Review: Celebrity Cruises - Summit - [March 26, 2004]

[Net Reviews]

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Reviewer Comments:

Summit 10 day Southern Caribbean (March 26, 2004)

This was the fifth cruise my wife and I have taken, our first on Celebrity,
and was definitely the best cruise we've taken.

Favorite memories:

Taking a bottle of champagne up on deck during the sail away party as we
left Ft. Lauderdale while listening to the great music of Voltz.

Dancing every night to the music of Voltz in the Revelations lounge!
Voltz was a GREAT band playing everything from reggae to 70's, 80's, 90's
and current hits - even earlier music on the 50's/60's night.

Laying in the sun around the pool in the afternoon listing to Voltz
playing on deck, with occasional dips in the hot tub or pool. Mid afternoon
an army of waiters would sometimes appear passing out cups of sorbet!

Sitting on the open aft deck ft of the Waterfall Café each evening
before sunset sipping a drink while listening to the music of guitarist Ron
Thompson.

Coffee on our veranda in the morning. Coffee on board was very good.
Only morning this didn't work out was the first morning or two when the wind
kicked up a salt spray that kept the veranda relatively unusable - not a
problem the last 8 days of the cruise.

Fancy Martinis in the Martini bar before dinner - my favorite was the
"Citrus" martini made with flavored vodka.

Relaxing to a couples massage at the spa - what a way to relax and
lose the tension!

Sailing around St. Kitts and Nevis on the Fan-Ta-Sea catamaran
sailing, snorkeling and beach excursion. The view was fantastic, the
sailing smooth, and the crew was great as were the snorkeling and serene
beach on Nevis where we stopped to swim and eat a barbecue lunch

The view of Trunk Bay from a scenic viewpoint at the top of a hill in
St. John. The taxis usually stop at this scenic point en-route from the
ferry to the beach.

Dinner with our table mates met on board. We were fortunate to be
seated with two very nice couples and had nice conversations each night,
usually ending when we realized we were the last group in the dining room!

Stateroom: We had a Concierge Class stateroom which was on deck 9 and had a
Veranda. The Concierge class added some amenities including a special
mattress pad and pillow selection. These made the bed the most comfortable
we've found on a cruise ship. The bathroom also had a nice sized shower. A
very nice room overall. Our steward did a fine job, although he had to be
reminded about some special requests once or twice. We had him empty the
mini-bar stuff out of the fridge so we could keep our own wine in it.

Meals - we never made it to breakfast or lunch in the dining room. We found
a nice selection of foods for these meals in the café or at various spots
around the ship including the grill by the pool (pizza and burgers) and the
aqua spa café which had great "lighter" meals. We had late dinner seating
with a great waiter and assistant. We thought the food was the best of any
cruise ship we've been on - especially the fish. Normally I dislike frozen
fish (which is all you generally find on mass cruise ships) but the seafood
dishes on Summit were great. Every dish I tried I loved. I heard a
complaint from another passenger about the steaks, but I didn't eat much in
that category preferring the seafood and an occasional veal or chicken dish.
The wine list was very extensive. We'd brought our own wine which we
enjoyed about half of the nights in the dining room ($12 corkage fee) as we
hadn't seen wine lists like this on other lines, at least for white wine.
We ate one night in the Normandy dining room - a $25/PP up-charge. Well
worth it for this extravagant meal.

We had room service every morning, at least for coffee, in the room or on
the veranda. Orders left the night before were always timely and preceded
by a phone call alerting you to the arrival, and orders phoned-in took about
20 minutes.

Entertainment - Neither my wife or I enjoy the stage shows much, and passed
on all the singing and dancing shows - preferring to get our evening
entertainment in the lounges. However, we did see a comedian and a magician
at shows which preceded the late dinner seating. We loved the party band
Voltz. This is a great band with members from various Caribbean islands.
They played everything from reggae to contemporary rock/pop music and we
had a great time both listening to their tunes in the afternoon by the pool
and at night in the Revelations dance lounge. We also enjoyed guitarist Ron
Thompson who played contemporary and classical rock/pop music solo on the
open aft deck of the Waterfall café. He played the guitar and keyboard
accompanied by music he'd pre-programmed into his synthesizer. There was
also a dance band and piano player playing more mature music in other
lounges. Neither of these played a style of music we liked that much,
although the quality of their playing seemed quite good. Additionally there
were piano players, a harpist and a classical quartet that played at various
venues around the ship and during dinner. Based largely on the party band
Voltz we thought the entertainment on the ship was top notch. We danced
past midnight every night, dancing to the DJ once Voltz finished for the
night. Even the DJ did a great job and the disco was more suited to our
style than the teenager/very young style we've seen on other cruises.

Excursions: At St. Martin we took a cab to Orient Beach and camped out at
Kakao - which is a bar/club with a nice restaurant, bar, gift shop and
chairs/umbrellas for rent. Two chairs and an umbrella cost $20 for the day.
Orient beach is just beautiful - a classic Caribbean beach. We enjoyed
walking the long beach and swimming. We had a great seafood lunch at the
open air restaurant. There are several establishments similar to Kakao at
Orient beach.

At St. Lucia we took the ship's full day snorkel & beach excursion with
lunch. This takes a long (about an hour) boat trip to the south west corner
of the island where you can get a nice view of the Piton mountains while off
shore. We spent the day at a beach formed from black sand. This was
different from your typical Caribbean beach and was a bit rough and rocky.
But the snorkeling and view was very nice. The beach was at Anse Mamin
which is on the grounds of the Anse Chastinet resort.

At Barbados we walked around Bridgetown a bit and then took a cab to Mullins
Bay beach. Mullins was on the west coast and about a 25 minute cab ride.
The beach was very nice but was probably the only beach on Barbados where it
was cloudy and rainy part of that day. Everyone else back on the boat had
full sun all day!

Our favorite excursion was at St. Kitts where we took the Fan-Ta Sea
catamaran ride I described above. We had a great time. St. Kitts/Nevis
was, overall, the most scenic spot I've seen in the Caribbean.

At St. Thomas we went to Trunk Bay on St. John on our own. You catch a cab
from the dock to Red Hook, a ferry from Red Hook to St. John, and a cab to
Trunk Bay. Trunk Bay is in a US National Park and there is an underwater
snorkeling trail there! Snorkeling was pretty good the day we were there
and the beach is one of the prettiest you'll ever see. We got there early
and left after a couple of hours so we'd have time to go back to the boat to
clean up and have a late lunch then do some shopping in the downtown
shopping area.

We like our cruise so much we even signed up for a Celebrity cruise next
year!