Day 2 - Celebrity Summmit Thanksgiving Cruise - Sunday 24 November – St Croix, USVI

We had to take a taxi to our excursion this morning to meet our tour at 9 am so we had to leave the ship at 8 am when it docked. We pre-ordered breakfast and Peter brought it to us at 7 am. Wade and Charlie joined us for breakfast at our dining room table.

We left the ship at around 8:15 am and stopped in the market at the dock for Charlie to buy a hat and then paid our taxi fare ($16 per person round trip – they gave us return tickets) to get to Cristiansted about 25 minutes away for our snorkeling excursion. 

 

They crammed the little van full of people and drove the half hour or so to Cristiansted where they dropped us off almost directly in front of the Big Beard store. I didn't care much for the taxi ride – they were pretty stingy with the A/C and weren't very friendly. We went inside to check in for our tour and paid with a credit card. We also picked up some croakies for our sunglasses amd got Rhys a pair of sunglasses since he had left his glasses in the car.

I was so surprised to see that not only was AT&T available but the 4G was pretty darned fast and I had connection the whole time we were in St Croix.

We had a short wait before taking off on the Renegade catamaran so we doused ourselves in sunscreen and took some pictures.  I'm really glad I brought a cap with me because the catamaran was so windy and by the time we were done snorkeling, my hair would have been all over the place if it wasn't for my cap.

After one more potty stop at the dock (free public portable) we soon boarded Big Beard's Renegade catamaran bound for Buck island. It would be a 45 minute trip out to the island. Our captain was Steve and his assistants were Gabe, Chrissy, and Michael. Before we got on board, though, they had us all take our shoes off and leave them on the pier to be put into a large community bag. I guess it makes things a lot easier to keep track of. We were on board with a large group that only spoke Dutch so they had their own translator.

Captain Steve steering the catamaran (with his foot)

Once we got underway, we were allowed to sit on the front of the catamaran. It was a very nice trip out to the island – the breeze made it much more pleasant. 

Buck island

We anchored near the beach and they lowered a staircase down into the water which we made our way down and then dropped off into about chest-height water. 

 We were given about an hour to practice snorkeling although there really wasn't anything very interesting to see.

  After swimming around for a bit and trying out our snorkels, masks, and fins, we re-boarded the catamaran and sailed around to the opposite side of the island where there was a boat “parking lot” in the middle of the water where they anchored. We went down the steps into the deep water and Gabe took 6 of us out to the national monument. I should have changed the settings on my iphone – in retrospect, since I had the Lifeproof case and life jacket, I should have turned off the auto-off feature and turned my camera on just leaving it on for the duration of the snorkeling tour. It was too hard to manage swiping the phone on while snorkeling because you have to turn it on outside the water. I think I missed a great opportunity to take some pictures of the reef underwater. I didn't expect to see the reef marked with signs and arrows. The entire “trail” probably only took us about 10 minutes to swim. The coral was pretty and I saw a lot of blue fish. 

 

I didn't think about it but it would have been much easier to disable the auto off on my iphone, turned the camera on and then left it on while I went snorkeling because you can't swipe the phone on underwater and I had trouble managing that while treading water.  I thought I was taking pictures underwater but you have to use the (+) button on the side of the iphone to take pictures under water rather than hitting the button on the screen.  I didn't find this out until later on our trip.

I kept getting worried that I was getting lost or getting out too far from the boat or drifting into stronger currents. I snorted ocean at least 3 times and got water in my snorkel a couple of times. After maybe 20 minutes, I think I was pretty much done snorkeling. Seth and Rhys both ventured out further and saw schools of fish and even a stingray. 

  We got back on board the catamaran and Amina wasn't feeling well as was another of the Dutch passengers (who actually threw up overboard I heard later) so they were instructed to lie flat on their stomachs as we cruised back toward St Croix for our BBQ lunch. We were offered rum punch along the way which was really good. They took us to a small beach where we got off and sat on the beach for a bit while they prepared the BBQ: hamburgers and hot dogs with chips and more rum punch, regular punch, or water. 

