also in port: n/a

 

Finally, we were done with ports until our debarkation on Saturday. It was time for a break, having port after port for the last six days. After a leisurely breakfast, we wandered down to the big theater for a presentation on navigation from the Staff Captain. From there, we got sucked into the vortex of the Xbox bowling game again and we got thoroughly smoked by a trio of retirees. Glad we didn’t play for money, because they had a ringer, who made us look like the amateurs we are.

 

We headed up to Sky Lounge to read and as we exited the elevator, there was a woman frantically trying to illicit a reaction from an elderly man. He was just standing there, staring into space and looked as though he was about to collapse. I found a phone and called for help. The man’s wife and mine managed to help him to a chair just inside the Sky Lounge. I waited in the elevator lobby and it didn’t take long for medical staff to arrive, at which point we left them to their duties. Last I saw, the old timer was at least lucid and was saying he didn’t know what happened.

 

We read in Sky Lounge for an hour, before we heard a meeting getting underway behind us. It was the Cruise Critic gathering with the Ship’s Master and Host Andy. I listened in, but didn’t interject myself. I’d attempted to register for the Connections party, but with Celebrity’s website being wonky, I wasn’t able to do so. I was mainly curious about the new Captain’s Club tiers, which rolled out the previous day, and got the information I needed by eavesdropping.

 

We wandered to the Grand Foyer for the hot glass show auction and I spotted my hot glass stalker below. No awkward encounter, as we were on deck 5 and she was on the stairs between 3 and 4.

 

The Officers vs Guests pool volleyball game was entertaining and if memory serves, the guests edged the officers on a technicality. The game was followed by a flash mob of zombie guests who danced to Thriller on the other end of the pool deck.

 

We hit the last hot glass show of the sailing, which ended with another raffle. If you remember, we both won pieces early in the cruise. Would you believe they drew Kristi’s ticket again? She picked a gazelle figure that was recently rotated out of a display case in an elevator lobby. Tom – one of the artists – told us it was made by an artist on a previous contract named Ian Schmidt and gave us a little history of his work. He mentioned Ian’s dad was an artist, too, and was named Jack. I asked Tom if he knew Jack Schmidt. Tom didn’t catch it (or didn’t think it was funny), but Kristi caught it and thrust her elbow into my ribs. Anyway, our gazelle now sits proudly on my desk.

 

This was the third and final formal night, as well as Thanksgiving and we were not inclined to get all foofed up. I asked Olga for dinner in the room and she had everything set up for us at 6:30.

 

Kristi: the usual, turkey with dressing, strawberry cheesecake

 

Matt: escargot, pumpkin soup, lobster mélange with shrimp, scallops and mussels, baked Alaska

 

We finished dinner in time for the Broadway show in the main theater. I felt a little out of place, sitting among those in tuxes and evening gowns, as we were in our “smart casual” attire, but truthfully, I didn’t really care. The show, as I recall, was a selection of Broadway standards, but I really don’t remember much else about it.

 

Almost there...

[chamima]

Matt

Still LOVING reading your review!

 

Good thing you were there to help that poor woman!

 

 

We were on the Solstice last year for 2 long B2B cruises and the same thing happened with the raffles at the Hot Glass Show.

One woman won 4 pieces (one of them with my husband's ticket that I gave her when he left early and she arrived late :rolleyes: ).

I was fascinated by the shows and went twice a day on sea days and never won anything.

 

(My husband did buy me a piece at the auction on the last day, though! :D )

He told me I'm not allowed to go to the auction on our upcoming Eclipse cruise!

[cruisegirl1]

Matt – I am enjoying your review.

 

We sailed the Eclipse on Dec 28th - Jan 11th - New Year’s Eve Sailing and had a great time. New Year's eve wsa great fun. There was a huge party on the deck, far enough off shore for everything to be open, but close enough to see the firewirks over Aruba! (It was our second New Year's cruise - last year was the RCCL Freedom)

 

For those reading your excursions, allow me to add, that at many of the ports, we did not have any specific excursion planned, but most cases we were able to join some sort of company/taxi service and had great 2-4 hour tours with very interesting other passengers. Some from our ship and some from other ships. Often, at our request, we were dropped at the beach and picked up at a pre-determined time later.

 

We too had to tender in St Thomas, but that worked our great as the tender dock is in the middle of town. To avoid the crowds there, we did pre plan a snorkeling excursion.

 

Our sailing had a good deal of Europeans. Once home, I later learned the ship/itinerary is heavily marketed over there. I would say our ship was no more the 50% American and that made it interesting for us.

 

Thanks for your detailed and entertaining review. I feel as if I am reliving our recent trip, and for that... I thank you!

 

M

[Maligator]

Day off today and this one's pretty short. Might even post the last installment later tonight and be done with it.

