Bermuda Cruise on the Celebrity Summit: May 15 - 22, 2011

On May 15th, we departed on the Celebrity Summit to Bermuda with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Jez. This was a long-planned vacation and we had been counting down the days for months and were so excited!

This cruise was a little different than the ones we had taken in the past as it departed from Bayonne, New Jersey (which is across the river from Manhattan) so we were able to drive to the port instead of fly. Jez and hubby live near Cleveland, Ohio, so it was a long drive for them (about 8 hours) but only a 1 1/2 hour drive for hubby and I. It was great to not have to deal with all the hassles of flying, especially the luggage restrictions and charges. I packed to my heart's delight and even brought a couple extra dresses (in case I couldn't fit into the ones I brought by the end of the week ;) Will you just LOOK at this pile of luggage!?? Outrageous.

Once we got into Bayonne, it was a little confusing trying to find the port, as the signs seemed to come and go, but we found it pretty quickly. Jez and I connected via cell phone and I learned they had already arrived and were going through the check-in process.

We dropped off our luggage under this big white tent and were whisked off in a shuttle to the ship, which was amusing because we could have easily walked there from the tent. Here's a video I took from the shuttle as we arrived at our ship.

The check-in process was pretty painless and very quick and before we knew it, we were on board! Jez and hubby were waiting for us by the pool. We exitedly hugged and almost jumped up and down with excitement. Can you tell how happy we are in this pic?


We were on board the ship by noon and the ship was scheduled to depart Bayonne later that day, around 4:00 or 4:30. So we spent some time walking around the ship, exploring.





I filmed this video on the top deck when we were getting ready to sail. You can see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, although it is a little foggy and visibility was not that good.



And here we are setting sail! Very exciting. We were standing on the top deck and as we went under that bridge, the ship's horn blew and almost gave us a heart attack it was soooo loud.



Once we set sail it was time to check into our cabins. Our cabins were #7058 (Mr. and Mrs. Sassy) and #7054 (Mr. and Mrs. Jez) - we were next door neighbors. They were inside staterooms, the cheapest available, and were perfect for our needs. They were clean, quiet, comfortable and had plenty of storage, considering the compact size (170 square feet). Here's a video tour of our cabin which I took later in the week.



And here is a video which shows what it looks like in the hallways walking to our cabin:



The first 3 days of this cruise were days at sea, heading to Bermuda. This was a fun time to hang out on the ship, enjoy all its ammenities, enjoy fun meals together, and relax before our arrival in Bermuda. The weather was pretty nice heading across the Atlantic, although a little chilly at times. Nobody was using the outdoor pool because the water was too cold and it was windy and a little cool on board.



Lucky for us, though, there was another pool on the ship called the Thalasotherapy pool - a heated, indoor spa pool (adults only!). We reallly enjoyed this pool. The water temperature was about 90-95 degrees and the pool had some nice massage features. When the ship was rocking, there would be waves in the pool which would move us across the pool - rather like the ocean. Very fun.



Here are some pics from around the ship:





On our first dinner in the main dining room, we discovered something that had us laughing several times during the week - strange recorded WHISTLING music playing at dinner time. What the heck? It was very odd and quite amusing because we heard this strange music on more than one night in the dining room. You know Mr. Sassy couldn't let this slide.



There was an interesting array of entertainment on the ship, although some of it was corny and much of it was a little sedate. With respect to corny, one night I had the honor of providing some "entertainment" in the form of karaoke. This was kinda fun.



We enjoyed a comedy show one night by a comedian named Bruce Smirnoff. He was a laid-back, cynical, neurotic comedian along the lines of Woody Allen or Larry David and I thought he was a scream (I don't think anyone else in our group found him as funny as I did). Here's a small clip of his routine.



Although the ship entertainment was okay, much of our entertainment came from Mr. Sassy. Here he is providing dance entertainment on the top deck of the ship while the ship's pool band plays a country western song.



And here he is providing interpretive expression to an acapello group that was performing in one of the ship's lounges.



One thing that is really fun about cruising is eating, eating and eating some more. Jez and I worked extra hard to get the weight off before this cruise because we knew we were going to pile it back on. We ate lots of good things this week. Here is an assortment of photos which captures a sampling of what we enjoyed.









