Cruise Review: Reflection 11 day Eastern Med Oct 21, 2013 sailing

Table of Contents

Preamble

Traveler Profile

Planning and Booking our Trip

Trip Review: Weeks/Days Leading Up to the Trip - Issues

Trip Review: Vacation Begins & Pre-Cruise in Venice and Florence

Cruise Review: Reflection 11 day Eastern Mediterranean out of Rome

Trip Review: Post-Cruise in Barcelona

Overall Cruise Summary

Appendix

Cruise Artifacts

We returned from a generally successful fall vacation in Europe that centred around our cruise on the October 21st sailing of Celebrity Reflection’s 11 day eastern Mediterranean itinerary. Even though X’s 2013 Mediterranean cruise season is over, I hope that as we were able to glean info from Cruise Critic’s boards over the last year to help plan our trip, that our review has some relevant info that people can take snippets of to help plan their cruises in 2014.

However, I do want to specifically caution that things obviously change and what may have worked for us may not work for you. Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV)! [Plus, I’m prone to typo’s and mistakes so please challenge me on things that do not make sense.] :D

I’ve tried to post and outline the review in a specific way so people can find info they are looking for and skip info that they might not be interested in. Hope the format is helpful but you can’t please everyone! I’ve also tried to limit the “vacation” pictures and focus on ones that are more informational.

Just to give context to our travel perspective and our decision process...

We are Wendy (mid 30’s) & Jason (early 40’s) from Vancouver, Canada. No kids. We are in good health for being office desk jockeys. While we travel fairly regularly, we are no means experts as we still make silly mistakes regularly. Among other places (primarily Asia), we’ve each been to (various parts of western) Europe about seven times primarily for land vacation with the exception of Wendy who was on Norwegian Jade in February 2013 with her sister on a similar eastern Mediterranean itinerary. [They found an amazing deal, while I was in Vegas with friends, that they couldn’t pass up and I couldn’t go on because of work commitments.]

While we’ve been on a handful of cruises [outlined in my signature], we generally try to only cruise once every two years to keep cruising “a treat” and to allow us a more flexible itinerary that a cruise generally cannot offer. Conversely, we also use cruising an easy means to easily sample places in a region that we may not necessarily want to commit to with a land vacation (which obviously come with its own challenges). In general, we like the larger ships with more bells and whistles.

We consider ourselves pretty low key, do it yourself (DIY) budget/value travellers that will splurge occasionally. We prefer exploring rather than lounge around the pool or a beach all day. We’re somewhat foodies (so be prepared for some food pr0n in the review).

In addition to us, for this trip, we travelled with another couple (N&H) who we’ve known for years. However, this was their first time Europe. It was also N’s first cruise and H’s first cruise in about 10 years so they gave us some additional perspective.

Why did we choose this itinerary?

We enjoyed cruising on Equinox a lot. Loved the ship, amenities, activities, service, etc. Since our last cruise, we’ve talked about our next cruise being the Mediterranean; and in particular, sampling Greece and Turkey. So, even though Wendy was doing a similar itinerary in February, I kind of “guilted” her into doing this cruise with the added benefit of the additional stops that she did not hit: Santorini and Mykonos.

In general, we do like longer cruises because with the seven day cruises, it feels like you are just getting into the groove of things and then it’s all over. But cruise length is obviously situation dependent also.

I also wanted to cruise on Reflection because it was a Solstice class ship and the newest ship in the fleet. In hindsight, choosing Reflection was a bit risky because of the potential impact caused by configuration changes, namely: Additional cabins/Increased maximum occupancy, the Alcoves, replacing the Hot Glass Show with Lawn Club Grill, replacing the Quasar disco with conference rooms, halving the Sky Lounge to make room for the Reflection and Signature suites, etc. [i discuss my perception of the impacts in the review.]

Also, I also somewhat regret selecting an 11 day itinerary instead of a 12 day itinerary which left a cruise credit for Captain’s Club status on the table (before they introduc.

We chose a mid-October itinerary because: (1) the prices were generally cheaper and (2) we still have a very good opportunity for good weather in our ports of call.

Cruise and Destination Research

We did not do a lot of research for this trip since Wendy went on a similar itinerary in February and because we were lazy. Our main reference guides were:

• We used Cruise Critic obviously as our primary reference tool. Special thanks to TMLAalum (Barb) for the helpful info she provided to us, cruiseguys2009’s (JW & Jerome) review, librarylady19’s (Sandi) review.
  
• Being DIY’er we always bring a guidebook. Our guidebook of choice was Rick Steves' Mediterranean Cruise Ports.
  
• We searched out blogs to see what others were doing
  
• There were a few detailed travel websites we found handy: http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/index.html, http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/, etc.
  

Cruise Booking

We booked this cruise late December 2012 with our cruise Travel Agent (TA). Normally we book our own land based vacation travel but due to the possibility of perks and sale info, we usually book our cruises with a TA. Our TA is essentially part of a franchise of a larger travel booking chain. Celebrity was offering (1) $300 onboard credits (OBC) and (2) free gratuities at the time. In addition, our TA was able to (1) get us a decent rate for a specific 1C balcony cabin because of the block booking her company does, (2) give us an additional $75 OBC, and (3) give us 1,199 Aeroplan points.

The tradeoffs…

Our TA advised us that in January (during “Wave season”), X was going to roll out the Pick your Perk promotion with essentially the same OBC and gratuities perks currently being offered but with the third free alcoholic beverage package perk. Because we were cruising in Europe, would could pick two out of the three. We decided to pass waiting for Pick your Perk to swap out the gratuities with the beverage package because: (1) we’re generally not heavy drinkers, (2) the itinerary was pretty port intensive so between being in port & prepping for port days, we probably would not have a lot of time to drink anyways, and (3) we felt the OBC’s would cover enough of our drinks so that we wouldn’t be stuck with a huge bill at the end. And, for what it’s worth (FWIW) we could still buy a pro-rated drink package later in the cruise if we wanted to drink ourselves silly the last few days.

The other tradeoff we had to consider was that we had an Open Passages future cruise booking that came with OBC’s which we had put a deposit down on our previous Equinox cruise. However, we were told we were not allowed to combine the perks of the Open Passages booking (we mainly wanted the additional OBC’s) with the the perk the TA’s travel company was giving. Not happy but we accepted the fact and just took the $75 OBC w/ Aeroplan points instead.

Post Booking Pricing Observations

A few months later, our travel agency changed their own perk from the $75 OBC and Aeroplan points to giving you the third X Pick your Perk. Ie. We could have gotten the drink package instead of the $75 OBC and Aeroplan points which I felt would have been better value.

We did talk to our TA about it but were told it was for new bookings only, etc, etc. That was not a complete dissatisfier but it definitely did not make us top 2 box score on a the satisfaction scale ;) since we would have liked our TA to got to bat for us on such situations.

Also, our travel agency had a promo in the spring where they threw in the third perk on top of the two X gave for European itineraries.

The pricing of our cruise held pretty steady to final payment. Post final payment, there were a number of certain types of price drops. Our cruise (1) showed up on the Tuesday deals, (2) there were senior specials, and of most interest to us, (3) the price of the guaranteed cabin categories dropped quite a bit while specific cabin bookings held pretty steady.

The reason why the third point was of most interest to us was that, generally speaking, we don’t really care to book a specific cabin. And in addition, AQ class guaranteed dropped below what we paid for our regular balcony cabin, we saw Concierge guarantee $400 cheaper, and suite guarantees were within spitting distance. We could have paid a little bit more to upgrade but we were told we would have lost our perks so we did not think the tradeoff was worth it.

Lesson learned: For future cruises (situation dependent of course), I think we’re more inclined to book last minute (ie post final payment), because we’re pretty flexible in our cabin selection and we generally cruise during shoulder season where there’s likely to be deals.

What about the tradeoff in terms of waiting to book airfare? It’s difficult to compare apples to apples because we booked an unconventional open jaw flight for this trip. But we ended up paying approximately $875 for our flight to Europe from Vancouver (just get us to the continent and back, not including regional transportation while over there) while we were seeing flights to Italy post final payment at just under $1100. The day before we left, flights to Rome jumped to $1700.

