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

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

I have to say that there doesn’t seem to be a lot listed in the daily activities sheet at night. I’m used to a lot more choices for listening to live music on a Celebrity ship. Are there more things in the app?  The comedian wasn’t listed which is why I think that.

[Ken the cruiser]

19 minutes ago, Sox Fan Cruiser said:

I have to say that there doesn’t seem to be a lot listed in the daily activities sheet at night. I’m used to a lot more choices for listening to live music on a Celebrity ship. Are there more things in the app?  The comedian wasn’t listed which is why I think that.

I know the late night comedian show was listed twice. I just checked the app under the Daily Planner and he was listed there along with a variety of music venues.

 

 
  

 

 

 

[CGinMTL]

I am really enjoying this virtual cruise. Most of your ports I have been to at one time or another, so nice trip down memory lane 

.

Can't wait for you to get to Greenland as that one is still on the bucket list :))

[son3cruisers]

On 8/8/2022 at 11:54 AM, Ken the cruiser said:

I’m not complaining as we’re able to do everything relatively quickly on the Internet that we usually do, such as check email, surf the web, upload multiple pictures to CC as well as send text messages with photos to family back home. But I will say we don’t post videos, do Wi-Fi calling back home, or stream Netflix videos.

 

But regarding the speeds you just listed, the upload speed is definitely a little weak. I just did another test on our balcony and we’re still getting pretty good reception at 11:44 am.

 

Here’s the test link I use just so we’re comparing apples to apples, so to speak.

 

https://www.speedtest.net/run
 

Basic - 

 

[son3cruisers]

On 8/8/2022 at 11:10 AM, law chick said:

Ken, thank you so much for posting your thoughts and photos. I’m boarding the Summit in Iceland on August 19, and your posts are getting me through the next week! A few questions: how many children are on board? Is the solarium very busy? Do you know how many passengers are on board altogether?

 

thanks,

 

Georgina

I can help out on this one. This is our first Celebrity cruise, so you are getting a “newbies” point of view! There are a few very well behaved children that we have encountered with their families. We met three different families with children under 10. There was about 5 teens roaming the ship last night looking for food. They thought the buffet was closed, we directed them to the aft of the buffet for late night snacks- their faces lit up and were very grateful . Again, well behaved and just looking for food. In my opinion, the solarium has been busy on sea days , but we’ve never had a problem getting a chair somewhere. I have not noticed ANY chair hogs😂. After 5, it’s seems to be a ghost town. Hot tubs all to ourselves. We are in our late 40s and don’t see too many guests our  age. The sky lounge is full right now, a sea day  at 11am with everyone enjoying the view , and there is trivia  but it was empty last night at 9:30/ 10:30with dance music. 

[Sox Fan Cruiser]

3 hours ago, Ken the cruiser said:

I know the late night comedian show was listed twice. I just checked the app under the Daily Planner and he was listed there along with a variety of music venues.

 
 

 

 

Ah yes.  I'm off a day.  I see two Planners back is the comedian not the most recent one. My bad.  Overall, how is the entertainment at night?  Enough to do?

[Ken the cruiser]

So far when comparing our latest Regal Princess cruise in July with this one, they have been pretty comparable. I will say, though, the Princess medallion came in very handy when opening the cabin door versus using a Sea Pass, especially when your hands were full.
 

The menus and quality of food so far when comparing between Blu and Club Class dining have also been very similar, except CC Dining is open for lunch on sea days. But at the same time, we’re leaning towards Blu overall as their offerings seem to be prepared a in little more healthier fashion with less seasoning overall. We also eat a healthy lunch at the Spa Cafe, which is also managed by the Blu maitre d’, so that fills the sea day lunch void.

 

However, when it comes to the evening production and guest entertainers, we're leaning towards Princess right now, but the cruise is still young and hopefully the evening show offerings will improve. But I will say the late night comedy show was one of the best we have ever seen on any cruise line!

 

But when it comes to lectures on longer cruises like this one, Celebrity gets the nod as there are 3 lecturers on this cruise whereas Princess only had one on the 18 day PC cruise we were on in May. 

 

As far as the internet service goes, and this of course is dependent on a number of factors, IMHO it all depends on ship location, ship capacity and demographic onboard. We usually don’t have any issues on either cruise line, especially if we purchase the Celebrity Premium package, and there are very few young people onboard, which is usually the case on longer 12+ day cruises.

