GrayMaineCruiser

On 4/12/2024 at 9:59 AM, Salf777 said:

So have recently been sailing on Celebrity in their Retreat. Due to recent policy changes at celebrity have decided to try Seabourn. Celebrity premium drink package now charge $2 for a glass of wine that was included a month ago (it’s a $19 bottle of wine), no more onboard credit or very little, no included gratuities, and many other changes. 
So we looked and watched some videos and book a sailing on the Ovation, which is actually cheaper than a Celebrity sailing and we have heard great things about Seabourn

so a few questions for you experienced people please

1. Do we need to rush and make dining reservations when available or are they usually all available 

2. Any must do restaurants?

3. What is the dress code we don’t dress like slobs but like a casual look (sometime even nice jeans with a nice button down shirt)

4. We are in a V4 veranda suite, does that include bottled water, soft drinks, WiFi.

5. How is the WiFi?

6. I see it says most excursions are included, are these just like basic tours and are the good? Do they have for a charge excursions? We prefer more active

 

Lastly any advice you can give to a first timer appreciated. I know a lot of this can be found on the web but I find talking to experienced cruisers gets me better real advice so thank you

People have already answered your questions but just wanted to comment we tried Seabourn for the first time after many cruises on Celebrity in Retreat class, and we loved it and will be hard to consider going back to Celebrity.  

On 4/14/2024 at 7:26 PM, tv24 said:

If you want to dress very informally, the Colonnade and Earth and Ocean are great options, and the food is usually quite good.

Yeah, on our last cruise on Ovation, for formal night, we just ate at Earth and Ocean so we could be a little more relaxed with how we dressed, and honestly (and of course tastes vary) we tended to prefer Earth and Ocean to The Restaurant anyway.  

I'm on the Feb 25th/2024 Ovation sailing and we had a TK reservation but they ended up cancelling it as apparently the renovation to Solis is beginning during that cruise, so I would guess it's probably March or later before it's bookable on Ovation.  

We did ABC cruise this past February.  In Bonaire we did an excursion at the Ocean Oasis beach club.  It started with maybe an hour on bus, one stop at the slave huts, but most of it was at the beach club which was really nice!

Keeping it simple.  Love the mojitos on Celebrity.  

My wife and I started sailing RCL but then did a Celebrity cruise on a tremendous deal on a suite on a repo cruise, and we've stayed with Celebrity since.  Both are great cruise lines, and at this point I think I'd do RCL again if our kids were going to cruise with us, I think it's probably a little better for families, but cruising as a couple Celebrity is best for us.

I think the Suite perks are better. Grand Suite to a Sky Suite, the rooms themselves aren't tremendously different, but having access to Luminae, and a more intimate, quieter dining experience was a huge perk for us.  Also Michael's/now Retreat. 

As other's mentioned, Cafe el Bacio is much better than the RCL coffee options. We also like the Celebrity Solarium vs the RCL equivalent.  Nicer ambience.

Also as others mentioned, no smoking indoors in any part of the ship.  A HUGE plus for us.  

I do think the musical entertainment on RCL tends to be a little better, and I wish Celebrity had something like the Schooner Bar on RCL, more dedicated piano entertainment at night. 

Again, both great cruise lines, but I think the quieter, maybe slightly more "mature", Celebrity cruise style is just better suited for our cruise style.  

My experience with Persian Garden was on Equinox on a 7 day cruise and really only ever found it really busy on the 2nd sea day.  Every other day, whenever I went in I was able to get one of the heated loungers.  But even when those were taken, I could still use the steam rooms or the sauna in the changing room, so was still able to use it.  The relaxation room was almost always completely empty, definitely one of the most under-utilized parts of the ship.

Everyone answered the question about BLU but as others have said, if you are interested in conversing with others, the tables are close enough to accomplish that.  

I've never sailed a regular balcony but can't speak to that, but our situation was that our first Celebrity cruise was in a suite because we had a killer deal on a repo cruise, so the AQ cabin on the 2nd cruise helped to not feel like so much of a downgrade.  BLU is really nice!  Personally, I think I would find it hard to cruise below an AQ, mostly to have the more intimate less busy dining options at BLU or Luminae.  

The tables are close but I never felt, even when we had a couple sitting in a table next to us, that our conversations were on display or being eavesdropped on.  Depending on when you arrive, if it's not super busy I'm sure you could ask to be seated in one of the more empty portions of the dining room.  

Also, just FYI, the table situation is pretty similar in Luminae.  

Honestly, even as a couple of introverts, my wife and I liked having the opportunity, if wanted by our neighbors, to engage in a little chit-chat to learn more about our fellow cruisers.  

If you book a suite staff at suite lounge will give you a water and all you can drink, loved that suite lounge

Agreed. Before all of our excursions I'd make a stop at Michael's to get our water for the day.