Basically, there’s a number of factors to consider if you’ll come out ahead booking past final payment.

Flight Bookings

Transatlantic

We booked our flight in February during a two day KLM seat sale where many carriers matched pricing. The seat sale had a wide range of dates throughout the year from Vancouver to Venice (VCE), Barcelona (BCN), and Prague for approximately $875 tax in [which I think is great for a scheduled carrier out of Vancouver to Europe]. We decided to extend our vacation with a pre-cruise stay in Venice (and Florence), which would also serve as buffer to prevent us from missing our cruise due to unforeseen transatlantic travel delay circumstances, and post-cruise stay in Barcelona. [Wendy and her sister had gone to Prague in 2012 so she didn’t want to repeat it.]

I called our TA to give her the opportunity to book the flight for us if there was any profit for her in doing so but she indicated that the flight was a great deal and that there wouldn’t be any benefit for her booking it. So we ended up booking the Transatlantic flight ourselves.

In the end we chose to book with Lufthansa (which would have repercussions later in the trip) directly off their website because we have never flown with them & wanted to try them out and we were hoping we could get some Aeroplan points out of it since they are a Star Alliance partner (how, I think with the seat sale, the ticket class likely did not include any frequent flyer points).

People had suggested using Choice Air. We didn’t fully investigate this option other than doing some cursory searches and price comparisons. Because we didn’t completely understand the workings of Choice Air, we likely didn’t investigate it as much as we should have.

In future, we’ll likely explore Choice Air more as an option.

Rome to Barcelona

Post cruise, we wanted to book a direct flight from Rome (FCO) to BCN. Alitalia had direct flights but was pretty pricey and we did not love their times so we searched out a low cost carrier (LCC). We didn’t want to fly Ryanair. Easyjet didn’t fly the route The best option appeared to be Vueling but they didn’t have any flights scheduled for FCO to BCN November onwards, and of course we returned to Civitavecchia on November 1! So we held off booking this leg hoping for a miracle. And miraculously in June, Vueling flights for that segment in November started appearing.

The problem though was that there was (1) a 9:45am flight which we thought we “definitely” could not make, (2) 10:40am flight which would be tight, and (3) a 5pm flight which would cause us to figure out what to do to kill the time until the flight. We decided to book the 10:40am flight because reviews indicated that it was quite doable since:

- The last leg of the cruise was a short trip from Naples to Rome with the ship expected to be back in port early (5am?) November 1.

- Self disembarkation typically starts at 6:30am

- The drive from Civitavecchia to FCO generally takes an hour according to Google Maps. It was also a stat holiday in Italy (All Saints Day) so traffic should be light.

We felt we could get to the airport by 8am which would be more than 2.5hours prior to our flight which we felt was reasonable. The price per person was approximately 95E for their Optima class ticket which included one free checked luggage.

Miscellaneous Bookings

Train from Venice to Florence to Civitavecchia

We were going to book the train tickets to work our way down from Venice to Florence to Civitavecchia while in Italy. We did not feel this would be an issue since we were pretty flexible in our travel times.

Excursions and Tours

Rick Steves’ guide indicated that pretty much all the ports of call we visiting could be best done on our own with the possible exception of Ephesus in Kusadasi due to the distance involved in getting there.

During Wendy’s February trip, she used Ephesus Shuttle to get from her port of call, Izmir, to get to Ephesus and highly recommended it for N&H and me. So we booked Ephesus Shuttle for three (Wendy didn’t want to go again) @ $39USD/person in early October and received a prompt reply.

Civitavecchia to FCO Transfer

Normally we would probably train it from the port to the airport but because of our early flight, we had to book a transfer. We chose Rome Cabs (RC), even though they were one of the pricier options @ 150E for four people (cheaper for two), because of their flawless reviews. If we had a bit more flexibility in our transfer, we would have looked at other options such a Bob’s Limos or grabbing a taxi at the entrance to the port.

We also booked Rome Cabs in the first week of October but in hindsight, that might have been foolish waiting so long because some people on our cruise that tried to book after us indicated that RC replied they were full for the day and could not accept them.

One last note is to read the instructions carefully when booking with RC. Make sure you get a reply indicating that they are accepting your booking AND you need to click on a link in their reply to indicate that you received their booking confirmation. Yeah, it’s a bit convoluted but it helps make sure things are confirmed.

Hotels

We booked our Venice hotel via Cross Pollinate, a website by a couple in Rome that runs their own hotel and acts an intermediary for other hotels in other cities that meet their standards.

We booked our Florence hotel directly off the hotel website.

We booked our Barcelona hotel via Priceline.

Additional Travel Preparation

Cell Phone

Making voice calls and using data while on a cruise ship and while roaming in different countries is pretty expensive using roaming so we looked at a variety of options and ended up using Europasim. We think it is a business out of someone’s basement in Germany that sells Italy Vodaphone sim cards on a prepaid plan. We cannot find the plan on Vodaphone Italy’s website so they might have some kind of grandfathered plan or special access.

In a nutshell… We Paypal’ed them 39E for the sim. They ship you the sim, which arrived for me in about 2 weeks. You have to email them a copy of your passport so they can register your sim. The sim comes with 5E preloaded on it. You can add additional credit off of Vodaphone Italy’s website (use Google Translate) or directly via your phone while travelling.

Our main goal was to have data connectivity and use data & IP based messaging for communications. For 3E per day, you get 500MB of data per day (beyond 500MB, the speed just gets severely reduced but not cut off). In Italy, the rate is 2E per day for 500MB but you have to pay after you go beyond 500MB. (For comparison’s sake, my plan in Vancouver gives me 2000MB per month so 500MB for a day should be plenty.)

Tethering and VOIP are supported but you have to pay more to tether (learned that the hard way!).

This was not completely easy to set up. You have to make sure you choose the right sim size, make sure your phone is unlocked, make sure your phone works on the bands in Europe, unlock your sim in addition to unlocking your phone any time you restart your phone, need to change your APN on your phone, etc.

Skype

We bought a one month subscription for unlimited calling to Canada and the US for $2.99. Combined with the data plan we had on our phones and any wifi hotspots we could find, we could make calls home essentially for free.

Insurance

We did not buy any travel health insurance because both our employers provide the coverage we needed, particularly any catastrophic events.

We did not buy any travel delay or interruption insurance because our credit card provided limited coverage and we were willing to assume risks and costs associated with unforeseen circumstances.

Our friends N&H bought additional coverage and it has paid out for them in the past.

A month before our cruise, we received a notification from Vueling that they had moved our flight departing Rome from 10:40am to 10:20am.

We contacted Vueling to see if we had the option to rebook the flight due to the change in times but they were not agreeable to this since the change was only 20mins.

This had me somewhat worried but realistically, I calculated that we would be at the airport by 8am and I felt being at the airport 2hr20min before the flight was more than enough. My other option would have been to contact Rome Cabs to pick us up before 7am, but that would have cost an additional 10E.

In addition, leading up to the trip departure on Thursday Oct 17 (arriving on Friday), we found out that a general strike in Italy was scheduled for Friday October 18 and would likely impact flights in & out of Italy and transportation around the country. We were flying YVR to Frankfurt (FRA) and then only had a 70 minute connection to Venice (VCE). Calling into Lufthansa’s customer service twice leading up to our departure, they had no information they could give us. They only suggested keeping an eye their Facebook page (or subscribe to their twitter) for any updates. In the event that our flight to Venice was confirmed to be impacted, we apparently had the option to change our flight dates for free and so we prepped to leave on Wednesday instead of Thursday (by giving notice to our employers) .

Because we had no way of confirming if we would be able to make it into Venice and would have had to forfeit our first (and only night) if we couldn’t make it there (even due to a strike), we decided to cancel our Venice hotel booking and then then wing it if we indeed made it there.

