We embarked in Venice where the ship stayed overnight so those traveling long distances would have the opportunity to spend some time in this beautiful city. We had arrived two days early to have even more time to take in the sights. We chose a hotel near the Piazzele Roma because we knew it was close to the port. We were told that there was a free shuttle bus from there to the ship which was the case, but when we went out into the Piazzele to find it, there was no indication of where we would catch this bus. There were literally dozens of buses parked there and no one seemed to know which bus belonged to Celebrity. After asking and asking and asking, we finally found some passengers who had just disembarked and were waiting for the rest of their party to arrive on one of the shuttles. The door was closing as we ran (with 2 heavy suitcases each) up to the bus and the driver refused to open the door. Waiting for the next bus added another 30 minutes to our already hour-long wait.
Everything went smoothly at the port when we dropped our luggage. Celebrity does not seem to send tags ahead of time any more because they send docs electronically, but we easily got tags from the porters and filled them out. We went into the terminal to hand in our documents knowing we had priority because of booking a concierge cabin. That wait was very short and the staff was quite efficient. We opted not to go to our cabin, but to head out to see more of Venice. Unfortunately we had shuttle troubles again. No one seemed to know where to catch it at the port. We did find it but also discovered that the last shuttle would be at 5PM and there would not be any shuttles on the next day despite the fact that the ship was there overnight. How cheap can Celebrity be???
Once aboard we thought we might be in the wrong cabin. We had last sailed on the Noordam in a regular veranda cabin and it was at least 35% larger than our concierge cabin on the Summit. I guess Celebrity follows in the footsteps of their sister RCCL when it comes to cabin size. Even Carnival and NCL have bigger cabins than we found on the Summit.
We were in a concierge cabin, but it was still quite small. My DH could not turn around in the shower and if I needed something when he was at the sink, I could not get into the bathroom. Storage space was adequate and I always over pack. There should have been a flat screen TV instead of the old, old one that looks like it was there from the ship's initial cruise. Our cabin attendant was great, but because she had lots of inside cabins to cover, she did not have time to make any towel animals. The attendants are tasked to pick up and fold every bit of clothing on the floor and the kids across from us would leave piles and piles of clothes so it used up all of her extra time.