Summit to Bermuda, 9-2-12 ** LONG **with photos

[KristinK023]

Can you explain how to get from the ship in King's Wharf over to Horseshoe Bay ? Do you have to buy a roundtrip bus pass, and if so where? Just trying to find out the easiest way to get there when we go on the Summit.

[librarylady19]

We were pretty hot after wandering about and found some respite at one of the watefront restaurants on Somers Wharf - Tavern by the Sea.

It was lovely to sit in the shade and look out over the water. We enjoyed a rum swizzle and some of the delicious Bermuda fish chowder (peppery but not overly hot).

 

We were treated to the lovely sight of a rainbow while waiting for the ferry:

Scott gave St. George his approval:

 

 

It was a long day but a lot of fun, and we still had dinner, drinks and entertainment on board to look forward to! I sure do love cruising!!

[dforeigner]

Awesome review and pics. Thanks.

[librarylady19]

Can you explain how to get from the ship in King's Wharf over to Horseshoe Bay ? Do you have to buy a roundtrip bus pass, and if so where? Just trying to find out the easiest way to get there when we go on the Summit.

 

If you buy the transportation pass at the Dock, you can use that for both ferries and buses. The buses stopped just past the ferry dock. You take the #7 bus that goes to Hamilton.

There are published schedules for both the buses and ferries:

 

http://www.seaexpress.bm/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_13212_283_1766_43/http%3B/ptpublisher.gov.bm%3B7087/publishedcontent/publish/ministry_of_tourism_and_transport/sea_express/dept___seeaexpress__ferry_schedule_new/summer_schedule_2012__web_.pdf

 

 

http://www.gov.bm/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_18606_252_993_43/http%3B/ptpublisher.gov.bm%3B7087/publishedcontent/publish/ministry_of_tourism_and_transport/public_transportation_board/bus_schedules/bus_schedule11.pdf

 

People are very helpful too.

 

Check out the Bermuda board on CC - some very knowledgeable posters there, especially Sailbad...

[DPurcell58]

Your pictures are beautiful, can't believe how empty Horseshoe Bay was. I'm a little confused. Wasn't Hurrucane Irene last summer?? Pretty sure we sailed out into her in Aug. 2011.

[Ellen S]

Hurricane Irene was last year. This year it was Issac. Thought it missed Bermuda.

[Diane Rose]

You are correct, Isaac did miss Bermuda. The hurricane was very slow travelling north, but earlier in the week due to upwelling ( I think that is the term), all water activity was pretty much shut down. We were fortunate to be able to stay in Bermuda. Weather was gorgeous and trip back to NYC was beautiful. And then, thankfully, Isaac missed Bermuda.

 

Diane

[ottogranny]

The hurricaine was Leslie. She missed us completely thank goodness.Thank you Sandi for the great review and wonderful pictures. It was wonderful meeting you and Scott on the cruise We enjoyed ourselves and can't wait for our next cruise.

[Sylesch]

Nice review, i am looking forward to Cruise with the Summit on November 17th.

Did you enjoy the Aqua Class cabin ? We will be on deck 9 as well.

As AQua Class cruiser, do you havé to reserve to rat at the Blu or CAN you chose at the l'astre minut if you want to rat at the Blu or at the MDR ?

:)

[Sylesch]

Great review And pictures, i am happy to read a good positiv review on the "new Summit" .

I am looking forward to Cruise with the Summit on November 17th.

Did you enjoy the Aqua Class cabin ? We will be on deck 9 as well.

As AQua Class cruiser, do you have to reserve to eat at the Blu or CAN you choose at the very last minut if you want to eat at the Blu or at the MDR ?

:)

( Sorry for my english, i am french speaking !!)

[Sylesch]

Nice review, i am looking forward to Cruise with the Summit on November 17th.

Did you enjoy the Aqua Class cabin ? We will be on deck 9 as well.

As AQua Class cruiser, do you havé to reserve to rat at the Blu or CAN you chose at the l'astre minut if you want to rat at the Blu or at the MDR ?

:)

 

Great review And pictures, i am happy to read a good positiv review on the "new Summit" .

I am looking forward to Cruise with the Summit on November 17th.

Did you enjoy the Aqua Class cabin ? We will be on deck 9 as well.

As AQua Class cruiser, do you have to reserve to eat at the Blu or CAN you choose at the very last minut if you want to eat at the Blu or at the MDR ?