 

I was regularly updating Facebook because even on Buck Island, my 4G signal was really good – I was so surprised. After the all-you-can-eat lunch, we hung around for a bit and then re-boarded the catamaran and for about half an hour, the wind carried us back towards the dock really slowly. They kicked the engine on as we got closer and we arrived back into Cristiansted to catch a taxi back to Fredericksted. The crew of the Renegade did a great job – very professional and friendly. I wish I liked snorkeling more than I do but it is what it is.

 

We got back to the Summit and cleaned up – canapes were already waiting for us on the dining room table. We decided that we didn't want to get dressed for dinner (it was a formal night) so I went to meet Wade and Charlie in the martini bar, ordered a drink, and then went to the MDR to tell them to cancel our reservation and to pick up a MDR menu. The lady at the restaurant was very courteous, thanked me for letting her know that we wouldn't make it for dinner, and immediately got a dinner menu for me to take back to the suite. We watched a movie in the suite and had some drinks, ordered off the menu (I just gave our written order down to Peter and he took care of it), and when the food arrived, Peter served it course by course. We really enjoyed having dinner in our suite and tipped Peter really well for serving dinner to all 6 of us on such short notice.

We were in bed and asleep before 10 pm – it had been a fabulous day.

Day 1 - Celebrity Summit Thanksgiving Cruise – Saturday, 23 November - Atlanta, Georgia to San Juan, Puerto Rico

Our flight left Atlanta at 6:40 am so we had to be up early and get to the airport before 4:15 am to park the cars and take the shuttle to the airport. The airplane ride was pretty unremarkable to San Juan.

We got to the San Juan airport, collected our bags easily and changed our airline tags out for the cruise line tags. We were able to take one large shuttle taxi from the airport to the cruise terminal for a total of $45 ($23 + $1/suitcase = $31 + tip). That was a lot less than what Celebrity was charging per person to get from the airport to the cruise terminal.

We got in line to drop off our suitcases first and tipped the guy some more to take them away then went around to the back of another line to get past security with our passports and cruise document to get into the terminal. Once in, we got in the line for suites and were waited on pretty promptly. After changing our on board charges from my Discover card to Seth's American Express card (no international fees), and filling out the requisite “I'm-not-sick-and-if-I-was-I-probably-wouldn't-admit-it-to-you” forms, we were told to go down to the end of the hall where I think they were going to escort us aboard to our suite but we got sidetracked by the dining guy who wanted to sell us a “unique” opportunity.

They were only letting 10 people sign up for a special dinner inside the kitchen (galley) where we would be served a pre-set dinner with all-you-can-drink wine for $275 per couple (they charged the kids $200 per couple because they weren't drinking). There was one other couple signed up and with all 6 of us, they would only let one more couple sign up. The Chef's Dinner was on Wednesday night when we already had Normandie reservations so they booked us and automatically changed our dinner reservations that evening. (We found out later when we were at Qsine that they had changed our reservation from Wednesday to Friday instead which was just fine). The guy selling us the dinner was very excited for us that we were staying in the “nicest cabin on the ship”.

We boarded the ship on our own (I'm still not sure if there was supposed to be someone to escort us in to the penthouse suite). Got the usual embarkation portrait done and made our way to deck 6 (penthouse deck) to #6147.

I had read everything I could get my hands on about the penthouse suite on the Summit and had seen pictures but nothing but seeing with your own eyes does justice to it. I can understand why some say that once you stay in the PS – there's no going back.  I'm writing a separate blog post focusing just on a description (with pictures) of the PS.

The kids wasted no time getting into the hot tub. When we first arrived, our butler was no where to be found so we just hung out and looked around for a bit. Our luggage arrived pretty fast and then our butler, Peter from India, came to introduce himself. I had pre-written some information for him: not a list of things to do but more of an introduction of our family and a copy of our plan for the week including when we would be dining where and when/where our excursions were since we didn't book a single excursion through Celebrity. I had also written down a few things on the back of the envelope including the Chef's dinner reservation we had made – to make sure our Normandie reservation was taken care of, a problem that they were having ship wide with the beverage packages. I guess there was some confusion regarding the classic beverage packages that was complimentary on this cruise for us – but we had paid to upgrade to the premium beverage package and those were not notated on our Sea Pass cards. Peter did ask us if we wanted him to help with unpacking but we had not received Seth's suitcase yet. Peter took my Sea Pass card to see about getting the liquor package taken care of so we hung out for a little while in the suite while he did that. When he returned, I didn't quite understand what he had done about the liquor packages but my understanding was that they still weren't fixed. Charlie and Wade had gone to guest services to have new cards made that said “Call Pall” which was the premium liquor package. Peter gave me my original card back and said something about sending a message to customer service so we went up to the buffet to get a snack. After a very light snack, we went down to Guest Relations which, surprisingly was not crowded at all, where, after just a bit of confusion about what we paid for (premium) and what we didn't (classic), we got new cards issued with our premium liquor package. Of course, we had to go and try out our new cards so we headed for the Martini Bar to order some drinks.

