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

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

[Angelsea57]

HeatherC430,

Thank you for such great detailed reviews and photos.

We are really enjoying this review.

We've got to try Celebrity someday, looks amazing!

Thank you.

[HeatherC430]

A stop at the lookout over Trunk Bay on our way back to Cruz Bay...

 

Trunk Bay still remains my favorite beach in St. John

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

Heading back to St. Thomas

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

Soaking up our last day onboard, we decided to keep the party going (after several of those painkillers on the boat ride back to port) and stay outside and watch sailaway from St. Thomas. The band played most days during sailaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Up next, debarkation & another full day in San Juan...

Edited February 27, 2015 by HeatherC430

[Champagne Cruiser]

Thanks for posting. We leave for our Summit cruise this Saturday--2 more days! Although we will be on the opposite itinerary, we have sailed your itinerary. This will be our 4th Summit cruise. We just love this ship and crew. Really appreciate all the pictures to get us in the mood a few days early.

[Zoolou]

It was great meeting you guys...Hope all is well....Back into the frozen tundra of winter....wish we were back on a beach!!!

[Still Dreaming]

Great review!

[HeatherC430]

Debarking was literally as quick and painless as it possibly could have been. Technically you’re supposed to be out of your rooms by 8am on the morning of debarkation, but around that time I asked our cabin steward if we could keep our suitcases in the room while we went to grab something to eat for breakfast. Of course he told us that would be fine by him, and so we did. It probably helped that we had tipped him both at the very beginning of the cruise upon meeting him, again during this conversation, and of course the standard onboard gratuities that I had pre-paid. Oceanview café was open until about 8:30 for breakfast. After we ate, we made our way back to the room to get our luggage and self-debark (we always use self-debark). We literally walked right off the ship with zero line whatsoever. The easiest and quickest debarkation we’ve ever done to date! One of the ship’s employees was standing at the exit and we asked “do we leave here?” A quick yes response, and we were on our way. I suppose it was just the timing of others waiting to be called and literally no one was walking off at that exact time, so lucky I guess? There was a small line at customs about 10 people deep. We were off the ship and through customs in a matter of 10 minutes. There were taxis lined up. We instructed them that we were headed to Old San Juan and they quickly put us and our luggage into a taxi and sent us on our way.

 

Our options for a flight home were either that Saturday after 3pm flight, which would have left us sitting around airports all day and not getting back to Pittsburgh until after midnight….or there was a 6am flight out of San Juan Sunday morning, which placed us home by 1pm on Sunday. We decided to do the latter option, which would give us one more full day of exploring San Juan. I had booked a room using Hotwire hidden rate deal of a hotel in Old San Juan, figuring it would be nice to be within walking distance of everything. With all the taxes and fees, I paid $180 for the night’s hotel. After booking the hidden rate hotel, I was given Fortaleza Suites, located right in Old San Juan. The reviews were a mixed bag online, but I was hoping for the best.

 

So we take a taxi to the hotel after debarking the Summit. Check-in wasn’t until 3pm, but we had hoped that upon arrival they would be able to store our luggage until check-in. We started off on a bad foot, when I showed the taxi driver on my printout the address and name of where we were going, long story short, he drops us off at S.J. Suites, and I knew this wasn’t the right stop because reviews of others stated you had to walk through a jewelry store to get to the hotel. He pointed to my paper showing me the San Juan in the name and claiming this was the hotel. He pulled away leaving us curbside. A couple was exiting their hotel (S.J. Suites) and I inquired with them. They assured me this wasn’t the same place (as I already knew) and told me to consider myself lucky I wasn’t staying at their hotel! We could tell by the numbers of the address that we weren’t all that far, so we wheeled our suitcases a few blocks until we got to the correct place. We saw the jewelry store next door to another door that had the name of the place we were staying.

 

We go inside and were greet by two nice women in the midst of cleaning. Luckily, whoever was in our room had already checked out for the day, and the girl told us it would be ready in two hours or so. For the time being, she said she would put our luggage in the locked cabinet.

 

The positives of the hotel: the staff was friendly & it was within walking distance of everything in Old San Juan. Other than that, those are the only good things I have to say about the place. All in all the hotel was pretty awful. It felt like a hostile or crash pad, not any sort of hotel or “suites”. Each room opened up to a communal room. Even when you were lying in your bed you could hear people talking outside in the communal room. I’ll post a few photos from their Facebook page and you can compare yourself to my real life photos of the place. In general the overall state of the place was pretty worn. The water took about 15 minutes in the shower before it actually heated up.

 

I wouldn’t recommend anyone stay here unless you really could care less about the accommodations. Upon checking into the room, my husband said “maybe we should call the place we stayed before the cruise and see if they have any rooms available?” The fact that this room was only $50 less than the place we stayed before is shocking. This really wasn’t what I had planned for our romantic Valentines evening! Lol.

 

Another aspect that was pretty comical. So, we asked the girl about our early morning flight from the airport in San Juan. We asked if they could call us a cab to be waiting outside at the time we wanted to leave. We told her our flight was at 6am, and that we’d want the cab for about 3:15am or so to allow plenty of time to get to the airport, check-in, etc. She said they had someone at the hotel they work with (no doubt it was just a regular guy, not a “real cab” because their guy was willing to come at 5am, but no earlier). The girl couldn’t understand that leaving the hotel only an hour before our flight wasn’t going to work for us. She called another “guy” and he was willing to come at 4am, but that’s the best she could offer. Once we realize that she wasn’t going to be able to really assist in what we were asking, we went to the hotel across the street and inquired there. The girl was really friendly and said their concierge was available 24 hours a day and could call us a cab that morning. Long story short, at 3am when we got to the place across the street the doors were locked and no one was coming to the door. So, the morning we left we just wheeled our luggage to the mail square in San Juan where there were a few taxis lined up. You wouldn’t think obtaining a taxi to the airport would end up being the most difficult task on vacation. The “hotel” if that’s what you want to call it just wasn’t equipped for such a predicament, that’s for sure.

 

And by the way…I’m pretty sure this place is haunted too (my husband & I both agree).

 

Below are some pictures from their Facebook page (namely the exact room I stayed in)

 

 

 

The common room...

 

[HeatherC430]

Below are the real-life pictures of the hotel (reasonable difference between the online photos).

 

 

 

 

 

The hotel is through the "BEST SILVER" jewelry store. I kept joking with my husband that if he wanted to snag me a last minute Valentine's Day gift...at least he didn't have far to go? lol

 

 

[HeatherC430]

A few more photos of our lavish accommodations (the common areas)...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

[HeatherC430]

Our last day in Old San Juan was a full day, we explored both of the forts in Old San Juan in their entirety. Both were more impressive than what I was expecting. While we walked between the two forts, we did take a free national park trolley around Old San Juan afterwards. We swung by Barrachina for a Pina Colada, had lunch at a Mexican Sports Bar, and just roamed around the city for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

My husband's like a cat whisperer...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

Onto exploring the forts of Old San Juan

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]

 

 

 

 

 

[HeatherC430]