Just off the Silhouette 3/27 sailing--a few thoughts

[QTBabyNurse]

We were on the 3/27 sailing of the Silhouette. A little background on us. This was our first Celebrity cruise although we are Diamond on Royal Caribbean. Obviously, we are not novice cruisers and have several different cruises to compare to.

 

We chose Celebrity since we heard that they were a "step above" Royal Caribbean. We were looking forward to that experience.

 

Pros--

 

Food – we thought the quality/flavor of the food was definitely the best we have had on any of our cruises. There were two nights in the dining room though where we had a difficult time with the menu as the choices were not to our liking. We are aware however that is a personal issue.

 

Service – the staff members were very friendly and went out of their way to make our cruise experience a good one. Not sure that it was any "better" than other cruise lines though.

 

Little touches – it was very nice to not have to sign out pool towels on deck. If they were not already on your chair, there was a bin of them nearby to just take what you need. The pads on all the deck chairs were also a nice touch. The cool towels that greet you upon returning to the ship after a day in port were also very nice. The classic drink package (that was included in our cruise) was quite adequate for our taste. It was great to NOT have a blaring large screen tv out by the pool!!

 

Cons--

 

Activities/Entertainment - We were very disappointed with the lack of activities during the day. It was a good thing that we loaded many books on our Kindle before we left! This is where I feel that Royal Caribbean and Carnival does a better job. There were two comedians on board one was superb and the other one, not so much. The shows were horrible….and many of the other passengers remarked of this as well.

 

Ship - For a ship of its size, there was quite a lot of movement. It didn't bother us, but for those guests who are sensitive to that type of thing, I thought it was worth a mention. Also, the ship makes a lot of noise…we had a port side Concierge class balcony on Deck 10 and there was constant banging/thumping noise while sitting out on our balcony. At first I thought it was from the basketball court, but later realized it could not have been as the court was 5 decks up and further forward. The ship also creaks and moans in certain areas. My husband said it sounded like an old battleship! Kind of an odd noise to hear on a fairly new ship. The Promenade deck does not wrap all the way around the ship for passengers to walk. There is a walking/jogging area up a few decks but you have to fight deck chairs and other passengers to use it.

 

Casino - I experienced the casino staff being rather rude to a couple guests at the table games. It really shocked me as I play in the casino quite often and have never seen this occur on any other cruise I've been on.

 

All in all, we had a decent time, got in a lot of relaxation time and met wonderful fellow passengers that we will keep in touch with now that we are home. We probably will not sail Celebrity again though and will go back to Royal Caribbean and Carnival mainly for the activities/entertainment factor. We are in our early 50s, and I feel that Celebrity is geared a little more towards a mature demographic....not that we are "party animals" by any stretch of the imagination, but we do enjoy a lot of activities to choose from during our cruise vacations.

 

I am sure others that were on our same sailing will have a different point of view but this was OUR experience. I hope it helps other guests make an informed decision of how to spend their vacation dollars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[meatloafsfan]

Thanks for the review.

 

I myself am not a fan of the S class ships (don't like the bed situation in the accessible cabins). I agree that after sailing on Royal and Carnival, Celebrity comes off as a bit of a "make your own fun - kind of boring otherwise" cruise.

 

We do like the M class ships, as we do like the adult pool area and Café Al Bacio. The food is good on Celebrity but I do agree that the menus can be a bit hit or miss - either there's 3 things I want or a couple of nights - I'm settling for the most appealing of the least appealing items.

 

For us, we bring some craft kits, adult colouring pages, tablets and games and make our own daily activities - usually hogging a table in Café Bacio where we spend the day sipping Americanos or lattes. :D

 

Happy sailing on your line (or lines) of choice!

[killsport]

I was also on the sailing. In general, I'd agree with OP. The entertainment on Celebrity is much calmer, reduced, laid back, lamer (use whatever term you want) than Princess or RCCL. My wife and I are mid 40's (though we had to admit it) and enjoy two different X cruises -- when we go just the two of us (relaxed, more romantic) or with a group (more party approach). Since I don't dance (even with liquid courage), it didn't matter that the disco (Quasar) and nightclub (Sky) seemed to be dead very early. Others in our party wished it had a more active feel.

