A great first cruise on Celebrity: Reflection review. Dailies, menus, food and cabin pics. March 2024.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Yay! I am so glad you like my photos. 🙂

 

By the way, lunch on day 3 had baby back ribs, and I must say - they were very good! I wasn't planning on eating a lunch, but I really liked them, and so did my husband.

 

continued:

3rd day dinner buffet

 

 

 

 

I thought these were beets, but no - cabbage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Dinner on day 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Sea day lunch, day 8

 

They had shrimp with sauce, not self-serve, so the lady was giving out 5 shrimp at a time. Also, a mushroom risotto which was also very good and much less salty than the MDR dinner version the night before.

 

 

There were many different cakes that day in the dessert section. And a white chocolate fondue station with pieces of cake and fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

These menus were on every table at the buffet. If you didn't want a drink service, you were supposed to lay them down flat on the table.

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

The crew at the buffet were always so friendly, greeting everyone, wishing everyone bon appetit and a good day. They were working very hard.

Also, coffee/tea service was provided - we didn't use it, but the coffee/tea cart person was constantly walking around offering both.

 

In general we were pretty happy with the buffet. It also had wonderful ice cream selections which varied slightly from day to day, and delicious soft serve. The ice cream flavors included basic ones like vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, and some fancier ones like praline, rum raisin, and sorbets and frozen yogurts like vanilla-lychee, vanilla-cherry, mango, passionfruit, kiwi, etc.

 

Both my DH and DS love soft serve and had it many times throughout the day, but I usually save my calories for other carbs. I must say, however, that on this voyage I had quite a bit of vanilla soft serve, and it was definitely worth it. Very smooth and creamy. There was a self serve soft serve (lol) station next to the Mast Grill, but it had one flavor a day. Sometimes it was chocolate, and sometimes - vanilla.

 

We didn't try out any bars on Reflection, since we don't really drink, drinks were expensive and we didn't have any packages.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

How about some dailies real quick before I continue talking about food?

 

We'll start off with some teen club activities. Sometimes we got a little schedule note and sometimes we didn't. Didn't matter much because our kid doesn't really care for any kind of kid's or teen clubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, some Select member discounts:

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 1, embarkation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 4

 

 

 

 

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 5

 

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 6

 

 

 

 

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 7

 

 

 

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Last ones

 

 

 

[Georgia_Peaches]

Thank you for all the food pics!  Do you recall seeing any sugar free desserts?

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Just now, Georgia_Peaches said:

Thank you for all the food pics!  Do you recall seeing any sugar free desserts?

there were no sugar added desserts. I do not recall any sugar FREE ones.

 

[Altamar]

Thanks for doing this.

[Itchy&Scratchy]

DH started feeling sick yesterday and by today he was full blown sick. I've just tested him and sure enough, he has covid. 

I feel like I am probably coming down with it as well. Great. Just great. Right in time for my birthday.... 😞

 

There were a lot of Typhoid Marys on the cruise. Adults were coughing into their hands and sometimes without even covering up. On the last night, there were two of them sitting behind us in the theater...

Edited April 10 by Itchy&Scratchy

[mathed101]

5 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

I decided to be a bit less of a glutton on this cruise, so instead of loading on carbs every morning, I enjoyed a made to order omelets (they were grrrrreat!) and also tried some poached eggs. The egg station with premade poached and eggs benedict also made omelets, but, according to my husband, they didn't double the cheese per his request. He eventually started going to the station where I got my omelets (the opposite end of the buffet) and finally got them the way he likes them.

 

Thank you for reviewing the omelet station. I have read reviews by others that they were great! Do you know if the omelet station is open throughout the entire time that breakfast/late breakfast is offered? 

[Itchy&Scratchy]

19 minutes ago, mathed101 said:

 

Thank you for reviewing the omelet station. I have read reviews by others that they were great! Do you know if the omelet station is open throughout the entire time that breakfast/late breakfast is offered? 

I believe it was open during regular breakfast. Sometimes I showed up right at 10 and they still made my eggs for me.

