This is the initial full write-up post covering our first experience of cruising with Celebrity Cruises, something we did in May 2019 on a 3-night cruise to Amsterdam aboard Celebrity Silhouette. I’ve already written a blog post detailing an overview of the Celebrity Silhouette cruise while it was all still fresh in the memory and my angry juices were still flowing and none of it was tainted with the rosy tints that come with getting old and having your brain lock away the dark thoughts for what you like to call your sanity. This post comes free with the smoothing out power of time so the peaks will be less high and the troughs a little shallower and it will cover the first day aboard the cruise ship from embarkation through to bed with an emphasis on the perks associated with being Concierge Class because we went all fancy pants and got an upgrade.
Embarkation
Embarkation took place at Southampton’s City Cruise Terminal, the first time we’d boarded any ship from that particular terminal in the city. As we were in Concierge Class for this cruise we simply followed the signs that indicated where we needed to go and thanks to some spectacular timing we almost never had to stop walking for a moment from the second we entered the terminal until we got to the desk to pick up our cruise cards. We had one brief pause to pick up a Concierge Class welcome pack and meet our concierge host but otherwise it was almost as if we were the first people there as far as anyone queueing ahead of us was concerned. Our timing luck continued as we were directed to a waiting lounge until it was time to board and just as we set foot inside they announced that everyone there could make their way onto the ship. It’s like they were waiting for us. So far everything was looking very good for our first experience with Celebrity Cruises.
We were quite impressed with the cruise card scanning stations at the embarkation point on the ship especially when comparing our experiences on the P&O and Princess ships that we’d mainly cruised with to this point. Our run of luck, however, came to an end as we failed to realise why people ahead of us were ignoring one of the stations and managed to therefore pick the only queue in which people weren’t handed a welcome glass of fizz. Everyone else seemed to be getting one but while there was a tray next to our station there was nobody present to hand out any glasses so we missed out. Disappointing, obviously, what with us being lushes, but not the biggest problem in the world.
A member of staff asked us if we’d like to buy the drinks package. We declined.
The scene that then greeted us was not encouraging. The corridors and public spaces that we found ourselves in were rammed with people, most of whom – like us – had carry-on luggage with them. We scooted around and through the throng and headed in the direction of the elevators. It was puzzling to us why everyone was just congregating in these particular areas rather than heading off and exploring. That would become evident after we’d given up trying to get an elevator and taken the stairs up to our floor instead with only a few breaks to pretend to admire the artwork while catching our breaths. We finally realised that all the cabins were closed off. That explained everyone with bags. It didn’t explain everyone with bags blocking up the corridors just inside the entrance to the ship; that’s explained by people just being inconsiderate. It may be the normal process on Celebrity Cruises and other cruise lines too but our experiences to date had not prepared us for the possibility that passengers would be allowed to embark hours before their rooms were ready and that you wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near them until that point. We now found ourselves in a similar situation to many other people onboard in that we didn’t really want to go exploring while wheeling our cases around everywhere plus all the good loitering-in-the-way-of-people-embarking spaces had been taken. Figuring that they couldn’t possibly let us on the ship too much before the rooms were ready and that if they were clearing rooms deck-by-deck there was a good chance with us being in Concierge Class (and therefore better than everyone else not in a suite) that we’d be among the first rooms done we parked our bums in the library.
So much for that piece of figuring from us. We waited. And waited. Someone came around asking us if we wanted to buy the drinks package. We declined. And waited. An announcement was made that the rooms were still unavailable and that the next announcement would be to tell us the rooms were ready and that we should feel free to visit the lounges and bars in the meantime. This announcement was repeated several more times over the next 90 minutes making a lie of every previous iteration of the announcement. This didn’t encourage us to believe anything we heard from there on. The views from the library area looking up and down into the atrium were pleasant but our general conversation as we continued to wait was along the lines of regretting either arriving early or not just dumping everything into a larger case and checking it in. Hindsight, eh?
