We took Summit to Bermuda last June and enjoyed it so much that we decided to do an encore this year, especially given the opportunity to contrast the "original" Summit to the newly Solsticized version. Ironically, when we boarded the Summit in June of 2011, it took me a few days to realize that the deck plan they handed me on board was actually the deck plan for the rebuild as I kept looking for things not there yet. Now we would get to see the real thing.

We had a very active roll call and scheduled a gift exchange, cabin crawl, pub crawl, slot pull, and (of course) a sailaway party The sailaway party was at the Sunset Bar and quite a few of us were there to meet and listen to the great steel drum player. It was great to meet so many people in person after months of virtual conversations -- and to know so many people we kept bumping into all over the ship. And the turnout for the Connections Party was among the best I recall -- with many ship's officers stopping in to chat with us -- Sue Denning, the CD, even came by to act as hostess -- I'm accustomed to seeing the special events coordinator in that role.

I enjoyed the cabin crawl as it was probably be the only time I'll ever see the inside of a suite -- and we saw both a Sky Suite and a Celebrity Suite as well as one of the cabins facing the front of the ship. I noticed something interesting on the balcony of the Celebrity Suite. Many people complain about how rust shows the ship's age. The Celebrity Suites had balconies newly added during the recent dry dock. We noticed that there were already visible rust spots on the balconies. Rust happens instantly on ocean vessels -- that's a fact of life on the water. Read more