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Reflection Thanksgiving review

thephillykid

By thephillykid,
in Celebrity Cruises

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thephillykid

thephillykid

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First let me say that my family of 7, wife, grown son and daughter early 20's and my sister and her husband and 11 year old daugther have not been on celebrity, and are frequent carnival cruisers.

 

Embarkment.....very quick and easy, we all received the email to get there between12:30 and 3:30, but arrived at the port around 11 with no issues. We were on board in less than 30 minutes. Much easier than carnival.

 

First impressions.....very nice new ship, smoke free, that was laid out very nice, with a few exceptions. The buffet does not flow as nice as the newer carnival ships, and they have zero originality as far as the dishes being served, they repeated every day.

 

Cabin.....we had C2 concierge class cabins on deck decks 10 and 12 and they were laid out very strange. The sofa was almost touching the closet door and made it very hard to get into the closet. Maybe it was laid out that way as we were on the hump, but it was not convenient at all. The bathroom was nice, but we missed the body wash and conditioner dispensers on the wall in the shower. Overall a nice cabin.

 

I will continue the review in a little while, feel free to ask questions.

Howard

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20pluscruises

20pluscruises

Posted
Posted
First let me say that my family of 7, wife, grown son and daughter early 20's and my sister and her husband and 11 year old daugther have not been on celebrity, and are frequent carnival cruisers.

 

Embarkment.....very quick and easy, we all received the email to get there between12:30 and 3:30, but arrived at the port around 11 with no issues. We were on board in less than 30 minutes. Much easier than carnival.

 

First impressions.....very nice new ship, smoke free, that was laid out very nice, with a few exceptions. The buffet does not flow as nice as the newer carnival ships, and they have zero originality as far as the dishes being served, they repeated every day.

 

Cabin.....we had C2 concierge class cabins on deck decks 10 and 12 and they were laid out very strange. The sofa was almost touching the closet door and made it very hard to get into the closet. Maybe it was laid out that way as we were on the hump, but it was not convenient at all. The bathroom was nice, but we missed the body wash and conditioner dispensers on the wall in the shower. Overall a nice cabin.

 

I will continue the review in a little while, feel free to ask questions.

Howard

 

I would like to hear what you liked and didn't care for. Thanks!

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thephillykid

thephillykid

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Sailing on Reflection in April with 2 friends. We have a hump c cabin too. Would you mind telling us your cabin #? How many were in your cabin? How was the storage? Looking forward to reading the rest of your review.

 

We had 2166 and 2171, and we had 2 in each cabin. We had plenty of storage, just thought the sofa was really close to the closet.

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thephillykid

thephillykid

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Here is some more.

 

123 drink package.....We all had the classic drink package free with our reservations, but 4 of us upgraded to the premium package. We felt that the fact that you get water and are able to get the fancy drinks in the martini bar was worth the upgrade. From the time we got on board, we noticed that almost every bar on board had more people waiting to get a drink than bartenders to get the drinks. When we first got on board, we went to the buffet to eat lunch and a bar server asked us what we would like to drink and after we ordered our drinks, we went up to get our food. We were on dessert by the time he came back with our drinks. FYI..you have to present your card each and every time you order a drink, and they swipe it in the computer. Sure there were times that you could find an emptier bar, but for the most part, there was usually a wait for a drink. The bar staff on this ship was not anywhere as attentive as on past cruises. Here are a few examples of what I mean....we went to the show in the reflection theater and we never saw servers in there to get you a drink. In the mdr, the bar servers had to be flagged down to get you a drink. Here is my biggest complaint about the bar...... as the week went on, bars on board would run out of something and then never get it again. On the second to last day, a sea day, the casino bar ran out of grey goose vodka, then they ran out of most other premium brand of vodka, while other bars, including the martini bar around the corner, had plenty in stock. The bar staff was stretched way too thin, and couldn't even take the time to go to get more alcohol to restock. By the last few days, diet coke was a commodity and a challenge to find, they ran out of in the mdr bar by day 5. The last night of the cruise, I asked for a bottle of water, and all they had left were the tiny little bottles of warm evian. I felt that as the cruise went on, the bar staff was getting worn down and their attitudes suffered.

 

Howard

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20pluscruises

20pluscruises

Posted
Posted (edited)
Here is some more.

 

123 drink package.....We all had the classic drink package free with our reservations, but 4 of us upgraded to the premium package. We felt that the fact that you get water and are able to get the fancy drinks in the martini bar was worth the upgrade. From the time we got on board, we noticed that almost every bar on board had more people waiting to get a drink than bartenders to get the drinks. When we first got on board, we went to the buffet to eat lunch and a bar server asked us what we would like to drink and after we ordered our drinks, we went up to get our food. We were on dessert by the time he came back with our drinks. FYI..you have to present your card each and every time you order a drink, and they swipe it in the computer. Sure there were times that you could find an emptier bar, but for the most part, there was usually a wait for a drink. The bar staff on this ship was not anywhere as attentive as on past cruises. Here are a few examples of what I mean....we went to the show in the reflection theater and we never saw servers in there to get you a drink. In the mdr, the bar servers had to be flagged down to get you a drink. Here is my biggest complaint about the bar...... as the week went on, bars on board would run out of something and then never get it again. On the second to last day, a sea day, the casino bar ran out of grey goose vodka, then they ran out of most other premium brand of vodka, while other bars, including the martini bar around the corner, had plenty in stock. The bar staff was stretched way too thin, and couldn't even take the time to go to get more alcohol to restock. By the last few days, diet coke was a commodity and a challenge to find, they ran out of in the mdr bar by day 5. The last night of the cruise, I asked for a bottle of water, and all they had left were the tiny little bottles of warm evian. I felt that as the cruise went on, the bar staff was getting worn down and their attitudes suffered.

 

Howard

 

So, do you think the idea was to actually make you have a long wait for the premium vodka hoping you'll just give up and go with the bar brand due to no wait? Everything I'm reading from the last two cruises this seems to be the case.

Edited by 20pluscruises
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thephillykid

thephillykid

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So, do you think the idea was to actually make you have a long wait for the premium vodka hoping you'll just give up and go with the bar brand due to no wait? Everything I'm reading from the last two cruises this seems to be the case.

 

That's basically what happened, but how do you substitute diet coke?

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dmk

dmk

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I did find that there were no one taking drink orders around the pool area and one deck up on our Reflection cruise. I wondered if that had to do with Drink packages. Most probably.

Edited by dmk
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Jane2357

Jane2357

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Maybe you would have been better off sticking with Carnival.

 

And this is exactly what gives Cruise Critic a bad reputation. There are many of us that care to hear what this person has to say and they are entitled to their opinion no matter what cruise lines they have sailed on. Time to grow up.

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cynbar

cynbar

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Too many posts lately complaining about poor drink service on Reflection. We'll be on her in May so I hope things improve by then --- and yes, we have the free drink packages and hope to be able to enjoy them. Celebrity obviously knows how many drink packages they are selling, it doesn't make any sense to understaff the bars or they risk offending their customers. I hope more recent posters chime in and let us know how things are going.

Edited by cynbar
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