Liveish trip report - Celebrity Silhouette - 11.10.23

[rwright261]

Evening,

 

My husband and I are due to sail on Celebrity Silhouette on Wednesday 11th October from Southampton for an 11 night Canary Island cruise. 
 

This will be my 13th cruise, and my 3rd with Celebrity, previously sailing on the Eclipse and Beyond. 
 

We celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary on the day we board, which was the reason for taking the cruise.

 

We have a busy week coming up, with a big family party on Saturday, so are looking forward to some R&R with the cruise. 
 

We will be travelling to Southampton on Tuesday 10th, staying overnight at the Leonardo Hotel, boarding the Silhouette where we have a balcony cabin on deck 8, as well as Classic drinks package and wifi. 
 

We have booked two speciality restaurants, The Lawn Club on the day we board for our anniversary and Tuscan Grill. 
 

We have also booked three trips, a ‘Destination Highlight’ in Porto, a ‘Small Group 4X4’ in Tenerife and ‘Small Group Lisbon by Tim Rum’ in Lisbon. 
 

I’ll hopefully post food and drink photos as well as some highlights from our days in port and sea days. 
 

If anyone would like to see anything specific, please leave a comment below and I will endeavour to do my best to cover it for you. 
 

Thanks for reading! 

[hcat]

Congrats on your 15th Wedding Anniv.

 

We have enjoyed Silho in the past when she was fairly  new.  We booked her again for 2015..Concierge Class after following  a recent " live from" review on CC..

 

Sounds lIke you are all set for extra dining, nice excursions and a bacony.

E N J O Y..

Looking forward to your posts

[rwright261]

16 minutes ago, hcat said:

Congrats on your 15th Wedding Anniv.

 

We have enjoyed Silho in the past when she was fairly  new.  We booked her again for 2015..Concierge Class after following  a recent " live from" review on CC..

 

Sounds lIke you are all set for extra dining, nice excursions and a bacony.

E N J O Y..

Looking forward to your posts

Thanks very much! 
 

Glad at least one person will be following along! 😂

 

We’re breaking up from work this Thursday so it all seems very real now. 

[Barwick Cruiser]

I’ll be following as well! We’re on the Silhouette in May for our 40th! Congratulations on your 15th…seems so long ago now for us 😂.  Your itinerary sounds really nice and I’m sure you’ll get a few lovely relaxing days between the touring. Thanks for posting! 

[rwright261]

26 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

I’ll be following as well! We’re on the Silhouette in May for our 40th! Congratulations on your 15th…seems so long ago now for us 😂.  Your itinerary sounds really nice and I’m sure you’ll get a few lovely relaxing days between the touring. Thanks for posting! 

How did you find it in May? Any tips? 
 

Thanks for following and commenting! 

[hcat]

oops..our booking is Dec 2025..not 2015..sorry .  that live from review had a diff itin but you may see some pics and tips  about the ship..If I find it, I'll post the link!

[hcat]

here's the link by LadyLemondrop

 

 

[gold1953]

Will enjoy following along as we board on the 22nd. Rumour has it that your trip will be a party ship and will be wrecking the place. Save us some food please

[rwright261]

56 minutes ago, Barwick Cruiser said:

I’ll be following as well! We’re on the Silhouette in May for our 40th! Congratulations on your 15th…seems so long ago now for us 😂.  Your itinerary sounds really nice and I’m sure you’ll get a few lovely relaxing days between the touring. Thanks for posting! 

Just realised you’re going May next year… enjoy following along! 

[rwright261]

8 minutes ago, gold1953 said:

Will enjoy following along as we board on the 22nd. Rumour has it that your trip will be a party ship and will be wrecking the place. Save us some food please

Really? Wow you would never tell from the Roll Call, it’s been quite flat! 

[rwright261]

20 minutes ago, hcat said:

here's the link by LadyLemondrop

 

 

Thanks! I caught up with this one this morning and enjoyed reading along ☺️

[Ciaranaman]

Following along, as well!  We had a great time on Silhouette, back in February and are booked on her again next May, along with Barwick Cruiser (sisters!).   DH and I toured Portugal last September (2022) and would go back in a flash!  My profile pic was taken overlooking the stunning Douro Valley.  I could be very happy living there!  Enjoy your cruise, and Happy 15th Anniversary!

