Summit Ten-Day Independence Days Cruise - 2017 - Trip Report

[BSinPNS]

Not sure why they added this itinerary, but are quite glad they did. We had an overnight in Halifax for Canada Day followed by an overnight in Boston on July 4. Great timing, but the fireworks were not visible from the ship in Halifax and only very high ones were visible in Boston. Surprisingly, the shore excursions department didn't capitalize with excursions to watch either.

While we think any cruise is great, this one was not as great as most. (This was our 19th, and 15th on Celebrity.). Captain Kate was very upbeat and quite visible around the ship during much of the cruise. (We had fog in the Canadian ports, so that confined her the bridge for three days.). However, we were disappointed in the overall condition of the ship and the lack of responsiveness from the officers. Asking for comments, we noted that deck 11 aft had a very musty smell, and our cabin (1140) had a strange odor and a problem with the shower stall strip which was torn on the side and missing at the bottom on our comment card presented to guest relations on day four. Nothing changed. It appeared that the staff talked the game when the captain was around, but did not walk the walk. Perhaps the attention paid to the superstar status of Captain Kate made other officers feel less important. While the hotel department senior officers were there for major Captain's Club and Cruise Critic events and visible on some evenings, they tended to cluster together as if to avoid talking with passengers. In addition the above concerns about our deck and cabin, there was more rust than usual around the ship. While I understand the problem of older ships and sea water, we were on her older sister Millennium in February and found her in like-new condition and hotel department senior offices always around and engaged 1:1 with passengers. The Summit's cruise director, Chris Sweets, introduced shows in the theatre, but again was not as visible as most, but his staff members were. While in Portland (day 7 of 10), we were provided a coupon titled, "Laundry Bag Challenge," with instructions to stuff it as full as you can without tearing the bag and the contents will be laundered for only $49.95.

As usual, the best part of being in Aqua Class on an M-Class ship is dining in Blu. It was great to reconnect with assistant maitre 'd, Artur, who was an assistant waiter on our first Celebrity cruise. Donovan is the most upbeat waiter we have met and he and his assistant, Elena, provided superb service. Donovan is the poster person for upbeat and caring professionalism. He even led us in the Star Spangled Banner on the Fourth. During the cruise, the revised Blu menu was rolled out along with new (more professional, in our opinion) uniforms. The menu preserves the most popular items from the old with a few minor tweaks and adds a few new ones. Overall, we found the food in Blu to be very similar to before and professionally served by the same personable wait staff.

New cast and new shows. Celebrity has brought the design and staffing of production shows in house and are these are now onboard Summit. The new production crew boarded when we did and spent the week rehearsing the first show, "Life." The second show will be performed along with "Life" on the next cruise followed by the third show on the next cruise. Don't hold your breath. We found the show at best, blah, and at worst boring. Very few costume changes, no real action other than a few dancers performing low energy routines compared to past shows. Perhaps this is a cost-cutting measure, as we did not see it as an improvement. Other one-night performers were very good. Both Beyond the Podium presenters were most interesting and almost as exciting as "Life." Speaking of the Beyond the Podium presentations, they had to be done in Revelations which is not a great location with lots of light making the PowerPoint presentations difficult to see on a small screen. One day, all the seats were wet from cleaning earlier in the day.

The ports were well arranged and we enjoyed each, even with the rain and fog in the Canadian ones. Here is our day-by-day port updates:

New York. Arrived a few days before and stayed near Times Square to watch some shows with tickets from TKTS. Arranged with Dial7 for transport from Newark Airport to the hotel and from the hotel to Bayonne (Cape Liberty).

Bayonne/Check-in. Check-in went very quickly and we waited a few minutes before boarding at 11. Cabins were available about 1:15. We were docked stern out. If you want to walk to the Teardrop Memorial, do it beforehand as the shore side staff is very reluctant to let you leave the area. Some were actually rude in the responses. A real treat was a short transit upriver and an opportunity to sail near the Statue of Liberty.

Bar Harbor, Maine. Pre-booked Oli's Trolley's 2.5hour tour to Acadia National Park with three stops. Our guide, Gary, provided excellent commentary throughout. We saw lots of people who did not have reservations turned away since no seats were available. The company offers cruise passengers their money back if the ship does not arrive as it is a tender port. We would note that there were lots of complaints about the amount of time the tendering process took.

