A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 About This Page:

[chezp]

Monday 6 June – part three: you cannot take him anywhere!

We then made our way through the Oceanview Café, which is the Eclipse’s counter service restaurant, much like Topsiders or Beach Blanket Buffet. It’s very light and airy. Contemporary is a word we kept using to describe this ship…



They certainly seemed to have a good selection up here, much better than we’d had in Moonlight Sonata earlier. Maybe this is the place to come?

I liked these neat little touches they had in the “walls” of each of the serving pods – very cool!



We continued our tour along deck 14. I like the way they have these overhangs, so it doesn’t matter what weather you’re sailing in. I think Disney could do with these…



I also liked the fact that blankets are freely available…



Yes, on Disney you can get them, particularly on the colder cruises, such as Alaska, but I’ve never seen them available like this.

We headed into the Solarium, as I hadn’t got many photos yesterday of this area, and I wanted to put that right today. I absolutely love the feel of this place, it’s just so cool, that’s the only way I can put it!



Mark found these… and look what happened when he tried to get into one!




Honestly, you cannot take him anywhere!

Mark kindly offered to turn on the hot tub, so I could get some more realistic photos…



Next: how busy will “family time” be?

[Pris]

They really seem to be paying attention to detail in the common areas. Not only are there towels laid out on each lounge chair, but they are presented just perfectly. I suspect that it won't be quite so perfect once people start filling it up, but still took some time to do. It seems the kitchen might need some lessons from the towel handlers on presentation. Oh, boy! Mark in that lounge is something else!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures of the ship! Looks very similar to Royal Caribbean, which I guess makes sense since they are owned by the same company!

[cubfancolleen]

The solarium looks fantastic! I love the hanging double hammock! Mark was so graceful getting into that chair! My DH would do exactly the same I fear....

[Alaskan Mom]

The hammock looked cool! I keep seeing in your pictures a pillow (?) on the lounging chairs that have a x on them - I was wondering if that's just a decoration or a way to say they are available and if turned over there's a symbol to indicate the chair is taken?

[disney_duke]

American breakfast, and English breakfast. Cool!
All those empty chairs are soooo inviting. I can see why Mark wanted to sit in one! Lots of places to lounge around, I love that!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Pris

They really seem to be paying attention to detail in the common areas. Not only are there towels laid out on each lounge chair, but they are presented just perfectly. I suspect that it won't be quite so perfect once people start filling it up, but still took some time to do.

I have to be honest, that's pretty much how it was throughout the cruise. That was very impressive.

It seems the kitchen might need some lessons from the towel handlers on presentation. Oh, boy! Mark in that lounge is something else!

Wasn't he just?

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

The solarium looks fantastic! I love the hanging double hammock! Mark was so graceful getting into that chair! My DH would do exactly the same I fear....

I'm not sure graceful is the word I'd use...

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Alaskan Mom

The hammock looked cool! I keep seeing in your pictures a pillow (?) on the lounging chairs that have a x on them - I was wondering if that's just a decoration or a way to say they are available and if turned over there's a symbol to indicate the chair is taken?

The X is the symbol for Celebrity...

[Cam22]

So many beautiful and relaxing spots on this ship. I do like the readily available blankets, too. That hammock look ideal for a cruise nap.

[KMB733]

More great pictures of the ship!!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Cam22

So many beautiful and relaxing spots on this ship. I do like the readily available blankets, too. That hammock look ideal for a cruise nap.

We didn't try out the hammock, so I can't vouch for how good it was for a nap or not...

[chezp]

Monday 6 June – part four: how busy will “family time” be?

With that, we made our way back to our room….


I liked the inset entrances to the rooms – easier for passing in the corridors

… and had some down time, before changing into our swimming gear, then we headed upstairs to the Solarium. I was a bit worried that it might be busy, given it was now officially “family time”, now it was past 10:00am, but I needn’t have worried, given how few kids there were on board. However, at the back of my mind, I did think they might all make a beeline for this, but not at all.

When we arrived, there was one guy swimming, and there must’ve been about six or seven other people sunbathing. We immediately headed into the water, and the pool was deceptively big for a cruise ship. I have two memberships at home, one for a 16 metre swimming pool near where we live, and another or a 10 metre pool near where I work. The one near where I work is a 10 metre pool, and I know I cacn do eight backstrokes in that time. Well, this one must’ve been about 12 or 13 metres, as I could get in 12 metres, and even then, I was stopping short to avoid the steps into the pool.

