Reflection 12/31/16 Cruise Review

[Opie]

We've been reminiscing fondly about our cruise ever since we returned, so here's our brief NYE cruise review. Note: my critical comments below are minor should be taken in context -- we give this cruise a 4.5 out of 5.0.

 

PRE-CRUISE

We stayed one night at the Hampton Inn Brickell/Downtown which was a great location with nearby restaurants and management that fulfills requests. There are good restaurants in around 5-8 mins walk. It's a Hampton Inn, not a Four Seasons, which means crowded breakfast and low frills, but were happy with our stay and especially the staff.

 

EMBARKATION

We Uber'ed to the port around 11:00am and our New Year's Eve embarkation was relatively smooth, boarding started at 11:30am, and we were welcomed with a glass of champaign (even though it wasn't into a very dynamic entrance to the ship). Our cabins were available at 1pm and our luggage was there soon thereafter. Lots of hawking of drink packages once onboard -- maybe a little too much. But no big deal.

 

WEATHER

The weather was virtually perfect all week. Could have water-skied on the ocean. Only two short blasts of rain lasting 20 mins each.

 

DINING

We did select dining, and regretted it somewhat. We like dining at 8pm (regular times are 6pm and 8:30pm), and our waits for a table of four without a reservation ranged from 10-25 mins. if you usually dine near one of the two regular times anyway, just pick that time and enjoy servers that you get to know, as well as no need to wait. Even when we got a table around 8:15 the select servers were sometimes too busy to take our orders in a normal amount of time. We particularly enjoyed two servers: Harryanto and Denys.

 

The food in the main dining area (Opus) was good overall. Lobster night was good too (met a couple onboard that said it was much better than last year). Oceanview Cafe was fine too. Lots of choices, and we particular enjoyed an early evening snack before the shows. In-room breakfast dining was really fun on the Verandah -- should have done that more than once. Enjoyed the honey raisin scones for afternoon tea.

 

We dined at Murano one night, and while the lobster was good, the service was mediocre -- for example, our server didn't know what some of the ingredients on the menu were. That was the only specialty restaurant we tried.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

Entertainment was quite good -- especially Tenors of Rock, Ralph Harris (comedian) and the Broken Strings show. Filharmonic Acapella was good too. The Broadway music show was mediocre (no mainstream numbers) and Elysium was a little odd. But we were glad we saw them all. The Wedding Games were fun too. The man vs. woman trivia event was fun, even though the host struggled a bit. Still lots of fun. Silent disco was lots of fun, too. Blind Vinyl by the pool was good, and we really like the orchestra horns that played every so often down on 3 for dancing.

 

New Year's Eve had a lot going on, and a fun night by the pool to see the new year arrive, with ice chiseled 2016 get knocked into the pool to welcome 2017. The captain greeted us politely (although Auld Lang Syne should have come first) and then fun dancing. Only problem was that there was some class in the area and one guy stepped right into a broken glass stem. Tricky allowing glass up there. But a fun night overall.

 

CABIN

Deluxe Ocean View with Verandah 1A - 8226 (and 8224). Best stateroom we've ever had (it was our first balcony). Great cabin, great location, great verandah. Really liked that we could connect our verandah to our relatives in 8224 (the door opens from 8226 with a spoon handle). Maybe a slight rocking noise when the bathroom door is closed, but we just left it open -- extremely minor. Great night lighting level in the bathroom. Would stay again in this room in a flash. Bed near the bathroom. Great bathroom shower.

 

ITINERARY

Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Falmouth (Jamaica), and Labadee.

 

Cozumel: We hired Tours Plaza on our own and had a great day with Leo, who took us to a few sights, including a dumpy looking restaurant in a gorgeous spot on the water that had ridiculously good seafood. I'll find out the name of it and post it here.

 

Grand Cayman: we just spent the day at Royal Palms, which was wonderful. Pricey food and so on but we knew that in advance and appreciated the good service and quality food. It gets crowded -- even though we were the only ship that day. Can't imagine what it's like when five ships are in port (as were scheduled the next day). We'll return.

 

Falmouth: we did the Jamaica Culinary Tour (arranged separately) which we enjoyed. Tour guides were great, as was the food. The little city may have been intimidating on our own, but with the tour we mixed in with the locals and felt safe. Tour guides knew people all around town. "Ya mon" is a way of life, to be sure.

 

Labadee: we just hung out at Columbus Cove and I did the zip line. Beautiful geography. I would have preferred to see the ship in the distance rather than have it block 50% of our view, but not a big deal. There was also some noise -- construction on a picnic roof in the afternoon and a boat engine that was started and restarted for an hour in the morning. Also there is a veritable army of vendors in the sales areas. Too much for our tastes. But the staff, both ship based and otherwise, were very good. There is a cabana-only area in Columbus Cove that some of us were asked to leave since we weren't renting a cabana, but that was resolved without major issue thanks to a friendly cabana renter and reasonable staff.

