Many weeks after booking our 14-night New England & Canada cruise (September 7, 2013) on the Celebrity Summit departing from Bayonne, NJ including airfare from Orlando, FL to Newark, NJ, we discovered that the Summit would be cruising to Bermuda on a six-night voyage the week right before our two-week cruise. We had searched for a cruise to Bermuda from a Florida port for some time but Bermuda cruises from Florida are rare. Therefore, we chose to rebook our flight six days earlier and cruise to Bermuda first on a back-to-back (B2B) Celebrity Summit cruise. It turned out to be a great idea and we found that the two cruises were completely different experiences. Packing for such a wide range of temperatures proved a little more complicated but we managed to keep our bags way under the airline limit.

We departed September 1 from Orlando International Airport to Newark Airport in New Jersey where Celebrity representatives from a private transportation company met us in the baggage department. Our Celebrity arranged transfer went smoothly. The helpful gentleman assigned to us stood nearby to ensure that all our bags arrived safely. He was well organized and chatted with us while we waited. He kept us well informed about what was happening. Then he escorted us to a waiting area so more passengers from another flight arriving just minutes after ours could join us. Soon a large comfortable coach with a friendly driver arrived to take us all to Cape Liberty.

After a not-so-short ride, we parked at a dismal port receiving area in Bayonne, New Jersey. We claimed our checked luggage and handlers from the port took them directly to the ship. We had only to manage our carry-on bags. What surprised me next was that we needed to board shuttle buses to take us to the real terminal still a short distance away to begin our boarding preliminaries. The process was smoothly accomplished and before we knew it, we were on the ship in the buffet café enjoying a sumptuous meal. Our party of four quickly secured an inside table with a view of the lovely New York Harbor, lower Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge now, however, shrouded in fog and haze. My photos were not great but we knew that we had a chance for better photos on our return. Read more