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Stayed at the comfortable Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn the night prior to departure. They provide complementary shuttle service to and from Cape Liberty Cruise Port. We left our car safely in their parking lot for the two week duration of the cruise. That arrangement is convenient, and obviously a tremendous value.
Embarkation required that,after you leave your luggage with a stevedore
and check in, there is an additional step that requires you to take a bus for the short distance to the dockside. This last step is peculiar to Cape Liberty and is time-consuming.
For reasons known only to themselves (cost savings?), Celebrity Summit CLOSES their dining room for lunch on the day of embarkation. This results in
utter confusion in their cafeteria and people unable to find a table. We carried trays of cold food up and down the area of the cafeteria without finding either a table or a table willing to share. I contemplated leaving the ship in desperation. Finally, we did find a place to sit down and eat our cold lunch. This experience colored our opinion of Celebrity and impinged on our enjoyment of the cruise.
At Newport, RI passengers were lightered by use of the ships life-boats. They commenced at 8:30 a.m. and the last shore going passenger was not off the ship until after after noon. We could not, therefore, go ashore at Newport because it seemed unlikely we could return before sailing time of 5:00 p.m.
There were no ships officers in evidence to instruct as to proper handling of the life-boats. We saw them regularly miss tossed lines and in so doing, strike the side of the ship. The operation appeared lackadaisical and unsupervised. This with a calm sea.
The ships service staff were superb and compensated for various shortcomings.
The food was good in the dining room, we had the 6:00 p.m. seating. The main dining room is closed for lunch whenever the ship is in port. We only ate in the cafeteria when we had no other choice and the food was unsatisfactory.
Our son has various food allergies. The dining and food service staff were superb in providing for his special requirements. They simply made our cruise. Our son never once suffered any indisposition, because of their concern and special preparation of his meals. We particularly commend the Assistant Maitre'd, Melvis Afonso; Gladwin Pinto,our waiter; Padilla Menino, our Assistant Waiter; Rey and Jim our Room Attendants. I wish to commend the "always smiling" Ininando Fernaz, waiter. There were two "Brunches" during the cruise. These are chaotic with every man for himself as to seating. I was sure happy to see Ininando Fernaz's smiling face among the crowd. He called over, cleared a table, and made the "Brunch" tolerable.
We struck heavy seas and high winds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The ship rolled heavily. There was damage in many rooms, toiletries and broken glass on the floor in our and many others. However, we suppose that it was not too bad, because, Captain Athanasios Peppas did not find it necessary to drain the topside pools.
As to the public rooms. We were excluded from Revelations on Deck 11 between the hours of 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. as it was reserved for the exclusive use of the more privileged Elite passengers.
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