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Eclipse Jan 22 Review: Modern Luxury is Alive, but a Few Things Need Resuscitation

vtcruising

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vtcruising

vtcruising

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Overall, we had a wonderful 14 night cruise on the Eclipse, with a few blips. My DH and I traveled with 3 couples we had met on a Reflection TA 3 years ago, with one couple bringing a dear friend with them, for a total of 9 people. Two couples were in Sky Suites, 1 in AQ and the other 3 people were in veranda cabins.

 

We flew into Miami 2 days early and stayed at the Intercontinental Miami. We hadn’t stayed there before and loved it. We had a bay view room and it was a thrill to see the Eclipse first thing in the morning from our window. Another couple in our group stayed there as well. It was a 10 minute walk to Bayside Marketplace where we had dinner each night. The Tradewinds Restaurant at Bayside overlooked the ocean and had excellent food and service. The IC has a taco buffet on Saturdays that was very good. By the end of those 2 days, the party had already started.

 

We got a cab for the 4 of us at 10:45 and were at the ship in less than 10 minutes and onboard within 10 more minutes. Our friends, who were in AQ, boarded quickly as well. We declined the bubbly and headed for the good stuff. My DH and I went to Michael’s (we were in a Sky Suite) to have a drink and leave our carry-on bags as we had on other cruises, but the place was packed. We found seats, but the bartenders were too overwhelmed to be able to serve us. We chatted with a nice couple for a few minutes and then headed to Luminae for lunch (open at 11:30).

 

We had invited the couple we stayed with at the IC for lunch in Luminae, if space was available (they were not in a suite). Laurence, the wonderful maître d’, welcomed them for lunch ($20 each). With delectable herbed lamb chops with a lovely pinot noir selected by Maggie, the best sommelier ever, we were off to a great start!

 

Food:

Luminae continued to be one of the highlights of the cruise. The people there were top notch and food almost always excellent. There were a few misses, but like any good restaurant there will be items you just don’t care for. Breakfasts were very good with fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit juice and my favorite Eggs Benedict Florentine with a bowl of fresh berries.

 

They still serve the cheap tea there, so we would get our Tea Forte fix at Café al Bacio, Michael’s or in our stateroom. When I asked the MC concierge about getting Tea Forte in Luminae, she had the butler set us up with a kettle, Tea Forte (Earl Grey and English Breakfast), honey and milk in our suite so we could make our own. It was wonderful to get up and make a great cup of tea and sit on the balcony until breakfast.

 

We had breakfast from room service quite a few times and it was always hot and tasty. A tip when ordering on the TV: when you fill in how many eggs you want (can choose over easy, over med, over hard), choose 1 for each order. The first time, I wanted two eggs so ordered 2 and we ended up with 2 orders of 3 eggs each with sides, plus my DH’s omelet. The butler must have thought we were very hungry! We tried the extra cost freshly squeezed OJ and crab Eggs Benedict one day, but they were not worth the extra cost, IMO.

 

Lunches in Luminae were more like dinner so we didn’t go there on all sea days – we had to pace ourselves. The last day, we had bouillabaisse, filet mignon, dessert and wine for lunch there – all delicious, but we couldn’t live like that every day!

 

We only went to the OVC once and had a nice salad for lunch. Everything was fresh and there were good choices.

 

Interestingly, we really enjoyed Sushi on 5 for lunch – interesting because we aren’t sushi fans. We fell in love with the Lobster Ramen and Ginger Chicken Gyoza especially and returned another time. The staff were very friendly and professional there. Every time we ate there or walked by, there was a moderate amount of people there and it was well-regarded by many others we talked to on the ship. We liked Bistro on 5 and missed it, but this is also a nice restaurant. Our complaint, and one I heard from others, was that it was too expensive. It was easy to spend $40-50 for lunch. Either they should lower the prices some or have a set rate as they do for the other specialties (and would likely need to set a limit on number of items served for that set rate).

 

The Mast Grill hamburgers we had were not as good as usual – maybe they had sat for a while, but we didn’t go back after that one time. The room service hamburger was actually better. The Luminae burger was the best, hard to beat. I did try the Kobe beef slider at Sushi on 5 and it was delicious – the waiter explained that it was the only Kobe beef on the ship (and he said the package is labeled Kobe beef so he knows it is the real deal).