:)

( Sorry for my english, i am french speaking !!)

 

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[Sylesch]

...

[librarylady19]

Great review And pictures, i am happy to read a good positiv review on the "new Summit" .

I am looking forward to Cruise with the Summit on November 17th.

Did you enjoy the Aqua Class cabin ? We will be on deck 9 as well.

As AQua Class cruiser, do you have to reserve to eat at the Blu or CAN you choose at the very last minut if you want to eat at the Blu or at the MDR ?

:)

( Sorry for my english, i am french speaking !!)

 

No apologies needed. Your posts are perfectly understandable.

You do not need to reserve to eat in Blu - just show up between 5:45 and 9:30 pm. We never had to wait more than a few minutes.

We did not war dinner in the MDR so I don't know how that would work.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[librarylady19]

Hurricane Irene was last year. This year it was Issac. Thought it missed Bermuda.

 

Oops... Sorry about that. Got my hurricanes mixed up.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[librarylady19]

Your pictures are beautiful, can't believe how empty Horseshoe Bay was. I'm a little confused. Wasn't Hurrucane Irene last summer?? Pretty sure we sailed out into her in Aug. 2011.

 

You are correct!!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Diane Rose]

You are correct, Isaac did miss Bermuda. The hurricane was very slow travelling north, but earlier in the week due to upwelling ( I think that is the term), all water activity was pretty much shut down. We were fortunate to be able to stay in Bermuda. Weather was gorgeous and trip back to NYC was beautiful. And then, thankfully, Isaac missed Bermuda.

 

Diane

 

Got my hurricanes mixed up as well. There were so many around Labor Day this year. We were so lucky not to have any problems.

 

Diane

[vplsh]

 

While Scott, Rob and Deirdre settled in, I popped over to Cellarmasters to purchase my premium beverage package. It took the bartender a while to process it (NOTE: no sales tax was charged).

 

 

Is that typical, Sandi or someone else who would know? No sales tax charged, even tho you're still in port? We are on Connie in December and not sure whether to purchase our drink packages now or on the ship. If we wait and there's no tax, it's like a 7% discount!!!

 

Thanks!!

[librarylady19]

Sorry for the delay in continuing the review...went out of town for the weekend.

 

Thursday, September 6 - Goodbye Bermuda

 

I awoke to the sun rising over our balcony, always a beautiful sight.

 

 

We were scheduled to leave Bermuda at noon today, so we had not planned to stray too far from the ship. I wouldn't want to chance missing our ride home ;)

 

We enjoyed yet another lovely breakfast in Blu, a wonderfully civilized way to start the day....I would highly recommend a couple of the breakfast items I enjoyed. The muesli, made to your liking tableside, is a delicious bowl of fruity goodness, and the mango smoothies (no charge) were also really tasty, and I generally do not like those types of drinks.

 

Again Scott and I split up as I wanted to do a bit of last-minute shopping, and he didn't!! I didn't feel like long hikes anywhere as, rather bizarrely, my feet and ankles had swelled up to 3 times their size overnight. I had heard of this happening to other people so chalked it up too much salt and tried to ignore it.

 

I walked around the Dockyards area, popping in and out of the stores there. It was blazing hot already at 10:00 a.m. I browsed the Glassworks (no AC in there poor things!) and purchased rum cakes to take home.

 

The craft galleries had some nice pieces of jewelry and art but I was not tempted to leave too much more money in Bermuda.

 

I popped into Snorkel Park Beach for a look around. They were just getting set up for the day. It was OK, but not somewhere I would really want to spend time. Reminded me of some of the beach places in Cozumel actually. If you wanted a quick swim/snorkel I guess it would be fine. Looked like mostly younger folks there.

 

 

 

By that time, red spots had appeared on my legs so I was getting a bit concerned about the swelling. I went back to the ship and stopped into the Medical Center. The male nurse there told me to just put my feet up and didn't prescribe anything?? I went back to our cabin and relaxed with my feet up (which did seem to help), until Scott returned from his adventures.

 

He had a more productive morning, having spent a couple of enjoyable hours in the National Museum of Bermuda and Maritime Museum. He's a real naval buff (former Marine!! and fan of the Patrick O'Brian novels. He said it was a great tour and really full of interesting Bermudian history, especially concerning all the shipwrecks that have occurred off the Bermuda coast. He also ran into Deirdre and Rob at the Frog and Onion and enjoyed a pint there.

