Bllm

We're just back from our first Celebrity cruise...a Southern Caribbean route RT from San Juan. We had heard that Celebrity was what Royal Caribbean "used to be". We first fell in love with cruising on RCCL's Sovereign of the Seas back in 1990 and did five total with that line (and five or six more on others), but Celebrity has certainly won us over. The shows were absolutely amazing...great talent and presentation...and a standing O was easy to give. The food was excellent in every location and at every time of the day...even the lobster was tender, and that's not an easy feat when serving it to 2000 people. The staff was courteous, professional, dependable and very friendly. I know some people dislike the idea of pre-paid tips, but I thought it was great and saved me the whole envelope-on-the-last-night hassle. Plus I was still able to show my appreciation for great service by adding something extra as the week went along. We also chose the Select dining option and really enjoyed it, some nights dining with new faces and some nights enjoying dinner for just the two of us. Those who say the Summit is really showing her age are, in my opinion, being very picky. We saw her as a very stylish ship with extremely comfortable public areas, bars, restaurants, casino, etc. And after a few weeks in dry dock in January, she'll be fully refurbished. The only problem we had was the air conditioning in our cabin. We like it cold at night while we sleep, but we could never get it cold enough. We had the same problem in 2009 on the Silver Sea Whisper in the Med, so I'm thinking its an energy saving situation where the lowest AC temp allowed is in the low to mid 70s (however, in the areas of food, entertainment and ship amenities, the Summit has the Whisper beat by a long stretch...at half the cost!). WEe'll be back on Celebrity, and hopefully back on a refurbished Summit, in the future, although we may be choosing cooler climates (Alaska, New England/Canada, Scandinavia) over the Caribbean to solve the AC issue.