~Bernadette

Edited October 1, 2023 by Ciaranaman
add-on

[rwright261]

15 hours ago, Ciaranaman said:

Following along, as well!  We had a great time on Silhouette, back in February and are booked on her again next May, along with Barwick Cruiser (sisters!).   DH and I toured Portugal last September (2022) and would go back in a flash!  My profile pic was taken overlooking the stunning Douro Valley.  I could be very happy living there!  Enjoy your cruise, and Happy 15th Anniversary!

~Bernadette

Thank you very much, glad to hear you enjoyed the Silhouette so much you booked another trip! 
 

Fabulous profile picture! 
 

Thanks for following and commenting! 

[chemmo]

On 10/1/2023 at 6:36 PM, rwright261 said:

Evening,

 

My husband and I are due to sail on Celebrity Silhouette on Wednesday 11th October from Southampton for an 11 night Canary Island cruise. 
 

This will be my 13th cruise, and my 3rd with Celebrity, previously sailing on the Eclipse and Beyond. 
 

We celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary on the day we board, which was the reason for taking the cruise.

 

We have a busy week coming up, with a big family party on Saturday, so are looking forward to some R&R with the cruise. 
 

We will be travelling to Southampton on Tuesday 10th, staying overnight at the Leonardo Hotel, boarding the Silhouette where we have a balcony cabin on deck 8, as well as Classic drinks package and wifi. 
 

We have booked two speciality restaurants, The Lawn Club on the day we board for our anniversary and Tuscan Grill. 
 

We have also booked three trips, a ‘Destination Highlight’ in Porto, a ‘Small Group 4X4’ in Tenerife and ‘Small Group Lisbon by Tim Rum’ in Lisbon. 
 

I’ll hopefully post food and drink photos as well as some highlights from our days in port and sea days. 
 

If anyone would like to see anything specific, please leave a comment below and I will endeavour to do my best to cover it for you. 
 

Thanks for reading! 

Sincere best wishes for a wonderful cruise! Congratulations on your anniversary too…

Looking forward to following along…We are presently enjoying a bit of Mediterranean sunshine in Turkey before winter sets in (not a cruise) on this occasion. We return as you set off so I will enjoy your cruise vicariously with my morning coffee!

[rwright261]

9 minutes ago, chemmo said:

Sincere best wishes for a wonderful cruise! Congratulations on your anniversary too…

Looking forward to following along…We are presently enjoying a bit of Mediterranean sunshine in Turkey before winter sets in (not a cruise) on this occasion. We return as you set off so I will enjoy your cruise vicariously with my morning coffee!

Thank you! Enjoy the rest of your trip, I’ll try not to wish it away! 

[1Virgo]

Congratulations on your 15 th anniversary. Have a wonderful holiday

[rwright261]

On 10/3/2023 at 2:09 AM, 1Virgo said:

Congratulations on your 15 th anniversary. Have a wonderful holiday

Thank you! 

[Jim_Iain]

Will be following along.   Thanks for taking the time to do a live post.

[DeltaJoe15]

Have a great cruise  Will be on the Shilo for 10 day in early December Southern Caribbean

[dock]

Thanks for doing a live. 
Looking at X ( or NCL) for Iceland/ Norway and see they’re using Silhouette/Apex in that zone.
Will be great hearing your thoughts. 
 

Edited October 10, 2023 by dock

[hankandteri]

I'll be getting on when you're getting off. Looking forward to your reports. Enjoy the journey and happy anniversary.

[rwright261]

Hello and welcome to our pre-embarkation day! 
 

We have had a very busy week with our big party on Saturday evening for our friends and family to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary (tomorrow). It all went well, but we are still absolutely shattered from both the build up and the party itself, so this cruise is absolutely needed! Here’s a photo of us from the evening… 

 

 

We set off from our home in Staffordshire this morning at 7.40am, the plan being to head to Portsmouth before Southampton. 
 

We stopped around an hour into our journey for the toilet and a Starbucks. DH had a latte and I had a strawberry açai refresher. £9.20 for both… it was a glorious day today, around 18 degrees when travelling down which is unseasonably hot for this time of year. We hope it continues as we sail out of Southampton tomorrow. 
 

 

We arrived at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth which is an outlet shopping centre and browsed the shops. DH bought some new Sketchers and I bought a Nike jacket to wear for my outdoor Zumba classes. 
 

