Detailed Photo Review of Celebrity Eclipse 14 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise 3/4/18

[deladane]

I’m sad to read that Corning will no longer be doing this! When does or did this happen? We will be on the Eclipse for the October 2019 Hawaii round trip cruise out of Los Angeles and was so looking forward to the hot glass shows. We were on the Equinox in March 2017 and watched them as often as we could. My husband will be so disappointed when I tell him.

 

The Eclipse and Equinox have already switched over to the new company. (Equinox Feb. 1st and Eclipse April 1st)

 

The Solstice switches on June 1st.

My understanding is that the new company - Hollywood Glass - is strictly "make your own" (for a hefty fee, of course) and the only demonstrations will be at the beginning of the cruise and those are only to show you how each of the make your own pieces are made.

Someone posted a link - check "Hollywood Hot Glass" in the search function.

 

Thanks for answering for me... I knew the date for Eclipse because they mentioned many times that we were on their second to last cruise, but I did not know when the other ships would end. I am sure the gaffers were upset to lose this amazing opportunity to sail the world and do what they love to do, but they hid it well. They made a point of saying that they were using up all of the most expensive glass and using the new supplies that they had in their stock room (instead of using the old stuff until it wore out which is what they usually had to do) haha

[deladane]

On our March 18 Eclipse cruise I enjoyed seeing four of the final series of Corning Hot Glass shows. The shows ended on Equinox in February, but I've read they are still on Solstice until June.

 

Did they raffle off a lot of pieces on your cruise? At the last show on our cruise, they raffled off 4 pieces because they knew they only had one cruise left and may as well start clearing out some of their work a little early. I had a feeling that people on your cruise would get a lot of opportunities to win raffles as they gave away everything on display. If so, I hope you won something!

[deladane]

Re photos which show as a tiny blue square with a ?

It corrected itself when I refreshed the CC screen but if it happens in the future the remedy I listed lets you see the photo. I have seen it happen in several reviews including my Ocean Princess one. Everything in your review has been normal since.

Norris

 

Thanks for the update! Computers can be so fussy sometimes!! DH works with computers and I don't know how he does it... I work with humans. When they have a problem, they tell me what it is and I can try to fix it. When my computer has a problem, I have no clue what to do lol

[deladane]

At 8:45pm, we went over to the theater to find seats for the show and it was already one third full. Tonight’s show was called Topper and featured the singers and dancers on board, backed by the Eclipse orchestra. The basic plot is that a man has a giant top hot and he locks people inside it to keep them around as his friends. The show teaches the lesson that if you let these people go free, they will voluntarily return to hang out with you and you don’t have to keep them in captivity. I’m not sure how I felt about that plot line,but it didn’t really matter because I greatly enjoyed all of the pop music and costumes throughout the show. Plus,anytime the aerial acts perform is a win in my book!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

The show was one hour long, so when it ended at 10pm, we went straight upstairs to the Sky Lounge to listen to the house band play at the Motown theme party. I was really surprised at how crowded it was up there! Maybe because it was the first of 2 consecutive sea days and people could sleep late this morning and tomorrow morning, but there was quite a lively crowd for so late at night.

 

 

 

We left at the end of their set to go back to the cabin and get some rest after a wonderful first day a sea.

 

Step Tracker Daily Total: 7139 steps; 2.91 miles; 82 flights of stairs*

 

*When my Fitbit said I did 33 flights of stairs yesterday, I believed it because we opted for the stairs over the elevator many times (including the 10 flights of stairs to get from our muster station to the sail away party). Something tells me I did not actually walk up 82 flights of stairs today! More likely, this can be attributed to the strong winds causing the ship to rock and roll… up and down… all day long. We spent most of the day sitting today, but maybe the flights tracker got confused and interpreted that as me walking up a flight of stairs? I don’t know for sure, but just wait until you see my flight total for tomorrow!!

[chamima]

Did they raffle off a lot of pieces on your cruise? At the last show on our cruise, they raffled off 4 pieces because they knew they only had one cruise left and may as well start clearing out some of their work a little early. I had a feeling that people on your cruise would get a lot of opportunities to win raffles as they gave away everything on display. If so, I hope you won something!

 

 

 

I LOVE to watch the gaffers create and so have gone to almost all of the shows on every cruise we’ve been on that had them on board.

It even seemed like they were giving away more pieces than usual on our February cruise. I actually won a piece (first time) and we bought this gorgeous platter at the auction the last day.

 

Jared is holding it but Tom made it.

 

 

 

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Also, I loved the music from Topper. Thanks for sharing the photos.

