Shopping, Dining In Murano, And Late Night Entertainment On Celebrity Silhouette

And so we reach the final post covering our Celebrity Silhouette taster cruise that took us from Southampton to Amsterdam and back in the first week of May 2019. This will pretty much cover events from our exit from the Netherlands through the locks at IJmuiden until we lost consciousness.

It was the afternoon of a sea day, and afternoons on sea days on cruise ships are for gentle, relaxing activities, or they are on the lines we cruise with and if that’s not the case elsewhere then we’re fine with never discovering just what terrifyingly unrelaxed things might exist out there. We had a fancy evening planned as we’d pre-booked speciality dining in the ship’s Murano restaurant so, with all my photographing around the ship completed, we had a peruse of Today, the daily programme guide, and after a bite for lunch in the buffet made our way to the general trivia where we did abysmally.

If you’re a fan of quizzes then the Sky Lounge was the place to be for the afternoon as the general trivia was followed by a Majority Rules gameshow and a “Best of Queen” music trivia. We didn’t stay for either of them, not because we were disappointed with our brains in the trivia in which we’d done so poorly, but because our Queen knowledge isn’t great and Majority Rules games, which we’ve seen before on other cruises, annoy us. I have enough “What stupid thing are all these people likely to say?” thoughts in my working life without carrying it over onto cruise holidays.

Shopping

So we hit the shops. As you might know if you’re a regular cruiser, shops are closed when ships are in port or within a certain distance of shore for legal or tax reasons – this is also why you’ll sometimes get charged extra for drinks if you’re on a ship while it’s in port (that’s caught us out a few times) – so there hadn’t been a huge opportunity to see what was in them until now. We wandered, looking for bargains or things that were a little different and didn’t really find either, not that we expected to. You don’t shop on a cruise ship if you’re looking for the best price for high street items and you don’t shop on a cruise ship if you’re looking for anything not connected with cruising or making yourself look and smell wonderful. I had no problem finding a Celebrity Silhouette shot glass to add to the expanding collection, though, and was quite pleased as its design is nicer than those you find on Princess ships.

Passing through the jewellery store we found we’d just missed a presentation of some kind but were accosted by a salesperson almost immediately. It wasn’t to try to sell us anything, though, as she wanted to know if we’d been given one of the free pieces of Chocolate Quartz that the first hundred people were entitled to. We explained that we hadn’t been at the presentation but got a “Oh, that’s fine, here, have one anyway.” That was nice. I turned around to look at a display. There was another salesperson. “Did you get some Chocolate Quartz?” “No, my wife has one, though, and we weren’t here for the presentation anyway.” “Oh, well, that’s okay. Here, have another one.”

And that’s how we got two carats of Chocolate Quartz. No idea what to do with them but they do look quite nice.

We headed back to the room to drop off our purchase and freebies and found our Daily Delectable Delights had arrived, a perk of the Concierge Class on Celebrity Silhouette. I did not find them particularly delectable nor delightful but I cannot find fault with their frequency. Tastes differ and you might absolutely love them if you’re the kind of deviant who eats olives and cheese.

Our dinner reservation wasn’t until 20:00 because, as I’ve mentioned on occasion, that’s a respectable time to eat if you’re a cultured European. We’re not cultured but we act the part well. This gave us plenty of time to grab a few drinks and get in some reading during the afternoon and early evening although our first day’s experience of trying to get any drinks didn’t give us high hopes that the first part of this task would be an easy one. We needn’t have worried, though, because, in a marked contrast to our time aboard up until this point, we found the bars and lounges were emptier and there were more staff around. We managed to tick off the Passport Bar for a cocktail from our mental list of venues we’d got a drink in but otherwise made do with a couple of beers each that we were unfamiliar with from two other locations we’d previously frequented.

After showering and getting into something closer to smart casual from the casual casual that had sufficed to this point we headed to the Ensemble Lounge for a pre-dinner drink. We didn’t have long until our dinner so opted for shorts.

“Two Woodford Reserves, please.”
“Singles or doubles?”
“Singles, please.”

