Thanksgiving on Summit

[Sailing12Away]

Dinner menu for Luminae for tonight, but we were still full from lunch and all the liquid lunch so we kept it simple and went to the buffet. No dinner pics, but a few of the desert options.

[doghog]

2 hours ago, oteixeira said:

She is comparing it to the NCL Haven as that is what they normally sail.  Just trying to compare.  The bigger issue for me is not going off script on the drink menu, that would have me a lot more flustered.  I love going to the haven bar and saying "make me something fruity with rum, or make me something refreshing with fresh xyz in it".  

In your opinion. Her words, "Ok, first complaint..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[oteixeira]

8 hours ago, doghog said:

In your opinion. Her words, "Ok, first complaint..."

 

Not in my opinion, We have cruised together multiple times, we are friends in real life.  I know for a fact that she is comparing the retreat to the haven, in part because our small group of friends  wanted to know if it was a viable option for us to cruise based on our likes.  

Edited November 24, 2023 by oteixeira

[tfred]

11 hours ago, oteixeira said:

She is comparing it to the NCL Haven as that is what they normally sail.  Just trying to compare.  The bigger issue for me is not going off script on the drink menu, that would have me a lot more flustered.  I love going to the haven bar and saying "make me something fruity with rum, or make me something refreshing with fresh xyz in it".  

The ability to make off menu drinks may change in a day or two. On the first day everyone rushes the bar. One off drinks slow down the bartenders. After that it levels out. 
 

also the pictures appear to be at the central Martini Bar serving the entire ship. The Retreat bar would be more accommodating as the Haven would. 

[Sailing12Away]

Dinner menu for Luminae for tonight (last night, this didn't post for some reason) but we were still full from lunch and all the liquid lunch so we kept it simple and went to the buffet. No dinner pics, but a few of the desert options.

[Sailing12Away]

11 minutes ago, tfred said:

The ability to make off menu drinks may change in a day or two. On the first day everyone rushes the bar. One off drinks slow down the bartenders. After that it levels out. 
 

also the pictures appear to be at the central Martini Bar serving the entire ship. The Retreat bar would be more accommodating as the Haven would. 

Retreat lounge had a very limited offering last night, at least what we could see. But we will head there tonight after dinner to see if the quieter area there is more accommodating to funky requests.

 

It was just too quiet for our liking. Only 4 other people in there. No seats at the actual bar (couple we were talking to said they removed them after the renovation). Felt more like a library than a place to hang out and make friends.

 

It is just different from what we're used to. The martini bar was definitely hopping, with a 10+ min wait to get drinks. Also no wait staff walking around to take orders, so you had to go stand in line which was odd to me. Maybe just the first day chaos.

[Sailing12Away]

"Working from home" this morning with this lovely view....

 

Celebrity gurus, a few questions for you regulars. What's the difference between everyone's colored key cards? With NCL they have fancy gold ones for Haven and everyone else is marked by your status level. Is celebrity the same? I've seen gold, blue, and ours are silver. Just curious.

 

And in the room, how in the world do you turn off the bedside table lamps? Had to unplug them because we couldn't figure it out and was not about to bother the butler for something that dopey. Will ask him when he comes with breakfast, but we felt really stupid.

 

Also no plugs near the bed so had to unplug the lamp anyway to get a bedside outlet.

 

Last first world "complaint" (observation?), is there no free lotion supplied in the cabin? Or shower poof? I found 6 shower caps, but not one drop of lotion. I don't normally bring any because it's in most hotels or cruises I've been on. Just didn't know what other nooks or crannies to search in.

[cruisegirlppp]

Thank you for taking us along on your Thanksgiving cruise! I have sailed the Summit many times in the distant past and she sure looks great in your photos! Having never sailed in the Retreat I am really enjoying your photos and commentary (living vicariously). Hope you have a great time!

[tfred]

13 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

Retreat lounge had a very limited offering last night, at least what we could see. But we will head there tonight after dinner to see if the quieter area there is more accommodating to funky requests.

 

It was just too quiet for our liking. Only 4 other people in there. No seats at the actual bar (couple we were talking to said they removed them after the renovation). Felt more like a library than a place to hang out and make friends.

 

It is just different from what we're used to. The martini bar was definitely hopping, with a 10+ min wait to get drinks. Also no wait staff walking around to take orders, so you had to go stand in line which was odd to me. Maybe just the first day chaos.

Retreat bar isn’t the funky request place. Standard martinis and better quality spirits than what you would find elsewhere on the ship. 
 