[ezemoney]

great review and photos! I have a question about the hot glass show with Hollywood. I guess 2 questions. how many demo shows do they do and how much to create your own masterpiece?

[chamima]

[ATTACH]416041[/ATTACH]

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Forums mobile app

 

great review and photos! I have a question about the hot glass show with Hollywood. I guess 2 questions. how many demo shows do they do and how much to create your own masterpiece?

 

https://www.hollywoodhotglass.com/

[deladane]

Day 6: Tuesday, March 6 ~ Sea Day #2

 

Today’s daily schedule:

 

 

 

 

Last night was the one and only time we changed our clocks on this cruise. It was nice that Captain Leo waited until the second sea day to spring our clocks ahead one hour to match the time zone in the Caribbean so we didn’t lose an hour of sleep on the very first night of the cruise. Daylight savings time occurred on the sea day mid-way through our itinerary when we were sailing from Barbados to Bonaire, so that put us back on track with the Miami time zone and saved us the need to change our clocks at the end of the cruise. Before going to sleep last night, we put the breakfast room service door tag out and requested an 8:30-9am delivery time with hopes of sleeping in a little bit, but also to test out the process. We like to eat breakfast on our balcony each port day to avoid the chaos at the buffet, so this was a good chance to test it out and see how things go before tomorrow when we will arrive at our first port of call. This is the breakfast room service menu for Concierge (and Aqua) class cabins.

 

[deladane]

 

Despite my best efforts to sleep late, I woke up at 7am and the ship was rocking so much that I couldn’t fall back asleep. I got up and sat outside on the balcony and took notes in my trip journal and let DH sleep a little longer. It looked like there was a beautiful sunrise but we couldn’t see the sun directly on the starboard side this morning (I’ll bet early risers with port-side cabins had a great view though!)

 

 

 

 

At 8:25am, the cabin phone rang with a heads up that our breakfast was on the way. I have a feeling a lot of people use breakfast room service as a wake up call, so it’s a nice touch that they call on the phone first to give you a minute to open your eyes and put on some clothes or a robe or something before they come knocking on the door. The food arrived promptly at 8:30am, and everything was hot and exactly as we ordered, including my special request for smoked salmon! We ordered some orange juice with our breakfast- the menu has premium and regular OJ and we ordered one of each, but could not tell which was which! I have a feeling one is fresh squeezed (presumably the premium OJ), so we ordered that for the rest of the cruise, but like I said, I really couldn’t tell the difference from the regular juice.

 

 

Instead of taking the whole stack of plates outside, I like to divide up our food inside and then we can just take one plate outside for each of us.

 

My breakfast (before adding cream cheese and salmon to the bagel)

[deladane]

DH’s breakfast

 

We popped open the bottle of champagne from embarkation day (another Concierge class perk), and made some mimosas to go with our breakfast.

 

 

 

We stayed out on the balcony until around 10:30am, and then relocated to the solarium. It was another windy and cool day, so it was nice to hang out in the solarium which is a bit warmer than out by the pool. We noticed many chairs were occupied by towels and books, but not as many as yesterday by the pool. Luckily, there were 2 loungers available but they were in the middle of the row so we had to crawl up onto them. Why must they set up the seats so close together?! It gets so awkward to climb in and out of your seat, and I can only imagine how challenging this is for anyone with mobility issues.

 

Sorry for the terrible lighting in this photo! The section where we were sitting was right near the door to the elevators and the spa where the ceiling is a solid tarp and much dimmer than under the glass ceiling in the main seating area.

 

The Slush Bar is located right next to the Pool Bar on deck 12 and offers fancier versions of the standard boozy slushy drinks. These drinks take a few minutes to make, and there is only one bartender stationed at this bar, so it can take a while to get your drink, especially if there is a line before you get there. The bar is only opened from noon until 4pm, so we made sure to be there right when they opened to avoid a long wait. Here is the menu (sorry for the glare!), and the drinks are included with the premium beverage package.

 

 

Side note (because I took this photo while we were waiting for the bartender to make our drinks): This is a photo of our sea pass cards. Since we had the classic alcohol package when we boarded the ship, there is a code “CALL” preprinted at the bottom of the card. When we paid for our upgrades to the premium package, they added the “PALL” sticker. If your sticker falls off (or if you take your seapass card in the ocean/pool and it wears away), you can go to guest services and they will print you a new card with PALL printed on it. Notice the bottom left corner of the card where it says “068”. The seapass cards all list the last 3 digits of your cabin number, but not the first digit which is for the deck. I think Celebrity started doing this because people forgot their cabin numbers and kept going to guest services to ask, but I’m not so sure this was the best solution. If I lost my seapass card and someone found it, they could go to every deck and try to open the door for the cabins ending in 068… with only 7 decks on the ship with cabin numbers ending in 068, it wouldn’t take long for that person to find my cabin. Just a thought!