 

Dinner was almost always good at Luminae. There were a few misses (the eggplant parm, for example), but the waiters were good about guiding us to the best things on the menu. The breads were pretty good unfortunately – the last thing we needed to do was fill up on bread. We often looked at the MDR menu each night, but I pretty much stuck to the Luminae items after finding that the MDR items usually had less flavor. We usually ordered 2 starters and a main, but if we wanted to try 2 of the mains, we ordered both. One time none of the mains appealed to me so I ordered 3 starters, one of which was an amazing pasta that I them double as my main. We ate with our friends a few times and on one of the Chic nights one ordered the lobster from Luminae and also one from the MDR, worrying they wouldn’t like the preparation in Luminae. It turned out that the Luminae lobster was the best any of us had ever had on a ship. The desserts were almost always wonderful – my husband loves chocolate and one time there was no chocolate on the dessert menu – Kevin, our wonderful waiter, went somewhere else and found him some chocolate cake. All in all, they were very flexible there and aimed to please. Favorite dishes: Cote de bouef (prime rib), roasted lamb loin, butternut squash ravioli, buttered poached lobster, rack of lamb, filet mignon, most soups and salads.

 

We celebrated our anniversary onboard in Luminae. My husband arranged with Laurence to call Sylvia in Michael’s Club when a table by the window was available. We had cocktails in Michaels’ Club until the call came and then went to Luminae and had a wonderful dinner with the great waiter Victor serving and received a special wine that Maggie chose. They kept the table next to ours open so that we could have a quiet dinner and served us a beautiful chocolate cake for dessert – Laurence, the maître d’, came over and congratulated us and chatted about her interesting life. It was a special evening.

 

Sylvia, the Michael’s Club concierge printed the 14 menus for me and gave me the list of which menu was going to be on which night (each menu is numbered and the order was all over the place, not 1,2 3, etc.) so that we could plan our specialty reservations. She called me when they switched the menus one night.

 

Our friends in Blu and the MDR also seemed happy with their food and service, with the usual misses here and there.

 

We had dinner in all the specialties. Our group of 9 ate in Murano in the Wine cellar – a memorable experience with excellent food, wine and service. The 9 of us also ate in Qsine and had an amazing experience with our waiter, Mohammed, who flawlessly served our large group until we could eat no more (except maybe dessert). Tuscan Grill was another matter. We had dinner there with one other couple and there was definitely an issue there. The food we had was good, but it took almost 3 hours to get our entrees (about 1 ½ hours between our salad and entrée). I am patient, but this was ridiculous. We started with a gentle complaint and then got more and more frustrated – they kept saying that there was a technical issue and it would be coming out soon. Others around us were in the same boat and one person received his filet raw and cold and walked out. The assistant maître d’ wasn’t great at keeping people calm so things got rather tense in there. Our poor waiter was sweating like a pig – it wasn’t his fault and we felt sorry for him. When we finally received the entrees, the 2 of us with filet mignons had perfectly cooked, delicious entrees though the other two entrees were dry and not very good (one pasta, one fish) as if they had been sitting a while. They asked if we wanted dessert and we said no thanks (we had already been there 3 hours). Our bill was zero since it was one of our free suite dinners (S1 booked before 1/1/16), but I did tip our poor waiter. The other couple discussed it with the Michael’s Club concierge and they ended up giving us another free dinner. We talked to other people on the ship and it seemed to be a common theme. We found out later that the grill had broken down that night. If they had been honest about it we would have just ordered something else that didn’t need to be grilled, but we got over it. We eventually laughed about it, but at the time I didn’t want to go back there, but we did. More on that later…

 

So, while talking with my DH about never going back to Tuscan, I suddenly remembered that we had already booked and paid for the Progressive Dinner that would happen a few nights later – it is now called “Best of Specialty Restaurants Dinner.” We were to eat one course at each of the specialty restaurants in succession. We had nothing to worry about – it was another exceptional dining event.

