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Detailed Photo Review of Celebrity Eclipse 14 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise 3/4/18


deladane
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Hi Everyone! My name is Dana, and my husband and I just returned from a fabulous 14-night cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse (March 4-18, 2018 sailing). As you can see from my cruise history listed below in my signature, I have taken several Carnival and Celebrity cruises in the last few years, and we just returned home from our honeymoon in French Polynesia six months ago. I always write a detailed photo review when I return home from my cruises, with a journal-style day-by-day format. This cruise will be no different! If you are looking for a short and sweet review, you might want to look elsewhere... I tend to write like I talk, and I can be a bit long-winded, so my reviews are very long and take a few weeks to complete. On the other hand, if you like reading about lots of details, and if you want to see TONS of photos (including all of the daily schedules and menus), this is the review for you! I do this as much to help others plan their vacations as to give me a travel log to look back on and remember my wonderful cruise. Please feel free to ask questions and post comments along the way... I welcome your feedback! All of the posts for the review will be in this larger purple font so it stands out if you just want to read the review and skip the comments and other posts.

 

It may take me a little while to get all of my photos sorted and loaded onto my computer considering I took over 3000 photos on this vacation, so please be patient with me. Here are some of my favorite photos from the trip as a little something to hold you over until it's time to post the rest!

 

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Enjoyed your PG review (convinced us to hold off on Polynesia until we can spend 15 days minimum on the islands and cruising) from earlier this year and looking forward to hearing about your trip on the Eclipse.

 

Definitely give yourself as much time as you can afford for the trip to FP... it's a schlep to get there, but totally worth it and you will want to stay there as long as possible! Thanks for reading again :)

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I will love your review. Appreciate details because we are sailing this itinerary on the Eclipse on April 1st.

Looking forward to reading your travelogue.

Ellen

 

I so wish I could join you for your cruise and do it all again!! You will have such an amazing time! I'll try to get done as much of my review as I can before you leave, but let me know if you have any last minute questions!

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I'm currently reading your Equinox 2016 review and enjoying it. Looking forward to this one as well!

 

Thanks for reading! If you finish the Equinox review and want to see some great snorkeling and beach photos, check out my Paul Gauguin review next hehe

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We leave 4/1 on this trip. I will be following so I can see as much as possible before we leave. Thank you for doing this. I love when people share their trips.

 

Thanks for reading along! I hope you find some helpful pointers, but let me know if you have any last minute questions :)

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We booked this cruise while we were on our 2016 cruise on the Celebrity Equinox. They were running a sale where if we booked the cruise while on that cruise, we received a $250 OBC for the cabin, plus 2 free perks on the future cruise. We were having such a wonderful time on the cruise so far, and we loved the Celebrity product and the vibe on the Equinox,so we knew we would love cruising on the sister ship. One of the things on my cruising bucket list is to visit the ABC islands, so when I found this itinerary, I knew it was meant to be! Plus, we would get to revisit some of our favorite islands from our 2015 cruise, while visiting 4 other islands where we had never been before. This looked like the perfect cruise for us, and we were even able to book the same cabin we had on this cruise- 7222, a 2A Veranda cabin between the forward and mid-ship elevators on the starboard side.

 

With nearly 2 years to go until this cruise, and with our honeymoon cruise coming first in 2017, it took a while before we started specific planning for this cruise. I had a few ideas of things I wanted to do on each of the islands from reading other reviews, but we didn't plan anything specific until last March when we had 1 year to go. At that point, I dove head first into reading private vendor reviews from Trip Advisor and scouring the Ports of Call forum here on Cruise Critic, all in hopes of planning the best possible days for us on this cruise. Much like on my prior Celebrity and Carnival cruises, I did not want to book any excursions through the cruise line. I usually find that I can get a better tour which does more things/visits more sites, has fewer people on the tour with us, and costs less money if I book through a private vendor. I usually try to plan for a good balance of boat tours, beach days, and island tours, so this was our itinerary and the excursions we booked for each day. Spoiler alert: Life doesn’t always go according to plan…

 

