Just back from Silhouette- 1st Celebrity Cruise

[4cats,1dog]

Just back from the Silhouette.

A bit of Background: My DH and I are in our low 50’s and have been on 8 Royal Caribbean Cruises. We just became Diamond Members. ( and 1 Carnival) We love the big Ships.

On our Honeymoon, 32 years ago, we were in an inside cabin. Never again! We didn’t like not knowing if it was Day or night. Since then, we had to have a balcony cabin. We live in South Florida, so hopping on a ship in Ft. Lauderdale or Miami was real easy. 2014 we made the jump to flying to a destination and did a cruise-tour to Alaska. AMAZING! I surprised my DH with a Grand Suite. We haven’t been able to go back to a regular cabin. So, I have been reading all about Celebrity S-Class ships. The Quality, Service and the No-Smoking policy made me want to try it. Being Diamond on RCL automatically made us Elite on X, but that didn’t make any difference when we booked a Sky Suite. Here is my review:

We arrived at pier 25 at 11:30am. We were on board by noon. Our first impression was wow!

Love the personal touches: Champagne and Mimosa’s upon arrival. Awesome.

We toured around the ship a little, and found that our dining room, Luminae was open for lunch. It was nice and quiet and decided to have lunch there. The host Thomas was great. He gave us great advice to have our first dinner at Murano. The rest of the staff in Luminae were terrific. Lunch was great. Food was good. We had breakfast every day at Luminae. Gina served us Coffee and OJ and great smoothies. Rolando serve us Danish and was our assistant waiter the rest of the week. Anytime one of us got up to go to the restroom, Rolando would come with two forks as tongs and replaced our napkin. Very funny.

Besides the first Dinner in Murano, We had dinner in Luminae the rest of the week. Most of the week we had GEDE (he pronounced good day) as our waiter. We called him “G”. He was amazing. Funny and attentive. We also had Alfredo and Jesus. Reubin was our Sommelier all week. He looks like Lawrence Fishburn. He always had a smile. Even though we had prepaid gratuities, we ended up giving the staff in Luminae a little extra for their great service. Even on the last breakfast before going home, we had smiles and great service. The menu wasn’t always great. There was 1 Pasta, 1 Fish, 1 Meat and 1 Vege meal. When we didn’t like anything, “G” asked what we would like. There were classic appetizers available (not on the menu) such as French Onion Soup, Escargot, Shrimp Cocktail, & Caesar Salad. All good. If we didn’t like the entrée, we got a steak.

Our first dinner at Murano was great. We both had the Lobster made at tableside. I didn’t care for the appetizers on the menu, so they got me a Caesar Salad. Service was good.

We had Sky Suite 2127 Below the Ocean View Café. We originally had an aft cabin, but the Celebrity agent said it would be noisey, so she suggested we move inward on the port side next to friends of ours that we met on our Alaska adventure. This is our third cruise together. Cabin 2127 reminded us of a Junior Suite on RCL. Tub in Bathroom. Walk in closet. Slightly bigger than a regular balcony cabin. It was clean. Our Room attendant was Julio and assistant Antonio. Our Butler Orlando. We met our room attendants and gave them a small tip. Orlando, introduced himself and offered to get us logged into the internet on our I-pads and I phones. The internet was slow, better late at night. We mostly had to log in and out constantly. More about Sky Suite 2127. The noise from above was not noticeable during the day, but at night -the noise started around 5:00am. The last night the noise started at 12:30am all night long. My DH slept through it. I am a light sleeper. I would not recommend this suite to light sleepers.

We had our Anniversary celebration on board. The dining room staff had a cake for us. We mentioned to the Celebrity agent that it was our anniversary when we booked. In the past experience, RCL had dropped the ball, until we had to remind them of our birthday/Anniversary. It was a great surprise that Celebrity remembered. To top it all off, when we got back to our room, Orlando our Butler and Anka the Concierge in MC had Chocolate Covered Strawberries and a bottle of Wine and flowers on our table with a note “Happy Anniversary from Orlando and Anka” Very Special indeed! Again that extra mile…

Shows: the first night was a comedian, AJ Jamal. He was funny and family friendly comedy. Celebrity had three production shows: “LIFE”, “PEARL” & “Cosmopolitan”. Life and Cosmopolitan were really good. Singers and dancers were great. Pearl on the other hand, was horrible. Songs were bad and the whole theme didn’t jive. Plus the music was extra loud giving us a headache. Note to Celebrity: “Pearl” needs work!

Other shows were: vocalist Soloman Jaye and Claire Vinkesteijn, Very Talented Another comedian Phil Tag had a regular show and a late night version.

Bars that we Had Drinks at: No more Molecular Bar- Now World Class Bar. Martini Bar- Loud, Fun & always crowded. Passport bar. Pool Bar (watered down drinks) Mast Grill Bar, Sunset Bar. We made our way to Michael’s club a few times. We liked to bring a water or soda back to our room at night. The Concierge “Anka” was very pretty, She was very attentive.