 

All nine of us and 6 other people started at Sushi on 5 with Chicken Ginger Gyoza and sake after a great sushi making demonstration. We were then escorted to Qsine for Disco Shrimp and a lovely chardonnay – we had fun with our same waiter from our previous dinner there, Mohammed. We then were brought to the Tuscan Grill – one of our party who had been a bit vocal with the assistant maître d’ when we waited 3 hours a few days prior was nervous to meet up with her again. My DH had brought a Groucho Marx glasses/nose/mustache disguise with him (don’t ask why he brought it on the cruise) and brought it out for him to wear when we arrived at Tuscan. It was hysterical and the assistant maître d’ loved it – she wore it and we took pictures of her and we all had a good laugh – all was forgiven and she went out her way to make our experience a good one (though we did wait almost an hour for the filet mignon there, though it was excellent). The filet was paired with a Chilean Cab and the fish (if preferred) with a Sancerre. The bread with olive oil, rosemary and balsamic was delicious there as well. We then rolled into the Wine Cellar at Murano for Grand Marnier soufflé and dessert wine, coffee, tea, port. All in all, an excellent night of great food and service with a fun group. The cost was $99 PP and was worth it, in our opinion.

 

Another dinner highlight was the dinner cooked especially for 5 of our group and 4 others by the executive chef in charge of all the specialty restaurants on the Eclipse for the Chef’s Market Discovery Tour. It was the end of a wonderful day spent with Executive Chef Eain Clarke in St. Maarten tasting cheeses, wines, ceviche made from fish caught that morning (and more wine) and going to the market in Marigot to learn about the island’s spices, fruits and vegetables. We toured the island with a great tour guide and then went to a lovely seaside restaurant for lunch and even more wine. The food there was amazing and we all enjoyed talking to the chef about how he became a chef and Celebrity’s food, issues with the food/restaurants onboard, etc. He was interested to hear our feedback. I told him that we liked the new Tuscan menu except missed the mushroom pasta with creamy parmesan sauce – he said they may add that back in. I also asked about Blu (he is in charge of Blu on the Eclipse, as well as Luminae and all the specialties) – he thought the new menu would be rolled out in a couple of months and when I asked about the birds, he thought there might even be more birds on the menu.

 

For our dinner that night, he had an assistant pick up fresh snapper, lobster, fruits and vegetables from St. Maarten and created the most amazing five course dinner for the 9 of us. First we had a tour of the galley at 7:00 PM when it was in full action – we’ve seen it between meals during the day, but never at night in full dinner mode. Dinner was served in Tuscan Grill (yes, we were there again and the maître d’ was our very best friend by then) :). Again, the wine flowed and a lovely dinner was had by all. This tour was expensive (was $199 each when we booked a few months ago, but had increased to $259 onboard), but wonderful. The other Chef’s Market Discovery Tours on this cruise (St Lucia and Barbados) were a bit cheaper I think, but the chef said that the St. Maarten one was his favorite. It was one of the major highlights of our cruise. Definitely modern luxury!

 

We had a pretty good wine experience onboard. The sommelier in Luminae Maggie was amazing – how she worked that room on her own with such efficiency and charm, I will never know. Luminae was always hopping when we were there and she must have been serving wine to more than half the tables. We had met her in Blu on Infinity a few years ago and loved her then. She was leaving on vacation when we got off – there are some big shoes to fill there. We heard through the grapevine that the head sommelier on Eclipse appointed his buddy to take her place, but that he was not that experienced. Hopefully, the info was inaccurate. Maggie was able to get some good wine by the glass that weren’t always on the list, but I mostly stuck with the NZ sauvignon blancs for whites and La Crema Pinot Noir for red, though had some lovely cabs as well. All the specialties had good wines for the premium package (sometimes an upcharge – the La Crema was $18/glass so was a $5 upcharge).

 

Our group had a wine tasting in our suite on the first sea day that was a lot of fun. We each brought favorite wines from home and had a good selection. The butler brought us a lovely shrimp platter and cheese and crackers, etc. with lots of wine glasses, chilling buckets for the whites and corkscrews. It was a fun party – the first of many fun events.