Concierge Class Welcome Aboard Lunch
One of the perks with the Concierge Class was an embarkation day lunch in the main dining room. To be honest we weren’t particularly hungry but I was keen to at least experience it because I write up about these things. You probably didn’t know that. But I didn’t really want to experience lunch while still trundling luggage around. The problem was that with only fifteen minutes left for the lunch there was still no sign that the rooms were going to be ready so we reluctantly made our way to the dining room anyway. We weren’t sure what would happen with our bags until we saw that plenty of other people were in the same boat (metaphorically; I’m aware that Celebrity Silhouette is a ship) and that an area had been set aside for us to leave them. We were then directed to a table set for twelve. We admired the surroundings, perused our menu, placed our order, and listened to the general small talk around us without really engaging in any ourselves as we weren’t exactly in the right frame of mind at this point.
The waiter came around and asked us if we wanted to buy the drinks package. We declined. I ordered the butternut squash soup for starters while my wife went for the salad. The soup had plenty of flavour but was on the cooler side of tepid. I wasn’t the only person to observe this temperature problem on the table. For my entrée I chose the broiled salmon. The salmon was okay but the mashed potato it came with tasted about as appetising as it looks in the photo below. I am, however, half-Irish and forbidden by heredity from not eating any potato-based food and cleared my plate swiftly as a result. My wife ordered the chicken and also received the salmon because the waiter hadn’t paid attention. As the announcement had just been made at this point that the rooms were finally ready we elected to not alert the waiter to this, try to finish the meal as quickly as possible, and get rid of our bags. The chocolate cake for dessert was very nice. See: not all doom and gloom.
Concierge Class Balcony Room
We’d been assigned room 1074 on Celebrity Silhouette, the result of a minimum bid for an upgrade from the original balcony room we’d paid for. This resulted in us effectively moving up a deck and across to the starboard side from our original position and moved us from a standard class of cabin to Concierge Class. The Concierge Class perks of priority embarkation and welcome aboard lunch had already been experienced and this was now our chance to see a couple of other perks that came with that step up: free bags we never use and the Daily Delectable Delights. The free bags we never use are always taken nonetheless. We have a pile of them from various cruise lines at home. We may make cruising-themed clothing from them after the apocalypse so that as we shuffle around the ruined landscape other survivors will be encouraged to come up and ask us if we ever saw dolphins in the ocean before they rose up and overthrew us all. The best thing that can be said about the Daily Delectable Delights is that they were daily.
An obligatory activity when entering your balcony cabin for the first time is to head outside onto the balcony and see what it and the view are like. The balcony depth was very good and the seats were comfortable although because there was no way to move the foot rests under them like you can on a Princess ship they did get in the way a little. I wasn’t too keen on the frosted glass and curved shape and gaps in the balcony dividers. I prefer a little more privacy on the balcony for when the urge to stand outside naked and feel the wind blowing everywhere takes me, as it surely must. There was a very minor obstruction in the shape of the angled beam leading upwards and outwards to support the deck two above us. Very minor and hardly worth mentioning except that we had to wonder what the view from the Aqua Class cabins above us would be seeing. I don’t know but it seems to me that an uninterrupted view of the horizon and even any real ability to see the sky look to be in short supply on the top deck of accommodation. I might be wrong. There’s always a first time.
As for the room itself there were aspects we liked and aspects we didn’t. I’ll start with the things we didn’t like so that I can end on a positive note as I don’t do that nearly enough, and while I’m proud of my reputation as a grumpy bastard I do like to mix things up every now and then and keep both readers of this site on their toes.
We really didn’t think much of the storage space in the room. The wardrobe was small and we missed the availability of drawers either side of the bed. The presence of the cupboards over the bed was a little baffling as we couldn’t think what could sensibly be stored in them without worrying if the doors would open sending everything inside onto your head in the middle of the night on a choppy sea. And you’d pretty much have to stand on the beds to use them anyway which my parents told me never to do. We didn’t think much of the On Demand offerings on TV either; very limited selection and quite a few movies you’d have to pay for with many of them being films we’d seen on planes or on Princess cruises for free.
