Forever42

1 hour ago, MattnTricia said:

We are doing the exact same cruise. Any chance you can advise what nights the "chic" nights were and what nights the MDR had Lobster.   

 

We will be on the  same itinerary Thanksgiving week and are trying to figure out what nights to use our specialty restaurant package. 

 

Thanks for sharing the food pics -  Very helpful. 

We're on the one Thanksgiving week and it's not exactly the same - we only are in Cabo for the afternoon and evening, no overnight, and we have San Diego as a final port in the last day. So our chic nights may be different. 

Also, I'm sad that we're not in PV earlier - seems like we're missing a lot since we don't arrive into port until 1:30pm!

3 hours ago, DianneLovesToCruise said:

Fun updates… thank you both! Other than tendering and getting some choppy water action, has your sailing been smooth?
 

We are sailing Sunday on ECLIPSE 😃and so excited! A 35 minute drive to the port for us! First time ever leaving from our home port…it’ll be nice not to see an airport (freaking LAX) for a change! Lol. We are elite status and all of our previous X sailings involved long haul flights…so this will be a treat!

We sail later this month on the Eclipse and it's still a little strange for me to fly to a port! We used to live in Orlando, and then our first cruise after moving to Seattle was an Alaska cruise, and we live two miles from the Celebrity terminal in Seattle.

Looking forward to being on the Eclipse! 

43 minutes ago, binro01 said:

And here is a video of the beautiful pool deck in the morning.

 

 

What time of the morning did you take the video? I'm surprised it's so quiet! I'm assuming because the weather is to cool for most? Living in Seattle, upper 50s in the morning is perfectly fine for me and I'll be out there in my bathing suit and my Kindle 😎

12 minutes ago, fstuff1 said:

oh, i had no idea. 😮

thought they were being cute with the naming

I've been fortunate to discover it through Disney World, of all places! It has an interesting history of Indian immigrants bringing their cuisine to SA. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunny_chow

On 10/12/2023 at 10:40 PM, fstuff1 said:

Tonight's buffet included 2 items I've never seen offered (and I've been here since last cruise to Hawaii):

Pork belly

Bread bowl

 

Unfortunately, the filling options for the bowl was all curry (Beef, fish, veggie).

The apprentice cook making this didn't mention curry. I don't like curry. 😞

 

oh.. one other item at the buffet that I didn't see last cruise was flank steak.

Saw it twice so far this cruise.

 

I see it calls out that it's bunny chow - that's why the options were only curry. Bunny chow is a South African dish that uses part of a loaf of bread hollowed out (not necessarily a bread bowl), filled with curry. So bunny chow automatically means curry. 

1 hour ago, chicagopaul said:

Here is the Porch menu! 

 

 

Oh man, I'm so glad that you posted this, we were planning on going to lunch here based on the menu on the app, but everything we were going to order is gone. 

I hope your last day is a blast and looking forward to hearing about your dinner in Luminae (we're in AQ, love Blu but living vicariously 😁). 

26 minutes ago, chicagopaul said:

 

Yes they do! I agree it makes for a great ice breaker. I’ll give a full list of names for people you should say hello to when I post a final recap this weekend 

We'll be embarking Friday so we'll probably miss your recap (we're disconnecting from the Internet 😉 for the cruise), but we'll at least look out for Ivan and his wife! And thanks for the heads-up on the crowds at the bars.

2 hours ago, chicagopaul said:

Menu from last night. Yes you get ALL of this!! 

 

Thanks for the review!! This was one of the events I was very curious about. I'm on the fence since I'm mostly vegetarian but will "indulge" every once in a while, and the menu looks great, and I love eating outside. We don't get to do that too often in Seattle.

Were you seated by yourselves or with others? And if with others, was food served family style? We're just curious about that as we're not shellfish fans so wouldn't eat the shrimp or lobster.

12 hours ago, Ozzmund said:

While we enjoy the action at the Martini Bar and the aft view from the Sunset Bar, our favorite bar is the Ensemble Lounge.

On the way to Blu, live music and friendly, competent bartenders make it our favorite bar.

 

I could have written this exact post. However we do most often end up at the Sunset Bar for late evenings. But Ensemble is where we'll be before dinner every evening. 

My husband and I were wondering how many people make the Passport Bar their "home base." 

4 hours ago, chicagopaul said:

I’ve been taking menu pictures. Will have them uploaded in good quality as the internet gets better. 

Thank you! That's so kind of you.

I'm glad that you're having a great time! I love the pictures of Cartagena - it's so vibrant!