 

Bar service:

We had pretty good luck with being served at the pool, the Sunset Bar and Sky Lounge and most bars, but there was little service at the theatre it seemed. We were spoiled with Kay in Michael’s Club, who made the best cocktails. She made wonderful golden margaritas, cosmos, mango mojitos and Lychee martinis and also made up a few drinks that were tasty. She was a delightful person and we so enjoyed our time in there when she was around. There was live music in there many nights and there were trays of nibbles such as marinated shrimp, canapes, skewers, etc. form 5-7 or so. We had no problem taking drinks out of MC to dinner or a show.

 

We tried the tea in MC a couple of times – there were little sandwiches and delicious scones with jam and clotted (?) cream with Tea Forte served by butlers from 3-4.

 

The Suite:

We were in 9374, which is an aft corner S1. We had been in an S1 on Reflection and loved the sunny, mostly private balcony and that it was in a quiet area of the ship. We enjoyed this cabin as well. The last few cruises we have been in a CS and loved the separate bedroom, but for this cruise with sunshine every day, we enjoyed the balcony with tons of sun (it does have a 2 foot overhang that gives some shade, if desired). It is very private except if you are at the rail.

 

Rhoda, the room attendant brought us a padded lounger – she said she had to beg her supervisor for it since it is a fire hazard – anyway, we enjoyed having it and had some lovely naps out there. Rhoda was the best room attendant we have ever had – there always seems to be things missed when a cabin is cleaned, but she kept that cabin immaculate.

 

Rudi was our butler. He was new to the ship, but not new to Celebrity. He was a sweet guy and worked hard to pamper us. Sylvia, the MC concierge had mentioned that he could get us water every day using our folio number instead of us picking up water in MC every day as we have done in the past. We asked him and after that we had 2 bottles of Evian delivered to our fridge every day. We asked for some small ones as well for going ashore. He got us the electric kettle and kept everything stocked for tea service. We initially had him deliver cheese and crackers every afternoon around 4, but decided that it was not needed every day and would just call him if we needed anything. We had our kettle and made our own tea if we wanted tea in the afternoon.

 

Entertainment:

The headliners were very good. We had the Not Really 3 Tenors and Travis Turpin who we loved, Lou Gazarra, who brought the house down with his singing and a couple of good comedians. There were other acts we missed that we were told were excellent (we seemed to miss some good ones due to Tuscan’s slow service) :). I was impressed with Eddy, the CD and with the quality of the nightly entertainment (except the production shows that are not our thing). The headliners were only 45 minutes long unfortunately. We talked to one of the groups that performed and asked why they didn’t do an encore and they said that they weren’t allowed to do one unless the audience called for it. They said that Eddy is under the gun from those above him to keep the shows at 45 minutes so that people can get back out and spend money.

 

We thoroughly enjoyed the Liar’s Club with Captain Leo, Eddy and Rondell Sheridan, the comedian onboard. It was fantastic! We giggled about that for hours after. It was refreshing to have Captain Leo as our captain.

 

The biggest disappointment on the cruise was the onboard musicians. Usually there are some that we like and try to catch their sets in the smaller venues. We didn’t connect with any of the musicians onboard except the Eclipse Orchestra, which was amazing (led by Drew). Some of the music was downright painful to listen to – out of tune voices and instruments. My DH talked with some of the headliners in the bars at night and they totally agreed, as did other people we talked to (I thought it might be just us). I know musical taste is individual and many probably liked the musicians. Anyway, my husband talked to Eddy about it and he didn’t seem to have any control over choosing those acts, but said most would be leaving the ship when we did. Hopefully some better musicians boarded for the next cruise. We thought this area needed some improvement!

 

Casino:

Had pretty good luck with the Wonder Woman slots – I’m still humming the Wonder Woman tune…

 

Glass-Blowing:

We had never been on any of the ships with glass-blowing and was very impressed with the demonstrations. The people doing it are real artists and do some beautifully complex pieces. They also put on a good show, interacting with the audience and each other. Not something I would crave to see on another cruise, but was an interesting experience.

 

The Ship:

I enjoy the S Class ships, but have only been on the Silhouette and Reflection previously so this ship seemed familiar, but did miss the Lawn Club Grill and Porch. Everything was in good condition. One thing we noticed and might not have even mentioned except that others talked about it too was that the ship had a lot of vibration at times (not while docking). The vibrations would be bad enough that our cups of tea in Café al Bacio were clinking due to the vibrations. Others talked about feeling it at night – one woman reported not being able to sleep one night because of it. It may have been when we were at full speed? Anyway, it wasn’t a big deal for me, but it was noticeable.