Thursday Oct 17 - Vancouver to Frankfurt

Flying out on a Thursday afternoon, we still did not know if the general strike in Italy was going to affect our flight into Venice. On their website, KLM had already started cancelling some flights into Italy but still no info on Lufthansa’s website or Facebook page.

We arrived at YVR around 2pm. The night before, we checked in online so we got to go to the baggage drop off line which was slightly shorter than the main check in line and met N&H who were already in line. Everything else to boarding was unmemorable other than Security where taking the Nexus lane got us through 5 minutes faster than N&H.

Boarding our flight was a zoo because they had two checkpoints. The main checkpoint was the one we are all used to where you showing your boarding pass (and passport) before boarding. However, they had a secondary checkpoint before the boarding pass check to check passports; instead of doing it all at once. The problem was that everyone was bottlenecking at the passport check. Even though boarding was starting from the rear (after people needing more time and biz class), people that had seats in the rear had a tough time making it through this mass of people crowding the the passport check.

Eventually we did get on the plane and the flight was good even though we did leave 10mins late. We were on an Airbus 340-600 that was configured in a 2-4-2 seating configuration. Legroom was ok and we surprisingly didn’t have any problems with overhead cabin space. One interesting feature on the plane is that the washrooms were down a flight stairs in the middle of the plane. You walk down the stairs to an area with multiple washrooms. However, it did cause a bit of congestion in the area so I would suggest trying to sit away from the stairs leading to the washrooms. Actually, one more interesting feature Lufthansa has is in-flight Internet access for a fee of course. If we weren’t trying to get some sleep to beat jetlag, we’d probably consider using it.

We were served two meals (dinner with a chicken & a pasta option and breakfast with an omelette type eggs meal), one after takeoff and one before landing, that were pretty forgettable. I did not eat much since a jetlag prevention technique I use is to start eating meals on European time the day of departure. Service on the flight was fairly good. Movie selection was ok (I watched parts of the Interns & the Hangover 3) but for the most part, I was trying to sleep to get acclimatized to European time.

Friday Oct 18 - Frankfurt to Venice

We arrived in Frankfurt 10mins late. Because of our tight original 70min (now 60min because of the delay) connection, we had to scramble to make our connection to Venice (let alone knowing if our luggage was going to make it). Knowing our connection was going to be tight, we researched connections in FRA airport on Flyertalk prior to our trip. Basically, the suggestion was just follow the signs and not overthink anything. Again, worst case scenario (strike aside), we had previously confirmed that if we missed our connection, Lufthansa would just put us on the next next flight (if there was room) which was a couple of hours later.

However, by the stairway shortly after exiting the plane, there were Lufthansa/FRA(?) employees that were gathering passengers with connections to Venice and Abu Dhabi. All told, there were ~20 of us with a short connection. We were guided down a separate service elevator and jumped on bus that took us to a different part of the airport. After getting off the bus, the Lufthansa/FRA employees guided us up a number of escalators to a security check where they left us. Because of our tight connection, we were directed to the business class line (less than a dozen people in it) which was great since the regular line was super long. However, it took FOREVER to get through security. I’m not sure where the bottleneck was but it seemed to be that they were taking forever to scan belongings through the xray machine. To make matters worse, H was randomly pulled off to the side to have her tablet swabbed for explosives. Wendy and I left N&H at security to run to the gate to see if we could slow them down and wait for N&H. Along the way, we had to pass through passport control which was pretty quick. Our flight was leaving at gate A30 and yes, that ended up being a sweaty, exhausting 30 gate run to A30; at least we didn’t have to run to gate A42. And N&H showed up just a few mins after us.

Turns out our flight to Venice was delayed due to the strike and we would get information about 40 minutes later at 1pm. That was great news on a number of fronts because (1) we didn’t miss our flight and (2) our flight wasn’t cancelled due to the strike. On the departures window, we saw flights from noon to 1pm cancelled to Rome, Florence, Milan, Turin, and Bologna. Interestingly, a number of pax didn’t realize there was a general strike in Italy. Though in their defence, it didn’t seem like major news with a lot of info on it so you had to search it out.

Quick thoughts about Frankfurt airport: It’s big and sprawling. I would still book a tight 70min connection but only if I knew I could easily jump on the next flight if I missed the original. The A wing of the terminal was quite nice with a number of retail outlets, food options, etc. There was also free 30mins of wifi. This is compared to the C gate wing which was pretty barren as I describe on our return flight.

Shortly past 1pm, they made the announcement that our flight was going ahead [Yay!]. The only interesting thing of note was that one couple thought they were on this flight but they were actually on the later flight (?!?) and weren’t allowed to board our flight of course. Other than that, the flight to Venice was a short hop; just over an hour. Sitting on the right side of the plane, we had a nice view of the Alps during the flight and were able to see Venice and the other islands upon landing.

Friday Oct 18 - Venice Day 1

Once in Venice Marco Polo airport, while waiting for our luggage, we popped in the Europasim sim cards into our phones and bingo, we had data on our phones! Having cancelled our hotel room, we wanted to stay close to the train station so that we wouldn’t have to lug our luggage too far. We started doing a cursory search for rooms on the Booking.com app and found a number of reasonably priced options (relatively speaking for Vencie that is).

Next order of business was how to get to Venice since the strike impacted a number of transportation options. We ended up taking the ATVO bus to Piazzale Roma which is a square just past the causeway at the entrance of Venice and just a pedestrian bridge away from the train station. We bought tickets at the ticket windows just to the left as you exit the luggage claim. Tickets were 6E a person. Don’t forget to validate them at the yellow machine on the concrete pillar before boarding the bus. Just follow the signs out the airport for the bus area. The ATVO buses are coach buses where you store your luggage below. It was a comfortable 30min ride into Venice with some traffic on the causeway.

For the next hour or so, we wandered up and down the streets near the train station using Google Maps, searching out hotel options in that area that booking.com said had vacancies. We checked out about three places and finally settled on Alloggi Agli Artisti which Wendy was able to get another 10E knocked off for two doubles with private bathrooms for us and N&H. Final price was 100E per night per room plus 3E? city tax which ended up cheaper than the place we originally booked. The hotel was only ok (free wifi, 4th floor room w/ no lift, limited towels, limited power outlets, lumpy bed, some street noise, etc). Biggest complaint: mosquitos in the room that got me a few times (Wendy was scott free). Checked in at 5pm.

That night we just wandered up and down the canals. We tried to find a place to eat using the EatVenice app by Elizabeth Minchilli but literally the half dozen places that we were interested in checking out were closed at the time we tried visiting them over the 24hrs we were in Venice. Instead, we first ended up grabbing cicchetti and spritz at a Trattoria Bar Pontini. It was a random restaurant selection as it looked busy with locals. The bar staff were friendly to us and the food hit the spot for N&H who were going to kill me if I didn’t finally stop and pick a place to grab a bite.

The second place we went to was Tappa Obbligatoria. It was another a random selection other than it looked busy and we wanted to sit at a table on the street. Looking at reviews now, they look a bit mixed with a lot of people complaining about service but our server was working really hard running back and forth, serving us nicely when we flagged her down. However, we did end up grabbing our own plates of complimentary snacks from the bar though. The food was just ok. We also accomplished our goal of trying a bellini which is basically a peach based sparkling wine beverage that originated in Venice. We were a bit disappointed because the drink wasn’t what we were expecting. The bellinis we have in Vancouver are a “bastardized” version that combines the peachy sparkling wine flavour into a slushee type concoction. Along the way, to the Rialto Bridge and St. Marks, we ran into a Grom outlet for gelato which is a popular chain.

Side comment: During our first visit to Venice ~10 years ago we didn’t have the greatest food experiences (expensive and subpar) and it kind of left me wary in terms of what to expect this go around. However, I really enjoyed the cicchetti and bar experience during this trip with the only regret that we didn’t have a chance to have one proper sit down meal while being armed with the Eat Venice guide and the Internet at my disposal on my phone.

The Rialto Bridge area was fairly busy even at night but had a beautiful views of the canal. St. Mark’s Square was great at night; limited crowds and a number of orchestras playing. It took over 30mins to hoof it back to our hotel because the vaporettos weren’t running (or had extremely limited service) because of the strike. Google Maps was excellent in terms of navigating us through all the laneways back to our hotel. We eventually made it back at 10:30pm.