Dinner that evening was in Qsine and we had a 6:30 reservation. Because of its location mid ship, we had gone to the deck it was on but then had to go down one level, walk to mid ship, and then go back up to the deck it was on to get there. We were each given an ipad but we ended up designating a “captain” (me) and it was my order that went to the kitchen. We didn't know how much to order so I ended up inputing all of the choices and removing the ones that didn't sound good to us thinking it was like ordering at the Iberian Pig. We ended up with 13 choices which, at the time, didn't sound like too much – just roughly 2 orders per person – but it ended up being a TON of food because each order was prepared for 6 or more people.

They didn't bring out the tastings in the order in which they were listed on the ipad. We started with the sushi lollipops and Lava Crab first which were absolutely delicious. I especially liked the little bottles of sauce that came with the different dishes. 

The sushi lollipops were fun – sushi on a stick with all sorts of different flavors like spicy tuna – I didn't catch all the different kinds. The lava crab looked like a giant crab ball which our waitress divided up 2 of them between the 6 of us. This was also wonderfully delicious. They served the “popcorn” fish and chips in popcorn boxes and the “chips” were like fried mashed potato balls. We also had the Spring Rolls which were served in real metal springs and each with their own sauces.

Disco Shrimp

We all agreed that our least favorite was the Chitini. The spicy shrimp was good and I liked the stir fried veggies and steamed rice but the rest of it wasn't great – the meat was tough. I liked the lobster escargot although I had a hard time telling that there was lobster in it – there really wasn't enough lobster it seemed mostly like finely chopped escargot. I did appreciate the brioche baked in cones that you could use to dip into the escargot sauce.

Chitini

Slider Party

I think it was around this time that we had to take a “break” from our dinner and attend the mandatory safety drill. In the bygone era of cruising (eg when we took our first cruise some 20 years ago), you used to have to go back to your cabin to get your life vest and wear it on deck. It made for some funny pictures but in this day and age they are now satisfied with just getting everyone to their muster stations (ours was in the rendezvous lounge but it was very crowded and we didn't get seats so we sat on the floor). We completed our safety drill and returned to Qsine but we were dismayed to figure out that we had only finished 5 selections and still had 8 to go. We were getting full. Our next few selections were good but we tapped out and gave in after just a few more entrees.

Meatball Trilogy

We were returning to Qsine on Tuesday night so we decided to try the rest of our selections that night. Things that we had yet to try from our list:

Painter's Mignon, Crunchy Munchies, Taco “Royale”, Persian Kabobs, and the Tresceviches.

We were pretty wiped out for the evening and had to be up early for our morning excursion so we headed back to the suite and went to bed. We did ask our steward, Socorro, earlier in the afternoon to set up a roll away bed for Rhys to sleep in.

Day 0 - Celebrity Summit Thanksgiving Cruise – Friday, 22 November - Enid, OK to Atlanta, Georgia

Our last vacation of the year was finally here – we'd been traveling a lot in 2013 but we scheduled our family vacation for last after much pleading from our great friends, Wade and Charlie, to vacation with them aboard the Celebrity Summit over Thanksgiving. After pricing what a suite and a cabin would cost for the 4 of us (putting the kids, Amina (16) and Rhys (14) in a separate cabin) – the penthouse suite wasn't a whole lot more expensive and it would be a brand new experience for us. This would be our “final” cruise as Celebrity Select Captain's Club members – our next one will be as Elite members – Celebrity's top tier. So, I guess in a way, we were going to say our goodbye to Select membership in great style. LOL.