 

Internet:

We had the “Go Best” due to a suite promo and absolutely loved it. I didn’t think I would really take advantage of that perk since I was used to having the free Elite time and rationing myself to a few minutes a day (and survived). The service was quite fast most of the time and I found that I used it a lot to keep up with things at home and work, cruise critic (was following along with Wonderman on our cruise) and research for cruise ports and future potential cruises. I will definitely want to have it next time.

 

Ports:

Bonaire: We used Bonaire Vista Tours – it was a 3 hour tour of the highlights of the island. It was a nice company to deal with and we had a sweet guide, but it wasn’t memorable.

 

Curacao: We had been here before and didn’t stray too far from the ship.

 

Aruba: Had an overnight in this port. We had made reservations for the 9 of us a few months in advance for Yemanja Wood Fired Grill, about a 10 minute walk from the ship. We had a table on the patio and had wonderful food and service – lots of choices and a great wine list. Would totally recommend this place for dinner!

 

Barbados: The 9 of us (and 4 other people) did the Calabaza Sailing Lunch Cruise. This was one of the highlights of our cruise. The boat was beautiful, the crew lovely and the food and bar wonderful! We had an amazing time on this cruise.

 

St. Lucia: We went on a Cosol Tour of the island. We had been on this before when Cosol actually was our guide and it was wonderful. His brother was our guide this time and 2 other people drove the other 2 vans. Cosol now drives the bar truck and follows the vans around. It is a very full day seeing a banana plantation, a volcano, Sugar Beach for snorkeling/swimming, a waterfall and mud bath if desired and gorgeous views along the way, with stops for food and drink. It is a good way to see this beautiful island.

 

St. Kitts: We had been here and didn’t get off the ship.

 

St. Maarten: Chef’s Market Discovery Tour (see above)

 

Disembarkation:

We were glad that we didn’t have to leave the cabin at 7 AM, but then my alarm went off an hour early because of the time change. By the time we realized it, we had showered and dressed and could have been out at 7. :) Anyway, we had breakfast at Luminae and went back to brush our teeth and were out of the cabin by 8 AM. We went to MC and waited with friends until 8:30 and walked off (suites don’t have a number and luggage is ready whenever people are ready to leave). We breezed through Customs and were in a taxi for the airport by 9:00 and had an easy trip home. It was a pretty painless process, but painful to go home nonetheless.

 

What a wonderful 2 weeks of sun, reading, relaxing and playing with friends old and new. The food, drink and late night fun was wonderful, though we couldn’t keep that lifestyle up forever – it was time to go home to recover and start planning for the next one!

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alcman

alcman

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We were also on that crew and our experience, other than we were AQ, was similar. The onboard entertainment did not quite cut it. We had Mohammad in Quisine and he was great. Our wait staff in Blu was extraordinary, Fatih, the Matre D', his assistant Ghanna, ZaZa our waiter and Jasna, the sommelier were great. Whatever we wanted, always made the dinner. ZaZa always had my bowel of fresh Jalapenos ready when I sat down and Jasna always had some special wines for us to try.. By the way, our experience in Tuscan was not like yours as we had an extraordinary meal for 6 served in an appropriately timely manner. It may be that Fatih and ZaZa showed up to introduce us to the staff and check on us in every specialty restaurant we went. Overall, a really great vacation.

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phoenix_dream

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We were on the same cruise, in an Aqua Class room. Overall had a great cruise. Service was very good, our room steward was outstanding, as was the Maitre d' in Blu (Faith).

 

We also felt the onboard live entertainment was lacking to say the least. We continue to be disappointed that Celebrity has cut down on its availability so much, but when you have few options you want them to be good (at the least). They were not. Probably the worst on all our 30+ Celebrity cruises.

 

Agree also that the guest entertainers were fabulous. Almost made up for the above.