St. John's, New Brunswick. Pre-booked a private tour with Go Fundy Tours. The owner/guide Alexei Kalinin met us as scheduled at the pier and off we went to see the Reversing Falls and Fundy Parkway. It was wet and foggy, but we had a great time with an excellent guide. He took pictures of us and the sights frequently and uploaded them to Dropbox that evening at no additional cost. We would heartily recommend his tour.

Halifax, Nova Scotia. On the first day, we had pre-booked tickets last October to the Nova Scotia Tattoo which is a three hour superbly choreographed show with military bands, bagpipers, dancers, choirs, and much, much more. We walked from the ship to the Scotia Bank Center in about 30 minutes. Tip: Follow Google Maps walking directions as what appears to be the most logical way ends with a very steep climb. The ship offered a similar tour, but we had much better seats for less than half the price and the bus transport took about the same time as traffic around the event was very heavy. That evening we walked back to the Citadel for the fireworks show. The show itself only lasted about 10 minutes - a disappointment for Canada's 150th Birthday.

The second morning we took the Peggy's Cove and Titanic Tour (HX67). We departed in a torrential rain, but it shifted to fog as we left the city. Our guide was excellent providing lots of information and took time to visit/respond to questions with each person on our way back from Peggy's Cove. The fog was quite heavy and you could barely see the ocean from the lighthouse. This was an excellent tour that would have been outstanding if the weather had been better.

Portland, Maine. We did Portland by Land and Sea (PW27). It consisted of a drive through the city to Portland Head Lighthouse followed by a two hour cruise with Portland Schooner aboard the Wendameen. The cruise aboard this 105 year old tall ship was outstanding. After the initial safety briefing, the captain clearly stated that this was not a narrated sightseeing cruise, but an opportunity to sail aboard this ship. It was excellent and ended on the other side of the pier from Summit. The bus portion was so-so as the guide was mediocre at best. We had friends who did the Kennebunkport Tour and reported the traffic was horrendous and with the late start due to immigration they saw very little. One group did see Barbara Bush out walking around the Bush Compound. May be better when not on the Third of July.

NOTE: Since we departed the US, we had to clear immigration before going ashore. We were given assigned times to appear in Rendezvous (for US citizens) and Revelations (non-US) for our face-to-face immigration check which would be repeated in Bayonne. By the first scheduled time, the line extended down to the theatre and was growing in length as the CBP officers arrived later than expected. A total embarrassment for the US as clearing immigration going to Canada was handled electronically and I doubt any additional terrorists were stopped.

Boston. On July Fourth, we took the ships shuttle ($16 round trip) to the Quincy Market area and did the north part of the walking tour. Lots of activity in town as one would expect. Headed back to the ship about two and then took the "T" to see the fireworks. The 30-minute fireworks show in the Charles River was impressive as was the concert by the Boston Pops and other well known performers. Be prepared to enter a tight security area along with 300,000 or more new friends and a very heavy police presence. We returned to the ship about midnight.

Our second morning in Boston was treated as a sea day by us considering our midnight arrival and early afternoon departure.

Newport, RI. We did the ship's Vanderbilt's Newport Tour (NE03) visiting the Breakers and the Marble House. It was a very good tour marred by waits for the busses as the tour vendor used the same bus for three groups. Of course the impact of traffic and late-returners snowballed. Newport is very compact and the town itself can be easily done on foot. This was the second tender port and the complaints were rampant about the time it took to get ashore. It was not a problem for us since we were on a ship's tour that used the forward tender landing or for others with Elite and above status.

Disembarkation in Bayonne. Very smooth with about five CBP agents. We had an 8:20 tag and left the ship at 8:15 and were waiting for our ride at 8:30. We learned our lesson last time when we departed from LaGuardia and wisely chose Newark using Dial7 Car Service from the pier to the airport. We had requested a 9:20 pickup, but called and they were there by 8:50.

Celebrity Summit - June 27, 2017

Master - Kate McCue (Leaving on our return to Bayonne)

Staff Captain - Paganiotis Kiousis

GRM - Cameron Robertson

Hotel Director - Srdjan Cetovic

Cruise Director- Chris Sweets

F & B - Cemel Ozcelik

Exec Chef - Kuldeep Singh

DJ Jakee

The Neptunes - Classical Strings

Undercover Soul - Acoustic Duo

Jessica Lajner - Guitar Vocalist

Peter Rossetti - Piano Entertainer

[DiamondSuiteCruiser]

Thanks for your review, and I'm very sad to hear about the condition of the ship, and am amazed that They aren't taking better care of her since her last dry dock. Also sad to hear the officers are avoiding the passengers. Hopefully if enough people add the same concerns on their surveys, something will be done.