There certainly was no shortage of food and the presentation (as you can see) was beautiful and generally good. I will say that compared with the last two Celebrity cruises we had been on (in 2002 and 2003 or 2004), the food was a solid notch lower in quality, as far as taste and other aspects like temperature, texture, etc. Some items were very good in flavor, most were average to good and some were either tasteless, the wrong temperature or improperly seasoned. In addition, we noticed a decline in the sophistication and level of service in the main dining room service staff. They were generally adequate and very friendly, but unlike on past cruises, they were more casual and haphazard in some areas, like auctioning entrees (forgetting which entree goes to which person), long delays in between courses, forgetting things, etc. We never saw this on our past cruises. In fact, each dining experience was like eating at the highest end restaurant with the most top-level, white-glove service.

I had heard about the Celebrity decline and had heard it occurred once Royal Caribbean bought the line. But I reserved judgement and was HOPING it would not be true but sadly it was. Still good, just not GREAT like before.

On a positive note, the food in the Normandie, a gourmet French specialty restaurant on the ship (for which we paid a $75/couple surcharge) was excellent, as was the service. Mr. Sass and I agreed that what we experienced in The Normandie was more in line with what we experienced in the regular dining room on our past Celebrity cruises. We visited the Normandie on May 20th, which happened to be formal night as well as Mr. Sassy and my 16th wedding anniversary. We all felt this elegant experience was worth the splurge at least once during the week. It was fun watching them bring our entrees out on silver platters.



And the food was amazing.




































A special mention goes to the chocolate buffet which was held on Friday evening at 10:30 p.m. Those of you who know me will be shocked to learn that I did not partake in any of these confections. I was simply too full from dinner that evening and on chocolate overload from the rich dessert I had at the Normandie (see photo above). But we went to the chocolate buffet anyway and I enjoyed looking at it. It sure was a pretty display.


One of the entertaining things about dinners in the main dining room was listening to the international serving staff sing Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary to tables around the dining room. They were always noticeably off-key, with heavy accents. Unfortunately, my camera's memory card ran out of memory halfway through this clip but you get the idea.



It reminded us of that infamous scene in the film, A Christmas Story when the Chinese restaurant staff is singing Jingle Bells to the family.

And now to Bermuda.



On Wednesday, May 18th, we arrived in Kings Wharf (The Dockyard), Bermuda.



Our plans for the day were to hop on a ferry and head across to St. George's, which is on the other side of the Island and which is the historic section of Bermuda. We had read that St. George's is a quaint area with old buildings and cobblestone streets. Our plan was to walk around St. George's, peek in some shops, stop for lunch and then head over to Tobacco Bay beach for the rest of the afternoon to hang out and maybe do some snorkeling. This is exactly what we did.

Here we are walking to the ferry.



And here we are riding on the ferry to St. George's.



Here we are in St. George's, fresh off the ferry and heading into the main square.



We walked around the town a bit and stopped in the Bermuda Perfumery so Jez and I could buy some Bermudian perfume. We also popped into an old historic church which was built in the 1600s. It SMELLED old and had an interesting cemetary outside. The stones were so old, the engraving on them was unreadable.






















Of course we couldn't resist a silly tourist photograph.



After while, we decided to stop for lunch at the White Horse Tavern, which was a cozy waterfront pub. This was a nice place to have lunch and the food was very good, but we almost had a heart attack when we saw the prices. $24 for a 14 inch pizza??



The only bad thing about Bermuda (that we could determine) is the high prices. Because Bermuda has to ship everything in, the cost of everything is very high. Our sodas were $3.75 and I think our sandwich platters (sandwich with fries) was about $17 or $18.

Here are Mr. and Mrs. Jez looking very cute together.



















And Mr. Sassy and I:



Oh, and in case you are interested, here is the house I want to buy in Bermuda. Note it is my favorite color - and it's for sale! Yes, it was destined to be mine!



After lunch we walked to Tobacco Bay to relax on the beach the rest of the day. It wasn't exactly the best beach day - but all things considered, it was decent - a mix of sun and clouds, temperatures in the low 70s. At times it was overcast, but it was nice enough to enjoy the beach.

Here we are walking to Tobacco Bay:



And here is Tobacco Bay when we first arrived:



Tobacco Bay isn't the most impressive beach in Bermuda, but it has really interesting rock formations AND is a decent beach for snorkeling. The water was WAY cold on this day and it took us awhile to ease ourselves in, but once we did, we were able to do some snorkeling. We didn't see a ton of fish here, but when I meandered out past the big area of rocks into a deeper area, I was able to see some pretty large ones.
















On Thursday, our second day in Bermuda, our plan was to head to the southern beaches, specifically the most famous and beautiful beach in Bermuda - Horseshoe Bay beach. In Bermuda, if a local says they are going to "the beach", that means Horseshoe Bay. We lucked out on Thursday because it was a stunningly beautiful day with brilliant sunshine all day, puffy white clouds and temperatures in the mid 70s. A dream!!

