Celebrity Reflection Review/Western Caribbean January 30th 2016 Sail Date

[CanadianDee]

We were on the January 30 Western Caribbean Celebrity Reflection cruise and below is my review with the following riders:

• We were travelling with our five year-old granddaughter and tailored our time towards the things she wanted to do. That meant we didn’t do any of the adult shows or visit the adults-only venues aboard.

• For the same reason we didn’t do any of the specialty restaurants. We considered the Bistro, but given the lukewarm reviews here and the $10 per person upcharge (no discount for children), we decided against it.

 

Who we are: a mid-fifties couple travelling with our five year-old granddaughter. We have cruised Princess and Royal Caribbean several times on our own, Carnival and now Celebrity with our granddaughter.

 

First off, the ship itself. As so many others have said, it’s truly a beautiful ship kept spotlessly clean. The public spaces are nicely appointed throughout the ship, from the two-person alcoves poolside to the hammocks overlooking the ocean, to the small, quiet spaces in places like the library and the Hideaway.

 

Our Room. A Concierge balcony - 1063, close to the elevators. Fairly quiet, no complaints. Plenty of storage space for our needs. Our room attendants (Imade and Green) kept our space neat and clean. We even had a few towel animals, which was a welcome and unexpected treat. On the first day, I asked Imade to clear out the bar fridge and leave us a body pillow whenever he had time, no rush. Those requests were carried out within a few hours.

 

The Lawn. I think the space would be better utilized as something else, but we took a look. The grass struggles a bit and falls short of looking lush. Some spots really struggle to look healthy and I imagine this space takes a lot of work to maintain.

 

The Fun Factory. Fabulous. This is our granddaughter’s second cruise (the first was last year on the Carnival Sunshine, chosen for the waterpark and 2.0 upgrades). Carnival’s kids camp was crowded and noisy and she didn’t care much for it. There were 47 kids of mixed ages aboard our Reflection cruise, so any children going to the Fun Factory got a great counsellor to child ratio and plenty of fun. We met fellow travelling children from Russia, Pakistan, Canada, Switzerland, and Chicago - all were polite and well behaved. A shout out to Jordan and Alexis from Chicago, who we saw the most of - smart, funny kids who were fun to be around. We attended several family activities (Bingo, Scavenger Hunt, clay modelling) and were encouraged to stay and play with her if we wanted to. The counsellors were fun and attentive. Two thumbs up for the kids club.

 

The food. There was lots of it. But I admit to feeling a bit disappointed in its quality. That disappointment began the first morning at breakfast in the Main Dining Room when my hashbrowns came as the pattie you would see in a fast food restaurant.

 

MDR service was good, but rushed. That’s no slur on the staff; they were clearly run off their feet. We made a few special requests (soy sauce for rice once; an extra plate of frogs legs once), but felt a bit guilty making special requests - they were quick to grant them, but -as I said - they were clearly very busy. The soup and salad courses have been blended together, but most nights we did order both a soup and a salad. The food was always good, though seldom outstanding. I recall one poster some time back calling it “high end banquet food” and I think he nailed it. It certainly was not bad, just not as amazing as I’d expected. I’m sure the specialty dining venues would have been a different experience.

 

Side Note: Formal vs Evening Chic. Within our immediate range of vision, we saw lots of people glitzed up for formal night/evening chic, and one pair of jeans. My husband and granddaughter love dressing up; I do not.

 

The drink package. My husband always gets a soda package, but I’ve never taken a drink package, always preferring to sample one or two a day; water and coffee are my beverages of choice. The Classic package came with our booking, but we stuck mainly with non-alcoholic drinks. Both my granddaughter and I loved the virgin mudslides and the Strawberry-Banana soda. We also loved the ginger lemonade, but most bartenders didn’t know how to make it, so we gave up asking. Some bars could get quite crowded, particularly the one by the Oceanview buffet.

 

The Buffet. It seemed like there were a lot of items repeated. One afternoon we went down to a lovely selection of cupcakes, the cookies were good. Nothing really stands out as overwhelmingly delicious, but there were certainly lots of selection and fresh options available.

 

Café el Bacio. We went less often than we expected to. It was frequently crowded and a bit out-of-the-way for us. The drinks and pastries were good.

 

Room Service. A fairly extensive menu. We quickly found our favourites - fruit and cheese platters, and chocolate cake before bed. We had coffee and orange juice from room service most mornings and I stocked up on packages of Frosted Flakes, which our granddaughter likes to snack on during our “pajama party” at night. I meant to order enough orange juice to mix with the bottle of wine that came with our Concierge booking, but never got around to it and the bottle of wine stayed behind, unopened, in our room.

 

The pools. The solarium is adults only so we only saw it whilst walking through. I did pick a peach bread pudding off the lunch offerings at the Aqua Spa Cafe one day and it was quite good. On the pool deck there are two pools and four hot tubs, but one pool and two hot tubs are dedicated to adults only. Our family pool was often quite crowded, but we discovered that if we came out around 7:30 - after dinner - the pool was beautifully lit up and completely empty. We had the pool and two hot tubs to ourselves.

