Eclipse 14 Day Southern Caribbean Cruise Review March 2016 – Celebrity Suite

[CHEZMARYLOU]

This was our 14th cruise with Celebrity, 3rd time on this itinerary, twice on Eclipse. We had another great time and will repeat this itinerary again.

 

Embarkation & Disembarkation on our 1st cruise out of Miami. When we reached the port the line outside was quite long. I scouted around and found a door to the side marked suites & zenith with no line at all. Once inside we headed to the suites line which did not seem to have a dedicated check in staff. The person who checked us in must have just started that day. She had to request assistance from 2 supervisors, insisted my DH had not done the on line check in, he had, and messed up our ship board account because of the way she processed us. I had to make 2 trips to Guest Relations to fix things. Not a big deal but not how I wanted to spend time on board, especially on the morning of disembarkation. Once past check in things went smoothly.

Disembarkation was a breeze. We used luggage valet and after customs cleared the luggage we were off the ship and in a taxi in about 5 minutes.

 

Staff. Our room attendants and butler were always around and very friendly and efficient. They quickly learned that I like a box of tissues in the bedroom and an extra hand towel. They even found a tube of glue to repair a shoe that lost a decoration. Except for the Chief House Keeper, the Senior Staff was never seen out and about the ship.

 

Michaels Club. We did not make much use of Michaels Club on this trip unlike our cruise on Summit in September. There was entertainment on a number of nights, a get together with the officers and an afternoon tea. I was surprised to be told that, unlike disembarkation from Port Liberty, the Concierge would not escort guests off the ship to bypass long lines. It turned out that it was not needed in Miami because there was no long line of disembarking passengers like on Summit.

 

Dining. We had breakfast on our balcony most mornings, or at least coffee. Room service has a dreadful nondairy creamer. After the 1st day our Butler always brought us a pitcher of half and half. When Luminae was not open for lunch we went to either Bistro on 5 or the buffet. Food in both was good and Bistro still had the daily specials listed. Muranos, Tuscan and Luminae were great as usual. We had the same servers in Luminae for every meal and they were very accommodating. Several times we order salad or escargot from the MDR menu. They always served my entre with the sauce on the side or sans bacon on the bacon wrapped trout. Sony, our server, knew that we did not want to order until we saw Maggie, the sommelier, to order our wine. We also really enjoyed the Chef’s Table in the wine cellar in Muranos and the Chef’s Market Discovery in St. Maarten. Dinner was in Tuscan and contrary to some experiences ours included wine. We did miss the brunch in Luminae since we slept in when not going on an excursion and only made breakfast on the last day.

 

Our experience in a Celebrity Suite. There have been conflicting posts on what is and is not available in suites or Celebrity Suites. What used to be a passable sparkling wine was so bad this time we actually dumped it. We received 2 large bottles of water on embarkation and they were replenished by our butler for the 1st 10 days or so. There was a container of cotton balls and q-tips. We booked before Jan 1 so had the 2 free specialty dinners. Bistro on 5 was available for lunch on port days.

 

Entertainment. The guest entertainers were excellent, we saw all but one because his described comedy style was not to our liking. We usually do not go to the production shows but William, our butler; ask if we would be going on elegant chic night as he would be there to escort us to the seats, which were located in the balcony. We saw Toppers and remembered why we did not go to the production shows. What was odd was a number towards the end where the f-bomb was dropped many times. Since there were a number of children in the audience I would have thought that the Cruise Director would have made an announcement prior to the show. Then again, since we do not have children, we might be out of touch with today’s reality.

 

Ports. Since this was our 3rd time on this itinerary and we had been to most of the ports a number of times, we stayed on the ship in most ports. We did do the Chef’s Market Discovery in St. Maarten and the ships Mystic Catamaran excursion with lobster lunch in Antigua. In Barbados we did a private excursion with Elegance Catamaran. I can highly recommend all three.

[Clarea]

Very nice report Mary Lou.:)

Edited April 20, 2016 by clarea

[blrabbit]

Great report on your cruise.

So how is the upgrade WiFi that Celebrity said they have bringing high-speed wireless Internet capability on board nearly all its ships, called Xcelerate?

Bob :)

[MR_T]

Thanks for posting your review, we are booked for this cruise in March 2018 and really looking forward to going back to some of the ports [emoji4]

[CHEZMARYLOU]

Great report on your cruise.

So how is the upgrade WiFi that Celebrity said they have bringing high-speed wireless Internet capability on board nearly all its ships, called Xcelerate?

Bob :)

 

That was one thing I forgot to mention. We each had 240 free minutes. I used up quite a chunk of mine just checking email between Miami and St. Maarten, which was day 4 of the cruise. They upgraded to Xcelerate while in St. Maarten and I noticed a considerable improvement. We left the cruise with about 150 unused minutes on my DH's account. The only device we used was a Kindle Fire.

[Project_gal]

I was surprised to be told that, unlike disembarkation from Port Liberty, the Concierge would not escort guests off the ship to bypass long lines. It turned out that it was not needed in Miami because there was no long line of disembarking passengers like on Summit.

 

Thanks for your review. Interesting about the wine with the Chef's Market Discoveries. It, and water, was very definitely not included when we did the same cruise on Eclipse earlier this year.

 

This is because, unfortunately, Miami Immigration enforce the rules about foreign crew without a US work visa differently to other US ports and do not allow them passed certain points and restrict where they can "work" by carrying guests luggage in the areas they are allowed.

[Project_gal]

I was surprised to be told that, unlike disembarkation from Port Liberty, the Concierge would not escort guests off the ship to bypass long lines. It turned out that it was not needed in Miami because there was no long line of disembarking passengers like on Summit.

 

Thanks for your review. Interesting about the wine with the Chef's Market Discoveries. It, and water, was very definitely not included when we did the same cruise on Eclipse earlier this year.

 

This is because, unfortunately, Miami Immigration enforce the rules about foreign crew without a US work visa differently to other US ports and do not allow them passed certain points and restrict where they can "work" by carrying guests luggage in the areas they are allowed.

 

May I ask if you used the red suite disembarkation luggage labels and, if so, did you have any difficulty finding your luggage? When we disembarked, it took forever to locate our luggage because no one knew which carousel it would be on.

[CHEZMARYLOU]

We were told about the work visa issue but on Summit Kim, the concierge, did not carry any of our things and only took us as far as the check out point with ships security.

 

Since we used luggage valet we did not have any luggage to pick up at the port in Miami. In New Jersey the area was very clearly marked and there was staff there to direct us to it.

 

We also had our choice of water, our sea pass was never asked for and I think I also had a cappuccino after dinner.

Edited April 21, 2016 by CHEZMARYLOU