 

Day 14: At-sea | Friday, November 29, 2013 | Cloudy with heavy rain 80F

Also in port: n/a

 

As we planned our day over breakfast, we were happy to see Celebrity Life scheduled another galley tour. We missed the first one (as well as the only one on Equinox last year) and really enjoyed the tour on Millennium, so we made sure we were present for this one. I mentioned the large contingent of Germans aboard and Celebrity had a couple of German-speaking officers available. Our group toured the main galley off the MDR. Our guide was a chef de partie from Jamaica, who I think was in charge of desserts, based on his familiarity with the dessert station. It was all I could do to keep from sneaking a sample off a tall rack of fresh cupcakes, but our paths would cross again at lunch in Oceanview and this time I would not be denied.

 

I spent an hour walking around the ship taking photos and dropped our gratuity card and questionnaire in the boxes. I stopped by the iLounge to print our airline boarding passes and after some middle-of-the-ocean internet shenanigans, finally got them printed. As I finished, I overheard an older couple trying to get theirs printed, but were having trouble navigating the site. The iLounge manager hunched over them for a minute, then declared he didn’t “mess with JetBlue” so he couldn’t help. What? Hey…I’m used to dealing with smug iDweebs (several friends and family drink that Kool-Aid by the gallon), but this was pathetic. As he looked at pictures of cats (I looked over his shoulder as I passed) and bragged about some program he devised being rolled out fleet-wide, I offered my assistance to the couple. After a few minutes, their passes were rolling off the printer and this PC & Android guy felt pretty good about accomplishing what the iDweeb couldn’t do or couldn’t be bothered to do.

 

My lovely bride joined me and we went to Molecular Bar for the Meet The Artists event for the hot glass show and to see about maybe having some custom pieces done. There, we met up with my old sergeant and his wife and joined them for dinner in the buffet.

 

The rest of the night, we spent packing. Getting those glass pieces back was going to be a trick, but we wrapped them in dirty laundry and stuck them in a shopping bag we’d use as a carry-on. I tried to use the bath scale to weigh our checked suitcases and they were on the line of being too heavy. Ugh. We really need to focus on being more austere in our packing.

Edited January 16, 2014 by HickoryShampoo

[Maligator]

The Grand Finale, with ratings...

 

Day 15: Fort Lauderdale to Houston | Saturday, November 30, 2013 | Partly Cloudy 75F

 

Also in port: Westerdam, Crown Princess, Oasis of the Seas, Carnival Freedom

 

I screwed up setting our watches back with the time zone changes, so we woke up an hour earlier than I planned. This did, however, afford me the opportunity to enjoy our arrival on the veranda, as we were passing between the outermost buoys that marked the channel. Based on the conga line of other cruise ships on the horizon behind us, we must have been first in line.

 

We headed up to Oceanview for breakfast one last time and it was uneventful, save for the couple sitting next to us. They were retirement age and by his accent, some form of Yankee. I couldn’t pinpoint the dialect, but to the ears of a Southerner, many tend to run together. Anyway, one of the food service staff assigned to clear tables was a girl I recognized as the ice cream attendant (not being misogynist here; she was about 18-19 and I’m 38, so at half my age, she’s a “girl”). Actually, any man with a pulse knew who she was, as she was both stunningly attractive and the Mistress of Ice Cream as her regular gig in Oceanview. I don’t recall her name, but do remember she was from Russia. At one point, she walked past the couple to my right and the husband – who was facing me – actually leaned to his left to get a better view after she went by. Understandable, in my mind, as the only comparable experience to seeing her walking your way was the view of her…um…departure. So the husband wasn’t done and remarked, “She sure has an elegant walk.” I felt like I was watching a sitcom and quickly looked to the wife for her reaction. Would she kick him under the table? Would she scream at him and throw the salt shaker? Nope. She didn’t even look up, but mumbled something in the affirmative and kept buttering her toast. Now…had this been me and my wife and I even let my gaze linger a moment too long, I’d have earned a furrowed brow and possibly some light physical violence. Had I leaned over to get a better view of her derriere, she’d have buttered her toast upside my skull. And had I the egregious lapse in judgment that would make me even utter a sound, much less compliment the girl’s figure, my wife would be Nancy Grace’s subject matter for the next year as the cruise wife who killed her husband with toast and tossed his carcass over the rail. So I played the only safe card in my hand, which was to say, “Wow. Can you believe he just got away with that?”

 

Back at the room, we made a last sweep for personal articles and made the trek down the hall to the elevator lobby. As usual, all eight elevators were programmed to skip deck 11, no matter which direction they were going or how many people were on them. I surrendered to the inevitable and dragged 100 lbs of suitcases down nine flights. At this point, we were a little confused. We had two sets of instructions about where to meet: Ensemble Lounge on deck 5 for suite guests or deck 3 for luggage group #2. I chose the latter as I was sure group #2 would be for those using the Celebrity transfer. In the end, it didn’t matter as both lounges were empty and we were given the green light to debark. We followed the maze to the baggage claim without delay and our bags were among the last in our group, making them easy to identify. The lines for Customs were nearly deserted and I think we were done with the screening in under a minute. The transfer buses were right outside the terminal doors and I spotted the same driver from before loading bags. I thought he was supposed to have retired while we were gone or maybe it was part of his shtick to get more tip money, but there he was and again, he did not stop yapping all the way to the airport. Fortunately, you can literally see the airport from the cruise port, so the trip was mercifully short.