The way the door opened out from the room was odd. That’s obviously something you get used to but we always had this fear that someone would knock or the people in the next cabin would be leaving and we’d open the door and hit them. Fear, or hope. I can’t remember how many times we pulled the door trying to leave or pushed the door trying to return. There was a similar familiarity issue with the balcony door and the way the handle had to be lifted up to lock it, this being the opposite way to every other balcony door we’ve had. This led to exchanges such as “I’ll just head out onto the balcony and damnit! Other way! Right, ooh, it’s a bit nippy out here so I’ll just duck back into the room and lock the balcony and damnit! Other way!” Neither of these things were bad; just a little jarring to our expectations and potentially a problem if you take swear jars with you on holiday and consider damnit a swear word. It isn’t, though. It’s not even really a word.
We did like the ability to order room service through the TV (although we didn’t do this). The bathroom in the cabin, though, was the stand out feature as far as we were concerned. Large, light, big shower cubicle with glass doors so you could grimace at your reflection while you scrubbed your nethers, good amenities. We particularly liked the low-level lighting around the counter which meant you didn’t need to switch the main light on if using the toilet while your partner was sleeping. There seemed to be an awful lot of storage space in the bathroom, though, which was confusing as we just don’t have that much stuff we’d like to keep in that room. Perhaps Celebrity are targeting the older demographic with their multitudes of pills trying to fend off nature’s plans for their bodies.
Unfortunately, for reasons unexplored I forgot to take any photos of the bathroom (I’m prepared to blame a subconscious reaction to my wife’s repeated question of “Why are you taking another picture of the toilet seat?” on previous cruises).
Exploring Celebrity Silhouette
So, as mentioned, this was our first time on Celebrity Silhouette and our first time cruising with Celebrity Cruises too. This meant a new class of ship in which to get confused as to the direction of the pointy bit and a new design aesthetic to become accustomed to. With a while to go until the obligatory muster drill we went for an explore around the ship to get our bearings, starting, as we always do on any ship, with the top deck.
The outdoor swimming pools looked very nice and seemed like they would have a decent amount of shelter from breezes while the ship was at sea. We hadn’t packed any swimming costumes for this short trip as early May in northern Europe didn’t seem like swimming weather. Admittedly, Celebrity Silhouette does have an indoor pool too (only for adults) but we weighed up the likelihood of us having a swim against trying to investigate all the bars for research purposes in the limited time aboard and thus nobody got to see me floundering about in my bathers.
We completed a circuit of the top deck. For some reason I always take photos of the area surrounding Southampton port. You would think that there could only be so many times you can gaze out on the nearby car parks and Ikea store and the industrial complexes to the west and think, yeah, this time the photo will be different and I won’t need to take any more after this, and you’re possibly right but I haven’t reached that point yet.
We weren’t the only ship leaving Southampton on that day with the city also playing host to Sapphire Princess as well as P&O‘s ships Azura and Britannia. It was only the latter ship that we’d not cruised on and we have booked a cruise for 2020 that will address that situation.
We’d heard that Celebrity Silhouette had a real lawn area on its top deck and it turned out that we’d not been lied to about this. It didn’t look in the greatest of condition and there were areas that were roped off to stop further damage. I’m not sure how I feel about taking living elements of the land out to sea and I wonder how they feel about this forced relocation away from their natural environment with danger all around too. If we ever find a way to hook speaking machines up to plants we may be able to ask them. Does grass get seasick? Ooh, an exciting Blade Runner sequel from Philip K. Dick in the works.
