JamieLogical's November 13 B2B Summit Live Blog

[Jim_Iain]

Really enjoying your review.     Your pictures are worth a 1,000 words.   (each)

[Honolulu Blue]

Thanks for posting.  Please continue!

 

I think the whole COVID-19 situation has been a goldmine for comedians.  There's no need to recycle jokes that weren't that funny back in 1959.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Honolulu Blue

[DCPIV]

I miss that Martini Bar crew! They are great on Millennium, but the guys on Summit are a cut above! 

[Barwick Cruiser]

Thanks for the pictures, although I was surprised to see that some bathrooms still have shower curtains, we’ve only stayed in balcony rooms with glass doors which I prefer but then I see in your next pic a scale on the floor!!! That would be going into a drawer for the duration if I ever found one in my cabin 😳🤣😬

 

Glad you’re having a fun time and that you’ve been able to meet some fellow solo cruisers!

[JamieLogical]

2 hours ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thanks for the pictures, although I was surprised to see that some bathrooms still have shower curtains, we’ve only stayed in balcony rooms with glass doors which I prefer but then I see in your next pic a scale on the floor!!! That would be going into a drawer for the duration if I ever found one in my cabin 😳🤣😬

 

Glad you’re having a fun time and that you’ve been able to meet some fellow solo cruisers!

The shower curtain only covers the small area where you climb into the tub, there is glass covering the front and back of the tub. Not sure how they would do a door there, as you have to enter the middle of the tub and I have only ever seen shower doors for shower/tub combos that open on one side or the other.

[JamieLogical]

Will post about my full day later/tomorrow, but I had just had to post that the only child I have seen on this ship looks too young to have been vaccinated. I saw him last night passing through the Rendezvous Lounge with his family. He was not wearing a mask. Right now he is in the hot tub in the Solarium without a mask. Isn't the Solarium also supposed to be adults only?

[parrothead33]

Really enjoying your review. Have a great cruise.

Cheers

[BoundForSea]

51 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

Will post about my full day later/tomorrow, but I had just had to post that the only child I have seen on this ship looks too young to have been vaccinated. I saw him last night passing through the Rendezvous Lounge with his family. He was not wearing a mask. Right now he is in the hot tub in the Solarium without a mask. Isn't the Solarium also supposed to be adults only?

yup.

[CruisnDeb]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

Will post about my full day later/tomorrow, but I had just had to post that the only child I have seen on this ship looks too young to have been vaccinated. I saw him last night passing through the Rendezvous Lounge with his family. He was not wearing a mask. Right now he is in the hot tub in the Solarium without a mask. Isn't the Solarium also supposed to be adults only?

 

Website states "All crew and guests who are eligible to be vaccinated must be vaccinated in order to sail with us. All guests 2 and over must present a negative Covid-19 test prior to sailing." so I would assume he was exempt from the vaccination requirement and had a negative COVID test.  But he absolutely should not be in the Solarium.

[FlorenceItaly]

Even Pre-Covid, I have never seen Celebrity enforce the no children in the hot tub.  And, this includes the solarium.

[BoundForSea]

45 minutes ago, CruisnDeb said:

 

Website states "All crew and guests who are eligible to be vaccinated must be vaccinated in order to sail with us. All guests 2 and over must present a negative Covid-19 test prior to sailing." so I would assume he was exempt from the vaccination requirement and had a negative COVID test.  But he absolutely should not be in the Solarium.

Still needs a mask if unvacc’d

[ellenw]

JamieLogical - so happy to find this review. I believe the last posts I saw from you was when you were trying to decide if Celebrity was right for you. Guess you made that decision!. Enjoying following along with you. Have fun!

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review.

[DCPIV]

15 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Will post about my full day later/tomorrow, but I had just had to post that the only child I have seen on this ship looks too young to have been vaccinated. I saw him last night passing through the Rendezvous Lounge with his family. He was not wearing a mask. Right now he is in the hot tub in the Solarium without a mask. Isn't the Solarium also supposed to be adults only?

 

14 hours ago, BoundForSea said:

yup.

 

13 hours ago, CruisnDeb said:

 

Website states "All crew and guests who are eligible to be vaccinated must be vaccinated in order to sail with us. All guests 2 and over must present a negative Covid-19 test prior to sailing." so I would assume he was exempt from the vaccination requirement and had a negative COVID test.  But he absolutely should not be in the Solarium.

 

Millennium has some "family hours" in the Solarium. I noticed the sign yesterday. 4-7 PM.

[BamaCruiser39]

Thanks for the review/updates @JamieLogical

 

We get on the Summit this Thursday (our first Celebrity sailing) so it's always nice to see how everything is beforehand!

