mahdnc

We completed our single night stay at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay Hotel last month.  We booked a bay view room and were assigned one on the 28th floor (out of 31 floors of rooms).  I was very pleased with the room.  Here are a few documentary photos for the record.

Here is the bay view room on the 29th floor

The view from the room window when we checked in on Fri Apr 19 2024:

This photo was taken with a "normal" lens (i.e. not telephoto or wide angle) and it approximates the scaled view of what we saw from our room.  This photo was taken on the day we checked in (Fri Apr 19) and the cruise ships were starting to leave the Port of Miami

Another "normal" lens view when we woke up on Sat Apr 20:

Here are the ships that were at port that correspond to the picture immediately above.

Here is the floor plan with the red dot indicating the precise location of our room, 2810.

Highest guest room is on the 31st floor.

Here is an annotated photo indicating the hotels that I was aware of that are in the photo.  When you look at this photo on a large screen, it appears that the Doubletree rooms have balconies which include the rooms that directly face the bay.

Here is the category of the room and the price that we payed.  I believe this reflects the AAA price.

10 hours ago, sabrefan said:

Currently booked on Solstice next year and one port destination in Airlie Beach Australia. Just wondering if anyone has feedback on the the excursion to the Great Barrier Reef. Also wondering if there were problems with box jellyfish within the Great Barrier Reef excursion?

We did a diving/snorkeling excursion through Celebrity when Solstice anchored at Arlie Beach although that was back in 2018.  I did publish a photo review of that 12 night GBR sailing including our time at Arlie Beach which you may find of interest. 

Of the four port days at the GBR (Arlie Beach, Cairns x2, and Port Douglas), Arlie Beach was our least favorite from a snorkeling/diving perspective because of the diving conditions at the time.  I know the link to the "Important Information" bulletin in the review is corrupted/no good.  Here is a good link.

Have a very nice cruise!  I will gladly read along.

41 minutes ago, lasman said:

Enjoyed reading all the great daily reviews of the Summit's Panama Canal cruise to LA.

We will be boarding Summit in Vancouver on May 24 for the northbound cruise to Seward. Our second trip on Summit as we previously took the Maine, Maritime Provinces Canada 10 day last year. Love the ship.

Although it sounded as though you had a great voyage, we will be doing Holland Nieux Amsterdam from SAN to FLL in October.  Not as many Sea Days, more interesting ports for exploring Mayan ruins and history,  hopefully avoid stormy weather.  

 

I hope that both of your cruises go real well!

$250.  Nice.

There are a few more subjects that I will be posting on later this week.

My wife is a Lifetime Platinum Elite member with Marriott.  For that we got free breakfast at the hotel's buffet.  And for that we got, once again, mediocre food and mediocre service.  Or maybe we have just been spoiled being on Summit for 15 days.

Our cost for a standard room with king size bed was $176 including taxes and fees.  Our window had a view of the planes taking off from LAX and I geeked out for a while as I watched some planes go by (including the massive A380 double decker plane).

We checked out and were lucky enough to catch the 9am shuttle.  There is no formal queueing system for getting on the bus which can take about 20 passengers and their luggage.  The Avianca uniformed people knew exactly where to stand for the bus and they were the first ones on.  After that it was a free for all because instead of an orderly line to get on the bus, we had a funnel shaped crowd.  Luckily my wife and I were the last two people on the bus.

We were dropped off at the main American Airlines terminal.  We went to the self serve kiosk to get our luggage tags printed up.  And then we lined up to check in with an agent.  We had a couple that tired to cut in line in front of us.  An American Airlines attendant told them to go back to the end of the line and then turned around to help a different customer. The couple wouldn't move and told us something unintelligible on why they should be in front of us.  We told them they needed to go back to the end of the line and after some bickering they move to the back but they called us "mean" people.  After we finished with our check in, I noticed that the same couple was at the self serve kiosk getting their luggage tags printed out which is what you had to do before you could get in line.

Our flight to Chicago was very uneventful.  I had downloaded some movies and watched The Bricklayer (2023) starring Aaron Eckhart and The Beekeeper (2024) starring Jason Statham.  From their characters' performance in both movies, you could replace your entire army with just these two guys.

As soon as we got home, we unloaded our luggage and quickly drove off to retrieve our dog from the sitter.  Daisy was very happy to see us as we were to see her.

We stayed at the Sheraton Gateway Los Angeles Hotel last night.  It is located very close to LAX and they offer a free shuttle to the airport that runs 24/7.  We were told it make a stop at the hotel every 30 minutes.

After arriving at the hotel last night, we dropped off our bags with the bell  hop who took our luggage up to our room while Marcia and I drove our mini-van rental to the nearby airport location for Enterprise Car Rental (partly to avoid the hefty parking charge at the hotel).  After the navigation disaster that I had returning our car to the downtown Miami location (also Enterprise), my wife went with me this time.