 

We also like that we have a walk-in shower in our Aqua cabin whereas on our Regal Princess cruise in a Club Class mini suite, we had a tub/shower combination which are always a little tricky getting in and out of.

 

Anyway, that’s our initial observation. Take it as you will. 😁

 

[Ken the cruiser]

1 hour ago, Sox Fan Cruiser said:

 

Ah yes.  I'm off a day.  I see two Planners back is the comedian not the most recent one. My bad.  Overall, how is the entertainment at night?  Enough to do?

We go to the evening show and then the game show afterwards, which takes us up until around 9 pm. Then unless there is either a late night comedy show or mini production show up in the Sky Lounge, it’s back to our cabin where I’ll post on CC and my DW will play her computer games to unwind. But from what I can tell, there are plenty of music venues going on in the various lounges around the ship until at least 11 pm if you enjoy doing that kind of thing.

[Ken the cruiser]

3 hours ago, son3cruisers said:

Basic - 

 

Thank you for posting this, but those speeds really suck. It sure would be nice if everyone got the same service on a Celebrity ship like we recently experienced on Princess rather than Celebrity charging extra for a “reasonable” speed.

[Ken the cruiser]

This morning we were definitely kept busy by 3 lectures and a wine tasting.

 

First, there was a lecture at 9 am by Mike West called “Great Ships”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Followed by a lecture by Dr Thomas Duryea

 

 

 

 

 

 
BTW here is a picture of the theater in case some of you have t bee on a Celebrity M class ship before.

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Then at 11 am, I was off to a “free” Captains Club Wine Tasting event.

  

 

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

After a quick lunch up at the buffet, as there was no place to sit near the Spa Cafe, it was off again to our 3rd lecture of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[FLCruiser97]

Boy oh Boy am I late to the party. Just read all 6 pages of your posting. 

[FLCruiser97]

On 8/6/2022 at 4:32 AM, Ken the cruiser said:

OK, it’s 3:30 am, I’m in the car waiting for the DW to do the final house safety checks, and a Queen quote came to mind, “Is this real or is this just a fantasy?”

 

Whelp, it’s real and it’s time once again to start on another adventure. Yay!! 😁

Glad to see you are a Queen fan. Love Queen.

[vjmatty]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:35 PM, Ken the cruiser said:

We went for our walk around the track above the pool area and happily we only felt a few sprinkles. But we were still able to see some wildlife which is always a plus for us. 😁

 

 

 

Like I said, we’re easily amused! 😂

 

 

Ken you are the Gerry Durrell of CC.... I love the wildlife photos you include in all of your live threads!

 

Since I am sailing Regal Princess in October and Summit in May '23 it almost feels like you're giving a personal preview of our future cruises.  Thanks for taking the time to do these threads.

[Ken the cruiser]

So, the afternoon didn’t stop at the lecture. At 3 pm we went to the Game Show in the Sky Lounge followed by Progressive Trivia - Round 2. But on the way I took a picture of our chilly day at sea as well as had to take one of the pool area where the only place we saw people congregating was in the hot tubs! 😂

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also noticed the internet speed has definitely slowed down this afternoon once we got back to the cabin, even for us folks back in the aft of the ship. 😂

 

 

[Ken the cruiser]

Oh yea, forgot to mention Canada has this little rule that says cruise ships can’t accept any money for goods in their shops without also collecting an appropriate tax for them while in Canadian waters. So while the various shops are open, some of them are putting items “on layaway” until the ship leaves Canadian waters. 

[Ken the cruiser]

55 minutes ago, vjmatty said:

 

Ken you are the Gerry Durrell of CC.... I love the wildlife photos you include in all of your live threads!

 

Since I am sailing Regal Princess in October and Summit in May '23 it almost feels like you're giving a personal preview of our future cruises.  Thanks for taking the time to do these threads.

Thanks! I do have fun doing it. Talk about seeing a wide variety of animals! On our next cruise starting in late Nov, we’ll be on the NCL Jade for a 38 day B2B from Athens through the Suez Canal along the eastern coast of Africa and winding up in Cape Town! On that one we have 3 safari excursions booked! 😁

[Oceansaway17]

On 8/9/2022 at 12:10 PM, Ken the cruiser said:

Since there was no line at Guest Services, I thought I’d stop by and ask about ArriveCan just to see how it works. First off, they did not check at the pier on embarkation day to see if we had filled out the ArriveCan information.
 

