Back to Bermuda

By cruisetarp

• August 20, 2014

This was a very unexpected and unplanned cruise to break up a long summer. Less than a week before departure I found an terrific deal on an inside guarantee and we decided to take our chances and see what happened.

We arrived at the pier around 10:45 and were on the ship by 11:00. Very quick embarkation and once the new terminal is ready later this year, riding the shuttle bus to the ship will no longer be necessary. We are looking forward to that

My very first cruise (1964) was in an inside and Jim has never sailed in one so we were quite nervous as we really do spend a lot of time on our balcony. We enjoy breakfast there each morning and we were not sure how tight it would be in an interior. Two days before sailing we were assigned our cabin on deck 3 - exactly 1/2 way between the mid and forward elevators. The room was much bigger than we expected and we had no trouble finding plenty of room for our things.

Now the first, and only, disappointment of this cruise. Celebrity Summit it "testing" a new system in the OceanView buffet and IMHO it is just awful. No more pans of food on steam tables. Everything is individually plated on small silver bowls or pots. No choice - if you want the chicken you have to have it on the rice with gravy all over it. The biggest problem is I can honestly say that during the whole week I never had anything that even came close to being hot. Gravy got congealed - rice was gooey, etc. A huge letdown. In addition it is so poorly laid out. As an example when you enter the first station is bread and rolls. However, there are no plates - just very small trays. You continue past the bread and in the morning for example, scrambled eggs on top of bacon or sausage. (again cold) If you want made to order eggs you have to go to the very back of the Ocean View but they don't have the bread there - if you want toast you have to go back to the front and your eggs get cold waiting for the toast. A simple pasta one afternoon to a trip to 3 different stations to get pasta - bread and then butter for the bread. We do enjoy the buffet for breakfast and lunch but this definitely left a sour taste in our mouths and it would seriously affect our decision to sail Celebrity again if this goes fleet wise.

The food in the main dining room was much better. We were at a table for 8 at the very back of the dining room but our food was served piping hot despite the distance from the kitchen. When we boarded we were assigned to my time dining at 8:30 so we were particularly pleased when the next day we received a notice in our cabin that our request for early seating had been arranged.

We did eat in the Normandie Restaurant one night and it was very nice but we had such lovely tablemates we decided to cancel our other specialty reservations.

Since we went simply to relax, we didn't get to many shows. The production shows were the same ones we saw last year and the guest entertainers were not to our liking. We went to one show and left early.

The staff was wonderful - very attentive and helpful. I really enjoy that on Celebrity the Senior Officers are out and about every evening talking and visiting with the passengers. Our Captain announced every morning what time he would be in the coffee area if you wanted to stop by for a visit and the Captain and his officers were seen in line at the buffet, carrying their trays and bussing their tables.

As for Bermuda, this is our favorite port of all and having 3 days there is just wonderful. We have done all the "touristy" things so we just go to the beach, ride the ferry and enjoy this lovely Island and their friendly helpful people. We got off the ship every night after dinner and just walked around and had a great time.

We met in the Normandie Restaurant to disembark and were called off the ship exactly at 8:15 which was the time listed on the compass.

All in all other than the Oceanview Buffet this was a great cruise and we enjoyed it.

Any questions, just ask.