Celebrity Summit - Thanksgiving Cruise - Penthouse Suite – #6147

All in all, I think our decision to stay in the Summit's Penthouse Suite, #6147, was a bad one. Now, all of our cruises with the kids would need to be in the PS – we simply wouldn't be happy anywhere else on the ship now that we've stayed there. Our next cruise on the Summit will be in August 2014 but it will just be Seth and I without the kids – definitely not a reason to get the PS again but the lowest class we were willing to go to was the Celebrity Suite – so we booked 7138 and 7140 (adjoining suites) for that cruise with our friends, Wade and Charlie.

 

As soon as we walked into the suite and saw the beautiful star tile work on the floor in the entryway (which was huge) – we knew we were home. To the right was the dining room with a table large enough to seat 8 people. The amount of storage space was unbelievable. There was also a desk at the end of the dining room which had a couple of outlets – it was a good thing that I had brought along a power strip. Neither bathroom had outlets – the only other set of outlets to be found were at the vanity in the master – and there were only 2. The baby grand piano was a very nice touch but we really didn't use it a lot – even turned down to the lowest setting, it was a little too loud. The piano's auto player is ancient – using floppy discs that are stored in the piano bench. Each floppy disc had a limited repertoire – probably a half dozen songs and that was it. 

 

It took us almost to the end of the cruise to figure out the small buttons located in various places on the wall in the dining room, entryway, and in our master bedroom. 4 small buttons the size of the my fingertip were lined up vertically and were simply numbered “1-4”. 2 additional small buttons next to them with arrows going up and down. In short, button 1 turned on the lights to bright, 2 and 3 dimmed the lights successively, and 4 turned them off. We could never get the arrow buttons to really work. There's a small delay between pushing the button and the lights responding.

The adjoining living room was a good size which also seated about 6 people comfortably and there was a flat screen tv to watch. The sofa pulled open to a double sized bed which wouldn't be big enough for both kids so we asked our room steward to bring in a roll away bed for Rhys to sleep on which worked out ok. It was a little weird for them because they didn't have a dresser to put their things in and the closets that they used (as well as the bathroom) was on the other side of the entryway.

The living room opened out onto the veranda which was enormous and wrapped around from the master bedroom side all the way around to the other side of the living room. There were 4 lounge chairs, the hot tub, a round table with 8 chairs, and 2 cushioned chairs with foot rests and a couple of small tables. No exercise bike although when we first boarded – we saw them outside our suite in the passageway between the 2 sides of the ship. The kids figured out the hot tub very quickly and were in it first off.

 When you stand at the backside of the ship and look back and up, you can see all of the verandas from the other suites and there were oftentimes people standing outside on their veranda and could see onto our veranda although the loungers and chairs were all under an overhang and were more private. We occasionally had things dropped onto our veranda from above – fruit peel, spilled drinks, etc.

On the left side of the entry way was a small hallway with 2 closets, a door to the extra bathroom, a door to the pantry, and a door to the master bedroom. The extra bathroom did have a shower. The pantry had a full sized refrigerator stocked with soda, wine, small bottles of liquor, and our 2 full-sized bottles of complimentary liquor – vodka and Dewar Scotch. We never opened the Scotch and the guys drank about half the bottle of Vodka. Towards the end of the cruise, Wade and Charlie brought over their bottle of champagne and our butler changed it out to a bottle of Pinot Noir which we brought home.

The master bedroom had a king sized bed. I had read conflicting reports online about the bed with some reporting a king and others reporting a queen. We definitely prefer a king sized bed and this one was very comfortable. We turned the A/C up as soon as we walked in and it was comfortably cool the duration of our trip. The bed was flanked on both sides with dressers that had a bunch of cabinets and drawers. The flat screen tv in front of the bed also had some cabinets and there was a large closet right next to the entry door.

The door leading to the bathroom first led into a dressing room with a 2^nd closet, a smaller 3^rd closet that just had a dresser and the programmable safe, and a vanity table. The mirrors on either side of the vanity opened like a medicine cabinet and there were more drawers on either side of the vanity. I actually had trouble remembering which drawer I put which things in – there were so many and I think half of the drawers went unused. The configuration of that 3^rd closet was a little weird – the door going into the dressing room was heavy and you couldn't pull the drawers in that closet open without shutting the other door.

