Reflection March 11th 2019 - Live! 🍸😎

[MR_T]

Hi All, 

 

Well it it seems like a long time since I was leading up to board a ship but in reality it’s only been around 4 months, that was only a 6 night cruise on an old royal ship but a cruise all the same, I guess it just seems so long ago due to the long hard winter we’ve had here in Canada this year so to say we are excited to be leaving soon is a huge understatement 😊 

 

Anyway, ive done a few “live from” posts/blogs in the past and thought it’ll be a good cruise to do another one on as I’ve not seen a lot on here recently about the reflection and it’s also a cruise that has 3 new ports for us to experience so I’ve decided let’s do this 👍🏼 

 

A little about us - my names Tony (English - 47) & my amazing travel partner is my beautiful wife Julie (Canadian - 50) she will kill me if she sees that... 😱😂, we recently got married (last October) and now live in Montreal - Canada, I’ve actually been living in Montreal now for a little over 2 years so I’ve now experienced 3 winters and this ones is by far the longest (worst) 🥶, 

 

weve been lucky to have done around 20 cruises (most on celebrity) and really enjoy any cruise we can get on, 

 

please feel free free to add any questions you might have while I’m onboard but just to let you know I’ll post pictures/posts of all the menus I can get along with all the daily info for each day of the cruise,  along with current crew info/updates I can get, 

 

For anyone that’s followed any of my live from blogs in the past I hope to see you again and any new followers I hope you enjoy this journey with us 🍸😎 

[MR_T]

Pre-Cruise info - 

 

So, a little about our pre-cruise plan... 

 

Flight - we are flying early Saturday morning (9th March) on an Air Transat flight Montreal to Orlando, why Orlando? we’ll we just thought we’d rather spend a couple of nights there first vs Fll or Miami which we’ve done a number of times, 

 

Hotel - as it’s really just a place to sleep & shower we’ve just booked a middle of the road hotel on international drive (Rosen Inn @ Pointe), I’ve stayed there a couple of times and it’s been fine for what we need, 

 

Transport - we’ve hired a car from Alamo (via virgin holidays) as they offer a great deal that I’ve used often for short trips that allow to pick up/drop off at different locations without a fee, so we will be driving down to the port early on the Monday morning which again I’ve done a few times so that’s fine, 

 

our plan for orlando is really to take it as it comes, a few favourite restaurant stops (cheesecake factory 😋) & maybe a couple of outlet stores, no parks for this visit but maybe next time, just looking forward to putting on shorts & a tee shirt and enjoying the warmth as it’s been so long... 😂 

 

We generally like to get to the port nice & early so we can hopefully get onboard and get the cruise started as early as possible so fingers crossed for a smooth boarding procedure 🤞🏻 

 

Other than that we have a couple of busy days getting everything ready along with taking our dog to the boarding home but I guess I’ll just add details as they happen but please feel free to join in and follow along! 😎 

 

Tony & Julie 

[BridgeMates]

Looking forward to your review.  There have been a few very negative comments recently re the Reflection.

We were on it in November with two other couples and had a great time.  Love all the specialty restaurants.

Group booked again for next year in January. 

We'll see what you think......

 

 

[Eloise4Ever]

I will be following along your live review Tony. Thanks for doing it. I will be sailing Reflection for the first time on her Transatlantic to Dublin in April. I will be interested to see the differences between Reflection and the other Solstice class ships we have sailed on. I have been somewhat alarmed to read recent negative reviews of Reflection so it will be good to hear how you find things onboard.

 

It's probably too early to ask, but if you remember, could you please ask the Cruise Director Eddy Jenkins if he will still be onboard for the Transatlantic? He is such a great CD and organised a wonderful schedule for us on the 2018 Transatlantic. 

[wendyam76]

Tony, really looking forward to reading your blog! We sail her on the 1st April. Suggestion for a Orlando - visit Disney Springs. Some amazing new restaurants and bars. May want to use Uber/Lyft so you can drink.

Wendy 

[MrFunInTheSun]

Thanks for bringing us along! 

[cheeseheads4ever]

Looking forward to your review! Enjoy your cruise!

[Gia2cats]

Really looking forward to following your posts. We board Reflection on March 22, the day you arrive back. We are arriving in Ft Lauderdale on the 21st.

 

[schlu1dm]

I'm excited that you will be doing this.  We will be boarding with you on Monday!! We fly down from Detroit Sunday morning and are staying in FLL that night.  I definitely get where you are coming from with how long this winter has been.  Safe travels and hopefully we will see you onboard at some point.

[bookitdanno]

Thanks for doing this, it will be interesting to compare notes, as my wife Kris and I will be on the same sailing.

We are looking forward to it very much, see you on board!

George

[MR_T]

5 hours ago, BridgeMates said:

Looking forward to your review.  There have been a few very negative comments recently re the Reflection.

We were on it in November with two other couples and had a great time.  Love all the specialty restaurants.

Group booked again for next year in January. 

We'll see what you think......