Saturday Oct 19 - Venice Day 2

The next day, we checked out but left our luggage at the hotel. We split from N&H who left for Rome early in the day. Wendy and I bought 12hr Vaporetto day passes, hopped on a line 1 boat at Piazzale Roma area, grabbed seats in the open air back of the boat, and cruised the length of the Grand Canal to Lido Island. We did this “cruise” on a previous trip at night and it is one of my favourite things to do in Venice.

On Lido, we did a mini circuit from one side of Lido to the other (thin side of course) and back. We bought some water at a grocery store, visited a beach, and were ready to head back. One our way back, Carnival Sunshine was just heading into port which was quite the sight sailing by the Grand Canal. We hopped off before St Mark’s to visit “a floating market” listed in EatVenice near via Garibaldi. It was a single boat selling produce off of it. Interesting but meh. There were other vendors on land but the whole market itself was disappointing. The area was quite nice though as it was bustling yet away from the tourist hoards.

St. Mark’s Square (and even walking there) was a madhouse during the day. We were going to line up to go into the basilica but I had my backpack with me and I had to check it so we skipped it.

Next stop were the veg & fish markets near the Rialto Bridge. We took a vaporetto which stopped essentially beside the market. This was more interesting with more vendors and activity than the floating market. We were starting to get hungry and looked for over half an hour for this place listed in EatVenice (Pronto Pesce). After walking by it a half dozen times, we finally ID’ed it and yep, it was closed for the rest of October. [Does Venice have sign laws where you can’t put the name of your establishment above the entrance or something? :D] When all else fails, eat at the busy location so we went a few doors down and had cicchetti and spritz at a hopping corner establishment. It was good, fun, and cheap (12.50E for five cicchetti and two spritz). Before leaving the area, we picked up six (Chinese made) fridge magnets (our souvenir of choice) at a shop on the Rialto Bridge (of all places for a deal?!?) for 5E combined.

Our last activity in Venice was to visit Murano which was basically door after door of glass shops. At the prices we were seeing, my lesson learned is if you like glass art and have a chance to bid on the pieces being sold at the auctions on the ships with hot glass shows, do it! Although we were expecting Murano to be fairly quiet, there were A LOT of tourists walking around. After walking around for an hour and a bit ourselves, we decided to head back and make our way to Florence.

Saturday Oct 19 - Florence Day 1

We caught the 6:25pm train to Roma Termini which stopped in Firenze. Tickets cost 45E each and we ended up being them at a ticket window instead of the self serve machine because we couldn’t confirm if we were selecting seats beside each other. Other than being 10mins late it was an uneventful 2hr trip to Florence. NOTE: I would pretty much always factor in your train being late in Italy.

Again, not wanting to drag our luggage too far since we were going to have to wake up early to train it to Civitavecchia on Monday, we had previously booked Casa Billi Guesthouse which was a 10min walk from the train station. The place was fine and the owners friendly. There were mosquitos in the room again?!? The location was excellent though because it was just the right distance from the train, a block away from the San Lorenzo market, and an easy walk to the Duomo and Ponte Vecchio.

We’ve been to Florence twice before so we didn’t bother hitting up some of the bigger attractions like the Uffizi or the Accademia.

After getting settled in, we wanted to see if we could get into Mercato Centrale to do some quick shopping and find a quick bite at one of the places we’ve eaten at during previous trips to Florence. Unfortunately the market was closed so we headed to another restaurant we had on our list: Del Fagioli. We used Google Maps to guide us there, stopping by the Duomo and Piazza della Signoria along the way. One thing that caught our eye when we were nearly at Del Fagioli was a small street where a lot of people were eating sandwiches and drinking wine outside the establishments. We took note of the area thinking we would return the next night to find a place to eat there. Turned out that Del Fagioli was closed (!?!) so we headed to Trattoria Anita a few blocks away where we had good and fun meal on a previous trip. Being a bit wishy washy we decided to go back to the street where there a were crowds spilling out onto the street.

We choose to grab a sandwich at the busiest place which turned out to be All’antico Vinaio. Apparently there are great reviews of this place online but we didn’t know that at the time. The selection at that time of day was essentially sandwiches, cicchetti, and wine. We didn’t know what to order but didn’t want to hold up the line so we just told them to build two sandwiches of their choice for us with two glasses of red wine. One sandwich had prosciutto while the other had a minced-like meat and was pretty fatty. Cost was 15E. We just sat on the curb like everyone else and munched on our yummy meaty sandwiches, sipping wine, and dodging the cars that still drove down this street. The sandwiches were good (not spectacular) but the overall experience was great.

Final activity of the day was to grab a gelato from the Florence outlet of Grom and sit at the carousel at Piazza della Repubblica.

Sunday Oct 20 - Florence Day 2

Wendy loves her baked goods in the morning so I googled options for bakeries and came up with Focacceria Pugi. It looked to be a chain but the reviews were good so off we went for a 10 minute walk to one of the closer outlets. And our luck continued as our targeted location and a nearby location were both closed. Google Maps has been great in terms of navigating to our destinations but their supplementary info (like hours of operations) has let us down a few times.

Unfortunately, as we were getting hungry, we broke down and just grabbed a snack of mcnuggets at a McDonalds we passed on the way to Pugi.

The next order of business was to roam the San Lorenzo Market for a little of shopping. My main goal was to find some scarves to give away to coworkers. Wendy thought the quality has gone down from ones purchased on previous trips but I still wanted to get a few. We were able to grab 6 for 28E.

After a quick stop in the Duomo (which had a really short line up), we headed to Mercato del Porcellino to check out the merchandise there and to rub the boar’s nose. We didn’t do serious shopping here since we bought most of what we wanted around San Lorenzo and the pricing here seemed a touch higher.

We wanted to cross the Arno so we heading towards Ponte Vecchio. But we had two pitstops first. The first pitstop was to take a picture of the gelato place that Wendy’s sister, on a previous trip with us, paid 9E for two scoops of gelato so we could email the pic to torment her. :D

The second stop was at Carapina Gelato which we read was one of the best gelato places in Florence. It was very good with seasonal fruit mixed into some of their gelatos. And Wendy said the cone was exceptionally good. Pricing was 2.5E for the regular size (two flavours) which was on par with Grom but more expensive than the 1.5E at other places. Worth it IMO.

Across the Arno, Wendy and I decided to check out Boboli Gardens. However, by the time we got there, it was near closing time so we decided not to go in. We just made a bit of loop and eventually headed back across St Trinity Bridge, west of Ponte Vecchio. Along the way, we ran into an organic farmers market where we bought some soap and pesto.

Tonight’s dinner was going to be at Acqua Al 2 (which apparently has a location in San Diego and in Washington DC ?!?) which had good reviews but apparently has started to be mobbed by tourists. We didn’t make reservations so got there about 10mins after opening. Sure enough, we were seated by five groups of tourists but met this neat couple from Long Island.

Overall, the food and experience was decent. They start you off with a complimentary appetizer that came with a with a white bean spread (delicious) and a diced tomato spread (kind of like bruschetta). We shared an Assaggio di Primi which consisted of five different, house selected sampler-sized pasta dishes and an Assaggio di Secondi which consisted of a house select sampler-sized beef dishes. The pasta was good variety; simple & good but nothing to write home about. The beef sampler consisted of three versions, a small medallion covered in a peppercorn sauce, another small medallion covered in a blueberry sauce (you heard that right), and a slices in a tart. The beef overall was very tender. The peppercorn version (which I usually don’t order) was delicious, the blueberry sauce version was ok, and the tart version was also only ok which was a bit disappointing because I was high expectations for it. Service was helpful and friendly. If you don’t mind a somewhat touristy experience, Acqua Al 2 is a safe choice.