[CTSandy]

Thanks for sharing the great pictures and your review.  I’ve found Oceanview offers a pretty diverse selection.

[hcat]

1 hour ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

DH started feeling sick yesterday and by today he was full blown sick. I've just tested him and sure enough, he has covid. 

I feel like I am probably coming down with it as well. Great. Just great. Right in time for my birthday.... 😞

 

There were a lot of Typhoid Marys on the cruise. Adults were coughing into their hands and sometimes without even covering up. On the last night, there were two of them sitting behind us in the theater...

oh no.. hope you both feel better..esp for your b day!

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Continuing with the food review. 🙂

 

As previously mentioned, we had all of our dinners at Opus MDR. I made the Any Time Dining reservations in advance through the app for 6 pm and 6:15 pm on different days. We really liked the location and the waiter team on the first night, so we asked the hostess to book the same table for us for the rest of the cruise. They were wonderful (Ruben and Aji).

 

We liked pretty much all of the MDR food we ordered. There were some hits and misses which I will mention with my photos, but overall, we were pretty happy with the food.

 

An interesting difference with other cruise lines was a trio of dipping sauces/butter served with bread. Different flavors of breadsticks and breads were served every night - we liked them all. We didn't like the blue cheese dipping sauce, but that's because we don't like blue cheese.

 

I like steaks and shrimp, and I am not very picky. DH leans more towards fish dishes and loves salads. DS loves pasta (red sauce in particular) and Caesar salads.

 

 

All of the shrimp cocktails were traditional and good:

 

An apparently customary picture of the salt and pepper shaker. Don't know why. Don't ask.

 

Our table:

 

I had the mushroom soup which was very good:

 

I was told not to get this, but I didn't listen. I should have listened. This Thai coconut soup was bad.

 

DS loved his caesar salads. He had one almost every day... I didn't like the flavor, though.

 

I had the prime rib and loved it: I get all beef without jus or gravy. I am fine with herbed butter, though.

 

DH got the seared salmon and loved it:

 

DS ordered the ravioli, but hated them. There was nothing wrong with them, but they were green and too mushy on the inside, so he balked at it.

 

 

So, he got spaghetti marinara and loved it:

 

They didn't have plain spaghetti marinara on the menu or the kid's menu, but they were serving Beef and Veal Spaghetti Marinara that evening, so I asked for the meatless version. DS does not eat veal and doesn't let us eat veal either.

 

Dessert:

 

 

 

DS ordered the apple pie and liked it:

 

Chocolate cake was good:

 

We didn't like the rum raisin ice cream - too much rum. I like Haagen Dazs version.

 

 

Cherry Chocolate trifle was delicious!

 

Cheesecake with passionfruit topping was very good:

 

 

Edited April 11 by Itchy&Scratchy

[Itchy&Scratchy]

Day 2 MDR dinner

 

Kid's menu:

 

 

If I am not mentioning multiple appetizers, that means that the rest of the family got a caesar salar.

 

Salmon tartare was wonderful! I had to methodically remove all the tiny red onion chunks, but the result was delish.

 

 

Chilled pear and honey soup was ok. Too much cinnamon, but still good.

 

Kiddo opted for the kid's menu... Grilled cheese. It looked bad to me (the cheese wasn't even melted), but he really liked it. Fries were excellent. No honey mustard, though, so if your family likes honey mustard, please bring your own.

 

 

I got a wonderful dish of shrimp scampi - it was delicious, but the red pepper flakes and seeds made it a bit spicier than I would like.

 

 

I also opted for the lamb t-bone steak. All meat dishes were served medium. The flavor was good, but it was very hard to cut off the bone. The meat wasn't tough, but I struggled to cut it.

 

 

DH chose grilled cobia and it was ok.

 

Dessert:

 

 

Warm apple crumble was good (per my kid):

 

I loved the chilled strawberry soup - a very interesting presentation.

Edited April 11 by Itchy&Scratchy

[ZapRowsdower]

21 hours ago, Itchy&Scratchy said:

Day 6

 

 

 

So The Porch is open for lunch even on port days; good to know.