We made our way back inside for more of a look around now that we didn’t have to worry about running our luggage into other passengers’ legs or creating a trip hazard during one of my inevitable dozen or more photos of almost the same thing. Heading down the atrium stairs took us past the Library, the Hideaway, and the iLounge (which, as you can guess from the name, was horribly geared towards overpriced Apple crap). The Hideaway seemed to be the sort of place we’d like as it had lots of quirky-looking seating options including those spherical chairs that looked like they’d been rescued from a long-cancelled late-60s/early-70s sci-fi show. My wife has always had a thing for those chairs, dropping hints about us needing to get one, remarking just how comfortable they’d be, how ideal for snuggling in and reading her Kindle. I’ve always liked them too but have refused to allow them into the house as thanks to our narrow doorway and hall we’d need to hire a team to remove a few walls first and I love my wife and would not want her to go without but, you know, walls cost money.
We tried the chairs and they were too low plus we’re not as flexible as we’re sure we must have been at some point so we looked like tortoises that had been flipped onto their shells trying to escape into an upright position and as a result my wife has decided she’s fine with the sofa we have.
We normally like to have an early drink once we’re aboard a ship primarily so we can post it on social media and remind people who aren’t on cruises that we’re better than them but we decided to wait a while during our initial exploration of Celebrity Silhouette. And by “decided to” I mean “came to the realisation that we were going to have to” because several attempts to find a bar or lounge with any indication that it might be possible to get a drink proved fruitless. We did bump into one member of staff who wanted to know if we wanted to buy the drinks package. We declined. Our first few hours on this ship were not persuading us that the Celebrity experience was all it was cracked up to be. Still, there was no getting around the fact that she was a good-looking vessel so we made do with slowly wandering between venues on the lower decks and edging towards our muster station as that time was approaching.
The variety of dining venues was good at first glance. We’d pre-booked a meal in one of the speciality dining locations for the last night of this cruise which will be covered in a later post.
There was a lot of artwork around the ship which we appreciated and I particularly liked the digital bird cages for the obvious reasons that they invoked the themes of technology and the descendants of the dinosaurs, both of which were things I used to think about a lot when growing up.
Quasar was a very funky-looking place indeed. The cool blue lighting, variety (if not quantity) of seating, the shapes and textures all combined to form something very appealing aesthetically. Everything except the location, that is. It looked like it was a nightclub but because it wasn’t closed off in any way from the area around it there was something puzzling about its functionality. We vowed to return late at night to see how the venue was used. Sadly, we vow a lot of things and never carry through with them and this was one of those occasions.
Celebrity Silhouette Muster
Our muster station was in Celebrity Central, a smallish room with comfy seats, a projector screen, some TVs, and a little stage area. Other than mustering we didn’t head in here again but I gather it showed films. There was no need to bring life jackets which is a good thing (I can only speak for the muster; it may have been mandatory for movies). The mustering attendance was checked off on a sheet of paper which is a medieval thing. Unlike other musters we’ve been to on other ships there was no direction for seating once we got into the lounge so people – not us, of course – plonked themselves down at ends of aisles rather than moving along or they left single-person gaps in rows because Oh Dear God You Cannot Possibly Sit Next To A Stranger Because That’s How Babies Are Made. The result of this was lots of “Excuse me” mutterings and “Can I just get past?” requests and “There’s one space for you on that side of the room next to that couple who don’t have any basic common sense and I’ll scramble into the middle of this row of inconsiderate people who couldn’t bear to all shift up just one more place” passive aggressive statements. I got to feel hatred towards my fellow humans which, as a misanthrope, warmed me greatly.
The muster took the form of a short espionage action movie set on a cruise ship which was clever, different, reasonably entertaining, and just needed to be about one fifth that length for future cuts, thank you very much Celebrity. Says the man who writes essays when paragraphs will do.
First Drinks On Celebrity Silhouette
No alcohol before a muster? Who ever heard of such a monstrous thing? With the muster over we headed quickly for the drinking venues on board in order to see if we could find one with a seat and someone who might want to serve us something. We were not the first people to think this so we were completely out of luck until we hit the wine cellar. An actual member of staff present and seats meant our first proper drink aboard Celebrity Silhouette was a glass of wine. We were asked if we wanted to buy the drinks package. We declined. The wine was okay. It wasn’t great. Nobody has yet been able to match P&O for wine quality in our experience but we will persevere in trying to find that cruise line who does or die trying, happily.
