Reflection from Dublin to Amsterdam: first impressions

[ak1004]

43 minutes ago, buggins0402 said:

Thanks...missed it the first time. I only scanned the daily planning on the left and missed the box in the lower right. 

 

Buffet sounds like it will work.  My recollection was Celebrity’s was decent for breakfast and lunch, but it has been almost 8 years. 

 

I would probably say it's slightly better than "decent". Maybe it's because I came with low expectations after being on the Equinox 3 years ago and remembering the food really underwhelming. Maybe food on Reflection is better than Equinox. 

 

It is nowhere close Oceania, but it's pretty similar to a decent buffet on land. Not a gourmet food, but good overall. And many new items daily which is also not what I remember from the Equinox. 

 

You can probably live from deserts only. I was a pretty skinny guy just 5 days ago..

[ak1004]

6 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

We have the high speed. We are able to stream and send pictures on whatsup but the surfing itself can be slow. Speedtest shows speeds well under 1 mbps but they claim it's not reliable since it's satellite. I'm not sure it's true. The best internet we had was last year on princess and you could see it on speedtest that showed over 10 mbps.

 

Update on the Internet:

 

It is 5pm now, many people are in port, so I tried to surf and felt that the speeds are much better now. Ran speedtest, and here are the results:

 

 

So I think speedtest does measure the speeds pretty accurately. It is not bad when most people are in port, but pretty miserable during peak hours.

[cruise kitty]

Happy to hear that you are enjoying, we had a great time last month :)   getting our photo review together...   I wouldn't hesitate to book Reflection again :)

[ak1004]

Tip for Cork: you can do it yourself no need for excursion. Very easy by train. 25 minutes, 10 euro. Nice city but I'm not sure why they do it overnight. I would prefer staying in Dover overnight instead. 

 

Getting off and on was very easy today.

[JeanieC,Aston]

14 hours ago, Lost in Italy said:

Thank you for this posting. We'll be on the Reflection from Dublin to Amsterdam In July 2020.  Did you happen to have a stay in Dublin? Any recommended reasonably priced hotels?

Hope you have a wonderful time on the remainder of your cruise.

 

Hi

We were on the 16th May sailing from Dublin.

We stayed the night before at the Arlington Hotel facing the River Liffey.

It was 100yds to the bottom of O'Connell St one way,100yds the other way,across the Ha'penny Bridge and you were in Temple Bar area for the great pubs etc.

 

The hotel had a great bar with live Irish music,,and a basement show lounge featuring a Irish music and dance show,,,,34 Euro from memory.

 

There was plenty of cruisers staying in the hotel,the hotel put a shuttle bus on to the ship for 5 euro each.

 

One night with light breakfast was 150 euro,Irish full breakfast was 10 euro.

 

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by JeanieC,Aston

[Lost in Italy]

1 hour ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

Hi

We were on the 16th May sailing from Dublin.

We stayed the night before at the Arlington Hotel facing the River Liffey.

It was 100yds to the bottom of O'Connell St one way,100yds the other way,across the Ha'penny Bridge and you were in Temple Bar area for the great pubs etc.

 

The hotel had a great bar with live Irish music,,and a basement show lounge featuring a Irish music and dance show,,,,34 Euro from memory.

 

There was plenty of cruisers staying in the hotel,the hotel put a shuttle bus on to the ship for 5 euro each.

 

One night with light breakfast was 150 euro,Irish full breakfast was 10 euro.

 

 

Thank you for the Arlington Hotel referral. Did you enjoy the cruise? Will you be posting a review?

 

[JeanieC,Aston]

5 minutes ago, Lost in Italy said:

Thank you for the Arlington Hotel referral. Did you enjoy the cruise? Will you be posting a review?

 

Hi 

I did enjoy the cruise,Iceland had been on the bucket list for a while.

The weather could have been a bit warmer but that was expected.

 

There was concern from last years posts about embarking and disembarking from Dublin,but it was a dream.

 

I don't really do reviews,but feel free to ask any questions.

[Texed]

3 hours ago, JeanieC,Aston said:

The hotel had a great bar with live Irish music,,and a basement show lounge featuring a Irish music and dance show,,,,34 Euro from memory.

One night with light breakfast was 150 euro,Irish full breakfast was 10 euro.

 

Dublin uses Euros? 

[cruiserchuck]

3 minutes ago, Texed said:

 

Dublin uses Euros? 

 

Yes, Ireland is part of the EU.  They use pounds in Northern Ireland.

[Texed]

5 minutes ago, cruiserchuck said:

 

Yes, Ireland is part of the EU.  They use pounds in Northern Ireland.

 

Thank you.  🙂

[BellKat]

We got off Reflection last Friday. Loved our cruise. We were very disappointed in our previous Celebrity cruise in October but we were very happy with this one. We were in Aqua & loved eating in Blu every night but one (ate at the Lawn Club Grille). We had the best wait staff we’ve ever had. If you go to the World Class Bar, say hi to Oleksii from Kathleen & the rest of the crazy Bellomo family group that spent most every night from 5:00 - 6:00 with him. He was the best bartender we’ve ever had. He liked to try new drinks on my husband. He keeps a little piece of paper in his wallet & seems to riff drinks off his notes. 

[ak1004]

[ak1004]

First day on sea. Buffet was a complete zoo. Finding a table was a real challenge. This is a line for ice cream:

 

 

But pools are not bad. No issue to find a chair. Maybe because it's relatively chilly. 

 

A lot of daily activities. But still no art seminars or guest lectures. 

[dani negreanu]

On 6/18/2019 at 7:31 AM, Lost in Italy said:

Thank you for this posting. We'll be on the Reflection from Dublin to Amsterdam In July 2020.  Did you happen to have a stay in Dublin? Any recommended reasonably priced hotels?

 

We also stayed at We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express City Center on O'Connell Street. It was recommended by others in our very active roll call, and rightly so. We took the AirLink 747 bus from the airport, and just crossed the street for the hotel. It was clean, very comfortable, good b'fast and friendly staff.

 

We enjoyed Reflection very much, albeit, as mentioned, we had a long wait to get ashore some of the times.

[ak1004]

Over half cruise is behind us. Few more observations.

 

We noticed a relatively high number of children, teenagers and young couples. Also overall demographics is very different from what we have seen on previous cruises. Could be related to the fact that they dropped  the prices by 40% few weeks before the cruise.

 

Room attendant not very good. We have to ask for everything starting from extra towels and bathrobes, soap and shampoo. 

 

Room is fine. No issues. Bed ok. Bedding pretty basic.

 

Food in MDR continues to dissapoint. We ate there only twice. This never happened before. But buffet is pretty good.

 

Entertainment continues to be excellent. Night life very active. 

 

Overall we are having a fantastic time. At the end of the day Celebrity provides a good overall package with decent value. But it's not Oceania. Just don't expect a Honda to be a Mercedes. 

[Fixit2010]

On 6/18/2019 at 11:20 PM, cruiserchuck said:

 

Yes, Ireland is part of the EU.  They use pounds in Northern Ireland.

Not for much longer 

[Mynki]

4 minutes ago, Fixit2010 said:

Not for much longer 

Whether Brexit happens or not, Northern Ireland will still be part of the UK and will still use UK pound sterling. 

Eire / Southern Ireland will still use the Euro. 

Not sure what you are trying to imply with your post? 

[ak1004]

We are back and posted a review - https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=659571

 

Overall we had a fantastic time. We will be returning to the same ship in September (Amsterdam to Barcelona).