In our few times on Apex the Retreat bar may get crowded before dinner for drinks and late night after a show for brandy etc. in general it was a low key experience 

 

the Martini bar could use an extra server or two 

[hasentreelake]

We are currently on Silhouette in a SV.  
There is a generous bottle of lotion in cabin.
We find the retreat lounge useful for debarkation of if needing a retreat host for something.
We also don't find Luminae or Retreat Sundeck to our liking.  We are more martini bar, craft social, pool deck and excursion 'people', so we save the $ and book the SV.  We are also now rethinking specialty dining as we have a 6 night package on this cruise and have enjoyed MDR just as much.  Will make a decision on future cruise specialty dining at the end of this cruise.

 

[hasentreelake]

58 minutes ago, tfred said:

Retreat bar isn’t the funky request place. Standard martinis and better quality spirits than what you would find elsewhere on the ship. 
 

In our few times on Apex the Retreat bar may get crowded before dinner for drinks and late night after a show for brandy etc. in general it was a low key experience 

 

the Martini bar could use an extra server or two 

We have had great luck with servers in the martini bar and craft social. 
They staff up when they expect busy and move staff around to other areas of the ship based on their 'expected' crowds.  Thanksgiving day football in Craft Social and every seat was in use.  You could see the extra servers arriving as the need went up.  
Silouhette staff has been awesome considering they are short staffed and possibly over worked.

 

[39august]

Ask your cabin steward for lotion. All cabins should have this and certainly suites. You should also have lip balm. If there is anything you want/need, ask your cabin steward or butler. They will try to comply if possible. 

[Sailing12Away]

Managed to get some work in, then wandered the ship a bit. Sorry but NCL wins for the private pool and sun deck. With them it's all contained in one area. On celebrity you have to go through all the public areas before you get to the quiet parts. Plus they have a pool, not just hot tubs.

 

Wandered a bit before our wine tasting. Pro tip: the zero proof cocktails at the sunset bar can have liquor added...

 

Major plus for celebrity is that you have hash browns for breakfast. Search the NCL boards to see how lucky you are.

 

Waved hi to our favorite NCL ship the Joy this morning as it passed by.

[Texed]

Nice pictures.  Thanks for your report.  😊

[doghog]

6 hours ago, oteixeira said:

Not in my opinion, We have cruised together multiple times, we are friends in real life.  I know for a fact that she is comparing the retreat to the haven, in part because our small group of friends  wanted to know if it was a viable option for us to cruise based on our likes.  

An observation then and not a complaint by your friend. 🙄

[oteixeira]

7 minutes ago, doghog said:

An observation then and not a complaint by your friend. 🙄

LOL.....it's a live cruise review.  The ENTIRE thing is her observations of the cruise.

[doghog]

3 minutes ago, oteixeira said:

LOL.....it's a live cruise review.  The ENTIRE thing is her observations of the cruise.

Other than her saying my first complaint. 😂

[Tyler414]

On 11/23/2023 at 2:06 PM, Sailing12Away said:

Ok, first complaint. At the martini bar and if I want two drinks I need to bring two room cards with me. Once they see the one I'd a retreat card they don't force me to go get the second one, but really? I can't get two drinks at one time?

 

Regardless, we're making good progress through the martini menu despite the snafu. Bartenders also won't go off menu at all. There was a cherry martini on a previous menu we saw but since it's not in our sailing they won't make it for us.

This is the one thing and only one thing IMO where NCL is better than Celebrity. 

[Sailing12Away]

57 minutes ago, Tyler414 said:

This is the one thing and only one thing IMO where NCL is better than Celebrity. 

NCL does the ship within a ship concept for their suites which I prefer. I don't want to have to go to multiple parts of the ship to take advantage of the perks that come with my room. Personal preference, but to us it's more conducive to forming and building friendships when it's easy to bump into new friends rather than by chance across the whole entire ship.

 

One of the main reasons we like taking cruises is for the people we meet and the stories they have to share. It's just easier when there's a central gathering spot to potentially bump into them again.

 

The wine tasting was not what we signed up for. They "ran out of space" for the one we booked so they offered us to switch to the wine & food pairing or nothing at all. We didn't book the food one because we knew I wouldn't eat most of the food (I'm a PITA with being a picky eater). The wines were very underwhelming and not even consistent from guest to guest. My first wine was nearly clear in color it was so light, hubby's glass had a distinctly yellow color. 2nd glass mine had strong fruit scents - his had nothing at all on the nose. Outside of saying which grape it was, no info was given about the actual wines we were drinking (brand, region it comes from, etc). When they said a pairing was supposed to be good it was not drinkable to me. When they said the pairing was poor, I actually enjoyed it. So either my taste buds are broken or my glasses had the wrong wine in them.