The rental agent that was checking us out was nice enough to remove the one way drop off fee ($35) and our total cost was about $65 for renting the Pacifica mini-van for the day.

We were so tired from the whole disembarkation day and museums touring, that we opted for an Uber ($10) for the short ride back to the hotel.  The funny thing was when I pressed the confirm button on the Uber app, our car was already in front of us by some miraculous coincidence.  It was $10 well spent.

My wife asked me to cancel our dinner reservation at the Strand House located in Manhattan Beach because she was so tired.  Our wedding anniversary was on May 3 which occurred on our last sea day.  I wanted to take her to a nice land based restaurant with a view of the sun setting over the ocean during our last night of our vacation.  But when you are tired, it's hard to enjoy something like that.  We had been to that restaurant a few years ago during a land vacation to the the national parks.  We had time to walk out to the pier to watch the sunset.  Here was the view back in 2022.  It may seem rather boring after being out at sea for two weeks.

We decided to simply eat at the hotel restaurant which was pretty mediocre food-wise and service-wise.  

On 5/4/2024 at 2:29 PM, mahdnc said:

From the deck of the USS Iowa

 

The museum has a place behind the security shed to store your luggage if you want to tour the USS Iowa after your cruise. 

My wife corrected me here.

The museum has long term plans to put in some kind of luggage storage facility to make it easier for cruise ship passengers to visit the battleship.  In the mean time, they will take your luggage and will store it for you near on the deck of the ship under the watchful eye of the admissions people.

12 hours ago, DaKahuna said:

@mahdnc Thanks for taking us along on your wonderful journey.  It brought back so many great memories.  Wishing you a safe and uneventful trip home. 

 

You are welcome.  Your live thread last year during your Panama Canal cruise was very helpful.

I will be following along your Japan live thread!

15 minutes ago, D. B. said:

Day 2. We were supposed to be able to Tender to Avalon. Santa Catalina Island today . Not. Captain says sea conditions are to rough for Tendering.🙁.

  Sun is shining and we are floating around a mile off the Island. We can See it but not Touch it.

  I don’t get Seasick under Any conditions and could handle the boat ride but X has to look out for the other 99 percent.

  I expect the Activities Team will come up with some  added distractions ?

Last night at the 8:15 guest participation game show “True or False” I won the first round but gave the prize (a nice Celebrity T-shirt) to the 2nd. Place guy. I have a Lot of them.

  I like that the evening game show on This ship is at 8:15 pm unlike every other X ship I have been on where it is 8:00pm.

  That gives more guests time to get there after the 7:00pm theater show or early dining.

  So Onward to our next port. San Francisco. I may be up early for passing under the Golden Gate Bridge.

I wish we could stop at Astoria Oregon as we did on this cruise last year.

 The sail in viewed from the Sky Lounge is incredible and Astoria is a Docked port.

D.B.

I’m sorry about missing Catalina Island. I would have been looking forward to that port. 

19 hours ago, D. B. said:

One of the most pleasant X boarding experiences.

I arrived at 10:15am at the San Pedro terminal and was onboard and at my cabin at 10:40am.

their was a well marked check in tent. About 60 guests in line. A representative of X opens the entry to the check in clerks at 10:30am (as posted) and after presenting our Passports and sea pass papers we were seated at the entry to the boarding ramp.

Retreat and priority pass guests were called first then Elite and some other qualified guests ( I am Elite+) were called.

I stopped at my muster station on the way to my stateroom on deck 6.

Entered my stateroom and dropped off my things then signed into my Premium WiFi account .

Left my stateroom at 10:40am.

so much better than my last checkin at Valparaiso Chile 3 weeks ago.

My wife and I last sailed on Summit in August of last year from Iceland to Boston and the ship still looks well cared for and modern.

D. B.

I hope you have a very nice cruise! We got off Summit yesterday and it was easy, too. 

Summit docked at Puerto Vallarta. 

51 minutes ago, thepoint said:

Could you please tell me what cabin this is?   Thank you.  

8166. I will post some information about this nice cabin when I get a chance. 

25 minutes ago, fshepinc said:

Heads up, fellow travelers! I came home with a little something extra - Covid 19. A passenger at my dining table was ill, and in quarantine for the final two days of the cruise. I started feeling bad last night, and tested positive when I got home today. Very mild case, but I encourage others to get tested if they feel ill. I thought it was just a head cold, and wouldn’t have thought to test if it weren’t for the known exposure. Hope all of you stay well!

Thanks for the warning. I hope you feel better and fast, Charles. 

33 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

Thank you so much for your review and all the great photos. Glad you had a  wonderful voyage and were able to enjoy some informative presentations. Hope your travels home are smooth and uneventful! Any future cruises in the plans? 
Cathy

We are booked on next April’s Solstice TP from Sydney to Honolulu. We’re looking forward to it!

We visited the La Brea Tar Pits Museum in downtown Los Angeles.  When I went to graduate school in the Los Angeles area, I was blown away by the idea that smelly tar pits existed in a metropolitan area.

