Live From the Summit, 8/7 to 8/31, from an Aqua passenger viewpoint

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Ken -  I really haven't been reading the dailies.   Some one asked me if they had a Laundry Bag deal during the cruise?    Curious if you noticed anything on it?

We usually only heard about the Laundry Bag deal before we made Elite, and it was usually a flier left in the evening on the bed. But if I recall, it usually showed up around day 5 or 6 when we were on an 11 day or longer cruise like this one. However, that was before the shutdown.

 

[Ken the cruiser]

2 hours ago, Redking said:

So is it now official Celebrity policy that you quarantine in your booked cabin and not the "covid Brig "? Husband still threatening to not go on ourJanuary cruise if there's a risk we get moved🙄

 

36 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

At least on Summit which is nearly full,  you quarantine in your original cabin.   If your travel partner is negative they are given an option to stay in quarantine with positive person or move to a cabin (usually an inside near original stateroom). 

 

In the rapidly changing world of Covid and Cruise Ships -  January is a decade away as to what protocols may be. 

 

All close contact tracing has gone away.

I think when the CDC recently stepped away from mandating cruise ships employ certain protocols is when the cruise lines started revisiting their “C” policies, as seen in the various cruise lines relaxing their pre-cruise testing policies and such.
 

But, as Jim said, we can only speak for what is currently happening on the Summit. You may want to ask your question on a Live From thread associated with the cruise ship you want to sail on.

[ecslady]

59 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

Then about 15 minutes or so later, we were off, and as I’ve said before, watching sail away from our aft-facing cabin is always awesome, especially when it’s in the 70s! 😂

 

Love those M-class aft facing cabins!  Looks like a great sail away.

[Ken the cruiser]

52 minutes ago, ecslady said:

Love those M-class aft facing cabins!  Looks like a great sail away.

It definitely was the warmest we’ve had this leg and the sunset was beautiful!! 😄

[Ken the cruiser]

This evening we went to see the production show, Life.

 

 

 

 
Then we stayed until 10 to watch the Liar's Club. Tonight they had the Captain, CD Rich and the comedian Sean Kent as guests with Emily, the Activities Director, as the emcee, and once again they had us laughing the whole time!! 😂

 
Here were the words

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Day 12 - Aug 30 - Sea day

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Good morning! This will be our last day at sea for awhile looking out from our balcony just to see what’s going on. Today, there were a bunch of sea gulls following us just to see what we would churn up! 😁

 

[AstoriaPreppy]

23 hours ago, MamaFej said:

I should have asked if she does Patti LuPone, too. 

 

Karen seems to nice to stop the show to scream at people recording on their phones in the audience 😆

 

16 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

Ken -  I really haven't been reading the dailies.   Some one asked me if they had a Laundry Bag deal during the cruise?    Curious if you noticed anything on it?

 

I can only speak for the last cruise, but I'm almost positive they did not have a laundry deal listed in the dailies. We were looking for it to see if it was a better deal than our $20 Select bag. With the number of Elites on board, I can only assume they didn't need it.

 

That said, it took 3 days plus a trip to guest services to get our laundry returned, so they weren't really firing on all cylinders.

[AstoriaPreppy]

10 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

This evening we went to see the production show, Life.

 

 

So random... those acrobats didn't show up until the last evening of the NJ-Reykjavik trip, and definitely weren't in Life on the last voyage. We left the theater wondering if they'd been onboard the whole time (possible quarantine?)

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, AstoriaPreppy said:

 

So random... those acrobats didn't show up until the last evening of the NJ-Reykjavik trip, and definitely weren't in Life on the last voyage. We left the theater wondering if they'd been onboard the whole time (possible quarantine?)

TBH for us they were the highlight of either of the production shows, Life or Soundtrack, that they were in on the legs we’ve been on.

[Ken the cruiser]

Just went to the last Brain lectures which covered various aspects of Alzheimer’s. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

We stayed for the senior officer Q&A after the lecture. Most of it was quite informative, but we pretty much didn’t learn anything revealing other than this little tidbit. Our new Activities Director, Emily, is also the Captain’s girlfriend. 

[Esprit]

11 minutes ago, Ken the cruiser said:

We stayed for the senior officer Q&A after the lecture. Most of it was quite informative, but we pretty much didn’t learn anything revealing other than this little tidbit. Our new Activities Director, Emily, is also the Captain’s girlfriend. 

Engaged even! 

[Ken the cruiser]

2 minutes ago, Esprit said:

Engaged even! 

Well, there you go then. Who’s going to even dare question her decision to eliminate the game shows on Chic nights. 😂

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Since this is our last day before we disembark tomorrow morning, I thought I’d summarize our trip.