Single measures were poured out and then something magical happened. The barman looked from side to side then free poured close to another single into each glass. “Nobody saw,” he said with a wink and a smile. This was the first time we’d had anything close to human interaction from any member of staff on the cruise. And it was a good one. This point marked when we shifted from “Probably never going to cruise with Celebrity again” to “Hello!”

Speciality Dining In Murano

Murano is located beside the Ensemble Lounge which was already our favourite place to have a drink anyway so that was very convenient. It was smaller than we’d expected from our experience with other speciality dining venues on ships but that’s not a bad thing. Think of it as more exclusive, more intimate. Definitely think about pre-booking if you’re going to be taking a short cruise as I can imagine it gets sold out early. It was also nice and dark. Evening dining is always nicer when the lights are low and candles aren’t lost in the ambient illumination and Murano was excellent in this respect except for one part of the room set up as a table for ten (I think) that was right beside the bright wine storage. I think our table for two well away from that was far nicer.

I’m not the most positive person in the world. Being a senior software developer for a multinational company with a client who pulls in well over a billion a year through the site that I am mostly responsible for and being a positive person do not go hand-in-hand. I have a more pragmatic and more balanced outlook on life. My reviews are not overflowing with superlatives because the problem with riding peaks all the time is that the troughs are that much farther down. I like to keep things real and manageable somewhere in the middle. If everything is amazing then is anything really amazing? Which is why every now and then a genuine thing of joy will happen or appear and take me by surprise. Like the cone of butter that was delivered to the table. All butter should be conical. Or the stylised M on the fronts of our menus which matched our first names and felt personal and also tied into our social media travel branding (see: Twitter and Instagram and feel absolutely free to follow along there if you haven’t already, thank you for reading this advert). These things made me happy.

To the menu now. You get two options for dining in Murano, those being for a Five Senses 5-course set menu with wine pairing or for a more traditional à la carte menu. We each have things we’d rather not eat and they typically keep turning up in set menus so we always choose à la carte.

As we weren’t going for a pairing (because pairing includes white wine and we’re fussy in that we like our wine to have flavour) we needed a bottle of wine. Needed. We picked a Malbec because we know what we like when it comes to wine and what we like is dark, full-bodied, and fruity. We’ve had better wines on ships – P&O still holds the crown there for wine – and we drink far better wines at home – for some reason, cruise ships really like picking the thinnest of wines to add to their collections – but it was very nice and certainly better than average.

My wife chose the Wild Forest Mushroom Cappuccino while I went for the Smoked Salmon and Peekytoe Crab Parfait for starters. Both very tasty, with my choice winning in the appealing presentation stakes.

Our cover charge in Murano took care of our à la carte selections but we did have the option to add to that with an additional course at this point, either a whole lobster for 29 dollars or caviar at market prices. We chose neither because a whole lobster at this point seemed like overkill and the market price for the two choices of caviar would have paid for another cruise. Instead we skipped straight ahead to the Trou Normand, a traditional French palate cleanser comprising green apple sorbet and calvados in this instance. And it was very nice.

Our main courses were the Herb Crusted Lamb Rack for my wife and the Five-Spice Crusted Cervena Venison Loin for me. The photos don’t really do them justice as they were both gorgeous with sensible-sized portions and a great mix of textures and flavours.

That only left dessert and the only slight pimple on an otherwise perfect meal. The maître d’ came to take our order here and produced a compelling argument for the soufflés, stating that in all his years across many lines and ships he’d never had such good soufflés as these. These soufflés could stop wars. These soufflés could reverse the climate disaster. These soufflés even had the power to make Brexit voters realise the errors of their ways. I mean, if you knew a soufflé could do this then you’d have to try it, wouldn’t you? I never have soufflés but I did this time. So did my wife.

They were okay.

Murano offered up a classically French-style, speciality dining experience – which is our posh restaurant preference at home – and it’s something we’ve not had on any other cruise line yet. It will be interesting to see the Princess take on this type of dining with their new La Mer restaurant, something we’ll be looking to try for ourselves next year on Enchanted Princess. When we’d booked this cruise we’d done so under the impression that Celebrity did food well but it was only Murano on this short trip that fulfilled that expectation. It’s worth the cover charge and highly recommended.

