Summit Cruise April 2 - 9

[llarosa]

Sorry for the delay... Today I'll give my thoughts on the ship activities and entertainment.

 

For our day at sea, after breakfast, we went to the Celebrity Connection event which was at 930 in the morning. It was a pretty small group - maybe 20 people - who attended even though about 50 had signed up. I suspect that the early hour was a deterent to some. It was really quite nice as Captian Kate and her executive team were there and we practially had one on one time with her. She took questions for about 20 minutes and then introduced her crew. It was also nice to meet up with some fellow cruise critic folks who didn't make the sail away. I finally met Colin who had arranged our St Maarten tour.

 

After the connection event, hubby and I went on the galley tour. I thought there were a lot of people there (about 15 groups - we were in group 10), but the host mentioned it was a smaller group than usual. While we waited for our group to be called, we had Q&A with the kitchen staff management team. The tour was interesting but not necessarily spectacular. It ended in the Tuscan Grill where there were displays for the specialty restaurants. We didnt end up trying any of them - mostly because we were enjoying eating at Blu.

 

My husband Paul is a runner (doing a marathon at the end of the month) so he went to get in a run on the treadmill after that and reports back that the gym was decent. He went several times - mostly early in the morning when the ship was arriving at the ports. Great view!

 

I, on the other hand, wanted to find a chair in the sun. Since by now it was around 11am on a day at sea, there weren't many chairs available - even single chairs. A great number of chairs had towels but not people. I finally went up to the Rooftop Terrace and had a comfy sofa all to myself. After about an hour, I was done and Paul was done running and it was lunch time.

 

We wanted to try the MDR and did so. We were seated with a party of eight and we seemed to see those folks just about everywhere the rest of the trip. In fact, there was a young married couple that we saw at least three times a day - once on a random beach in Barbados! As I may have said earlier, we thought everything was very good at the MDR as well.

 

Starting with our day at sea, we found the sushi offered at the buffet around 530 or 6pm most nights. We tended to take it to the Sunset Bar and enjoy "Happy Hour" there before dinner.

 

We went to several shows - the Magician, one of the Musicals, a group of acapella singers and the Comedian. The Comedian was the best of the the shows - and happened to be someone we went to Marquette University with "back in the day". His name is Rondell Sheridan and he was Raven's father on the show "That's So Raven". We talked to him a bit after the show.

 

We thought the musical was a bit tedious (dumb story) even thought the dancing and singing was good. We enjoyed the arialists. The Magician was fine and the acapella singers were mediocre. It was nice that the shows were only an hour or so each. We tended to sit near the back so we could leave early (or at least before the cruise director's talk) if we wanted. Sometimes, we'd go to the early show and have dinner afterwards.

 

Several nights, we would have a drink at Cellar Masters if we happened to come at a busy time for dinner at Blu. (We tended to come after 8.) They'd give us a buzzer till our table was ready. We would typically be half way through a glass of wine or beer before they called us. Cellar Masters would usually have a singer or a duo and we enjoyed their music. The duo that was there quite often were Ukrainian and didn't speak much English - even though they mostly sang American Hits!

 

After dinner, we stopped into the Martini Bar to enjoy a cocktail as well as the antics at the bar. Think of the old Tom Cruise movie "Cocktail" for an idea of what goes on there. It was quite fun.

 

I've added some picture to this album to show a few more things on the ship.

 

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/23

 

I also was able to add descriptions to most of the food pictures.

 

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/46

 

I'll be back in a couple of days to wrap up my review with a report on what we did at the ports.

 

Any questions? Ask away.

 

Lynne

[LA_CA_GAL]

....

 

Any questions? Ask away.

 

Lynne

 

Thanx for the info and pix. Very helpful.

 

We will be sailing in June in an aft cabin.

 

I really like what I see about the Sunset Bar. What can you tell me about it?

 

I understand food is available there.

 

How popular is it? Also see from you pix they also have entertainment.

 

Will the bartender be to toss beers up to me in 1140?:D:p

[DrivesLikeMario]

Beautiful pictures! Thanks for sharing.:)

[llarosa]

Thanx for the info and pix. Very helpful.

 

We will be sailing in June in an aft cabin.

 

I really like what I see about the Sunset Bar. What can you tell me about it?

 

I understand food is available there.

 

How popular is it? Also see from you pix they also have entertainment.

 

Will the bartender be to toss beers up to me in 1140?:D:p

 

Ha! No tossing allowed...

 

The sunset bar is a nice place to hang out. They don't serve food, but it's right off the end of the buffet so you can bring food to your table. (They won't let you eat food at the bar itself.) They had entertainment mostly in the evenings. Maybe 8pm or later. It's not a very large place but it's outdoor and the weather was beautiful.

 

I'm envious of your cabin. I think the 11th floor would be where I'd really want to be.

 

You will get plenty of calories burned by taking the stairs everywhere if you are like we are.

[llarosa]

Here's the last bit about our cruise - the Port Days.

 

Barbados - We were talked out of going to The Boatyard by our taxi driver. (There is a theme that emerges as we go from port to port.) Instead, we went to another spot on Carilsle Bay pretty close to the Boatyard but without the fees. Taxi was $12 to the beach for the two of us. We rented chairs and an umbrella from the taxi driver's buddy ($10) and ended up going on a boat ride to snorkel at the shipwreck and by the giant turtles for $20 each from one of the vendors on the beach. We had a private tour on a boat that probably could handle a dozen people. We had brought our own snorkel and mask from home but used his flippers and life vest. (It would not have cost any more to use his masks or snorkels.) There were several others from our cruise on the beach. On the way back to the ship, I asked the driver (who returned to pick us up) if Rhianna was going to be in town any time soon and he excitedly told me about her upcoming visit in August. He claimed to know her and said she is very good to the people of Barbados. All in all, we had a good time in Barbados.

