Celebrity Summit Review
Very happy with first experience on Celebrity Summit (long)
Rating by category
Additional details
This was only our second cruise, the first having been a short 4 night several years ago on Royal Caribbean, just to see if we would enjoy cruising. My husband and I travel frequently, own several timeshares which we utilize extensively, and I travel a great deal for business, so we are used to going with the flow and have no problem overlooking minor "hiccups" in the course of travelling or on a vacation. We did notice some worn areas on the ship, but never anything that disturbed us, overall it looked great, and the staff service was absolutely excellent.
First, thank you to everyone on Cruise Critic for posting so much helpful information and answering our questions, as we found that planning and preparing for a cruise vacation is different from other types of vacations! The tips we gleaned from reading reviews and the message boards were a big help.
We decided to splurge for a concierge balcony cabin. This trip was planned as something to look forward to, following my husband's radiation treatment for prostate cancer. We wanted to be a little pampered, and we were. We booked through an American Express Platinum Card travel agent, and received several perks as a result: free several category cabin upgrade, free bottle of premium sparkling wine upon arrival, and a free dinner in Normandy. We also enjoyed the other things that came with a concierge cabin, including the fresh flowers, fruit, and canapes in the early evening. We enjoyed the canapes on the balcony with a drink of our choice every day before dinner. We also used the binoculars that came with the cabin on most of our shore excursions, saving us from having to pack our own. We found our bed to be very comfortable. There was plenty of storage in our cabin. I would have preferred a glass door to the shower versus a curtain, but that was a minor irritation. I heeded one comment on the message boards about the hair dryer (having to hold down the button to have it operate), so brought my travel hair dryer, and was glad I did. We also brought a power strip, which was a great suggestion. There were only two useable outlets by the desk/vanity in the cabin.
Cabin Review
We had concierge class cabin 8070, midship. It was a relatively short walk to the stairs and elevator. Opposite our cabin door there was a wall, not other cabins, so it was perhaps quieter because of that. We found our bed to be very comfortable. A small bedside table on each side had two drawers, and lamps fixed on the tops of those tables. There was additional directional lighting overhead so you could read in bed if you wished.
There was plenty of storage in our cabin. There was a full length closet with about 20 wooden hangers (some with skirt/pants clips, some without) and a shelf above, which had some extra room in addition to the life vests which were stored there. This closet also had two rods halfway down which you could pull down independently of each other to hang short items on, if you wished. The section next to this closet had the safe and 8 (as I recall) smallish drawers. The vanity/desk had two fairly large storage cubbies divided by shelves on either side. There was also a built-in wall unit with shelving to the right of the vanity.
The bathroom was small but adequate. The wastebasket was built into the sink vanity and pulled out to dispose of items. Underneath the sink there were two shelves for storage as well as a two-tier glass shelving unit built onto the wall to the left of the sink. I would have preferred a glass door to the shower versus a curtain, but that was a minor irritation.
I heeded one comment on the message boards about the hair dryer (having to hold down the button to have it operate), so brought my travel hair dryer, and was glad I did. We also brought a power strip, which was a great suggestion. There were only two useable outlets by the desk/vanity in the cabin; none in the bathroom, of course.
The balcony was small, but we expected it to be the size it was. It worked fine for the table and two upright deck chairs provided (appeared to be new furniture). We had breakfast on the balcony every morning and drinks and a snack in the evening, and really enjoyed it. When people were on the balconies beside ours, we could hear them, but both of the couples were considerate and not noisy.
The small sofa and coffee table were fine for the two of us. Most of the time, we pushed the coffe table up against the sofa to make more room to access the balcony, as you have to walk past the desk/vanity area to access the balcony.
The balcony had sliding glass doors, and a light-blocking curtain (as well as a sheer curtain) which you could slide to cover the glass doors at night.
We liked being mid-ship as it provided easy access to the other areas of the ship, once we learned the layout. We specifically chose a concierge cabin rather than the Aqua class (in spite of wishing we could use "Blu"), because we were worried about noise from the deck above Aqua class. We did not hear any noise from the deck above or below us.