 

The ship left Bermuda at noon, and we were able to enjoy views of the incomparable turquoise waters and sights along the shoreline as we were piloted out to sea.

 

 

 

[librarylady19]

We perused the Celebrity Today, but there really wasn't anything advertised that enticed us to leave our balcony. (The lectures didn't appeal and I'm not interested in cake decorating. I have to say, most of the planned activities were rather ho-hum, nothing I had either seen on previous cruises or marginally interesting topics. As others have noted, there seemed to be a lot of "programs" geared to selling products rather than truly entertaining or interesting.)

 

We enjoyed a couple of very relaxing hours with Rob & Deirdre on our balcony, ordering in room service once again. All good!!

 

We all decided to go to the Wine Tasting Seminar for Select members that was held in the MDR at 4:00 p.m. It was ok, tasting of 2 whites and 2 reds. We like wine, but are more well-versed in beer styles, so found the sommelier's lecture a little pretentious. Oh well, it was free. We moved from there to the Rendevous Lounge for trivia.

 

This was the only time we stopped in here. We had walked through one evening but it was VERY dark and uninviting; this was a much nicer space pre-Solsticization in my opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

The trivia was advertised as "Interactive and Visual" - it was actually a powerpoint quiz consisting of a list of town names from which you had to name the country...not that interactive really. We didn't do so well but weren't too crushed not to win the Celebrity visors!!

[librarylady19]

We had planned on dinner at Normandie this evening, but had changed our reservation after seeing that Blu had lobster on the dinner menu that night. Well, the lobster turned out to be quite a disappointment. It was nothing like the lobster we had enjoyed on Eclipse. This lobster was served unceremoniously whole on the plate and was not taken out of the shell. The meat itself was not at all memorable and the citrus reduction was not tasty. Oh well, we still enjoyed the company and the rest of the meal was fine.

 

We also attended the Senior Officers Cocktail Party in Revelations, scheduled for 7:45 p.m. It was a pretty low-key affair. The Captain and Senior Officers shook guests' hands as they entered, the Captain made a few brief remarks, mingled a bit with guests and that was it. There was no live entertainment, drinks service was a bit spotty (it took 3 requests for me to get an apple martini); appetizers were passed around (didn't need any food at that point anyway). Could have missed this event honestly.

 

We did enjoy a very entertaining series of events in the Theatre that night, however, beginning with "The Music and Humor of Doug Cameron." He is a very talented violinist and the show was quite good. We did not find the music to be too loud, as others have noted.

 

We stayed in our seats for the Newly Wed, Not So Newly Wed Game Show. I had volunteered Rob & Deirdre for the show but unfortunately they weren't selected (they would have been much more entertaining than one of the couples that did participate..)

CD Jason did a very good job as emcee of this show, keeping the show moving. His assistant was superfluous imo; not much personality. A lot of the humor came from the couple who had been married for 68 years - they were very cute!! It was a fun show that ran over a bit, probably because it took the old dears a while to get on and off the stage and answer questions; they were really good sports. I certainly wouldn't want to be a participant myself.

 

The final show of the night was the adult show with comedian Michele Balan at 11:15 p.m. Hilarious!!!

 

Luckily, we didn't have to get up early in the morning as we had packed a lot in the day.

[librarylady19]

Friday, September 7 - Sea Day

 

I was actually up early today and enjoyed some time in the T-pool as it was blessedly empty. (Most of the time, it was quite crowded, as were the indoor whirlpools....best times were early morning or dinner times.) Despite "warnings", plenty of people were still "reserving" their chairs at both indoor and outdoor pools.

 

I took advantage of the emptiness of the upper decks and walked a few laps up to Deck 12 and back down the stairs. That area is rather depressing I must say....a vast empty space with nothing but some nasty, beat up plastic loungers. This really needs to be refurbished.)

I also had some fruit and coffee from the Aqua Spa cafe (the coffee was just ok) but I didn't feel like walking down to Cafe al Bacio for a cappucino!!

 

 

We had our usual breakfast in Blu. Our plan was to go to the Brunch at lunchtime to avoid the mad rush at 10:00 a.m. (The Brunch was advertised only by a listing in the restaurant hours in Celebrity Today).