 

[oskarNZ]

This trip report is brilliant. Thanks so much for the time and effort you are putting into each post.

I am doing a near identical itinerary on the Reflection in January, so are excitedly awaiting your rundown of each port.

[deladane]

This trip report is brilliant. Thanks so much for the time and effort you are putting into each post.

I am doing a near identical itinerary on the Reflection in January, so are excitedly awaiting your rundown of each port.

 

Thanks for reading! I promise to get to the port days before you leave for your cruise in January ;p

[nikel]

Thank you so much for this review....I love reading it and seeing all your fabulous pictures. We board next week for the TA and I enjoy seeing it in advance. Some people like surprises, but I prefer to see it this way first.

[deladane]

Thank you so much for this review....I love reading it and seeing all your fabulous pictures. We board next week for the TA and I enjoy seeing it in advance. Some people like surprises, but I prefer to see it this way first.

 

Thanks for reading! I also prefer to see everything in advance. I am planning a few land trips for us this year and it is so difficult to research when I can't rely on reviews from Cruise Critic!! lol

[cuiser8349]

deladane... Thank you soooooo very much for this wonderful review. My family and I are doing our first Celeb. cruise out of Barcelona in Oct. on the Eclipse. You have me so excited now I just cant wait. I appreciate all the hard work and time that you have put in to your review.. again, thank you

[frteach]

I am enjoying your review, which takes me back to the "exotic southern Caribbean" 14 day cruise which I took several years ago. Too bad that they are no longer offering it. Like you, I love the art on the S class ships, and I take photos of it as well. Our D and SIL will be taking a honeymoon cruise in the Med in September, and we hope that they enjoy it as much as we do. Looking forward to your remarks about the islands you will visit, which are some of our favourites in the Caribbean.

[deladane]

deladane... Thank you soooooo very much for this wonderful review. My family and I are doing our first Celeb. cruise out of Barcelona in Oct. on the Eclipse. You have me so excited now I just cant wait. I appreciate all the hard work and time that you have put in to your review.. again, thank you

 

Oh how wonderful! Barcelona is an amazing city!! Thanks for reading :)

[deladane]

I am enjoying your review, which takes me back to the "exotic southern Caribbean" 14 day cruise which I took several years ago. Too bad that they are no longer offering it. Like you, I love the art on the S class ships, and I take photos of it as well. Our D and SIL will be taking a honeymoon cruise in the Med in September, and we hope that they enjoy it as much as we do. Looking forward to your remarks about the islands you will visit, which are some of our favourites in the Caribbean.

 

Thanks for reading :) I'm sure your D and SIL will have a fabulous time on their honeymoon between being on a beautiful ship and visiting all of the exciting ports in the Med!

[deladane]

DH ordered the Golden Coconut (a gourmet frozen pina colada), and I had the Spiked Razz Slush. We both enjoyed our drinks, but honestly couldn’t taste much difference from a regular pina colada or daiquiri at the pool bar so we only returned here one or two more times during the cruise.

 

 

Back in 2016, the Slush Bar served drinks in disposable to-go cups, similar to what Starbucks uses for their frapuccinos. We thought those cups were fun, and were disappointed to see that the Eclipse just uses the same tall hard plastic cups that they use at all the outdoor bars for frozen drinks. I guess Celebrity decided it was better to use cups that were washable instead of wasting the disposable ones. I can’t really blame them… it’s not like we can really take these drinks too far considering they aren’t allowed off the ship!

 

 

We took our drinks back to our loungers in the Solarium and relaxed there for a little while until we started to get hungry for lunch. One corner of the Solarium houses the Aqua Spa Café, which serves lighter and healthier options for breakfast and lunch. Despite the name, this spot is not restricted to people staying in Aqua Class cabins. Anyone can eat here as long as they are over age 16 (because that is the restriction for being inside the Solarium). The food was pre-plated and served buffet style, and there is a juice bar where they will make smoothies and juices both off the menu and made-to-order. I don’t think I ever took a photo of the lunch menu (oops!), but here is the breakfast menu (taken later in the cruise, but it was the same for the whole cruise so I may as well post it now!)

 

 

These are the food options for lunch…

 

Fresh fruit, no idea what the white thing is- maybe yogurt??, turkey and tomato wrap

 

Beet salad, Caprese salad, bowtie pasta with pesto

 

The end of the line had a few other salads like tuna,chicken, and salmon salad.