We left on Thursday night after my Christmas pageant rehearsal at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid. We got done at around 8:30 which was earlier than I had anticipated. I had been running around all day getting a haircut, getting a manicure, going to the bank 3 times, getting our stuff together for our excursions....and finally at around 3 pm, packing clothes. So after I got home from my rehearsal, we were all packed and ready to hit the road for the 15 hour drive to Atlanta.

I had looked every which way to find us a reasonably priced flight round trip to/from Atlanta. It was a LOT less expensive to fly from Atlanta to San Juan and we could arrive at a decent time on Saturday to board the Summit without having to fly in the night before and spend the night. After a ton of research it boiled down to flying from OKC to San Juan, spending the night and boardig the next day vs flying to Atlanta, spending the night with Wade and Charlie, flying together on Saturday to San Juan and boarding the ship directly vs just driving to Atlanta. The problem wasn't flying into Atlanta – that was relatively cheap (around $180 pp) – the problem was flying home from Atlanta the weekend after Thanksgiving. The airlines had more than doubled their prices that weekend (over $400 pp). By driving into Atlanta and spending the night at their house and then flying to San Juan together, we were going to save about $2500.

So off we went at around 9 pm – we wanted to get to Atlanta and avoid rush hour. Seth drove us more than half way there through torrential rain in Arkansas and Tennessee. After one fuel stop, we finally stopped for breakfast at around 6:30 am in Tupelo, Mississippi at Cracker Barrel. We switched and I drove us from Tupelo past Birmingham, Alabama and then Seth drove us the rest of the way to Atlanta. We arrived at Charlie and Wade's house at around 11:30 am. It was about a 14 hour drive but in bad weather so we made really good time.

I took the kids and their friend (a TIP boy who lived nearby) out to lunch at a local hangout (something with a 7) that he recommended. It was very good – the corn chowder had a hint of spicy heat, I got to try Brunswick stew for the first time (basically BBQ pork soup – you could just as easily take it and put it on a bun as a sandwich), their pork “wings” with a mustard based BBQ sauce, and tater tots. Amina's pulled pork tacos were also really good.

We napped that afternoon until Wade and Charlie got home and then headed out for our 7 pm reservation at the Iberian Pig – we had been looking forward to eating here after they had described to us what the food was like. We were not disappointed. I think only a handful of people on this planet truly know what types of food Seth and I really enjoy – Charlie and Wade are amongst the select few.

The Iberian Pig was a tapas restaurant on steroids. There were so many choices it was mind boggling and we each ordered a couple of dishes and they prepared them for all 6 of us. We loved it – especially that whole family style eating which is how we mostly eat at home. I say this every time we travel, but I thank my lucky stars that the kids love to eat as we do and are always willing to try new things out.

Cheese Charcuterie

"French" toast with foie gras

Ham charcuterie

We were so tired after dinner, we went back to Charlie and Wade's house and went immediately to bed. We had a very early flight in the morning to San Juan.

Update - Orlando 2013

I started a new post rather than editing my original Orlando 2013 post because a LOT has happened in a short period of time.  We're less than 3 weeks away from our trip and I'm still making major changes to our schedule.

At first, I went ahead and booked a rental car for Seth to pick up when he was at the airport dropping the kids off for their flight.  He has to ride the Magical Express with them because they aren't "old enough" (ages 14 and 16) to ride by themselves (even though they will be flying alone and my 16 year old will be driving them the 1 1/2 hours home from the OKC airport).  I'm staying behind that Sunday because I have a district breakfast meeting at 7 am.  I had booked a rental car through EZ car rental via Travelocity.  I still had not found us a place to stay on Sunday and Monday after we check out of Saratoga Springs even after checking online and giving DVC a call - there are no studios available - probably due to the food and wine festival.

Earlier this last week, I opened a large thin envelope addressed to me from Disney.  I'm sooooo glad I did because it contained this:

I remember vaguely reading about a new band system at WDW but hadn't been keeping up on the latest news.  This was going to be really cool - getting to "test" out a new innovation at WDW.  I did stop while registering to read up a little bit on My Magic +, Fastpass + , and the new Magic Bands on the DIS blog.  I was considering having our bands personalized with clever nicknames but after reading about the system and bands (including the way the CMs can now greet you by name), I decided to just have our names put on them.