Free Fizz And Sailaway
Celebrity Silhouette was moving by this time and we decided after our glass to wine to return to our room and watch the proceedings from the balcony. A lot of people like to head up on top of the ship and join in with a sailaway party but even if we didn’t hate those things with a passion anyway we’d already discovered that there didn’t appear to be any smoke-free places outside on the ship and being close to smokers makes us stabby. It’s entirely possible there are smoke-free places outside on a Celebrity ship but the amount of time we’d be spending outside on this cruise would be so minimal we couldn’t be bothered finding out.
So, to the room and a quick call to our cabin steward because there was another Concierge Class perk we were interested in taking advantage of: the free bottle of fizz. This was promptly delivered in an ice-filled bucket. A pair of champagne glasses would have been nice too but there was only one in our room and the steward had left by the time we realised this so we grabbed the tumblers from the bathroom instead. Pure class.
I opened the bottle and about a third of it exploded over the balcony leading us to assume without any evidence to back it up at all that our steward had shaken it all vigorously before delivering it as punishment for some slight. Two thirds of a bottle of actually not bad champagne substitute was then consumed as we watched the very familiar sights of the world off the Hampshire coast pass us by.
First Night Food And Drink
Which brings us to the evening and night of our first day aboard Celebrity Silhouette, one mostly geared around food and drink. I’ll start with food.
We much prefer flexible dining but there was not that option on this cruise so as we are wonderfully European we had chosen the late sitting. Early sitting is for losers. You know it. I know it. I said it. We headed to the main dining room a couple of minutes ahead of the appropriate time and I think we got within about twenty metres of the doors before the crowd of people stopped any further progress. We were packed like sardines for several minutes before there was any movement. We didn’t think this was very good. We were led to our table, a table for six in the far right corner of the room, and with a sea view. We did think this was very good.
The dining room started to fill up around us but for a long time it looked like we had the table to ourselves. Then I saw the waiter leading a couple over. They looked in their mid-forties. They looked happy. They looked like they were making far more of an effort than we were. They looked utterly crestfallen when they realised they weren’t getting a table for two and that they’d be sharing with us. Totally understandable. It turned out that he had many cruises under his belt but that his new girlfriend was a cruising virgin. He’d wanted to impress her and now he had us to explain. I pointed out that they’d get a few more chances to enjoy the dining experience on their own as we wouldn’t be eating there on either of the following two nights, with plans to eat ashore on the Sunday and a booking in one of the speciality venues the day after. That seemed to cheer them up although I also pointed out that whoever the other two people who should have been on our table that night were might be making an appearance on both the following days instead. I consider it my duty to not have people thinking too positively about any situation. It’s just better that way.
The menu appeared and our waiter asked if we wanted to order a drink then, when he realised we didn’t have one, if we wanted to buy the drinks package. We declined.
We struggled with finding food we actually wanted because nearly everything had something in it that one of us didn’t like. For starters I risked the French onion soup while my wife had the beef ragout. Mains for me was the fried Masala potatoes while my wife went super safe with fish and chips.
Now, it’s true that our unwilling partners on our dinner table were a little slow eating their dinner but a lot of that was because they talked a lot. That’s good. That’s fine. That didn’t bother us at all. That’s part of the shared dining experience on a cruise ship. I know we generally hate people but we don’t mind that unless they’re bigots. Which has happened. More than once. Anyway, we were happy to wait as they edged closer and closer to clearing their dinner plates. Someone with slightly less patience than us, though, was our waiter who took mine and my wife’s plates away and handed us the dessert menu before the other couple had finished the main course. When she finished before him the waiter reappeared to take her plate and the dessert orders and the man in that couple had to order while looking at the menu as he finished the last spoonful on his plate whereupon it was taken away too. To our cruising virgin we explained this wasn’t normal etiquette in a dining room but as we were all on a Celebrity ship for the first time I’m only guessing that that’s accurate.