I've always been a fairly picky eater, never have been super adventurous when it comes to dining out, so when we booked the suite on our last cruise, I was really into trying Luminae, mostly for the atmosphere. It's a smaller venue, chance to hang out and mingle with other suite guests, but didn't really plan on necessarily really enjoying the food, figured I'd find enough to at least not be hungry afterwards.

Loved every meal. And while there doesn't seem to be a lot on the menu, I really do like how they have one of everything available: pasta, poultry, veggie, seafood, etc. So I just looked at it as a chance to have a neat dining experience, and try some dishes I would never have at home, or try while I'm out at a restaurant. Was one of the best parts of our cruise.

When we were on Summit, we were able to purchase a one-day pass for $25pp on the last full day of our cruise. Otherwise, at the beginning of the cruise when I got the tour I was quoted $99 per person.

I loved hanging out at Michael's Club on our Summit cruise this past January. It was rare I saw it completely empty, but never really full either (except disembarkation day obviously). Another cool thing I enjoyed with Michael's Club is some of the ship's musical entertainers would do sets in Michael's for suite guests. And I found when the piano guy did his set, he did more of a mix of show tunes and more mellow jazz instrumentals. All in all, a really nice space for some quiet, more relaxed, low-key time on the ship.

When you book there is a place in your reservation online where you can indicate any special celebrations, our last cruise was to celebrate our anniversary so we added that. Two cool things they did, without me asking was 1) we got, not one, but TWO anniversary cakes. One was served to us while we were in Luminae, the second was in our room, along with rose petals all over the room in our sky suite. Our butler, Chip< arranged it all, it was very cool thing they did without any prompting or anything.

I think it would be a fine ship for a Honeymoon. I agree with others, if you could splurge for a sky suite or above, that would make for a very nice honeymoon experience, as Luminae is a more intimate, romantic dining experience vs. the main dining room. My wife and I recently did Summit for our annual Anniversary cruise and it was a very wonderful and romantic cruise vacation. I don't think you could go wrong.

Aspen Coffee. Yummo!

Our experience on Summit earlier this year was one of our best cruise experiences ever. I thought the ship was in great shape and the staff were all wonderful.

We are still relatively novice cruisers with only 5 cruises under our belt but the first four were with Royal and the last one with Celebrity. Both lines are great, and sure we'll do a Royal cruise again sometime, but the edge for us with Celebrity is it was just a bit slower speed, if you will. A little more relaxed, quieter, and a little more elegant, but not in a stuffy kind of way. I think the food on Celebrity is a bit better. Staff are super on both lines honestly, but they were great on our Celebrity cruise. So if you enjoy a slower, more relaxed pace to your cruise, you'll love Celebrity.

And it's a great lunch spot for embarkation day, because at least in our experience, it is generally pretty quiet. Nice spot to have lunch while you wait for your room to open up.

We did our first and only Celebrity cruise, so far, this past January and had a Sky Suite on Summit. Michael's Club was definitely a great part of the suite experience. I will say, as an introvert who likes quiet and space, the fact that it was generally pretty quiet was a nice bonus for me. It was a nice place where I knew I could retreat for a peaceful few minutes to enjoy a drink. In fact, I will say on this particular cruise the best mojito I had was from Michael's Club vs the other bars.

We got a wicked good deal on that Summit cruise, so so far we are booked in an Aqua for a January Equinox, but watching the prices and will definitely pounce on a sky suite again if they go down.

As of January, when we were on board, they still had the "shout-out" comment box in cafe al bacio and were still reading them on the daily show.

Thanks for the feedback! Often I would survey the menus of all three and it did seem to be a more expansive menu at Blu. Our experiences at Luminae were very good, so just trying to see if it would be a "downgrade", but seems like it really wouldn't be. Thanks!

We did our very first Celebrity cruise on Summit earlier this year, for which we got an absolute steal on a Sky Suite, so enjoyed our nightly dinners at Luminae. For our next cruise we are currently booked in Aqua Clas, and contemplating whether to upgrade, but one of the things I'm curious about is for feedback from folks who have done both Aqua and Suites and how the food compares between BLU and Luminae. We didn't take advantage of the ability to dine in BLU as suite guests so don't have any experience. Side question, in BLU can you order from MDR like you can from Luminae?

Thanks in advance everyone!

I don't know if this was adequate, but on our final night we left $10 tips each in envelopes for the Maitre'D and the two waiters we had during our cruise. This was for a 7 day cruise. We had done pre-paid gratuities as well.

Agree with all about the hours. We saved Luminae breakfast for the debarkation morning. We figured if we had to get up that early, because we were leaving the lovely cruise ship, en route to a busy airport, we'd console ourselves with a nice breakfast. :)

What I know is that now that we’ve had Luminae, we don’t ever want to not have Luminae. It takes an already great cruise to the next level.

 

 

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Completely agree with this. It's a really great experience from the great friendly service, of course the great food, but also a chance to get to know some of your fellow suite cruisers. It was definitely the highlight of our evenings on our last cruise.