The bathroom was gorgeous – 2 sinks with, yes, more drawers, glass countertop, glass enclosed shower, large hot tub and another smaller flat screen tv over the tub. The windows opened out to the rear of the ship and the shades were controlled with buttons on the wall. There was a toilet in a separate room and even a towel warmer on the wall. Our bathroom was stocked with Bulgari products.

Our butler was Peter Fernandes from India. I had read a lot of differing opinions about what a butler's role was and whether we needed one or not. Peter was very soft spoken and polite. He never hesitated to do anything that we asked him to do. I had written down a few things for him in an introductory letter – just a few of our preferences, a little bit about our family and who we were traveling with including our itinerary for the week since we didn't book any of our excursions through Celebrity.

I think Peter did a fine job. I had read where other butlers were insightful regarding things on the ship or in port – we didn't encounter that. I'm not dissatisfied with Peter but he wasn't stellar. He did offer to help Seth unpack and hung things up for him in the closet as Seth unpacked. I had already gotten my things hung up and unpacked before Seth got his suitcase. All but one morning, we ordered breakfast in our suite and twice we invited Charlie and Wade over for breakfast. Any time we invited them over for a meal, we tipped Peter extra in cash because I did feel that was above what his “job description” was.

On the evening following our first excursion in St Croix when we were supposed to dine in the MDR (and it was a formal night) – we were tired, sunburned, and didn't feel like going to the MDR. I went to the MDR and canceled our select dining time and got a copy of the menu. The woman at the MDR was very appreciative that I had stopped by and when she found out that we were in the PS – she immediately got me a copy of the dinner menu to take back to the suite. We wrote down our order and I called Peter, he came over to our suite and I gave him our list and I had expected for him to just drop our dinner off but he came in, set our dining room table for 6 and served our dinner course by course. That alone was what made having a butler worthwhile for us...that ability to order in, have friends over, and be seated at the dining room table being served. We tipped Peter pretty well (I think we gave him $60 that evening).

I called Peter just one other time and that was to let him know that we needed one more disembarkation luggage tag. We did ask him to swap out a bottle of champagne for some wine instead, sent a couple of jackets and shirts to be pressed, sent 2 bags of laundry to be washed, and asked him to restock the refrigerator with coke, diet coke, and diet sprite. He did remember some of our preferences each day – we always got cappuccino in the mornings with breakfast, he figured out that we liked shrimp and salmon and brought us extra, and realized that Amina and I like to drink tea so on the days that we weren't in the suite when he came by for 4 pm canapes, he left a selection for us on the dining room table as well as a cup of hot water and a tea bag. When we had first embarked, I asked him about fixing our beverage package (we got the classic package instead of the premium one that we had upgraded to). He wasn't really able to help us out with that and I went to guest services to get that one sorted.

On the afternoons that we had some free time before dinner, I spent a lot of that time out on the veranda. In the penthouse suite, I really felt like I could just hang out. In other cabins, it was always so confining feeling – like tripping over each other - that I would take my laptop with me and to a secluded area on another deck to sit and work on my blog or read something. The kids could hang out in the living room watching tv, while Seth lay in bed watching tv, and I could be out on the veranda. I loved that.

There were other perks staying in the PS. You're classified as VIP status which is different than Captain's Club Elite status. Even though we were still CC Select tier, we got the Elite perks including use of the private lounge (which we didn't ever take the time to use), invites to exclusive events (which we didn't have time to make), coupons for free drinks (excluding martini bar, specialty restaurants, and the MDR and only to be used between 5-7 pm – the kids used them), and 2 sets of coupons for other Elite perks like laundry service (30 items), pressing (2 items), free internet (90 minutes), etc. As VIP/suite members, there was a separate entrance when reboarding the ship but we didn't see anyone use it because the line was pretty short at the times we returned. The one time that the line was really long was in St Thomas and they didn't have the special VIP/suite entrance set up.

In Normandie – the penthouse suite guests have a specific area that they seat you at – right in the middle of the dining room in front of the gorgeous wood paneling. We ate at that table 3 times. I do have to admit that it just FELT cool to tell someone our room number whenever they asked – I think the entire ship's staff knew which suite it was. :-) We loved the penthouse suite and would do it again in a heartbeat.