Thanks, OP, for a pretty honest and accurate set of comments!!! Welcome home :)

[Tyler80]

Thank you for your review! After having sailed 5 times on Royal Caribbean, I thought my first Celebrity cruise onboard Silhouette was the most relaxing cruise I've ever taken. I loved the food, the ship was absolutely beautiful and the service from the crew was outstanding. I also loved the less crowded feel of the ship given the less amount number of passengers onboard.

 

I'm sorry you had a noisy stateroom location. I did not notice any out of the ordinary noises. I do not cruise for the show entertainment, but enjoyed what was offered in the Silhouette Theater. The ship movement onboard I would consider normal. :)

[FlaLove]

I also just came off the Silhouette for 3/27 and figured I'd post my input as well. Some demographic info: my wife and I are in our late 20's, easy going, and novice cruisers. It was our 1st cruise with Celebrity, and 2nd cruise total (previous cruise was on Carnival).

 

Food – I agree with you, we thought the food was great. Some of the starters/appetizers were just OK, but overall we thought the food was excellent. We dined in the main dining hall every night for dinner and a couple of times for lunch. Our waiting staff was very entertaining and friendly - definitely some of the best service I've experienced anywhere. After a couple of nights they knew what we wanted to drink and we ate a lot of the bread with butter - ignoring the other two spreads. On night #4 they caught on to this and filled up the spread plate (not sure what this is called) with just butter for the remainder of the cruise. I'm not sure if this is fairly typical as we are are novice cruisers, but we really appreciated the attention to detail. Some guests were taking pictures and giving standing ovations with their waiting staff on the last night of the cruise. We did not try any of the specialty restaurants.

 

We had breakfast either delivered via room service or at the buffet. Breakfast always arrived hot when delivered via room service. There were times where the variety was lacking at the buffet for lunch, however we believe this was probably due to us arriving later in the afternoon around the time they transition to dinner.

 

Service – we also thought the staff members were very friendly and went out of their way to make the cruise experience great.

 

Little touches – we also stuck with the classic drink package (included via promo) and it was adequate for us. We noticed many attempts to upsell us to the premium package on the first day, but nobody bothered us again after day 2. I agree regarding the blaring large TV screen by the pool. It was nice not to have this.

 

Activities/Entertainment - I agree that it did appear as if the activities were limited during the day. However, we did not mind this as we spent a lot of time just relaxing during the day. There were bands playing live throughout the day as well. Although they weren't engaging activities, we did enjoy them a lot. We love just kicking back and relaxing to music. We liked the intimate Ensemble lounge with music throughout the night. I imagine this could be boring for some, but we liked it a lot. I agree regarding the comedians - one didn't do much for me, the other was absolutely hilarious. We went to both the early and late show for the one comedian as he had so much audience improv it was worth seeing twice. I disagree regarding the shows - my wife and I enjoyed all of them, especially the aerobatics in some of the shows. We thought one in particular was superb. Maybe it's a demographic thing.

 

Ship - We did not notice the movement and noise you mentioned. We were starboard side, Concierge Class balcony on Deck 9, between the middle and aft. At times there may have been some movement, but not enough to bother us. Our stateroom/balcony was very quiet.

 

Casino - I was only in the casino for about an hour, but I agree with you. I did not like the atmosphere in the casino.

 

Overall we felt our experience on Celebrity exceeded our expectations and we will most likely cruise Celebrity again. While we did enjoy our Carnival cruise, we enjoyed Celebrity a lot more. I enjoyed reading your experience and I will be sure to follow this forum topic over the next few days.

Edited April 4, 2016 by FlaLove

[Clarea]

Thanks to both for the feedback.

[suec12]

thank you for the input - it was re-assurring to see good feedback on the food / MDR, esp. since there have been some recent, or not so recent, posts about quality decline. Food is pretty much my "trump card" - entertainment not so much as I bring my books and usually friends.

 

I do want to add for others reading these posts.....the evening buffet is actually quite good. In the past I did not like to do the buffet in the evening but I do think the choices have much improved so some evenings now I just "pace myself" - get a drink, find an appetizer, then another drink :) and work my way slowly thru a pleasant meal. Many of the MDR choices are on the buffet but I probably would NOT do this on formal night as I don't think lamb chops or lobster find their was upstairs.