Thanks agin for your review!

[C 2 C]

Celebrity Summit - June 27, 2017

Master - Kate McCue (Leaving on our return to Bayonne)

Staff Captain - Paganiotis Kiousis

GRM - Cameron Robertson

Hotel Director - Srdjan Cetovic

Cruise Director- Chris Sweets

F & B - Cemel Ozcelik

Exec Chef - Kuldeep Singh

DJ Jakee

The Neptunes - Classical Strings

Undercover Soul - Acoustic Duo

Jessica Lajner - Guitar Vocalist

Peter Rossetti - Piano Entertainer

 

Thank you for your post. This information is so helpful for my chart.

[swooldri]

Not sure why they added this itinerary, but are quite glad they did. We had an overnight in Halifax for Canada Day followed by an overnight in Boston on July 4. Great timing, but the fireworks were not visible from the ship in Halifax and only very high ones were visible in Boston. Surprisingly, the shore excursions department didn't capitalize with excursions to watch either.

While we think any cruise is great, this one was not as great as most. (This was our 19th, and 15th on Celebrity.). Captain Kate was very upbeat and quite visible around the ship during much of the cruise. (We had fog in the Canadian ports, so that confined her the bridge for three days.). However, we were disappointed in the overall condition of the ship and the lack of responsiveness from the officers. Asking for comments, we noted that deck 11 aft had a very musty smell, and our cabin (1140) had a strange odor and a problem with the shower stall strip which was torn on the side and missing at the bottom on our comment card presented to guest relations on day four. Nothing changed. It appeared that the staff talked the game when the captain was around, but did not walk the walk. Perhaps the attention paid to the superstar status of Captain Kate made other officers feel less important. While the hotel department senior officers were there for major Captain's Club and Cruise Critic events and visible on some evenings, they tended to cluster together as if to avoid talking with passengers. In addition the above concerns about our deck and cabin, there was more rust than usual around the ship. While I understand the problem of older ships and sea water, we were on her older sister Millennium in February and found her in like-new condition and hotel department senior offices always around and engaged 1:1 with passengers. The Summit's cruise director, Chris Sweets, introduced shows in the theatre, but again was not as visible as most, but his staff members were. While in Portland (day 7 of 10), we were provided a coupon titled, "Laundry Bag Challenge," with instructions to stuff it as full as you can without tearing the bag and the contents will be laundered for only $49.95.

As usual, the best part of being in Aqua Class on an M-Class ship is dining in Blu. It was great to reconnect with assistant maitre 'd, Artur, who was an assistant waiter on our first Celebrity cruise. Donovan is the most upbeat waiter we have met and he and his assistant, Elena, provided superb service. Donovan is the poster person for upbeat and caring professionalism. He even led us in the Star Spangled Banner on the Fourth. During the cruise, the revised Blu menu was rolled out along with new (more professional, in our opinion) uniforms. The menu preserves the most popular items from the old with a few minor tweaks and adds a few new ones. Overall, we found the food in Blu to be very similar to before and professionally served by the same personable wait staff.

New cast and new shows. Celebrity has brought the design and staffing of production shows in house and are these are now onboard Summit. The new production crew boarded when we did and spent the week rehearsing the first show, "Life." The second show will be performed along with "Life" on the next cruise followed by the third show on the next cruise. Don't hold your breath. We found the show at best, blah, and at worst boring. Very few costume changes, no real action other than a few dancers performing low energy routines compared to past shows. Perhaps this is a cost-cutting measure, as we did not see it as an improvement. Other one-night performers were very good. Both Beyond the Podium presenters were most interesting and almost as exciting as "Life." Speaking of the Beyond the Podium presentations, they had to be done in Revelations which is not a great location with lots of light making the PowerPoint presentations difficult to see on a small screen. One day, all the seats were wet from cleaning earlier in the day.

The ports were well arranged and we enjoyed each, even with the rain and fog in the Canadian ones. Here is our day-by-day port updates:

New York. Arrived a few days before and stayed near Times Square to watch some shows with tickets from TKTS. Arranged with Dial7 for transport from Newark Airport to the hotel and from the hotel to Bayonne (Cape Liberty).

Bayonne/Check-in. Check-in went very quickly and we waited a few minutes before boarding at 11. Cabins were available about 1:15. We were docked stern out. If you want to walk to the Teardrop Memorial, do it beforehand as the shore side staff is very reluctant to let you leave the area. Some were actually rude in the responses. A real treat was a short transit upriver and an opportunity to sail near the Statue of Liberty.

