A Live Reflection on the Med 4th July 2022

[terrydtx]

22 minutes ago, groryjm said:

ust to give you a bit of background we are not zenith and don’t expect to reach that hight until late 2024 or perhaps early 2025. We have amassed quite a few CC points though and are almost three times Elite Plus. The pandemic has been good for us points wise with a couple of our trips post pandemic being at double points. Seven nights in August last year staying in a PH ( apparently a good thing for a husband to give as a 30^th anniversary present) gave us 252 points.

We just recently made Elite, and I do not think we will live long enough, or my retirement funds will last long enough for us to make Elite +. But I am just happy to cruise in the Retreat for as long as we can. We wasted too many years cruising with HAL before we discovered Celebrity.

Edited July 6, 2022 by terrydtx

[MikeMary4449]

Congratulations on being Top Cruisers!  We are following along and enjoying your posts immensely as we were on the Reflection last March/April.  Unfortunately, Cranston, who we know from many previous sailings, had just gone on vacation, but Olympia took very good care of us.  Please give both of them our best.  We look forward to seeing them again soon.

Mike and Mary

[groryjm]

8 hours ago, terrydtx said:

Not familiar with Punt E Mess, will have to look into it. On the Equinox last year the Retreat Lounge bartender could only find the Martini brand of sweet vermouth which is pure rubbish. Is a Boulevardier your equivalent to a Manhatton?

A boulevardier consists of equal quantities of whiskey,sweet vermoiuth and campari. Its creation is ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called Boulevardier, which appeared from 1927 to 1932. personally i prefer Bullit rye and Punt-E-Mess. but if you cant get Punt-E-Mess and only Carpano Antiqua I would use Woodford reserve.

 

 

[bluwes]

Looks like your having a great time Fred. I notice the bottle of Amarone on one of your pics. My favourite red wine.

Any ideas how many will be sailing next week as we board on the 15th

[chemmo]

Congratulations on being top cruiser! Nice flowers!

[groryjm]

Another excellent meal in Murano last night and it was lovely to bump into staff we knew from sailins on other ships. Davut our wine waiter who we’d met previously at Luminae on Silhouette and Yandi our waiter who has served us many times in Murano also on Silly. Reconnecting with crew we had known from other ships realy seems to make Celebrity feel like family.

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to cure my continual problem with drinks in Murano, as they don’t serve cocktails and I don’t often drink wine, by briefing the wonderful Olympia in Michael’s. An I was amply supplied with my to go daytime drink at home, an Americano. Nothing to do with coffee  . The Americano developed from the Milano Torino ( equal parts Carpano Antica from Turin, although it should be Pun E Mess; and Campari Bitter from Milan) a classic from the 1890s by adding a splash of soda. This the became in, 1919, the Negroni when the Campo de Negroni ordered his Americano strengthened and the barman replaced the soda with gin.

 

We ended the evening in Michaels with for me of course a boulevardier and the last of the calvados Olympia found for my Gastrognome.

[groryjm]

Breakfast in Santorini.

 

 

Edited July 7, 2022 by groryjm

[groryjm]

A few random pics from Santorini today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[groryjm]

Trying a new cocktail before dinner - 30ml gin, 15ml fresh Lemon, 15ml fresh lime, 45ml rose, 20ml sugar syrup shake with ice and served in an ice filled glass topped with 60ml of soda - with some nuts from Michaels

 

 

at the Lawn Club Grille (thank you Randy)

  

 

 

while watching a beautiful Santorini sunset and sail out

 

 

 

 

What better way to finish a very hot and tiring but perfect day

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by groryjm

[groryjm]

Beautiful sunrise this mormg just before we arrived in Mykonos

 

[groryjm]

A few random pictures i took as we walked through Mykonos today

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and of course some gin

 

 

and a pause for a local beer

 

 

 

Which super yacht is ours?