[Keith1010]

Thanks for your review.

 

Keith

[janetz]

Thank you for your review and to those others chiming in.

Good entertainment is something DH and I enjoy, so we will be rethinking our sailing next April.

[Christine Frances]

Entertainment is like food- everyone has a different view. We always travel with a group (6-10 people) and we all enjoy different things after dinner. One couple stays up late, hits the theatre, comedy shows, disco, whatever is happening in the evening. We only go to the production shows (unless we have seen them before) and then call it a night to read and relax in our cabin. Other friends look for somewhere to dance. It's all about choices but all our group is happy with what Celebrity provides. We all noticed the improvement in the MDR over the last 3 cruises and are very happy:)

[Flafun888]

Thank you to OP and others for sharing your opinions. We were on that sailing as well. Our experiences:

 

Cabin: We had a deck 7 balcony...pretty quiet. A little rattling here and there, but no big issues. We booked one just a few doors down for next year's cruise.

 

Food was great for us - we meant to try one specialty place, but were very happy with the MDR, buffet and room service offerings. The buffet was way too much of a madhouse for me during breakfast hours, so I avoided it, but my more patient DH found plenty of choices to like each day. I really liked their salad bar choices for lunch and 5:30 sushi spread each evening.

 

Classic package: I was planning on using OBC to upgrade drink package, but actually found so much on classic, it ended up perfectly fine for us. Enjoyed a big variety of frozen and traditional cocktails, their basic white/red wines and light beers. Kept saying I should upgrade, just to taste the martinis, but somehow it just didn't seem that important/compelling to me and I ended up using my OBC to shop instead. :D

 

Service: I thought service everywhere was wonderful - we had good room attendants, MDR servers and accommodating people everywhere we went. But I agree with everyone about the casino - we weren't playing, but I did stop by the casino bar myself one time for a drink and the 2 bartenders completely ignored me even though I was standing right in front of them with card in hand, clearly hoping to order. No eye contact, no "hi - be with you shortly." The bar wasn't even that busy - just a couple of people before me placing orders. Both guys looked past me like I didn't exist. Then they started serving others who came in after me, so I left and found a much friendlier reception from the bar on deck 3. When my DH ordered from the casino bar later that evening, there was a different person working - not really smiling/friendly, but at least he took DH's drink order promptly and was very polite.

 

Entertainment: We liked both comedians...one was better than the other, but enjoyed both their shows overall. I only saw one of the 3 production shows - it started off slow and (to us) very lame, but ended up being much better about 5-10 min in. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it was entertaining. Really enjoyed Jane Curry. Her selection of songs weren't necessarily ones I liked, but her sheer personality, warmth and charisma kept me in my seat - she was amazing and truly gave her all, despite less than full audience attendance.

 

Re: daytime entertainment...I spent a lot of time on sea days reading, enjoying ocean views from my balcony, joining my husband out by the pool, working out in the gym (great gym!) or lingering over MDR lunches or strolling deck. So minimal daytime entertainment didn't really bother us. But I can definitely understand those used to more options would find this area lacking.

 

There were quite a few little kids on board compared to our other X cruise - hardly a surprise given the 3/27 spring break sail date. For the most part, they were fine. Pool area was pretty loud/noisy, but no major deal - kids just having fun. The only truly annoying experience was when this family of 5-6 people came into a very busy gym and let their little 4-5 year old run around the free weight racks wearing flip flops and literally blocking people's path, rolling around on the floor, getting dangerously underfoot as people were trying to lift heavy weights or bring weights back. I almost tripped over him 2x. Parents didn't seem to pay attention or care - they were just laughing, talking and rolling out mats for him to play on. It was definitely an accident waiting to happen, but I couldn't find the attendant to alert him/her. I don't think they should allow a 5 year old into a busy gym. Luckily they were only there that first day.

 

The only other bummer for me was the balcony smoking. Almost every afternoon someone close to our cabin was smoking on their balcony and despite craning our neck in every direction, we never could see who it was, so couldn't report them. I don't understand why those who want to smoke on balconies have to sail X when there are other cruise lines that allow it.