Last order of the day was to head to the train station to buy tix to Civitavecchia for the next morning. Because we wanted to try to get to the ship by around 10:30-11:00am, we had to catch a 7:30am train. We didn’t want to wake up early and scramble to buy tix. Unfortunately, the ticket window was closed at that time so we had to use a self serve machine. Again, picking the trains we wanted was easy, however we had trouble selecting seats beside each other for some reason. We just played with it a bit and kind of hoped for the best.

Tip: There are some machines that take credit card only on a few machines that actually take cash. Pick the right one before you start the buying process :D.

Off to bed for the big day tomorrow.

Firenze SMN to Roma Termini

We were woken up around 4am to some intense thundershowers and were pretty much up the rest of the night. We ended up checking out (just left our keys at the unattended front desk) at 6:30am and walked to the train station. Even though it was pretty wet out, it wasn’t raining. This was the closest that we got to bad weather on our entire trip. The weather really worked out for us for the entire trip.

We got to the train station wayyy too early and ended up having to kill an hour because our train was 15mins late. This cut into our 30min connection for our Roma Termini to Civitavecchia train but it wasn’t a showstopper if we missed the connection since there were frequent trains for the Rome to Civitavecchia route. There was another option from Florence to Civitavecchia along the coast which might have been more scenic but we weren’t as comfortable with the connections and backup options.

Most of the benches in the waiting area were occupied by the homeless so we just waited in the train area. There were some food options in the station that were open and pretty busy. I broke down again and got a sausage mcmuffin w/ egg at McDonalds.

The train finally arrived and it was a pretty uneventful trip to Roma Termini. Funnily, without coordinating ahead of time, N&H booked the same train from Roma Termini to Civitavecchia as us so we were going to meet them at the station; otherwise, we were just going to find each other at embarkation or on the ship.

Roma Termini to Civitavecchia

We were readying ourselves to rush off our Florence to Rome train to make our connection but as luck would have it, N&H messaged us advising that the train from Roma Termini to Civitevechia was going to be late. Indeed it was and we left Roma Termini for Civitavecchia about 30mins late at 10:10am..

Two interesting things about the ride from Roma Termini to Civitavecchia:

1. Our car was not the normal train car with 2x2 seating down the entire car. Instead it was a bunch of cabins with 3 seats facing another 3 seats. We’ve ridden in these before which are nice if you ride in them alone but if you are sharing the cabin with others, we feel like we’re needing to be extra on guard to ensure we don’t have our belongings stolen. Strangely, someone eventually showed up in our cabin about 15 mins into our journey. By that time, I had passed out (after waking up so early) and Wendy ended up staying awake to keep an eye on our gear.

2. N&H “splurged” and bought seats in the first class cabin in a 1x2 seating arrangement. They mentioned they saw some guy offer to help carry a passenger’s luggage into the car and place it into the overhead rack. They were tipped a Euro but harassed them for more. This is a pretty common scam.

Civitavecchia to the Port

Departing 30mins late, we arrived 30mins late on platform 3 at Civitavechia at 11am. (There goes trying to get onboard around 10:30am.) One potential issue to be aware of at Civitavecchia train station is getting from the far platforms to the station. You basically have to walk down stairs (with your luggage) to the the tunnel that traverses the tracks and then back up the stairs by the terminal.

Decision-point: Are we going to walk, taxi, or bus it to the port entrance? Wendy walked it on her February cruise and confirmed it was ridiculously easy so we walked. And we sure weren’t the only ones. You basically turn right as you exit the station, head across the street (one lane and parking in each direction) at a marked crosswalk, and then on a flat paved wide sidewalk the rest of the way. It took us less than 15mins and that was on top of us taking pictures, stopping to at a bench to put our luggage tags on, etc. Basically at the the end of the sidewalk/path when you pass by some retail businesses, there is a small gate to the left that leads to an opening where complimentary coach busses pick you up to transfer you to the ship/check-in tent. I can understand why some people might say it’s so much easier taking a transfer that can drop you and your luggage off right beside check-in tent. Along the way I think we passed a supermarket (on the other side of the street) which I regret not stopping at to buy a case of water and a bottle or two of wine.

Civitavecchia Port

As we arrived at this “bus stop” our bus for Reflection was just leaving. There were other ships in port and therefore other buses for other ships so you have to be careful which bus to get on. We waiting 10 to 15 minutes for another bus to arrive. As it’s a coach bus, you throw your luggage in the baggage area underneath. Both sides of the bus has doors so if you head to the other side of the bus (ie street-side vs sidewalk side) you’ll probably have less of a crowd to deal with.

I can see why there are busses that take you from the port entrance to the ship. It’s a somewhat long trip. There’s very limited sidewalks. There’s a section where the road narrows to single track because it has to straddle between ruins. You probably can walk it (and there appeared to be some people that were) but I do not think it is worth it.

Check-in

After about a 5 to 10min drive, the bus will stop in front of a big tented area in front of the ship. We arrived about 11:30am. Head to your left first to drop off your checked luggage with the porters that just load them on luggage racks or load them yourself. No tip seemed to be expected. Then head back to your right to enter the initial check-in greeting area where they will do a quick check of your express pass and give you the medical form to sign (ie. Do you have a fever, sore throat, etc). There are tables with pens to complete the medical form. Next stop is the carry-on x-ray and metal detectors. There were maybe two people ahead of us at this time. The metal detectors don’t seem to be as sensitive as the airports as I intentionally left my watch on and it didn’t set it off. We actually skipped the tables and signed the medical forms after the x-ray machines.

There was about a 10min wait for check-in. Separate line for elites, suites, etc. of course. The line was somewhat long but they have a lot of check-in agents so the line moved quickly. Try to get a check-in agent on the main counter area. We got an agent in a small section to the right and it was a little slower going because they had to wait for someone to run your seapasses over from the main area. Plus, they didn’t give us the early edition of Celebrity Today. :(

Be ready with your Sailaway form filled out, passport, and credit card. One thing they get you to confirm is how you want to settle your onboard account. If you choose credit card, you can either get Celebrity to convert the balance to your local currency or you can just have Celebrity charge your credit card in USD. Canadians: I highly recommend getting a Chase Amazon.ca Visa credit card that has no forex fees (whereas most CC’s have a 2% fee on top of the exchange rate). The Visa exchange rate is very competitive.

Once we had our pictures documented and were handed our seapass cards, full steam ahead to the ship... until we bottlenecked around the corner at the sailaway picture line. We never end up buying pictures any more so we just went around and out the door to the pier.

Specialty Dining Package

There was canopy tent as you exit check-in and head to the gangway where they were selling Specialty Dining packages and Beverage packages. We weren’t going to consider a beverage package until later in the cruise so we skipped that table but I wanted to try the four specialty restaurants even though we tried Murano and Tuscan Grill on Equinox. Wendy wasn’t too keen on going to specialty dining but I could twist her arm in doing it again. N&H were only partially interested and did not love the fact to pay more when the Main Dining Room (MDR) was free. We delayed getting the four dinner package (Murano, Tuscan, Qsine, and Lawn Club) in the days leading up to the cruise to see if we could get a deal onboard and yes they were kind of offering deals.

First off, I think it’s a general rule of thumb that the first night in specialty dining is generally dead so I think it’s pretty easy to get a deal for the first night. We were offered 50% off the first night right off the bat in Murano. Got to love 50% off. N&H even wanted to join us at 50% off. However we were humming and hawing about it because we wanted to work out the math to see if it was a better deal to do the four dinner package or get 50% at Murano and potentially pay full price at the other three specialty restaurants. When we mentioned that we were considering the four dinner package to the staff working with us on this, they went away and came back indicating they could also give us 20% off at the other specialty restaurants. Sold! Wendy and I took that offer while N&H only took up the 50% off the first night in Murano. However, if N&H joined us at the other specialty restaurants, they could also enjoy the 20% off. Bonus!