 

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by groryjm

[groryjm]

Lunch and a cocktail in Mykonos before heading back to the ship

 

 

 

 

 

 

[groryjm]

Best place to see sail away and we haven't been on a helipad since 2019 partly because such gatherings had stopped since the pandemic and when they returned we were on Silhouette the view from the retreat deck is I think better.

 

 

 

 

 

A bit windy though but a pretty good view never the less.

 

 

[sdnich]

I just found your trip report and had to catch up on your trip . I am absolutely loving your pictures of food  and your drink recipes . I will definitely get more adventurous on our Summit cruise in Sept .I saw that you mention your  butler Mudit and if he is the same butler we had on the Equinox in Oct B2B  in 2019 your are lucky !! We enjoyed conversation with him daily and hope to have him again one day !

[swigso]

@bluwes Like you we have had BA flights changed 3 times since we booked them. One time they put us on a Manchester to Heathrow flight that landed 10 minutes after the flight to Rome had departed. 2 weeks ago the cancelled our Heathrow to Rome leg completely with no alternative given.

We have lost faith in BA we feel they cannot be trusted. We had our flight from Manchester to Heathrow cancelled with 2 hrs notice, luckily we were able to hire a car and drive to the airport for our flight the next day.

We sail from Rome on the Reflection in September and have booked

with Lufthansa from Liverpool airport. The connection is via Frankfurt and as it is a new route business class fare was really good, Liverpool although not as big as Manchester, is OK to travel to/from.

really enjoying the review

Edited July 9, 2022 by swigso

[terrydtx]

52 minutes ago, swigso said:

@bluwes Like you we have had BA flights changed 3 times since we booked them. One time they put us on a Manchester to Heathrow flight that landed 10 minutes after the flight to Rome had departed. 2 weeks ago the cancelled our Heathrow to Rome leg completely with no alternative given.

We have lost faith in BA we feel they cannot be trusted. We had our flight from Manchester to Heathrow cancelled with 2 hrs notice, luckily we were able to hire a car and drive to the airport for our flight the next day.

We sail from Rome on the Reflection in September and have booked

with Lufthansa from Liverpool airport. The connection is via Frankfurt and as it is a new route business class fare was really good, Liverpool although not as big as Manchester, is OK to travel to/from.

really enjoying the review

We have a Viking River cruise next year and I have been following a Viking social media site and for many current river cruise passengers in Europe the airport and airline issues have become a nightmare. With all the BA and Lufthansa delays and cancellations hundreds of people are either stranded after their cruise or not getting to the start of their cruises on time. Add in that many who did make their cruise, they have no luggage days into their travels, some never found their luggage at all.

 

Flying now is a crap shoot and we fly to Rome from Texas in 3 weeks, I check online every morning first thing to see if any of our flights have changed, United has changed us almost every week for the last month, the last change being 2 days ago.

[swigso]

Flying anywhere today is a lottery, that is why we are flying to Rome

5 days before sailing. The other variant is hotel prices, I always book early and 

when I booked the rate was €300 per day about average for a 4/5 star city centre hotel such as the Westin. The rate is now over €850 per night. Very glad I booked 

when I did. 
we have a cruise booked in Feb next year and it was cheaper to book another 

sailing (Reflection 7 nights) with the elevate package in Aqua than book the hotel

we usually stay at in Sarasota after our cruise.

[swigso]

Will stop posting now and enjoy the review, cannot wait to get on board in 

September.

[terrydtx]

7 minutes ago, swigso said:

Flying anywhere today is a lottery, that is why we are flying to Rome

5 days before sailing. The other variant is hotel prices, I always book early and 

when I booked the rate was €300 per day about average for a 4/5 star city centre hotel such as the Westin. The rate is now over €850 per night. Very glad I booked 

when I did. 
we have a cruise booked in Feb next year and it was cheaper to book another 

sailing (Reflection 7 nights) with the elevate package in Aqua than book the hotel

we usually stay at in Sarasota after our cruise.

We are flying to Rome 3 days early. We also booked our Hotels early and now they are double what we booked. We booked in Euros, which is working to our advantage, the Euro exchange was around $1.15 to 1 when we booked, yesterday the exchange was $1.02 to 1. 