There are several really cool things about MyMagic+.  I can now log in to My Disney Experience and see my entire trip listed on the same page including where we are staying, dining reservations we've made, special events we have reserved (EPCOT food and wine festival), and fastpasses that I have reserved online.  Yes, that's park fastpasses that I reserved using Fastpass+.  Here's what the screen looks like:

For the compulsive planner like me - I LOVE seeing all my plans on one page which is why I blog about our trips - not because I really think a ton of people read this but because I have a place to put all my experiences and ideas together on the same page..  FINALLY - DVC, parks, dining, resorts (non-DVC), AND special events are all united together.  Now if only they would add somewhere for guests to put notes in.

The only problem I see, though, is that our special EPCOT Food and Wine Festival events aren't correctly listed in the iPhone app.  At 10 am, we are scheduled for Kitchen Memories - the app just lists the location (Festival Center) and calls it "breakfast".  At 7:45 pm, we are scheduled for the 3D Dessert Extravaganza - which the app just lists the location (World Showcase) and calls it "dinner".

A word about Fastpass+ - you are limited to 3 fastpasses at one park per day.  You can't access Fastpass+ unless you have already purchased park passes.  When I got our Fastpasses, it had me enter the code from the back of each of our fastpasses (which I had bought via the AAP at conference rates), assign cards to each member of our party, and then allowed me access to Fastpass+.  I assume you can't pick up fastpasses from the park when you arrive if you already hold ones from Fastpass+.  When you choose the attractions you want, the system gives you groups of times to choose from - usually starting off earlier in the day and then the other groups have times from later in the day.  In the end, from what I can tell, it doesn't really matter which group you choose.  I downloaded the My Disney Experience app onto my iphone and was able to change my fastpasses to the times that worked better for us.  From what I've read, you can also use the app in the park and change fastpass times on-the-fly but with so many people at the parks, cell signal might not be great.

I didn't run into any issues getting the times that I wanted.  Since the AAP has its Orlando Experience night at Hollywood Studios on Saturday night, and all of the attractions will be open, I'm going to change our Fastpasses for that day to Magic Kingdom instead.

Literally 2 days later (less than 48 hours) - our Magic Bands arrived in the mail.  That was CRAZY fast.

I had an epiphany while lamenting to Seth that we still didn't have someplace to stay on Sunday and Monday evenings.  I have 29 points in holding which must be used by March 2014 - the perfect number of points to get a DVC studio for 2 nights but there just weren't any available.  I was waitlisted for Bay Lake Towers but nothing opened up.  Seth suggested using our DVC points to "buy" regular resort rooms.  He was right that we could do that but it really wasn't going to be worth our while to - and we definitely didn't have enough points to do that.  So I did something that I haven't done in almost a decade.....I actually paid cash for 2 nights at the Grand Floridian.  We have reservations for dinner at Victoria and Albert's on Sunday evening after the kids head home so we didn't want to have to wander far to get home.  I had forgotten how expensive it is to stay in a regular resort room:  $574 per night.  Ouch, but it's going to be so worth it.

Since we were going to stay on property, I cancelled the rental car.  After I booked the Grand Floridian and made arrangements for Magical Express to take us to the aiport on Tuesday, I realized that I had stranded Seth at the airport after dropping the kids off on Sunday.  After several calls back and forth between DVC, Magical Express, and the regular Disney line - it was finally decided that it would be ok for Seth to approach a CM at the Magical Express desk in the airport and just explain to him WHY he needed a ride back to Saratoga Springs.  Once he gets back on Sunday, he'll check us out and use the bell desk to get our stuff to the Grand Floridian.  Hopefully, I'll make it back from my breakfast meeting before he checks out (11 am).

One last detail that I hadn't addressed yet was dinner on Monday night before we return home on Tuesday.  I knew that the California Grill had been completely renovated and was going to re-open this month but when I tried to book for dinner on Monday night, it was all full.  We could have taken our chances at the new California Grill Lounge (they don't take reservations - it's first-come, first-served) but then I read about the Omakase Experience at CA.