 

We were not in a suite, so don't know what Luminae offers, but we were very disappointed in the red wine choices on the premium package. I don't call wines you can buy at home for around $10 a bottle "premium". Not that they were horrible, but definitely not premium in any way in our opinion. We are not big wine snobs either, so it's not that. Our next cruise is in a suite so we are looking forward to seeing if Luminae has better selections. I know the specialty restaurants had a few upgraded wines, but truthfully what they expect extra $$ for should be included in a premium package I think (not the super expensive ones of course, but the 'mid-range' ones). We were told that Celebrity is changing both the menu and wine selections in Blu sometime soon - hopefully in this case changing means improving as far as wine goes.

 

One fairly big issue we had that I have not heard anyone else post about yet concerns vibration in our cabin. We were on deck 11, a few cabins aft of the elevators. We had a continuous problem with vibration/shaking in our cabin - sometimes minor and sometimes so bad I couldn't even sit and read as the book shook in my hands. I understand many people were complaining about it. The Captain addressed a question about it during a presentation and wanted us to believe it was a common issue due to the engine design. Have been on more than 30 Celebrity cruises and have never experienced this 'common issue' before, regardless of where our cabin was on the ship (and this includes numerous sailings on S class ships). I think there was some kind of an engine problem and Celebrity does not want to admit it as they would then have to compensate people. That's just wrong. Curious if anyone else reading this has experienced this on Eclipse?

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tinaincc

tinaincc

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Overall, we had a wonderful 14 night cruise on the Eclipse, with a few blips. My DH and I traveled with 3 couples we had met on a Reflection TA 3 years ago, with one couple bringing a dear friend with them, for a total of 9 people. Two couples were in Sky Suites, 1 in AQ and the other 3 people were in veranda cabins.

 

We flew into Miami 2 days early and stayed at the Intercontinental Miami. We hadn’t stayed there before and loved it. We had a bay view room and it was a thrill to see the Eclipse first thing in the morning from our window. Another couple in our group stayed there as well. It was a 10 minute walk to Bayside Marketplace where we had dinner each night. The Tradewinds Restaurant at Bayside overlooked the ocean and had excellent food and service. The IC has a taco buffet on Saturdays that was very good. By the end of those 2 days, the party had already started.

 

We got a cab for the 4 of us at 10:45 and were at the ship in less than 10 minutes and onboard within 10 more minutes. Our friends, who were in AQ, boarded quickly as well. We declined the bubbly and headed for the good stuff. My DH and I went to Michael’s (we were in a Sky Suite) to have a drink and leave our carry-on bags as we had on other cruises, but the place was packed. We found seats, but the bartenders were too overwhelmed to be able to serve us. We chatted with a nice couple for a few minutes and then headed to Luminae for lunch (open at 11:30).

 

 

Thanks for this - when you mention that you dropped your carry on off in Michael's Club can you explain more?

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vtcruising

vtcruising

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We were on the same cruise, in an Aqua Class room. Overall had a great cruise. Service was very good, our room steward was outstanding, as was the Maitre d' in Blu (Faith).

 

We also felt the onboard live entertainment was lacking to say the least. We continue to be disappointed that Celebrity has cut down on its availability so much, but when you have few options you want them to be good (at the least). They were not. Probably the worst on all our 30+ Celebrity cruises.

 

Agree also that the guest entertainers were fabulous. Almost made up for the above.

 

We were not in a suite, so don't know what Luminae offers, but we were very disappointed in the red wine choices on the premium package. I don't call wines you can buy at home for around $10 a bottle "premium". Not that they were horrible, but definitely not premium in any way in our opinion. We are not big wine snobs either, so it's not that. Our next cruise is in a suite so we are looking forward to seeing if Luminae has better selections. I know the specialty restaurants had a few upgraded wines, but truthfully what they expect extra $$ for should be included in a premium package I think (not the super expensive ones of course, but the 'mid-range' ones). We were told that Celebrity is changing both the menu and wine selections in Blu sometime soon - hopefully in this case changing means improving as far as wine goes.