Here is a photo of one of the largest tar pits.  Although not evident in the photo, you could see a steady stream of gas bubbles rising to the surface.

Several pre-historic animal remains are found in the tar pits such as the mastadon:

Not sure how people can work with the public watching them behind a window:

Here is a brief time lapse video taken of our arrival at San Pedro early this morning.  The video was taken from our aft balcony.

1 hour ago, janabellev2.0 said:

Happy assisted me onto the ship today (he was pushing wheelchairs).  We will be seeing lots of each other as we sail up the coast!

 

Thanks for sharing your travels through the Canal and on to LA/San Pedro! I've enjoyed watching my ship come in!!

Very cool! Hopefully Happy will be nice to you in the casino as well!

From the deck of the USS Iowa

The museum has a place behind the security shed to store your luggage if you want to tour the USS Iowa after your cruise. 

On the advice of @Fly and Sail, we decided a couple of days ago to do the self assisted walk off. It was soooooo easy. 
 

We went down to the main dining room at 6:30 am for breakfast. We were seated promptly although it was the first time we’ve been seated at one of the high back chairs (I called them “pharaoh chairs”). 
 

After returning to our room from breakfast, I saw Silver Nova cruise past us to her berth. It was a two cruise ship day today and that didn’t include whatever ships may have docked at nearby Long Beach. 
 

At 7:30 am, there was an announcement that the ship had been cleared by immigration and that the self assisted walkoff passengers could leave the ship at Deck 4 on the port side. We had just left our cabin when that announcement was made. 
 

As we were leaving our cabin, @julieawill’s husband, Terrell, opened up his cabin door to say goodbye to us which was nice. 
 

We had no problem finding an elevator with enough room to take us and our luggage from the Deck 8 aft elevators. 
 

After walking past the Rendezvous Lounge, we saw two separate gangways off of Deck 4 to use.  There was absolutely no line. Zero. Many of the other cruises where we’ve done the self walkoff (Ft Lauderdale, Sydney came to mind), it seemed like a quarter of the ship was doing the self assisted walk off. 

There were several crew stationed by the gangways to make sure that people didn’t trip on the transition to the gangway   One of them took my wife’s luggage and walked with us to towards the terminal escalator/elevator. 

CD Rich was standing on the other side of the gangway to tell passengers they could use the escalator or the elevators (while pointing out their locations).  We chose elevators. There was a security person who was managing the elevator by holding the door open until the elevator was reasonably full. We were in the cruise terminal elevator at 7:38 am with no hassles so far.  Nice. 
 

All the security personnel throughout the path of disembarkation were extremely friendly as they bid us a safe travel home—complete with a smile. It’s like they were hired from nearby Disneyland because most of the time when we disembark, the security people have a look on their face that says, “don’t make me have to deal you”.  Or maybe we were getting the smile treatment because the day was young and their patience had not been worn out yet by the crowd of passengers yet to come behind us. 
 

We walked around the huge baggage claim area. It seemed quite spacious and well laid out.  Again maybe it just looked that way beside there were no passengers yet. 
 

The bags were still being distributed as we walked by at 7:42 am. 

The baggage claim area nearest the customs and immigration area has luggage set out. 

The customs and immigration station had six open desks at the time we arrived and there was no line. The officer didn’t need to see our passports as he held a small camera to our face so the computer could identify us through facial recognition. 

If you need buses and other ground transportation, you turned right when you left the terminal. We told the security person who was at the exit that we wanted to go to the Iowa battleship museum—we were instructed to make a left turn and follow the well marked walkway. 

At 7:49 am, we found a place near the battleship museum for me to wait with the bags while Marcia walked to the Enterprise Car Rental location which was 10 minutes away (the car is rented under her name because she gets a good discount). The counter doesn’t open until 9 am on Saturday (and it closes at noon). Meanwhile I’ve got a nice view of Summit and our balcony. 
 

Good morning from San Pedro.  We just docked  about 30 minutes ago.  We had a nice view of the USS Iowa on the way in.

We are docked right behind her.

Happy Derby Day everyone and….

Here is the "ART" in the vestibule entrance on Deck 11 near the Sky Lounge.

I still like the Chihuly aboard Constellation better!

17 minutes ago, fshepinc said:

Thank you for all the information and photos you shared, mahdnc! The disembarkation info was especially helpful, as my cabin steward seemed to take a dislike to me and never brought it to my cabin. (Along with a fair amount of other stuff - first time I’ve ever had to ask for things like soap and laundry…)

 

It was a great cruise, and I met some really nice people!

You’re welcome, Charles. I’m sorry that your cabin steward’s performance seemed to be wanting. 
 

David and Marcia

Our waiter, Sumantra, was wonderful.  He has been with Celebrity for 20 years.  He says he prefers working in the main dining room and has turned down offers to work in the specialty restaurants.