just returned from Summit cruise 10-15 to 10-25

[cruisin'cats]

just returned from a cruise on the Celebrity Summit and was shocked to find that they were running out of some of the food on the last few days. Believe it or not, at the second seating on "Lobster Night" as we call that last formal night, they ran out of lobster tails, YES!!! Our waiter, Juan, told us that he'd gotten the last 5 (not even enough for one extra per person at our 6 top table!!!) and that there were other waiters in line behind him who couldn't even get second servings for their tables. when we asked the asst. m-d about this, he gave us a song and dance about how passengers were eating more than ever before!!! Hello, LOBSTER night and no seconds??? Is this how you run an upscale cruise line (as they like to call themselves)??? Just for laughs--guess what else they were running out of--you won't believe it. LETTUCE!!! (Those piggish passengers eating too many salads?) The waiter informed us of this at lunch before the last formal night, hence no lettuce out for salad bar at the buffet and, get this--shredded cabbage in the formal night's caesar salads--choke, choke! Otherwise, have only a few other negatives about the cruise since over all we had a good time. BUT, tell me it isn't so--Celebrity cutting costs and cutting corners in the food budget by skimping on lobster tails and lettuce??? What is the world coming to???

[llmoyer123]

keep the comments coming (how about a whole trip report????). we'll be on the 10-day summit cruise on 7 january and want to hear all you have to say!

[charlielinda]

I was also on the October 15 sailing of the Summit and have nothing but good things to say about the trip. We had absolutely no problems in the Cosmopolitan Restaurant and never saw or heard about on board that they were running out of any type of food. We were at the second seating as was the above poster and had no trouble getting seconds on lobster tails or anything else we requested. As for the salads there were consistent and we did not notice any shredded cabbage in our salads that I recall on any night. The food was no different than our other Celebrity cruises which we have always enjoyed.

 

cruisin’cats was disappointed with the food on the Summit but I could not see any cost costing in the food department or any other department of the Summit.

 

I guess the morale of the story is order you lobster early!

[llmoyer123]

what ports did you visit? what else can you tell us about your cruise and the summit?

[OCruisers]

Just for laughs--guess what else they were running out of--you won't believe it. LETTUCE!!! (Those piggish passengers eating too many salads?) The waiter informed us of this at lunch before the last formal night' date=' hence no lettuce out for salad bar at the buffet and, get this--shredded cabbage in the formal night's caesar salads--choke, choke! [/quote']

 

Did they really put shredded cabbage in the ceasar salad? :D

 

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[cruisin'cats]

YES there was shredded cabbage in our caesar salads--for the entire table of 6 of us.

as for the lobsters, it's true, and the asst. m-d said the same as well. told us that this cruise the passengers ate more than any other cruise he'd served on--and that he guessed that they didn't defrost enough lobsters for the second seating diners to have enough seconds to go around. as a matter of fact, our waiter was explicit about other waiters in line not getting seconds for their tables at all.

We were seated on the second floor at table 543 and ate in the dining room every night except one; on the third night out when we had a wonderful meal at the Normandie Restaurant. For you who are preparing to go--it's worth every single penny of the $30 per person surcharge. I highly recommend the chateaubriand for the main course, the cheese souffle for the starter, and to tell you honestly, it's a tie between the chocolate souffle and their Normandie bombe surprise specialty for dessert. Remember, however, it's only FOUR courses, unlike the dining room, but OMG, each course was better than the last! We would have gone back for another night but we came as a group and the majority felt the dining room experience was fine for the rest of the time. majority ruled. HINT--make your reservations online ASAP because the most desirable time slots fill up with online bookings prior to sailing.