Bar Harbor, Maine. Pre-booked Oli's Trolley's 2.5hour tour to Acadia National Park with three stops. Our guide, Gary, provided excellent commentary throughout. We saw lots of people who did not have reservations turned away since no seats were available. The company offers cruise passengers their money back if the ship does not arrive as it is a tender port. We would note that there were lots of complaints about the amount of time the tendering process took.

St. John's, New Brunswick. Pre-booked a private tour with Go Fundy Tours. The owner/guide Alexei Kalinin met us as scheduled at the pier and off we went to see the Reversing Falls and Fundy Parkway. It was wet and foggy, but we had a great time with an excellent guide. He took pictures of us and the sights frequently and uploaded them to Dropbox that evening at no additional cost. We would heartily recommend his tour.

Halifax, Nova Scotia. On the first day, we had pre-booked tickets last October to the Nova Scotia Tattoo which is a three hour superbly choreographed show with military bands, bagpipers, dancers, choirs, and much, much more. We walked from the ship to the Scotia Bank Center in about 30 minutes. Tip: Follow Google Maps walking directions as what appears to be the most logical way ends with a very steep climb. The ship offered a similar tour, but we had much better seats for less than half the price and the bus transport took about the same time as traffic around the event was very heavy. That evening we walked back to the Citadel for the fireworks show. The show itself only lasted about 10 minutes - a disappointment for Canada's 150th Birthday.

The second morning we took the Peggy's Cove and Titanic Tour (HX67). We departed in a torrential rain, but it shifted to fog as we left the city. Our guide was excellent providing lots of information and took time to visit/respond to questions with each person on our way back from Peggy's Cove. The fog was quite heavy and you could barely see the ocean from the lighthouse. This was an excellent tour that would have been outstanding if the weather had been better.

Portland, Maine. We did Portland by Land and Sea (PW27). It consisted of a drive through the city to Portland Head Lighthouse followed by a two hour cruise with Portland Schooner aboard the Wendameen. The cruise aboard this 105 year old tall ship was outstanding. After the initial safety briefing, the captain clearly stated that this was not a narrated sightseeing cruise, but an opportunity to sail aboard this ship. It was excellent and ended on the other side of the pier from Summit. The bus portion was so-so as the guide was mediocre at best. We had friends who did the Kennebunkport Tour and reported the traffic was horrendous and with the late start due to immigration they saw very little. One group did see Barbara Bush out walking around the Bush Compound. May be better when not on the Third of July.

NOTE: Since we departed the US, we had to clear immigration before going ashore. We were given assigned times to appear in Rendezvous (for US citizens) and Revelations (non-US) for our face-to-face immigration check which would be repeated in Bayonne. By the first scheduled time, the line extended down to the theatre and was growing in length as the CBP officers arrived later than expected. A total embarrassment for the US as clearing immigration going to Canada was handled electronically and I doubt any additional terrorists were stopped.

Boston. On July Fourth, we took the ships shuttle ($16 round trip) to the Quincy Market area and did the north part of the walking tour. Lots of activity in town as one would expect. Headed back to the ship about two and then took the "T" to see the fireworks. The 30-minute fireworks show in the Charles River was impressive as was the concert by the Boston Pops and other well known performers. Be prepared to enter a tight security area along with 300,000 or more new friends and a very heavy police presence. We returned to the ship about midnight.

Our second morning in Boston was treated as a sea day by us considering our midnight arrival and early afternoon departure.

Newport, RI. We did the ship's Vanderbilt's Newport Tour (NE03) visiting the Breakers and the Marble House. It was a very good tour marred by waits for the busses as the tour vendor used the same bus for three groups. Of course the impact of traffic and late-returners snowballed. Newport is very compact and the town itself can be easily done on foot. This was the second tender port and the complaints were rampant about the time it took to get ashore. It was not a problem for us since we were on a ship's tour that used the forward tender landing or for others with Elite and above status.

Disembarkation in Bayonne. Very smooth with about five CBP agents. We had an 8:20 tag and left the ship at 8:15 and were waiting for our ride at 8:30. We learned our lesson last time when we departed from LaGuardia and wisely chose Newark using Dial7 Car Service from the pier to the airport. We had requested a 9:20 pickup, but called and they were there by 8:50.

