May 23, 2022 Boarding the Celebrity Summit

After breakfast, under sunny skies and a cooler 64°F (18°C), we walked via the Haynes Street bridge to Weequahic Park to walk part of its perimeter on Elizabeth Avenue and then, at the tennis courts, within the shady paths of the park passing Weequahic Lake where there will be a fishing derby tomorrow evening. The walk covered 5.66 km in just over an hour.

When we returned to the hotel, we brought out the luggage tags with our ship’s cabin number on them and attached them to our suitcases, backpacks and computer bag.

We had our checkout time extended to noon and a taxi picked us up at 12:20 to take us to Cape Liberty cruise terminal, which was a 25 minute drive including, most confusing to us, overpasses and interchanges of a freeway, at one point on the New Jersey Turnpike, and through two toll collection stations to get to Bayonne where Cape Liberty is located.

When we got to the cruise terminal, the taxi driver informed us it was a cash fare - $80US. The cruise terminal porters took the luggage and transferred them to the ship. Our check-in time at the cruise terminal was 1 p.m. and we had arrived a few minutes early. Face masks are required in the cruise terminal, although some people showed no knowledge of the rule. Indoors on the ship face masks are recommended, which we discovered is largely ignored. Everyone over age 12 needs to have at least two vaccine doses to be onboard. We brought a box of N95 masks with us for this cruise and the next one in two weeks and are using them. Most of the ship’s crew wear N95 face masks. With the Safety Drill mainly online, there is no assembling hundreds of people in one place as in the pre-pandemic days. We had completed most of it on the Celebrity app while waiting for the taxi, then when we arrived on the ship we went to the muster station and checked in with a crew member, who checked us off their list. Looking at the app, we had now completed the Safety Drill.

Pre-pandemic, at the terminal, the agent would take your photo, look at your health questionnaire and then give you your “Seapass” keycard and as you boarded the ship you would be scanned in by security. Today the agent checked the paper documents or digital phone copies of your Bermuda Travel Authority, vaccine record, negative COVID test and health questionnaire, even though you had gone through the frustration of uploading the documents on the Celebrity app to their web-site over the past few days. Then you were told that your “Seapass” keycard was in an envelope in the letter slot on your cabin door, similar to how Royal Caribbean distributes its keycards.

About an hour before Sail Away time, the suitcases were delivered to our cabin. There was time to unpack before Sail Away since we had completed the Safety Drill. On the cabin desk were two three-ply cloth face masks in resealable envelopes, a 60 ml bottle of hand sanitizer, the daily program and a pretty Effy locket on a chain, all new to the welcome aboard, except for the daily program.

Celebrity Summit was built in 2001 and was refurbished in 2019. Her guest capacity is 2,158. It seems to be about 90% full. We were last on the Summit in September 2018 which also departed from Cape Liberty. Back then we cruised north to three New England ports, Quebec City, Saguenay, Sydney and Halifax. That cruise got us to Elite status which has some perks including one bag of free laundry each per cruise, daily continental breakfast in one of the specialty dining rooms only, evening social hour which includes four complimentary alcoholic beverages for happy hour, complimentary 90 minutes of internet access and free dry cleaning of one garment, plus Diamond level status on Royal Caribbean cruises, which we had used in 2019 on the Allure of the Seas.

Once on the ship, we had a good view of New York Harbour. There were barges, freighters and an occasional Staten Island ferry to watch. There is a view of the Statue of Liberty from the ship. My telephoto lens helped get a closeup picture. The statue was about 2 kilometres away. On the pier is the 30 meter bronze coated tower which is split in the middle where a 12 meter tear drop hangs. This is a monument to the tragedy of lost lives in the terrorist attacks in the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the September 11, 2001 plane attacks that caused the World Trade Center twin towers to collapse.

Our first activity, before our luggage had arrived was to visit Café al Bacio on Deck 5 for an Iglu (their version of an iced cappuccino – but much better) with a small piece of blueberry cake for lunch. Then we climbed the stairs to Deck 11’s Sky Lounge to play the first General Trivia game hosted by the activity team member Ari from Turkey. I had a glass of Prosecco while Larry enjoyed a Guinness Stout. We only got five correct answers. Some of the questions were 1) “From what language did the word Alcohol originate?”, 2) “What colour is toilet paper in France?” (We will see if this is true when we visit France in the fall) and 3) “Which two states do not switch to Daylight Saving time?”

Before Sail Away we watched, from the promenade on Deck 4, as the longshoremen wrestled with the mooring lines that secured the ship. There were three very thick blue ropes at both ends of the ships which took three and sometimes four men to lift off the steel mushroom-shaped bollards. The ship left a few minutes late, shortly after 4 p.m. even though the gangways had been pulled away before 4 p.m. We did see the last of the luggage being loaded as we waited for the ship to leave, which might have caused the delay.

Before dinner we each had a Pomegranate Mojito in the Rendez-vous Lounge and danced to the house band, Ocean Beat, until our 5:30 dinner reservation. I have been following fellow passengers on the May 23 group Facebook and Cruise Critic pages. Both groups have a few scheduled gatherings. We may attend some, since most are at a bar and we have a drink package for the voyage. They also have several evening gatherings in the Rendez-vous Lounge which is a venue where we like to dance to the house band, which is a five-piece band from Buenos Aries, Argentina. They played tunes that we could dance foxtrot, cha-cha, rumba, night club and waltz.

We had a table for two for dinner which was fine. We usually try to sit with two or three other couples at an assigned table. Things are different with new health and safety protocols. We may have a table of four tomorrow since the table to which we were assigned was reallocated to a large tour group before we arrived and our table for two is right beside another table for two. We took full advantage of our drink package and enjoyed Prosecco with our meal. Larry’s meal was baked trout with cooked cauliflower and spinach. Mine was orzo with shrimp, scallops, squid rings, and mussels in a lovely tomato sauce. Our waiter, Ahmed from Bosnia, and assistant waiter, Randal from Mumbai, were very professional and had us finished dinner within 90 minutes in time to see the final two thirds of comedian Brad Tassell’s act.

When we returned to our room, our steward, Komang from Bali, Indonesia, had laid tomorrow’s daily program and a chocolate for each of us on the bed. Later in the evening we climbed the stairs up to the Sky Lounge on Deck 11 from our cabin on Deck 3. We make a point of not using the elevators except when sometimes we disembark on the final day with our luggage to leave the ship early. The band Ocean Beat was playing a 45 minute set of dance music themed Disco Never Dies.

Answers to questions: 1) Arabic - “Al-kuhl” meaning body eating spirit; 2) pink and 3) Arizona and Hawaii

The total steps for today were 20,027.