I have no idea how many lengths I did, as I wasn’t counting, and that must be a first for me, so it was kind of liberating. I reckon I probably did 20 or so, so it was a relaxing swim for me, given I usually aim to do 800 metres in total when I go two or three times a week.

What I liked about this pool was that as well as the traditional steps you go down backwards into the water on, they also had ordinary steps at the other end. I have no doubt that’s probably for those of more limited mobility (I think that’s the polite way of putting it), but I was happy to use them. They also had an edge around the pool, meaning you could sit in the water, and wooden benches, so you could sit on those, if all you wanted to do was dangle your feet in the water. All very nice touches.

I will say that the water was colder than I thought it would be. We saw a couple of people venture into the water, and head straight back out again. I didn’t think it was that bad, but given it was undercover, I thought it might be a bit warmer than it was.

When Mark headed out of the pool, I joined him in the hot tub, which was a lovely temperature. We sat in there until the bubbles finished, then we made our way back to our sun loungers that we’d bagged ourselves earlier. We were careful not to leave them alone with our stuff on for too long, as every single one of them had a warning on that if you left them unattended for more than half an hour, they would take your things, and you’d have to retrieve them from the deck supervisor. In a way, it’s fair, although I don’t think they needed to worry too much this morning…

We settled ourselves down on our loungers, and were there for maybe half an hour, during which time we both dozed. I was conscious not to actually fall asleep, as I had deliberately chosen ones that were in the sunlight. Remember this for later…

Eventually, I decided to go and check out whether the cool ones that moved near the hot tub were free, and one was, so we decided to move over there instead. I have to say this felt very luxurious. It was like you were cut off from the rest of the world. Unless someone walked directly in front of you, no-one would see you, and it felt very exclusive. I managed to get in very elegantly, but Mark did a repeat of his photo op earlier on, and literally ended up with his feet in the air again.

We sat there again for maybe half an hour or so, with Mark reading his book, and me reading my Doctor Who Monthly magazine. I find it so neat that I can freely admit to this now, and it’s no longer a geeky thing to do. It’s the 500th issue this month, and when I looked back, I’d purchased almost half of them during the years, and all through that time, it’s never something I’d have admitted to, as watching Doctor Who was never cool – not in the way it now is.

Eventually, I felt like I needed to move, as I hate sitting there with a wet swimming costume on. Usually when I swim at home, I either head straight into the hot tub or steam room, then I shower and get changed. It’s very weird for me to sit down and dry off.

We headed back to the room, only to discover it was still being cleaned, but as he was working his way through the bathroom, and had dealt with the rest of the stateroom, we figured we’d just wait, and he was done in about five minutes.

After he was gone, I got some photos of the activity dockside…



We didn’t stay in the room too long before heading out to get lunch. I insisted on heading up a deck to deck 10 to get some photos of the library, as I’d seen it a couple of times now from the elevator, but I wanted to get some shots in there. I only got one, as there were people in there, and I didn’t want to disturb anyone.



Although breakfast had only been a few hours before, it wasn’t great and we were both getting hungry, so we made our way up to deck 14 and the Oceanview Café, which is their counter service restaurant. Now we’d walked through here at breakfast, and thought the selection then was pretty good. My goodness, it was nothing compared to the selection they had for lunch.



Honestly, if you could not find something you wanted, you are seriously a picky eater! They had just about everything you could ever hope to find on a buffet.

I got as far as the cheese counter, and I was sold, so I filled up on that with a few biscuits…



Mark went for “more Piglet” as he termed it. I warned him he’d end up looking like his favourite character at this rate…



Once I was done with my cheese, I headed back to the dessert counter to try out some of the tempting offerings, including orange chocolate mousse, strawberry shortcake, something coconut (sorry, I can’t remember the details ) and chocolate imperial, and all of them were excellent.



As it’s a cruise, and you can eat what you like (and frankly, it’s all no calorie – right? :whistle), I also got some pistachio ice cream, and some kiwi and guava sorbet…



All were very nice, except I felt very cold after polishing off that little lot.

Next: not a comforting thought…

[Belle*]

I love the look of the public areas on the ship - that library is gorgeous!!! And I love the Solarium.

[DMA]

What a nice relaxing morning!