I'm a big time lurker. We'll take her from you when you return! We're on the Nov 16th sailing and when I saw on your last trip that you'd be live posting the sailing right before ours, I was terribly excited 

Thank you! Definitely hoping to see wine and other drink menus. 😉

I'll jump in on the other side - we don't get the opportunity to dress up very often, and we only cruise once every couple of years on average. For our Caribbean cruise next month, I have two long formal dresses (one with a very short train and one sequined) and nice cocktail dresses for every other evening. Husband will be wearing a suit for the chic nights and a button down shirt and nice slacks the rest of the time. I'm grateful that my husband willingly dresses up 😉 

But there are definitely those that do dress up. And yes, we fly to the port! 

This thread showing the new look to the Daily has the current live musicians:

41 minutes ago, BettyCruiser said:

 

Yes, the ap is on my iPad and iPhone. Right now it shows Reflection at T25 on November 16, but won't list it's return for a few more days.

Thanks for sharing! I'm on that cruise and have an Android, I don't see the app in the Google Play store. I'll of course confirm closer in. 

9 hours ago, CEOofVacation said:

Many of the items in Porch are not raw seafood based.  Lobster in lobster rolls are also cooked.  You can get a burger there.  

 I did mention we don't like lobster 🙂 We're a little odd! And I thought I saw the burger only on the dinner menu? Either way, we're going back and forth on whether it's worth it just for the atmosphere and avoiding the crowds, if we don't really eat seafood.

Either way, going to play by ear. Might just head right to the Sunset Bar and grab something at the Mast Grill 😉

We're debating on trying it for embarkation lunch on our Reflection cruise next month. Partly because we like to have a sit down / full service meal for lunch at embarkation, and partly because it's outdoors. However, neither of us are shellfish fans and not into raw seafood either - we did realize that both full service restaurants (excluding Luminae) open for embarkation lunch on the Reflection are raw seafood based! Is it enjoyable even if passing on the ceviche, seafood tower, and lobster rolls?

We had loved Bistro on 5, found Sushi on 5 acceptable...

This was posted a few months ago, the order may change though:

https://images.r.cruisecritic.com/pdfs/celeb-blu-menu-dinner.pdf

Ooh, I love seitan!

This looks great, thanks for sharing. Hope it'll be on the Reflection this fall.

Thank you! I’m still looking for a lunch place for Thursday afternoon, any suggestions? I’d like to stay pretty close to wear we’re staying.

 

Hmm, your hotel is a little bit in what I think of as a dead zone for good restaurants within a couple blocks, especially lunch. So some of these are a few blocks further.

A few options:

Cortina - Ethan Stowell is my husband's and my favorite local chef, he's miles above Tom Douglas

Lecosho

Umma's Lunch - a by-the-pound casual Korean place, popular with the office workers

Din Tai Fung - excellent Taiwanese dim sum chain

The Pink Door - a great classic, if you can get a reservation

The Athenian's back bar (in the Market) is our secret locals space, but I'm giving the secret away. ;)

Pike Place Chowder is very good but the lines aren't worth it, we usually wait and go after cruise season.

So, for any Seattle natives, our plans for the next two days are to

1) Recover from an early wake up and long day of flying

2) Walk to the Purple Cafe and enjoy some wine

3) Enjoy a guided tour of Pike Market early Thursday

4) Aquarium, Space Needle, anything else?

I live in Seattle! The weather here will be "good" this week - too hot and sunny for us, but good for visitors. Everyone is excited for fall to return!

If you're into beer, make sure you go to Cloudburst near the north end of the Market. It's one of the best breweries in the area.

The Space Needle just reopened part of its visitor center, so good timing.

Do you need restaurant recommendations?

Neither of us are big sushi people, but my husband insists on a sit-down lunch to avoid the crowds and have waiter service, so we head to Sushi on 5. It's also a way of trying out the cocktails/beer/sake that are unique to that location, and just have a chill vibe for the start of the cruise.

I think last time we spent about $35 for the two of us (we had the premium beverage package) and it was well worth it.

 

And those who think this will appeal the the "young crowd" I think would be mistaken. I would think those savvy enough in that demographic would find it incredibly gimmicky and hokey.

My husband and I are in our mid 30s with no kids - not sure if that's the younger crowd that people speak of - and we completely agree with the above.

I was excited to finally be sailing on a ship with Qsine (Silk Harvest was bland and Americanized) and when I couldn't find it in our cruise planner and looked up/watched what the replacement was...we're not happy to put it lightly. Perhaps this would be fun and cutting edge ten or more years ago? It seems like a huge step backwards now. I cannot imagine in the least that this is aimed at a younger crowd.

The menu is also strange, with odd course selections (two desserts?). On top of that, my husband doesn't eat seafood and I'm nearly vegetarian so I'm not sure what we would eat. If the menu was a la carte and the show was individualized for each person, that could perhaps be a draw.

Edit: I mean, we're also very fortunate to be able to cruise and take time off and this is just random complaining! We're in AQ anyway and absolutely love Blu.

Thank you so much for posting this! We leave TODAY on the Solstice and this definitely helped my over-planning. ;)