 

The entertainment. We only caught one show: the magician, Alex Ramon. Our granddaughter was completely captivated by his magic. Eyes big as saucers. She’s been practicing magic tricks ever since.

 

Guest Services. By our third day, we noticed we were missing our TA’s onboard credit. Went to Guest Services and waited while they sorted it out. Painless and easy. Because they had to contact our TA to sort it out, it was a bit of a wait and I had a chance to watch them interact with other guests. Pleasant, professional, and fun with all the guests.

 

Concierge Class. We booked this because it was a good deal for us as part of the Spring Into Summer perks package (Classic drink package, gratuities, and $300 onboard credit included). We’d read here that the benefits of Concierge were minimal or nonexistent. While we didn’t feel the Concierge cabin was really a must-have for us, we did see some perks to it:

• Priority boarding. Others have said this is a noncontender, but we did see a difference. We were led to a seating area (which is always nice with a kid in tow) and called aboard before the line up behind us. So yeah, we liked the comfort of that.

• Yes, those footstools on the balcony are hella nice to have. Very comfy. Ditto on the showerhead.

• Binoculars and umbrellas. Didn’t use the umbrellas - from the frozen North, a little rain doesn’t bug us - but our granddaughter made good use of the binoculars.

• Shoe shine - didn’t use.

• Afternoon canapes. They weren’t amazing, but it was fun to lift the lid and we did have a few that we quite liked. Something I’ve read people complain about is that they didn’t get their canapes after the first day. Every day we got a little slip of paper with our daily that told us we’d have to fill it out (with a delivery time) in order to continue receiving the canapes. Midway through we decided we wanted a fruit and cheese plate instead of the canapes, so we wrote that in and it was delivered, usually just before we came to the cabin from our excursion.

• Fruit. Each morning our steward refilled a silver fruit platter with an assortment of fruit. It was always a mixture of pears, apples (several varieties), and oranges. We liked them, and our granddaughter nearly always finished them by the end of the day. I’m sure we could have asked for other fruits, but she was happy with what we got.

 

After we’d booked this cruiseline, we were a little alarmed by some of the negativity expressed by some cruise critic members towards kids on Celebrity. We needn’t have worried. The other passengers were respectful and friendly. In the main dining room, we were bordered by three tables. Every person from each of those tables complimented our granddaughter on her behavior and her looks at some point during the cruise. One table asked to have their pictures taken with her, saying they looked forward to seeing what she’d wear every night (she truly is a fashion diva).

 

The staff was the same. Many would address her by name, one of the wait staff in the Oceanview sat down beside her to play a game on her app - she had the same app as our granddaughter and gave her some tips. :) On our last day, she got hugs from several of the staff members we saw regularly. She made a lot of new friends, young, but mostly older, on this cruise.

[irishgal1970]

Very good review. We were on the same sailing. We don't have any kids (we are two sisters in our 40s), and we do like kids. I think the negative comments about kids that I've read have been about them running around other ships (Carnival, RCCL). I've never read about or had a negative experience with children aboard Celebrity. I believe that's because there are less of them and they are all incredibly well-behaved.

[CanadianDee]

Very good review. We were on the same sailing. We don't have any kids (we are two sisters in our 40s), and we do like kids. I think the negative comments about kids that I've read have been about them running around other ships (Carnival, RCCL). I've never read about or had a negative experience with children aboard Celebrity. I believe that's because there are less of them and they are all incredibly well-behaved.

 

Oh, I just saw your review thread and I'm going to head over and read it right now!

 

There are a few posters on the Celebrity forum that are quite clear about their dislike of children sailing Celebrity. Thankfully, we didn't run into any of them. We had an extremely positive experience sailing as a family. :)

[pretty princess]

Thank you for your review. Sounds like you had a wonderful time and your grand-daughter enjoyed herself. I'm boarding Saturday.

[wpgcycler]

Thanks for this great review - loved having a bit of the children's perspective included - sounds like fun!

[Soccer Mom 96]

I was also on this sailing...I think we spoke on our bus trip to the resorts in Jamaica. Glad you enjoyed your trip with your granddaughter!

[CanadianDee]

I was also on this sailing...I think we spoke on our bus trip to the resorts in Jamaica. Glad you enjoyed your trip with your granddaughter!

 

We had a fabulous time with her. :)

 

Were you the lady I sat beside, the one who loved Cool Running?

[CanadianDee]

Thank you for your review. Sounds like you had a wonderful time and your grand-daughter enjoyed herself. I'm boarding Saturday.

 

You'll have a lovely time! Check out the night-time swims, we loved them.

[gkny]

Thank you for your review.

[portofrome]

Thank you for the review.

[S&G1968]

Excellent review!

 

Steve

[Soccer Mom 96]

We had a fabulous time with her. :)

 

Were you the lady I sat beside, the one who loved Cool Running?

 

I was sitting in front of you with my husband. You sat next to my friend since her husband was upfront.