I asked Mr. Sass (my pack mule) to carry my sequined tropical bag which he did with feigned disdain all day, jokingly referring to it as my "homo bag". He comedically apologized to the people sitting behind us on the bus, telling them it was not HIS bag and without missing a beat, the guy replied in an effeminate voice, "but it matches the sparkles in your eyes!"



After a 45 minute bus ride, we arrived at Horseshoe Bay. WOW this was a stunning beach!!! One of the beautiful we have ever seen!



We were very excited, but since 3 of us were sunburnt from the day before, we NEEDED to find shade desperately. We were dismayed to find this beach did not offer much in the way of shade. Unlike other islands, Bermuda is not teeming with palm trees. This beach was baking in blazing sunlight. We were happy to see there was a stand renting umbrellas, but alas they told us due to wind, they were not renting them this day. So in desperation, we perched ourselves on the side of a cliff, digging beach chairs into the cliff sideways.



This would do for awhile, but what would happen later, when the sun moved? Thankfully we had an explorer in our group, Mr. Sass, who set off on foot and found us our very own seaside cave!! This is where we hung out the rest of the day. We quickly became the envy of everyone at the beach. As the tide went down and others discovered the cave, they were way jealous of us - the best real estate at Horseshoe Bay! Just look at how proud Mr. Sassy is of himself in this video.



We also learned, via a local who was showing tourists around the cave, that a longtail (the white birds you see flying around in my videos) was nesting in the cave in that dark little side area that Mr. Sass was poking around in. He had us kneel down and shined a flashlight in a hole in the cave and we saw the momma bird on her nest.



Here are some beautiful pics from our day at Horseshoe Bay. One would be hard pressed to take a bad picture here.

































Our third and final day in Bermuda was Friday, May 20th (our anniversary!). On this day, our plan was to stay around the Dockyard area, since our ship was scheduled to depart Bermuda at 4:30 p.m. and we definitely did NOT want to miss the ship. We had done some research ahead of time and heard about a fun excursion - the Segway tour. For those of you who do not know what a Segway is, it's an upright transportation device that was invented a few years ago. It was supposed to revolutionize city transportion but never quite caught on as they predicted. But it sure was fun for siteseeing!!! This excursion was one of the highlights of our vacation and we all enjoyed it immensely. It was a bit expensive - $75 per person for about 1.5 - 2 hour tour, but so much fun and such an unsual and exciting experience, we all agreed it was worth the money.



The Segway Tour sign up area was a short walk from the ship and we were able to sign up that day without a previous reservation. Our tour guide was a young woman named Jordan and she was a lot of fun. First, we all got lessons on how to ride the Segway and then we practiced in a small area of sidewalk.

Here's Jez getting her lesson.



Here we are after practicing for a few minutes.





And then we were off! Jordan took us all through the dockyard area and told us about the various sites we were seeing and was kind enough to take a group picture of us in front of one of the old buildings.



In addition to the dockyard, Jordan also took us into some natural areas and through a residential area as well. We loved it when we got to ride alongside the water. Sooooo beautiful.



After the Segway tour, we had more time to kill before our ship departed, so we browsed the shops at the dockyard and stopped for some ice cream at Haagen Dazs. Boy did that taste good after that long tour in the hot sun.


















We also stopped at a glassworks center and watched some glass artists making a glass plate. Very cool.



































At Mr. Sass's prompting, Mr. Jez tried his first cigar today and as you can see, it took him some time to figure out how to hold it ;)








We were back on the ship in plenty of time to relax before dinner and wave goodbye as we sailed away from port.



It was our second formal night and our aforementioned dinner at The Normandie. Here we are, all doodied up in our dressy duds.




























The following day, Saturday, May 21st, was a sea day and our last full cruise day. We were scheduled to arrive in Bayonne Sunday morning, so Saturday was a day to relax and enjoy our last moments of the cruise. We also had to pack and have our bags outside the door by 11:00 p.m. for the porters to transport to the baggage pick-up area the next morning.

The last day of the cruise was uneventful for me because unfortunately, I came down with a pretty bad cold. I felt it coming up a couple days prior and by Saturday I was feeling pretty wiped out. Sadly, I slept most of the day away in the cabin while the rest of the crew hung out on the ship without me. I tried to hang outside by the pool, but I was too chilly and miserable so I relocated myself to the comfy cabin.



I don't have any pictures from our last day on the ship, so I will leave you with a variety of miscellaneous pictures from the week.