The math basically works out as follows:

4 Dinner Package = $125 per person.

Murano = $45 @ 50% off = $22.50

Tuscan Grille = $35 @ 20% off = $28

Qsine = $45 @ 20% off = $36

Lawn Club Grill = $40 @20% off = $32

Total = $118.50

So it ended up being a minor deal (~5% off) on top of the package. Even though it was a bit of a scramble picking days on the spot, we did enough research to know what days we wanted generally them. Our parameters were:

- Not during formal nights

- Not during the nights we are in port late (Santorini and Istanbul day 1)

- Ideally during the non-formal night sea day

Plus, we could still make changes on board by giving 24hrs notice. We normally like eating a bit later but we were suggested to book earlier times and they generally worked out for us. One beef I have is that they didn’t have the MDR menus available to help make a decision on what days to make the reservations.

However, if we were a bit more flexible, there were some additional deals (2 for 1) on the ship but they were during days we wanted to do other things.

After working out our specialty dining, we finally made it onto the ship around noon. First order of business was to grab a complementary flute of bubbly, mimosa, or orange juice which were handed out at various places around the ship. They were playing canned music of Maroon 5, Daft Punk, etc in the Grand Foyer and this pop’ish/club’ish music was played in various venues throughout the cruise and I loved it! One of the complaints I’ve read on the CC boards was that the music was too “young” for X’s demographic but I loved it.

Lunch

Cabins weren’t ready yet so we went to grab lunch. Bistro on 5 had a number of diners but it was by no means packed. I might consider eating lunch at there on embarkation day next time but I wanted to stick to routine and eat at the Oceanview Cafe buffet. Seating inside was essentially at capacity but we were able to grab a nice table at the back deck which we were actually hoping for. The only problem eating outside was that it was a tad windy and a number of champagne flutes were crashing off the table.The food stations themselves were not particularly chaotic IMO but it was definitely busy. I’m assuming everyone was just lounging until their cabins were ready. The announcement that cabins were ready was made at 1pm as expected and we moseyed down there at 1:30pm.

Cabin

It was a pretty long day already after being up at 4am in Florence so we were looking to get settled in and crashing a bit. We were in cabin 8290. First impressions of the room: Looked pretty much the same as the cabin we had on Equinox LOL! But, I actually liked the location of this room a tad better than our room on Equinox. On Equinox, our cabin was further aft on the ship above Silk Harvest and I just liked this location better because we didn’t have to hike as far from the stairs/elevator to our room. In terms of the view, from the balcony, our partially obstructed view on Equinox was “somewhat” similar to our view on Reflection. On Equinox, we we could not look directly down from our balcony because the roof of Silk Harvest extended out our balcony for another 3 metres or so. In our cabin, right below us was the promenade outside of deck 5 and lifeboats beyond that so you cannot look directly down either; though you do get more of an angle for a downwards view.

A celebrity tote bag, Captain’s Club coupons, Celebrity Today, and Select Dining greeting letter were all on the bed waiting for us.

Normally, we would be out and about checking out the open houses and entering draws but Wendy was wiped from the early start and just relaxed in the room. I ended up doing the ship tour at 2:15pm.

Ship Tour

The ship tour staged at Martini Bar and was led by Shawna from the Activities team. We hit the following areas:

Opus Main Dining Room

Entertainment Court

Celebrity Central

Theatre

Shops

Café al Bacio

Ensemble Lounge

Qsine and Tuscan Grill

Lawn

Solarium

Sky Lounge

And ended up at Guest Services.

It’s a basic tour (ie No behind the scenes stuff) and I didn’t learn anything new but thought it was a very good orientation for first timers so you know where everything is. There was about two dozen people on the tour. They had a few good tips for the first timer on a Solstice-class ship (eg. free food at Cafe al Bacio, Celebrity Central (which took me half the cruise before I discovered it on Equinox), etc).

After the tour I ran around a bit to do some Q&A:

Guest Services: The ship was full and there were no (paid) upgrades available. But they did confirm that Guest Service is where you should be inquiring if you are considering it. I checked to see if they have a list of the MDR menus but they directed me to the hostess.

I checked with the Hostess and they mentioned it would be tough for them to leave their post at the moment and to come back the next day.

Muster Drill

After heading back to the cabin to rest up a bit, Wendy, N&H, and I headed to Ensemble Lounge, our staging area, for the muster drill at 4:20pm. Should have gotten there earlier if we wanted a seat. (That was a pretty common theme: “Get there early if you want to beat the rush./The early bird gets the worm”.) It took about 30mins to complete the drill. Two minor tips: (1) During the drill, we ended up hanging around the far end of Ensemble Lounge by the corridor to Qsine/TG/Blu. That was a bit of a mistake because we pretty much had to work our way through the crowd in Ensemble Lounge to get back to the stairs to get back to our cabin. Would have been smarter hanging out the other side of Ensemble lounge. Pretty obvious but an oversight on our part. (2) To beat the crowd after the drill, we ended up reversing it to the hallway to Qsine and walked along the promenade outside to the doors by the stairs.

Cabin Attendant Team

Our luggage still had not arrived yet and we were starting to get concerned about what to wear to Murano for dinner that night. In the mean time, Ozy, our room attendant, introduced himself. He and his assistant Jean were literally the best attendants we have had EVER. We are pretty happy as long as all the basics are met but Ozy and Jean were proactive in terms of wanting to do anything to make us happy and they hit it out of the ballpark for us.

Minor tip: Ice isn’t automatically delivered to your room in the morning and evening anymore. You have to specifically ask for it from your attendant.

Sailaway & Pilot Boat

The ship left at 5pm sharp. For those that are interested, we saw the pilot boat around 5:20pm on the starboard side of the ship.

N and I went up to check out the “Sailaway Interactive Theme Party” that was supposed to be happening at poolside but it seemed pretty non-existent so we just headed back to our cabins. Thinking back now, I wonder if they moved it because they also moved other “Interactive Theme Parties” from the deck indoors.

Back at the cabin, our luggage arrived around 5:30pm; just in time for us to get ready for dinner in Murano at 6pm. Luggage in general seemed to start arriving around 5pm.

Dinner at Murano

Overall, Murano was very good, though it did have some menu item misses for us.

We were served by Emma and she was excellent (pretty much all the waitstaff we encountered were excellent). She and the whole Murano team were friendly and engaging. We are generally a bit timid wanting to ordering a few different items to try but they encouraged it. The timing of their service was amazing.

Amuse Bouche

We were greeting with an amuse bouche that consisted of a piece of crab cake in puree peas. It was delicious and a great start to the meal.

Starters

I ordered the Young Spinach & Frisee Salad which was fairly good. One of the reasons I ordered this it is because it sounded close to a frisee and lardon salad which I quite enjoy. In this salad I was looking forward to the combination of ingredients, particularly the sunnyside egg and pork rillettes. However, unless I’m mistaken, there was no frisee in the salad.

Wendy ordered the Creamy Maine Lobster Bisque. We love lobster bisque, particularly ones where you grind the shell into the soup. Wendy thought it was only ok; not “bisque-y” enough and would have liked more actual pieces of lobster in it but I thought it was good.

For my second starter, I had the Porcini & Morel Risotto. This was a major miss for me. I felt the truffle foam overwhelmed the risotto and I was close to eating soupy rice. It was also quite a large portion. I would have been happy with a third of what they served. I kind of regret not ordering the Pork Belly.

Wendy’s second starter was the Diver Scallop Wellington Style which was essentially a scallop baked in puff pastry. It was a single scallop which was a bit odd. Two would have been nice to be able to share. It was a pretty simple item but good.

The only different starter that N&H got was the Smoked Salmon & Peekytoe Crab Parfait which they thought was ok. They just felt the roe kind of overwhelmed the taste for them. It wasn’t completely to their taste so they wouldn’t order it again but they would not necessarily say it was not good.

Dinner at Murano (continued)

Entrees

For entrees, Wendy, N&H ordered the Murano Lobster. It’s prepared tableside so that’s kind of fun and novel. Chatting with various crew, the gas burners they use in Murano (I’m not sure if just for the lobster or other items) is the only open flame cooking that’s on the ship.

The lobster was good but not spectacular. The texture was a just tad off but we enjoyed the overall flavours.