[Kiwifromkiev]

Thanks for reading :) I'm sure your D and SIL will have a fabulous time on their honeymoon between being on a beautiful ship and visiting all of the exciting ports in the Med!

 

 

 

Dana, have you booked another cruise?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[deladane]

There were also some breadsticks and a biscuit/scone type thing but I didn’t try any of these

 

I opted for the bowtie pesto pasta salad and the salmon salad and brought the little plates back to our loungers so I could share them with DH. Both were light and tasty, and they made for a good pre-lunch snack.

 

Of course, we can’t resist checking out what they had upstairs at the Oceanview buffet, so we took turns going up there to get a few more things to eat. Today’s theme was A Taste of Italy and featured a fresh mozzarella station with pesto and a few kinds of tomatoes. There was also several kinds of lasagna (DH loved the beef lasagna), meatballs, and other pasta dishes. I ended up with a slice of pizza topped with shrimp (not a combination I’ve ever tried before but it was bizarrely tasty), pasta salad, seafood salad, fresh mozzarella with pesto, and of course, a piece of that yummy chocolate fudge cake.

 

 

We ate our lunches on our loungers in the Solarium, then relaxed there for a few more hours until 3pm, when we went upstairs to the Sky Lounge for music trivia. This was actually the start of a tradition for us, and we attended many of the 3pm music trivia sessions in the Sky Lounge throughout the cruise. It was offered every day, regardless of if it was a port day or a sea day, and there was a core group of about 50 people who seemed to show up every day just like us! At first, DH and I played on a team of just the 2 of us, and while we did respectably, we knew we wouldn’t ever win without more man power. At some point later in the cruise, we teamed up with a couple of baby boomers and realized the secret to music trivia success: form a multi-generational team!! DH and I knew all the songs from the late 70’s through today, and the baby boomers knew all the songs from before then. We were allowed to have teams of up to 6 people, so this made it more fun and gave us better odds at winning. No spoilers just yet to see if we ever did win a trivia game!

 

Today’s trivia theme was Broadway Music Trivia. They played 15 songs and we just had to guess the name of the show, not the song name. DH and I have had a subscription to see the traveling Broadway shows that come to San Jose for the last 4 seasons (and we’re already signed up for the 2018-2019 season!), and I have seen over 50 Broadway shows from when I lived in New York, so we thought we had good odds with this theme. In the end, we only got 10 out of 15 correct, and the winning team got 14 right. Everyday, at 3:30pm, they went right into general knowledge trivia which is not one of our fortes, so that was our cue to head back to the cabin and get changed for the evening.

 

When we got back to our cabin, our cheese tray was waiting for us, as was the disembarkation questionnaire. Today was day 3 of a 14 day cruise, so I thought it was a bit soon to be talking about disembarkation, but I assumed it was to give us priority on our preferred time slots before they asked the rest of the ship for their forms (or maybe everyone got their forms today, I really don’t know for sure).

 

 

We went down to the Martini Bar at 4:45pm and all the seats around the bar were taken. One of the ladies sitting there said we needed to arrive by 4pm to get a seat, but that is way too early if you ask me! We would never be ready by then on a port day, and even if we were, we don’t need 3 hours of drinks before our 7pm dinner reservations (at least not if we want to enjoy our dinner at all!!). Luckily, someone got up a minute later so we could take a seat, and one of the bartenders quickly took our order. I always love when they pour multiple drinks at the same time!

 

 

I ordered a Sunset Martini, made with Grey Goose Le Citron vodka, Bacardi Coconut rum, pineapple juice, and grenadine.

[deladane]

Dana, have you booked another cruise?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

Nope :( Eventually, we will cruise again, but nothing booked as of now

[deladane]

A few minutes later, I noticed another bartender, Ketut, getting ready to put on a show by the Crush Bar, so I went over to check it out. Ketut was my favorite bartender at the Martini Bar and we always tried to order from him because we thought he was the liveliest and had the best flair of the group. I am always so impressed that they can get the drinks into the correct glass without spilling!

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, this was a great use for the burst mode on my camera haha

Back at my seat at the bar, I was ready for round 2, so I ordered the Blue Wave Martini with Bombay Sapphire gin,peach schnapps, blue curacao, and lime juice.

 

 

One really fun feature of the Martini Bar is that the surface where you place your drinks is covered with a thin layer of ice. Make sure to always put your martini glass on a napkin or else it will stick to the ice and you may spill it when you try to pick it up! DH found great amusement in drawing pictures in the ice while he sipped his drink. Here is today’s creation… a thirsty shark!

 

[Steve H]

We were at the trivia every day also, our team of six did ok we won a few times it was fun and a great way to meet people. That sunset martini sure looks good. It was a great cruise!