When I was looking at what restaurants were there a few weeks, I spotted there was an All Bar One, and had also spotted Wowcher had a deal for a two course meal for 2 for £31 so snapped that up. 
 

We started the meal with a pint of Madri for DH and a strawberry daiquiri for me - starting how we meal to go on! 
 

 

I need to scrub up on my report writing skills, as I forgot to take a photo of the menu or our main courses… I promise to get better! 
 

I have found the menu online for the starter and main we chose from… 

 

 

 

We both chose the karaage sticky chicken to start. This came out very quickly, but was hot and quite spicy. 

 

 

DH chose the pad Thai for main and I chose the chicken and chorizo skewers (sorry no photos).  
 

We both enjoyed our choices. DH said the pad Thai tasted like you’d get from Wagamamma with some good spices, and my skewers were tasty, with two skewers of meat, a good portion of chips and plenty of coleslaw. 
 

I worked out that we ended up saving almost £9 by purchasing the Wowcher voucher. 
 

We paid £20.65 for our bill of the chicken in DH’s pad Thai, and our drinks. 
 

A nice little pit stop, and we were ready to head to Southampton after paying £4.20 for 3-4 hours parking. 
 

We are staying at the Leonardo Central for the evening. I had originally paid £125 for the night  through a well known booking site, but again Wowcher came up trumps, when I found the same hotel for the night for £85 which included breakfast and a welcome drink in a deluxe room (our original booking did not include breakfast or the drink and was in a standard room). 
 

There is no car parking at the hotel, so we dropped our bags after arriving, and parked around an 8 minute walk away at a multi storey car park on Grosvenor Place which is £8 for the night. 
 

First impressions were good. The hotel smelt lovely when entering, and has a lovely looking bar area. They also have a wall of essential items which is very handy for any last minute items you may have forgotten. 
 

 

 

 

We have a corner room which has a little chair in the hallway, a large bathroom and a comfy bed and a view of the park opposite the hotel. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

We dropped out bags in the room and had a walk into town. I found a TK Maxx and picked up some bits of make up with some birthday money I had leftover from last month.
 

We were a short walk through a beautiful park to the town, which has plenty of benches, mini gold and tennis courts. We commented how unusual it was to be wearing just T-shirts on 10th October, it was lovely! 
 

We did notice there were a lot of homeless people around town. We live in a village and very rarely venture into the city any more, so we aren’t used to coming across homelessness very often so it’s always upsetting to see. 
 

Deciding we would eat in our hotel tonight rather than stay out in town we headed back, and after a bottle of beer for DH and a lime and lemonade for me using our free welcome drink vouchers, we relaxed in our room for a couple of hours. 
 

We have just got back from enjoying a bite to eat in the bar. 
 

 

There was quite a lot of choice on the menu, and the reception had given us a 10% off voucher to use.

 

 

 

DH said he fancied salmon this morning not knowing it was on the menu so that’s what he ordered. He knew it didn’t come with fries, but wanted something light so ordered it as it came. 
 

I also fancied something light so ordered the soup. 
 

 

 

The food didn’t take too long to come out. DH really enjoyed his salmon, he said it was tasty, fresh and zingy. My soup was also very good, there were chunks of tomato in it, and the chiabatta was crusty on the outside and soft in the middle. 
 

DH had a bottle of beer (I still had some of my pint of lime and lemonade I’d taken to the room earlier) and the bill came to just over £26 with the 10% off voucher. 
 

The reception also gave us vouchers for free coffee when we checked in, so DH got himself a coffee and bought me a hot chocolate paying £3.50 (the voucher was only good for coffee). 
 

 

We are now back in our room in time to catch The Great British Bake Off. 
 

We have breakfast included between 7am and 10am tomorrow, and have a check in time of 1pm onto the Silhouette. 
 

Thanks for following along, hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of reporting (I usually report on a Disney forum for our WDW trips)! 
 

Until tomorrow 👋

 

[If only]

Looking forward to following along, we have sailed on the Silhouette many times & interested in reading about your cruise.

Edited October 10, 2023 by If only

[rwright261]

Apologies I don’t know why there’s a second photo of our lunchtime starter at the end of my post! 🤦🏻‍♀️

[peanut head]

What a wonderful way to start a great trip!  Enjoy and bon voyage!