I'll write about the islands if you want...St. Kitts was a waste of time--don't waste your money on the island sugar train ride ($90 a person I think it was). We were the lucky ones--we sat in the upper level and were able to see above the sugar cane, which was everywhere as far as the eye could see. The rest of the sights consisted of goats, cows, sugar cane, garbage along the tracks and in the streams, some smiling and friendly waving locals, some fog and rain filled clouds low over the volcano cone mountains, and more goats, cows and sugar cane. did i mention goats and cows galore? you get the picture. Now, why were we the LUCKY ones? because the afternoon tour on the train got stuck in a mudslide (it started pouring as our train ride ended and theirs began) and the ship was held up for an hour and a half while those 150 poor souls had to be rescued and brought back to the ship. If any of you were amongst those, I hope you got your money back and I surely wonder if you'd ever visit St. Kitts again. St. Lucia was nice, have been there before so didn't tour but shopped and took ferry across the bay to have a wonderful lunch at a place highly rec'd by locals (can't recall the name sorry). Barbados was nice, second time there but first time taking a tour of the place. A/C bus was a plus because it was raining but it's a lovely place to see. Sun was shining by the time we got back to the Mothership so we enjoyed the pools the rest of the day. St. Maarten--wonderful place, been there many, many times either from ships or staying there! We planned on going to Fr. side to Marigot but opted instead to do shopping. (Beware lots of construction on the street in prep for high season tourists.) Better pricing than St. Thomas at Boolshands where we bought a camera that we'd been pricing online for months. St. Thomas, aka the Mall of the Caribbean, also many times visited so we went off the beaten track when shopping (really, go down some of those little alley ways--nice stores, restaurants, and merchants who take the time to talk to you and not pressure you--don't be afraid to see what the local jewellers sell instead of trying to buy yet another David Yurman piece that you'll see coming and going once you get home. We found a restaurant called Gloria's (I think, I know it was a girl's G name) down Royal Dane Alley and the food was great! Don't insist on eating only on the ship--most people do--they figure they've paid for their meals and don't try local fare. Pity them. A Penny Saved is an Experience Missed.

My shipboard experience was good overall--service was good, staff was good, Simon is great (we go way back with Simon to the second Millennium sailing in the Baltic), and the ship is beautiful. One complaint: to get from one end of a public deck to another, in many, many cases, you have to walk through smoke filled bars and areas and that just killed me, esp. since I had a horrible cold (that turned into an infected sinus by the time I got home--still on antibiotics, thank you!). Several of my companions wrote of this in our evaluations and hope Celebrity listens and figures out a way to make more areas non-smoking so that we can all get along before the cancer sticks take effect. Hmmm...I think that's about it. I hope you enjoy the ship--the cabins are functional, showers are bigger than they were when we first started sailing 15 years ago (I once got a ship-shape tee shirt for deep knee bends [to pick up my soap] in the shower on Song of Norway back in '89!), and having a 'veranda' or balcony as we call it, is worth every penny too--in the middle of the night, it's all YOUR ocean as far as you can see. Feeling like that is priceless.

as for my fellow passenger who got all the lobster s/he wanted--congrats to you--but don't you think it's silly that one should have to 'order early' on a ship that is supposed to be able to accommodate your needs and wants at a premium price? i mean, it's not like a flu shot lottery--i paid for the same lobsters you did, shouldn't i have had them? come on, don't get prickly about it--who are you--a stockholder??? ;-)

[brigittetom]

Is it just possible that on your cruise more people ordered second helpings of the lobster tail than on many other cruises. I have never once been seated at a large table where the whole table wanted more than one tail. Just a thought.

[cruisin'cats]

Ah, but we've been on other ships where we informed the waiters that we LOVE lobster and have been assured that there will be many lobsters to love come lobster night...once we had a waiter who, without asking mind you, presented us with a plate of lobster tails--and our party of 6 joined the Clean Plate Club, much to our waiter's delight. Our tips showed our appreciation and also delighted the gentleman at the end of our cruise.

On the night before the formal night on the Summit, our waiter had informed us that, should we wish to have more than one lobster--as he assured us many people do--we could inform him of that but that he was obligated to only bring one lobster per person initially and upon serving that lobster plate return for extras. When he served us, he told us that we'd better order as many as we thought we'd want because they were running low on the things as he spoke. We all just ordered one more each and, like I've written, there weren't even enough left for each of the six of us to have a second one. Since we were sure our waiter wasn't lying about running out, we sought the asst. m-d and questioned him about this and, as I've written, his answer was as I've said, confirming our waiter's concerns.

[brigittetom]

Cats, Except for the last part, what you just described is exactly what we have experienced on our cruises also. :confused:

[Ma Bell]

I'm sure it must have been an abberation. We've been on 17 Celebrity cruises and never once seen them run out of anything. We always sit at a table of 6 or 8 and I don't think I've ever seen the whole table even order the lobster much less two each. Seems like you must have had a real lobster eating group on this particular cruise. I was on Infinity in August and Constellation in October and no problem.