ROBIN ROBINSON
On Day 3 of a recent week-long cruise, an invitation to join Captain Ioannis Kasimatis on the helipad was delivered to our balcony suite aboard Celebrity Summit. Would me and my travelling companion like to join a select group of passengers early the next day for a bird’s eye view as our ship sails into Bermuda’s King’s Wharf?
Mimosas will be served! How could we say no?
The helipad is normally off limits to passengers but, on this day, about 30 of us gather on the small deck – champagne glasses and cameras in hand – to toast our arrival and get our first glimpse of Bermuda.
Creating intimate guest experiences like this is just one of the ways Celebrity Cruises — part of the Royal Caribbean family — has evolved during its 30-year history. Here are five others:
1. ITINERARIES ARE CHANGING
Most week-long cruises typically include four or five ports and one or two sea days. But this cruise from Cape Liberty, N.J., has only one port of call – Bermuda.
Summit will dock there for three days – lots of time to enjoy the ship and really get to know the destination. It’s my first visit to Bermuda so I’m excited about the extra time. In recent years, Celebrity has added longer port stays to several of its itineraries in response to guest feedback.
2. GOING LOCAL
On a multi-country cruise itinerary, your ship is often only in port long enough to either take a shore excursion or spend a few hours touring independently. With three days in Bermuda, we can do both.
Our first night, we take the excursion into Hamilton for Harbour Nights, a street party that runs Wednesday evenings from May to September. We sit on the transfer boat’s top deck and listen as the guide jokes that, no, we will not be sailing into the fabled Bermuda Triangle, then provides a little history and points out places of interest – the former mansion of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, the National Museum in the Royal Naval Dockyard, and more.
Before long, we dock along Front Street, which is closed to traffic for the festival. Shops stay open late on Harbour Nights and stalls – selling everything from local crafts to souvenir tees – line Front Street. The enticing aroma of grilled ribs and other treats emanates from street-side barbecues and food stalls.
The highlight is the troupes of colourfully clad and masked Gombey dancers who parade through the streets to the sounds of a steel band. Later we find a patio and sip on a local brew before returning to the Summit.
The next morning we pack bathing suits and towels for an all day tour with a knowledgeable local driver-guide.
We hit many must-see sites – scenic Daniel’s Head Beach Park, drop dead gorgeous Horseshoe Bay Beach, Somerset Bridge – said to be the world’s smallest drawbridge – the pink sands of Elbow Beach, restored Fort St. Catherine and the UNESCO-designated town of St. George’s, where Bermuda began.
During the tour with Curtis Richardson, I also learn that Bermuda is not one island but many tiny islands knitted together by a network of roads, bridges and ferries.
Our third day is spent exploring the Royal Naval Dockyard next to King’s Wharf. The Dockyard’s historic stone buildings have been restored and put to modern day use as shops, restaurants, bars and museums. If you time your visit right, there is also a free walking tour. Celebrity also has a full line up of water-based excursions.
3. FOODIE FAVOURITE
As a premium cruise line, Celebrity repeatedly gets high marks for cuisine, including Cruise Critic’s 2018 Cruisers’Choice award for best dining. The focus, which has always been on quality, has expanded to keep abreast of modern food trends. Menus are developed by Cornelius Gallagher – the line’s vice president of food and beverage, and one of NYC’s hottest Michelin-starred chefs.
In addition to what’s on the plate, culinary staff, servers and sommeliers go the extra mile to elevate the evening meal from just a nice dinner to an experience.
It’s not hard for a cruise line to create top notch extra pay restaurants – and Qsine and Tuscan Grille are excellent – but the true measure of a ship’s cuisine is the included restaurants. Summit has lots of free options – and we tried most of them.
The main, two-storey Cosmopolitan dining room is open to all guests and serves dinner each night, and breakfast and lunch most days. Menus feature many daily choices and anytime favourites – steak, roast chicken, grilled salmon. Suite and Aquaclass guests have their own, more intimate, diningrooms – Luminae and Blu – with creative menus.
Oceanview Cafe isoneof the best buffets I’ve sampled at sea. There are well prepared and well presented choices for breakfast and lunch – from eggs, waffles and fruit smoothies to roasted meats, salads, antipasti, charcuterie, pizza, pasta, and international dishes such as Thai and Indian.
Cafe Bacio – the popular Deck 5 coffee bar – is a mix of free and fee. Pastries are free but you pay for espressos, cappuccino’s, lattes and gelato.
4. SPAAAH
Cruise ship spas and fitness centres have morphed from offering a few massages, facials and workout machines to full service wellness centres at sea. Celebrity’s SpaClub is run by Canyon Ranch and offers everything from massage to acupuncture, and a Persian Garden steam-sauna lounge.
I’m not a spa-treatment fanatic, so I opted for the Fitness Prescription, a session with Fitness Director Nemanja Kalanovic, who assessed my fitness level and introduced me to a total body workout using resistance bands. “Nemo” was very knowledgeable and, although my knees are cranky and I have a rotator cuff injury, I was pleased to discover how much I could do without pain!
5. GOING FORWARD
Summit is 15 years old, and while upgrades have been made, she’s showing her age in some areas. So Summit will be heading into dry-dock early in 2019 for a two-month overhaul. Staterooms will be refreshed (new mattresses, bedding, decor and bathrooms), and the Oceanview Cafe and Cosmopolitan diningroom will both get major refurbs. The current dark and clubby Michael’s Lounge for suite guests will be revamped into a lighter, brighter Retreat Lounge and a Retreat Sundeck will also be added.
Summit is not the only ship getting a total makeover. The company will spend US$500 million in 2019 to upgrade every ship in its fleet as part of what it calls “The Celebrity Revolution.” And there’s more. In November, the cruise line will launch Celebrity Edge -not only its first new ship in a decade but the first of four new state of the art “Edge Class” vessels. Construction has already begun on a second “Edge Class” ship. Can’t wait to see those.
NEED TO KNOW
For details on Celebrity Cruise itineraries, ship renovations and new Edge Class ships, see www.celebritycruises.com/ca. For details on things to see and do in Bermuda, see www.gotobermuda.com.
Published August 2018 in the Toronto Sun