Ensemble Lounge Entertainment

Our fabulous meal at Murano’s complete we stepped out of the restaurant and into the Ensemble Lounge where a contemporary jazz duo were playing and where seats were available. Since our last drink in this bar just before dinner had been so good and since I’m partial to a bit of jazz and since it was nice to have a band performing who weren’t simply doing pop covers (God knows there are enough of them on cruises) and since I’m quite persuasive when I put my mind to it, I convinced my wife – not the world’s greatest fan of jazz – to have a seat and another bourbon. So we did.

There was a decent crowd in the Ensemble Lounge but none of them really appeared to notice the musicians. We were ordering as the first tune we’d heard upon our arrival came to an end and it struck me that it was met with no appreciation from anyone else, engrossed as they were in their own conversations. Grabbing seats near the duo we listened and watched a fabulous music performance while also chatting amongst ourselves and as the next song ended I and my wife applauded. I think one other person half-heartedly joined in.

We’d barely finished our drinks before we were approached by a bar steward who wanted to know if we wanted another. A silly question and also a shocking one as it was the first instance of someone coming to our table to check on our drinks rather than us having to head to the bar that had occurred on the ship. A shock, but a pleasant one. It was like we’d boarded a Celebrity Silhouette from the Mirror Universe in Southampton on day one and while we’d been ashore in Amsterdam it had returned from whence it had come to be replaced by this reality’s version.

As tracks were performed I continued to lead the clapping which was getting a smiling nod from the guitarist and may have encouraged up to a dozen other people to join in through peer pressure before the musicians took a break. Upon their return they approached our table, thanked us, and we had a chat for several minutes. They were Dallas Bridge, very friendly, very talented, and another very positive checkmark on this final evening on the ship. We were particularly impressed with the brushing technique of the drummer and it’s our firm belief that if you’re ever challenged to a Rub Your Tummy & Pat Your Head competition by her then concede defeat immediately. You can see some of that skill and listen to some excellent music – you might even recognise some of it – plus get a feel for the atmosphere in the Ensemble Lounge in the following video montage (temporarily removed) of several tracks.

Drinks kept arriving thanks to the suddenly attentive waiting staff and the measures were completely random thanks to the bar staff. At some point the bar ran out of Woodford Reserve (can’t think how) and we were offered Bulleit as an alternative.

It is a rare thing for us to pay attention to the musical artists as we find they can be a little samey; good, because almost all musicians who perform on cruise ships are, but after a while every four-piece with a female lead covering hits from the 1960s forward start to merge together. Dallas Bridge were something else and, again, looking ahead to our Enchanted Princess cruise next year with its new jazz-themed lounge, they would be the perfect residents for it.

Sky Lounge

With their set complete and a final quick chat to mostly tell them how good they were and ask about their accommodation on the ship (yeah, I don’t know how the conversation headed there either) we left our jazz duo and decided to see if the Sky Lounge was any more inviting than it had been on the first day. The pool was lit up nicely at night.

By this time we were feeling really quite positive about Celebrity Silhouette but I’m sure the admittedly substantial amount of alcohol we’d downed only played a small part in this feeling; tipsy or not, things had definitely improved on the ship, and we felt confident that Sky Lounge wouldn’t let us down.

I can remember we got talking for quite a while to a couple of young Brazilian guys celebrating their wedding anniversary in Europe. They’d been having a ball on the ship. Everything else is decidedly fuzzy. In fact, neither I nor my wife remember the lights coming up but I did take a photo and some video so we were certainly still there when that happened.

We also don’t remember leaving Sky Lounge, getting back to our room, or indeed anything at all until we heard a ship’s announcement in our room in the morning. What time did we get back? Did we clean our teeth before getting into bed? Where the hell did I get that bruise on my leg from? Questions without answers. Alcohol, eh? Fantastic stuff.

And that concludes our taster cruise on Celebrity Silhouette. It started poorly but really recovered well. The same can’t be said for us. Alcohol, eh? Foul stuff.

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