The itinerary was great; in fact it was the first time that the Summit had ever been to these ports (Iceland & Greenland). The ship is in good condition, and is comfortable.
It was grossly understaffed, customer service (at the desk) was pleasant but unhelpful. Because of the staffing shortage, food and beverage service was slow to nonexistant.
This was an expensive cruise: over $18,000 for the two of us (24 nights). It did not deliver the service one should expect from cruises that expensive.
Embarkation
4 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
There was virtually no drink service in the Oceanview Cafe, and it was only marginally better at the Martini Bar, unless you were sitting right at the bar. The music in the Martini Bar was always deafeningly loud, making it impossible to have a conversation during cocktail hour.
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Entertainment
1 out of 5
The DJ insisted on playing music that I felt was inappropriate for the age group onboard. This was a cruise to the Arctic; the crowd was older and refined, not ravers and beach bums. He hosted a music trivia one day that was listed as "Broadway Musical Trivia", however, halfway through he decided that he didn't like those, so he just changed the type of questions to something he liked better!
Children's Programs
No kids.
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
I am giving this three stars, as an average. The crew was working very hard, doing the best they could. However, the ship was shockingly understaffed and fully booked with passengers! The result is that no one was getting the level of service we expect from Celebrity. This fault lies squarely on the shoulders of management who either failed to fully staff, or when recognizing that there was insufficient staff, allowed the cruise to continue to be fully sold.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The Summit is a lovely ship, and has been pretty recently refreshed.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Nice size, as is expected for a Concierge cabin. It isn't an ideal location (almost the very rear of the ship), but we didn't problems with motion or ship noise. It is an adjoining cabin, so we did hear some conversations from the room next door, but later discovered that the passenger had hearing issues, so that may have just been a fluke.
Ship tip
DO NOT USE the ships app to upgrade your WiFi service. I was charged almost $170 MORE than if I had gone to the Guest Relations Desk and had them do it.
We did a back to back, so technically, we didn't disembark here. However, we were told that returning to our cabins would be "easy peasy". It was not. They didn't have our new cards ready for us, and made us stand aside while new passengers loaded in front of us. We have done multiple B2B cruises before with no problem. This was a mess.
Thanks for your honest assessment. Hope Celebrity gets their staffing and service back to acceptable standards . Glad you enjoyed your fantastic itinerary.
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