 

St. Lucia - we had the fortune of knowing someone - Christelle - who grew up on the island - to take us on a personalized tour. She spends winters in St Lucia and the rest of the year in Wisconsin. (There is quite a difference between Wisconsin winters and St Lucia winters!) Anyway, she took us to both the Atlantic and the Caribbean costs, to the sulfer springs near the volcano, to the Pitons and gave us a running commentary on the flaura and flana of the Island. We had an authentic St Lucian lunch at a loverly place called Fond Doux Holiday Plantation where they make chocolate. There were tons of pictures of Prince Charles and Camilla who had visited the plantation in 2008. We almost missed this excursion as we didn't have a specific meeting place but we eventually found each other and had a great day.

 

Antigua - our only rain of the trip was this morning. We didn't plan an early day so we had a leisurely breakfast and made our way to the first floor to exit the ship only to see that it was pouring rain and our plan was to go to a beach... so we turned around and went back to the ship. It cleared up about an hour later so we tried again. It was still a bit overcast so we explored the port area (shopping) and visited the main church of the town which in being renovated after a leaky roof turned into a massive termite problem. They are about 70% done with the renovation and let us wander around in the unfinished building. (Never would have been allowed in the US!) Afterwards, we found a taxi to take us to the beach. Originally, we wanted to go to Valley Church Beach, however, it started raining on the way there and the driver told us that he thought we could avoid the rain by going to a different beach instead. I think we ended up at Fort James Beach although the driver called it Runaway Bay. Our driver knew the people at the restaurant where we were dropped off. It stayed rain free for the rest of the day and we headed back to the ship a couple of hours later. Our same taxi driver picked us up. and took us over to the nearby abandoned fort (Fort James) before heading back to the ship. Antigua was the only island that we hadn't been to before and I was a bit sad that we didn't really see the beautiful beaches we heard so much about. Despite the overcast day, we still had a nice time.

 

St Maarten - for this port, we joined up with 12 other Cruise Critic folks on a private tour with Bernard's Tours. We had organized this via our Roll Call and it ended up being a fun time. The tour bus was comfortable and air conditioned. We went to the Westin Dawn Beach for a photo opportunity and then to see a bunch of iguanas. The main stops of the day were at Orient Beach (not the nude section!), Marigot Bay (for shopping and a visit to Serafina's French pastry shop) and then to Maho Beach to see the planes land and take off. I have to say that Maho Beach was just crazy. Or rather, the people there were crazy. They got as close as they could to see the planes take off and basically stood in an area specically to be in the exhaust of the departing planes. It was kind of surreal. It was entertaining to have the planes come so low to the ground near the beach as they landed. I'll post a few pictures to try to show you - but there are much better pictures on the internet.

 

St Thomas - for our last day, you guessed it, we went to a beach. We brought our snorkels and masks and were hoping to go right from the beach. We started out wanting to go to Sapphire Beach but our driver encouraged us to try Coki instead. In this case, it wasn't that she was directing us to her buddies, but rather that she didn't want to drive all the way to Sapphire. She convinced us that the snorkeling off the beach was better at Coki and a couple of people near us on the beach said that they agreed as well. We thought that the beach was very nice but small and the snorkeling was decent. We didn't stay long as the beach this day as we wanted to have some pool time and sauna/steam room time before we left the ship - so we went back around 2pm.

 

Here are some pictures from our Port days.

 

https://celebritysummitapril2016.shutterfly.com/pictures/108

 

All in all, we had a great cruise.

 

Lynne

[boscobeans]

Great all inclusive review. Thanks so much.

 

bosco

[livingasia]

A lovely review, thank you for taking the time to do it. Love the Blu food pics.

[Quench]

Did you get a chance to check out the spa ? Where any changes done in the spa? Thanks for the review!

[fninsn]

Sorry for the delay... Today I'll give my thoughts on the ship activities and entertainment.

 

His name is Rondell Sheridan and he was Raven's father on the show "That's So Raven". We talked to him a bit after the show.

 

Hi Ilarosa,

 

I'm enjoying your review. I was on the ship the following week and had an amazing time.

 

Thanks for the info on Rondell Sheridan. We saw him as well and I knew I recognized him from TV, but couldn't think of where I'd seen him. He was great!!

 

Can you remember the name of the acapella group? I wanted to look them up.

 

Thanks

Linda

[Brewster]

Great review. Thank you for taking the time to post it as well as your photos. A number of years ago when I was on the Summit (going again in August), smoking was allowed in the Sunset Bar. Is this still allowed? Thanks.

[llarosa]

Great review. Thank you for taking the time to post it as well as your photos. A number of years ago when I was on the Summit (going again in August), smoking was allowed in the Sunset Bar. Is this still allowed? Thanks.

 

I'm guessing that it is not as I don'r recall anyone smoking there.

[llarosa]

Hi Ilarosa,

 

 

Can you remember the name of the acapella group? I wanted to look them up.

 

Thanks

Linda

 

Sorry - I don't recall and that's the only night that I don't have the daily newspaper from.