 

Lovely chat with some of our table mates after the tasting ended then new friends from yesterday saw us and invited us to join their table to chat as they finished their sushi. Lost in conversation again about future trips we're planning, then ran into MIL as she was finishing her adult coloring just outside that area. 

 

Came back to a ton of snacks in the room from the butler (NCL suffers from the same affliction, just because we tell you we enjoy xyz didn't mean we want both x, y, and z all at the same time). Tried not to overdo as we're headed to petite chef at 6.

 

Had met the director of housekeeping on the helipad yesterday and she sent flowers to our room which was a surprising nice touch.

[bEwAbG]

Many of the NCL ships have Haven rooms scattered across the ship outside of the Haven area, e.g, Joy's corner aft and forward suites and a few of the family suites.  I think Celebrity's newer class of ships does the suite within a suite area concept better than Summit in terms of co-locating all the facilities.  Summit was built in 2001 and has retrofitted facilities.  Some of its sister ships in M-Class and the next class up (S-Class) don't even have the rooftop deck areas so you only have the restaurant and separate lounge as gathering places to run into fellow suite guests.  But even on the newer builds, there aren't many rooms inside the suite area itself.

 

Re: your keycard color question: silver is for suites, gold is concierge, and blue is for other categories.  They had a dark blue and light blue at one point, but not sure if that's still the case (light blue for Aqua Class).  I believe Zenith members (top tier in loyalty club) still get a black card.  Everyone else just has the loyalty level printed on whatever card they get. 

[Sailing12Away]

Dinner at petite chef was cute, but service was off. Only had my water refilled once and asked 4 different people for more. Didn't get our cocktails until the second course, so glad we didn't pair for the wine pairings. Somaliere said it was the first time it was fully booked in the last 3 months, so maybe that played into it some. Shorter cruise, less opportunities to go. FYI, they can't customize meals. Asked for my short rib without mushrooms, it was loaded with them. Meat was too fatty for my liking, but the rest of my family enjoyed it.

 

Grabbed some vitamin waters and sodas from the lounge, toasted to a friend 🐀 (IYKYK), and now I'm back in the cabin to finish work from this morning while hubby checks out the show tonight solo.

 

8am excursion tomorrow, so early night for me. 

[May B]

Your photos are THE BEST!

 

That was a nice synopsis bEwAbG gave. Gotta love Cruise Critic and how helpful folks can be.

 

We are shocked, shocked that you didn’t find body lotion in your suite.

 

You’ve hit more than the average number of glitches in this cruise. Screwed up wine tasting, inadequate service at Le Petit Chef, aargh!

 

 

[CptBoatface]

Was it Baldurs gate 3? That hubby was playing online?

 

[Sailing12Away]

Another question for the Celebrity regulars.... I've now come to know that not all suites are considered equal in terms of what you get, but I guess I had incorrectly assumed that even the lowest Sky suite was still given butler service and some snacks and things. Was that an incorrect assumption?

 

Our room and my MIL's room are night and day in terms of the service. We hadn't been in the room much on day 1, but had a note from our butler waiting for us asking to call him so he could introduce himself and chat about our preferences. MIL had a general business card on the desk with the butler's name and phone number, but still on the evening of day 2 hasn't seen them once or heard from them. We had egregious amounts of snacks in the room this afternoon - she hasn't gotten anything at all. 

 

She doesn't need anything per se and will certainly reach out and call them if she does, but this is her first time in any type of suite and we had hyped up what the experience may be like (our fault). Outside of access to Luminae and the lounge, she has a lovely large room and that's about it. Her wheelchair can't go to the sundeck (elevator is still broken and way too many stairs for her to navigate), and even with her own room and the lounge she needs someone to hold the door open for her to get in/out (another odd thing to me, I'm used to accessible rooms having an automatic door so wheelchair users can be independent).

 

I double checked the Celebrity website and it looks to me like she should have somewhat the same type of stuff we do, so not sure if this is just another odd fluke. Amenities below are for our room and I have to laugh at some of them - but what in the world is "Stateroom Automation"? I'm spending a solid 10+ mins each morning rolling up the blinds to look out the windows.... is there a hidden button to do it for me that I haven't discovered yet? And in-suite specialty coffees.... I don't even have a coffee machine, so where in the world would one get these magical coffees from?

[Sailing12Away]

1 minute ago, CptBoatface said:

Was it Baldurs gate 3? That hubby was playing online?

 

No, I think it was something else. He's still at the show (or more likely, at a bar). I'll ask him when he's back in the room. He never brings his cell phone with him and these cabins don't have a portable room phone like NCL does.