Date / Port / Excursion

3/4/18 / Miami / Embarkation Day

3/5/18 / Sea Day

3/6/18 / Sea Day

3/7/18 / St. Maarten / Great Bay Beach and Boardwalk

3/8/18 / Antigua / Eli’s Eco Tour

3/9/18 / St. Lucia / Spencer Ambrose Land and Sea Combo

3/10/18 / Barbados / Boatyard Beach

3/11/18 / Sea Day

3/12/18 / Bonaire / Woodwind Snorkel Sail

3/13/18 / Curacao / Irie Beach Hopping Tour

3/14/18 / Aruba / ABC Tours- Natural Pool Safari; MiDushi Sunset Sail

3/15/18 / Aruba / Octopus Tours Champagne Brunch Snorkel Sail

3/16/18 / Sea Day

3/17/18 / Sea Day

3/18/18 / Miami / Ft. Lauderdale Water Taxi, then flying home

 

A week or two before final payment was due, we noticed there were a few Concierge Class cabins available for a nominal upgrade fee. There is a lot of debate on Cruise Critic about whether or not Concierge Class is worth the upgrade fee. We decided that the extra Captain’s Club points for a 14-night cruise, the guarantee of foot stools on our balcony (something I definitely enjoy having), and the few other minor perks were worth the small per-night upgrade charge, so we went for it. We did consider upgrading to Aqua Class, but the only cabins available were directly below the pool, solarium, or spa. I definitely didn’t want to risk hearing noise overhead for 2 weeks straight, so being sandwiched between 2 cabin decks was a high priority which ruled out the remaining Aqua Class cabins. In the end, we picked cabin 1068, located on the starboard side of deck 10, mid-way between the two elevator banks, and with the bed in our preferred location near the balcony.

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Hi Dana,

 

We were on this same cruise with you guys and had the pleasure of meeting you both (we were the ones FaceTiming with our friends on deck 5..lol) I sure hope one of your photos will be of Jason enjoying his coronarita from the sunset bar. He sure got me hooked on them.

 

Bruce and I also did the PG cruise to the French Polynesia islands but that was 10 yrs ago. That cruise is still ranked as #1 in our books and hope to do it again. Look forward to reading the rest of your review and for sure I will be checking out your FP review.

 

Cheryl

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I will love your review. Appreciate details because we are sailing this itinerary on the Eclipse on April 1st.

 

Looking forward to reading your travelogue.

 

Ellen

 

 

 

US TOO[emoji924][emoji924][emoji924]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

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I'm so excited to read your review! I am going on a similar cruise next January on the Celebrity Reflection. I have read most of your other reviews and have really enjoyed them.

 

It's such a shame that the Eclipse isn't running this itinerary anymore, but how exciting that you found a similar itinerary on the Reflection! Hope you enjoy the review :)

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Hi Dana,

 

We were on this same cruise with you guys and had the pleasure of meeting you both (we were the ones FaceTiming with our friends on deck 5..lol) I sure hope one of your photos will be of Jason enjoying his coronarita from the sunset bar. He sure got me hooked on them.

 

Bruce and I also did the PG cruise to the French Polynesia islands but that was 10 yrs ago. That cruise is still ranked as #1 in our books and hope to do it again. Look forward to reading the rest of your review and for sure I will be checking out your FP review.

 

Cheryl

 

Hi Cheryl! So glad you found my review and said hi!! I wish I had known you cruised on the PG- we could have shared stories. Definitely go check out that review as I am sure it will bring back fun memories for you :) And yes, I do have one photo of that coronarita that will show up later in my review, taken on the day you guys saw him drinking it haha We get drinks like that a lot at home so it was fun to have it on the cruise ship :)

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We were also on the same cruise. Had a great time and looking forward to your photos!

 

I will post a lot of photos... eventually haha Still need to sort through them all because there are a lot of duplicates (ie: I took 5 photos of the same thing from different angles and with different camera settings). Thanks for reading along :)

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Dana,

 

Looking forward to your review as I have read your Paul Gauguin review more than once as we get ready to board PG in a couple of months on their Cook Island cruise. You provided some very useful info that helped me plan that trip,. And, like you we are following up French Polynesia with a Caribbean cruise next year, although on the new Edge on back to back cruises.

 

Unfortunately, only one common port, but I look forward to reading your review anyway as we do want to hit the ABC islands eventually and we love Celebrity although PG may spoil us.

 

Thanks for your review,

 

Doug

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