[groryjm]

We crossed under the The1915 Çanakkale Bridge in the early hours of yesterday morning arriving in Istanbul at around 12.30. This gave us the opportunity to have lunch on the back of the Ocean view café overlooking the old city. The views were fabulous and the food from the buffet was also very good

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[groryjm]

After a leisurely lunch we opted to wander over the galata bridge in towards the spice market and see if any shops were open. From our balcony I could easily see the new Galata port shopping complex with its many restaurants and if we could have walked off the ship directly the bridge would only be five minutes’ walk. BUT be warned it takes about 15 minutes to walk from the ship through the new underground terminal complex to the cruise ship port exit. And another 15 minutes’ walk to the restaurants below our balcony and a further 15 minutes across the bridge to the entrance to the spice markets.

 

Last time we were here we walked from the ship to the same point in 15 mins total so the new port has made what used to be a gentle stroll from the ship to the old town into a 45 min hike each way, Well in fact a bit further on return as you have no choice but to walk to the furthest point in the terminal, the duty free shop, before you can turn around and return to your ship.

 

Needless to say we enjoyed wandering the few shops that were open but the hike was somewhat challenging. We had thought to go to one of the local restaurants, possibly the one below our balcony, but the thought of a half an hour walk each way curbed that thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bridge was only just high enough for the boats going under it

 

 

The river is not the ceanest and this is the clean up boat

 

[groryjm]

A French 75 before heading up to the sunset bar to enjoy the views an were greeted by another friendly face, A A Ketut, a barman we had known from our recent cruises on Silhouette.

 

 

 

One of my favourite aperitivo and ingredients in cocktails is Campari. In Europe and Italy it is 25% by vol yet on the ship it is 28.5% by vol. is this Italian bitter really shipped from the States to supply a ship that is restocked in Italy?

 

 

We had a lovely diner in the porch while the sun set and we watch the lights in the city

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[groryjm]

After thunder and lightning storms all night the weather was a bit drizzly this morning for our cruise on the Bosphorus. It was a lovely tour none the less despite the drizzle. When we booked the tour it had been marked up as moderate but with the new Galata Port it had been uprated to strenuous due to the walk to the bus to take us to the boat. It really does now take about 15 to 20 minutes to walk to the tour buses. A little further for private tours or taxis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We passed a number of Huge ships taking goods in and out of the Black Sea

 

 

 

After the tour we had another excellent lunch at Sushi on 5....... 

 

 

 

 

with a Spicy Mango Tine and a Kanpie made for me by the amazing World Class barman Joseph.

 

 

After lunch we went to our balcony to watch sail away as rain had abandoned the helipad event and we were half an hour late leaving due to a pier runner.

 

 

[OysterD]

1 hour ago, groryjm said:

We crossed under the The1915 Çanakkale Bridge in the early hours of yesterday morning arriving in Istanbul at around 12.30. This gave us the opportunity to have lunch on the back of the Ocean view café overlooking the old city. The views were fabulous and the food from the buffet was also very good

Great trip report! Following along here in interest as we are on the same itinerary later in Sept.

 

If you crossed under the Canakkale Bridge in the early hours, obviously that cruise along the Dardanelles Strait was in the dark, how about the return journey? Ship should supposedly be leaving Istanbul at 1pm, will it reach the Dardanelles Strait before sunset or will it be dark for the return leg also? 

[groryjm]

11 minutes ago, OysterD said:

Great trip report! Following along here in interest as we are on the same itinerary later in Sept.

 

If you crossed under the Canakkale Bridge in the early hours, obviously that cruise along the Dardanelles Strait was in the dark, how about the return journey? Ship should supposedly be leaving Istanbul at 1pm, will it reach the Dardanelles Strait before sunset or will it be dark for the return leg also? 

 We should be reaching the bridge around 7:30 so much of the  Dardanelles Strait will still be in day light 🤞

 

Edited July 10, 2022 by groryjm