gryffin123

I accidently left a bag of personal items and purchases on a bus that took us from the port shop area back to the pier. I don't remember which island- but it was one where it was too long to walk, there were several different buses, they were driven by locals, and they were coming back and forth in quick succession. The driver of the bus found my bag, and passed it to another driver and the bag made it back to me at the ship.

I was long gone- these drivers didn't have to do anything, they never would have heard from me again. Just trying to point out that socioeconomic status doesn't govern honesty and integrity...

We would love to go to Little Cayman and Cayman Brac sometime, but this time, we have already booked a condo for the full week that we will be on Grand Cayman.

I think you do have to fly to get to either island from Grand Cayman.

Celebrity has refreshed its itineraries for Winter 2017/2018, there are new 7 day, 10 day and 11 day options.

Thanks! I think the Summit will suit us just fine, and you have made me want t plan a cruise to Bermuda!!!

It turns out that we didn't end up on this cruise. Circumstances led to us cancelling the cruise and opting for a land vacation instead. The good news is that the land vacation was in Grand Cayman. We did our class and pool work at home, and then finished up with our OW checkout dives on GC. We got in a few more dives, though my husband got sick, so we ended up with 6 dives for him and 9 for me.

We head to GC again in the fall for another week and plan to get in some more diving.

In February, we will be heading on a cruise and hope to dive in at least two of the ports. The itinerary is similar to the one I originally posted about- in order: St. Kitts, St. Martin, St. Thomas, and San Juan. I'm assuming St.Kitts and St. Thomas for diving. I'm looking for operators who take out fewer people on their boats and who can cater to novices. As recommended before, I'll contact Dive St. Kitts for that port. For St. Thomas, would Blue Island Divers be our best bet?

Also, any ideas for refresher dives, either near Fort Meyers or Fort Lauderdale? It might be nice to get out in the water before the cruise since we'll be in Florida for a week before we embark.

Thanks!

Thanks for your review. We have a cruise booked on the Summit in Februray- we have cruised Celebritay before, but never one of the M class ships.

When you say that the ship "shows her age here and there" what specifically did you notice?

Thanks!

Hi dtagirl:

We just booked a cabin in a very similar area- 1118. You said you booked one a little further forward for your next cruise- was that to reduce the noise from the screen? If so, how far forward might make a difference?

Thanks!

Hello all:

I have just booked a cruise on the Summit and after picking a room, have now learned about the new Rooftop Terrace. I picked 1118 based on previous reviews, but am now wondering if I would be better off further forward or further back. Does anyone have any insight into what would now be the more quiet cabins?

Thanks-

Nicole

We are booked on both of the affected sailings (1/21/2017 and 1/31/2017). I was hoping we could do a back-to-back. However, it was beginning to look like we would have to choose to do just one and were planning on the 1/31. Mute point now I guess. We really wanted to do the overnight in Aruba, so I have an itinerary on hold on the Eclipse.

My question is if I book the Eclipse now, can I still qualify for anything they might offer to compensate for the cancellations? We also prefer to cruise in February, we picked the January cruise(s) specifically because of the itineraries. I wonder if the February dates will be among the compensation choices.

It looks like all of this will work out. I contacted Scuba Marco and they are happy to do our checkout dives with us when we are visiting family in Cape Coral. They are a bit further away than the other dive shops that I contacted, but a lot closer than going to Key Largo or the east coast for our checkout dives! We will be able to dive with them and still stay with our family during our visit.

We will have 4 days to fit the checkout dives in- and they also have a sheltered area to do the dives if the ocean is too rough. In the meantime, I am going to set up to do our pool work with a shop in New Hampshire- that way we can take our time and make sure we are comfortable with the skills and equipment before we head to Florida.

I have set up dives directly with Peter at West Side Scuba in Barbados and also with Dive St. Kitts.

Thanks everyone for the advice and suggestions!

I will give Scuba Marco a call. Thanks!

I am in contact with West Side Scuba in Barbados to schedule dives for our visit- they offered a nice package with transport to and from the port. I think it will be fun to dive there. The last time we visited we did a catamaran trip and snorkeled in Carlisle Bay- there were lots of fish to see.

We are in the middle of the e-learning and haven't yet done the pool work.

Do post if you end up crusing with us- it would be nice to know someone else heading to the same dive shop. :)

We are in New Hampshire.

Thanks for you help and suggestions, I do appreciate it. I'm been working on this for a long time and things seem to keep happening that prevent us from getting certified. We were going to do it in Key Largo before our cruise last February, but my husband broke his ribs, so we had to cancel the diving. Then we were going to do it in Ft. Lauderdale before a cruise this October, but we had to cancel the whole trip because we used too much vacation time with some family-related time off. The same family-related issues prevented us from being able to do it locally while it was still warm in northern New England.

There are several shops that will do a package of 2 PADI referral dives, including Dive St. Kitts. Shore Trips even arranges this in 3 of our 4 ports. I realize that this far from ideal, but I'm struggling to figure out an alternate approach.