I had the recommended Herb Crusted Lamb Rack (to give us a bit of variety) and I thought it was delicious. The lamb was done perfectly pinky. I loved the flavour the herb crust gave. It was a tad more meat that I needed (too much of a good thing).

While I was completely happy with the rack of lamb, I would have considered ordering the Chateaubriand for Two and use it as an opportunity to do a bit of an ad hoc surf and turf between Wendy and I with her lobster tail.

Cheese Course & Dessert

Ridiculous as this sounds, we were quizzing the staff if they had any unpasteurized cheese. I thought unpasteurized cheese was not legal in Canada but I’ve apparently learned this is not the case though it is not as common. So, I wanted to “live on the edge” and try some unpasteurized cheese. The staff gave me a bit of a run down and I ordered a few small slices/pieces. I think I had a piece of the goat cheese and a bit of the brie.

Wendy ordered the dessert sampler which consisted of six different shot glasses of various concoctions. They varied from good to so-so for me but I’m not a big sweets fan. N&H ordered the souffles: a dark chocolate Grand Marnier Souffle which they thought was superb and I forget what the second one was.

Opening Night show.(9pm Early Version)

After dinner, we eventually made our way to the early edition of the Opening Night (aka Welcome Aboard) show. We made one stop at the Celebrity Life Activities Showcase in Entertainment Court where they were playing a bit of jenga for a free bingo card in tomorrow’s session.

The welcome aboard show was pretty basic but did the trick in giving a quick sampling of some of the talent/acts on the cruise. First up was Drew Raitch, the cruise director, who introduced himself of course. We found him to be a technically solid host (whatever that means) and friendly when we ran into him.

• The show started with the Reflection house band who I thought were very good in their performances throughout the cruise
  
• Next was one of the production show singers, who we thought was one of the better singers in the cast, who sung a single number.
  
• After that was an aerialist (who I think did double duty as a dancer) who did a quick routine using a hoop suspended in the air.
  
• Andy Abraham was one of the guest singers aboard. I had never heard of him before but apparently he was on Britain’s X-Factor. He had a great voice.
  
• Last up was the acoustic group Uncommon Ground. I thought they were ok but they really didn’t really inspire me to go attend their sessions throughout the cruise; possibly because of the music selection (Conversely, I really enjoyed Full Tilt on Equinox for some reason.) They did songs by the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
  

Shopping at the Gift Shops

It was a pretty long day so we decided to call it an early night. However, on the way back to the cabin, we stopped off at the Gift Shops. On top of free samples they were giving out, they had a special, offering 10% off of tobacco and bottles of alcohol; that day only. True enough, that was the only day they had that discount. We ended up buying cigarettes as a gift for a relative back home. However, I’m kicking myself for not buying any alcohol. Because we were going to Barcelona post cruise, we didn’t want to risk lugging two glass bottles with us in our checked luggage, hoping to pick up bottles at the duty free at the BCN airport on the way back to Vancouver. However, the alcohol pricing at the duty free at the airport was on close to the pricing in Vancouver after the forex conversion.

Wrap up for the Night

One final thing we had to check at guest services on the way back to the cabin was when the Connections (Cruise Critic) meet-up was happening because we did not receive an invitation card upon boarding. After a bit of a search by the staff, we found out it was happening tomorrow (as expected) at 10:15am at the Sunset Bar. Of course, once we got back to our room, we had a voice message from the ship’s Event Coordinator left at 8:30pm with details of the Connections Party.

Final activity before bed was to turn clocks ahead 1 hour to get started on Greece/Turkey time.

One final note: We had very good cell phone data coverage on the ship today with our Europasim card.

After a much needed sleep in we got up at 9:30am to grab some breakfast at the Oceanview Cafe. N&H were up by 7am for breakfast attended the brain waker trivia session.

Strait of Messina

We ate breakfast on the open deck behind the Oceanview Cafe again and had a great view of the Strait of Messina. Both sides were interesting but I think starboard side had more development/urbanization to look at.

A pilot boat made an appearance at 10:10am’ish to guide us through the strait.

Connections Party / Cruise Critic Meet (10:15am)

We walked up to the Connections Party right at 10:15am and it was packed already. I intentionally signed up relatively late on the Celebrity website and there were way over a hundred people signed up. It was by far the largest event I’ve been to. As I mentioned previously in the review, try to get to events early!

Special thanks to: John (Clipper Miami) for the cruise pin and organizing the rollcall, Judy (DennisAndJudy) for organizing the nametags, and Louise (louise1809) for maintaining the excursion list.

We’re pretty shy going to these events which I don’t understand why because everyone is so friendly! I completely regret not staying longer and meeting more people.

Galley Tour (10:30am)

Even though I did the galley tour on Equinox, I really wanted to go on this galley tour too so we left the Connections Party around 10:45. N&H were down there already and were in one of the later groups heading into the galley.

HOWEVER, there was another galley tour later in the cruise (which could have allowed me to stay at the connections party) which I didn’t attend. I wonder if that one as as crowded?

Pretty standard format with F&B manager and Executive Chef doing Q&A from the crowd as we waited for our turn to head into the galley. I can’t remember everything I asked. One question I asked was if all the proteins (meats & fish) were frozen and the answer I think was that they were because I think it gets shipped from the State for quality control. Fruits and Veg, they do, do a bit of restocking mid-cruise.

It’s a pretty quick tour. The groups are somewhat large and there’s a lot of noise so you’ll have difficulty hearing what the chef that’s guiding you is saying if you’re near the back of your group. I pretty much ignored the commentary because the reason I wanted to attend the tour was to take pix of the menu lists on the bulletin boards. They have the bulk of the lunch and dinner appetizers and entrees on one cork board. Desserts were posted on another wall.

See cruise artifacts section for pictures of menus item list during the galley tour.

A Taste of Reflection (11:45am)

After the galley tour, we chose a fitting segway by attending “A Taste of Reflection” culinary showcase in the Grand Foyer. Basically all the specialty restaurants had demonstration tables and were offering samples of an item off their menu.

Memories @ Sea - Scrapbooking (Noon)

H wanted to do scrapbooking in Ensemble Lounge so Wendy joined her. N and I just checked out the specialty restaurants, Blu, and Michael’s Club to take pictures them with no one in them.

Wendy felt scrapbooking was one of the better activities on the ship. It was free and included all the supplies.

Select Dining Reservations

Next order of business was to try to make reservations for dinner because (A) it’s the formal night it would probably be crowded and (B) N made special arrangements for H to get a cake at dinner for her birthday.

We tried calling from our room to make Select Dining reservation. No answer. Later ran down to the Select Dining hostess podium. No one there. Picked up house phone beside Select Dining hostess podium. No answer. LOL. (That was probably one of the few complaints we had on the cruise. We tried a few times to make reservations a few times during the cruise and it seemed no one ever picked up the phone.)

Just before lunch we finally found someone at the hostess podium and we made reservations for 6pm. The funny thing was that the person ahead of me also complained that they tried calling to make a reservation but no one answered. :D

TIP: The person in front of me tried to make reservations for 7pm but the hostess wouldn’t book that time. Per our Select Dining Greeting Letter, it mentioned 7pm to 8pm was very popular and that they may request guests choose and earlier or later time.

Late Lunch at the MDR (1pm)

We ended up eating a somewhat late lunch in the dining room.

Starters

N ordered the Ensalada Andalusia which was a very simple salad consisting of butter lettuce leaves, tomatoes, green beans, red peppers, and black olives.

H ordered the Carrot Cumin Gazpacho which was a cold soup. Normally, I love gazpacho but the carrot description scared me off. H said the soup was quite tasty and that she could taste the cumin accenting her soup.

Wendy and I didn’t order starters.

Entrees

For my lunch entree, I ordered the Grilled New York Steak which came with steak fries and on a bed of green beans. It was ok. The steak was done correctly to medium rare but I didn’t love the quality of the beef for some reason. It was just ok. There was too many green beans for my liking and I felt bad wasting so much of it.