Shore Excursions: San Juan we arrived 1 hour early. It was sunny and Hot. We walked to the mini fort at the top of the hill and had a drink at Senor Frogs. DH had a “yard” drink that came with a whistle. He wore that whistle the rest of the week. Not Funny!

St. Kitts/ Nevis: we booked the day trip to Nevis. The boat ride was horrible. Not what was advertised. The Bus tour of Nevis hot springs and plantation house was great. There was a chicken/fish lunch and a free drink included. Not bad. The beach was full from other tours, than the rain came. We complained about the boat and the captain, the shore excursion manager gave us a partial refund. NICE.

St. Maarten- we booked a private tour with Barnard’s tours. Our Driver was Romeo. His van was very nice. Romeo was a great guide. He brought us everywhere we wanted to go. We had lunch at a local outside café on the beach. Awesome! Good Choice Romeo. One of the other tour guides was Juliet, We took a picture of Romeo with Juliet. We saw planes land and take off at Maho Beach, we saw naked people at Orient Beach and shopped. Great day with Barnard’s Tour in St. Maarten.

Oh- We had first sea day lunch at the Ocean View Café. Madhouse of people. Food was good. No seating to be found. Some days we just went in the buffet to get homemade Ice cream. (worth the extra trip) Port days we ate on land. The rest of the sea days, we ate at the Mast Grill. Great Burger and fries by the pool.

We never set foot in the main dining room. There was a long line every night.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED our time on the Celebrity Silhouette. The Staff was amazing. The public restrooms were the cleanest I’ve ever seen. The little extra touches were noticed. I can’t wait to book another. The only negative out the whole week was not Celebrity’s fault. It was the really RUDE people that we encountered during the week. One women (NO Lady) put her hands on me coming out of the elevator, pushing me out of her way. I almost decked her! Lol I guess you get rude people where ever you go.

Any questions, I would be happy to answer if I can.

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[Keith1010]

Welcome home and I enjoyed your report.

 

Keith

[OhioDogLover]

Nice review. We are on Silhouette July, 2017. Can't wait.

 

Ohiodoglover

[FlaLove]

Thanks for the info. I'll be doing the same itinerary on Silhouette this month. It will be my first Celebrity Cruise as well. I also booked with Bernards Tours in St. Maarten. Glad to hear it was a good experience.

[Flafun888]

Appreciate the review of both the ship and the ports. Doing the same itinerary this month. What did you think of the new World Class bar that replaced Molecular?

[HesterMofet]

Thank you for your review.

 

We are Royal balcony cruisers who would like to try Celebrity.

 

A couple of questions, if you don't mind:

 

Did you find a lot of people your (our) age on the cruise?

 

Does the ship "shut down" very early? Other cruisers have said that there is not a lot of late night nightlife on Celebrity compared to Royal. Not a real late night person, but there were times we enjoyed listening to the guitar player/singer in the pub until midnight or one.

 

Thanks so much!

[4cats,1dog]

Appreciate the review of both the ship and the ports. Doing the same itinerary this month. What did you think of the new World Class bar that replaced Molecular?

 

We had a few drinks from the world class bar. Nice bar, quiet. Nothing Spectacular.

Not a big crowd. The Martini bar was where all the people crowded.

[4cats,1dog]

Thank you for your review.

 

We are Royal balcony cruisers who would like to try Celebrity.

 

A couple of questions, if you don't mind:

 

Did you find a lot of people your (our) age on the cruise?

 

Does the ship "shut down" very early? Other cruisers have said that there is not a lot of late night nightlife on Celebrity compared to Royal. Not a real late night person, but there were times we enjoyed listening to the guitar player/singer in the pub until midnight or one.

 

Thanks so much!

 

The Ship had a lot of people our age. There were also some older crowd.

NO the ship did not close up early. There were plenty of things to do. Dancing and Gambling late night, Pizza til 1:00am, hot tubs open late. There was live band late by the Martini bar. There was a guitarist singing & playing in multiple places. Hope you have a good a time as we did.

[HesterMofet]

The Ship had a lot of people our age. There were also some older crowd.

NO the ship did not close up early. There were plenty of things to do. Dancing and Gambling late night, Pizza til 1:00am, hot tubs open late. There was live band late by the Martini bar. There was a guitarist singing & playing in multiple places. Hope you have a good a time as we did.

 

Thanks so much!

[Jiminy1955]

The Ship had a lot of people our age. There were also some older crowd.

NO the ship did not close up early. There were plenty of things to do. Dancing and Gambling late night, Pizza til 1:00am, hot tubs open late. There was live band late by the Martini bar. There was a guitarist singing & playing in multiple places. Hope you have a good a time as we did.

 

 

Thank you for this. We have only cruised 2 other times both on Royal, this pretty much answered all my questions as to how Celebrity compares to Royal. We will be on the Equinox in March 2017. The one thing I will miss from Royal is The Schooner Bar but will not miss pool side antics.

[Orator]

Agree thatPearl was horrible and needs to be reworked or replacedASAP. First 10 minutes was great, but it fell fast. Haven't found a single person who liked it.