Review British Isles cruise Celebrity Sllhouette 18 of July 2017

[travellerin1984]

Quick review about our cruise. We loved it! Before the cruise I was worried about the reviews telling us the food quality has gone downhill. We like the Celebrity product (10+ cruises both in Caribbean and in the Med, mostly Aqua class) and wondered if there had been a big change during the last year. I can happily tell you we enjoyed the main dining room during the evenings and had many great lunches at the Seaview cafe and Mast grill. We ate good fruit plates (fresh mango!) in the Aqua spa cafe and (too many) delicious cookies. We were suprised, food at the mdr (select dining) was better than we thought and we had a good waiter who really wanted us to be happy. Some evenings we got pagers and these evenings were more chaotic.

 

Wine service in the Mdr was ok. Our sommelier was a bit lazy the last night and tried to give us cheaper alternative instead of the champagne we orderns, and it was embarrassing to tell him that we didn't want prosecco (he tried to pretend the prosecco was champagne). He was being lazy and thought we wouldn't know the difference in taste. My husband likes the new, much larger selection of wines included in the premium package and the selection is good (nice to have a real champagne included!)

 

 

We ate in the Lawn club grill first night (30% discount) and we ate once at Murano (very popular, only 20 % discount). We enjoyed both meals. A lot of food but worth it.

 

Only cutback we noticed was the last sea day brunch which was chaotic and the food was almost the same as every day. (It didn't really bother us because we eat light lunches but we kind of missed the bigger selection and higher quality products) Indian food was very good and I liked the salad section too.

 

 

We are in our thirties and a bit younger than the average passengers. This time we decided to go to couple of shows. Enjoyed the Beatles group, Jane Curry (?) and couple of others too. Live music in the Atrium was old and boring. Same songs night after night. We know we are not the target group so it's fine. We sat mostly at the World class bar and enjoyed good cocktails. They have changed the prices, not all the drinks are included anymore but we didn't mind. You can pay couple of dollars extra if you really want to try something.

 

 

Ports were interesting. Unfortunately Guernsey was cancelled because of the high winds. First day in Liverpool we took an excursion to North Wales with Busybus. Very beautiful but long day. We chose Busybus excursion because it was the most inexpensive alternative. It was okay, the guide was not that informative but we enjoyed the day anyway. The second day we went on a Beatles guided bus tour (booked on Groupon) and walked around in the city. In Belfast we walked to the city and saw the botanical gardens, university and pubs. We wanted to do the Titanic museum but didn't have enough time. A nice, sunny day. In Dublin first day we walked around and went to the Jameson's whiskey distillery (prebooked tickets online) and second day more walking and visited Guiness brewery (booked online). It's perfectly possible to walk from the ports to town in both Belfast and Dublin (as we did), but to be honest the ports are industrial and not very charming, as well as quite far from the center of town.

 

 

In Cobh we took a excursion to Blarney Castle and Kinsale with E-coach. Good and cheap excursion! In Zeebrugge we decided to take the train to Brugge. Beautiful city and nice shopping! We don't like to pay for expensive shuttles which is why we walked both in Belfast and in Dublin, and in Zeebrugge we took the tram near the port entrance to Blankenberge and then train to Brugge. Costs only 6 euro per person and is definitely doable.

 

 

If you have some questions I am happy to help you.

[JohninDC]

Thanks for the review! :)

[Travelbug750]

Many thanks for your review. We're on the Silhouette 8/23 out of Amsterdam. I was very happy to hear you enjoyed the ship, as well as the ports. It's nice to hear a positive review of the food, bars, etc. instead of focusing on the negative. Thanks again!

[Pushka]

I found the sommeliers to generally push the cheaper alcohol esp to those on the premium package and you have to ask for the proper wine list to get the wines now rather than those on the menu which were cheaper (for Celebrity to provide). I only like French Champagne and getting that was very difficult then outright refused.

[easyboy]

Thank you for your review.

[♒︎ NautiX ♒︎]

My husband likes the new, much larger selection of wines included in the premium package and the selection is good (nice to have a real champagne included!)

 

Hi travellerin1984, thank you for your review. As far as I know, Chandon is the best quality sparkling wine you can get with a premium package. It's a good quality sparkling wine, but not champagne, which is way more expensive. So I'm very interested to know which real champagne was included in the premium package.