Omakase Experience

Pamper your senses at a private sushi encounter, delicately prepared in Japanese tradition.
At the Omakase Experience, which literally translates to “I’ll leave it to you,” you can indulge your palate in a tasting menu that stylishly serves up the freshest and most seasonal selections for a tour of Japan’s finest.
Over the duration of 12 to 14 pre-set courses, relish in the rich textures and unforgettable tastes of this unique experience as it progresses from lighter dishes into richer fare.
Enjoy the tantalizing sensations as you and up to 8 Guests savor an exquisite range of fresh-caught cuisine, which may include such offerings as uni, oysters, octopus, crab, lobster, sweet shrimp and squid.
Please note: the Omakase Experience takes place at 8:00 PM daily, and is held exclusively at the sushi counter. Reservations are required and must be made at least 48 hours in advance. Full payment is due at the time of booking. Due to the pre-set nature of this culinary experience, the Omakase Experience is unable to accommodate Guests with fish or shellfish allergies, Guests who do not eat rice or vinegar, and Guests who are vegetarian or gluten-free; please do not book a reservation if you have one of these dietary restrictions.

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I called up Disney dining and, as luck would have it, we snagged a reservation for 2 at $175 per person.  The Omakase Experience description reminds me of the dinner we had at Bar Charlie in the Palazzo Las Vegas on my 40th birthday.  15 courses - all sushi - with beverage pairing.  It was one of the most memorable dinners we have ever had - all 5 hours of it.  As a bonus, we'll be there during the Wishes Fireworks display which we will be able to watch from their observation deck. 

I did check (again) with the CM about the signature dinner at V&As on Sunday evening - the one reservation that has been elusive for me - there were still no available spots.  *SNIFF*.  We have 9 pm dinner reservations at V&A that same night as a backup plan. 

So, here's what our plans look like right now:

Thursday, October 24th - OKC/Orlando/SSRS/DTD

7:04 am - 8:25 am:  United flight 337, OKC to Houston

12:22 pm - 3:45 pm:  United flight 1690, Houston to Orlando

Check in at Saratoga Springs

6:30 pm:  Dinner, Fulton's Crab House (*10% DVC discount), DTD

Friday, October 25th - EPCOT

10 am - 12 pm:  EPCOT food and wine festival event - Kitchen Memories featuring Bryan Voltaggio, VOLT restaurant, Festival Center

12 - 1 pm:  FASTPASS+ - Test Track

1 - 2 pm:  FASTPASS+ - Soarin'
2 - 3 pm:  FASTPASS+ - Spaceship Earth

I figured we could wander around the World Showcase trying the booths in the afternoon for dinner.

7:45 - 9:30 pm:  3D Dessert Extravaganza, World Showcase, VIP Sweet Seats (private table, early entry, specialty dessert, specialty beverage)

Saturday, October 26th - MK, HS

10:30 am - 12:10 pm:  AAP NCE opening session, Orange County Convention Center

9:35 - 10:35 am:  FASTPASS+ - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

10:50 - 11:50 am:  FASTPASS+ - Pirates of the Caribbean
 

11:45 am:  Lunch, Liberty Tree Tavern, Liberty Square

12:25 - 1:25 pm:  FASTPASS+ - Haunted Mansion

5:05 pm:  Dinner, Brown Derby, Hollywood Studios (*10% DVC discount)

7:15 - 11 pm:  AAP NCE Orlando Experience, Hollywood Studios

Sunday, October 27th - EPCOT/GF

7 am :  AAP NCE district breakfast

8:20 - 9:51 am:  United 1693, Orlando to Houston
11:19 am - 12:45 pm:  United 5278 (terminal B), Houston to OKC

11 am:  Check out SSRS - move to GF

EPCOT (?)

4 pm:  Check in Grand Floridian

9 pm:  Dinner, Victoria & Alberts

Monday, October 28th - MK

9:40 - 10:40 FASTPASS+, Haunted Mansion
11:35 - 12:35 pm FASTPASS+, Space Mountain
1:35 - 2:35 pm FASTPASS+, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

8 pm - Omakase Experience, California Grill
9 pm - Wishes Fireworks

Tuesday, October 29th, - Orlando, OKC

11:53 am - 1:21 pm  United 1261 Orlando to Houston
2:27 - 3:51 pm United 3343 Houston to OKC