 

Nothing against smokers - I'm glad they have designated areas for smoking, so everyone has options. But we specifically pick X because of their restrictive balcony smoking policy, as my DH is highly allergic and has a serious asthma condition. I know it wasn't coming from the public smoking areas as we were on starboard side and public smoking is on port side. (Whole reason I booked starboard cabin.) But idiots like that aren't X's fault: they can only enforce the rules if they know who's breaking them. Luckily, the person only smoked a few each night, then went inside.

 

Don't mean to sound like a complainer - the cruise was truly wonderful and we greatly enjoyed it. We booked again for next year. My preference would be to go in late Feb vs March/April to avoid so many young kids, but we both did like the more energetic vibe on this cruise - seemed more balanced demographically - lots of people from '20s through '80s+ vs mostly older-only which we experienced last time.

[copi2boys]

Thank you for the review. Looking forward to trying X ourselves after being RCI cruisers. The non-action by the pool sounds perfect :D We do like a little bit of entertainment in the evening, shows and comedians. Not big dancers - except after imbibing a few. We will be a group of 12, I'm sure we will make our own entertainment. :D

[jumpjump]

question.... Any theme parties on celebrity? NCL and Princess have their white party... Every dresses in white at one evening. What does celebrity have?

 

I'll be on the silhouette in May. Can't wait.

[Woobstr112G]

OP;

 

Thank you for taking the ime to post your thoughts.....:):):)

 

Bob

[globevest]

Thank you for the reviews....very informative.

[QTBabyNurse]

question.... Any theme parties on celebrity? NCL and Princess have their white party... Every dresses in white at one evening. What does celebrity have?

 

 

 

I'll be on the silhouette in May. Can't wait.

 

 

I don't recall seeing any theme party on Celebrity. They had something called Celebrity Rox on the pool deck one evening but no one dressed up in anything special and the whole thing was rather lame actually. It last about 30-40 minutes and a lot of people left part of the way into it.

 

 

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[magnolia888]

The only other bummer for me was the balcony smoking. Almost every afternoon someone close to our cabin was smoking on their balcony and despite craning our neck in every direction, we never could see who it was, so couldn't report them. I don't understand why those who want to smoke on balconies have to sail X when there are other cruise lines that allow it.

 

Nothing against smokers - I'm glad they have designated areas for smoking, so everyone has options. But we specifically pick X because of their restrictive balcony smoking policy, as my DH is highly allergic and has a serious asthma condition. I know it wasn't coming from the public smoking areas as we were on starboard side and public smoking is on port side. (Whole reason I booked starboard cabin.) But idiots like that aren't X's fault: they can only enforce the rules if they know who's breaking them. Luckily, the person only smoked a few each night, then went inside.

 

We sailed on the Silhouette on 3/13 and had the same problem. There was always someone smoking on the balcony but we could not identify the cabin to report them.

 

We also thought there were just too many smoking areas. You said that public smoking was only port side? We found it on both sides of the ship. The Mast Bar, Sunset Bar, a section set aside in the pool area. Everywhere we tried to sit there was smoking going on. And in the non-smoking section, no available seats. All marked with books, although the people were invisible. The pool area had about 20 chairs in the smoking section, and just 2 guys smoking cigars. So 18 empty chairs there, but we couldn't use them. :(

 

We loved a lot about the Silhouette, but my husband said on the last day that the theme of our cruise was "too much smoke, and nowhere to sit."

[2CatsInFlorida]

We thought the ship hardly rocked compared to RCI Freedom last month. Entertainment was a lot of rock music and no colorful stage sets, not what we seniors like. In fact there was a big flag on the pool deck that said "This Ship Rocks" . I think Celebrity is trying to attract a younger demographic.

 

We tried Qsine. It had a diverse ethnic menu and excellent presentation. Most of the food was very good. But, the bill was $136 with wine, so won't go back.

 

Celebrity seems to be a step below RCI now.

 

 

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[QTBabyNurse]

I think Celebrity is trying to attract a younger demographic.

 

 

I think they still have a lot of work to do then to attract a younger demographic, if that is indeed their plan. I'm not certain that it is.

 

 

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