[Vineyardfan]

Hi travellerin1984' date=' thank you for your review. As far as I know, Chandon is the best quality sparkling wine you can get with a premium package. It's a good quality sparkling wine, but not champagne, which is way more expensive. So I'm very interested to know which real champagne was included in the premium package.[/quote']

 

The champagne is Montaudon Brut. It's available in the MDR and in most, but not all, of the bars. It's listed specifically as included in the premium package in the new (much bigger) wine list in the mdr.

 

Occasionally we found that they were out of the champagne and offered the Chandon as a replacement, but these shortages where temporary and then the champagne was back in stock the next day.

 

On our cruise they had some supply problems though, and they ran out completely of several beers and wines, and we were warned that they where running low on the champagne as well. Fortunately for us they did have enough champagne. :-)

 

Hopefully these logistics problems where temporary problems and resolved before the next cruise started.

[travellerin1984]

I found the sommeliers to generally push the cheaper alcohol esp to those on the premium package and you have to ask for the proper wine list to get the wines now rather than those on the menu which were cheaper (for Celebrity to provide). I only like French Champagne and getting that was very difficult then outright refused.

 

My husband knows wines and we have tasted many of the wines so we were really irritated when the sommelier tried to give us something else (especially when prosecco doesnt taste like champagne!). It was not nice end for our last dinner in MDR. We noticed that the couple of last evenings the wine list wasnt available but we knew our favorites and could ask them anyway. We didnt really rely on sommeliers advice this time.

[♒︎ NautiX ♒︎]

The champagne is Montaudon Brut. It's available in the MDR and in most, but not all, of the bars. It's listed specifically as included in the premium package in the new (much bigger) wine list in the mdr.

 

Thank you for this information! (y)

[Pushka]

The champagne is Montaudon Brut. It's available in the MDR and in most, but not all, of the bars. It's listed specifically as included in the premium package in the new (much bigger) wine list in the mdr.

 

 

 

Occasionally we found that they were out of the champagne and offered the Chandon as a replacement, but these shortages where temporary and then the champagne was back in stock the next day.

 

 

 

On our cruise they had some supply problems though, and they ran out completely of several beers and wines, and we were warned that they where running low on the champagne as well. Fortunately for us they did have enough champagne. :-)

 

 

 

Hopefully these logistics problems where temporary problems and resolved before the next cruise started.

 

 

 

Yes. The only bar that we could get this from was Cellar Master and even he said he'd run out a few days before. This was the cruise before the U.K. one so back in July. I didn't believe him to be honest. It never came back.

[dutchclogs]

It was my experience that the wine list was indeed seldom offered.in the MDR, especially after the first couple of days, Happily, after the first 4 or 5 days, I came across a very helpful wait team and Sommelier and thereafter always requested that we be seated in their section. Interested what others may have found of the wine tastings offered. The Captains club wine tasting was really wacky -- the presenter seemed put off his stroke by questions from a particular guest and was unable to tell which red wine was a merlot and which was a tempranillo. I did not care for The Round the World tasting concept or most of the wines offered although that is just my personal opinion of course.

[travellerin1984]

It was my experience that the wine list was indeed seldom offered.in the MDR, especially after the first couple of days, Happily, after the first 4 or 5 days, I came across a very helpful wait team and Sommelier and thereafter always requested that we be seated in their section. Interested what others may have found of the wine tastings offered. The Captains club wine tasting was really wacky -- the presenter seemed put off his stroke by questions from a particular guest and was unable to tell which red wine was a merlot and which was a tempranillo. I did not care for The Round the World tasting concept or most of the wines offered although that is just my personal opinion of course.

 

 

We have never tried these tastings. Good to know.

 

I believe it is important to have a good wait team and sommelier who make sure you can enjoy your dinners. Our waitteam was very good and we liked our sommelier at the beginning but were a bit hesitant because one night we asked for champagne and he came with two full glasses instead of pouring the champagne by the table. My husband said this must be Domaine Chandon but we were not really 100% sure and didnt want to make a scene. We thought it was weird he didnt pour the wine by the table like he did other nights. Afterwards when he made the same thing with prosecco it was easy to understand he gave us the cheaper wine couple of nights before. We are not picky and can accept cheaper/lower quality wine if they tell us why but we dont appreciate when they try to fool you and give you something else and pretend it is champagne. So embarrasing and annoying!

[Pushka]

The same with Fume white. Never on the MDR list as it's above the classic package but we had premium. There was quite a fuss when I asked for it. It's included in the premium pack however I had to pay a gap for it in Qsine and Lawn club but not in MDR.