 

One fairly big issue we had that I have not heard anyone else post about yet concerns vibration in our cabin. We were on deck 11, a few cabins aft of the elevators. We had a continuous problem with vibration/shaking in our cabin - sometimes minor and sometimes so bad I couldn't even sit and read as the book shook in my hands. I understand many people were complaining about it. The Captain addressed a question about it during a presentation and wanted us to believe it was a common issue due to the engine design. Have been on more than 30 Celebrity cruises and have never experienced this 'common issue' before, regardless of where our cabin was on the ship (and this includes numerous sailings on S class ships). I think there was some kind of an engine problem and Celebrity does not want to admit it as they would then have to compensate people. That's just wrong. Curious if anyone else reading this has experienced this on Eclipse?

 

I mentioned the vibration problem in my review (its a long review so probably got lost :)). We noticed the cups shaking in Café al Bacio and a vibration in other areas on the ship. I wondered if it was normal for that ship at full speed or whether something was up mechanically.

 

Sorry the wine selection wasn't great - I was very happy with the La Crema and stuck with it most of the time, even with the upcharge. The Luminae sommelier did give us some nice reds by the glass a couple of times that were usually only sold by the bottle (she split one bottle with another guy for our anniversary and opened a nice cab for the last night). My husband was happy with the Shiraz they had in the premium package. I tend to like NZ Marlborough sauvignon blancs so was happy with those for the whites - she also had a Pouilly Fume that was good too. I agree that there wasn't a broad selection.

 

Sounds like people had a good experience in Blu. Our next cruise will be in AQ.

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vtcruising

vtcruising

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Thanks for this - when you mention that you dropped your carry on off in Michael's Club can you explain more?

 

On previous cruises that we were in a suite, we went to Michael's Club and met the concierge, had a drink and left our carry ons by the concierge desk to go to Luminae for lunch (or previously Bistro on 5) and then to explore the ship until the cabins were ready. This time, even though we boarded around 11:15 Michael's was packed so we didn't meet the concierge, have a drink or leave our luggage. We brought it to Luminae and they put it to one side for us while we ate lunch.

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WonderMan3

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We felt the vibration too on this same Eclipse cruise. My companions said they felt it really shaking hard in the middle of the night on two different nights, so much so that it woke them up. I never felt those but did experience it the evening we sailed from St. Kitts to St. Maarten and one of the final two sea days throughout that day. Both of those times the ship was moving very slow so I assumed it had something to do with that.

 

 

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vtcruising

vtcruising

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We felt the vibration too on this same Eclipse cruise. My companions said they felt it really shaking hard in the middle of the night on two different nights, so much so that it woke them up. I never felt those but did experience it the evening we sailed from St. Kitts to St. Maarten and one of the final two sea days throughout that day. Both of those times the ship was moving very slow so I assumed it had something to do with that.

 

 

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Hi Wonderman! Thanks for the great live review - it was fun to follow along while on the same cruise.

 

I talked with my husband about the vibration last night and he too thought the vibration was happening at low speeds when we were going short distances between islands.

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Mynki

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Our friends who are not on CC were in room 2137. They had quite serious vibration noise on the first night. So much so that it kept one of them awake all night on the first day. They had a couple of engineers take a look to no avail and then escalated via the MC concierge. More work was done and things improved a lot for a few days until it came back.

 

I keep meaning to write a cabin review and mention 2137 specifically as it was particularly bad for them, so thanks for bringing this up. It seems there were a lot of CC regulars on this particular cruise!

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phoenix_dream

phoenix_dream

Posted
Posted

yes, sometimes the vibration problems were quite extensive, making it difficult to sleep. They varied from day to day - I didn't see a particular difference depending on speed, but I think the strong winds the first couple of days didn't help. What was particularly annoying (besides trying to sleep on a vibrating bed!) was that on occasion we even had the vibration while we were in port! I don't know if they were working on the problem or what. What bugs me the most is that the staff was obviously informed to follow the Captains lead in claiming that it was normal to vibrate that way. It was NOT! I hate being lied to. We reported it to Guest Relations day 2 when it continued to be very bad, and were told it was normal, just the engines and the winds and the waves etc., etc.. They said alot of people were complaining about it, if that tells you something. Then the Captain also claims it was normal for cabins aft of center to experience that. Again, NOT. If there is a problem, just tell me the truth. I am much more likely to be sympathetic if you tell me you are having a problem and doing all you can to fix it, than if you lie to me.

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