[39august]

Jamie, do you know what time the spa was open to make appointments on boarding day, please? I know there are people there giving "tours" by about noon. But I don't know if they are taking appointments at that time. 

[Jim_Iain]

I'm sure Jamie will answer soon but wanted to drop my experience.   On recent cruises you will have no problem.   They were open for reservations as soon as boarding began and also had kiosk's setup just after checkin and a representative in Retreat soliciting reservations.

[39august]

Thanks, Jim. Our cruise starts with 3 days at sea, so I expect the spa to be fairly busy. Need to get rid of a lot of OBC!

[Eastern flygirl]

i am a little confessed.  Bama Cruiser 39, you said you were boarding the Summit this Thur.  How long is your cruise?

[BoundForSea]

@JamieLogical has not been heard from in 24hrs… I’m convinced she’s been sucked into the Ultra Super Comfy Yellow Chair in Al Bacio and it won’t let her go!! 

Edited November 15, 2021 by BoundForSea

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, Eastern flygirl said:

i am a little confessed.  Bama Cruiser 39, you said you were boarding the Summit this Thur.  How long is your cruise?

Must be only 4 days. Since I'm boarding on Monday for a 5 day Thanksgiving cruise.

 

[Ipeeinthepools]

My guess is that the OP has been having WiFi issues and hasn’t been able to respond 

[vms]

57 minutes ago, kwokpot said:

Must be only 4 days. Since I'm boarding on Monday for a 5 day Thanksgiving cruise.

 

Correct! 4 nights- 11/18-11/22

[PTC DAWG]

She’s fine, let her be, hopefully enjoying the ship. 

[JamieLogical]

12 hours ago, BoundForSea said:

@JamieLogical has not been heard from in 24hrs… I’m convinced she’s been sucked into the Ultra Super Comfy Yellow Chair in Al Bacio and it won’t let her go!! 

 

Reports of my being trapped in the chairs at Al Bacio are greatly exaggerated! I did spend some time there yesterday in one of those comfy chairs, though (Monty Python voice" Not the comfy chair!").

 

Actually, what happened was that I was terribly hung over and miserable all morning and spent the rest of the day trying to take it VERY easy, so I could be back to 100% today, which I appear to be.

 

I will try to rub my few remaining brain cells together to talk about my full day on Sunday and my not-so-full day yesterday to get you all caught up.

 

So, Sunday morning I was up by 7:00 when my room service coffee and chocolate croissants arrived. I had not-so-great service with the first room service breakfast I attempted on the Equinox back in July. First off, there was no box for chocolate croissant on the card and second, it arrived nearly an hour late. At that point I was getting frustrated, because I wanted to take my shower and go down for real breakfast, but dare not jump in the shower, knowing that the millisecond I did, there would be a knock at the door. However, I have had no issue with timely delivery on this trip. I fill out the card for 7:00 and it has always arrived right around 7:00. Also, I figured out that if I just write the word "chocolate" next to croissant on the form, they will bring me chocolate croissants!

 

I typed up my notes from Saturday's experiences while I had my coffee and then I jumped in the shower so I could get down to Luminae in time for breakfast. The shower was an experience. I had seen/heard reviews that mention the step into the shower. I didn't really take them that seriously. I have a shower/tub combo at home, so I am used to that. But this is on a whole other level. The edge of the tub is well above my knee when I am standing on the bathroom floor. And there is no grab bar or anything, so you just have to hold onto the edge of the glass. It's definitely tricky when getting out of the shower, once your feet are wet. I am 42 and find this to be a dangerous situation. I can't imagine being older and/or mobility impaired. Wow! When we had sail away on the helipad Saturday, they wanted us repeatedly of some tricky stairs. There were some high stairs to get out the door to the helipad and they had two crew members there holding your hand and helping you up and over. Those stairs were a joke compared to the climb to get in this shower and no crew members are there to help you.

 

The other tricky thing about the shower was the shower head. It is the type that clearly has multiple "modes" available and it was set to the pulsating, beat you up setting. I did not want that. I wanted the small needles setting, but it took me probably 10 minutes to figure out how to change it. There was a well concealed button that didn't look like a button at all. Once I got that figured out, I could not figure out how to set the temperature to anything other than hot or very warm. My hair is dyed so I need to wash/rinse it in cold water, but that simply does not appear to be ab option with this shower. Final note about the shower, then I promise I will move on! The shower curtain sucks. It is opaque, so it blocks a lot of light that is desperately needed, as the shower is very dark with no light overhead. Also, it gets wet and sticks to you, which is gross. And it's too long for the space, so a good 4 inches of it just rests on the ground in the tub where you have to try not to trip over it.