 

We walked around a bit, looking to see if there were any bargains in the shops. I did get a Celebrity Summit key ring but no real deals to be had on any Celebrity merchandise. We astutely avoided the jewelry shops as it was an absolute free-for-all at the charm bracelet sale....reminded me of WalMart on Black Friday. Ladies were grabbing as many boxes as they could and piling them up in various areas to pick through to find the ones they wanted. Not a pretty sight - they weren't even Pandora :confused:

 

We realized we had not been to Cafe al Bacio yet, so stopped in for a drink.

Not to continue with this negative trend - but I really didn't get a good feel about the Cafe on the Summit. It was a faithful reproduction of the spaces on the S class ships but it just was a bit disorganized...no real way to know where to order at the counter or any indication that they would wait on you at the tables. The servers I encountered were definitely not as well trained and friendly as those I had met on the Eclipse. I had enjoyed the little lunch sandwiches one day and had an iced drink or two, but that was about it.

[librarylady19]

Cafe al Bacio:

 

 

Gelateria:

 

 

We met up with Rob & Deirdre at the Cosmopolitan Restaurant around 12:30 p.m. for the Brunch and were seated at a table with Don (dkjretired) and his wife - that was a nice surprise as we had not seen them since Sailaway so it was fun to catch up and trade stories of our experiences on the ship and in Bermuda.

Even though some of the displays were a bit worse for the wear this late in the day (hence no photos), we were still able to enjoy a nice variety of lunch foods...Scott was pleased because there was cold shrimp and I enjoyed the carved lamb, as well as a few other items. Definitely would go to the Brunch late in the game in the future, much less stressful.

 

We finally made it to the Persian Gardens that afternoon and were pleasantly surprised that we enjoyed it. We are big fans of the S class PG so were not sure if we would like the dark, enclosed space on Summit. It was a very different experience, but very relaxing. I did miss the lovely views of the ocean, but liked the different showers and steam room that were very convenient to use, and return to the heated benches, on Summit. The music was very relaxing and everyone was courteous (i.e. not carrying on loud conversations). I don't think I would pay for the experience, but it was a nice perk of Aquaclass.

[librarylady19]

We moved outside to the Pool Area so we could find seats for the performance of Fusion with Doug Cameron. This was great!! Don't know why this was not featured in the Celebrity Today (found it buried in the fineprint) but it was another entertainment highlight for us.

The pool area was surprisingly uncrowded and we relaxed on our last afternoon of vacation and enjoyed drinks, little sandwiches from the Buffet and some fine music.

 

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the Buffet - we had astutely avoided eating here throughout the trip. It just was not appealing, reminded me of a college cafeteria. We didn't even partake of our usual sushi on this cruise. Again, S class wins in this category for me.

 

We had to face our packing tasks after this as we knew we would not likely make it back from dinner at Normandie in time to get everything outside our door by 11:00 p.m. Then....off to Normandie for our 8:30 p.m. reservation.

 

We were big fans of Normandie on our last Summit cruise, having eaten there 3 times. The decor had not changed much that we could see, other than the addition of a piano and a small seating area near the entrance. It remains a very beautiful room.

 

 

 

There was piano music for a short while after we were seated but then it inexplicably ended.

The menu at Normandie had changed since our last visit. Food was still very good but not quite as excellent as we remembered. Service was quite solicitous but a tad slow (the place was packed even at 9:00 p.m.).

 

I had the lobster bisque (pretty tasty) which was cleverly presented with the soup in a teapot and Scott had the risotto (very tasty but the foam was superfluous). The breads served in Normandie are excellent. The scallop wellington was as good as I remembered.

Scott ordered the Dover Sole that was prepared tableside, that he enjoyed.

 

 

I had the rack of lamb encrusted with hazelnuts....I have to say, I much preferred the previous, more classic, rendition. This lamb was served on a bed of artichoke hearts (that I do not care for) with a curry sauce.

 

[elena7seas]

Hi Sandi:

 

I am just loving every minute of your review! Thanks so much for taking the time, and thanks especially for all of those great pictures.

 

Bermuda had never really been on our radar until I read your review.

 

Now that you have sailed there, would you recommend cruising to Bermuda, or do you think simply flying there and staying in Bermuda for a week would be a better option?

 

In the process of doing your research, what did you learn about the best time of year to go to Bermuda? The research that I have been doing is pointing me towards June.

[Diane Rose]

Really enjoying reminising about the cruise. After reading your review, I am really sorry that we missed Doug Cameron. Sounds like he was a real highlight.

 

Diane