We will be Florida for almost 1 week staying with relatives, and my plan had been to do our OW dives during our visit. I figured it was Florida and warm enough for the beaches, so we should be able to dive, right? However, I was unaware that the diving conditions aren't good for beginners on the west coast and the shops in the area do an overnight Key Largo trip for the open water dives. This really cuts into the time we are supposed to be spending with the relatives, not to mention, a lot of driving extra driving- Cape Coral to Key Largo to Cape Coral to Lauderdale. They won't schedule for the last two days before our cruise because they don't want to take the risk that the conditions would be bad in Key Largo one of those specific days.

I'm investigating an instructor who works out of Ft. Lauderdale to see if we can do all 4 dives with him on the Weds and Thurs before the cruise, but even if I arrange this, there is always the possibility of the diving conditions being bad and us losing the opportunity to do the dives while in Florida.

I want to make sure we have a backup plan. I think we should be able to do at least dives 1 & 2 with him because there is a lake option if the water is too rough, but it isn't deep enough to complete the certification.

If anyone knows of a dive shop near Cape Coral that certifies locally, please let me know as that would be the most flexible option.

Thanks!

Hello:

In March, my husband and I will be visiting St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Barbados and St. Martin (in that order). We are trying to do our certification beforehand, but we might end up doing our Open Water dives while on the cruise. Either way we will be very new divers. Which ports/dive show would you recommend?

I was thinking Coki Beach in St. Thomas and then somewhere in St. Kitts, but was wondering if we should consider Barbados or St. Martin instead. We would snorkel in the ports that we don't scuba.

Thanks-

Nicole

We are booked on the Equinox in March 2016 and I am excited about the new overnight! We booked a 2017 Summit itinerary a few months ago because of the overnight stay in Aruba!

The GPU is the thing that I have the most concern about. I can choose between a fast consumer card (Ge Force) or a mid range workstation card, e.g. Quadro K2100., but I'm not sure which is the best route.

We just bought a GoPro to take underwater video while we are cruising. We want to buy a laptop to edit the footage while we are traveling. I know that we need something pretty powerful to edit HD video, particularly when we have 2.5K footage. Has anyone here done this? Any experiences to share?

I know a desktop would be better, but we really want at least minimal portability.

Thanks for any advice!

I did this on my last cruise which was 2 weeks ago. I had booked two sailings a few weeks before the cruise. When onboard, I rebooked one of them, but the other had increased in price to the point where there was no benefit in rebooking it, so I left it alone.

The future cruise office had no problem with me having two reservations for the same cruise in my name, and suggested we could wait until we got home to cancel the first one and then switch the second one to the room we had for the first one. Instead, my husband went to our room, got our iPad, and cancelled the first reservation so the future cruise office could take the room for new reservation.

We were on the Reflection 2/28-3/7, and had a completely different experience with Blu- with one exception. We had the same table in the back every night, and it was a relaxing, quiet location where we could carry on a conversation with each other easily. By contrast, the night we ate in Tuscan Grill, we gave up trying to converse because it was too loud to hear each other (and the wait staff). Our waiter, assistant waiter and the maitre d' all gave impeccable service- and their recommendations were always spot on. They often brought out extra appetizers/entrees for us to try- without us asking for them. Honestly, sometimes it felt like we were the only ones there because the service was so personal. We felt that our experience with Blu on Eclipse last year was great and we couldn't imagine better, but our experience on Reflection actually exceeded our experience on Eclipse. Now we learned on the Eclipse that 7 was the busiest time for Blu, so we avoided that time if at possible, tending to get to the dining room around 7:30. The one thing we didn't like in Blu was the risotto- my husband was unhappy with it for the same reasons you mentioned (note that it wasn't the entree the waiter recommended that night). I had the lamb and it was very good.

Now at the Lawn Club Grill, my husband's steak was cooked completely wrong- very overdone- and he was very unhappy with it. Mine was perfect though.

We dressed up a bit on formal night, but certainly not formal- my husband wore a jacket over a dress shirt with no tie.

Will we have to worry about rowdy spring breakers on a 10-day March cruise?

I think we are leaning toward March- our last cruise was 2/28, which was still very much winter enough to want to get away. March 4 is only 4 days later. I'm also trying to plan a second cruise for this fall, so it spaces them out more.

Is the weather a little better in the Caribbean in March? On our last two cruises, we were told in a couple of ports that it was still a bit "cold" for the locals. (Having said this, we found that it was plenty warm for us!)

We are trying to decide whether to cruise on Mar 4, 2016 and Feb 12, 2016. Both are the 10 day eastern itinerary on the Equinox. We generally like to go in Feb because by then we are tired of winter. However, the net cost of the Mar 4 itinerary is almost $900 less. Are there other reasons to choose one over the other? We will most likely do some sort of water-based activity in all the ports.

We had one in our Aqua cabin on the Reflection last week. We also had one in our Aqua cabin on the Eclipse last year. We didn't keep them either time because we weren't sure whether we were supposed to!

This may be a little late for the original poster, but as far as companies that offer both scuba and snorkeling on the same boat, I can recommend Cozumel H2O:

http://www.cozumelh2o.com/

We did a snorkel tour with them and they were very clear that they would do a tour with both snorkelers and divers. They have very good reviews on Trip Advisor and are accommodating and reassuring. The briefing we got on the way to the dive sites was the best I've ever had on snorkeling as well as about the locations we were heading to/what we would see at each place. In addition, the first dive/snorkel is at a shallow, sandy location where guide evaluates everyone's skills and comfort before going on to the other sites.