 

 

Hi, 

 

To be honest reviews are something I take with a pinch of salt as the same thing can mean differs things and get different responses from 2 people doing exactly the same thing,

 

The reason I prefer to read/do live blogs vs reviews after the event is I just feel I like to hear info from people experiences as it happens... or as close to it as possible, I find with some reviews you can tell from the beginning where they are going and sometimes the reason for bad/negative reviews can be anything from an actual bad/disappointing experience to someone experiencing a check in person that doesn’t smile the right way so therefore everything after that is bad! Or any other number of reasons that really don’t have anything to do with there actual experience, However, freedoms of speech and all that means we are all free to say what we want, 

 

Personally some of the best best cruises I’ve done have been after reading some pretty bad reviews about the very same ship/crew, I guess we are all different and somethings are more or less important to each of us, 

 

we we will be doing most of the speciality restaurants so will for sure give you our thoughts 👍🏻

[MR_T]

5 hours ago, Eloise4Ever said:

I will be following along your live review Tony. Thanks for doing it. I will be sailing Reflection for the first time on her Transatlantic to Dublin in April. I will be interested to see the differences between Reflection and the other Solstice class ships we have sailed on. I have been somewhat alarmed to read recent negative reviews of Reflection so it will be good to hear how you find things onboard.

 

It's probably too early to ask, but if you remember, could you please ask the Cruise Director Eddy Jenkins if he will still be onboard for the Transatlantic? He is such a great CD and organised a wonderful schedule for us on the 2018 Transatlantic. 

For sure I will try and ask Eddy his schedule 👍🏻 

 

We’ve done all the S/Class ships and the reflection most of them all and I’d say the reflection is our favourite, I personally like the layout better vs the other ships and of the 4 previous reflection cruises I’ve not had a bad one yet, 

 

Fingers crossed you have good weather for your TA, personally we love TA’s and doing it on the reflection I’m sure it’ll be a great cruise 👍🏻

[MR_T]

5 hours ago, wendyam76 said:

Tony, really looking forward to reading your blog! We sail her on the 1st April. Suggestion for a Orlando - visit Disney Springs. Some amazing new restaurants and bars. May want to use Uber/Lyft so you can drink.

Wendy 

Thanks for following along and the suggestions for Orlando, we will for sure be going to Disney springs... one of our food options is there 😋 not to mention some tasty dessert/ice cream options 🐷😂

 

personally im not a big drinker so luckily Julie has a full time driver 😂

Edited March 7, 2019 by MR_T
Double post

[MR_T]

3 hours ago, Gia2cats said:

Really looking forward to following your posts. We board Reflection on March 22, the day you arrive back. We are arriving in Ft Lauderdale on the 21st.

 

Cool, we’ll try not to be so depressed looking if we see you at the changeover 😜 

[MR_T]

2 hours ago, schlu1dm said:

I'm excited that you will be doing this.  We will be boarding with you on Monday!! We fly down from Detroit Sunday morning and are staying in FLL that night.  I definitely get where you are coming from with how long this winter has been.  Safe travels and hopefully we will see you onboard at some point.

Safe travels right back at ya 👍🏻 And yes I’m sure we’ll bump into each other at some point 🍸😎

[Ma Bell]

Hi Tony,

 

Great to see you here. Congratulations to you and Julie!

 

Looking forward to your live report. Have a wonderful time.

[MR_T]

13 minutes ago, Ma Bell said:

Hi Tony,

 

Great to see you here. Congratulations to you and Julie!

 

Looking forward to your live report. Have a wonderful time.

Thanks Joan, hopefully one day we will get to cruise together again ☺️

[Ma Bell]

1 minute ago, MR_T said:

Thanks Joan, hopefully one day we will get to cruise together again ☺️

I haven't looked at the roll call yet but Bill told me we will see you next  November. Looking forward to seeing both of you!

 

[wv4891]

Hey Tony, you and Julie have a great time.  Looking forward to reading your posts.

[wv4891]

Deleted, duplicate post

 

Edited March 7, 2019 by wv4891

[OT-Miami]

I'm very glad to have found this!  I have enjoyed your previous reviews and look forward to following along live.  Safe travels  

[Pennstatedj]

We are also live on the same cruise. We are in aqua. Dining has been great. Food and staff at blue has been outstanding. 

Lisa was on for one day and coming back on for womans day in Grand Canyon. 

One negative we find reflectio over crowded. Sea days and cold days are terrible. Will never do a transatlantic on reflection.  Not enough room in bars and sky to handle a thousand elite and above CC members.  Couple that with Lisa’s enterage not a good experience.  

More later. 

Trying a chefs table. Never done one and decided to splurge. Let you know tomorrow. 

 

 

[Pennstatedj]

We are also live on the same cruise. We are in aqua. Dining has been great. Food and staff at blue has been outstanding. 

Lisa was on for one day and coming back on for womans day in Grand Canyon. 

One negative we find reflectio over crowded. Sea days and cold days are terrible. Will never do a transatlantic on reflection.  Not enough room in bars and sky to handle a thousand elite and above CC members.  Couple that with Lisa’s enterage not a good experience.  

More later. 

Trying a chefs table. Never done one and decided to splurge. Let you know tomorrow. 

 

 

[Mike981]

Looking  forward to following along. We have a loooong wait until next January, but your review will make the time go faster.
Oh, we are an hour north of Minneapolis and it is the winter that never ends. They are predicting another 6-12 this weekend.

Thank you for taking the time and all the work.

[ghstudio]

We did the fall TA from Rome....one of the reasons to get at least a veranda cabin is to avoid the crowds on cool/rainy days.  Honestly, most ships are crowded inside when the weather is unfavorable.  For this cruise (the OP's cruise), the weather should be great so no need to worry much about being cooped up inside.

 

I'm curious if the elite cocktail party has changed since the fall TA...I mean the actual on ship cocktail party, not the various "the policy has changed" posts we've seen on CC.  On the TA it was 4:30-7:30 and using your voucher/card you could get a glass of wine in the MDR....which is why I ask.