 

SPA

We also did a couples message on our last day, where we were given in-port pricing in the morning -- enjoyed it very much -- a very complete deep tissue message for 50 mins. We also listened to the acupuncture seminar, and did a consultation without purchasing, but liked "Doctor M" a lot and was not forced to endure any heavy sales pitch.

 

SERVICE & SHIP

Overall service on the ship was terrific, including the cabins. Some spots that could use some work (windows in the spa, dirty blinds in the Oceanview Cafe, rubber strips on poolside stairs, mechanical noise near the far end of the indoor pool), but these were minor. Lots of hawking of drink packages once onboard, and for shoppers around the shopping mall area. Some of the grass needed water. But these were minor issues.

 

Really enjoyed the pool volleyball tournament, the salsa dance lessons, the pool band, and the silent disco. It is so much nicer to have a nice band playing than have someone yell at you to play bingo or whatever like we've found on other cruise lines. The indoor pool area was also very serene. We joined the Cruise Critic gathering as well, and although the staff didn't really know what to do with us they were friendly and we took over from there. Fun to meet others and hear their stories (shout out to our new friends, carolinians)!

 

DISEMBARKATION

Other than an annoying announcement at 6:20am, disembarking was smooth, luggage didn't take too long. Don't wait until 8am to get to Opus if you want to dine in.

 

OVERALL

We had a great time and would sail Reflection again in a heartbeat! She's in terrific shape and was a very smooth cruise overall. Loved it. We give this cruise a 4.5+ out of 5.0.

 

TIPS

- Book a regular dining time if you can make it work.

- Get to the pool early (before 8am) on at-sea days if you need a sun-exposed chair.

- Don't sweat getting a tender ticket at Grand Cayman unless you need to get to the island within 45 mins of dropping anchor.

 

(Image below is of Labadee and of Opus lobster)

Edited January 16, 2017 by Opie

[helen haywood]

Thanks for your review! Reflection is my favorite ship; I love the revamped Sunset Bar. We're sailing her next month so glad to hear you rated your cruise so highly!

 

 

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[Clarea]

Excellent report, thanks!

[easyboy]

Glad you had a great time. Thanks for the review.

[cruiserlove]

Great review! Thanks for taking the time to write!

 

 

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[Lois R]

Glad you had a nice time. There have been quite a few threads about

disembarkation time......would you be so kind as to tell us when you

were asked to be out of your cabin on that last morning?

[SweetieinVT]

Thanks for your review. We're sailing at the end of February as well on the Western itinerary too, though they changed Labadee to Key West. So excited for our trip.

[CruisinNewb]

Glad you had a nice time. There have been quite a few threads about

disembarkation time......would you be so kind as to tell us when you

were asked to be out of your cabin on that last morning?

 

Lois:

 

I'm not the OP but we were on the cruise immediately after this one. We were asked to vacate the rooms by 8AM. The written information also requested luggage be out in the hallway by 10PM. Our room steward asked if we could have it out by 6PM because that helped the stewards out a lot (less staff to move the luggage).

Edited January 16, 2017 by CruisinNewb

[Opie]

Glad you had a nice time. There have been quite a few threads about

disembarkation time......would you be so kind as to tell us when you

were asked to be out of your cabin on that last morning?

 

Basically what CruisinNewb said. Here are disembarkation day times from Celebrity Today and inserts, along with our experience:

 

6:20am - Shipwide announcement looking for someone (!)

6:45am - Published express walk off guest disembarkation begins

7:00am - Published time for Internet services to end

7:10am - Shipwide announcement that express walk off is underway

8:00am - Published time to vacate stateroom

 

We weren't in our room at 8am so no idea how fast that rule is -- I would expect some flexibility there.

 

Published restaurant times:

Oceanview Cafe - Buffet - 6:00am-8:30am

Opus Restaurant - Regular Breakfast - 6:00am-8:00am

Blu - AquaClass Breakfast - 6:30am-8:00am

Luminae - Suite Class Breakfast - 6:30am-8:00am

AquaSpa Cafe - 6:30am-8:00am

 

I've attached an image of the disembarkation times by luggage tag number. Unfortunately the forum shrinks it beyond readability. In our experience the numbers were announced earlier than these times, as the process was pretty quick. They start at 7:30am for tags 1-2 and the last time is 10am -- but our cruise most numbers were called by 9am.

 

By the way, 8:00am on disembarkation day in Opus is a bit of a zoo, even though there were lots of tables available on 3 in the middle of the room, they hesitated somewhat to use new tables. Service was fine, just a lot of people trying to get in there.

Edited January 16, 2017 by Opie

[Opie]

Thanks for your review. We're sailing at the end of February as well on the Western itinerary too, though they changed Labadee to Key West. So excited for our trip.

 

Cool - both are good ports. We deliberately wanted two beach days and two activity days and found that was a good mix.

[portofrome]

Thanks for your review.

[Lois R]

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate it.:)