 

Overall, going on the B2B, even though the itineraries were pretty much identical except for the starting and ending ports, it worked out great, especially with regards to the changes in weather we encountered on each leg. Also, being able to go back to the same ports allowed us to either go on a different excursion or just do our own self-guided tours using knowledge from a previous visit.

 

Ship sponsored excursions: We absolutely had no issues taking ship excursions, especially since we could use our OBC to pay for them. There was only one excursion where the tour bus was fully packed and that was on transition day when there was only one bus available to do the City Tour because there were 5 cruise ships in Reykjavik the day we were there.

 

Dining: We absolutely had no issues with the food served in Blu, both at breakfast as well as dinner. But at the same time when one of us couldn’t find a starter to eat on the Blu menu, there was usually a suitable substitute over on the MDR menu, such as escargot or shrimp cocktail. But I have to say we have been spoiled on past cruises by the variety of chocolate desserts in Luminae whereas the Blu “chocolate” desserts are few and far between. On many occasions, my DW would either order the chocolate moose off the MDR children’s menu or we would bypass dessert all together and head down to Cafe Al Bachio to sample some of their “always available and very tasty” chocolate desserts. 😁

 

Entertainment: As I’ve mentioned earlier on both legs the guest entertainers have been great for the most part. In fact on this 12 day leg, there have been 16 shows in the main theater!! And what I find fascinating is that all of the singing guest performers mostly sang songs we recognized, which was great!! But when it came to the 3 production shows it was just the opposite, and definitely not a motivator for us to book another M class cruise anytime soon, as we also experienced similar subpar performances on the Constellation back in December. OTOH the E and S class ships we’ve cruised on this past year the production shows have been good to outstanding, especially on the Apex! The game shows have also been a lot of fun, especially on the last leg when “high energy” Nathan was the Activities Director, and so have been most of the trivias we’ve attended. 
 

Internet: All in all it’s been pretty good for what we used it for. It was only completely offline for a few hours a few days ago due to technical reasons. But they were able to solve the issue and life was good again! But, then again we did purchase the premium packages, so I can only speak for that level of service.

 

Aqua services: We never used any of the spa services nor even visited them our entire cruise. So unfortunately, I have no opinion to offer. However, we did visit the Spa Cafe early on for lunch and it was very tasty. However, once we eventually decided to eat lunch from the buffet up on our balcony that ended going to the Spa Cafe

 

Laundry services. Since we are Elite+, we usually sent in a bag every 3 days and usually got our clothes back the following evening, except for one time just before transition day when it took an extra day due to all of the Elites on the cruise probably doing their last load before going home.

 

If you have any questions or if I missed an area you had questions about, I’ll be happy to try and answer them. 😁

 

[Ken the cruiser]

This afternoon we went to another matinee, only this time it featured Patrick McMahon, and The Credence Group, who were both fantastic!! 😁

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

After our last tasty dinner in Blu we headed off to watch one of the funniest comedians we’ve seen in a long time, Bob Brizendine! He was super funny and not a show to miss!! 😂

 

 

 

 

 

[NBliving]

I've really enjoyed your live review.  Thank you so much for sharing and for your photos.  I hope you have a safe and uneventful trip home!

[garyl62]

Enjoyed following along with you the entire time! Have a great last night and safe travels tomorrow 

[maggie.1008]

Thanks so much for taking time out of your holiday to share it with us. We leave for Vancouver to Hawaii in three weeks and hope the food in Blu is as good as you have enjoyed. 
We cruise in AQ most of the time so I sure would like to see a new menu. Cheers 

[amcco]

Thanks for taking us along with you!

[MamaFej]

1 hour ago, Ken the cruiser said:

After our last tasty dinner in Blu we headed off to watch one of the funniest comedians we’ve seen in a long time, Bob Brizendine! He was super funny and not a show to miss!! 😂

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, but have you met LINDA?!?!?!?!

 

Or Lynda, or Linda, or Lynda, or Linda?!

 

Sincerely,

The Daughter of a Lynda whose Maid of Honor was a Linda 

[Ken the cruiser]

2 minutes ago, maggie.1008 said:

Thanks so much for taking time out of your holiday to share it with us. We leave for Vancouver to Hawaii in three weeks and hope the food in Blu is as good as you have enjoyed. 
We cruise in AQ most of the time so I sure would like to see a new menu. Cheers 

Our main delight with the food in Blu was that we did not get heartburn, as they really don’t use a lot of seasonings like they do in Luminae. But, of course, food is always a subjective thing. In any event, I’m sure you’re going to have a great cruise!!

[Margarita Jane]

Thanks so much for your review and pictures. Have really enjoyed following along. 

[gizmo42]

Thank you for a fun, informative review and fabulous pictures. I especially enjoyed sharing all the wildlife photos with my daughter who has a degree in wildlife biology. Have a safe trip home.