 

As before, my bag was a couple pounds overweight (stupid bath scale) and I had to cram some laundry into my camera bag carry-on to avoid the extra $100 fee (stupid United). We made our 10:30am flight with plenty of time to spare, despite TSA pulling us aside to swab our beach sand bottles for explosive residue (stupid TSA). I guess this flight was primarily cruisers, so it wasn’t surprising when they made the announcement about the flight being overbooked. What did surprise me was when they announced we’d be leaving early. Sure enough, we left about 15 minutes early. I was again crammed into a middle seat, but stashed my camera bag in the overhead bin, so I had a little more room. I wasn’t even bothered by the pair of unruly booger-eaters in the row ahead of us. I guess I was still in laid-back, no worries, island mode.

 

All good things must eventually end

 

At the end of a trip report I always try to compile a list of lessons learned and what lessons worked from previous cruises. So what did we learn?

 

Well, for one, we’ve pretty much seen all we need of the Caribbean. Don’t get me wrong. A day on a Caribbean island beats a day at work (unless it’s on Grenada), but they do tend to run together. I’m not ruling out a future Caribbean sailing. I’ve already investigated a Royal Caribbean itinerary out of Galveston. But I think we’d go for the ship and the relaxation more than the excursions.

 

We’ll look into third-party excursions more. My wife is still on the fence about this, but my theory is that the established companies live and die by their reputation and if they have a habit of making customers miss their ships, then they’re probably not in business very long. But we really don’t feel like we got what we expected on this trip. Maybe it was just the Caribbean, as our excursions in Alaska and the Med were great.

 

We’re done with formal nights. My funerals & weddings suit, with shoes, took up more room in our luggage than it was worth. Besides, we don’t go on vacation to get gussied up.

 

We’ll likely go with the anytime seating in the MDR. There were some nights where we were just not hungry at 6pm or got back to the ship late and missed our seating time significantly enough that we couldn’t go.

 

I learned to pack about half of what I took this time. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but I must be slow. We budgeted for laundry service, so I ended up with plenty of clothes that never left the closet.

 

Budgeting for laundry was a great move. We can pack less. I just need to learn how.

 

We still love Celebrity, even if it didn’t come across that way at times. We’ll be back.

 

Ratings

 

Celebrity Eclipse: A+. She was clean and tidy everywhere we went. Still a gorgeous sight from wherever you see her.

 

Celebrity Cabin Staff: A+. We got a stellar crew that took very good care of us.

 

Celebrity Hotel Staff: A. With the exception of the iLounge clown, the staff was very pleasant and helpful. The unwillingness to make an exception for a broken toe tainted our opinion of the Excursion desk. The guy we dealt with seemed sympathetic and willing to help, but said it was up to someone over his level.

 

MDR Food: A. Misses were few and far between, amid the hits. And most of those misses were personal taste, rather than poor quality.

 

MDR Service: A+. As I mentioned, Vladmir and Aleksandar were stellar. Never did meet the maître d, but we weren’t in the MDR every night. But based on the service, he did great.

 

Oceanview Food: B. Again, this is more about my personal tastes than quality. But there were times I wandered around looking for something that looked appealing and settled for something safe.

 

Oceanview Service: A. The staff seemed to have stepped up their game in getting tables cleared. Managers were more visible, which I think kept the staff moving. Might have been an A+ had they done something about the temperature on those hot days.

 

Specialty Restaurants: A. Qsine was quite a unique experience. Just needed to go a second time to try everything we wanted. Tuscan was spot on, as it was on the last cruise.

 

Theater entertainment: A. The Cirque-like show was really cool, especially when you consider what it takes to pull it off on a ship. The musical numbers were good, but the magician was pretty lame.

 

Onboard Activities: A. Obviously, we liked the hot glass show. The galley tour and chef’s presentation were fantastic. The lecturer we saw wasn’t so great.

 

Excursions: C-. I know you can’t sell seats with names like “Long Ride With Windy Guide Through Dismal Villages To Mediocre Attraction.” But maybe the person who does the descriptions could take another stab at it with a few. Or maybe I’m just hard to please.

 

Itinerary: B+. Might have been an A without Grenada. I’d rather have seen Bonaire or Trinidad, in hindsight.

 

To conclude my report, I hope those who made it this far felt like you got your money's worth. I sincerely hope it helps if you're planning. I hope it got a giggle or two. But most of all, thank you for reading.

 

Fair winds and following seas! :)

Edited January 17, 2014 by HickoryShampoo

[Happy Cruiser 6143]

Thanks for the great review. I did get a giggle or two or three. Very enjoyable.

 

As you can see by my signature, I've done this cruise a few times. But not with ship excursions. Try independent ones. Or just wander around. I love wandering in Grenada and buying spices.