 

Alright, despite all of that, I did successfully achieve some level of cleanliness and I headed to Luminae for breakfast. I was seated next to the same gentleman I had sat next to at lunch on Saturday and we had a lovely chat. I ordered the Huevos Rancheros, which were interesting..... They had three separate crispy tortillas laid out side by side on the plate. One had my over easy egg, which was cooked perfectly. One had the salsa, avocado, and sour cream. And one had refried beans. It was not easy to mix those ingredients together, laid out on the tortillas the way the were. I probably won't order that one again.

 

After breakfast, I came back to the room and posted all the photos from Saturday. Unfortunately posting photos is pretty time consuming with the slow internet. I will try to post some photos after breakfast today again.

 

I then decided to explore the ship a bit. I walked around the upper decks, checked out the Sunset Bar, the Retreat Sun Deck, scoped out the Solarium, and ended up in the Sky Lounge. While out on the Retreat Deck, we saw the Millennium passing by. Wish we had gotten a bit closer so the captains could have blown our horns at each other. In the Sky Lounge, I met up with a couple I had run into on Saturday in Luminae. They recognized me from CC and were impressed by my bundle packing. We chatted for quite a while and all of the sudden, it was lunch time!

 

I headed back down to Luminae, where I ordered mozzarella sticks off the MDR menu and the crab cake sandwich. I was seated by a window, which was nice, but there was no table immediately next to mine, so I was a bit lonely.

 

After lunch, I took my usual nap and then headed down to the Solarium. It was very peaceful and I spent a fair amount of time on the bench in the T Pool, then a bit in one of the hot tubs. As I was leaving is when that young child I posted about entered with the rest of his extended family.

 

I had to try a boat drink at the pool bar, then it was down to change for dinner. It was Evening Chic night and there was supposed to be live music in the Retreat Lounge at 5:30. Unfortunately, due to some technical issue with the sound equipment, we never got the music. That was really sad, because it was supposed to be Thiago and I had really enjoyed his performance in the Retreat Lounge the night before. I did, however, meet a lovely couple on the elevator ride down to the Lounge and we sat together and chatted the whole time. They run an online cruise travel agency and were on the ship with some of their clients. We had a drink, ate some canipes, and chatted for quite some time.

 

There was nothing on the Luminae menu that impressed me, so I ordered the escargot from the MDR and the duck breast from Blu. The duck wasn't as good as Luminae's had been the previous night, but the bed of farro risotto it was amazing.

 

After dinner, I won $150 in the casino! I had put $50 into the Price is Right machine. Played it down to $7 and some change, then hit a jackpot that got me up to $200. I cashed out immediately!

 

Prior to the main theater show, there was a passengers versus officers matchup of Minute to Win It. It was incredibly funny and entertaining, but this is where I really started to run into trouble with my alcohol consumption and things get very blurry. I even found a random blurry photo on my phone, that seems apt, so I will post that later.

 

You see, I have made friends with three of the bartenders at the Rendezvous Lounge now and all of them are very friendly. One of them had promised to attempt to make me a Mr. Worldwide, which is my favorite drink on NCL. Unfortunately, when I showed up to the bar, he was on a break or something, so I ordered a Blind Russian (White Russian with Bailey's instead of cream) and he made me a double. Before I had even finished that, my other bartender friend was back and attempting my Mr. Worldwide. And then, my third bartender friend, having seen that drink mixed, wanted to make me another similar drink. And then I was very very drunk.

 

After Minute to Win it was over and we were just hanging out between shows, I had a very loud and intense conversation about football with another couple who was matching my level of drunkenness. At some point, I realized I was now late for the main theater show, Life. I went ahead and ran down there, got there about six minutes late, and sat in the back. Unfortunately, at this time, I was so drunk I was literally seeing double. I could not keep my eyes focused on the performers. I ended up leaving early (again!!!!) and headed back to my room while I could still walk.

 

I really don't remember much of this part of the evening. I seem to have managed to get changed, get myself some water, and get into bed. When I woke up yesterday morning, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I called my butler and told him that I didn't have a room service card the night before, but could he please send my coffee and croissant. He informed me that I did in fact have a room service card and I had left it on my door and my coffee and croissant would be there shortly. I actually argued with him, insistent that I had not filled out a card. He brought my order and the card with him to prove to me I had done it. The handwriting on it was atrocious, but I still insisted that was my card from the previous morning. It wasn't until I found the pen over by the room service info on the desk and not on the nightstand where I usually leave it that I conceded I must have filled out that card while drunk and had no memory of it!

 

Day's Drinks: Mimosa x2, Mojito, Zacappa Vanilla Mojito, French Caribbean, Vodka Sour, Zacappa Vanilla Mojito, Vodka Sour, Spicy Passion, Mudslide Martini, Double Blind Russian, Attempt at Mr. Worldwide #1, Attempt at Mr. Worldwide #2

 

I will have to post about yesterday when I come back from breakfast.