However, when the ship arrived in Halifax this morning, the Canadian Customs folks came onboard with access to their ArriveCan database in hand. They then proceeded to cross reference it with the passport numbers of the registered passengers onboard. If there were mismatches and/or it seemed pertinent to interview some of the passengers, they would then perform any necessary interviews before clearing the ship.
 

This is interesting as I know ArriveCan needs to be updated for each port.

So if St John's is next, then everyone will need to update for that port once having left Halifax,'

This whole ArriveCan is STUPID.  It should at least ask for all ports when creating during the 72 hour precruise

[BunnyLebowski]

5 hours ago, son3cruisers said:

I can help out on this one. This is our first Celebrity cruise, so you are getting a “newbies” point of view! There are a few very well behaved children that we have encountered with their families. We met three different families with children under 10. There was about 5 teens roaming the ship last night looking for food. They thought the buffet was closed, we directed them to the aft of the buffet for late night snacks- their faces lit up and were very grateful . Again, well behaved and just looking for food. In my opinion, the solarium has been busy on sea days , but we’ve never had a problem getting a chair somewhere. I have not noticed ANY chair hogs😂. After 5, it’s seems to be a ghost town. Hot tubs all to ourselves. We are in our late 40s and don’t see too many guests our  age. The sky lounge is full right now, a sea day  at 11am with everyone enjoying the view , and there is trivia  but it was empty last night at 9:30/ 10:30with dance music. 

This is great info, thank you! I’m in my 40s and will be traveling with my spouse and our 17 and 19 year old sons. Was hoping to maybe do some late night dancing in the sky lounge, but sounds like we may not have the crowd for that! It’s all good, we’re just excited to be on the ship.
 

I saw your internet speeds in another post. Are you able to access anything with those?

[eyelovcrusin]

On 8/8/2022 at 3:30 PM, eyelovcrusin said:

I’m following along as we will be on the Summit in September Canada/New England. Glad you found a wine you like. Wondering if you know anything about availability of dry reds, bourbons/scotch? We have PALL and will be in Blu as well. Hope you have a great cruise!

 

   Glad you having a great time. I was concerned about the availability of red wines and whisk/scotch only because I have seen recent posts about availability. Could you inquire about availability of red wine in Blu? Thanks for all your posts !

[son3cruisers]

17 minutes ago, law chick said:

This is great info, thank you! I’m in my 40s and will be traveling with my spouse and our 17 and 19 year old sons. Was hoping to maybe do some late night dancing in the sky lounge, but sounds like we may not have the crowd for that! It’s all good, we’re just excited to be on the ship.
 

I saw your internet speeds in another post. Are you able to access anything with those?

I’m using it mostly to send messages home. The Celebrity app works ok , but not really too much more then that. . Some social media sites - And to follow these boards. It’s very slow and requires a tremendous amount of patience. 

[CGinMTL]

37 minutes ago, Oceansaway17 said:

This is interesting as I know ArriveCan needs to be updated for each port.

So if St John's is next, then everyone will need to update for that port once having left Halifax,'

This whole ArriveCan is STUPID.  It should at least ask for all ports when creating during the 72 hour precruise

Arrivecan is required everytime you enter the country ( sea, air or ground). But not for every port. So only once on the way out. But it will be required on the way back from Iceland as they leave Canada. 

Hope this clarifies .

[Oceansaway17]

2 minutes ago, CGinMTL said:

Arrivecan is required everytime you enter the country ( sea, air or ground). But not for every port. So only once on the way out. But it will be required on the way back from Iceland as they leave Canada. 

Hope this clarifies .

I was under the impression it was required for each port like Halifax, St johns, etc.

I am talking about a r/t to Canada with more than one port

[Ken the cruiser]

3 hours ago, eyelovcrusin said:

   Glad you having a great time. I was concerned about the availability of red wines and whisk/scotch only because I have seen recent posts about availability. Could you inquire about availability of red wine in Blu? Thanks for all your posts !

The servers and sommelier are working so hard as this is a full ship, I apologize but I’m not going to ask them which red wines they currently have as the selection may be totally be different when you board the ship. For example, the Riesling Spatlese that I’m drinking every night isn’t even listed on the Blu menu, but the Riesling Kabinett they do have listed is not available. Sorry.

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by Ken the cruiser