Dessert for us was chocolate lava cake.
We waited again for our slow-paced partners to finish as politeness dictates. I was about to remark that the food had been average at best when the other man on the table mentioned that his apple pie was the hottest thing he’d eaten that night. It transpired, from a little discussion thereafter, that of the four of us there only my food had apparently been served at a decent temperature. Everyone else – my wife included – found their courses warm at best.
Our experience, therefore, of the food on Celebrity Silhouette, following a lunch and a dinner on this cruise embarkation day, was that it was very poor. Experienced Celebrity cruisers had told us prior to this trip that the food was excellent. Those people all made the list.
The rest of the evening was one of lounge-hopping in search of drinks and to get a feel for where we might like to call our place on the ship. You need an our place; that’s the lounge or bar you feel most comfortable in, the one where on a longer cruise you hope to get to know some of the staff and get some preferential treatment.
First up was the Martini Bar where we spotted a couple about to leave their seats at the bar and swooped in like people who’d only just that second before been remarking just what a dreadful lack of seating there was anywhere near the crowded location. My similes need work.
Sitting at the bar gave us an appreciation of the drinks-making skill of the bartenders aboard Celebrity Silhouette as they expertly took multiple orders at a time from whomever managed to get in their eyeline (we even managed it once), didn’t appear to get any drinks wrong, and got the drinks made quickly. The people skills of the bartenders was just about as low as it’s possible to get for someone in the service industry (and I think we all know that’s low) but having watched them for a while as we sipped at our drinks we recognised there was simply no break for any of them; relentlessly taking orders, making drinks, taking orders, making drinks. The range and quality of drinks was excellent but the growing fear that one of the members of staff would snap and reach for an ice-pick from under the bar’s frozen surface and go on a rampage drove us off in search of another venue.
The World Class Bar was somewhere we discovered it was always possible to get drinks easily when it was open. The reason for this was because it was a little out of the way from the other evening venues, tucked away near the high-end shops and overlooking the not-so-high-end shops, and, subsequently, completely devoid of any atmosphere. Or, devoid of an atmosphere that appealed to us. Perhaps you’re different. Perhaps you’ve always longed for a bar in a corridor next to shops selling watches for significant fractions of the cost of your home while caressing an alcoholic beverage all under an ambient yellow glow that in many cultures is associated with sickly death. If that’s the case then this is your place.
Yes, I’ve mocked the place but the drinks here were very good, really quite different, and because it was mostly empty it was fabulously easy to get served.
However, our place ended up being the Ensemble Lounge. We kinda thought it might even before we’d set foot on the ship because we’d watched videos to acquaint ourselves with the vessel (we do that, you know) and both made appreciative oohing noises when we saw the cosy, velvety, luxurious-looking location.
A bigger drinks menu for the venue would have been nice. Drinks prices for all the spirits would have been nice. Staff who engaged with the passengers would have been nice. Actually, on that last point things were decidedly different on the last night of this cruise but you’ll have to wait until I get to that post. And the last night of the cruise also showed us that the Ensemble Lounge was host to some cracking entertainment too. This first night, not so much, but we got a generally good vibe from the place and the soft seating and knew we’d be back.
One final location we visited on our first night on Celebrity Silhouette was the Sky Observation Lounge. We’d completely forgotten that we had vowed to return to Quasar and guessed – probably incorrectly – that this was the closest thing to our must-visit place late at night on a Princess ship, Skywalkers.
I think we were there ten minutes with no indication we’d ever get served a drink so we gave up and left and went to soak up those jaundiced rays in the World Class Bar with a nightcap instead.
In the next post I’ll cover the following morning’s approach to Amsterdam along with details about breakfast and trivia. After that will come what we got up to in Amsterdam. May include naughtiness. Then it’s the voyage home, our speciality dining in the Murano restaurant, the sudden shipwide personality change, and The Terrifying Memory-Loss Incident.
I think that the above couple should have gone with P/0. We have always found Celebrity very good and no moans.