Celebrity Summit - June 27, 2017

Master - Kate McCue (Leaving on our return to Bayonne)

Staff Captain - Paganiotis Kiousis

GRM - Cameron Robertson

Hotel Director - Srdjan Cetovic

Cruise Director- Chris Sweets

F & B - Cemel Ozcelik

Exec Chef - Kuldeep Singh

DJ Jakee

The Neptunes - Classical Strings

Undercover Soul - Acoustic Duo

Jessica Lajner - Guitar Vocalist

Peter Rossetti - Piano Entertainer

 

 

Was also on this cruise traveling in a group of 9. We all totally agree with you. This cruise fell way short of our expectations based on 15 prior Celebrity cruises.

Hope this is not a trend.

[miched]

We had 1140 last Sept and there were loungers on the balcony along with the chairs and footstools, are they still there? The shower doors always leaked and we ended up grabbing a few towels from the pool to use as a water dam when showering.

 

We were on the Equinox in April and they had the new Blu menu and the servers had different uniforms. The Summit must be at the bottom of the schedule.

 

We seen the show Life, Topper, and Chandelier. Those productions seemed to be very amatuerish. I have seen better high school productions. The dancers didn't really need any skill as all they appeared to do was prance around the stage. The entertainment on Celebrity keeps getting worse year by year.

 

Thanks for the review

 

happy cruising 🌊🚢🇺🇸🌞

[BSinPNS]

Chairs and footstools were still there along with a full sized lounger. Plenty of room for all under the overhang and/or out in the open.

[riclop]

Thanks for the report.

[jackiepink]

Some really disappointing comments for passengers who have not cruised since 1995. We are expecting excellent service as well as food and accomodations. We are very excited about our decision to cruise again but apprehensive we will be disappointed. We hope Celebrity is monitoring the comments and continuously improves where appropriate.

[easyboy]

Appreciate the feedback.

[warmwinds]

We were your next door neighbors in 1138 - I don't think we ever ran across you in the hall, hope we were good neighbors!

 

We did have a couple of problems with our cabin - heat/ac was way wonky - it was either freezing or too hot and we had trouble controlling it, even after engineering came and fixed it. Our veranda door was very sticky, difficult to open and close. And yes, we had a bit of rust on our balcony (we got the notice about balcony maintenance but we declined since I didn't want to smell paint/varnish).

 

But we didn't notice any musty smell in our area?

 

We also felt they were a bit disorganized about several things - I can't even recall now, but usually things not opening starting on time, etc. Nothing major that would have spoiled our time.

 

We did abort our jaunt into Newport because of the tender announcements, and did talk to several people whose shore excursions had interminable waits (over an hour) because the buses could not get back and forth in time to accommodate the next round of excursions. Luckily we had been to Newport several times so we enjoyed the time on board and the lovely views of Newport from the ship.

 

Who was your cabin steward? (not sure since you were dead center) - we had Lino, and thought he was great. He completely was on top of the several simple standing requests we had.

 

We only went to a few shows - the multi-voiced female singer, the Black singer, the first comedian...they were all good, but after that we just ran out of steam on this busy, busy itinerary. Couldn't get there in time for the first show, and didn't want to wait up for the last. We just enjoyed relaxing when we could.

 

We probably never sat with you in Blu since we were "assigned" to the back tables with Gabriel and Ian (who were wonderful)...and we enjoyed Donovan's cheerfulness most mornings pouring coffee in the buffet (we only went to breakfast in Blu a couple of times - we are early risers so we'd go to the buffet at 6:30 rather than waiting for Blu to open at 7:30. We'd then go a little later for an extra cappuccino and/or mimosa in the Elite lounge. We wish they would open Blu earlier. Colin was also terrific in the Elite cocktail lounge - really enjoyed his service.

 

We have sailed Celebrity and Aqua many, many times and we thought the food in Blu was back up to very good quality - we thought it had slipped the past few but were very happy with this cruise.

 

We don't interact much with the staff (we are loners who just cruise to relax) so can't speak to your comments about their visibility/invisibility. I'm glad Captain Kate stopped her comments about being a female and "deserving" her status - other than that I thought she was a great captain - what a wonderful, smooth cruise. And those whales!

 

All in all, we ranked this cruise just as good as most of our Celebrity cruises. Yes, the ship is getting old and needs some paint here and there, but don't we all? :)

[NoCASunshine]

We were also on this sailing and found many "fixable" issues. We went to Guest Relations and asked to speak with one of the managers and were given comment cards. Tried to explain that a five minute conversation would go much further and be better understood face to face.

 

We just submitted our survey and have asked for a call to discuss the ratings. If we do not get a timely response, we will post our comments on a new thread.

 

We hope everyone had a safe trip home and back to reality!!