Wendy and H both ordered the Teriyaki Duck Breast which came with a scoop of jasmine rice. The description indicated that it came with bok choy and Wendy was really looking forward to it. But of course, the dish was didn’t have any bok choy. I know this sounds ridiculous but this was the second time a dish was missing an ingredient that we were looking forward to. But obviously we understand that with having a standardized menu for restaurants across the world, the ships may occasionally have trouble sourcing certain product.

Wendy thought it the dish was ok.

N’s not a vegetarian but he wanted something simple with fries so he ordered the Veggie Burger which came with fries. It was probably one of the worst dishes he had during the cruise. The bun was dry and the patty was dry.

Dessert

N ordered the Peach Raspberry Cobbler and thought it was pretty good.

H ordered the Strawberry Shortcake and while a bit weird looking also thought that it was pretty good.

Wendy and I didn’t order dessert.

Late Lunch at the MDR (1pm) (continued)

Destination Talk (2pm)

Being N&H’s first cruise and first trip outside of North America, they wanted to check out the Destination Talk. In this session, they covered Santorini, Istanbul, and Kusadasi. Wendy and I went with them and were pleasantly surprised that it was fairly good. I was expecting a hard sell just focusing on visiting Celebrity approved vendors selling Tanzanite :D. However, the presenter actually gave a good overview of the destinations explaining where we dock, how you get into town, what the major sights were, etc. The information wasn’t detailed by any means but it gave you enough to get orientated if you hadn’t done any research for your ports of call. If you miss the live session, it replays on the interactive tv.

The only parts that touched on selling were related to what are local goods to buy in that port and picking up the destination guide (comes as an insert in your dailies or you can pick one up at the destination talk) to shop at the Celebrity approved vendors.

At the end, they handed out a bunch of door prizes that ranged from a coat from one of the Celebrity approved vendors, a rug, vouchers for Celebrity excursions, and vouchers from Celebrity approved vendors.

The destination talk ran for about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Surprise!

N had arranged to have their room decorated for H’s birthday. When we got back to the cabin after the destination talk it was done. The cabin was nicely decorated and they left it up for the rest of the cruise.

Dinner at Opus MDR (6pm)

We got the hostess podium just after 6pm and were seated quite quickly. Looks like they got N’s notation about tonight being H’s birthday and we were asked if we had any preference where we wanted to sit. N got us a seat by a window. We had a bit of a view (though also some glare) until the sun set around 6:30pm.

It was formal night and I figure the tuxedo to suit ratio was 1 tuxedo to 20 suits.

Starters

Both Wendy and I started with the Salmon Tartare which was ok. It was a simple dish but I felt it lack flavour.

N ordered the Chilled Shrimp Cocktail off the everyday menu which was nothing special.

H was the most “daring” of us and ordered the Crispy Frog Legs which she thought was ok. Tasted like chicken. :). It was a bit cartilage-y for her though such that it reminded her of eating chicken feet at dim sum.

I also ordered the Yellow Corn Soup which I thought hit the spot. It was sweet and corny.

Dinner at Opus MDR (6pm) (continued)

Entrees

I ordered Celebrity’s Signature Beef Tournedo which was very tender. The sauce was quite nice too.

Wendy and H both ordered the Cedar Plank Grilled Cobia Black Salmon which was actually served on a small cedar plank on the plate. We’re always concerned fish is going to be dry from the MDR kitchen but it was moist.

N ordered the Shrimp Scampi which was served over linguini pasta. It was a nice predictable pasta dish with a garlicky sauce.

Dinner at Opus MDR (6pm) (continued)

Dessert

We ordered dessert but they pleasantly surprised us by bringing out H’s “birthday cake” first which was a chocolatey cake with a candle.

I ordered the creme brulee, my favourite dessert, from the everyday menu. It was decent with a nice caramelized sugar crust on top and a little bit of vanilla seed in the custard.

Wendy ordered the peach cheesecake off the everyday menu which was nice.

N&H split the Warm Apple Crumble A La Mode.

Early Captain’s Gala Toast and Center Stage production show (8:45pm)

After dinner we eventually zigzagged our way to the theater for the Captain’s Gala Toast and to watch the first production show, Center Stage.

Entering the theater, there are waiters offering a complimentary beverage choice (bubbly, wine, ??); one of the few events with free alcohol. :D

It was a pretty standard toast event where Drew first introduced Captain Bouzakis and then Captain Bouzakis introduced his senior officers on stage. We didn’t see him much other than at the expected events but Captain Bouzakis seemed like a very friendly person with a great sense of humour.

Early Captain’s Gala Toast and Center Stage production show (8:45pm) (continued)

By the time the production show started, it was standing room only. Repeated theme: Get there early for big events. Theater seating for the early show.was one area where I regularly saw crowd/capacity issues. There was one area in the centre balcony that was roped off for reserved seating which I’m guessing is for suite guests or elite guests.

The production show, Center Stage, was essentially a mix of “Broadway” theatre song and dance. I was able to recognize maybe just under half the songs so that made it more enjoyable. I forgot to note all the songs and shows they were from but they covered Phantom of the Opera for sure and I think Les Mis. Overall, we just generally enjoyed the production singers but we thought the dancers were really good.

One nice thing: Cast members were at the exits thanking people for attending which I thought was a nice touch.

If I’m not mistaken, I think this show (and pretty much all the production shows) ran for about an hour.

Roaming the Ship

After the show N&H headed for bed while Wendy and I were looking to stay out later. We basically roamed the ship checking out what was going on at different venues until the Sin City Comedy show at midnight.

The ship’s “standard” Filipino party band, Kenosis was playing in the Grand Foyer and we stopped to listen. That was pretty much their standard venue most evenings whereas on Equinox, the party band was in Sky Lounge most nights. We really enjoyed Kenosis. They had a good female lead singer and played a great range of music, including some of the more recent popular tunes you’d hear on the radio.

Afterwards we went up to the Sky Lounge to check out the Karaoke. There was about two to three dozen people in attendance. Quite a few very good singers. Even though I promised myself pre-cruise I was going to get up and sing Karaoke (no one knows you! ) I didn’t work my courage up to sing. :D Maybe next time.

There was a beautiful view of the moon that night.

Before heading to the comedy show, we stopped off at the buffet to get some water and eat some salad (had to get some roughage).

Sin City Comedy show (Midnight)

The Sin City Comedy show was held at Celebrity Central and we got there just as the show got started. The theatre was about 75% full and we were able to easily find seating on the far side of the room.

This was the first of a couple of shows they had during the cruise. We didn’t attend the other ones because we were under the impression that they were going to be essentially the same. The timing of this one kind of worked out since we were going to be in port late the next day.

There were three performers: the host comedian, the burlesque dance, and the headline/guest comedian. The host comedian started us off of course with a 10min routine. Personally, I didn’t love his humour. It was raunchy and direct which I didn’t mind but I just didn’t find funny enough to make me laugh. However, a number of people were just dying of laughter.

The burlesque dancer performed two dances intermixed with the host comedian’s two routines. The dancer was an attractive tall blonde but we just felt it was kind of an odd fit, programming wise. For example, at the end of her first routine, she stripped down to a bra and thong, the music stopped, and she quickly exited off the stage. Was that it? No one knew to applause until we figured “I guess that was it.” :D

I won’t spoil the second routine which was a bit amusing but you kind of saw the twist at the end a mile away.

The headliner (I wish I remembered his name) was excellent. His humour was raunchy as well, but he had more layers and subtleties to his jokes.

The show went for just under an hour. Both comedians were pretty raunchy but Drew gave plenty of warning at the production show. Again, on exit, the performers were at the door shaking people’s hands and just doing a bit of PR on the way out. It’s a very nice touch and I really liked that.

Order Breakfast and then Bed

Before nodding off for the night, we pre-ordered breakfast via room service over interactive tv. This was to make sure we woke up in time to get in line for the tender tix.

You can order room service via the interactive tv or just mark the sheet and leave it hanging on your cabin door. One minor difference between the two: There’s poached eggs on the tv menu and not on the hanger sheet.

One final note, while you pick a 30min window for the food to arrive, it arrived for us right at the top of the range every time.